#scarlet hood and the wicked wood

[bamgyw]

˖°𖡼.𖤣𖥧 little red riding hood 𖥧𖤣.𖡼°˖

summary: afab!reader x werewolf!beomgyu just as little red riding hood entered the woods, a wolf met her. little red riding hood did not know what a wicked creature he was, and was not at all afraid of him. little red riding hood modern [smut] retelling.

warnings: afab!reader. little plot, big chunk of smut at the end. fingering, biting, sucking, they fuck in the forest? dub-con. definitely not as pretentious and cheaper than six nights.

word count: 6,5k

rey yaps: rey comeback. yay. as you can see, this is not the six night update. i am so very sorry. if you don't like it, i did it on purpose. it's camp. happy halloween. 

once upon a time there was a dear little girl who was loved by everyone who looked at her. whenever the wind whistled she wore a warm, scarlet cloak, so she was always called little red riding hood.

the window’s open just enough for the wind to slip through and moan against the narrow slit. its sighs blend with the creeping chill of autumn nights, making it too easy for her to ignore the other sound—the low, mournful howl of the wolf stalking just beyond the trees. waiting. starving.

but inside—warm, cozy, oblivious—she’s giddy, caught up in the process of getting dolled up. the vanity of the pre-party ritual. halloween night, or the night to honor the ancestors' harvest festival by dressing like an unapologetic slut.

she leans in closer to the mirror, dragging the eyeliner brush across her eyelid. the black ink smudges into a sultry, careless flick.

her reflection stares back—rosy cheeks, fox like eyes, lips twitching into a smirk as she perfects her look. red little riding hood. she’s got that ominous, almost brilliant look of blood on snow; hair like lint, cheeks tinted a synthetic red, lips red like wine.

outside, the darkness gathers thick. that part of town—the forgotten edge where the trees grow too tall, too twisted, their branches clawing at the sky—has a reputation. by day, the leaves rustle with tiny, cheerful birds. but by nightfall the trees bend into shapes that shouldn’t exist, and the black between them isn’t just dark. it’s hungry.

she doesn’t care. not tonight. she’s excited.

she’s got a boyfriend, and she adores him in that hopeless, foolish way. taehyun—so princely, so mature, so different from any other boy she’s ever known. just the thought of him sends a flutter through her stomach.

but her excitement falters, her hand with the eyeliner brush pausing mid-stroke.

for quite some time now, she’s had the gnawing feeling that taehyun doesn’t like her anymore. he's distant. cold. the hunger in his eyes has dulled into something worse than disinterest. he doesn’t kiss her the same, doesn’t touch her like he used to. the golden glint of lust she once saw in his gaze is now replaced by dull apathy. 

but not tonight. tonight, she’s going to fix that.

she has gotten herself a ridiculous little dress, so charming and frilly that it would drive any boy insane. a costume meant for a twelve-year-old, that should stretch over her curves and frame her just so. a skirt that's more like a belt made of little ruffles, barely brushing the tops of her thighs. puffed sleeves, and a corset cinched tight enough to steal her breath—she doesn’t care. she’s pulling the hunger back into her boyfriend's eyes.

the cheap red costume lays across the tub, a mess of fabric that’ll turn her into something untouchable. a gift for him, draped in lace and bows. she shrugs off her bathrobe, careful to close the door but leaving the curtains wide open. why bother? what harm could come from the empty wilds?

in a deep red bra and panties that cling like fresh blood to bare skin, the fabric is thin, barely there, a gauze that the cool night air slices through. the chill raises goosebumps, and her nipples harden beneath the lace, two sharp peaks straining against the sheer veil.

somewhere in the woods, the wolf is watching. 

she notices her own reflection and pauses, taking in how her body looks under the dim light. the slight tremble of her chest, the rosy peaks beneath the lace. her breath catches in her throat as she runs a hand over her stomach, feeling the curve of her waist. 

somewhere in the woods, the wolf starts salivating.

she has drowned in self-loathing lately. the boy she loves has been treating her like she’s nothing. she’s felt like nothing. but tonight —must be the witches, the spirits and the ghosts— she feels pretty.

the wolf thinks she’s pretty too. he has spotted a tender, plump mouthful, and hunger is curling in his belly. he can’t hold back anymore, and his howl cuts through the silence—sharp, hollow, vicious. and the wolfsong is a warning. the sound of death by the window.

she freezes. a chill creeps down her spine, not from the cold, but from something primal. she holds her breath, listening. and then she hears it—a soft, distant inhale. a wet and heavy breathing. not hers. human, but not quite.

her head snaps toward the window, eyes wide. there, in the darkness, something moves. no, someone moves. two glowing yellow lights. embers, burning. they don’t blink. they just… watch.

she pulls the drapes shut, heart racing, forcing a grin. halloween, she thinks. just some asshole playing a prank. a cheap, silly trick.

somewhere in the woods, the wolf smiles.

just as little red riding hood entered the wood, a wolf met her. little red riding hood did not know what a wicked creature he was, and was not at all afraid of him.

"just go from streetlight to streetlight," she tells herself. 

focus. one light. two. a quick breath of safety before plunging into the next stretch of black. the cold night air curls around her, prickling her skin like needles.

her little red heels click against the uneven pavement, the sound echoing in the stillness. for a moment, she feels that gnawing, unshakable sense that she's not alone. but she shrugs it off, laughs under her breath, calling it paranoia.

the road ahead glimmers beneath a blanket of fallen leaves, slick and shimmering in the muted glow. on either side, the dense, impenetrable forest looms—a thick monster of dark green and black, framing her path to the party.

above, the moon, full and obscene, watches her like a voyeur. all still. all quiet.

except, that is, for the rustling of leaves beneath the predator’s steps. the wolf moves with ease, slipping behind her unnoticed, eyes on her legs as they sway, hungry. 

this is his territory. she just doesn’t know it yet.

tucked inside her little basket—a cute part of the costume she’s rebranded as a purse,—there’s a small pocket knife. mom’s voice echoes in her head: “you never know what's lurking out there, darling.”

however, no amount of steel could cut through the one rule. the rule older than the trees that lined this cursed path. in the history of women walking alone at night—never, ever make eye contact.

so when she sees the shadow up ahead—thin, crooked, leaning against a lamppost with a cigarette hanging lazily from his lips—her heart does what it must. it kicks into overdrive.

head up. eyes forward. don’t let him know you're aware of his existence. her fingers tighten around the basket’s handle, knuckles turning white. it’s fine, she lies to herself. just keep walking.

one meter.

he tilts his head slightly, tracking her as she nears, but doesn’t move. her heels click louder now, faster, echoing hollow.

two meters.

close enough to smell the smoke curling from his cigarette. her skin crawls, but she doesn’t falter. just a few more steps and he’ll be behind her, another shadow, another forgotten threat. she feels a sudden, punctuating cold down her neck, but she barely pays attention to it.

three meters.

she passes him, breath held, heart pounding. it's done, she's safe. her fear was stupid, it always is. then it happens—a hand, cold and solid, lands on her shoulder.

her stomach drops. she spins, ready to scream or run, but the words die on her lips when she sees him.

a beautiful boy, just—beautiful.

dark, untamed. his hair’s a mess, falling over his forehead, deep brown eyes glowing like embers. flannel over a ragged band tee, the faint scent of smoke and damp leaves hangs around him.

“you dropped this.” his voice is low, nearly a growl, as he holds out her little red hood. it must’ve fallen when she rushed past.

“o-oh.” she stammers, half breathless, “thanks. i didn’t even realize.”

as she takes it from him, his gaze lingers for too long, making her hyper-aware of the way the dress clings to her body.

“pretty…” he says, the word half-whispered. a slight and wicked smirk touches his lips, like he knows he can degrade the costume and the girl beneath with just a single look.

a shiver races down her spine, but she forces a smile. “t-thanks.”

his eyes drag up and down her body, slow, making sure she notices. heat blooms in her neck, unbidden, and she tells herself—this dress is for taehyun, not for some stranger who smells like rain-soaked earth and cigarettes. and yet, when he bites his lip, something flutters low in her stomach—dangerous, thrilling.

“little late to be walking around dressed like that, don’t you think?” he sneers, and scorn flickers in his eyes. but the humiliation sends a shiver through her, one she doesn’t quite hate. “you headed to the party?”

“obviously,” she shoots back, spreading her arms, letting him take in the dress—though he’s already noticed, definitely. still, she’s relieved. he knows about the party, and suddenly he feels closer, more familiar. not quite a stranger anymore. “you?”

“yeah,” he shrugs, casual, like it’s nothing. “not really big on parties, though. i prefer the quiet.” his voice dips, eyes lingering on her. “but you gotta socialize… or you get lonely.”

“right.” she quirks a smirk, finally letting herself look him up and down. “but it��s a costume party, you know.”

“oh, i’m in costume. i’m just subtle,” he says, grin spreading wider, darker. “wanna see?”

against her better judgment—against every instinct screaming at her to walk away—she nods. his smirk deepens. he lifts his lip, just enough for a single sharp fang to catch in the dim light.

she laughs, half-relieved. “that barely counts as a costume.”

“oh, but it counts,” he says.

“fine. so, what are you supposed to be?”

he leans in just a little closer, his words coiling around her like smoke. “that’s the game, pet. you have to guess. guess right, and you win something. guess wrong...” his smile widens. “well, i get something.”

naive and pathetically charmed by the boy, she raises an eyebrow. “what do i get?”

he leans back, pretending to think, though his eyes never leave hers. "i mean... i'm a stranger in the woods. you get to walk away... unharmed."

poor thing, she rolls her eyes like he was joking. "and if i don't guess right," she speaks, her voice softer now. "what do you want?"

"a kiss."

her heart stumbles. she'd give it to him, gladly. hell, she'd guess wrong just to get their lips together. but... “i'm really sorry i…” she stammers, smile faltering, “i have a boyfriend.” 

and though he doesn't seem fazed, his expression shifts. subtle, but unmistakable. his eyes darken, the playful charm fading away. “you shouldn’t go around teasing strangers when you're all alone like this,” he says softly, “might find yourself in trouble.”

she swallows hard, "i– i'm so sorry, i wasn't trying to—" 

“it’s whatever,” he says, stepping back into the shadows, his voice a low warning. “go to your boyfriend, little red. but be careful. there are wolves out here. and not all of them are as friendly as me.” he pauses, a smirk twisting his lips. “name’s beomgyu, by the way.”

and so little red riding hood wanders on, oblivious to the truth: wolves wear many skins, each one crafted to prey on vanity, on longing, on the hollow spaces left unguarded.

they slip through shapes, feeding on weakness and hunger. but it’s in the glow of those predatory eyes that you recognize him. the unmistakable trace of his essence, the constant lurking in every form.

the wolf is as cunning as he is ferocious; once he’s had a taste of flesh then nothing else will do.

the halloween party is but a yearly excuse for yeonjun to show off how filthily rich he is and make a joke out of it. as if by opening the doors of his mansion to the rest of the mortals he lets them in on the punchline. a spectacle for the sake of being one. a big parody of himself. 

and tonight, he’s dressed as gatsby, because of course he is. the slick white suit shimmers under the bruised purple lights, like a spotlight trailing him—and it might as well be, because yeonjun is the spotlight, soaking in every second of it. 

he carries a champagne glass permanently attached to his hand, always swirling just enough liquid to keep things classy but not sober. every grin he flashes feels rehearsed, and he keeps crooning “old sport!" at anyone close enough to hear.

he's a cartoon. a well-dressed, charming caricature of wealth and tragedy, and everyone in the room knows it. and they love it. and he loves it more than anyone.

the music thumps through the house like a pulse, vibrating underfoot and inside ribcages. it’s too fast, too loud, forcing everyone to keep moving or else be swallowed up by the noise. by the chaos. bodies blend together, creating a messy tangle of limbs and sweat, grinding and swaying under the flickering strobe lights.

a chandelier overhead swings crooked, crystals throwing fractured light around, mimicking a starry sky in a thousand different colors. it's gaudy, too big for the room, and yet perfect for yeonjun’s vision. a crown fit for the king of excess. 

she sits on the edge of it all, watching. just watching. taehyun’s next to her, but he might as well be miles away.

his eyes are glued to yeonjun who leans in close, whispering something in his ear, pointing out random people in the room. every now and then, taehyun’s lips twitch into a smirk as he scans the room like he’s calculating everyone's worth, everyone’s weaknesses.

he hasn’t looked at her once. she could have been invisible.

the bitterness stings, but she pushes it down. instead, she reaches out, her fingers grazing his arm, trying to pull him back to her, even if just for a second. “hey… you wanna get out of here? somewhere quieter?”

taehyun doesn’t react at first, not even a flicker of recognition in his eyes. he’s in his own world, lost in whatever game yeonjun’s playing. 

dressed as a medieval knight, his armor shines under the lights, making him look even more untouchable. when he finally speaks, it’s almost an afterthought. “yeah, yeah. in a bit.” his words are hollow, thrown over his shoulder like loose change. “just… give us a second.”

and before she can process it, yeonjun’s turning toward them with that same cruel smile he’s been flashing all night. “god, you’re clingy,” he says, “can’t handle not being the center of attention for, what, five minutes?”

her stomach twists, heat flooding her face. “i wasn’t—” she starts, but her soft spoken words quickly fall short.

“it’s fine,” taehyun cuts in, still not looking at her, “just… chill, okay? we’ll leave soon.”

it feels like a slap. not hard, not violent. just… cold. her chest tightens. and it’s so clear now—he doesn’t care. he’s tolerating her, only and barely. her fingers clench into fists on her lap. she swallows hard, fighting back the tears that threaten to spill over.

"i’m… i’m going to the bathroom," she says, voice barely audible over the pounding music. but it doesn’t matter. taehyun doesn’t hear her. 

she drifts through the crowd like smoke, unseen, slipping between the life and color all around her, barely there.

she finds her way out to the porch, cold air cutting into her skin, sharp as the bitter edge of disappointment still lingering in her chest. she hugs her arms, the night heavy and indifferent, pressing in on her as if to make her smaller.

yeonjun’s yard sprawls below, made-up like a graveyard—plastic tombstones lurch from the soil, skeletons claw out of dirt, grinning skulls leer up at her from the fog.

her breath puffs into the night, fading just as she feels she has, every inch of her dressed up for someone who never even noticed. ridiculous fucking slut.

but then, the air thickens, a chill going down her spine. she senses him before she sees him. a crackle in the dark, the slow burn of a cigarette lighting up.

“you look… sad, little red,” barely a purr. low, smooth, a murmur from the dark that curls around her like a trap.

she startles, spinning, heart slamming up to her throat. it’s him. beomgyu. the boy from the woods.

he's lounging against a stone grave, cigarette dangling from his fingers. his face is a smirk made of shadow, his eyes glinting, almost like he’s playing at something, watching her to see if she’ll play along.

“why aren’t you inside?” she asks.

“i told you," he says, snuffing out the cigarette against the stone, his gaze never leaving her face. "i like the quiet. besides...” his smirk stretches, razor-sharp. “can’t say i’m exactly welcome in there.”

then he stands. he steps closer. that lazy, stalking pace that narrows the distance between them, each footfall a reminder of who’s in control. the night presses her back against the railing.

“you’ll freeze out here, pet,” he says, words tipped with a cruel sort of sweetness.

he’s looking at her the way a wolf might look at a lamb. like he could devour her whole, and god help her, a spark of thrill runs down her spine, sharp as a nail.

she stares, heart skittering in her chest, searching his face for something human—but his eyes are restless, ravenous. and yet they see her, see through her. why couldn’t taehyun ever look at her like that? why couldn’t he see her like beomgyu did?

“i… i want to take that bet.” she asks, trying to keep her voice steady.

his eyes spark, the faintest flicker, and she feels like she’s opened a door she can’t close. he leans in, his smirk curling wider. “what about the boyfriend?”

she holds his gaze, refuses to look away, “the boyfriend doesn't give a fuck about me.”

one of his hands is already sliding around her waist like a snake coiling around prey. the other lifts to the neckline of her dress, fingers sliding up to tug gently at the red ribbon there, toying with it.

“then guess, little red,” he murmurs, lips curling into a pout that pretends innocence, “what am i?”

and from the bottom of her being, she knows what he is. but she doesn’t dare put it into words. she decides to guess wrong.

