#sarah burn

[neurovarious]

Burn, Patrick Ness

"I remain a dragon,"

"It would be wise not to forget that, no matter how I am shaped."

this is a based book

[hauntedbythenarrative]

[filmap]

Come True Anthony Scott Burns. 2020

Sleep Study 111 89 Ave NW, Edmonton, AB T6G 2H5, Canada See in map

See in imdb

[hurglewurm]

as a lesbian, it is my duty to make one of those like. lineless character illustrated romcom book covers for these two sillies. it's what we deserve.

[antlerqueer]

First Kill (2022).

@lgbtqcreators creator bingo: blending

motion blur tut.

[totallyottie99]

New commission sheet!

[small-z24]

One-Shot: Shadows of Destiny

Summary:

Amidst the turmoil of a heated argument, an explosion forces Y/N to protect Azriel, resulting in both of them being injured. As Y/N tends to Azriel's unconscious form, the mating bond snaps into place, revealing their deep connection. When Azriel awakens, he must confront his feelings and the bond that has been hidden for years. Together, they face their newfound reality, united by a love that can withstand any challenge.

Word Count: 1118

Warnings: This story includes scenes of violence and injury, emotional distress, and themes of fear and guilt. There are mentions of medical procedures and some explicit language. If any of these topics are triggering for you, please read with caution.

The training room echoed with the clash of steel and the heavy breathing of the two combatants. Azriel and Y/N had been sparring for hours, their frustration and emotions fueling every strike and parry. The tension between them had been building for weeks, and tonight it had finally reached its breaking point.

"You're holding back!" Y/N shouted, her voice trembling with anger as she swung her blade at Azriel.

He deflected the blow with ease, his expression hard. "I'm not going to hurt you, Y/N."

"I don't need your protection, Azriel!" she snapped, stepping back to catch her breath. "I need you to treat me like an equal."

Azriel's jaw tightened as he lowered his sword. "You are my equal, but that doesn't mean I want to see you hurt."

Y/N’s eyes flashed with fury. "You don’t get it, do you? You never do! I’m not some fragile thing that needs to be coddled. I’m a warrior, just like you!"

Azriel’s shadows swirled around him, mirroring his agitation. "I know you’re strong, Y/N. But I can’t just turn off my feelings for you. I care about you too much."

"Care?" Y/N scoffed, tears of frustration welling in her eyes. "You think this is about care? It’s about respect. If you can’t respect me as a warrior, then what’s the point?"

Azriel took a step closer, his eyes burning with intensity. "I respect you more than anyone else. But watching you get hurt... it tears me apart."

Y/N’s breath hitched, her heart pounding in her chest. "Why? Why does it matter so much to you?"

Before Azriel could respond, a sudden explosion rocked the training room. The walls shook, and debris rained down around them. Y/N’s eyes widened in horror as she saw a large piece of the ceiling break free, heading straight for Azriel.

Without thinking, she lunged forward, pushing him out of the way. The debris struck her instead, knocking her to the ground. Azriel scrambled to her side, his shadows wrapping around them both protectively.

"Y/N!" he cried, his voice filled with panic.

She groaned, pain shooting through her body. "I'm fine," she managed to say, her voice weak. "Just... get us out of here."

Azriel scooped her up in his arms, his heart pounding with fear and guilt. He carried her out of the training room, his shadows helping to clear a path through the rubble. Once they were safe, he laid her down gently, his hands trembling.

"Stay with me, Y/N," he whispered, his voice breaking.

She nodded weakly, her vision blurring. "Azriel..."

As she lost consciousness, Azriel’s heart shattered. He had failed to protect her, failed to keep her safe. The guilt and fear consumed him as he held her close, his shadows wrapping around them both in a protective cocoon.

Y/N awoke in the healing quarters of the House of Wind, her body aching but her mind sharp. She tried to sit up, but a gentle hand on her shoulder stopped her.

"Easy," Majda, the healer, said softly. "You’ve been through a lot."

"Azriel," Y/N gasped, her heart racing. "Where is he?"

Majda’s expression turned somber. "He’s alive, but he’s in bad shape. He shielded you from the worst of the explosion. He hasn’t woken up yet."

Y/N’s heart clenched with fear and guilt. She had pushed him out of the way, but he had still been injured protecting her. "I need to see him."

Majda nodded, helping her to her feet. "He’s in the next room. But you need to rest too, Y/N. You’re still recovering."

Y/N nodded, but her focus was on Azriel. She moved to the next room, her heart breaking at the sight of him lying unconscious, his body covered in bandages. She approached his bedside, tears streaming down her face.

"I’m so sorry, Azriel," she whispered, taking his hand in hers. "I should have been more careful."

As she touched him, a sudden warmth spread through her, and she gasped as the mating bond snapped into place. It was an overwhelming sensation, a connection that went beyond anything she had ever felt. She knew, in that moment, that Azriel was her mate.

"Azriel," she whispered, her voice trembling. "Please wake up. I need you."

Days passed, and Y/N stayed by Azriel’s side, her heart aching with the knowledge of their bond. She spoke to him, telling him stories and sharing her feelings, hoping that her voice would reach him.

Finally, one evening, Azriel stirred. His eyes fluttered open, and he looked around, disoriented. When his gaze landed on Y/N, a wave of relief washed over him.

"Y/N," he croaked, his voice weak.

She leaned forward, tears of joy streaming down her face. "I’m here, Azriel. I’m right here."

He reached out, his hand trembling as he cupped her cheek. "I thought I lost you."

She shook her head, her heart overflowing with love. "You saved me. You always save me."

Azriel took a deep breath, his eyes filled with emotion. "Y/N, there’s something I need to tell you."

She nodded, her heart pounding. "I know. I felt it too."

His eyes widened in surprise. "You did?"

She smiled, her tears falling freely. "Yes. The bond... it snapped into place when I touched you. I know you’re my mate, Azriel."

Relief and joy filled his eyes as he pulled her into a gentle embrace. "I’ve known for a while," he admitted, his voice trembling. "But I was afraid. Afraid of what it would mean for us."

