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volklana · 15 days ago

Text

I've Always Been Yours. Only Yours.

Title Comes From This Song:

Idea comes from the ever beautiful mind of @whitedarkmoonflower

and I am only hoping I did your idea justice my love:

I had and idea of a fic about Sihtric rescuing a young girl when he's still a boy at Dunholm and then meeting her again in S3 or S4 setting and finding out she's noble and out of his reach, but then by some whim of fortune he has to rescue her again and finds out she hasn't forgotten him either.

Warnings: Mentions of torture, domestic abuse and slavery- if you don't feel up to reading any of those things please put your own peace first and you can always catch another of my fics soon xx

*Not proof read. Mistakes will be corrected*

The sound of the hounds baying and barking caused you to run faster and faster through the trees.

Your dress was ripped and your feet were bloodied but you ran with all your might.

You were half blinded by tears and you could barely breathe for crying but still you ran.

You were lost in the unfamiliar woodland terrain of the Dunholm surrounds and you truly feared that you would die here.

Hurtling down a thorny bank and splashing into an icy stream, you waded through the ankle deep water, passing under the roots of an upturned oak tree and clambered up onto its trunk to see if you could fit inside.

You could hear your tormentor's laughter from afar but you knew his hounds would find you long before he ever did.

“I will find you,” he shouted through the trees and you couldn’t help the sob that wracked from your bruised body.

And then the glowing eyes of one of the beasts that had been pursuing you shone under the light of the moon as it bore its teeth and began to try to lunge for you, your screams echoed into the night as two more appeared and began to bite at the bare skin of your legs.

You were pleading and scrambling, trying to pull yourself higher up the trunk of the fallen tree when a pair of strong arms suddenly grasped you and hauled you down, you were flailing in his arms trying to free yourself, but he hushed you with a gentle shake “It's okay, I’ve got you.” He took your hand and began to push you behind him as the beasts began to circle around you both, gnarling and frothing at the mouth.

He was armed with an axe and each time one of the creatures lunged he would strike out, he killed one and the others were wounded, but relentless.

One took a hold of your arm in its great teeth, biting down and tearing at the flesh and only released you once he slashed at it with his axe.

“Sihtric!” a voice suddenly emerged and you clung to the arm of your rescuer, “Hand over the girl,” he commanded and you begged him not to let you go, “Please, please please…” it rolled off your tongue like a desperate prayer and the small group of men gathered behind Sven the One-Eyed began to laugh, but Sihtric did not release his hold on you, despite how you could feel him tremble.

“You killed my best hound,” Sven tutted, “That will not go unpunished. Do not make it worse for yourself- hand over the girl. Now!” he was shouting. Furious that Sihtric had thwarted his little game for the evening, and Sihtric knew that Kjartan would indeed have him tortured for the death of the hound.

The standoff however was interrupted by the approaching sound of hooves and little glimmers of torch light and eventually Kjartan the Cruel appeared before you.

He took in the sight of you, dress torn and bloodied, great tear tracks down your face and Sihtric stood before you defensively, the dead hound lay out before his feet.

He swung his legs over the saddle and landed on the ground with a mighty thump, before he rounded on Sven, grasping him by the furs of his cloak.

“The girl was not yours to torment,” he fumed, shaking his son in his arms.

“I would not have harmed her,” Sven defended, arms instantly flying up in defence.

“She is harmed!” Kjartan roared and forced his son to look at the state you were in, shivering greatly as the adrenaline was beginning to wear off, and he backhanded his son with a force that had him stumbling back and blood rushing to his mouth.

“And you!” he spat turning on Sihtric “You killed one of my finest hounds,”

“Yes Lord,” Sihtric shivered in defeat and acceptance of what was to come and you shrieked as he was ripped from your arms and set upon by Kjartan who beat him mercilessly and bloody.

“Please, please,” you begged mustering all your strength to throw yourself forward, “The beast would have killed me.”

Kjartan swung around and for a moment you thought he was going to strike you, but the fury on his face dwindled for a moment before he spat “Better that it had. Nevertheless, you are under my protection and I will see you back to the keep.”

He bundled you onto his horse with force before quickly climbing on behind you.

“My children continue to disappoint me,” he huffed, before he turned his horse to face one of his waiting men, “Tekil, the runt is yours to punish, see to it he never lays hands on any of my property ever again,” he spat, before kicking his horse into a gallop and you craned your neck to try and get one more glance at Sihtric, but you wished you hadn’t as Tekil and the other rider were taking turns at kicking his crumpled form on the ground.

That night his bloodied body was tossed into the out building you were kept in and you nursed him all through the night, despite your own injuries you held him all night long, terrified to let him go for fear he would not make it to the morning light. Once he woke in the night and mumbled your name and you held him tight, urging him to make it, urging him to just hang on and when he reached for your hand you allowed him to take your hand in his weak grip, brushing his soft curls out of his eyes and praying to the gods that he would make it. When you awoke the next day he was gone and your heart sank a little for it seemed you had finally found a friend in this hell on earth.

For the remainder of your time as a hostage in Dunholm, Sven watched you from the shadows, tormenting you from afar, or following you down to the stream to watch you while you bathed but he never made another attempt on you after that night, but he wasn’t the only one who seemed to be keeping watch over you. Every night Sihtric would appear like a spectre watching you from the edges, his eyes were nearly swollen shut and each time you thought he would try to speak to you, he scarpered away before you could reach him. Your physical wounds healed in time but you woke every night screaming and sweating and the fear Sven had instilled in you on that fateful night would remain with you for years.

When negotiations were finally completed and the ransom was paid, you watched in anticipation as the hostages your father had taken were returned to Kjartan and then the great gates opened and you were instructed to follow your Eldermen out to freedom.

It was only after you had ridden for what felt like a lifetime that you glanced over your shoulder to the looming keep of Dunholm rising up like a spectre in the background and prayed to the Gods that you would never see that place again, but you would never forget the pair of mismatched eyes that had shown you the only real bit of kindness you had experienced there and in some ways you had left a little bit of your heart with him.

Your husband was a Jarl with small holdings of land in Northumbria, he had been loyal to Kjartan in the past in the sense that he had agreed not to infringe on any of his lands and pay him taxes, and to swear his bannermen to aid Dunholm if ever it was attacked but that had all changed when Guthred was made King and took control of Eoferwic.

Your husband swore fealty to Guthred and so the events that played out over the course of the next few years meant that your house was allied to that of Guhtred’s and in time you would come to live in Eoforwic where your husband served as an adviser until the time of the his own death.

Your husband was killed in a Scottish incursion a few years into Guthred’s reign and you wept when his lands were simply given to another Jarl who had served Guhtred faithfully, you were bartered off like livestock to marry him and no matter how you pleaded with Guhtred to free you from the agreement he would not budge.

Your new husband was a cruel man, he relished in the capturing of nearby Saxon villagers to sell to the slavers, it was an endeavour that had made him an incredibly wealthy man but one that forced the bile to rise in your stomach when you would hear the women and children cry at night. Bringing back old, unhealed wounds of a young girl running terrified through the trees at the foot of Dunholm.

One night you fought him as he tried to take you and he beat you so bloody you could not walk for days, and you had made up your mind to flee at the very first chance you were able to ride again and so after a week of only being able to move from bed to relieve yourself you bribed the stable boy to ready your horse and you rode away into the night, taking only your dowry’s worth of silver with you.

You made it precisely to the door of the great hall in Coccham before you collapsed upon its steps and the next time you awoke it was in a small cot with the lady Gisela sat by your side wiping sweat from your brow.

“Who did this to you old friend?” she asked softly, and you were spilling the entirety of what you had endured in the past few months.

You and Gisela had been friends since you were girls, your fathers, both Jarls had been great friends and distant kinsmen, so when you decided to escape the clutches of your husband you knew you would be welcomed by her. She too had known betrayal at the hands of her brother and you had hoped she would have sympathy for your plight now.

“He will come for me,” you cried, “The people are loyal to me, as they were to my late husband but they have no fealty for him, they will revolt. He needs me if he intends to rule there.”

“Let him come,” she said with a defiant squeeze of your hand, “If he dares to come he will be met with the justice of Uhtred’s sword and nothing more.”

You squeezed her hand affectionately, “You always were the better sibling,” you joked and she sighed , “I agree they should have crowned me.”

When you were finally well enough to leave your room, you began to eat in the Great Hall with the rest of Uhtred and Gisela’s household, sitting with her handmaidens and usually with the toddler Stiorra in your arms.

“Will you stop gawking,” Finan swiped at Sihtric who was once again more focused on you, bouncing a giggling Stiorra on your lap, than whatever it was Finan was saying.