“a kitten, maybe?” her voice comes out playful, teasing, such a pretty little fool, “with those cute fangs?”

he laughs, sharp and cocky, and she watches his tongue glide over his canines. “wrong,” he murmurs, leaning down, his grin widening. “you owe me something now, don't you?”

she smiles, heart racing as she tiptoes to reach him and his arm tightens around her waist, providing a steady anchor. her lips brush his just barely, the peck of a little bunny.

but he’s already got her, pulling her in harder, his mouth a claim, his kiss a taking. his lips are cold, but the kiss is hot, burning. his jaw tightens and loosens wide and heavy, lips pressing against hers with a force that feels like he's taking something from her—something she didn't agree to give.

she allows him to do as he pleases, giving herself to him like she's under a spell. she clings to his frame, hands gripping his shoulders, body caught up in the press of him.

her breath becomes shallow, her mind a blur. his touch, his heat, too much all at once, too intense, too—

she dares to open her eyes. just to look at him. just for a second.

and she's terrified to discover that his once brown gaze is now molten, liquid yellow, something feral staring back at her. her pulse jumps, fear clawing its way up.

she pulls back, gasping, but he’s already there, leaning in again, his mouth hovering like he wants to bite, to consume. she raises her hands, warding him off. “i… i think i should go back inside.”

"why?" he purrs, and his breath impatient and almost manic against her cheek. "scared, little red?"

her throat tightens, "i don’t really… know you, and…" she tries to step away, but his hands close around her waist like iron. trapping her.

"you don’t need to." his fingers dig into her, reminding her that her body is his to command. he draws her close, “let’s play one last game, pet. just one. what do you say?”

“what… kind of game?” she asks.

and just like that he lets go. he steps back. a twisted offering of freedom she knows can't be trusted.

“we race,” he says, voice low, almost playful. “you run. back to your house. if you make it—” his eyes gleam, hungry “—i leave you alone.”

“and if i don’t?”

beomgyu never replies. he stays silent, shadows pooling in his amber eyes.

the full moon hangs ivory, casting a ghostly glare across his face. he glances up at it, bathing in it's glow like it's medicine. then his gaze drifts back to her, that twisted, merciless smile twisting his face.

and he just starts counting down.

ten... nine... eight...

she doesn't wait for seven.

she bolts. she flies down the steps, heart pounding, her feet barely grazing the ground as she breaks into the night. gravel scrapes beneath her heels.

six.

she ditches her shoes mid-sprint, stumbling onto the cold, wet ground. the fake cemetery looms around her, fog twisting between the tombstones as adrenaline pushes her forward.

five.

the sound of him shifts, something subtle at first—a dark, guttural growl building low in his throat. her heart stutters. it’s happening.

four.

a crackle of bone, a sickening pop, a snarl splitting the quiet night. something breaking, reshaping. she hears his breath deepen, his bones stretching, snapping.

three.

a howl cuts through the night, piercing, shuddering through her bones, her skin, her soul. the sound belongs to something that is no longer human.

two.

she dares to glance over her shoulder, just once, and what she sees makes her blood run cold. a massive, shadowed figure, fur gleaming silver under the moonlight, teeth bared in a snarl that sends ice through her veins.

his eyes, the same molten yellow as before, are locked on her, brimming with a hunger that borders on savage.

she never hears the one. she just runs and runs, as fast as she can. but the wolf is faster.

carnivore incarnate, only immaculate flesh appeases him.

the trees claw at the sky. gnarled limbs jutted out, crooked talons waiting to snatch her, tear her apart, make her one with the dark.

she doesn’t run but hurtles through the blackness, branches snapping beneath her feet like brittle bones. the forest isn't just there anymore—it's aware, watching her, toying with her. she can’t stop. can’t even breathe. 

he's after her. and he's close.

“guess right, and you get to walk away unharmed.” how she regrets what she's done. she should've guessed right. should've kept her life instead of trading it for a kiss. stupid mistake. stupid choice by a foolish girl.

but just when she's about to give up she sees—between the curtain of twisted trees, the faintest flicker of light. her house. it's almost a visual illusion. something so desired it seems unreal. so near. almost there. her heart skips with hope.

she never makes it.

something cold as death clamps around her wrist, yanking her back. her body slams against a thick, gnarled oak tree, the bark biting into her back. it’s like the forest itself is starving for her, clawing at her, pulling her deeper into its hunger.

she feels red-hot, searing pain. then the wet warmth of his breath on her face. human again, if you can even call him that. all ragged, scraped and scratched. but human.

"run, run, run," he purrs, voice slick with amusement, "did you really think you could get away?"

it was never about catching her—it was always about the chase. the thrill of letting her think she could escape, just to tear that illusion apart in the final, hopeless moment.

she’s not escaping. not now. not ever.

"little red," he says with a sultry pout, his index finger tracing her jawline, “you seem so scared…”

“w-what are you going to do to me?” she asks.

she tries to wrestle, always avoiding his eyes. but each movement affects her physically, making her more aware of his body against hers, of his hands upon her.

he lowers himself, bringing his face close to her neck and breathes her in. his nose grazes her skin in a barely-there caress that makes her insides tighten. he nuzzles his head against her throat, his body stirring as if comforted by the scent. 

“you smell even better up close,” he says, his lips parting as they hover over her neck. he lets his tongue brush her skin, savoring the faint saltiness. “taste even better than i imagined."

he sends a shiver through her, a crackling thrill that races under her skin. her heart beats so swiftly that she feels as though this were the moment she had expected for years. she almost stands up on her toes to hear the rest of his words.

"you’re so beautiful, little red.” he continues. “boyfriend never noticed, but i did. i’ve been waiting for this… for so long.”

and she knows it's true. she would’ve known even if he hadn’t said a word—could’ve felt it in the way his arms cage her against the rough bark of that oak, the trembling eagerness in his body. 

he wants her, not gently, but raw and feral. and when she meets his gaze, those amber eyes glowing in the half-light, starvation licking at the edges, she feels something inside her shift. the want for this monster—this creature with fire burning in his stare, diabolically phosphorescent.

in quiet awe, she says, “what big eyes you have.”

“all the better to see you with.”

he does see her. exactly how she wants to be seen. and she wants to let him see more.

she pulls off her scarlet shawl—a flash of poppies, the bloody bloom of sacrifice. and since fear is of no use to her now, she sheds it like old skin, too. next, the blouse—soft, almost apologetic in the way it slides over her head—leaving her breasts bare, kissed by the cold silver of moonlight.

his arms find her without thinking, tight, firm, an embrace that feels like iron bands. in that grip, something stirs inside her, something she hasn't felt in so long it almost frightens her—it’s not just being wanted, but being claimed, protected, as though she belongs to him entirely.

“what big arms you have,” she breathes, her fingers tracing the hard ridges of his bicep, brute strength beneath her palms.

“all the better to hold you with,” he grins, his lips parting just enough for her to catch the white of teeth. the daggers of fangs.

her voice drops to a whisper, “what big teeth you have.”

“all the better to eat you with...”

his words slither out just before his mouth crashes onto hers, devouring. his lips, firm and greedy, drink from her, swallowing her breath, tongue invading with a force that leaves her dizzy.

his hands grip her body with the same ruthless intensity, fingers mauling her flesh like claws, leaving painful bruises blooming under his touch.

his mouth drifts lower, down to her jaw, down to her neck, teeth grazing her skin in teasing bites, until he finds the soft skin of her chest. the hardened, sensitive nipple. he sucks hard enough to leave a bruise. a mark of ownership. meant to hurt. to claim.

his tongue grazes the sensitive peak again, teasing her with the cruelty of it, dragging it out. her breath falters, and before she can choke it back, a broken whimper slips out.

“good girl,” he purrs against her skin, “such a good little pup.”

his hands aren’t far behind. they drift lower, fingers tracing the curve of her body, abandoning her chest like it’s no longer enough. they slide down her sides lingering over her stomach before slipping between her thighs. his fingers brush the garters, barely caressing the lace straps holding them tight against her legs.

“too tight, don’t you think?” his voice is quieter now, almost thoughtful. he traces the garter’s edge again, pressing into the skin where it’s biting in. “let’s see if it left a mark.”

he lifts her skirt, letting her feel every inch of skin being exposed, every second of her body laid bare to his gaze. her leg lifts instinctively, just a small movement, but enough for him to slide the garter down, peeling it away from her thigh.

and there, above the edge of her stocking, her skin gleams, reddened, damaged by the strap. he stares for a second too long, then up at her, asking for permission, knowing very well he has it already.

of course, she lets him.

his fingers skim the inside of her thigh, higher, until they’re at the edge of her panties, toying with the fabric like it’s something fragile. he grins, teasing. and she sees in his eyes, in his invigorated breath, that something violent is coming. 

his fingers press against her cunt, once, cold and firm, right against the damp fabric clinging to her skin. then comes a ruthless slap, quick, and she bites down on her lip hard enough to taste blood. then a second slap, harder, leaving her moaning, and her hips jerking toward him.

without a word, his finger slips past the soaked fabric, and makes its way inside her, slow but firm, pushing through the heat of her skin like he’s sinking into something molten, something desperate.

her back arches hard against him, her head falling onto his shoulder. the surrender comes easily—she doesn’t fight it. she opens for him, lets him push deeper, lets him take.

he stops when he’s knuckle-deep, breath hot against her ear. "you like that, little red?”

her heart slams against her chest, and the wet heat grows, slick and throbbing. she can only nod and let out a pathetic “hmph”. 

she’s already soaked, but the need—the ache—builds with every passing second, with every subtle shift of his breath, his body looming over hers like a shadow.

another finger slips in, just as slow, until he curls them inside her, pressing deep enough that she feels every inch. her entire body trembles, a soft moan slipping from her mouth.

he pulls out his fingers, but only for a second before he plunges them back in, harder this time, deeper. forcing her body to open for him. her breath hitches, and her cunt clenches around him, her walls spasming as he presses further.

“such a tiny little hole…” he says, almost to himself, a wicked grin curling his lips. 

when he withdraws, he drags it out, agonizingly slow, like he wants her to feel every ridge of his knuckles as they pull back. the emptiness is immediate, the loss of him, the loss of that pressure, unbearable. 

he holds his hand up, and her eyes widen. she can see the evidence of her need painted across his skin, shining under the dim light. 

the dampness between her thighs coats his fingers in a thick sheen. it glistens, dripping down toward his palm, the slick strings of her arousal hanging between his fingers. “so fucking wet for me,” he growls, his voice rough, edged with a sharp, dark amusement. “dripping like a little slut.”

his hand moves again, back down, fingers sliding over her trembling cunt, tracing along the wet, swollen folds. when his fingers find her clit, they barely press—just enough to make her shiver, just enough to make her whimper. the wet bud throbs under his touch, every nerve in her body firing at once.

"beomgyu p-please," she whispers, barely recognizing the sound of her own voice.

the grin that spreads across his face is demonic, a depraved satisfaction settling in the lines of his jaw. every second that passes is his to control. in one fluid motion, his hands are at the waistband of his jeans, undoing them with a pull. 

the pants slide down, peeling off like skin, and then he’s free. the hard line of him, thick, swollen, standing rigid in the faint light. it gleams, slick at the tip with precum, and her breath stumbles over itself, catching, holding, as her eyes latch onto the sight. 

his hand wraps around his cock and he strokes himself, the rhythm heavy. his size makes her breath hitch—the way she knows he’s going to stretch her, fill her completely.

the thought of him fucking into her becomes all-consuming. her thighs tremble, and she can feel the clenching heat between her legs, aching, desperate.

he moves corruptly slow, dragging the swollen tip of his cock down, sliding it through the soaked mess of her folds. it’s a tease, the wet heat of her slick coating him, and the pressure of him right there—right at her entrance—makes her head spin.

a moan escapes, soft, helpless, her lips parting as he toys with her, his cock gliding up and down, never giving her enough, always holding back just a little longer.

his eyes lock with hers, and they’re glowing, that eerie golden glow, something unholy in them, “beg for me.” 

“p-please,” she chokes out, the haze of lust clouding every rational thought. “please, beomgyu… i need you. please.”

the second the words spill from her mouth, he moves. he thrusts into her, forcing her open, the thick length of his cock splitting her apart. the stretch is instant, a burn that radiates through her core, and she gasps, her back arching as he fills her. 

the tightness of her cunt clamps around him, a desperate attempt to take him all in, and she can feel every inch of him, every ridge, every vein as he pushes deeper, harder, until he’s buried to the hilt, his cock seated deep inside her.

he grips her hips with ruthless strength, his fingers digging into her skin, sure to leave marks, bruises that will linger. he holds her there, buried deep inside her, savoring the way her body shakes, the way her walls flutter around him.

“ah, fuck…” he groans, his voice rough and guttural like he’s barely holding back from wrecking her completely.

a tremble runs through her like a live wire, raw nerves, everything sparking at once. she adjusts to the size of him inside her, body bending, flexing around the thick intrusion. she feels like she's being split open, the sharp line between pleasure and pain blurring until it’s just sensation—hot, pulsing, overwhelming. 

he starts to move, each thrust like a shock to her system. his hips grind into her with almost cruel force, ricocheting pleasure up her spine, waves crashing in her chest. 

"look at you," he growls, voice thick with satisfaction, "taking me so well. fuck, my little pet, keep making those noises for me,”

she whimpers in response as the coil of pleasure in her belly winds tighter, tighter, pulling her in. he slides in and out of her, their bodies tangled, twisting, rolling together. her cries now mount in endless spirals, loud as if he was murdering her. 

beomgyu answers each cry with a deeper thrust, pushing into her harder, his hips slamming against hers with a brutal sound. he’s lost in it, in her, in the need to possess her to annihilation. she belongs to him now, her body molded to fit his touch, pliable under his hands. 

his fingers tangle in her hair, yanking her head back, exposing the vulnerable curve of her neck, and his lips find her there, hot and hungry, biting, sucking, the sharp edge of his teeth sinking into her skin between breathless kisses.

his grip tightens as his thrusts become frantic, erratic, the control slipping from his grasp. “s-so fucking close,” he groans, his voice raw, trembling, every word a struggle against the rising tide of his release.

and with one final, savage thrust, she's the first one to shatter. 

the orgasm crashes into her with a force that steals her breath, her vision blurring, her walls clamping down around him as her climax takes over.

he escapes a low, animalistic sound. a howl that vibrates through her chest. he fucks her through her oversensitivity and his thrusts grow rougher, less controlled, his hips slamming into hers. the obscene slap of their bodies colliding fills the air, the noise of flesh on flesh, sweat-slick and raw.

he curses under his breath, his hips stuttering, his cock buried deep inside her as he finally comes, his release spilling into her, thick and hot, filling her completely, warmth flooding through her as her body trembles uncontrollably under the onslaught of pleasure.

beomgyu’s teeth sink deep into her flesh. biting hard enough to leave marks, her skin yielding under his canines, and she whimpers, too far gone to feel the pain, her body burning with pleasure, every nerve on fire, every sensation magnified as the aftershocks ripple through her, wave after wave of white-hot bliss.

his cock twitches inside her, pulsing, pumping more of his release into her, and she sobs, her body shaking as the pleasure rips through her, the intensity of it almost too much to bear. her vision blurs, white-hot flashes behind her eyes, and all she can feel is him—filling her, marking her, owning her.

with a snarl, he finally pulls back, releasing her neck, and a soft moan slips from her lips as his tongue flicks over the small wound he’s left behind, licking away the blood, soothing the sting with gentle kisses. there’s a tenderness to his touch now, strange and foreign after the brutality.

slowly, he shifts his hips, easing his cock out of her, and she whimpers at the sensation, her body so sensitive that every movement reignites the sparks of arousal beneath her skin. she feels him drag against her, the last of his release leaking out of her, warm and thick, a reminder of how thoroughly he’s claimed her.

she lies there, spent, panting, her body soft and malleable under his hands, no longer her own but something broken, something he’s molded, possessed. his slave, his ownership, growing soft under his fingers.

for a moment, everything is still. 

the only sound is their ragged breathing, their chests rising and falling in sync. his body stays pressed against hers, his warmth seeping into her, grounding her in the moment. his lips brush her ear, “you’re mine now, little red. all mine.”

she doesn’t even have the strength to respond. she’s spent, hollowed out, drained of everything, her body limp, barely held together by the weight of him, by the grip of his hands still clutching her as if she might slip away. everything feels far away, like she’s underwater.

the world fades—blurry sounds, dim lights—and then she’s weightless, cradled in his arms as he carries her like something fragile. 

there’s nothing but moonlit quiet and deathly cold in the woods. only the soft fall of his steps, paw prints in the ground. 

and little red sleeps, forever nestled in the arms of the tender wolf.

taglist 𖥧𖤣.𖡼°˖ @beomiracles @yoseicour @fairfootedflekk @bubbly-moon @izzyy-stuff and i know more people asked to be on the general taglist but i'm an idiot and i never kept track so. yeah. sorry. just ask again.