She held him close, her heart bursting with love. "We’re in this together, Azriel. Always."

Their lips met in a desperate, passionate kiss, the weight of their words and the bond between them igniting a fire that had been smoldering for too long. They poured all their frustration, love, and longing into that kiss, finally allowing themselves to embrace the bond that had been waiting for them.

When they finally pulled apart, their foreheads remained pressed together, their breaths mingling. Azriel’s shadows wrapped around them both, a protective cocoon that shielded them from the world.

"I love you, Y/N," Azriel whispered, his voice filled with reverence.

"I love you too, Azriel," she replied, her heart full and whole.

In that moment, they knew that no matter what challenges lay ahead, they would face them together, united by the bond that had finally snapped into place. Their love, forged in the heat of argument and tempered by their shared strength, was unbreakable. And as they stood there, wrapped in each other’s arms, they knew they had found their true home in each other.

[be-an-echo]

Happy bday Joel!

[writinqfever]

night fight 𝜗𝜚

first fic of a little outer banks series i wanna do!!

summary: you go to a party at the boneyard with your sister sarah cameron and her boyfriend, topper. however, a fight breaks out between topper and another pogue. will you stick up for him?

warnings: violence, swearing, a gun used, john b drowning, underage alcohol consumption, injury detail, swearing

(based off of episode 1 with a few tweaks)

𝜗𝜚

the boneyard is packed, full of pogues, tourists, and even kooks. you walk with sarah, who is holding hands with her boyfriend topper, and get a drink from the drinks cooler. you grab a beer, rolling your eyes when topper starts kissing sarah as she giggles. you walk off towards the other end of the beach, mingling with a few friendly pogues and the odd kook.

a few cocktails and beers later, you walk back to where the cooler was, and realise its not there. you take a quick glance around, and realise its to the front of the beach where jj maybank and john b are. your dad had always told you to stay away from jj, telling you countless stories of how much trouble he was. you shrugged, walking towards them and opening the cooler.

“hey hey! you want a beer? lemme get that for ‘ya.” you internally groaned, not wanting to draw attention to yourself, as jj grabbed a beer, handing it to you with a grin.

“thanks.” you pursed your lips, and he turned away from you.

“hey, hey. hey, sarah!” he shouts over to your sister, holding another red cup out to her.

“sarah, can i interest you in a tasty milwaukee beverage?”

“no, thanks.” she declines. your sister wasn’t the type to drink lots, she had discipline.

“cmon, is it not fancy enough for you?”

“no, we were just leaving.” she says, trying to diffuse the situation.

you thought about stepping in, when topper does it for you.

“hey, you know what? i’ll take it. thank you man, i appreciate it.” he says, grinning smugly, and reaching for the cup.

“that’s nice topper, but i didn’t ask you. if you said pretty please maybe.” jj replies unseriously, clearly looking for trouble.

“oh, pretty please.” topper says, his patience beginning to fade, as sarah looks helplessly between them both, grabbing onto toppers arm in an attempt to pull him away.

“yeah, so sarah, you can have it.” jj ignores him, trying to pass the red cup to sarah once more.

“she doesn’t want it you—“ topper lets his frustration take over, tossing the cup carelessly, and resulting in the alcohol splashing across maybank’s face.

jj is quick to grab him, pushing him furiously as john b and sarah try to intervene. john b grabs the frustrated blondie, pleading for him to calm down.

“dirty pogues!” topper shouts from behind him.

something snaps in john b, as he runs to topper, pushing him aggressively as he stumbles backwards, the smug look on his face washed away.

sarah walks over to topper, and you hear pope tell them to be incognito before… crunch. everyone gasps as john b falls onto the sand, clearly injured. you rush forward, concerned , as sarah holds you back, just incase.

topper kicks him into the water, as john b rolls around, soaked. the chants of ‘fight!’ are deafeningly loud.

“hey john b, don’t make me drown you like your old man, alright?” he jeers down at him, kicking him down again.

topper temporarily lets his guard down, focusing on the crowd and egging them on. during this time, John B manages to get up, and jumps on him from the side, knocking him down.

“give it to him!” jj whoops, cheering his bestfriend on. your eyes widen, this wouldn’t end well.

“john b, let it go!”

“stop, you guys!”

topper punches him once, twice, three times, you cant keep up. john b is not backing down, as they fight in the circle that has now formed. suddenly, john b launches topper over his shoulder, into the water.

“come on topper! come on!” he screams, beckoning for him to come forward, only spurring him on.

for a moment, it seems like john b was winning, until a large splash tells you otherwise. john b is face down in the water, as topper holds him down. ultimately drowning him. sarah screams for her boyfriend to stop, but he wont listen.

“this is too far!” you say, mostly to yourself.

in the spur of the moment, you run forward, jumping on topper’s back, trying to get him off, as he tumbles onto his side.

“y/n, what are you doing?!” your sister shrieks, worried for your safety.

“topper, quit it!” you shout, only to be pushed back, landing on your ass.

toppers anger is shocking to you, as he comes forward, pushing you again while you’re already down. john b is up again, and he knocks topper down for a second time, but the vicious blonde haired boy manages to push him down, as john b unluckily falls onto his side, drowning him again. you feel someone drag you back onto shore, a friend of yours.

sarah kneels down by you.

“are you okay? why would you do that?!”

you dont pay attention to her, as you watch the scene unfolding infront of you helplessly. john b is drowning. you watch jj pull something from his bag, and run up behind topper. your heart skips a beat and your stomach begins to churn as you realise he has pulled out a gun.

he presses the cold metal to the back of toppers neck, as rhe gun’s safety clicks. he gasps, and immediately lets go of john b, who lays, almost lifeless on the sand, gasping for air.

it’s chaos, people are running, your sister tells you to get up and go, but you don’t. you stay, standing up. people push past you roughly, sprinting away from the scene.

“yeah, you know what that is.” jj says, a maniac-like smile on his face.