“She’s a married woman,” Osferth interjected, “And according to Uhtred she is of nobility to the Danes.”

“So very far out of your league then,” Finan teased.

“I am the son of a Lord actually,” Sihtric swiped back in a jovial manner.

“A bastard son,” Finan cut and Osferth joined, “Aye, if that’s the case I’m next in line to the throne of Wessex.”

“Shut up you idiots,” Sihtric swiped as Finan guffawed with laughter and ruffled the baby monk’s hair in affection.

Sihtric watched you for days with a longing in his chest that he had never known before. It was as though he had dreamed you into life, or he had known you in some past life.

You were gentle and kind and he could not imagine what kind of man could have inflicted upon you the injuries you had shown up with a few weeks ago.

It was he who had found you on the steps of the Great Hall, he who had carried you in his arms and watched as the Lady Gisela shrieked at the recognition of her friend in his arms, urging Sihtric to place you on the bed and run to fetch the healer.

He watched you picking herbs at the edges of the village while he trained Uhtred’s household troops, he watched you as you walked hand in hand with Uhtred’s children through the wildflower meadows singing songs and telling stories, and he could not shake you from his head at night when he closed his eyes.

He wished that he could be lucky enough to run his fingers through your beautiful hair and have you sing those soothing songs to him, he wished to look after you after all you had endured, but you were forever out of his reach and he thought it was cruel of the Gods to place you within arms reach of him but never let him touch you. Very cruel indeed.

He had fetched a bowl of soup for himself and sat down on one of the long benches, eating at a pace unholy to man when he felt the wood dip as someone sat down beside him.

You smiled at him and he thought you were made from sunlight itself the way you warmed him.

“Gisela tells me you are the one who found me. I wanted to thank you for bringing me to safety,” you smiled again and he couldn’t help the shy smile that spread out across his own face.

“It was my pleasure Lady,” he replied and then his face dropped.

“I mean it wasn’t a pleasure to find you like that.” he deadpanned, rubbing his face harshly with his hand “I just mean it was a pleasure to help.”

You laughed out loud and all of his embarrassment melted away and he laughed too, “I knew what you meant,” you giggled and he thought your laugh was like music bottled by the Gods.

But the moment was interrupted when one of Uhtred’s hounds bounded into the great hall barking, while the old kennel master rushed around trying to usher it out to no avail, everyone else in the hall burst into laughter but you had clambered up onto the bench, clinging to Sihtric’s arm for dear life.

“It’s alright,” he soothed “He is friendly and he will not bite. I will not let him harm you.”

You were trembling like a leaf, but Sihtric finally coaxed you down from the bench when the offending hound was grasped by the scruff of his neck and marched outside, but you did not relent your grip upon his arm.

“Lady, it is gone. It cannot hurt you,” he whispered gently “You are okay, I’ve got you.”

You bristled at the phrase, it was one someone had told you years ago, while great ferocious hounds tore at your skin.

You turned your arm in his grasp, running your fingers across the faint white scar with slightly jagged edges, the unmistakable shape of a dog bite on your forearm.

You watched as his eyes were also drawn to the scar and realisation hit you both at the same time.

“You might not remember,” you began, voice shaking.

“I remember,” he cut in, chest rising and falling rapidly “That night in the woods-”

-”You saved me.” you cried, looking up into Sihtric’s huge mismatched eyes.

“Yes,” he nodded, and for a moment you were lost in each other's eyes, your pained expressions conveying so much but neither able to speak, “And you nursed me all through that night.”

You had moved closer and closer until your bodies were touching and you unconsciously ran your hand up to cup his scarred face.

“You risked your life for mine,” you whispered and he nodded in your hand.

“And I would do it again. I will never allow you to be harmed again, not while I have breath.”

Your lips were but a hair’s width away from his and his eyes dipped down to look at them, one gentle move and his lips would be on yours.

“My husband,” you cried softly, “He will come for me,” you admitted sadly.

“And he will die before he ever lays a finger on you again,” Sihtric rushed, pushing forward to capture your lips in his and you melted into his kiss, hand firmly cupping the sharp edges of his jaw, and only breaking apart when there was a commotion in the hall, thankfully your moment of bliss seemed to have gone unnoticed.

It suddenly made sense to Sihtric the sense of longing he had felt since you turned up at Coccham, because he had longed for you all those years ago as a boy.

He had felt it ever since you had arrived at Dunholm in chains, the only living child of the Jarl, your Father, you were taken as hostage to ensure peace and cooperation from his behalf.

He had watched you for weeks fearing that someday Kjartan would take you into the Great Hall and welp a child on you, it was however Sven who had taken an unfortunate liking to you, talking a great amount about the things he would like to do to you. You had inadvertently become his new favourite plaything and Sihtric, though he could not protect himself, had made it his mission to protect you.

He knew the moment he left the walls of Dunholm on that fateful night that he would be severely punished for attempting to thwart Sven’s tormenting of you, and he made peace with the idea long before he even entered those woods.

“I prayed to the Gods every night for you for years,” you admitted and his face crumpled “I never forgot what you did for me that night and what you endured on my behalf, although I fear I do not even know the half of it.”

“It does not matter,” he told you honestly “I would have endured it a thousand times over to prevent the things Sven would have had you endure.”

You took Sihtric’s hand in yours and smiled at him so purely he almost melted “They are both in Hel and we are here. We won.”

Sihtric wanted to kiss you again but he refrained, especially because Uhtred caught his attention from the corner of his eye and he knew he was needed back outside.

Sheepishly he rose from his seat, and you watched him rise.

“Might we talk again Lady, I would like to know you,” he admitted shyly, his cheeks tinged pink and you nodded earnestly.

“You will know me, Sihtric Kjartansson.”

It was dusk and the sky was painted pink and true to his word, Sihtric was waiting at the edge of the wildflower meadow when you made your way down, and you walked in a comfortable silence along the river for a while.

Being with Sihtric felt as natural as breathing, there was no need to fill silence with meaningless words, and you felt you communicated everything that needed to be said through your eyes alone. You had both suffered immensely and why shouldn’t you be allowed to find comfort in each other.

The first time you had made love to Sihtric right here on the river bank under the Summer stars you could not help but think as though the Gods had placed you in his reach twice so that you may know each other in this way, destiny is all and perhaps Sihtric Kjartansson had been your destiny all along.

“In another life I would have made you my wife,” he said brushing his fingers through your hair and you leaned into his gentle touch.

“In another life I would be proud to be your wife.”

And so it had begun the great love affair of your life with the boy who had saved you all those years ago.

But just as all good things must come to an end, the end arrived in the form of Guthred, his household guard and the man you had hoped to never see again, your husband.

“So it is King’s business to come fetch women fleeing a brutal husband now is it?” Gisela spat and Guhtred shrank a little under her venomous glare.

“She belongs in Eoferwic, she cannot stay here,” he answered as matter of factly as he could under his sister’s disdainful stance.

“You would have me send her back to a man who brutalises and beats her bloody?” she all but hissed “A friend you have known since she was a girl.”

“Venomous lies,” your husband spat and Gisela rounded on him.

“She was blackened and blue all over, she did not wake for nearly a week after her journey here, what man inflicts those injuries upon his wife?”

“I will not return, you said definitely, “In front of the Gods, in front of my King I am divorcing this man. This man has struck me more than three times. By our laws I should be demanding his life, instead I say before you and my witnesses that I want a divorce.”

“I bear witness,” Gisela urged.

“And I,” Uhtred seconded.

“And I,” Finan chimed, followed by Osferth and when your eyes landed on Sihtric he nodded at you, “And I.”

“I want my silver back whore,” your husband spat. “Have your divorce by all means, but I want my silver.”

“That silver belonged to my father,” you spat “You can have no claim to it.”

Guhtred remained silent for a moment and your husband rounded on him, “My King, if you wish me to accept this farce of a divorce that is my price.”

“She keeps her silver,” Uhtred threatened rising from his seat, sword hand placed upon serpent breath’s hilt, “She keeps her silver and you keep your life.”

“There will be no threats made,” Guthred warned, his household guard moving forward, although they had been forced to leave their weapons at the door, their advance was menacing enough.

“You are in my hall now brother,” Gisela warned, “You are not King in this country, and you have overstayed your welcome.”

“The Lady Gisela has kindly asked you to leave,” Uhtred confirmed “And there will be no second asking.”

Guhtred had to concede defeat and to your ex-husband’s horror, he nodded at his guards to begin their exit.

“This is not over,” your ex-husband hissed as he passed you by, but you did not have heart to listen because you only had eyes for the Danish warrier with mismatched eyes that you had freely given your heart to.