[fantasies-fairytales-n-fics]

Thranduil and Josie Pt. 150- Red

Summary: Another attack takes place. Harker and Josie face off. Josie tends to a severely injured Bash and suffers the consequences. Narcisse receives a message loud and clear. Thranduil strolls down memory lane once more and the Elvenking vows it to be his last. Legolas is deceived. The Elvenking reels in his victory.

*Warnings* Graphic depictions, blood, angst, language, violence, death

Stories Stories Stories Masterlist

Bash was scouring the borders of the dark forest with another of Narcisse's guard in the hunt for Harker, or whomever else could be involved in the recent slayings and attack on Selene. The icy blue eyed warlock deputy briefly split up from the other warlock to relieve himself when he felt a dark presence.

He turned to see a black cloaked figure standing in the distance, watching him through a bunched up group of trees. There was no time to react, for he was then being impaled through his side with what appeared to be an iron stake that tapered into a V-shaped spear.

"Hello Sebastian Narcisse. Your brother, the King, cannot help you now." a deep British male voice taunted in Bash's ear as blood spilled from his lips before he dropped to the snow covered ground and passed out.

He came to only moments later to then find himself being drug by his feet, leaving a trail of blood behind him as he stared at the sky and the back of the man's cloak covered head. Bash had many powers as Stephane did, but they were now useless in his weakened state. He had been subdued like the venomous sting of a dark forest spider, for he could feel the poison burning through his veins and all he could do was scream in pain and fear, knowing he would soon meet the same fate as the others.

"Amara!!" you shouted as you ran into the forest where you had seen the Seelie Queen watching you, but now she was gone and you feared going into the woods alone when a suspected Harker was now an immediate threat. Any forest area south of the Narcisse's castle was dark, the perfect breeding grounds for evil such as him. It also held one of the portals to Amara's hidden Kingdom.

You weren't going to risk it and figured if she had anything of importance to tell you, she wouldn't have disappeared....but why did she even show herself in the first place?

Your answer to her sudden disappearance was soon known as you heard a man's screams in the distance. Gasping, you ran off to see what was happening without even thinking of the probable imminent danger at hand.

As you came running around a large tree, you tripped over something and fell onto your hands and knees. You turned to see one of the warlock guards, bloodied and unconscious, until you checked him to realize he was dead and you didn't have the pendant to save him.

The screams sounded again, further away, so you dashed off with your knife now in hand to try and help whomever it was.

You skidded to an abrupt stop when you then saw a wide crimson blood trail as red as your scarlet cloak, that traveled off of the snowy pathway, leading into the dark forest. Were you about to meet the big bad wolf?

Quickly and cautiously, you followed it in a slow jog over the slippery foundation, your cloak flowing out behind you.

The screams were getting closer as your heart pounded faster and your steamy breaths more erratic....and then...you saw him through the trees. The big bad wolf also known as Harker. He was standing over a bloody man who you then recognized as Narcisse's brother Bash.

"Harker??!" you shouted in uncertainty to the faceless person as you stood in a firm but frantic stance, for if it was him, it would be the first time you had ever come face to face with the wicked warlock who killed your best friend Sarah.

The figure froze and then slowly lifted and turned his head in your direction. Hands that appeared to be of a man, lifted up and removed the hood, revealing the blonde haired, blue eyed Jonathan Harker you had seen in your visions and dreams.

"Well now, if it isn't little red riding hood. I've waited a long time to finally meet the young white witch who was foreseen to be of great power. A 7th daughter of a witch and a warlock, both 7th born themselves. I did have the pleasure of meeting your friend though...Sarah, although it was not so pleasureful for her. I would have stopped by to see you too, but it was not the right time."

"Get away from him or I'll...." you growled as you completely ignored all that he had just said.

"Or what witch!" Harker snapped and took a few steps towards you. "Powerful you may be, but so am I. I can huff and puff and blow your house down."

"Or this!"

An enormous blue ball of electricity formed in your hand and you cast it at him at meteoric speed.

Harker's eyes widened with no time to react as it hit him square in the chest and catapulted him through the air against a tree.

He stood up with with blood red glowing eyes and dagger like claws began to grow from his fingertips as he formed a wolf like pounce position, but before he could leap, your name was being shouted in the distance, Haldir's voice, and a vast warlock army could be seen charging through the forest.

Harker's had whipped in that direction and he growled, then zipped off at vampire speed. Just like that, he was gone.

"Jo!" Haldir shouted as he rushed up to you while a majority of the guards veered off in pursuit of Harker.

"Haldir! Help me. Bash...we must get him back to the castle so I can heal him."

Haldir gave you a swift nod and motioned to the remaining group of guards. They sped over and picked Bash up, then went running off with him as you and Haldir closely followed.

Once you were all safely inside, Bash was taken to his chambers and laid upon the ground per your command to the guards.

"All of you, go find Narcisse. He could be in danger! He is at the old dungeon on the North side of the forest. Hurry!!"

They obeyed your orders and all raced off while you quickly tended to the ailing blood soaked Bash.

"Sebastian, can you hear me? It's Josie. I am going to help you. You're going to be alright. I promise."

His face cringed up as he began to cry. "It hurts so bad. I..I want to live. I don't want to die."

"Shhh, you're not going to die. But this is going to hurt more. Try to hold still." you warned as you could smell the wreaking wolfsbane seeping out of his blood, instantly triggering your memory of Thranduil's breath when you kissed his belated lips. Harker had obviously tainted the iron spear with it, both a weakening mechanism to a warlock or witch.

You slowly and gently placed your hand over his wound and he instantly screamed out in pain as your light coursed through his body.

Bash passed out from the pain as you fell back, feeling the effects of the wolfsbane from touching his blood and breathing it in.

"Jo! Come now, we need to cleanse your skin." Haldir quickly prompted and lifted you to your feet.

The Marchwarden got you to the wash basin and aided in holding you up with one arm and washing your hands clean with his other hand.

You instantly felt nauseated and rushed to the toilet, then began throwing up what appeared to be blood. The wolfsbane that Thranduil had in his system the night he died had made you very sick too, so much so that Garrett had to use his healing power to draw it out of you, taking it into him...but this, this was far more excessive and overbearing. Harker truly wanted Bash to suffer before he killed him. God you needed Garrett so bad right now, for no one else could take this agony away. He had sacrificed so much for you and now he was just...gone.

Haldir held your hair to the side as he caressed your back, just as Thranduil always had done if you were sick. He tried to use his calming effects on you but you wouldn't let him, for you knew you needed to remain awake and focus on expelling the poison before it killed you. Sure, Haldir had the pendant, but you didn't want to die to live. If it weren't for Leean though, you would gladly surrender to the other side so you could be with your King again.

"Jo, drink the water. All of it." Haldir ordered after you had thrown up all that you could muster.

He handed you a large tin mug full of Mirkwood's healing liquid and you instantly began chugging it. The magic would be enough to get you through the remaining effects considering you drank it immediately after being infected unlike Haldir when he breathed in the poisonous Oleander soup, which required your assistance. The water had even saved Thranduill when he had been struck with Malsin's morgul blade, but it was a longer process considering it had entered directly into his blood stream. If only you could heal yourself, but that seemed to only be that of a vampire power, and even then, it depended on the injury or illness.

A servant was down the hall taking a tray of food to a guest's chambers when she came across a pool of blood leading into one of the of the rooms. As she pushed the door open, the gruesome trail led to a man's body on the floor...another of Narcisse's guards. The woman's scream for help was heard by you and Haldir.

"Help!! Someone's killed a guard!!"

Haldir and you, with his aid, went running to view the horrifying scene.

"Oh...my god...Leean!!"

You raced off, grasping the wall for support, almost falling on your face before Haldir could catch up to you. He swooped you up in his arms and continued on as other guards came in a foot stomping herd through the halls.

Once at your room, you found Lola and Leean safe and sound with Charles.

"Oh thank god. Give me my baby." you cried and went to her, only to be yanked away by Haldir.

"Jo, no. You must not touch her until your body is cleansed of the poison."

"Poison??" Charles and Lola both simultaneously asked with worried eyes.

"Charles, more have been killed. A guard, just now on the floor above and one in the forest earlier." you explained with the little breath you had in you.

"What? In the castle? How is this possible? Where is my father??"

"I...I don't know. I sent guards to go find him after he dealt with your mother. Charles...your uncle Bash was injured badly. I...I healed him and I believe he will be ok. He is resting in his chambers. I need you to go stay with him and lock the door until we find Narcisse."

"But I don't want to leav..."

"Charles GO!.....please. And don't touch him."

The young warlock hesitantly left and shortly after, you turned to Haldir in a panic.

"I...I touched you! and what about the guards that carried Bash...oh my god."

"I will be fine Jo. I'm not feeling any different for I only had contact with your clothing and I am sorry to say, but we cannot be concerned about them right now. Leean, Lola and you are my priority."

You began pacing about, chewing your fingernails as you stared at your sweet innocent sleeping baby, desperately wanting to cuddle her and scared to death for Stephane.

Minutes had passed that seemed like hours and all was silent until you heard a familiar voice shouting in the distance.

"It's Stephane!"

You flung the door open and saw him at the end of the hall with a group of guards, and then he saw you.

"Jo!!"

He came sprinting down the hall and instinctively, you jumped into his arms when he approached.

"Jo, I heard what happened and I just saw Bash. Are you alright my love??" he desperately asked as he went to stroke your face.

You gasped, remembering the poison and jumped back. "No..no don't touch me! The poison...it's in me...but I'm feeling a little better."

"Jesus Jo...you...you saved my brother. I...I have no words. Was it..Harker?"

"Yes...I saw him. We spoke...and we fought and then he took off when Haldir and your guards arrived. Stephane, one of your guards was killed, here inside the castle!"

"I know. I was just informed and..."

"Lord Narcisse!" a guard shouted as he came running up. "There are more...in the dungeon!"

"What? More of my men? Show me."

"Wait, I'm coming too! Haldir, stay with Leean and Lola please."

"Jo, you need to stay here. It is obviously not safe inside." Haldir insisted.

"I will be with Narcisse. I will be fine and I'll be right back. I promise."

"Jo, he's right. You need to stay here." Narcisse agreed with the marchwarden...for once.

"No! I'm coming with you!"

"As you wish. I know there is no reasoning with the stubborn side of you."

The guards followed you and Stephane to the dark dungeons and there on the floor lied three warlock guards, all with a dagger of some sort shoved into their hearts.

You don't know why you did it, but you went over to look at their covered faces as Narcisse stood gaping down at them in the distance, appearing to be in shock.

"S..Stephane...these are the men that helped carry Bash back to safety! My god, what is happening!??"

"Harker is killing all of my guard...and saving me for last." he mumbled as he walked over with a face full of rage and fear combined.

Your eyes sprung up to his. "But...why? All he wants is that Ashmole and no one knows where it is, so what is the point of this??? And you, why does he want you dead??"

"The point is Jo...that it's not about the damn book. This...is personal."

Thranduil sat in his chambers, wine in hand as he gazed around the dreary room filled of your memory. There wasn't a single space of the now colorless corridor that he could not envision you in. The kingly bed and pool were the most devastating to him, along with your wedding rings that he never had the chance to give back to you after he forced you to give them to him in Rivendell when he had lost his memory of you all together.

Thranduil had successfully silenced the Elvenking once more for the time being and he slowly placed his wedding ring on his forefinger, along with the ring you made out of your hair to give him when you both had renewed your vows. He held his hand out in front of him and just gazed at the artifacts as the memories of the wedding flooded his mind.

Everything had been perfect that warm spring day in Mirkwood upon a small wooden bridge that crossed a lagoon as blue as the moonstone ring upon Thranduil's finger. The birds had sang in awe of the magical union as a variety of other forest critters also came to view the private ceremony.

Thranduil closed his eyes and saw Legolas escorting you by his arm to give you away since you had no one. It pained him to know now that the son who happily gave you to him, now wanted to take you away from him.

Thranduil saw your tear filled eyes that were as moonstone match to his. He saw your trembling smile and wavy long locks of golden copper lightly blow in the floral breeze. Your sheer white dress formed to your small slender body and flowed around your bare feet as you then stood before him.

He heard his vows, word for word he could recall for he would never forget them, not even by Jareth's wicked doings upon him.

As he sat extremely relaxed in his chair, almost hypnotic while lost in his thoughts, he began to whisper his vows out loud as he saw himself placing the ring upon your finger.

“Life is a never-ending circle. Is it not fitting that a circle shall serve as a symbol of a life lived in never-ending love? By root and seed, by bud and stem. By leaf and flower and fruit, by life and love, In the name of the Seldarine, Gods of the Elven people, I, Thranduil Oropherion, take thee, Josephine, to my hand, heart, and my spirit, at the setting of the sun, and the rising of the stars. Nor shall death part us, for in the fullness of time, we shall be born again, at the same time, and in the same place as each other, and we shall meet and know and remember and love again. I love you more than my own life my Queen. And so it is written and so it ever shall be, my Queen bequeathed to me for eternity. I take you by my side as one with my soul and promise to love you always. No other shall ever have my heart.”

He saw your tears and heard your words. “Thranduil, your incredible heartfelt words….I have nothing I can say to match such creative imagination.” 

“My sweet girl. Speak of your heart to me. That is all that matters. There are no rules or expectancy of your words.” he had told you.

“From the time I was a little girl, I dreamed of a prince. I grew up watching all the fairytales on tv and read so many books. By the time I became an adult, my beliefs in that were of reality. I knew that those things weren’t real but just a dream, a wish from the heart. But somewhere in my soul I still believed. My mother, from what I can remember, would read me bedtime stories of these magical entities and she would sing me a song of a man on a great white horse that would ride down and save me, taking me to his castle far away in the heavens. As you know, I went through a very excruciating time, more so after my father died. There was a moment my mind shut down and all I could do was dream of the childhood fairytales. I read the stories night after night and cried myself to sleep calling for you, although not knowing of your true existence, but I still wanted to believe. When I ran off that night into the forest, I never imagined what happened would ever happen. That you or any of this could ever be a reality. And then it was, just like that, in the blink of an eye. I cannot believe how scared I was of you when I first saw you but yet so drawn to you. None of it seemed real. I truly believed I had died and it was some form of an afterlife that I always believed in. But when you first touched me, I knew you were real. You calmed all my fears and two things I was absolutely positive of. First, you were an Elf as you had willingly revealed that to me.. And second, I fell unconditionally and irrevocably in love with you in that moment. I have loved you every day since with every breath I take. I also love you more than my own life my King. And so it is written and so it ever shall be, my King bequeathed to me for eternity. I take you by my side as one with my soul and promise to love you always. No other shall ever have my heart.” 

Liquid pain leaked out of Thranduil's closed racing eyes as he then saw you place his ring upon his finger. It was too much.

His gleaming eyes sprung open and instantly caught sight of something else. There on his desk sat his journal, but he could not bring himself to open it, for he knew he would have to relive more pain far worse than any other. Instead, he took your moonstone pendant off of his neck that he had gifted you that night and held it in his hand, caressing the gem with his thumb.

To his surprise, it lit up like a genie bottle after a few strokes of his warm skin and there, inside the glass, he saw you again with Haldir... rubbing your back, for that was all he could see in the magnified image.

Thranduil's could hear the sound of his own teeth grind as he clenched his jaw. His pupils dilated full on black but all he could see was red.

He immediately remembered Haldir's inebriated words to you at the reception when the Lorien elf had first seen you that evening.

"Lady of light."

It wasn't the words that got under Thranduil's skin, then and even now, but the way Haldir said them and the way he looked at you. Even Legolas had nudged the marchwarden with his elbow for his loose lips and eyeballs. Haldir had always desired you and it would seem to Thranduil that his son's guardian still did, if not even more so now that the King was believed to be dead.

The Elvenking was back in a split second as he scoffed at Elrond's words, that there were others that still mourned him. It did not appear to Thranduil at all that any mourning was in place by either Haldir or you after the two visions he had recently witnessed in your moonstone.