“he’s got a gun! jj!!” sarah screams desperately, panicking.

“stop it!! put the gun down!” you screech, your throat becoming hoarse.

“did you say somethin’ princess?” he asks rhetorically, looking straight at you, getting under your skin.

“put the gun down!” sarah repeats your sentence. holding her hand out.

“we’re good, we’re good.” topper says, holding his hands up in fear.

“kie, can you check your pyscho friend please?!”

“okay everyone listen up! get the hell off our side of the island!”

the deafening sound of gunshots fill your ears as bullets fly high up into the sky.

“holy shit!” you scream, as your older sister grabs your hand, pulling you away urgently.

the three of you run from the beach, as you urge your legs to go faster, the adrenaline pumping through your body. tears prick at your eyes from the speed you’re running, as you pant, flying away from there. once you get back to the parking lot, you hang back, watching sarah check if a shaken-up topper is okay.

you can’t help but feel frustrated at her. topper had shoved you, you were soaking wet. why hadn’t she defended you like any other day? you shrugged it off, giving her the benefit of the doubt, as you got into the back of topper’s truck.

what just happened?

𝜗𝜚

a/n: i will be putting more jj x reader content in the next fic, this is a slowburn fic so it might take a little bit longer. <3

[pascalsbby]

CARNAL / 6: DEVOUR

Chapter 5 / Masterlist

Summary: 4.5k, f!reader, dark!joel, dbf!joel, brattamer!joel

It didn’t even feel like fucking anymore. Yes, it was filthy and harrowing, but it was beckoning more than lust, desire. Love? Fuck. You can’t do this love again. You couldn’t shell out your body and not find the pieces to put yourself back together because they've been taken and devoured by him.

Warnings: 18+ mdni, SMUT, age gap, cum eating, car sex, anal play, dominate & aggressive joel, slight stalker!joel, pet names, praise kink, he talks you through it, tells you what to do- the usual pure filth + WAY MORE. This is filthy. Gotta feed you after being gone for so long.

A/N: This is the penultimate chapter. Maybe. I kinda went feral. Love you <3 Let me know what you think & what’s gonna happen to these two.

"I need your teeth in me, slow and vicious, to tell me my armor is just skin, bones, only bones. Try to be gentle when you rip me apart.”

- Jamaal May

°:. *₊ ° . ° .• ♡ °:. *₊ ° *₊.• ♡ °:. *₊ ° . ° .• ♡ °:. *₊ ° *

You woke up that morning (the second time), around 10AM on Joel Miller’s couch. He was standing at the counter, back to you. His shoulder blades flexing under his thin shirt. His hair was getting long, kissing the nape of his neck. It was curly at the ends, too. Ruffled, reminiscent of hands being flushed through it. Yours. You wonder now if he’d let it grow or would let it meet its end.

Was this your end?

Turn around Joel.

Please.

You started to open your mouth but he spoke up. “Didn’t want her t’see you in my bed.”

He still hadn’t turned, his voice silently echoing against the tiled back wall of his kitchen. It was soft, still commanding in its baritone. He wasn’t angry anymore… couldn't have been. He had already accepted the invitation and stored it away for later, too. He sat a cup of coffee in front of you and sat across from you at his table. He bent down beside you and whispered, “She hasn’t come out yet. I swear to God f’she heard you fucking screaming last night I—“

Sarah’s bedroom door shook closed. She was walking down the stairs now, fake yawning as if she had only opened her eyes seconds before. She looked tired, as if someone had been keeping her up all night. The chair creaked beneath Joel’s thighs as he settled backwards into it, tearing himself away from your reprimand.

Of course he was mad. Delusional. That’s what this was. Sneaking around your best friends house, fucking her dad? And the thing was, it didn’t even feel like fucking anymore. Yes, it was filthy and harrowing, but it was beckoning more than lust, desire. Love? Fuck. You can’t do this love again. You couldn’t shell out your body and not find the pieces to put yourself back together because they've been taken and devoured by him.

He had made a permanent indentation in his bed with your body, fucking you into it, and then he carried you down the stairs and to the couch like it was nothing, right past her door. Like you hadn’t been dripping on the dark hardwood the entire time he carried you here. Like your muffled screams fell silent to other ears.

Fuck.

He would, too— devour you. And you would sit at his feet and watch as he chewed the love from your ribs. “Thank you, Joel. Thank you. Please, more. Take more of me.”

His snarl when he realized it was you. How angry he was that you were making him do something like this; taking his daughter's best friend and filling her womb with himself, in the most selfish way he could think to tie himself to you. But if that didn’t give, then the raised skin of his initials would do. How dare you open that door and guide him to temptation, as if he wasn’t completely releasing himself into it already? Into you. Onto you.

She hit the bottom step and looked around the living room. “You’re up early.” It was directed at you, but she turned to Joel and spoke in his direction, mirroring him a million times before as her chin tilted slightly down— eyes settling upwards. Big, brown eyes beckoning. And then seconds later her face softens and she gives you both the “I’m not fucking oblivious to this” look.

You laid there and listened to them go about their morning, in his safe space. He smiled real big when he realized she was still happy to see him, of course. Why wouldn’t she be? This has been a man who stood between her and anything that could ever possibly hurt her. He was her shield. And it hurt, still. That he couldn’t really be yours. He was undressing you, instead. Taking off the metal plating and throwing it to the ground. And it was hard to remember that this man was years your senior, your dad’s best friend. He was someone who had been following you for months, paying you to defile your frail body for him. He had hunted you down and sunk his teeth into your skin, bone, marrow. His fingers into your mouth and through the desperation of your thigh.

He scratched his way into your life and you let him, because he feels so good. It was so hard to remember that he was not a good man. Despite his reverence to Sarah’s being. Despite the hole he’s dug through your chest.

Joel Miller was a murderer in his own regard. He hunts you out and down, gets what he wants and then serves you a slow, painful, death. You were sure of it.

Why can’t you be a good man?

Why can’t I have a good man?