“When will you ask Uhtred?” you asked softly, walking among the trees with Sihtric.

“Tonight Lady,” he promised, “He cannot mistake my regard for you,” he reasoned.

“Nor mine for you,” you smiled softly, as Sihtric took you into his arms.

“I have nothing to offer you my love,” Sihtric smiled sadly, cupping your face in his strong hands.

“No great wealth, no Great Hall to preside over and be the Lady of. Nothing but my love.”

“Then you are giving me everything,” you whispered, “Everything that matters.”

“I’ve always been yours,” he confessed, voice soft “Only yours, and I always will be.”

“They wish to speak to you my love,” he announced, but his head was downturned, “I do not believe they deem me a worthy match of you,” he said sadly, and your heart sank as you began the climb up to the great table they were sat at.

“You would refuse us this chance at happiness?” you cried and Gisela’s face softened.

“You are the daughter of a Jarl,” Uhtred offered softly, “Sihtric is a warrier, of no wealth, no land and he must travel with me wherever the need takes us, does this seem like the type of life that would make you happy?”

“Yes,” you said without missing a beat. “Any life with Sihtric is one I would choose over any life without him.”

They were both silent for a moment and you decided to test the water further, “Have you no other objection except his lack of wealth and status?”

“None,” Uhtred answered honestly.

“Gisela, you were prepared to risk it all to be with Uhtred, with Sihtric I have never known such peace. I have had wealth and status but none of them can measure an ounce in silver to the price of peace and love that I feel when I am with him. I beg you, do not separate us for the sake of silver.”

“You love him?” she asked you honestly and your eyes began to tear up.

“With all my heart,” you answered, your expression pleading and they shared a look, before nodding in unison.

“You may be married upon our return from Winchester next week,” Uhtred decided and you were rushing forward to grip him in an embrace that you repeated on Gisela, your tears freely falling.

Sihtric too cried when you told him their decision and that night as you lay together he called you his wife, when you reminded him you were not yet his wife, he told you honestly that in everything but name, you were to him.

They came in the middle of the night on the third day that Sihtric was away with Uhtred, the hooves outside your door were your first alert to danger, but before you could even attempt to flee, they were inside Sihtric’s hut and you were hoisted outside and flung onto the back of a horse that sped away into the night.

You were thrust onto the stony ground of a makeshift camp, your hands quickly locked in chains and you gazed up at the hard faced expression of your former husband.

“It didn’t have to be this way,” he hissed, “You should have returned my silver.”

You spat at his feet and he advanced on you “Do you know how much highborn ladies like you go for?” he teased, grasping your face hard and you tried to wriggle away from the stench of ale on his breath “I will make back all my silver, and more on you.”

“Sihtric will come for me,” you said defiantly, and he laughed in your face.

“By the time he even realises you are gone you will be on a ship far away from these shores never to be seen again, and your name like any bitter taste will wear away.”

You tried to retain your resolve but your stomach sank with the realisation that he was right.

“Hold her down.” he ordered his men and before you could process it you were flipped over onto your stomach in the dirt, arms pulled high above your head. The wind was temporarily knocked from your lungs and you felt the unmistakable weight of a foot on the back of your neck to keep you down and then the soaring pain of a red hot iron pressed into the skin at the top of your arm, you screamed out into the dirt below you as he pressed the iron further into your skin, your mouth filling with dirt, and when it was over and you were hoisted back up, your head lolled to the side, and you had to be held up in place as the weight of your body sagged against the men holding you up.

“Please,” you cried, “I will give you your silver.”

“Your rat boy will give me silver in ransom, the slaver will give me silver in the morn, you have nothing left to offer me whore. The S seared onto your skin is the only value you have left in this world now. Put her with the rest of them,” he ordered and you were dragged across the pebbles to a pen with other weeping women and flung carelessly onto your back. Sihtric was the last thing you thought of before the blackness of unconsciousness took over.

The slaver did come in the morning and your former husband seemed pleased with the price he had fetched for you, and as you were hauled on board and placed near the hull of the ship you could not help but begin to weep as the coastline of England became smaller and smaller until all that remained was a dot on the horizon, your former husband’s face of cruelty and delight as you had set sail burned into your mind.

Over the next few months you tried to adapt to your new life of servitude in the Hall of a Norse Lord called Arne, whose wife took great joy in doling out punishment on you.

She seemed to be intent on destroying your face and you knew it was because her husband looked on you with desire in his great icy eyes.

You thought about Sihtric every moment of every day. Those two mismatched eyes, one blue like icy winter mornings and one brown like the warmest honey amber, his tender touch and the way he loved you with his whole body and soul.

You never lost faith that Sihtric would come for you, and as much as Arne’s wife tried to beat you into submission, you still watched the horizon for the man you loved more than anything, with hope in your heart that he would come and find you.

But as the months began to creep into a year, and the leaves began to turn orange and fall, a great depression took over and you stopped eating and began to be too weak to do the most arduous tasks and your Lord’s wife had taken to beating you when you could not complete a job.

After enduring another beating at her hands she said the words that caused white hot terror right down to your very core.

“A weak slave is a useless slave, perhaps you would be of better use as food for the hounds.” Death by hounds was truly your worst fear and your screams of terror and protest caused her husband to storm into the Great Hall, where he reprimanded his wife and hauled you, though you were still howling in terror outside to where a great fire was burning as people worked on the great longboat, nestled into the harbour of the lake his home was built around, he placed you gently down and thrust a bowl of soup into your hands.

“Eat,” he commanded and you began to shake your head in protest but the look on his face told you he was not to be argued with.

“I am leaving to winter in Irland,” he said after a long silence, and your eyes rose to meet his.

“If I leave you behind, my wife will have you killed,” he said it so matter of factly, it made the blood in your veins feel icy, “And I make no secret of the fact that I desire you. But I will not take you with me if you are too weak to make the crossing and so I am commanding you to eat, every day until the boat is ready to leave in a few weeks.”

“You want me to come?” you finally spoke aloud and he nodded as though it were obvious.

“As my woman. That is your choice, come as my woman or die here.”

Your heart was thumping in your chest, these past few weeks you had made peace with the thought that you would die here in Norway, but if you could make it to Irland, perhaps there was a way you could make it home to Sihtric, even if he had moved on and married another, he would know that you didn’t abandon him and then you could die in the peace of that knowledge.

“So what will it be?” he mused, running his hands through the length of his beard and you considered him for a moment.

“I will eat,” you confirmed because that was all you could promise him in that moment.

The crossing to Irland was rough.

Two of the crew perished in a storm near great rocky islands Arne referred to as Føroyar.

You were sick overboard more times than you cared to count and most days you were wet to your skin, and at night you lay huddled into Arne for warmth, but on the ninth day the Ravens took to flight and the great boat chased after until the unmistakable sight of great rocky cliffs rose up in the distance.

“Irland,” Arne confirmed, his arm affectionately around your shoulder, “The people here are ferocious fighters like none you’ve ever seen.”

“I knew an Irish man once,” you told him wistfully.

“And what was he like?” Arne chuckled and despite yourself you smiled too, “A ferocious fighter.” you confirmed.

Arne’s cousin was the leader of Viking Dyflin, and the months you spent wintering there were spent in relative peace and prosperity.

Sometimes Arne would take his ship and crew raiding up the rivers, but you would remain in the confines of the city. Arne had not forced you to lay with him but he did not hide his affections for you, ravishing you in gifts and silver after every successful return, although you were under no illusion that he very much believed you belonged to him, and the S branded on the back of your arm was a constant reminder of that.

“Is he the man your heart belongs to, the Irishman?” he spoke into the darkness one night, as you lay awake staring up at the wattled ceiling.

“No,” you answered, voice barely above a whisper, “He was a Dane, and we were betrothed, before I was stolen away.”

“You will never be my woman,” he spoke after a while.

“Many would have forced you by now but that is not my nature. I had hoped in time you would give yourself to me willingly, but I can see now that you never will, because your very being belongs to another.”

There was a sadness to his words that you did not quite understand but you were afraid to say the wrong thing in case it angered him and so you said nothing and after moments that felt like hours he finally sighed and turned his back to you, and soon after his gentle snores filled the room.

While Arne had spent the winter raiding and feasting, you had used your relative freedom in the city to plot your escape. You spent days down at the Port, overhearing conversations amongst those tending to the Longships and you learned enough to know that no trader or Norseman would take you willingly on their Longship, and if they did there would be no guarantee of your safety or promise that you would not once again be sold into slavery once it reached its destination.