Thranduil tugged the rings from his finger in a rage and wadded them up in his white knuckled fist, along with the pendant. He ripped the desk drawer open and flung them inside where they would remain invisible, then he slammed it shut so hard that the table teetered.

Back to the wine he went, insisting to himself that he would look upon you no more, nor think of you or the memories, but that was the Elvenking's wishes, not his.

A sly curl formed on his lips as he indulged in his wicked as him wine and then the smirk fell sinister as his darkened eyes scoured over Leean's newly set up cradle beside his bed.

"Legolas. I am not angry with you for your unannounced departure of Imladris. I know that you are listening. I can feel it. Might I suggest it would be in your best interest to not turn a deaf ear on my words."

Legolas, Aragorn, Boromir and Gimli were three days into their journey and nearing the Eastern borders of Mirkwood on Old Forest Road, planning to be at the Celduin River by the day's end. They then would rest for the night and take the River Running at dawn straight down to Dorwinion on boats that were kept in the area for elven use. They had originally planned to take the long route down the Andruin past Lorien and cut over from there, but not only did the woodland realm's path cut their time in half, it also provided them shelter from Jareth's spies, not to mention, Legolas knew the area like the back of his hand. If all went trouble free, they would arrive in Dorwinion in an little as three days.

Legolas came to a halt when he heard his father's voice and was stunned by his calm demeanor, for he expected to be harshly scolded for his disobedience.

"I am here father."

"Good. As I knew you were. I have returned to my halls with Tauriel and...the girl. What is your location?"

"We should arrive in Dorwinion come three sunrises. It is good to hear you have returned safely."

Thranduil heard it in his son's tone that he did not want to disclose his exact whereabouts and that he was less than pleased about the new Mirkwood residents.

"Legolas...my time in Rivendell and here has brought new things to light inside of me. I am in need of your assistance."

Legolas raised a brow and tilted his head in curiosity. "What is it that you ask of me?"

Now Thranduil's brow lifted as he began to pace about his chambers and carry on with his devious plan.

"I have tried to reach Josephine, but unsuccessfully. I am healed my son. Lord Elrond opened my eyes to many things I was suppressing. I have also come into the possession of Josephine's pendant and letter and it has saved me from Jareth's bindings. I am my old self again."

Legolas's other brow now raised with much skepticism.

"I would like to say that this is good news Adar, but if I recall correctly, your old self and what Jareth has turned you in to are not far from one in the same."

Thranduil knew this was not going to be easy, for Legolas knew him better than anyone.

"Yes...that would be true. Let me clarify. I am the old self I was due to the love of my Queen. I want you to inform her that I am alive and then I want you to bring her and my daughter to me."

Thranduil fought to surface as the Elvenking ceased his pacing and pursed both his eyes and lips. Thranduil didn't want you anywhere near him, nor his daughter for that matter, with the state he was in. But the darkness inside of him carried forth with a vengeance, overruling Thranduil's will.

"Father. I would be so inclined to do so..but...if this were to be true, then why is the dhampir in our Kingdom? And Tauriel as well? This will not go over well with Josie. She will not understand..."

"You question me and my words? I have given you an order." The Elvenking snapped, but then quickly realized he had to continue the agonizing charade of Thranduil's love, cringing as he did so.

"My eyes have not held sight of my daughter nor have my arms held her beauty. The same can be said for my Queen. I must reunite with them, for the ache is unbearable. They were wrongfully taken from me and I them. The dhampir remains for I know Josephine blames her and will want the satisfaction of inflicting her wrath upon her. Tauriel as well, now that Josephine knows of her indiscretions, per your doing. I will not deny my Queen that. I also have much to repair for my own misdeeds. I have reclaimed my life and my kingdom, but it is not whole without my family. That includes you as well my son. I ask now as a request and not a demand. Will you bring my family back home?"

Legolas wanted to remain cynical, but one thing in particular changed his mind. He had knew of his father's plans to reclaim his daughter, but that plan did not involve you...and now it did. It was also rare to hear his father speak from his heart. Only you had the ability to bring that out in him and it appeared that you had once more.

"I will do as you have asked and relay your words. Father...this will make Josie so incredibly happy. She has been hurt far too much. I fear her heart cannot take any more pain."

The Elvenking could read between the lines of his son's passive aggressive words warning him not to hurt you again, but he let it slide... for now. It would all be dealt with soon enough, those that have crossed him. But first, he had to make sure you and his daughter were in his grasp.

"Fear not my son. All will be right once more. So it is written and so it ever shall be. Move quickly. The winter solstice nears and will bring nothing good. Time is short."

Legolas continued on his way, not realizing the goblin king's three words that just rolled out of his father's mouth, for he was now overwhelmed with how he was going to bring all this about to you...and with knowing he had lost you for good.

The highly pleased Elvenking stood before his pool, wine in hand with his mind now closed as he spoke out loud.

"Soon my child, I will raise you as I have Legolas and you will take your rightful place in this kingdom as the Princess of Mirkwood, for you are mine and I always reclaim what is mine. I have waited for what seems an eternity. Days more are merely a blink of an eye. I am patient. I can wait."

@redeemer46

[withinkandquill]

The Lunar Chronicles Verses

The Story Begins With Once Upon A Time. Canon. This verse follows the canon timeline of the Lunar Chronicles books.

Between Lost & Found. Levana Wins AU. Following the failed Lunar Revolution, Scarlet finds herself once again held captive by Queen Levana, used this time as leverage to keep Wolf ( @mmerrakki ) in line. Only this time, she knows there’s more at stake. This time, she knows about the baby.

Little Red & The Big Bad Wolf. Fairytale AU. This verse follows a variation of the story Little Red Riding Hood in which Scarlet is a young woman living on her grandmother’s farm and Wolf is a man with a dark secret whom she meets one day in the midst of the woods.

Snow White & The Huntsman. Fairytale AU. This verse is a variation of the story Snow White & The Seven Dwarves in which Winter is a young and beautiful princess being hunted by her own guard at the behest of her wicked stepmother.

Carry On, Wayward Son. Supernatural AU. Ze'ev is a werewolf, once an alpha of a decently sized pack and now on his own, trying to escape the nature of the beast that has been thrust upon him.

[linuxgamenews]

Scarlet Hood and the Wicked Wood launches players into a branching story

Scarlet Hood and the Wicked Wood puzzle solving adventure releases in Linux gaming, Mac and Windows PC. Thanks to the development efforts Devespresso Games . Available now via Steam, GOG and Humble Store with a release discount. Scarlet Hood and the Wicked Wood is a light hearted puzzle solving adventure with many twists and turns. Developed by Devespresso, renowned for their signature hand illustrated graphics of The Coma series and Vambrace: Cold Soul. That games also features unique branching story paths with several endings. While offering a recurring time loop (think Groundhog Day). Scarlet, an aspiring singer, is caught in a powerful tornado. She wakes up in the mysterious realm of Glome. Which is also a lush, vibrant world brimming with magic, beauty, and artifacts from a bygone culture. There she meets a hapless Munchkin caravan who depend on her for guidance through the perilous Wicked Wood. Since it's guarded by the cantankerous witch, LeFaba. To help them, Scarlet must take on the mantle of the Red Witch and learn to wield the powerful Womping Stick. While she may be completely outmatched, Scarlet soon learns a recursion hex has her reliving the same day. Can she use her newfound powers? And also the knowledge gained from her previous lives to outwit LeFaba and lead the troupe to safety?

Scarlet Hood and the Wicked Wood - Release Trailer

The Deluxe Edition of Scarlet Hood and the Wicked Wood will come with two digital artbooks. One containing drawing and in-game art. The other features photography from the making of Scarlet Hood’s live action trailer. This package will also include the game’s original jazz soundtrack. The Deluxe Edition is available for $17.61 USD / 17.61 € / 14.09 GBP. Scarlet Hood and the Wicked Wood is available in nine languages. So you can expect English, Korean, German, French, Ukrainian, and Russian. As well as Simplified and Traditional Chinese, and Spanish. Scarlet Hood and the Wicked Wood is a story driven adventure game. As Scarlet, you must relive seven days of misfortune. So this means making a series of decisions to guide your Munchkin troupe. Working your way safely out of the Wicked Wood. You will also experience branching outcomes that follow your decisions. Even more, immerse yourself in a bewitching story of fantastic adventure.

Features:

Survive a story time loop.

Solve ridiculous puzzles.

Follow your own multi-path story.

Unlock multiple endings based on your decisions.

Ogle the hand drawn graphics.

Use Scarlet's witching skills to avoid detection

While Scarlet Hood and the Wicked Wood releases in Linux gaming, Mac and Windows PC. The games also discounted 15% until April 15th. The regular price is $14.99 USD / 14.99 € / 11.99 GBP. Available via Steam, GOG and Humble Store.

[baronesscmd]

@anubis-005 has graciously allowed me to continue writing her sinfully delightful Nene’s Inferno Au, so I bring you the next installment. I hope you enjoy, and thank you. And go check out all her artwork; its absolutely amazing and deserves all the love!

AH! DISCLAIMER! CONTAINS SCENES OF SEXUAL INNUENDO/REFERENCES/SITUATIONS!

 He dropped himself to the ground, pulling her flush against him. One hand curled around her arm as the other caught her chin, bringing her gaze directly to the smoldering golden stare that was attempting to burn her alive. 

Nene's face flushed as he leaned in, tongue flicking over the sharp fangs in his mouth as he tipped his head so the heat of his words brushed against her lips. 

"You won't be needing those clothes."

**

“EXCUSE ME?!!”

Nene felt her pulse stutter and pick up double-time as the demon leaned closer, claws pricking at the soft curve of her cheeks as her whole body burned from his implications. She tried to push away, tried to get as much space between her and the demon before her; he wasn’t having it. The hand on her arm slid around her waist, pinning her tight against his chest as he smirked. 

“Oh yes, my sweet little Angel; that uniform just has to go.”

She felt those claws curl into her sash and tug, and before she could even make a sound, before she could try and push herself away; he moved. His hand slid from her waist to cup her bottom and squeeze, and she shrieked as he hauled her up and over his shoulder. 

He spun on his heel, whistling as he headed deeper into the maze as she tried to get loose. Nene beat her fists against his back and kicked her legs, trying to ignore the sharp curve of his shoulder as it pressed into her belly.

Harder to ignore was the hand hooked around her knees, and the thumb that was making tiny circles against her thigh. Worse than that though, was the hand still on her butt. She struggled harder, flushing as he patted the soft curve of her cheeks. 

 "PUT ME DOWN! AND DONT TOUCH ME!"

Nene let out a sound somewhere between a whimper and a scream as the demon chucked, pinching her as he nipped at her hip through the fabric of her dress.

"My my, aren't you a feisty one! You'll be great fun. I can already tell. But you have to behave, my Angel, or your new Master will punish you.

"And while I can guarantee you will not enjoy it, I shall have a delightful time."

She continued to struggle against him until the band around her finger began to burn. She yelped and folded, her chin bouncing into his back as she curled her hands together. 

It hurt, more than anything she had ever experienced. Like something was trying to claw at her soul, to tear her open and lay her bare. She watched through her tears as the demon's tail looped around her wrists, and as suddenly as the pain had come on, it vanished.

"Ah, fun little bit about that Bond, my Angel." 

She stiffened in his grasp as he drew a claw down her thigh before his fingers crept back up to pinch her.

"You cannot disobey me."

Cold stole through Nene's limbs and she went still and silent. The demon laughed, the echo of it reverberating through her own chest in a hollow imitation of joy. The tail squeezed her wrists, and she swallowed back her tears. 

Beneath them, the grassy maze gave way to cobblestones, and she planted her hands against the small of his back as he spun around. 

"Welcome to your new home, Angel."

Nene lifted her head, biting back a gasp at the palace before her; she had not expected something so elegant of a design in Hell. It rose from a tangle of wild roses like a crouching beast, sweeping up into the skyline like nothing she had seen. 

In Heaven, the buildings had been white, and gold and silver-toned. It had felt like walking through a dream, with open shutters and friendly hellos as she passed. This was quite the opposite. 

This was a nightmare of brick, wood, bone, and glass. Shadows hung from the twisted black iron of the balconies like discarded clothes, the stained glass depicting demons in different throes of lust. 

Ivy twisted it's way up the cracks of the black stones, twisting around marble statues carved in obscene positions. She averted her eyes as they passed a set of skeletons, entwined together, forever frozen in the moment of completion. 

And the arch of the grand doorway, before the demon carrying her turned on his heel to march her under it, was carved in stark white bone with the twisted limbs and slack faces of those who had given in to the Sin of Lust.

The inside was as hauntingly beautiful as the exterior, with dark walls and black marble floors. Golden lamps spilled light in fleeting puddles, and Nene saw more than one alcove with the entwined forms of sated bodies. 

He hauled her through the dining hall, whispers rising as the few demons who happened to be awake caught sight of them. Painted mouths disappeared behind razor-tipped nails as she knew they began to gossip, and more than one pair of hungry, hooded eyes raked over her form, leaving her feeling filthy. 

Nene tried to remember the twists and turns he took so she could attempt an escape, but when they passed the same low table with a couple half-concealed beneath it again, she knew he had purposely misled her.

Each path was more confusing than the last, some with high, vaulted ceilings that the light could not illuminate, and others with low curving beams that pulled the shadows close enough to touch. 

And the paintings! Nene could look nowhere and find a patch of wall that was not hung with obscenities. Even what she assumed were flowers, painted in soft brush strokes, resembled a part of her own anatomy that the demon's hand was much too close to.

He took them down a long hallway, the doors at the beginning doing little to conceal the moans and cries of the pleasure-seekers within. She flushed and tried to raise her hands to cover her ears to block out the sounds, but the tail held her fast. 

They turned again, and this hallway was silent but for the echo of his footsteps. His hand stroked from the curve of her waist to the back of her knee before he kicked a door open. 

Nene watched with increasing panic as the heavy wooden doors fell shut behind them, lock sliding into place as her heart sank. She was trapped, completely and utterly. 

She had no time to admire the room, richly decorated in swathes of black and red satin as the demon fisted his hand in the back of her dress and dumped her onto a bed.

It took her a second, as she was consumed by tangled scarlet silk and plush pillows as dark as a raven's wing, that she was not in just any bedroom, tumbled onto a sinfully soft bed. 

Nene was sprawled across the sheets in the bed that belonged to the Lord of Lust, locked in this den of depravity and debauchery. 

She watched with horror as he set a knee to the bed and dragged her closer, pinning her beneath his lithe form as she tried to get away, even though she knew it was useless. His mouth nipped at her throat, tongue sliding up her skin before he sucked a bruise into the tender flesh as he groaned. 

"You taste like innocence and divinity. And I am going to enjoy corrupting you."

He shoved her knees apart and settled against her, and before he could side his hand from her waist to her breast or between her legs, Nene threw her arms against his chest with a cry. 

She wasn't sure who was more surprised as he was tossed back, his black eyes lightening to amber as they both watched the pale gold band form around his tail. She scrambled from beneath him, not getting far before he hooked his hand around her chubby ankle. 

He didn’t draw her back to him, which she found odd, but he seemed more preoccupied with the sharp flicks he made to try and fling the ring off. The swing of it was rather hypnotic, and Nene gasped as his claws bit into her skin as he yanked her down the bed. 

She drew her knees up as he loomed over her, and she watched as his eyes flickered rapidly over her face, as if there was something hidden in her own gaze that would explain what had happened. His mouth split into a wicked smile and he hauled her up, locking one arm around her as she thrashed in his hold as he snapped his fingers. 

Seconds later, three scantily clad demonesses hurried through the door, all wearing the same outfit of a black and white maids uniform, and dipped into deep curtsies. Nene paled as he shoved her forward; the tallest demoness, who had ripped the front of her blouse so that her very generous bust could be seen through the heart shape, caught her by the arm before she could hit the floor. 

“Dress our little Angel in her new uniform; she’ll be joining you in your duties starting today.”

Nene whipped her head around as another of the demoness’ hurried away, the ruffles of her dress barely touching the top of her thighs. He couldn’t really mean to put her in something so revealing, but the sly smile as their eyes met showed that he absolutely did. 

She shrieked as the demons pulled at her uniform, trying to bat their hands away to no avail. The taller one unsnapped the buttons on her collar as the other pulled her sash free, and she could do nothing as the third came back with her arms full of fabric. 