You ate breakfast together, the three of you sitting at their two-person table. You were in the middle, one knee touching him and the other, Sarah. He felt of fire, every inch of his denim that touched your naked knees. It rubbed against the rawness of last night, where you were looking up at him, mouth stuffed, praying to him. His cock, as it slid languidly down and up your throat. “Birdie,” he whispered into your hair over and over. Fists full of you. A prayer, a question, a deep rumbling.

Birdie Birdie Birdie.

“Birdie.”

You returned to yourself and realized he was trying to get your attention. It dawned on them that he had just called you the girlish nickname in front of his daughter. It was a moment too late, already it passed his lips and christened the air around him. The melody in his voice changed.

Sarah dropped her fork and it rang through the plate, sending fissures through the porcelain as it echoed the quiet room.

“Who?”

“I’ve called people that before. C’mon. Jus’ like I used to call… fuck what’s her name? Hanna. Just like I used to call Hanna, Ladybug? Remember? Jus’a nickname Sar.”

Excuse me?

“You know exactly why I’m upset. It wasn’t just a nickname for her Dad. You know that.”

“Just a fucking nickname, Jesus.” He was angry that he was being questioned. Outed.

Caught.

It made sense they held secrets for each other. Ones that only swim to the surface during fights. You sat at the two-person table, three people deep. You, sitting outside of your body while the real you is turning your head towards Joel, now. Eyes eating into his own, gnawing on the beauty of them. You try to figure out who the fuck Hanna is. If she’s played this same game before, too. How far did she get? How far was Joel’s cock inside of her? How did he find her?

How old was she?

Sarah was quiet during breakfast. Everyone was. You cleaned the dishes and she rubbed them dry, silently beside you. Joel left as soon as the last bit of ketchup and hashbrowns left his plate. He walked out of the doorway and sat in his chair in front of the TV. He turned the volume out and pretended like he wasn’t leaving his girls to figure it out. He would let you do the hard part.

He always does.

“Sarah, I—“

“Do you know who Ladybug is? He didn’t tell you, did he? He didn’t fucking tell you. I knew it. I knew it,” your name passed out of her chest violently. “He got you too, he got you. I to—He promised me he wouldn’t do it again I-I—“

Suddenly she was too worked up for it to stay between the two of you. Joel’s voice carried from the living room as you hurried after her trying to meet him in the middle. Her fingers already pointing in his direction as he walked towards her with his arms out.

“Joel Miller, you fucking perv—“ calling him by his name.

“Sarah. He hasn’t done anything bad to me. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t mean to but I feel held with him. ‘Member the conversation we had? About how you somehow understood that he and I are similar in a way I haven’t been able to find with anyone else. He— he takes care of me.”

She winced, visibly hit.

“I’ll bet he does.” She spat.

“Hey, s’not like that baby girl.” He was begging.

“Get out of my fucking house, Birdie.” She mocked, completely ignoring anything falling out of your mouth.

So you sat down the dish silently and walked towards the door.

You. You were the first casualty of war. Not even him. Never him. He gazed into you, seeing you. Like he usually did, but never said.

“She was my babysitter and she was his little Ladybug, Birdie,” she spit. You were still in a locked gaze with Joel, body halfway out of their front door.

He turned and looked away.

You walked out of the door.

°:. *₊ ° . ° .• ♡ °:. *₊ ° *₊.•

It had been two months and 26 days since he carved his initials into your begging flesh. A scrappy ‘JM’ slightly sideways, now slightly raised on your inner thigh. You found yourself tracing it sometimes, wondering if you left any invisible marks on him. Probably not. Your skin is pink and soft, new. It has spent its days tucked away against your heat, hidden from the light. From the man who put them there. Whenever you were sleeping that night, he must have invisibly carved himself into you a thousand more times, because your skin is festering in his absence. His fingertips, name, gripping hands, all falling into the creases of him, left upon you. Long ago bruised and now just scabbed over in refusal to let you return to that night.

That’s what I felt like every single time you texted Sarah, “Can we talk? Please?” or, “I am sorry, please let me explain. Miss you.” She never reads them, infact, they never get to her. She blocked you. And that hurt so much more than just leaving you on read.

Suddenly your skin is ripped open again, by the teeth of your own guilt. Of another lie added to the bracket. But alas, you return home, lock the door, and let him free again in the only way you can— by stripping yourself naked and opening your thighs to the light.

It’s easier to hold a funeral when it's your own. Here lies yet another person who didn't save you— who didn’t stick around to see it through. Whatever it was.

You've been discarded before, it wasn’t a new phenomenon. Rather it was one your chest is familiar with— knows the aching well. Although oftentimes you weren’t even left, just sat to the side, unnoticed and quiet. No one had really done you the favor of actually leaving, never really departing; all still loosely lingering around, almost like they were orbiting you. A distant star in the night sky. Then, like a meteorite, Joel. He became your refuge, a far-off celestial body that crashed into yours. Free from the chaos, cradling you in his arms.

He wasn't just a mosaic of broken mass and matter forcibly reassembled; thrown and kneeled like dough. He embodied the resilience of stardust, a reminder that matter never truly vanishes but transforms into something or someone new. Filtered through fingers above to loosen their ties to who they were before, or what. Joel was something before, to you. Maybe on another plane, he was bending you over his knees right now. His hand kissing your skin— Good morning, Birdie. His touch a gentle caress against your skin, with a warmth that felt like the first rays of dawn. Warmth that would completely devour the incessant nightmares. And the truth of him.

Wake up.

Another nightmare.

They never really ended, the fucked up silver screen tucked tightly against your hippocampus, played on and on. They seethed and sang their screamed pain to the night. Bursting out in missing, of emptiness and holiness (not of the Godly kind).

There was a hole, burrowing itself into your breastplate, spreading and grasping for whatever it can grab hold of, inching ever closer to your heart. You screamed his name like it came directly from him, like he planted it there, kissed it on its forehead goodnight, a silent promise, and then walked out the door and never returned. It was kind of like that— his leaving, the absence of him. So your brain held close whatever it still could and replayed it to you every night. It felt like dying. Like wanting to rip-the-wall-open-and-set-yourself-in-there-too, dying. Plaster over yourself and have some professional match the paint color perfectly, so that it's as if you were never gone from him or his room, dying. His ruined sheets on behalf of your body. Rotting.