You had long abandoned hopes of escaping on the Longships when a small Knarr with a small fat captain named Skagi arrived transporting goods from Frankia and your heart nearly launched through your chest when you realised he was restocking in Dyflin and heading next to Wessex. Only two things mattered to Skagi, his ship and silver, and you had plenty of silver, and after you had promised him all of it, he agreed to smuggle you on board.

“We leave at dawn,” he hissed, “And if you are not here we leave without you.”

As soon as Arne fell asleep that night, you gently rose and dressed and took as much of the silver as you could carry, you felt a slight pang of guilt as you made your way outside. Had you been sold to any other slaver you genuinely believed you would have lived and died in his service for the rest of your life, but Arne had been kind, he had fallen for you without forcing himself on you, he had taken you away from a life of servitude and offered you a second chance and if you had been any other girl this would have been more than enough, but you had a pair of mismatched eyes and a gentle soul were awaiting you the other side of the Irish Sea and that was all your heart desired.

As you clambered aboard Skagi threw a cloak your way and ordered you to put it on and to keep your head down.

Crossing the Irish sea was treacherous and from your small hiding space you prayed to every god you could think of to get you there safely, you even briefly considered praying to the nailed God the Christians prayed to but changed your mind when the shout cried out from the crew: “Longship! Longship ahead,” and the men began to row with all their might to try and outrun the advancing ship.

You trembled like a leaf amidst the chaos of roars to row faster and the shouts that they were catching up to your boat.

Skagi thrust a blade into your hand “Take it girl, if they come aboard they will take you.”

You cried pointless tears, how cruel to have made it this close to Sihtric, only to die at the final push.

There was an almighty crash as the front of the Longship crashed into the hull of your Knarr, and you were thrust forward, crashing forward and splitting your lip on the wooden slot before you, and you thought it must be Arne coming to retrieve you, it had to be.

The clashing of swords around you told you their crew was now onboard your ship and you heard Skagi shouting like a traitor that there was a girl onboard to take her “Take her, take her!” he was shouting before his throat was slit and you gasped trying to push yourself further into your hiding space before you were mercilessly grabbed and the hood of your cloak yanked clean off, regaining your senses you brought your own sword down, attempting to slice down the man holding you however with a dry laugh the blade was knocked from your hand and you were grasped again before you realised that the man holding you was none other than Finan.

“It’s her,” he shouted over his shoulder “Sihtric, I have her,” and he picked you up effortlessly and passed you across into the stern of the other ship which you now recognised as Fyrdraca and into the waiting arms of the man you had been dreaming of every single night since you had been taken.

“I knew you would come!” was all you could think to say in that moment as Sihtric grasped you like his life depended on it.

He held you in his arms the entirety of the journey back to Coccham, repeating almost like a mantra to himself, “It’s alright love, I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”

That night sitting around the hearth of Uhtred’s Great Hall you relayed your ordeal from start to finish, and Sihtric never once released his hold on you.

“We tortured it out of that goat turd of a husband of yours who he had sold you to,” Finan told you proudly, “We sailed the whole way to Arne’s homestead in Norway where his toad faced wife told us he had taken you to Dyflin. We've been patrolling the Irish Sea every day since.”

“I killed him,” Sihtric said softly behind you, “Your former Husband, for what he had done to you, I put my blade through his chest.”

Gisela reached forward and took your hand in hers, “He will never hurt you again.”

You could not believe that they had never stopped searching for you and you had no idea how you could ever repay them, perhaps you never could, but that night when Sihtric closed the door of his cabin he burst into unexpected tears and pulled you to him.

“I thought I had lost you,” he cried and bunched you to him tighter and tighter until his grasp nearly hurt, “I had only just found you again, and I lost you.”

You gripped onto his back ferociously “I will never let you go again.” he whispered into your hair before his lips were on yours and all that mattered in that moment was him.

“Sihtric,” you cried looking up into his huge sad eyes “I never gave up. I always knew you would come for me, as you have done every single time my life was in danger, you told me once that you had always been mine, but I will always be yours. Only Yours.”

Marital bliss was the only way you could describe life with Sihtric. He provided for you in every way he possibly could and he loved you with the ferocity and tenderness that you could only describe as Sihtric, for he was a ferocious warrior but he was a passionate and tender lover.

Pretty soon, your stomach swoll and the healer confirmed that you were with child and you could not have imagined a greater happiness if you tried.

And soon followed another babe and another and another until you joked that you were raising your own Danish horde and in time when Sihtric reclaimed his birthright on the stronghold of Dunholm, you looked out upon the woodlands where you had first laid eyes upon Sihtric and thanked the Gods for sending you the man who would save you time and time again and for a pair of mismatched eyes that looked at you even all these years later as if you were the only thing that mattered on this earth to him.

Tagging:

@canyonmoon-2 @sihtricfedaraaahvicius @whitedarkmoonflower @thenameswinter99 @foxyanon

@acdassenza @thatawkwardlittlefangirl @gemini-mama

@troyottonick @alexagirlie

a-beaverhausen nebulamorada izzydlb knight-of-flowerss

justcuriousandbored

#sihtric x reader #sihtric kjartansson x reader #sihtric smut #sihtric kjartansson #sihtric fic #sihtric x you #tlk fanfic #volklanawrites

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coffeegnomee · 21 days ago

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Ooooo you wanna tell me about PrinceZam and Lifesteal lore soo bad 👀👀 (I just started s6 and I'm super interested in it lolol)

Just started season 6. oh me oh my. welcome. I wrote a summary a while ago for s3-5, here it is below.

updated to add the eclipse arc too since i glossed over it last time. and added s6 up to october. 8.5k words.

I didn't hold back on any plot twist/spoilers but like, knowing what happened is very very different from watching it unfold so all videos and vods are well worth watching. but this can give a waypoint as many videos are published months (or years) after the events.

s3 zam made an empire to keep spawn from being grieffed, everyone opposed it because he called it the PrinceZam Empire, they killed him, and he agreed to be executed and banned by Red. He came back for the finale in which vitalasy wanted to revive everyone but then banned himself (or got banned i forget) and keeping everyone unbanned became Zam's job(TM) and he resolved to never give up. After 5 (or so) bases in one week that Spoke leaked every time bc he was secretly still teamed with clownpierce, spoke did a dramatic dialogue with Zam on a hill, "why are you trying to save a world people are actively trying to leave". There was a big war which ended in Zam having another dialogue with Spoke where Zam attacked spoke with a stone ax until spoke continually killed him until he was banned. Spoke got him to give up, spoke won. It was awesome. You can watch Zam's vid on it "i was banned for saving this smp" or the finale streams, both are great recap of s3. (both the spoke dialogues happened in the same vod, it's a really easy watch)

s3 was the best season for yt vids imo, i particularly love clown and branzy's videos on the funhouse, casino, cleansing, and finale vids and if you just watch that you get everything. Everyone had good videos if you start searching channels.

s4 ends with the wormhole, a game breaking glitch that Spoke Vi and Ash found (also Subz was there) and used to completely destroy the server. Before all that the server runs as normal, starting slow with the youtube arc where everyone is making their silly random youtube videos. Zam initially wants to go solo but the joins Team Awesome which is commonly just him Mapicc and Ro but also Spoke and Terrain (iirc). There are many fun shenanigans. a spawn prison, the medusa arc. Around the mid season Team Awesome finds a dupe glitch. They dupe endless gear, god apples, and hearts and get into fights where Mapicc and Zam fight together constantly. this is The Dupe War. There are videos on it, but no streams. It ends with them withering the entirety of spawn, completely annihilating it (there's more to the arc but that is important)

During dupe war Zam and Mapicc thought Spoke was betraying them by orchestrating it with Parrot, turns out it was just Spoke who was orchestrating Everything because part of the wormhole glitch required Spoke to socially engineer Parrot into clicking a sign that would give Ash creative mode. When Ash got creative he loaded his hotbar and the Wormhole Barrel(TM) was brought into the game.

That same day Ash started showing the server the exploits (changing the course of the season DRAMATICALLY). Everything that was going on between the dupe war and this moment got put on pause.

What is everything? Well after the Dupe war Mapicc and Ro were planning on keeping duped items in a stash so they would never have to worry about items. Zam realized he Hated That(TM) bc exploits are unfair. So he left the team dramatically, fought them on the nether roof, and perished fantastically. He then retreated to his sanctuary where he built a castle.

Mapicc finds him at that castle the next day and filled with rage at zam betraying him begins The Castle Arc, fantastic arc, well worth watching as vods on Zam's channel. it's the vod after "the end of team awesome" which is also a great vod. Mapicc torments Zam nearly daily while Zam was also repairing spawn with Subz. Subz, as the finale of his spawn cleanup fights Mapicc and Ro who have become the bbegs of the week, he gets exiled. Zam grows a backbone and ALSO fights them, also looses, and then proceeds to die to Ro 13 more times. This is the Stone Sword Incident.