They stripped her quickly and efficiently, though their touch lingered on her skin like a burn. She clung to her thin shift as they tried to pull it off, even as they knocked her off balance to remove her sandals. They couldn’t take her shift, she’d be naked; no one had ever seen her naked. The demoness caught her hands in a bruising grip and bunched the fabric in her free hand.

“Let her keep it.”

They all froze, turning to the Demon Lord reclining on his bed. His grin was as filthy as it was seductive, and Nene tried to draw her hands down to cover herself as his eyes raked over her, his tail flicking lazily against his thigh. She may as well have been completely bare before him with the way his gaze smoldered. 

“Yes, M’Lord.”

She didn’t struggle as they pulled the fabric over her head and harshly tugged her braids free of the collar, didn’t comment as they shoved her into the neat black shoes, muffled a gasp as they tied the bow of her apron with enough force to nearly drive the air from her lungs.

The demons hurried out as he snapped his fingers, one poking back in briefly to drop a mop, broom, and bucket inside the door with a cruel grin before it closed behind her. Nene kept her eyes shut as he crossed the room and curled his hands around her hips. 

There was nothing she could do as he twisted her from side to side and then turned her, trailing his claws across her belly as he pressed his face into her hair. She could feel the curve of his smile against the shell of her ear before he pulled away.

“You might as well look, my little Angel. You’ll be seeing yourself in it for the foreseeable future. Unless you’d like to clean in the nude.”

Nene snapped her eyes open as heat flooded her cheeks, and was surprised to find herself in a uniform that, while still inappropriate, covered much more than she was expecting. The puffed black sleeves left her arms bare, and the dark ruffles of her skirt at least came to her knees. It was actually cute, with the frilled overskirt and pink and white heart over her chest. 

“By the grace of providence we had one in your size.”

She glared at him as he chuckled as he floated behind her, magicing the bucket, mop, and broom into her hands. Providence, as if; more like limitless lechery, she thought as he adjusted her headband. She truly was stuck here, this wasn’t just an elaborate nightmare. 

Nene jumped with a scream as his hand smacked her bottom, cleaning supplies flying as he caught her up in his arms. That damned tail wound around her leg as if it had a mind of its own as he pinned her hands to his chest so he could twirl the ring around her finger. 

“And, my little Angel; a few more things.”

He bent her nearly backward as he slid his knee between her own, the tension in her spine the only thing keeping her from sprawling back over the bed. The ring on her finger seemed to burn with the same intensity as the one tapping against her thigh.

“You will be my personal attendant; you will wake me, bring me meals if I do not dine in the hall. When I do dine in the hall, you shall serve me. Ah ah, I’m not finished,” his finger pressed against her lips to silence her protests, “You will help me bathe, and dress, and cater to any of my whims.”

His hand slid down her back to cup her bottom and bring her hips flush to his. The hard lines of his body settled against the soft curves of her own with a familiarity that made her flush. 

“And I shall allow you to keep your innocence; for now.”

The press of him to the intimate place between her thighs made her whimper and tremble, and he only smirked. 

“Also, you shall address me as “My Lord” or “Master” when you speak to me; is that clear, my Angel?”

Nene dipped her head and mumbled as he shifted against her, his tail tightening around her thigh like a demonic garter. 

“I didn’t hear you, Angel.”

She lifted her head, meeting those blazing eyes with her own as she curled her nails into his chest and watched him wince. 

���Yes, Master.”

He dipped his head, mouth a breath from hers as he pressed their bodies closer together. Heat flooded her at every point they met, and she let her eyes flicker down to his lips worriedly.

“Good girl.”

And then he was gone. 

Nene sank onto the edge of the bed as he swept his hand out and the cleaning supplies disappeared with the spilled water. He pulled open the door of his room and gestured into the hall.

“Come along, unless you wish for me to take you now.”

She shot up from the bed and hurried to the entrance, shuttering as he laid his hand on the small of her back to guide her. 

“You have much to see before you help me tonight, and I don’t tolerate tardiness.”

Nene felt despair sink into her soul as he led her back down those twisting halls. There were more demons now, peeking from doorways and corners as they headed to the servants quarters. Eyes followed her every step, and the whispers hung in the air like a death sentence. 

The Lord of Lust had an Angel for a plaything, and wouldn’t he have fun with her? 

Her master’s hand slid lower as his tail lashed against her with every step, and she bit back her tears. This was her own fault, she had gotten herself into this mess. And she would have to be the one to get herself out. There would be no Divine Intervention to save her; the Angels did not listen to the cries that rose from Hell. 

If Nene wanted to escape, she’d have to do it herself.

And @anubis-005 Thank you SOOO much for this again! It is, as always, an honor and pleasure to work with you!!! <3 :3

[wistfulcynic]

Their Way By Moonlight: Endings And Beginnings (chapter 18 plus epilogue)

SUMMARY: A new curse has fallen on Storybrooke and this time Emma is trapped inside it, deliberately separated from Henry and anyone else who might  help her break it. But what no one knows –including her own cursed self– is that she and Killian have the ability to share their dreams, and are working together in secret to find a way to break the curse and free everyone from a new and dangerous foe.

Rating: M

AO3

-

*draws deep breath* 

*slowly exhales it*

Okay. Okay. Wow. I can’t quite believe this is it. I’ve been writing this story for more than a year, and now it’s done. That is... well, it’s something. 

I have to take a moment to thank some people, people who helped me through when it felt like no one was reading this thing that was carving pieces out of my heart with each chapter, people whose support is the only reason the thing is finished, and that I’m even still writing. I was so, so close to giving it up but they wouldn’t let me and I am deeply grateful. 

Krystal, who inspired the thing in the first place and whose enthusiasm is a true joy to behold. Ro, whose wisdom and compassion are so vast and who was the shoulder I needed exactly when I needed it. Katie, who sees everything and understands it all, even the things I don’t say. Lisa with her amazing comments, Masha with her brilliant art, Alma with her generous soul. Devra, so insightful and thoughtful with her incisive analysis and appreciation of so many of the things I love. And Stephanie, my other half, I can’t believe I had to live forty whole years without you but this last one with you has made up for all of them. 

Thank you all. So, so much. 

-

a/n: this chapter is actually two chapters because it just got SO LONG, but I’m posting them together - or at least within a few hours of each other.

-

Endings: 

The sea was calm, that peculiarly soft and eerie calm exclusive to the hour just before the day breaks, when the air is cool and the light is grey and mist shimmers over gently undulating waves, and even the birds know it would be a sin to break the silence. Across that calm sea a boat glided, smooth and true and though no wind filled its sails, quite remarkably fast. It was a small boat, made of wood with a mast, two sails, and an oar, just enough to suit one man in decent comfort for a journey far longer than most would wish to undertake in such a vessel, but Oisín—for naturally the man was he—was quite extraordinary in his way and crossing a wide ocean in a tiny boat posed no challenge for him. 

He was nearing the end of his journey now; the thick mist and low light obscured his vision but not the pull in his blood that grew stronger as his homeland drew nearer. It is a pull we all feel after long days or weeks or years, decades even, spent away, but for a man who counts centuries as beads on an endless chain the call is stronger still. 

He dipped his oar into the water, skilfully steering the boat through the treacherous shoals that shielded his island from unwelcome travellers and into a cove perceptible only to those who already know it’s there. The boat slid onto the shore with the rough whisper of wood over sand and Oisín’s soul sighed in peace. He was home. 

He stepped from the boat and tugged it up more firmly onto the shore, looped its rope around a slender column of stone sticking up from the sand and when he turned around again she was there. The mist embraced her and the sun even now rising over the horizon cast a gentle light upon her face. A face as young and ancient as his own, smoothed by magic and profound with the weight of ages. He drank in the sight. 

“Niamh,” he said. 

“Is it done?” she demanded, in a voice drawn as from the strings of a harp, melodious and resonant. 

“It is done.” 

“Our debt is repaid?” 

Oisín nodded. “He will still have challenges to face, some magical, some of the more mortal variety. But never again will he face them alone. I can see the threads of his life, of their lives, woven together to the end.” 

“Not too soon an end?” 

“Fewer years remain by far than what he has already lived, but that remainder is still generous for a mortal man. And they will be happy years, on the whole. For her as well. For all of them.” He stepped closer and stroked her silken cheek. “Worry no more, my love. He is free now of the demons that so long tormented him, and he will be happy.” 

She sighed, and smiled, and leaned her head against his hand. “Then I am happy too.” 

Oisín smiled indulgently, an answering platitude ready upon his lips, then blinked in surprise when he realised that what he planned to say was true. “As am I,” he said softly. “Very happy indeed. Now let us go home.”

~

When Regina and Robin materialised in the sheriff’s station they found the others still there and awaiting their return. Killian was sitting on the edge of one of the desks with Emma nestled between his legs, his arms around her waist and his cheek on her hair. Henry and Neal were leaning side by side against the wall of Emma’s office, talking animatedly, and Zelena lay unmoving on the cot in her cell, staring blankly at the wall. Despite herself, Regina felt her heart twist at the thought of her sister’s bitter loss. 

“Hey, Regina,” Emma greeted her. “How’d it go?” 

“Exactly as I hoped. The magic is back in the Enchanted Forest and dispersed enough to be harmless. I put a temporary seal over the portal. It’s done. The curse is broken and its magic is completely gone.” 

Henry ran over and threw his arms around her. “Great work, Mom. Both moms,” he said, grinning at Emma. Regina hugged him back, tightly, but a hard knot of apprehension still sat like a stone in her chest. The curse was over but that didn’t mean her troubles were. 

“We should get to Granny’s,” said Emma, pulling out of Killian’s arms and going to stand behind Henry. “My parents are there and probably most of the rest of the town. We need to let them know what happened.” 

“Yes. Of course. Um. You go. I’d like—actually, I’d like talk to you for a minute, Killian. If I could?” 

His eyebrows rose in surprise, but he nodded. “Aye, if you wish. Emma, why don’t you take yourself and and the others straight to Granny’s and Regina and I will follow on foot. We’ll meet with you there in a few minutes.” 

“Okay.” 

“Should I not come with you?” asked Robin, giving Killian a dubious look, clearly wondering if he could be trusted to keep Regina safe from whatever he imagined might threaten her. Regina’s tense expression softened. 

“You can, though I really need to talk to Killian privately.” 

“I’ll keep my distance,” Robin promised, narrowing his eyes at Killian. “But I’ll be there.”  

Killian gave him a single brisk nod. Though it was very clearly not reciprocated he felt an odd kinship with Robin. After all, if anyone knew what it was to love a headstrong woman who took no care for her own safety it was he. Robin’s protectiveness may be unnecessary in this case but Killian understood all too well what drove it. “I’ve no objection,” he said. 

“Okay.” Emma gave Killian’s hand a squeeze. “We’ll see you in a bit then.” 

“Aye, love. See you soon.” 

~

The noise in the diner was deafening and the scene chaotic as people shouted greetings from across the room and elbowed each other aside to get to friends and loved ones, exchanging hugs and handshakes and recounting their lives under this most recent curse at the very tops of their lungs. Snow caught sight of Red behind the counter and ran to greet her while Charming shook hands with the Merry Men and assured them that while no, he couldn’t say where Robin Hood was at that precise moment he was sure to be fine and show up soon. 

Gradually the hubbub began to die down and Grumpy once again raised his voice. 

“So you gonna tell us what happened with the curse?” he demanded. “Who is Zelena and why did she cast it?” 

“Zelena is the Wicked Witch of the West, like we said before,” Charming replied. 

“Really though? Like with the flying monkeys and the big crystal ball?” said Grumpy.

“Yes. We don’t know how she cast the curse or why, but Emma does and she’ll be here soon. Until then, can we just… just….” He trailed off as a peculiar noise filled the air, a low-pitched hum like a distant swarm of insects, accompanied by a prickling sensation against his skin. Voices began to rise again, in consternation this time.  

“What is that?” growled Grumpy. 

“I don’t know.” Charming’s eyes sought Snow’s and she came to stand next to him, slipping her hand into his. 

“Feels like magic,” remarked Will Scarlet. “Magic sort of—loose in the air.” 

“It does kind of feel like that,” Snow agreed. “I’ve felt it before, when Regina does a spell.” 

The worried muttering increased, and Charming realised he was losing command of the situation. 

“Look, nobody panic—” he began, just as the door opened and Belle burst through it. 

“I don’t want to make anyone panic,” she said. “But there’s some sort of—something going on outside.” 

There was a moment of silence, then a rush of noise as everyone ran to the windows. 

“What the fuck?” snarled Grumpy. “Your Highnesses, you’d better come see this.” 

This was like nothing any of them had seen before, or rather nothing they had even not seen before. A sort of sideways tornado, a swirl of distortion in the air, invisible, perceptible only in the way it bent and refracted the light around it. It twisted and twined its way through the sky over the town, heading towards the forest. They all stood together and watched it go, every breath bated and each heartbeat quickened as they waited anxiously for something they had no idea how to articulate, and then, abruptly, it was gone. 

“Well,” said Charming heartily, attempting once again to regain control of the situation. “I guess that’s—well, that.” 

“Sure, yeah,” said Will. “Of course. But also what the bloody hell was that?” 

“I’m sure Emma can—” 

“Yes, yes, Emma can explain, so you keep saying. But where is this Emma?” 

“She’ll be here soon,” Charming insisted. “I promise. Until then, everyone please just stay calm.” 

The muttering began again as the crowd milled anxiously around and Charming was just reflecting on how much easier it was to lead a war council than a mob of disgruntled citizenry when white smoke swirled in the middle of the diner and Emma appeared, Neal and Henry at her side. 

Immediately the crowd erupted with a roar of noise, shouting questions and demanding answers. Emma ignored them, hurrying over to her parents with Henry close behind. 

“Grandma!” he cried, “Grandpa! I missed you guys!” 

Snow and Charming folded Henry into a double-hug, and Charming caught Emma’s eye over the top of his head. 

“You guys okay?” she asked. 

“We’re fine. Everyone else though...” He nodded to the crowd behind her. “Well, you remember that reassurance you were going to give everyone? Now’s the time.” 

“Right.” Emma turned to face the crowd. “Everyone!” she shouted. “Hey! Can you all please shut up for a minute!” 

The noise quieted as inquiring faces turned towards her. “Good,” she said. “Okay. Now I’m sure you all have a lot of questio—”  

“Is it true that Zelena is the Wicked Witch of the West?” shouted Grumpy. 

“Yeah and why’d she curse us?” Sneezy piped up.

“Oh and why—” 

“How do we—” 

“When can I—” 

“ENOUGH!” Charming’s voice boomed through the diner. “Let her speak!” 

Grumpy opened his mouth again then closed it with an audible click of his teeth as Emma and Charming shot him identical glares. “Yes,” said Emma, “it’s true that Zelena is the Wicked Witch of the West. She cast the curse to get revenge on her sister. Regina.” 

Shocked silence fell, broken just before it grew uncomfortable by Granny’s mutter. “The Evil Queen and the Wicked Witch are sisters? That’s a Thanksgiving dinner I would not want to be at.” Several people nodded their agreement, and then Grumpy piped up again. 

“So if Zelena cast the curse to get back at Regina, then the curse is actually kind of Regina’s fault even though she didn’t technically cast it,” he said. “Right?” 

“No,” said Emma. 

“But if it weren’t for her Zelena may never have—” 

“Okay maybe a little,” Emma interrupted, holding tight to her patience. “But the point is Regina didn’t cast the curse, and also she actually contributed a lot to breaking it.” 

“But—” 

“No going after Regina, Leroy,” said Emma firmly. “She’s on our side now and I for one would like to keep her there. She’s a lot more useful as an ally than an enemy.” 

“Fine,” grumbled Grumpy, and Emma extended her stern glare to the rest of the crowd. “Everyone got that?” she said, raising her voice so they all could hear. “No mobs. This curse was not Regina’s doing and Zelena is being dealt with. Just—let me handle it, okay?” 

No one replied. 

“Okay?” Emma repeated, louder still, and the crowd grumbled reluctant agreement.  

“Okay. Now, I know you must still have a lot of questions and so I’d like to propose that we all take a few days to calm down and think about what we want to do now that this curse is broken. I’m guessing a lot of you are going to want to change jobs, maybe find a new place to live. Think about it, and in a day or two we’ll have a town meeting to talk things out. Is that okay?” She turned inquiringly to Snow. 

“Um.” Snow looked startled. “You’re asking me?”