Joel told you that he wouldn’t clip your wings, not just yet. What had set off the ‘yet’? He was haunting you, now, the whispers of his voice fading more each day. You thought about that morning so much that you haven’t been present in your own, in weeks.

You haven’t painted in weeks, either. They were sitting against your wall in your childhood room, not even able to face the outside world. Just the canvas beside it. A mirror.

You had been writing more though, filling pages of a journal you didn’t even know you had. The cover was foiled, gold and glistening. Water Serpents l, Gustav Klimt, 1907. You’d always preferred Water Serpents II. Where the fuck did this come from?

Sarah probably left it here in the beginning of summer. She came over daily, helped you unpack. Laughed with you. Held you in that way. Took pictures of you amongst your things.

“You’re like… a big girl now.” She said.

You’d always had a poster of Der Kuss hanging above your bed. It moved with you, from your room to a dorm room, apartment, and back. On her knees for him, engulfed in him. Her feet hanging over the edge, facing some other reality. He held her head in his large hands and kissed her Goodbye. Goodnight. Drift softly into the night.

I imagine he stayed on his knees and watched the flowers shrivel. First, the ones upon her dress and hair, then he picked every single flower in the field they graced and watched them shrink and gasp for life, too. But he stayed.

You remember Dr. Andrews, walking to center stage of the auditorium on a foggy Wednesday morning, four semesters ago. It was 45 minutes into a 3 hour chapter titled: Byzantine Frescoes: Life In Gold. “Each work aids final comprehension of the allegory, which represents the mystical union of spiritual and erotic love and the merging of the individual with the eternal cosmos.” That of Der Kuss. Eternal cosmos.

You felt as if you were meant to be with him. Regardless of the rage you felt towards him. How he had just magically been there at every intersection of your life, thus far. How your parents loved him. Sarah. Meeting her again, or the first time even. All synchronicities pointing to the both of you. Joel and Birdie, sittin’ in a tree.

Whenever you felt control slipping, you would write down the words of someone else. Sometimes it was too hard to find your own in the strung-together way you wanted them. But people have been talking, crying, wailing into the night, since forever ago. You found something that stuck a key into your heart and opened it. This fell out:

“I hated him because I could not remain detached, could not remain standing at the top of the stairs watching him depart. I felt myself going down with him, within him, because his pain and flight were so familiar to me. I descended with him, and lost myself, passed into him, became one with him like his shadow.”

- Anaïs Nin, Winter of Artifice

Your pen gave out, stopping its bleeding before you even reached the end of shadow.

°:. *₊ ° . ° .• ♡ °:. *₊ ° *₊.•

You had been at home a lot more the past couple of weeks, in a perpetual state of ‘no-call-backs’ from jobs and The Miller’s. You hid from arguing like you’d never left. Like you weren’t nearly 25 years old. You listened to wildfire over and over.

“Been home longer than expected. Looking for a job or just gonna stay here forever?”

“Yeah, Dad. No one is calling back. I’m trying.”

“Not hard enough.” He always says it under his breath, not even looking you in your fucking eyes.

Yeah. Not hard enough.

“How ‘bout you ask Joel if you can work for them as some assistant or something?”

You try not to outwardly scoff. “I’m not talking to Sarah right now. Please don’t invite the Miller’s to anything, just for a while.” You knew exactly what was coming up. But you turned to him and looked in his eyes— something you shied away from him most days, thinking that sudden reveal would get your point across. He spoke before you could, again.

“What’d you do this time?” He looked away.

*₊ ° . ° .• ♡ °:. *₊ ° *₊.•

It didn’t surprise you one bit when Joel fucking Miller, in the biting flesh, walks past you in your own backyard, three months and 28 days later. Eyes tearing into where another man’s hand rested upon the small of your back, rubbing soft circles into your skin. John caught his eye, his fingers releasing from your skin upon Joel’s wandering scowl.

Looks like he wasn’t expecting him either.

John was standing at your side. You decided you’d meet him first, as to not have a reply of the last time you met one of your customers. He actually lived a few houses down, your other too-old-for-you neighbor. How funny. He walked up to you one day when you were getting the mail.

“N’ what’s a pretty thing like you doing out here barefoot? Gonna hurt those soles.”

You decided that you haven’t felt full in a while. You wanted to feel it again, the tickling stretch of someone sliding into you. Even if the entire time you try not to sing the song of another man.

Eh. He fits the bill.

So now his feet (boots) were slowly sinking into the September grass in your parents backyard. He was five beers deep. You, about three or so. Enough. It was the best you could do under the circumstances.

In reality, he came because he thought he might be able to get you alone in the room he’d seen so many times through the computer screen. Smell your sheets, your room, your pussy.

In reality, you just invited him in hopes that Joel would be here. That he would see you around another man and realize the mistake he’s made by not choosing you, too.

You were mid-sentence, explaining what a BFA is to some other neighbor and you felt as if you could hear him growling from across the yard. You would sway yourself just the way you know he liked- especially when your family was involved. Oh, it angered him. That you should be so bold in front of your own father. In front of this man. But he was ignoring you, so why wouldn’t you try and regain his attention?

“Did I leave my wallet in your truck?” John put on his thinking face. “Don’t think so, but here, go look.” He handed you the keys. Coulda came with you at least. You lead yourself back inside and out of the front door. His car is about 4 back. You see Joel’s navy truck a few more back and you catch yourself staring for too long.

As you attempt at unlocking John’s truck, your knees are suddenly pressed onto the footstep, arms spread against the leather seat. And then Joel’s smell is all around. His nose is poking your ear and his gray stubble is poking into your face.