Left on 2 hearts he does a stream with Clown and Branzy which gets him banned by Mapicc because he had paid Clown one heart to be his protection. So Mapicc thought he still had two. they revive zam and he is left on 3 hearts (or was it 1? I forget. mapicc might've taken two of them back after revival) he turns to his only ally on the server, the only person who came and defended him from mapicc during the castle arc: ItzSubz_.

Subz invited him to his team, the Eclipse Federation. What transpires after here is the most beloved arc in all of lifesteal history, from a fandom perspective. I wrote a whole writeup on why it works so well from a story telling perspective that's one of my first posts on my blog. you can use the #gnome rambles tag to find it easier.

What started as a team, protection, safety from Mapicc, two allies who would come on to fight Mapicc and anyone else whom he got to fight on his side (though subz was more active than vi) turned into a nightmare.

After Ash leaked the wormhole items vi and subz quickly dmed him to meet at the base. Vi (iirc) told him to stop stream and delete the vod, which zam did. Unbeknownst to him, subz accidentally hit go live instead of start recording and for the less than 10 minutes he was live, he and vi implicated themselves as the originators of the wormhole glitch. The secret was out.

By the time they made it to the base to meet with zam they decided to tell zam everything, letting him know that they wanted it to have been a good surprise, something exciting that they could all do together. Vi promised that there was a plan for the items, an arc that he wanted to make happen that he had been planning since the very start of the season. I forget exactly how much they told him, but it was not everything.

Faced with Vi's season long plan, and still not knowing What the plan was, only that it was good, zam agreed to go along with it, trusting subz and vi that they knew what they were doing.

Zam, beyond all reason, had found himself on the very team that was behind the new exploit after just having left Team Awesome over exploits.

He asked if chat could know the plan, and vi and subz both agreed they wanted to keep it secret but that zam could ask off stream. Zam being Zam, could never hide something that huge from chat, didn't want to hide something that huge from chat. So he decided to not know, placing all his trust that Vi would tell him what he needed to know and that everything would be okay.

The doom lifted, for a brief time everything was okay again. But soon enough Vi was ready to start phase 1: a bedrock prison at spawn for the tyrants of the server. Zam didn't like that their team would have the power to imprison people, and he didnt like it was bedrock. He tried to communicate that, and vi and subz both assured him they would only put people in that the server as a whole agreed needed to go in. That helped zam for a short time. i dont remember all the meetings super well, but there were many. one time vi told zam they had "amplified" the glitch. another he said they had a bedrock farm in the end. vi was desperate to keep zam on the team because he loved zam and enjoyed his presence and didnt want the team to fall apart. zam at one point committed fully to the plan and killed himself in a hole to show his commitment (vi also jumped down and also died). the next day they made the prison and the day after zam regretted building out of bedrock. he hated exploits. nothing could shake him from the deep-set hatred that this was unfair for the server. he didnt want to ruin vi's plan, but he didn't know if he could continue supporting it.

around and around he went. changing his thoughts based on what vi said, changing based on subz, changing based on chat, changing based on vi. Feeling trapped, seeing no hope in being understood he roamed the server in despair. filled with the weight that the exploits would get worse in phases 2-5 he shouldered the burden without being able to tell anyone.

Beyond anything else he felt completely indebted to subz and loved subz more than anyone. subz had fought for him and protected him from mapicc, he had taken him in and given him hearts and gear to get back on his feet, he was always there ready to log on and help zam fight or save him when jumped.

Around this time there were many conversations with bacon and planet. They had seen some of the exploits, spoke was leaking them slowly since the prison was built, spawning a warden and endermite that could one tap players, using potions that gave you all the effects in the game. pvp was a thing of the past.

Bacon and Planet were investigating, trying to figure out who was pulling the strings and where the plot might go. Pretty quickly they figured out zam knew a lot, but zam wouldn't tell.

When Vi made the prison, they interviewed him, and planet got so upset that all this plot looked to be was a prison that could be used, not even would be used that he immediately started talking to bacon about getting zam to leave eclipse. he had previously been a proponent of zam sticking it out because being in the thick of content is always good on this server even if you don't love the methods. Zam was ready to leave the team but he was wracked with guilt and the fear of being alone again just like he was after betraying team awesome. they invited him to their team if he left, but he was still hesitant. he cared about subz too much to leave.

A few days later zam one again invited Branzy on, knowing that the next day he would have to make a decision about being on eclipse. There was a meeting scheduled about the next phase tomorrow. Spoke turned branzy into a dolphin with a potion and after the shenanigans, zam asked branzy for advice about what he should do. it's one of my favorite stream moments from s4, branzy approaches the lore with great seriousness and helps zam work through his thoughts to figure out what he wants to do. zam doesn't quite make a decision but has many talking points for the meeting, equipped with new metaphors to explain how he's feeling and how he needs vi to promise change, not just do little things that don't mean anything in the big picture.

At the end of the conversation planet joins call and starts asking zam innocent questions. he finds out about the book that vi once showed zam that had the whole wormhole plan, zam says it's in one of the bases, but not which, and he ends stream soon after. But once stream ends he gets curious to reread what vi wrote so he journeys to the base. Upon arrival though he realizes planet and bacon are both in the area. He sees them through the wall and walks into a room he has never seen before filled with barrels. planet and bacon drag him into a call and show him that the room is filled with every exploit and more, things they hadn't seen yet.

Seeing the extent of where the wormhole would go, and supported (or influenced depending on how you look at it) by planet and bacon, zam finally commits to leaving eclipse. he can't be part of this. this is too much. these exploits are far far worse than anything team awesome did.

So the next day he makes his traitor's requiem. He confronts vi, bacon planet and jaron come through the end portal invis and they kill vi, marking zam's departure from the team. Vi is furious zam didn't come to them, that he would betray so callously and kill him so instantly. Subz resignedly accepts that zam never was going to be able to be a part of the team, he was too against exploits.

Wracked with the pain of betrayal and loosing the person he loved deeply even though he had lied to him, Vi started to embrace the wormhole powers. Through a different glitch he was able to fly in survival, and with the one tap potions he tormented planet in the prison, killing him over and over and giving the heart back. but he insisted that he was not going to use the powers to become evil.

over the next days vi would roam the server using exploits, a ghost on the wind debating what to do with his infinite power. bacon and planet and zam got him in a call to talk about how vi was being a villain and they wanted him to give up the exploits. vi refused to see what they were saying.

but then spoke, lead by parrot and mapicc and ro, took a power play and tried chunk banning vi to end the evil on the server. parrot leaked the plan to vi and vi got out, but once again vi was facing the ridicule of the server for something that he wasn't even wanting to be.

So vi gave up the exploits. summoned the whole server to himself and burned all the items in his echest. but the server didnt believe him for a second. they were convinced he had more exploits hidden in the world. they were convinced he was the villain and were angry he wasn't just doing things with it.

but vi was done. spoke (iirc) killed him and after leaving call vi found himself atop the prison, gazing down at the server he loved, the server that hated him. it was over. he threw himself from its height over and over until he was banned.

after the ban, zam was left listless. he had betrayed eclipse because he feared they would be evil, but vi just banned himself off, sealing into the story that he would not be the villain. he couldn't talk to subz, he was too ashamed. so he became a farmer and lived inside subz's floating islands at spawn.

but one day while he was on subz revived vitalasy. zam wasn't invited but he busied himself at his farm, hoping his old teammates might want to talk to him. But something far far worse was about to happen. a ban message rang through chat. subz was killed by vitalasy. subz left the game.

his world shattered. The one person he cared about was gone. gone and he couldn't even talk to him. couldn't tell him how much he regretted betraying them. he needed to revive subz. right. now. he got vi into a call, a bottle of sunshine, sure it was just a mistake, sure subz was not really gone.