“Well, you are still the acting mayor,” Emma pointed out. 

“Huh. I guess I am.” She nodded. “That sounds like a good plan to me. All agreed?” 

There was a chorus of “ayes” and “yeses” and “I guess sos” and Emma smiled. “Good. Everyone go back home now, and if you see Regina remember no mobs.” She turned back to her parents with a relieved smile. “Ugh, I’m glad that’s done. I don’t know about you guys but I am dying for some onion rings and mint ice cream. Ooh, and maybe some pickles.” 

~

Regina took her time walking to Granny’s. Killian let her set the pace, clearly content to allow her what time she needed to collect her thoughts. They walked side by side with Robin trailing several feet behind, and Regina took advantage of the chance to look around. The streets were empty, and exactly the same as they had been before. The OG SB, as she imagined Henry would say. Curse 1.0. Her curse. 

 She shifted her shoulders uncomfortably, trying to ease the tension in them. 

“So,” she said. 

“So,” Killian echoed. 

“So, ah, things might get a little unpleasant. At Granny’s. After the last curse broke, the townspeople were out for blood.” 

“Your blood, I presume?” 

“Yes.” 

She could feel his eyes on her, observing with curiosity but no censure. “And you’re worried they will be again?” 

She nodded. “I’m sure Emma will tell them I wasn’t the one who cast it this time, but—well, there are going to be a lot of angry people. And confused ones.” 

“And anger and confusion are a bad combination,” Killian concluded. “Aye. That’s a recipe for mutiny.” She glanced at him and saw his mouth twist with an expression she couldn’t read. She wondered what he could be thinking of.

They walked another block before he spoke again. 

“There are likely to be people out for my blood as well,” he said. “There generally are. And Emma’s parents… well…” 

“Yeah.” 

“Dave will be wanting my head, no doubt. And likely other parts of my anatomy as well.” He raised a wry eyebrow and her mouth curved in an answering smile. “Emma will fight for me, but I doubt that will do much to appease their shock.”

Regina nodded, her throat too tight to speak. Emma will fight for me, he said, with a casual assurance that floored her. She couldn’t imagine what that must feel like, to have such complete faith in someone’s love for you. 

“Regina.” She looked up to find him watching her with an odd expression, understanding and almost kind. “You know that Emma will stand up for you as well,” he said. “As will I. For whatever that’s worth.” 

She smiled. “It’s worth a lot.” 

They walked in silence for a few moments more. “I sense that wasn’t all you wished to speak to me about,” Killian remarked. 

“No.” 

He turned to her with an encouraging look. “Well?” 

“Do you—do you think they’ll ever really accept you? Snow and Charming, I mean. Do you think they’ll ever truly see you as part of their family?” 

“I don’t know. I hope they will. But perhaps the most important thing I have learned about this whole redemption business is that you can’t change the past or control other people’s reaction to it. Perhaps they never will accept me, and I can’t force them to. All I can do is apologise for the wrongs I’ve done and make what amends I can, and try to live better in the future than I have in the past.” 

“And what if you lost Emma? You’d still try to do that? You wouldn’t—er—” 

“Fall back into darkness again?” Killian’s jaw was tight, his hand clenching and unclenching at his side. “No. I wouldn’t.” 

“How can you be sure?” 

“Emma wouldn’t want me to, and even if she were gone I couldn’t bear to disappoint her. But it’s more than just that. I hated who I became, after my brother died and then Milah… I loathed myself for all the things I was doing but that only drove me to do more, worse things. I didn’t know how to make myself stop. ‘This is who you are now,’ I remember thinking. ‘This is the only way for you to be.’ And that, as I’m quite certain you understand, my Queen, is a terrible way to feel. It’s a terrible way to live.” 

Regina swallowed hard. “Yes.”  

“I didn’t want to feel that way anymore. I didn’t want to live that life. Emma merely gave me an opportunity to walk a different path, showed me the way back to the man I had been long ago, a man I almost lost to vengeance. But I would still have wanted to be that man, for my own sake, even if Emma never came to love me.” 

He turned to her with an earnest expression, one she could imagine a young naval lieutenant may once have worn. “You have to want it for yourself, Regina, not for anyone else. If you’re trying to change for another person you’ll always resent it, and them. Do it for yourself alone. Do it because it’s the right thing to do, and because you deserve to be able to look at yourself in the mirror without shame. I’d like to think we all deserve that. Or at least a chance at achieving it.” 

"Thank you,” she said. “I’ll think about that.”  He’d given her a lot to think about. But Granny’s sign was looming less than a block away, and she still needed one thing more of him. 

“Can I ask you a favour?”

“Of course.”

“This curse of Zelena’s... I still can’t quite figure it out. It was weird in a way I’ve never even heard of before, almost like it was, I don’t know, sentient almost. Like it could act for itself.” 

“Hmmm. What makes you think that?”

Regina frowned, trying to recall the exact words that had triggered her bizarre theory. “Zelena told me once she had spies and alarms everywhere, and she certainly always seemed to know what was going on but I never saw anyone actually working for her. Or anything. I don’t think any of her, er, flying monkeys were even here.” 

“So you think she meant the curse itself was her spy.” 

“Yes. Does that sound crazy?” 

“Not at all. This curse certainly had some peculiar qualities. There was that wind, for example, the way it seemed to follow us around.” 

“Yes! And the way I always felt I was being watched.” 

“I suppose there’s no chance of getting Zelena to tell us, now she’s defeated.” 

“Probably not, though I plan to do my best to get it out of her. But who knows how long that might take, so in the meantime do you think you could write down everything you remember about it?” 

“Aye, of course I can. I’ll make a log of my observations, and Henry’s as well. His input will be more useful than mine since he knew the old Storybrooke far better than I did.” 

“That would be perfect. Thank you.” 

“You’re welcome.” 

They reached the gate of the diner and paused for a moment beneath the arch to allow Robin to catch up with them. When he did, all three exchanged a glance, and Robin took Regina’s hand. 

“Well,” said Regina. “Here goes nothing.”

~

Emma sat herself on a stool at the counter and placed her order with Granny, whose eyebrows rose almost to her hairline as she wrote it down. 

“I’ll get that for you right away,” she said with a probing look that Emma entirely failed to notice. She tapped her fingers absently on the formica countertop, smiling as she watched Henry greet all the people still in the diner and tell them eagerly all about how he had helped break the curse. 

“So,” beamed Snow, taking Emma’s hand and letting her thumb trail significantly across the ring on it. “Congratulations, you two.” She turned her head so her smile encompassed Neal as well. “I’m so glad you found each other again and can be a family.” 

“Ah,” said Emma, glancing at Neal. He gave her a shrug, and a smirk. “Um, actually—” 

“But when did it happen?” Snow was frowning now. “My memories of the curse are really foggy, but weren’t you both here the whole time? When did you have a chance to get married?” 

“Mom, it’s not actually—” 

“Who got married?” asked David, coming over to join them. “Emma?” 

“Yeah, actually I married—” 

A broad grin broke across David’s face and he took Neal’s hand and shook it enthusiastically. “Should I give you my protective father speech now, or is it too late for that?”

Considering our kid is nearly fourteen and was born when I was hardly older than he is now, I’d say yeah it’s a bit too late, Emma thought irritably. “Dad—” 

“We’ll have to have a celebration, of course,” said David, and Snow nodded eagerly. Emma felt the situation spinning rapidly out of her control and Neal, true to form, was being no help at all. 

“GUYS,” she shouted, drawing reproachful looks from Bashful and Doc, who were at the other end of the counter. “Please would you just listen.” 

Snow and David's jaws dropped in unison, and Emma seized her advantage. “I’m not married to Neal,” she told them firmly.  

“But the ring—” Snow began. 

“You’re still not listening, Mom! I’m not married to Neal.” 

Comprehension began to dawn on her parents’ faces. “But… who then…” stuttered Snow. 

Neal’s smirk deepened, and Emma took a deep breath just as the bell on the door chimed and Killian appeared, trailed by Regina and Robin. His eyes found hers immediately and she sent him a pleading look. 

“Killian,” she informed them, reaching out her hand to grasp his hook as he approached. “I’m married to Killian.”  

“What?” Snow cried. 

“Who?” asked David. 

Neal chuckled. “Hook,” he said. 

“Hook—” David frowned in confusion. 

“Aye, mate.” Killian came to stand behind Emma, his feet braced firmly on the floor and his jaw set. 

“Wait, wait…” David shook his head. “You’re married… to Hook?”

“To Killian, yes. For over a year now.” Emma slid off the stool and positioned herself in front of her husband, directly between him and her father, planting her own feet as David’s jaw worked and his eyes flashed. 

“But he’s… he’s…” 

“Don’t say ‘a pirate,’” sighed Emma. “Please. You always say that like it’s the worst thing anyone could ever be, and it’s really not.” 

“I mean, it’s not great,” said Neal. 

“And anyway he isn’t one anymore,” Emma continued, ignoring him. “He traded his ship for a magic bean so that he could find me in New York and bring back my memories, and now he owns a bookstore.” 

“He traded his ship?” 

“Yes.” 

“Really?” 

“Aye, mate, really.” 

“For Emma?” 

“There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for Emma,” said Killian, trying to infuse his words with all the weight of the emotions behind them. “I love her.” 

David’s jaw relaxed a fraction, and his glare grew slightly less murderous.

“So hold on,” Snow said, placing a soothing hand on David’s arm. “Let me try to understand this. Are you saying you two weren’t cursed?” 

“He wasn’t. I kind of was? It’s hard to explain,” said Emma. “Or, I guess not hard so much as long.” 

“We have time,” said David, crossing his arms over his chest. 

Emma sighed. “Okay. So basically, Killian learned that I was in danger in New York and he did what he had to do to get to me as soon as possible. He restored my memories and together we figured out what the danger was, and in the process we learned that Storybrooke must be back. I decided to come here to investigate. He didn’t want me to, but I insisted. As soon as I crossed the town line Zelena appeared in the middle of the road and when I swerved to avoid her I hit a tree and was knocked unconscious. While I was out she dosed me with a powder that had a similar effect to the curse. It took my memories away and gave me new ones. Of course I didn’t know any of this until I managed to break through the effects of the powder and remember everything again.” She shivered as she recalled how awful it had been, believing herself married to Walsh. Unable to remember Killian when she was awake, or even give him much useful information in their dreams. 

“It took Killian a year to make the preparations he needed so that he could get into Storybrooke undetected by any magic, and during that time he lived in New York and took care of Henry. He had to learn all about how our world works, how to drive a car and use a computer and run a business. He did that all by himself because I wasn’t there with him, because I didn’t listen when he told me to wait.” Her voice broke as tears began to flow down her cheeks. Snow moved to comfort her but Emma waved her mother away, instead leaning into Killian when he wrapped his arm around her waist. 

“He never gave up on me, though,” she continued, “and when the time was right he came to Storybrooke, helped bring my memories back again, and then figured out what we needed to do to break the curse.” 

“He took care of Henry?” David’s expression had softened to something very nearly not hostile, just on the edge of accepting. 

“Yeah, Grandpa.” The diner had gone silent as Emma told her tale, and now Henry came to stand next to Killian, pressing close against his side. “He’s my dad. Stepfather, technically, but my dad in every way that counts.” 

Killian found himself swallowing over a lump in his throat, and blinking back tears, and the next words he heard nearly ended him. 

“He saved my life,” Neal said quietly. 

Every eye in the room turned to stare, and Neal, for once, did not smirk. “In the sheriff’s station, earlier today,” he explained. “Zelena and Hook and me both pinned down, and I couldn’t breathe. Emma was headed for Hook, to save him, and he told her no, she needed to save me first. If he hadn’t done that, I’d be dead.” 

Slowly the eyes shifted their focus, fixing on Killian, who flushed bright red. “I was never in any true danger,” he said gruffly. “Some time ago, Emma placed a number of protection spells around me. They’ve proven remarkably effective against Zelena’s magic. I knew I could withstand whatever she threw at me, but Neal could not. That’s, er, why.” 

“You still saved his life,” said Snow. “Whatever the reason.” 

“Well, yes. I mean of course I did,” said Killian, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. “Why wouldn’t I?” 

David’s face was stern but his eyes warm as he uncrossed his arms and held out his hand. “Welcome to the family,” he said. “Killian.”

~

Some time later, after Emma had finished her peculiar meal and was tucked into a booth chatting with Henry and her parents, Killian found himself at the counter again, this time with a tumbler of rum and his thoughts, when Neal appeared at his side.

“So, I guess I owe you thanks,” he said. 

“I told you, I was never in any danger.” 

“Still. Thanks.” 

Killian turned to him, unsure whether to feel hurt or angry or something else entirely. “Do you really think I’d allow you to be killed if it was in my power to prevent it?” he asked. “Really?” 

Neal shrugged. “I mean, we’ve certainly had our differences. In Neverland, and then with Emma. You might want me out of the way.” 

Killian raised an eyebrow. “Because of Emma? I can assure you there is no need.” 

“Yeah, trust me man, I’ve picked up on that.” Neal accepted a beer from Granny and stared at it in silence for a moment. “You really love her, then?” 

“Aye. I do.” 

Neal nodded. “I can see it. In her too. She loves you, and so does Henry. And I—I’m really trying not to be an asshole here, but I gotta be honest. It feels like you’ve stolen my family. Again.” 

Killian took a gulp of his rum. “I do understand how it might appear that way from where you’re standing, though I promise you there was no theft involved. Either time.” He cast Neal a challenging look. “You wouldn’t ever let me tell you about your mother, in Neverland. Are you willing to listen now?” 

Neal’s mouth twisted. “Will it help?” 

“I suppose that depends on the way you listen.” 

“I don’t know if there’s any good way to listen to you talk about her.” Neal retorted. “You realise that you’ve fucked both my mother and the mother of my kid. Do you have any idea how weird that is for me?” 

“I absolutely do.” 

“It’s just—it’s gonna take me a while. And I’m not making any promises. I don’t owe you anything and you sure as hell don’t seem to feel you owe me. Did you think about me at all when you were moving in on Emma?” 

“No, I didn’t. Because I never ‘moved in on Emma’ as you so charmingly put it. And because my relationship with her has nothing to do with you.” 

“Then why did you promise to back off?” 

“At the time I didn’t know just how connected Emma and I truly are. I knew how I felt, and that there was potential that someday she might feel the same. But I also knew that putting pressure on her to make a choice between us when she’d only just rescued Henry, and when not very long before she’d thought you were dead, well, there was no way that could end well for me. And as I told you then, I intended to play a very long game if necessary.” 

“Not that long though, was it,” Neal sneered. 

“Some of the longest years of my life, being separated from her,” muttered Killian to the last drops of his rum. “Especially this last one.” He glared at Neal. “I meant that promise when I made it. But truthfully, when I learned about the way things ended between you—how you left her by choice when all I wanted was to stay by her side forever—I regretted it.”

“I didn’t—I didn’t have a choice.” 

“I understand that’s what you think. But your abandonment hurt Emma deeply in ways she still sometimes struggles with. And I find that very nearly unforgivable. If it were anyone else, Bae, anyone at all, I wouldn’t even try. But for the memory of your mother and of the boy you were, and for Henry’s sake, I am prepared to wipe the slate clean. If you will as well.”

Neal snorted. “Why should I?”

“Just because you and Emma aren’t romantically involved, that doesn’t mean you can’t be part of her life, and Henry’s. They both care about you, as do I.” 

“So you want me to be part of your sweet little family?” 

“I have wanted that for literal centuries.” 

Neal’s scowl deepened as he fiddled with a loose bit of formica on the tabletop. “Tell me about my mother,” he growled. 

 “She loved you,” Killian replied. “That’s the main thing you need to know. She thought about you every day, told me stories of you all the time. But she was not the sort of person who was really cut out to be a parent. Can you understand that? How she could love you deeply and still not be able to be a good mother to you?” 

“I—” Neal frowned, thinking of himself, and Henry. “I think maybe I can.” 

"She was desperately unhappy in the life she had before we met. I’ve done some reading on the subject and I believe she suffered from what the psychiatry of this realm calls ‘clinical depression.’ She felt hopeless to the point of despair, and though she tried to disguise it with carousing in the tavern and seeking any sort of distraction from her feelings she could find, she knew deep down that it could never be enough. She was worried that her pain would drag you down too, and she couldn’t bear to see that happen. She thought that by leaving you with a loving father who would give you the best life he could that she was giving you your best chance, and she hoped very much that when you were older she could seek you out and you might allow her a place in your life again. I’m so terribly sorry that never came to pass.” 