“How fucking dare you? I give you space and this is how you spend it? Stuffing another man’s dirty cock into my cunt?” His back is lowered, attempting to match your height, pointing and spitting about. “If you wanted to be fully stuffed you should have just asked, Birdie. But I get whatever hole I want and he can have whatever’s open. I didn’t know you wanted me to share you, baby.”

You felt full of his voice, even at its melting whisper. You missed bulging full of him.

“I woulda at least ask you not to choose one of my coworkers. Actin’ like a fucking slut.” He whispered the last part, but not quietly enough. “Gonna take care of him later, been wanting to since I saw that you followed hi—“

He was so angry he was giving away his secrets, the way he had still been keeping up with you. You were pulsing.

But… he was looking at you, was paying attention to you. And you hadn’t looked into his soul in so long. You fought against his palm, as it filled the expanse of the back of your head, hair and all. Your cheeks pushed against the seat of John’s truck.

You hear Joel sigh in impatience, then he drops his belt.

He pulls his hands away so he can pull up your dress and he moans as his thumb pushes your thong away from your holes, tickling them. He hooks his thumb in front of you, against the hood of your clit and holds it in place. A constant rush of pressure originating from where his wet finger is pushing. You rut your hips against it and he moans as you breathlessly look up and around at him, eyes widening and eyebrows raising at the feeling of his presence on your body.

“Look into my eyes.”

How could you? How could you possibly focus on the lifting of his lips and his tongue meeting his teeth when his arms were gracing himself, wrestling heavily against his chest, stomach, fully. His cock, long and full. Slightly less straight. A little off. Just like him. Just like you liked it.

He turns you over on your back, lifting you up so that your naked ass meets leather, fully in another man’s truck. He sets you further inside and then looks at you. His cock jumps to meet your gaze and he lets you take it in.

“Been thinking about this.” You try to reach out and touch the veiny girth of it. The heaviness.

“Mm, nuh uh. Not being a very good girl, are you? Told y’ to shut up didn’t I?”

No. And you know he would never. Likes hearing you whimper for him too much.

You scoff and he dips into you in fever, his nose is kissing your clit, unable to get out of the way as his tongue pokes into your slobbering hole. You are every one of his senses. His fingers in your cunt, stretching the soft tissue between your legs. The taste of your warmth on his tongue, pooling. The wetness that got into his nose.

If anyone were to be looking, from most angles it looks like he’s lost something in his floorboard. Until someone moves too closely and sees Joel Miller with his face buried in someone’s daughter's pussy.

He hears something and removes his dripping mustache from your cunt. He then spits on it and lets it talk to him as his veined and heavy cock slips through the cream he’s making of his precum, collecting it with his pretty pink, angry, tip before he slides it back down your slit, covering every inch with himself.

It felt good to sing for him again.

“Oh Birdie, just like that, sounds so good whipping up your pussy’s excitement with my cock, don’t you? Filthy lil’ thing. Gonna make it wetter n’ cover it in my cum, too, okay?”

He reaches down and fingers at your pussy, pushing himself deeper into you and thumbs where you are gripping his cock. He spits down on it. “She missed me.”

“Need you t’ fill me up.”

“Already begging? Don’t wanna get caught in his truck, do you?” He was mocking you now. “Baby girl, that’s just not good enough.”

“Need-need daddy to fill me to the brim with his fucking cum. Let me have it, sir, please. Plea-“

“Show me who you belong to.”

You widen your legs further and let the orange streetlights filling the car shine on his initials.

“There you go baby.” He growls as he fucks his thick length inside of you, letting go as deep as he can as your pussy clenches around his sputtering cock.

He stops looking at your hole clenching onto him as hard as possible and is instead watching his initials in the jiggling fat of your inner thigh. He grabs it, rubs his fingers over the skin.

His thighs are even thicker from this angle. He moans towards the sky but forces himself to look back down, just as his cum falls from his slit and falls down to your open mouth. He lets go of his cock and lets it throb independently, shooting more of himself into his plump stomach. He’s dripping down himself, coating his own skin.

“Uh uh uh.” His voice catching in his throat every single time the skin between his heavy balls and asshole contract and expand, throbbing.

He admires as the cum chokes back out of your tight pussy as he pushes himself in and out, then removes himself. He watches it slide down and kiss your puckering asshole and decides to finger it back into your cunt, tsk-ing at you.

“Gonna let it drip down to your pretty asshole and not even fuck it back in baby? After all that work? Let me do it for you. Relax n’ let me fuck you here, too.” He slides his thick finger into your ass and lets out a low groan as it swallows him.

He pops himself back out, gently cooing praises at you.

“Whose Hanna?”

“That’s none of your fucking business, Birdie.”

“Is that so? Shouldn’t I have a right to know? Am I just another victim of you and your inability to show the fuck up?”

“Bet you’d like that, wouldn’t you? Daddy showing up to your little party and making a mess in your little hole?”

“Joel.”

“I never fucked her.”

You stared at him.

“Get down there and clean up your fucking mess.” You deserved this. You weren’t being good for him, asking questions.

You pulled your dress down as he tucked himself away. He held your hair back and grabbed your jaw, aligning it with his cum on the black leather seats.

“Now lick.”

°:. *₊ ° . ° .• ♡ °:. *₊ ° *₊.•

I know I’m missing some of you on the taglist, I’m sorry!! I need to come up with a better way of doing it.

Taglist: @strang3lov3 @ramblers-lets-get-ramblin @rubyfruitjungle @leeeesahhh @blackvelveteen1339 @huffle-punk @xxmr-potato-headxx @ssssc0m @paleidiot @sarap-77 @silkiers @gracevn @scarletsloveletter @livingdeadmaria @morallyinept @kittenprincess710 @jubilee82 @cool-iguana @vickywallace @capitulo3-celos @taeslarityy @moonlightdreamingworld @worhols @milla-frenchy @sheepdogchick3 @gasolinerainbowpuddles @justagalwhowrites @bratty-lxndry444

[acourtofquestions]

Kingdom of Ash Chapter 61

Chapter; Highlights (okay the entire chapter is a highlight)🤣

As requested @mysterylilycheeta I NEED TO SQUEAL IN WYVERN FANGIRL WITH YOU NOW CAUSE OH M GOODNESS THIS CHAPTER ON SO MANY LEVELS I JUST AHAKWIHUHFEJLZXBKEKA

Agony was a song in Lorcan's blood, his bones, his breath.