But vi was crying. he didn't explain it all to zam, but subz had brought him back on the server to tour him around their bases. filled with grief vi dragged his feet from location to location. eventually subz brought him to his newest base, and in the corner he could see a room filled with signs spelling out depression. lost, alone, a failed team that he had brought together, now split apart. vi immediately realized what subz was about to do. subz brought him to the end and revealed his masterpiece base, and then told vi to kill him. he wasn't capable of reuniting the team while he was alive, maybe in death vi and zam could reconcile. He was determined to have vi kill him. vi refused for an hour until he finally got subz to promise to return when he needed him most. And he banned him.

vi had zam meet him in the end and faced with that innocent smiling idiot's face, vi had almost no words. subz had left him a book telling him his final wish was for them to reconcile and vi begrudgingly decided to let zam in. he showed zam the end base. zam apologized instantly, wanting nothing more than for everything to be all right. but his focus was completely on reviving subz, almost ignoring vi in his desperation to get subz back. two lost birds.

vi explained that subz wanted to be gone and even if they revived him he wouldn't come back. they agree to be teammed again, and i think it's this zam vod or the next time he talks to vi, but within 30 minutes he's regretting saying yes to everything and wondering if it was the wrong thing to reconcile and get back together with vi. so. still good old princezam.

but it was done. they were reconciled. as the wormhole approached zam reconciled with everyone he had wronged.

but he forgot about pangi. in the wake of vi banning himself zam no longer wanted to do a "trap the gods" idea with pangi since the exploits were over. time and again this season zam had preferred his own plan over pangi's and often fought against him even though the two were friends. even though pangi was always there to help zam with his plans. frustrated at being snubbed, pangi took zam through the course they had made together, ending with the void trap they were going to use to lock the exploiters under the bedrock.

zam jumped in willingly, having taken off all his gear so as to not loose it in the void, but pangi had repaired the bedrock with the bedrock they had stolen from ash. pangi gave a great villain speech and trapped zam in bedrock. zam accepted his fate. so full of regret for all his action this season, this was nothing compared to what he felt he deserved.

And zam broke. he entered his mind and confronted all his past selves. his eclipse self tells him he cant just give up and abandon vi again, not after everything. zam thinks he has hurt vi too much to ever be forgiven. his team awesome (i think) self tells him he should just give up and destroy the server instead of wallowing in self pity.

he kills himself with a water bucket (ooc pangi had dropped it to him so he could get out) and decides to talk to both vi and spoke to figure out what side of the wormhole he would be on. vi isn't available. so he speaks to spoke first.

he meets spoke on a hill just like in s3, and asks to join him in ending the server. spoke reveals that he has not just all the exploits, but op. he gives zam creative mode, shows him custom items he coded, transports a whole chunk of the overworld to the end, gets in a console battle with parrot's admin account and wins. spoke is in complete control of the server.

mapicc was already on spoke's side and so once again devotions are together, fighting side by side just like on team awesome.

zam talks to vi next and iirc doesn't tell him he's already joined spoke, he's aware he has a team secret to keep and either way vi says he doesn't have plans for the finale. i actually dont remember when vi finds out zam is on the wormhole side.

over the next week spoke does prep events for the wormhole, involving inactive server members, mapicc and zam corrupt the world (grass to netherack, wood to basalt) with boots spoke coded for them. devotions wonder if spoke will betray them, they dont like that they're just minions and not equals, spoke isnt giving them actual power, just toys and tricks. they promise to end the server together no matter what happens.

the night before the end zam wonders if he's making the wrong decision again, the chatters fan the flames and he works himself up into second guessing everything. spoke might betray him. planet has found out he's on spokes side and hates him. he's messing everything up again. he was so against exploits and now he put himself on the exploit team.

suddenly he realizes chat is the problem. he's trying to make everyone happy, even chat, and he needs to just decide to do what he thinks he should do. and he decides that he wants to end the server as fast as possible so that subz can return in s4. because it's always been about subz.

the day of the wormhole arrives and about 100 other mcyts join the server to kill parrot, planet, bacon, and jaron. earlier spoke had said if they can survive the wormhole he will give up the exploits and they can save the server before ending it. over the next 48 hours they play a protect the president event.

vi revives subz the first day and suddenly zam is faced with the object of his desires back on this server. they have a final terribly tragic conversation where subz is disappointed in zam for joining spoke, zam cant defend himself because he agrees with subz, vi joins and chews zam out for betraying and tells him if he didn't want to play he should have just logged off. vi and subz are on parrot's side and killing people with leftover exploits vi still had. they leave, and zam even more dejected than ever.

planet decides to live the whole event at 3 hearts despite parrot having gathered 100 over the season. right at the end spoke asks both sides for items to ban and eventually hearts get banned, so planet is stuck at 3. in the final moments he almost gets banned but minute (as a guest) has planet kill him to get a heart again (minute's video on the wormhole was actually really good btw), but mapicc catches up to planet and bans him in the last 10 seconds of the event.

spoke, because the players fought so hard, brings everyone to the control room telling them they can choose to save the server or end it. while the server discusses mapicc and zam message each other and decide to jump in both options at once so that the server has to end. there's a final conversation on the grass where vi says this was the ending he wanted.

the long and complicated season is over.

s5 starts slow, Zam is very much done with being the main character and not much happens for about like 5 months. zam takes a full 3 month break from streaming, but when he returns in january he joins Mapicc and Bacon and they invite Jumper and Pentar to make the Abyss. they start breaking bedrock at spawn and getting players to fall into the void. its a fun and long and shenanigan filled arc that takes a deep turn as themes of players leaving the server start setting in. This season rek left before it started and parrot, poafa, mid, subz, and vi all leave mid way through. lifesteal feels like it's crumbling.

After days of fighting, planet gets zam into a call and asks him why the abyss is doing all of this. zam mentions mulitple things but lands on player activity. planet walks to the void hole and says "if the goal is player activity then, in a way i guess you lost" and then jumps into the void. the ban sound pierces the air announcing planet having been on one heart that whole time.

The abyss is mortified. They did like their idea of player activity but planet was right, just killing memebers made them give up. so they concoct a new plan, a week long scavenger hunt for the rest of the server to complete: if they finish the Abyss will stop voiding all of spawn, if they dont spawn will be destroyed. Minute heads up the opposition in the Foundation.

for multiple 9-12 hour streams zam labors at building the freakinator to destroy 5 layers of bedrock. mapicc joins him most often, usually just sitting in call to keep him company but being there nonetheless. Jumper and Pentar start helping more once the scavenger hunt really starts while bacon joins call to work on the clues. many fun hours of banter and laughter fill the air.

jumper pentar and mapicc take valorant breaks much to zams embitterment. jumper accidentally gets pentar to fall into the void with multiple skulkers of pistons, enraging zam. zam and jumper both are filled with excitement at the future making all of spawn into parkour civilization.

the whole arc zam has to face the concept that he cares more about this project than anyone else on the team, even though the abyss wasn't originally his idea. he has to fight constantly to battle the bitter voices that tell him they don't care about him and are bad teammates. only mapicc stays in the positive light. everyone else drains resources and falls into the void with the pistons he spent hours crafting.

As the scavenger hunt continues (oh day one of the scavenger hunt wemmbu demands 50 hearts or he will orbital strike spawn. foundation and abyss join together to unite the server in stopping him. spoke leaks the orbital coords he got bc he is owner to ash and the foundation take the win at being the one to destroy the canon and spawn trap wemmbu to 2 hearts. though the shot still went off and a large portion of spawn got destroyed despite the server trying to waterlog everything)

the foundation runs through clues faster than the abyss thought they would, so bacon adds some extra steps at the end. minute gets frustrated and decides to log on before the final session starts to try and finish the hunt. zam is planning on breaking the first bedrock to void at 3pm and minute wants to beat him to it.

despite everything, in a mad rush right at the end, the foundation gets the final clue at 2:55pm. they are to give the abyss one task of their choosing. they are in control. they decide the abyss members should die to the void once and never break bedrock again. The players jumped into the void.

But what nobody saw coming, or none dared imagine even when there were signs, was Jumper was secretly on the Foundation's side and leaked the scavenger hunt answers whenever the Foundation got stuck.

All the work, all those pistons, stopped in an instant. The betrayal was one of the most insane things to happen on lifesteal ever. three months of deep cover. actively helping the team. dreaming of parkour civilization together. multiple trust tests and steadfast dedication promised. all lies.

Mapicc immediately tries to kill her, Zam helps but both give up as Minute defends Jumper and both fight them back. There is no resolution to the betrayal. (Clown's video of this arc covers the whole Foundation side and is great)

Mapicc vows to destroy her life, Bacon agrees, Zam is down with it. Leaving Pentar to have the difficult choice: stay on the team and destroy the only member he knew before joining the server, or leave. He leaves. Later he joins Jumper and Minute as a team

Mapicc and Zam try fighting Minute and Jumper over and over but fail again and again.

The Presidency Arc begins, the server elects one person to get legal exploits basically: changing three things about the server. 4C and Reddoons together win, disappointing Mapicc and Zam greatly as red and 4c were extremely inactive and only wanted CaptainSparklez on for one event, removed the heart recipe, and had a third thing so forgettable i dont remember it and it didnt happen.