“So you can barely forgive me leaving Emma for her own good, but you justify my mother leaving me for mine?” Neal snarled. 

“The circumstances aren’t entirely the same, but I take your point. I understand you find it difficult to forgive your mother, and me. But make no mistake, Neal, Milah intended to escape her life, one way or the other. I offered her a preferable alternative to some of the others she was considering, and I like to think she was as happy with me as she could have been. Sometimes there are no good options available and you simply have to take the least bad one.” 

“Like I have to choose between hanging around here and watching you be happy with my ex, or leaving and not seeing Henry anymore.” 

“Aye. Like that.” 

Silence fell between them again, heavy with resentment. Neal drank deeply from his beer, his knuckles white around the handle of the mug. When it was empty he set it forcefully on the counter and turned to face Killian. 

“I’ll take that clean slate,” he said. “I’m definitely not saying I’m ready for us to be happy families, okay, and I might never be, but I’m tired of holding on to this  anger. And hey, if you can stop being angry anyone can, right?” 

Killian nodded, swallowing over the lump in his throat. “Aye. I’d say they can.” 

-

Epilogue coming soon! (like later tonight soon!)  LINK TO THE EPILOGUE

-

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[mellifera38]

Mel’s Big Fantasy Place-Name Reference

So I’ve been doing lots of D&D world-building lately and I’ve kind of been putting together lists of words to help inspire new fantasy place names. I figured I’d share. These are helpful for naming towns, regions, landforms, roads, shops, and they’re also probably useful for coming up with surnames. This is LONG. There’s plenty more under the cut including a huge list of “fantasy sounding” word-parts. Enjoy!

Towns & Kingdoms

town, borough, city, hamlet, parish, township, village, villa, domain

kingdom, empire, nation, country, county, city-state, state, province, dominion

Town Name End Words (English flavored)

-ton, -ston, -caster, -dale, -den, -field, -gate, -glen, -ham, -holm, -hurst, -bar, -boro, -by, -cross, -kirk, -meade, -moore, -ville, -wich, -bee, -burg, -cester, -don, -lea, -mer, -rose, -wall, -worth, -berg, -burgh, -chase, -ly, -lin, -mor, -mere, -pool. -port, -stead, -stow, -strath, -side, -way, -berry, -bury, -chester, -haven, -mar, -mont, -ton, -wick, -meet, -heim, -hold, -hall, -point

Buildings & Places

castle, fort, palace, fortress, garrison, lodge, estate, hold, stronghold, tower, watchtower, palace, spire, citadel, bastion, court, manor, house

altar, chapel, abbey, shrine, temple, monastery, cathedral, sanctum, crypt, catacomb, tomb

orchard, arbor, vineyard, farm, farmstead, shire, garden, ranch

plaza, district, quarter, market, courtyard, inn, stables, tavern, blacksmith, forge, mine, mill, quarry, gallows, apothecary, college, bakery, clothier, library, guild house, bath house, pleasure house, brothel, jail, prison, dungeon, cellar, basement, attic, sewer, cistern

lookout, post, tradepost, camp, outpost, hovel, hideaway, lair, nook, watch, roost, respite, retreat, hostel, holdout, redoubt, perch, refuge, haven, alcove, haunt, knell, enclave, station, caravan, exchange, conclave

port, bridge, ferry, harbor, landing, jetty, wharf, berth, footbridge, dam, beacon, lighthouse, marina, dockyard, shipyard

road, street, way, row, lane, trail, corner, crossing, gate, junction, waygate, end, wall, crossroads,  barrier, bulwark, blockade, pavilion, avenue, promenade, alley, fork, route

Time & Direction

North, South, East, West, up, down, side, rise, fall, over, under

Winter, Spring, Summer, Autumn, solstice, equanox, vernal, ever, never

dusk, dawn, dawnrise, morning, night, nightfall, evening, sundown, sunbreak, sunset

lunar, solar, sun, moon, star, eclipse

Geographical Terms

Cave, cavern, cenote, precipice, crevasse, crater, maar, chasm, ravine, trench, rift, pit

Cliff, bluff, crag, scarp, outcrop, stack, tor, falls, run, eyrie, aerie

Hill, mountain, volcano, knoll, hillock, downs, barrow, plateau, mesa, butte, pike, peak, mount, summit, horn, knob, pass, ridge, terrace, gap, point, rise, rim, range, view, vista, canyon, hogback, ledge, stair, descent

Valley, gulch, gully, vale, dale, dell, glen, hollow, grotto, gorge, bottoms, basin, knoll, combe

Meadow, grassland, field, pasture, steppe, veld, sward, lea, mead, fell, moor, moorland, heath, croft, paddock, boondock, prairie, acre, strath, heights, mount, belt

Woodlands, woods, forest, bush, bower, arbor, grove, weald, timberland, thicket, bosk, copse, coppice, underbrush, hinterland, park, jungle, rainforest, wilds, frontier, outskirts

Desert, dunes, playa, arroyo, chaparral, karst, salt flats, salt pan, oasis, spring, seep, tar pit, hot springs, fissure, steam vent, geyser, waste, wasteland, badland, brushland, dustbowl, scrubland

Ocean, sea, lake, pond, spring, tarn, mere, sluice, pool, coast, gulf, bay

Lagoon, cay, key, reef, atoll, shoal, tideland, tide flat, swale, cove, sandspit, strand, beach

Snowdrift, snowbank, permafrost, floe, hoar, rime, tundra, fjord, glacier, iceberg

River, stream, creek, brook, tributary, watersmeet, headwater, ford, levee, delta, estuary, firth, strait, narrows, channel, eddy, inlet, rapids, mouth, falls

Wetland, marsh, bog, fen, moor, bayou, glade, swamp, banks, span, wash, march, shallows, mire, morass, quag, quagmire, everglade, slough, lowland, sump, reach

Island, isle, peninsula, isthmus, bight, headland, promontory, cape, pointe, cape

More under the cut including: Color words, Animal/Monster related words, Rocks/Metals/Gems list, Foliage, People groups/types, Weather/Environment/ Elemental words, Man-made Items, Body Parts, Mechanical sounding words, a huge list of both pleasant and unpleasant Atmospheric Descriptors, and a huge list of Fantasy Word-parts.

Color Descriptions

Warm: red, scarlet, crimson, rusty, cerise, carmine, cinnabar, orange, vermillion, ochre, peach, salmon, saffron, yellow, gold, lemon, amber, pink, magenta, maroon, brown, sepia, burgundy, beige, tan, fuchsia, taupe

Cool: green, beryl, jade, evergreen, chartreuse, olive, viridian, celadon, blue, azure, navy, cerulean, turquoise, teal, cyan, cobalt, periwinkle, beryl, purple, violet, indigo, mauve, plum

Neutral: gray, silver, ashy, charcoal, slate, white, pearly, alabaster, ivory, black, ebony, jet

dark, dusky, pale, bleached, blotchy, bold, dappled, lustrous, faded, drab, milky, mottled, opaque, pastel, stained, subtle, ruddy, waxen, tinted, tinged, painted

Animal / Monster-Related Words

Bear, eagle, wolf, serpent, hawk, horse, goat, sheep, bull, raven, crow, dog, stag, rat, boar, lion, hare, owl, crane, goose, swan, otter, frog, toad, moth, bee, wasp, beetle, spider, slug, snail, leech, dragonfly, fish, trout, salmon, bass, crab, shell, dolphin, whale, eel, cod, haddock

Dragon, goblin, giant, wyvern, ghast, siren, lich, hag, ogre, wyrm, kraken

Talon, scale, tusk, hoof, mane, horn, fur, feather, fang, wing, whisker, bristle, paw, tail, beak, claw, web, quill, paw, maw, pelt, haunch, gill, fin,

Hive, honey, nest, burrow, den, hole, wallow

Rocks / Metals / Minerals

Gold, silver, brass, bronze, copper, platinum, iron, steel, tin, mithril, electrum, adamantite, quicksilver, fool’s gold, titanium

Diamond, ruby, emerald, sapphire, topaz, opal, pearl, jade, jasper, onyx, citrine, aquamarine, turquoise, lapiz lazuli, amethyst, quartz, crystal, amber, jewel

Granite, shale, marble, limestone, sandstone, slate, diorite, basalt, rhyolite, obsidian, glass

Earth, stone, clay, sand, silt, salt, mote, lode, vein, ore, ingot, coal, boulder, bedrock, crust, rubble, pebble, gravel, cobble, dust, clod, peat, muck mud, slip, loam, dirt, grit, scree, shard, flint, stalactite/mite

Trees / Plants / Flowers

Tree, ash, aspen, pine, birch, alder, willow, dogwood, oak, maple, walnut,  chestnut, cedar, mahogany, palm, beech, hickory, hemlock, cottonwood, hawthorn, sycamore, poplar, cypress, mangrove, elm, fir, spruce, yew

Branch, bough, bramble, gnarl, burr, tangle, thistle, briar, thorn, moss, bark, shrub, undergrowth, overgrowth, root, vine, bracken, reed, driftwood, coral, fern, berry, bamboo, nectar, petal, leaf, seed, clover, grass, grain, trunk, twig, canopy, cactus, weed, mushroom, fungus

Apple, olive, apricot, elderberry, coconut, sugar, rice, wheat, cotton, flax, barley, hops, onion, carrot, turnip, cabbage, squash, pumpkin, pepper

Flower, rose, lavender, lilac, jasmine, jonquil, marigold, carnelian, carnation, goldenrod, sage, wisteria, dahlia, nightshade, lily, daisy, daffodil, columbine, amaranth, crocus, buttercup, foxglove, iris, holly, hydrangea, orchid, snowdrop, hyacinth, tulip, yarrow, magnolia, honeysuckle, belladonna, lily pad, magnolia

People

Settler, Pilgrim, Pioneer, Merchant, Prospector, Maker, Surveyor, Mason, Overseer, Apprentice, Widow, Sailor, Miner, Blacksmith, Butcher, Baker, Brewer, Barkeep, Ferryman, Hangman, Gambler, Fisherman, Adventurer, Hero, Seeker, Hiker, Traveler, Crone

Mage, Magician, Summoner, Sorcerer, Wizard, Conjurer, Necromancer, 

King, Queen, Lord, Count, Baron, Guard, Soldier, Knight, Vindicator, Merchant, Crusader, Imperator, Syndicate, Vanguard, Champion, Warden, Victor, Legionnaire, Master, Archer, Footman, Gladiator, Barbarian, Captain, Commodore, 

Beggar, Hunter, Ranger, Deadman, Smuggler, Robber, Swindler, Rebel, Bootlegger, Outlaw, Pirate, Brigand, Ruffian, Highwayman, Cutpurse, Thief, Assassin

God, Goddess, Exarch, Angel, Devil, Demon, Cultist, Prophet, Hermit, Seer

council, clergy, guild, militia, choir 

Climate, Environment, & The Elements

Cold, cool, brisk, frosty, chilly, icy, freezing, frozen, frigid, glacial, bitter, biting, bleak, arctic, polar, boreal, wintry, snowy, snow, blizzarding, blizzard, sleeting, sleet, chill, frost, ice, icebound, ice cap, floe, snowblind, frostbite, coldsnap, avalanche, snowflake

Hot, sunny, humid, sweltering, steaming, boiling, sizzling, blistering, scalding, smoking, caldescent, dry, parched, arid, fallow, thirsty, melting, molten, fiery, blazing, burning, charring, glowing, searing, scorching, blasted, sun, fire, heat, flame, wildfire, bonfire, inferno, coal, ash, cinder, ember, flare, pyre, tinder, kindling, aflame, alight, ablaze, lava, magma, slag,

Wet, damp, dank, soggy, sodden, soaked, drenched, dripping, sopping, briny, murky, rain, storm, hail, drizzle, sprinkle, downpour, deluge, squall, water, cloud, fog, mist, dew, puddle, pool, current, whirlpool, deep, depths, tide, waves, whitewater, waterfall, tidal wave, flow, flood, leak, drain

Wind, breeze, gust, billow, gail, draft, waft, zephyr, still, airy, clear, smokey, tempest, tempestuous, windswept, aerial, lofty, torrid, turbulent, nebulous, tradewind, thunder, lightning, spark, cyclone, tornado, whirlwind, hurricane, typhoon

Man-made Item Words

Furnace, forge, anvil, vault, strap, strip, whetstone, brick, sword, blade, axe, dagger, shield, buckler, morningstar, bow, quiver, arrow, polearm, flail, staff, stave, sheath, hilt, hammer, knife, helm, mantle, banner, pauldron, chainmail, mace, dart, cutlass, canon, needle, cowl, belt,  buckle, bandana, goggles, hood, boot, heel, spindle, spool, thread, sweater, skirt, bonnet, apron, leather, hide, plate, tunic, vest, satin, silk, wool, velvet, lace, corset, stocking, binding

Plow, scythe, (wheel) barrow, saddle, harrow, brand, collar, whip, leash, lead, bridle, stirrup, wheel, straw, stall, barn, hay, bale, pitchfork, well, log, saw, lumber, sod, thatch, mortar, brick, cement, concrete, pitch, pillar, window, fountain, door, cage, spoke, pole, table, bench, plank, board

Candle, torch, cradle, broom, lamp, lantern, clock, bell, lock, hook, trunk, looking glass, spyglass, bottle, vase, locket, locker, key, handle, rope, knot, sack, pocket, pouch, manacle, chain, stake, coffin, fan. cauldron, kettle, pot, bowl, pestle, oven, ladle, spoon, font, wand, potion, elixir, draught, portal, book, tome, scroll, word, manuscript, letter, message, grimoire, map, ink, quill, pen, cards, dice

Coin, coronet, crown, circlet, scepter, treasure, riches, scales, pie, tart, loaf, biscuit, custard, caramel, pudding, porridge, stew, bread, tea, gravy, gristle, spice, lute, lyre, harp, drum, rouge, powder, perfume, brush

bilge, stern, pier, sail, anchor, mast, dock, deck, flag, ship, boat, canoe, barge, wagon, sled, carriage, buggy, cart

Wine, brandy, whiskey, ale, moonshine, gin, cider, rum, grog, beer, brew, goblet, flagon, flask, cask, tankard, stein, mug, barrel, stock, wort, malt

Body Parts

Head, throat, finger, foot, hand, neck, shoulder, rib, jaw, eye, lips, bosom

Skull, spine, bone, tooth, heart, blood, tears, gut, beard

Mechanical-Sounding Words

cog, fuse, sprocket, wrench, screw, nail, bolt, lever, pulley, spanner, gear, spring, shaft, switch, button, cast, pipe, plug, dial, meter, nozzle, cord, brake, gauge, coil, oil, signal, wire, fluke, staple, clamp, bolt, nut, bulb, patch, pump, cable, socket

torque, force, sonic, spark, fizzle, thermal, beam, laser, steam, buzz, mega, mecha, electro, telsa, power, flicker, charge, current, flow, tinker

Atmospheric Words

Unpleasant, Dangerous, Threatening

(nouns) death, fury, battle, scar, shadow, razor, nightmare, wrath, bone, splinter, peril, war, riptide, strife, reckoning, sorrow, terror, deadwood, nether, venom, grime, rage, void, conquest, pain, folly, revenge, horrid, mirk, shear, fathom, frenzy, corpselight/marshlight, reaper, gloom, doom, torment, torture, spite, grizzled, sludge, refuse, spore, carrion, fear, pyre, funeral, shade, beast, witch, grip, legion, downfall, ruin, plague, woe, bane, horde, acid, fell, grief, corpse, mildew, mold, miter, dirge

(adjectives) dead, jagged, decrepit, fallen, darkened, blackened, dire, grim, feral, wild, broken, desolate, mad, lost, under, stagnant, blistered, derelict, forlorn, unbound, sunken, fallow, shriveled, wayward, bleak, low, weathered, fungal, last, brittle, sleepy, -strewn, dusky, deserted, empty, barren, vacant, forsaken, bare, bereft, stranded, solitary, abandoned, discarded, forgotten, deep, abysmal, bottomless, buried, fathomless,unfathomable, diseased, plagued, virulent, noxious, venomous, toxic, fetid, revolting, putrid, rancid, foul, squalid, sullied, vile, blighted, vicious, ferocious, dangerous, savage, cavernous, vast, yawning, chasmal, echoing, dim, dingy, gloomy, inky, lurid, shaded, shadowy, somber, sunless, tenebrous, unlit, veiled, hellish, accursed, sulfurous, damned, infernal, condemned, doomed, wicked, sinister, dread, unending, spectral, ghostly, haunted, eldritch, unknown, weary, silent, hungry, cloven, acidic