Every step of the horse, every leap she made over body and debris, sent it ringing afresh. There was no end, no mercy from it. It was all he could do to keep in the saddle, to cling to consciousness.

To keep his arm around Elide.

She had come for him. Had found him, somehow, on this endless battlefield.

His name on her lips had been a summons he could never deny, even when death had held him so gently, nestled beneath all those he'd felled, I, and waited for his last breaths.

And now, charging toward that too-distant keep, so far behind the droves of soldiers and riders racing for the gates, he wondered if these minutes would be his last. Her last.

She had come for him.

Lorcan managed to glance toward the dam on their right. Toward the ruk rider signaling that it was only a matter of minutes until it unleashed hell over the plain.

He didn't know how it had become weakened. Didn't care.

Still Elide kept urging the horse onward, kept them on as straight a path toward the distant keep as possible.

No ruk would come to sweep them up. No, his luck had been spent in surviving this long, in her finding him. His power would do nothing against that water.

The farthest lines of panicked soldiers appeared, and Farasha charged past them.

Elide let out a sob, and he followed the line of her sight.

To the keep gate, still open.

"Faster, Farasha!" She didn't hide the raw terror in her voice, the desperation.

Once the dam broke, it would take less than a minute for the tidal wave to reach them.

She had come for him. She had found him.

The world went quiet. The pain in his body faded into nothing. Into something secondary.

Lorcan slid his other arm around Elide, bringing his mouth close to her ear as he said, "You have to let me go."

Each word was gravelly, his voice strained nearly to the point of uselessness.

Elide didn't shift her focus from the keep ahead. "No."

That gentle quiet flowed around him, clearing the fog of pain and battle. "You have to. You have to, Elide. I'm too heavy-and without my weight, you might make it to the keep in time."

"No." The salt of her tears filled his nose.

Lorcan brushed his mouth over her damp cheek, ignoring the roaring pain in his body. The horse galloped and galloped, as if she might outrace death itself.

"I love you," he whispered in Elide's ear. "I have loved you from the moment you picked up that axe to slay the ilken." Her tears flowed past him in the wind. "And I will be with you ..." His voice broke, but he made himself say the words, the truth in his heart. "I will be with you always."

He was not frightened of what would come for him once he tumbled off the horse. He was not frightened at all, if it meant her reaching the keep.

So Lorcan kissed Elide's cheek again, allowed himself to breathe in her scent one last time. "I love you," he repeated, and began to withdraw his arms from around her waist.

Elide slapped a hand onto his forearm. Dug in her nails, right into his skin, fierce as any ruk.

"No."

There were no tears in her voice. Nothing but solid, unwavering steel.

"No," she said again. The voice of the Lady of Perranth.

Lorcan tried to move his arm, but her grip would not be dislodged.

If he tumbled off the horse, she would go with him.

Together. They would either outrun this or die together.

"Elide-"

But Elide slammed her heels into the horse's sides.

Slammed her heels into the dark flank and screamed, "FLY, FARASHA." She cracked the reins. "FLY, FLY, FLY!"

And gods help her, that horse did.

As if the god that had crafted her filled the mare's lungs with his own breath, Farasha gave a surge of speed.

Faster than the wind. Faster than death.

Farasha cleared the first of the fleeing Darghan cavalry. Passed desperate horses and riders at an all-out gallop for the gates.

Her mighty heart did not falter, even when Lorcan knew it was raging to the point of bursting.

Less than a mile stood between them and the keep.

But a thunderous, groaning crack cleaved the world, echoing off the lake, the mountains.

There was nothing he could do, nothing that brave, unfaltering horse could do, as the dam ruptured.

Rowan made himself stand there, to watch the last moments of the Lady of Perranth and his former commander. It was all he could offer: witnessing their deaths, so he might tell the story to those he encountered. So they would not be forgotten.

The roaring of the oncoming wave became deafening, even from miles away.

Still Elide and Lorcan raced, Farasha passing horse after horse after horse.

Even up here, would they escape the wave's reach? Rowan dared to survey the battlements, to assess if he needed to get the others, needed to get Aelin, to higher ground.

But Aelin was not at his side.

She was not on the battlement at all.

Rowan's heart halted. Simply stopped beating as a ruddy-brown ruk dropped from the skies, spearing for the center of the plain.

Arcas, Borte's ruk. A golden-haired woman dangling from his talons.

Aelin. Aelin was—

Arcas neared the earth, talons splaying.

Aelin hit the ground, rolling, rolling, until she uncoiled to her feet.

Right in the path of that wave.

"Oh gods," Fenrys breathed, seeing her, too.

They all saw her.

The queen on the plain.

The endless wall of water surging for her.

The keep stones began shuddering. Rowan threw out a hand to brace himself, fear like nothing he had known ripping through him as Aelin lifted her arms above her head.

A pillar of fire shot up around her, lifting her hair with it.

The wave roared and roared for her, for the army behind her.

The shaking in the keep was not from the wave.

It was not from that wall of water at all.

Cracks formed in the earth, splintering across it. Spiderwebbing from Aelin.

"The hot springs," Chaol breathed. "The valley floor is full of veins into the earth itself."

Into the burning heart of the world.

The keep shook, more violently this time.

The pillar of fire sucked back into Aelin.

She held out a hand before her, her fist closed.

As if it would halt the wave in its tracks.

He knew then. Either as her mate or carranam, he knew.

"Three months," Rowan breathed.

The others stilled.

"Three months," he said again, his knees wobbling. "She's been making the descent into her power for three months."

Every day she had been with Maeve, bound in iron, she had gone deeper. And she had not tapped too far into that power since they'd freed her because she had kept making the plunge.