Basically they stalled out the already stalled progression of the server. Nobody was doing any big arcs since the abyss weeks before, the last arc was soundly destroyed by betrayal and no revenge was possible bc Minute and Jumper were just slightly better pvpers than Mapicc and Zam.

With the captainsparklez event on the horizon, Zam being lower on hearts, and having just died to Minute and Jumper in a fight where he semi-illegally restocked, was called into the principle's office with Ash (owner of s5 with spoke). Ash told him off, and then was reminded that he didn't remove heart crafting recipe, so he did that and told Zam to just kill 4C and Mid if he wanted more hearts.

Once again Ash is changing the trajectory of the server. Zam goes into a moral quandary bc he's kind of evil this season but is he THAT evil to kill two non-pvpers? While they're building? In the middle of the debate Ash logs on again and /msg him why they're still alive. So Zam kills 4c. He feels awful and spirals and goes to his and Pangi's base to think, but upon seeing their bed, realizes he could just farm Pangi off the server. Or just take half his hearts. The idea is so horrible, the depths of darkness so great, that he just starts laughing. and laughing. and laughing. (vod: "an agent of chaos is born")

So begins Zam's Joker arc, incredibly relevant to s6. Throughout the Abyss, Minute had been calling himself batman, and thus became the fixation of the Joker arc.

The presidency had also passed to Minute who had run saying he would do pvp style events but then just added the aether, changed the kit, and added the Blaze and Caves achievement race (BAC). And he was already talking about ending the server in peace.

This upset Mapicc Bacon and Zam, who had become The Players by this time. After consulting with Spoke (bc he always ends the server), they came up with a plan to break up all the teams. Mapicc started reaching out to Clown and Leo to see if they would betray the PMC, their team with Minute. And they came up with the plan to try and steal the presidency from Minute after his term was up (3 weeks, 3 changes) and use it to make the server hardcore, thinking they would finally be able to kill Minute and Jumper.

Zam full on went onto his Joker arc, blowing up builds, having people choose to blow up builds, fight each other, and a host of other Joker inspired moral dilemmas. minute told zam that the reason he wanted to join lifesteal was because he looked up to him for his s3 heroism. (vod: "murder chicken machine") Jumper also had a great yap session with zam at this time ("your president doesn't care about you")

Zam's main tactic was taking all his armor off in front of minute and jumper, taunting them to kill him and break their peaceful ending. If they wanted him to stop destroying the server they could just kill him.

But they refused. over and over.

Then the Blaze and Caves event happened, Minute's final presidency event. whoever got the most achievements from the 900 or so new ones would get a heart cap of 30. Zam being Zam loves small tasks and went on a week of 12 hour streams to get them all, stopping all Joker activities.

In this week Mapicc made fun of Minute for not just killing Zam and over the course of the conversation Minute agreed to bet the presidency bc Mapicc implied that they were just opposing Minute bc Minute stole the presidency from Mapicc bc the vote was rigged after the CaptainSparlez event. If Mapicc could get the majority of the server to vote him out, he would step down.

Wemmbu approached Mapicc and I forget who suggested it first but what came out of it was Wemmbu would pay everyone who voted for him $500, Mapicc wanted Wemmbu to get the presidency bc he thought more people would vote for Wemmbu over him, and then proceeded to convince everyone on the server to vote against minute within like a 2 hour span. (you can watch the entire thing go down live on Zam's vod. it was incredible)

Minute was completely cooked. The presidency was ripped out from under him, Clown and Leo voted against him, everything was rigged from the start while he still believed the server would vote for what was right, not what was interesting, and definitely not for irl money.

Minute's vod "meet the yappers" is a vod of all time.

That Saturday the BAC achievement race was finished and Zam got 30 hearts, Pentar came in second and got 25.

The server got turned to hardcore, and the Players accidentally killed Bacon with an arrow cannon like 5 minutes into it that they were planning on using on the whole server.

With the presidency gone, Pentar, Minute (Brandon), Ash, and Jumper became officially PB(And)J and gave up being the nice guys. They were still self-proclaimed the good guys and they still wanted peace, they just had to kill a few people and then there would be peace on lifesteal.

So they, all four of them, jumped Zam and killed him in a couple minutes flat when zam had threatened to blow up the vitalasy hole, Vi's last place on the server before leaving. It was the classic Joker threat, but he went to actually do it bc Ash was being extra obnoxious in the call. And then got instantly murdered. and Zam was banned.

Then like a week later (iirc?) Jumper asked Mapicc on to talk, she told him she regretted betraying the Abyss, that pb&j wanted to kill people and she just wanted the server to end in peace, and that she wanted Mapicc to kill and ban her so she could end her season on her terms.

It was a trap. Minute shot Mapicc with an arrow cannon. Killing him instantly.

They then got Wemmbu on and used their presidency power that was left over to cancel out his presidency power of immortality (it was just as confusing as that sounds) and killed him instantly.

Wemmbu didn't like that(TM) so he changed the tnt damage to 100 and dropped a nuke on them instantly killing Jumper Ash and Pentar. But that was unfair(TM) (and he lagged the server illegally to do it) so it was undone.

As a result Zam borrowed Pangi's account and Mapic borrowed Spoke's and they were back on to oppose this peaceful ending. Clown and Ro also locked in and were super active in the finale.

Wemmbu's next presidency thing (this was before they killed him. whatever. time moved weirdly in the finale) was the blessings and curses, Zam was pretty much emotionally done with the server, so in a final act of GayJoker flare, blessed Minute with fire res (which was useless bc Minute had 64 notch apples).

Mapicc and Clown were Not Happy with this, Mapicc took it as a betrayal, which upset Zam a lot because his whole thing this season was not betraying his team bc that's all he did s4. So he locked in for the finale. Pangi's account accidentally got banned, so he borrowed Spepticle's account.

Minute and co were not logging on a lot, even though they had a whole meeting about them playing at least a couple of hours a day so The Players could actually try and ban them and it would be a real finale event. Mapicc pulled out Salty Mode and once again got Minute to cave and Jumper and Pentar logged on and they did a 4v3. Clown out general'ed Minute and Minute got banned and Pentar got banned. Speptical logged onto his account to kick Zam off mid fight which was a delightfully great bit of possession control.

Jumper had to survive two days and got Squiddo and Ash to help, the three of them tried chunk banning Clown and Ro and Mapicc (zam got banned by clown so they couldnt use Spep's account to get Mintue back on). Mapicc died bc Squiddo made a mod to tap into Wemmbu's mod from his presidency and she nuked him and he died from an elytra glitch.

Eventually the next day Jumper and co chunk banned everyone, but clown and Ro walked out of it bc you can join and move a bit before you get kicked. Jumper elected to stay canonically in the ban and give up, even though they let the ban despawn by accident and she could log on. She conceded the event.

Everyone went to Branzy's carnival which had been happening in parallel to all of this the past couple months. They celebrate his final moments on lifesteal, and bid adieu to one of lifesteal's most beloved members. He won't be joining season 6.

And then we have s6.

Zam starts the season deciding to never kill a player again. he will just build peacefully at spawn, swearing off violence in the wake of his violence in the joker arc and s5 in general.

within 9 days he is killed by pentar on bacon's suggestion, killed by mapicc 3 times in a row, killed by bacon and planet's trap which they pulled to stop leo from killing him, along with a host of other small moments that almost make zam break.

on the 9th day he tries building a shulker farm for hours and hours. pangi bothers him throughout the whole process and he shoots him with his bow to get him to go away over and over. in a bout of frustration over the farm not working he builds a closet to lock the spirit of the joker in. he tells bacon about the closet and how he has terrible nightmares and the demon in his closet tells him to kill people. eventually he gives up on the farm but later that night he logs on to mess with bacon more. bacon and planet manage to piss him off within a couple of minutes and he again starts using his bow to shoot at them in petty frustration.

but planet takes off all his armor and takes an arrow to the head, popping like a grape. zam got his first kill.

that night he stalks spepticle and is menacing in the distance. he tells spep he wont remember this when he wakes up but spep will.

the next day he's in agony over what he has done. pangi comforts him and tells him its not his fault. zam builds a tree and writes his first oath, swearing to never crit or bow at players ever again.

satisfied that he's learning to control his bloodlust he decides to try and get to 20 hearts from building because mapicc asks him to build him a castle. the next day flame asks him to build him a volcano for 3 hearts which makes him raise the price on mapicc's castle also up to 3 hearts (after two conversations)

at the same time squiddo, 4c, and cube run the peace trials to decide who they will give the mace to. eventually they choose clown because he put his all into it.

as time continues more and more people choose to follow zam in pacifism. woogie swears off violence after mane blows up their base and red kills kab. kab swears off violence after going in a box for a week to process red killing her. pangi swears off violence so people feel comfortable coming to his recording events. zam hates that people are copying him. it was never about making lifesteal peaceful, it was about his own bloodlust.

one day flame comes to spawn during session asking for a 10v1 fight. everyone thinks there has to be a trap, but he denies it. mapicc starts getting people involved for the fight and they get about 5-6 people because zam woogie and pangi all refuse bc pacifism and terrain never pvps and has no gear.

right at the end zam decides to let go of his oath for a day to participate in the fight so flame can do his idea. he wont kill flame but he will crit him. but flame decides there's not enough players and he hears that rek and others will just run if they get low and flame wants to kill them all, not end in running. so he cancels the fight to plan it another day.

everyone disperses and logs off but a bit later wemmbu calls zam back to spawn so he can watch them blow it up. flame is destroying builds to piss off the players so they will want to fight him. zam is horrified and gives himself up as a fight so flame will stop. flame and wemmbu kill him and keep blowing it up because it was never the point. they want a 10v1 not a princezam alone.

flame burns down zam's tree and as the fire consumes the tree zam can only helplessly look on while flame and wemmbu mock him in vc.