To gather up the full might of her magic.

Not for the Lock, not for Erawan.

But for Maeve's death blow.

A few weeks of descent had taken her powers to devastating levels. Three months of it

…

Holy gods. Holy rutting gods.

And when her fire hit the wall of water now towering over her, when they collided —

"GET DOWN!" Rowan bellowed, over the screaming waters. "GET DOWN NOW!"

His companions dropped to the stones, any within earshot doing the same.

Rowan plummeted into his power. Plummeted into it fast and hard, ripping out any remaining shred of magic.

Elide and Lorcan were still too far from the gates. Thousands of soldiers were still too far from the gates as the wave crested above them.

As Aelin opened her hand toward it.

Fire erupted.

Cobalt fire. The raging soul of a flame.

A tidal wave of it.

Taller than the raging waters, it blasted from her, flaring wide.

The wave slammed into it. And where water met a wall of fire, where a thousand years of confinement met three months of it, the world exploded.

Blistering steam, capable of melting flesh from bone, shot across the plain.

With a roar, Rowan threw all that remained of his magic toward the onslaught of steam, a wall of wind that shoved it toward the lake, the mountains.

Still the waters came, breaking against the flames that did not so much as yield an inch.

Maeve's death blow. Spent here, to save the army that might mean Terrasen's salvation. To spare the lives on the plain.

Rowan gritted his teeth, panting against his fraying power. A burnout lurked, deadly close.

The raging wave threw itself over and over and over into the wall of flame.

Rowan didn't see if Elide and Lorcan made it into the keep. If the other soldiers and riders on the plain stopped to gape.

Princess Hasar said, rising beside him, "That power is no blessing."

"Tell that to your soldiers," Fenrys snarled, standing, too.

"I did not mean it that way," Hasar snipped, and awe was indeed stark on her face.

Rowan leaned against the battlements, panting hard as he fought to keep the lethal steam from flowing toward the army. As he cooled and sent it whisking away.

Solid hands slid under his arms, and then Fenrys and Gavriel were there, propping him up between them.

A minute passed. Then another.

The wave began to lower. Still the fire burned.

Rowan's head pounded, his mouth going dry.

Time slipped from him. A coppery tang filled his mouth.

The wave lowered farther, raging waters quieting. Then roaring turned to lapping, rapids into eddies.

Until the wall of flame began to lower, too. Tracking the waters down and down and down. Letting them seep into the cracks of the earth.

Rowan's knees buckled, but he held on to his magic long enough for the steam to lessen.

For it, too, to be calmed.

It filled the plain, turning the world into drifting mist. Blocking the view of the queen in its center.

Then silence. Utter silence.

Fire flickered through the mist, blue turning to gold and red. A muted, throbbing glow.

Rowan spat blood onto the battlement stones, his breath like shards of glass in his throat.

The glowing flames shrank, steam rippling past. Until there was only a slim pillar of fire, veiled in the mist-shrouded plain.

Not a pillar of fire.

But Aelin.

Glowing white-hot. As if she had given herself so wholly to the flame that she had become fire herself.

The Fire-Bringer someone whispered down the battlements.

The mist rippled and billowed, casting her into nothing but a glowing effigy.

The silence turned reverent.

A gentle wind from the north swept down. The veil of mist pulled back, and there she was.

She glowed from within. Glowed golden, tendrils of her hair floating on a phantom wind.

"Mala's Heir," Yrene breathed.

Down on the plain, Elide and Lorcan had halted.

The wind pushed away more of the drifting mist, clearing the land beyond Aelin.

And where that mighty, lethal wave had loomed, where death had charged toward them, nothing remained at all.

For three months, she had sung to the darkness and the flame, and they had sung back.

For three months, she had burrowed so deep inside her power that she had plundered undiscovered depths. While Maeve and Cairn had worked on her, she had delved. Never letting them know what she mined, what she gathered to her, day by day by day.

A death blow. One to wipe a dark queen from the earth forever.

She'd kept that power coiled in herself even after she'd been freed from the irons. Had struggled to keep it down these weeks, the strain enormous. Some days, it had been easier to barely speak. Some days, swaggering arrogance had been her key to ignoring it.

Yet when she had seen that wave, when she had seen Elide and Lorcan choosing death together, when she had seen the army that might save Terrasen, she'd known. She'd felt the fire sleeping under this city, and knew they had come here for a reason.

She had come here for this reason.

A river still flowed from the dam, harmless and small, wending toward the lake.

Nothing more.

Aelin lifted a glowing hand before her as blessed, cooling emptiness filled her at last.

Slowly, starting from her fingertips, the glow faded.

As if she were forged anew, forged back into her body.

Back into Aelin.

Clarity, sharp and crystal clear, filled its wake. As if she could see again, breathe again.

Inch by inch, the golden glow faded into skin and bone. Into a woman once more.

Already, a white-tailed hawk launched skyward.

But as the last of the glow faded, disappearing out through her toes, Aelin fell to her knees.

Fell to her knees in the utter silence of the world, and curled onto her side.

She had the vague sense of strong, familiar arms scooping her up. Of being carried onto a broad feathery back, still in those arms.

Of soaring through the skies, the last of the mist rippling away into the afternoon sun.

And then sweet darkness.

[nestaismommy]

Mutuals….are y’all fuming or is it just me

[fated-mates]

An episode for the old school romance readers in the audience, we're talking about kidnapping this week! A trope that either absolutely works for readers (aka us) or absolutely doesn't, we talk about why that is, how the original romances of the 80s and 90s installed these buttons and how we still see the bones of old school kidnapping in delicious romances of today. That, and Jen reminds Sarah of books she wrote one time.

[antlerqueer]

First Kill (2022). First Blood.

@lgbtqcreators creator meme - 8 lgbtq+ relationships (5/8) - Cal Burns & Juliette Fairmont

[onekisstotakewithme]

trapper and hawkeye spending weeks convincing frank that telepathy/telekenesis is real only so they can fake having telepathic sex and annoy the shit out of him