Zam almost breaks. But pangi logs on right after and he suddenly realizes he can rebuild spawn over and over from a schematic and nothing is bad at all. Skipping away he starts gaia's hand, a group of players who will help him rebuild spawn and fight flame. He's afraid of getting so involved and so close to fighting because it might make him slip up and break, but if flame burning his tree couldn't make him change he didn't think anything could.

pangi takes it upon himself to talk to flame, giving him lite therapy to get him to see that people take time to build and building is enjoyable by building a house with him. flame begrudgingly builds the house thinking it's dumb the whole time. but pangi gets him to agree to not blow up spawn anymore and pagni will organize flame's fight for him. but minutes later wemmbu logs on and starts blowing up mapicc's castle. pangi is helpless to stop him because of his pacifism and he's pissed that flame can't control his teammates. he leaves telling flame to stop wemmbu or the fight is off. minutes later again flame calls him back to the house they built and wemmbu has blown it up. flame is completely dejected and feels like he cant stop wemmbu and also that it isn't his problem to fix. pangi gives him one final chance, but he's at the end of his rope. but they leave agreeing to get flame the fight.

zam gets into mccr and leaves the server for this week to practice, during his absence the fight happens, but right as the 10 people stand together in a pre-fight pep talk mapicc and spoke tnt minecart the whole circle, killing everyone. the players are pissed and refuse to fight again. mapicc says its because wemmbu blew up his castle, and that flame needs to kill wemmbu and he can have his fight. mapicc and wemmbu end up fighting and bc mapicc was on his phone hotspot he starts to loose so he runs from the fight. in retaliation the server griefs his castle, enemies and friends together.

after the cart incident zam logs on to get updated, pangi and mapicc both hate how flame is bullying the server into getting his fight and they promise to stop flame.

in the ashes of his tree, zam no longer has an oath, so he writes a new one that focuses on refusing to kill and refusing to use violence to solve his problems. he's emboldened by his idea to rebuild spawn over and over whenever flame destroys it, convinced he will outlast him.

flame logs on and zam gets him to admit he can't control wemmbu and also cant betray wemmbu bc wemmbu has something over him that will ruin him. zam this time promises to get flame his fight if he can convince wemmbu to stop blowing up spawn. he logs off to win mccr the following weekend, and the day he returns flame has decided to do his fight during session and uses 1000 dogs to aid him.

also while he was gone kab killed planet twice, almost banning him but then gave back the hearts.

zam is left listless, there is nobody to fight. he builds a field of daisies to frolic in. he doesn't know what he will do. where his journey will take him. but for now he's content. he has completely become the pacifist.

days later mapicc calls him to his castle and reveals that he's been stalking him for months and trying to get him to break and start killing. it has obviously been unsuccessful. at one point about a month before he had taken off his armor and started attacking zam and zam still refused to hit him, only doing it accidentally before running away and getting out. mapicc offers him hearts if he kills him and zam easily refuses. they end the arc teammates rather than enemies.

with nothing going on in the server, bacon decides that while mapicc prefers having zam as a friend, he prefers having zam as an enemy and so he choses to join wemmbu to help guide him to do more interesting arcs. wemmbu takes him in and same day kab leaks spep's location and wemmbu kills spep with bacon in tow and the team starts to form.

that same day bacon starts training kab to learn to escape fights, during it kab sets her bed in front of him. a little later mane logs on and kills kab bc they have a feud going on since the start of the season, and then finds that bed and kills her again. kab immediately thinks bacon betrayed her and sends hannah after him to kill him, he dies in one hit because he's on 4 hearts and then dies again trying to get his stuff back and is overall rather pissed at kab and hannah because he didn't leak the bed. they get wemmbu on and update him and bacon refuses to team if kab doesn't give the heart back. it ends unresolved but a couple days later kab gives bacon the hearts and the california girls becomes a team (name will come later).

zam thinks bacon is being fishy so he investigates him but wemmbu leaks pretty quickly that they're a team. but then wemmbu gets hannah to kill poafa at spawn twice and zam can do nothing but watch and give poafa two of his own hearts. he's left with nothing to do and no ideas of how to fight wemmbu without fighting.

mapicc drops his stalking video and then dies to wemmbu in a 1v1 and zam logs on in time to see him die. bc of both things he's sent into a reflection turmoil over who he is on this server. mapicc has got him feeling like the team awesome days and it scares him. who do the players on the server view him as? he realizes independence was nice, but it's also isolating and he's all alone. he resolves to find teammates. but even so he doesn't have options he likes at all.

then one day bacon revives planet, and wemmbu kills planet twice and all the members of the server are too afraid of wemmbu to attack him and protect planet. zam is crushed but still doesn't know what to do. he gives planet hearts from his own hotbar, but he's running low and he vowed to not kill and he doesn't want to slip and go down a route that will make him evil again.

then while musing over ideas he flies to spawn and sees derap and mid, touching down he intends to chat, but derap kills mid, banning her instantly. horrified zam asks him why but derap just says it's because there were no repercussions to his actions. that word sticks in zam's brain and he realizes wemmbu has never had to face any sort of repercussions for his actions.

bacon and mapicc log on and zam shares his realization and him and mapicc decide to use zam as bait to get wemmbu into a fight where mapicc and spoke can kill wemmbu with zam as support (not using strength). they get the fight, flame joins in, but mapicc and spoke both die and zam gets out. zam, in post fight talking with chat admits that he's felt more happy while fighting than he has most of the season. he starts to very seriously consider changing his oath to allow fighting, but he doesn't want to do it by his own choice so he asks poafa and kab on.

the poafa conversation is very dear to me, zam admits that the whole reason he did pacifism was because of the "chicken murder machine" conversation with minute s5 where minute said he was inspired by zam s3. Zam has been wanting to reconnect with who he was in season 3 so he swore off fighting and vowed to protect the server at all costs. poafa gently helps him see he's not fighting on fair ground and it wouldn't be bad to fight. that he is capable of looking at the reasons he's fighting and choosing to not go too far.

he talks to kab, and feels good enough to choose a new title, pacifism never fit, but first derap comes back asking what the heck happened because he saw the mapicc and spoke death messages and zam and mapiccs banter with flame after the fight so he knows zam fought. zam admits what he said earlier changed everything and that he is going to fight from now on.

after derap leaves he writes a third oath, this one labeling him a protector of spawn, and collects a sword "galaxia, the protector sword" plus a bunch of strength pots from a barrel right by leo's void hole that he has stashed a couple of days ago as he thought over this arc change. (this is the vod PRIDE)

that brings it to 10/15/24

since then there's been small things that may or may not be relevant as the season continues to unfold. zam is still in his protector arc. mane has taken up the mantle of destroying spawn. a couple weekends ago there was a massive battle for spawn trying to kill mane once so he would stop. it all failed. minute became a legend for trying to 1v1 mane and lost but maybe won the ideological battle. mapicc's team built an orbital cannon to use against mane and involved zam. devotions have had incredible lore. kab is doing something with zam that who knows how will end. derap is doing lore with zam.

we are firmly in the mid season where all early things matter and we're establishing all the relationships that will matter for the end of season lore. and this mane spawn destruction may very well be the mid season economic miracle like the cleansing, dupe war, and abyss were in previous seasons. We'll see if anyone does anything bigger after him. Seasons usually end around may/june so there's still plenty of time to go unless they decide to go rogue.

#gnome rambles #lifesteal

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