(verb/adverbs): wither (withering / withered), skulk (skulking), whisper, skitter, chitter, sting, slither, writhe, gape, screech, scream, howl, lurk, roil, twist, shift, swarm, spawn, fester, bleed, howl, shudder, shrivel, devour, swirl, maul, trip, smother, weep, shatter, ruin, curse, ravage, hush, rot, drown, sunder, blister, warp, fracture, die, shroud, fall, surge, shiver, roar, thunder, smolder, break, silt, slide, lash, mourn, crush, wail, decay, crumble, erode, decline, reek, lament, taint, corrupt, defile, poison, infect, shun, sigh, sever, crawl, starve, grind, cut, wound, bruise, maim, stab, bludgeon, rust, mutilate, tremble, stumble, fumble, clank, clang

Pleasant, Safe, Neutral

(nouns) spirit, luck, soul, oracle, song, sky, smile, rune, obelisk, cloud, timber, valor, triumph, rest, dream, thrall, might, valiance, glory, mirror, life, hope, oath, serenity, sojourn, god, hearth, crown, throne, crest, guard, rise, ascent, circle, ring, twin, vigil, breath, new, whistle, grasp, snap, fringe, threshold, arch, cleft, bend, home, fruit, wilds, echo, moonlight, sunlight, starlight, splendor, vigilance, honor, memory, fortune, aurora, paradise, caress

(adjectives) gentle, pleasant, prosperous, peaceful, sweet, good, great, mild, grand, topic, lush, wild, abundant, verdant, sylvan, vital, florid, bosky, callow, verdurous, lucious, fertile, spellbound, captivating, mystical, hidden, arcane, clandestine, esoteric, covert, cryptic, runic, otherworldly, touched, still, fair, deep, quiet, bright, sheer, tranquil, ancient, light, far, -wrought, tidal, royal, shaded, swift, true, free, high, vibrant, pure, argent, hibernal, ascendant, halcyon, silken, bountiful, gilded, colossal, massive, stout, elder, -bourne, furrowed, happy, merry, -bound, loud, lit, silk, quiet, bright, luminous, shining, burnished, glossy, brilliant, lambent, lucent, lustrous, radiant, resplendent, vivid, vibrant, illuminated, silvery, limpid, sunlit, divine, sacred, holy, eternal, celestial, spiritual, almighty, anointed, consecrated, exalted, hallowed, sanctified, ambrosial, beatific, blissful, demure, naked, bare, ample, coy,  deific, godly, omnipotent, omnipresent, rapturous, sacramental, sacrosanct, blessed, majestic, iridescent, glowing, overgrown, dense, hard, timeless, sly, scatter, everlasting, full, half, first, last

(verb/adverbs) arch (arching / arched), wink (winking), sing, nestle, graze, stroll, roll, flourish, bloom, bud, burgeon, live, dawn, hide, dawn, run, pray, wake, laugh, wake, glimmer, glitter, drift, sleep, tumble, bind, arch, blush, grin, glister, beam, meander, wind, widen, charm, bewitch, enthrall, entrance, enchant, allure, beguile, glitter, shimmer, sparkle twinkle, crest, quiver, slumber, herald, shelter, leap, click, climb, scuttle, dig, barter, chant, hum, chime, kiss, flirt, tempt, tease, play, seduce

Generic “Fantasy-Sounding” Word Parts

A - D

aaz, ada, adaer, adal, adar, adbar, adir, ae, ael, aer, aern, aeron, aeryeon, agar, agis, aglar, agron, ahar, akan, akyl, al, alam, alan, alaor, ald, alea, ali, alir, allyn, alm, alon, alor, altar, altum, aluar, alys, amar, amaz, ame, ammen, amir, amol, amn, amus, anar, andor, ang, ankh, ar, ara, aram, arc, arg, arian, arkh, arla, arlith, arn, arond, arthus, arum, arvien, ary, asha, ashyr, ask, assur, aster, astra, ath, athor, athra, athryn, atol, au, auga, aum, auroch, aven, az, azar, baal, bae, bael, bak, bal, balor, ban, bar, bara, barr, batol, batar, basir, basha, batyr, bel, belph, belu, ben, beo, bere, berren, berun, besil, bezan, bhaer, bhal, blask, blis, blod, bor, boraz, bos, bran, brath, braun, breon, bri, bry, bul, bur, byl, caer, cal, calan, cara, cassa, cath, cela, cen, cenar, cerul, chalar, cham, chion, cimar, clo, coram, corel, corman, crim, crom, daar, dach, dae, dago, dagol, dahar, dala, dalar, dalin, dam, danas, daneth, dannar, dar, darian,  darath, darm, darma, darro, das, dasa, dasha, dath, del, delia, delimm, dellyn, delmar, delo, den, dess, dever, dhaer, dhas, dhaz, dhed, dhin, din, dine, diar, dien, div, djer, dlyn, dol, dolan, doon, dora, doril, doun, dral, dranor, drasil, dren, drian, drien, drin, drov, druar, drud, duald, duatha, duir, dul, dulth, dun, durth, dyra, dyver,

E - H

ea, eber, eden, edluk, egan, eiel, eilean, ejen, elath, eld, eldor, eldra, elith emar, ellesar, eltar, eltaran, elth, eltur, elyth, emen, empra, emril, emvor, ena, endra, enthor, erad, erai, ere, eriel, erith, erl, eron, erre, eryn, esk, esmel, espar, estria, eta, ethel, eval, ezro, ezan, ezune, ezil, fael, faelar, faern, falk, falak, farak, faril, farla, fel, fen, fenris, fer, fet, fin, finar, forel, folgun, ful, fulk, fur, fyra, fallon, gael, gach, gabir, gadath, gal, galar, gana, gar, garth, garon, garok, garne, gath, geir, gelden, geren,  geron, ghal, ghallar, ghast, ghel, ghom, ghon, gith, glae, glander, glar, glym, gol, goll, gollo, goloth, gorot, gost, goth, graeve, gran, grimm, grist, grom, grosh, grun, grym, gual, guil, guir, gulth, gulur, gur, gurnth, gwaer, haa, hael, haer, hadar, hadel, hakla, hala, hald, halana, halid, hallar, halon, halrua, halus, halvan, hamar, hanar, hanyl, haor, hara, haren, haresk, harmun, harrokh, harrow, haspur, haza, hazuth, heber,  hela, helve, hem, hen, herath, hesper, heth, hethar, hind, hisari, hjaa, hlath, hlond, hluth, hoarth, holtar, horo, hotun, hrag, hrakh, hroth, hull, hyak, hyrza

I - M

iibra, ilth, ilus, ilira, iman, imar, imas, imb, imir, immer, immil, imne, impil, ingdal, innar, ir, iriae, iril, irith, irk, irul, isha, istis, isil, itala, ith, ithal, itka, jada, jae, jaeda, jahaka, jala, jarra, jaro, jath, jenda, jhaamm, jhothm, jinn, jinth, jyn, kado, kah, kal, kalif, kam, kana, kara, karg, kars, karth, kasp, katla, kaul, kazar, kazr, kela, kelem, kerym, keth, keva, kez, kezan, khaer, khal, khama, khaz, khara, khed, khel, khol, khur, kil, kor, korvan, koll, kos, kir, kra, kul, kulda, kund, kyne, lae, laen, lag, lan, lann, lanar, lantar, lapal, lar, laran, lareth, lark, lath, lauth, lav, lavur, lazar, leih, leshyr, leth, lhaza, lhuven, liad, liam, liard, lim, lin, lirn, lisk, listra, lith, liya, llair, llor, lok, lolth, loran, lorkh, lorn, loth, lothen, luen, luir, luk, lund, lur, luth, lyndus, lyra, lyth, maal, madrasm maera, maer, maerim, maes, mag, magra, mahand, mal, malar, mald, maldo, mar, mara, mark, marl, maru, maruk, meir, melish, memnon, mer, metar, methi, mhil, mina, mir, miram, mirk, mista, mith, moander, mok, modir, modan, mon, monn, mor, more, morel, moril, morn, moro, morrow, morth, mort, morum, morven, muar, mul, mydra, myr, myra, myst

N - S

naar, nadyra, naedyr, naga, najar, nal, naal, nalir, nar, naruk, narbond, narlith, narzul, nasaq, nashkel, natar, nath, natha, neir, neth, nether, nhall, nikh, nil, nilith, noan, nolvurm nonthal, norda, noro, novul, nul, nur, nus, nyan, nyth, ober, odra, oghr, okoth, olleth, olodel, omgar, ondath, onthril, ordul, orish, oroch, orgra, orlim, ormath, ornar, orntath, oroch, orth, orva, oryn, orzo, ostel, ostor, ostrav, othea, ovar, ozod, ozul, palan, palad, pae, peldan, pern, perris, perim, pele, pen, phail, phanda, phara, phen, phendra, pila, pinn, pora, puril, pur, pyra, qadim, quar, quel, ques, quil, raah, rael, ran, ranna, rassil, rak, rald, rassa, reddan, reith, relur, ren, rendril, resil, reska, reth, reven, revar, rhy, rhynn, ria, rian, rin, ris, rissian, rona, roch, rorn, rora, rotha, rual, ruar, ruhal, ruil, ruk, runn, rusk, ryn, saa, saar, saal, sabal, samar, samrin, sankh, sar, sarg, sarguth, sarin, sarlan, sel, seld, sember, semkh, sen, sendrin, septa, senta, seros, shaar, shad, shadra, shae, shaen, shaera, shak, shalan, sham, shamath, shan, shana, sharan, shayl, shemar, shere, shor, shul, shyll, shyr, sidur, sil, silvan, sim, sintar, sirem, skar, skell, skur, skyr, sokol, solan, sola, somra, sor, ssin, stel, strill, suldan, sulk, sunda, sur, surkh, suth, syl, sylph, sylune, syndra, syth

T - Z

taak, taar, taer, tah, tak, tala, talag, talar, talas, talath, tammar, tanar, tanil, tar, tara, taran, tarl, tarn, tasha, tath, tavil, telar, teld, telf, telos, tempe, tethy, tezir, thaar, thaer, thal, thalag, thalas, thalan, thalar, thamor, thander, thangol, thar, thay, thazal, theer, theim, thelon, thera, thendi, theril, thiir, thil, thild, thimir, thommar, thon, thoon, thor, thran, thrann, threl, thril, thrul, thryn, thuk, thultan, thume, thun, thy, thyn, thyr, tir, tiras, tirum, tohre, tol, tolar, tolir,  tolzrin, tor, tormel, tormir, traal, triel, trith, tsath, tsur, tul, tur, turiver, turth, tymor, tyr, uder, udar, ugoth, uhr, ukh, ukir, uker, usten, ulgarth, ulgoth, ultir, ulur, umar, umath, umber, unara, undro, undu, untha, upir, ur, ursa, ursol, uron, uth, uthen, uz, van, vaar, vaelan, vaer, vaern, val valan, valash, vali, valt, vandan, vanede, vanrak, var, varyth, vassa, vastar, vaunt, vay, vel, velar, velen, velius, vell, velta, ven, veren, vern, vesper, vilar, vilhon, vintor, vir, vira, virdin, volo, volun, von, voon, vor, voro, vos, vosir, vosal, vund, war, wara, whel, wol, wynn, wyr, wyrm, xer, xul, xen, xian, yad, yag, yal, yar, yath, yeon, yhal, yir, yirar, yuir, yul, yur, zail, zala, zalhar, zan, zanda, zar, zalar, zarach, zaru, zash, zashu, zemur, zhent, zim, ziram, zindala, zindar, zoun, zul, zurr, zuth, zuu, zym

A lot of places are named after historical events, battles, and people, so keep that in mind. God/Goddess names tied to your world also work well. Places are also often named after things that the area is known for, like Georgia being known for its peaches.

My brain was fried by the end of this so feel free to add more!

I hope you find this reference helpful and good luck world-building!

-Mel

[linuxgamenews]

Scarlet Hood and the Wicked Wood now has a full launch date

Scarlet Hood and the Wicked Wood to get a full release later on Linux, Mac and Windows PC. Thanks for developer Devespresso Games and publisher Headup. Which is an interesting twitch for the Steam debut. The developer of popular The Coma series, Devespresso Games, is announcing the new official release date. Which is also considered a full launch for Scarlet Hood and the Wicked Wood. Originally scheduled to launch in February on Steam Early Access. Scarlet Hood and the Wicked Wood will now be a full release coming on April 8th in its entirety. Rather than several sections unveiled over time as the previous post. The game will launch in seven languages. Including English, Korean, German, French, Russian, Simplified Chinese, and Spanish. For those who are disappointed with the Scarlet Hood and the Wicked Wood delay. Just head over to the Steam Game Festival (February 3 - 9) for the demo. So you can be the first to play the game on Linux using Proton 5.13-5. Which also runs really well for a game demo. Especially for a Unity 3D title. And, check out the trailer below.

Scarlet Hood and the Wicked Wood - Gameplay Trailer

Gameplay features Devespresso’s signature manhwa-style with hand illustrated graphics by Minho Kim. There is also a non-linear story written by T.L. Riven. As a result, Scarlet Hood and the Wicked Wood is a story adventure within a vibrant Oz-esque fantasy world. Featuring a recurring time loop (think Groundhog Day) with unique branching story paths and multiple endings. Scarlet, the protagonist and a diva in the making. Then she awakens in the realm of Glome after being flung by a rogue tornado. Discovers an electrifying world brimming with magic, beauty, and artifacts from a mysterious bygone culture. Her strange journey begins after taking up the mantle of the Red Witch. While leading a troupe of Munchkins through the forbidden Wicked Wood. The fledgling witch soon discovers a Recursion Hex has her reliving the same day. However, each death presents new opportunities to branch the adventure in exciting new ways. The only way to get through the wood is by solving puzzles that require logic. Or by finding clues that are available across the wood. Scarlet Hood and the Wicked Wood is a story driven adventure game. As Scarlet, you must relive seven days of misfortune. All while making a series of decisions to guide your Munchkin troupe safely out of the Wicked Wood. Experience branching outcomes based on your decisions. Most importantly, immerse yourself in a bewitching story of a fantastic adventure!

Features:

Survive a narrative time-loop.

Solve ridiculous puzzles.

Follow your own multi-path story.

Unlock multiple endings based on your decisions.

Ogle the hand-illustrated graphics.

Use Scarlet's witching skills to avoid detection.

Scarlet Hood and the Wicked Wood is due to get a full release later on Linux, Mac and Windows PC. Besides the Demo, you can also Wishlist the game on Steam. Also, feel free to join the Headup Discord server.

[alexsfictionaddiction]

‘Life itself is the most wonderful fairytale of all.’

If you missed my announcement post last week, you may not know that I am a co-host of a wonderful readathon that will be taking place from 11th-18th August. My co-hosts are BookTubers Sam, Becky, Erica and Jordan and I would love if you could subscribe to all four of their channels. They are all fantastic creators and their videos deserve a LOT of love!

Today’s post aims to give you some inspiration for your FairytaleAThon TBR. The challenges for this round are in the above image and I’ve selected a few books that fit each one, which you’ll hopefully be interested in. FairytaleAThon encompasses original fairytales, myths, folktales and retellings of them so the possibilties are almost endless! Here are my very best recommendations:

1. THUMBELINA: Read a fairytale or retelling under 250 pages.

ELLA ENCHANTED BY GAIL CARSON LEVINE: 240 pages.

This very funny and sweet retelling of Cinderella is perhaps better known as a cute Anne Hathaway film but the source material is definitely worth the read. It follows Ella, who was given the curse of obedience by a fairy, when she was a baby. This means that she has to do anything that anyone tells her -fight monsters, let down her friends and even deny that she’s in love with the prince. However, there is a beautiful feminist resolution that is sure to delight modern fairytale lovers!

THE SNOW QUEEN BY HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN: 96 pages.

The story that inspired Frozen is over 200 years old but this beautiful new edition from independent publishing house Pushkin is worth picking up for the coverlust alone! The original tale is quite different to Disney’s version but it is still an epic story of love and loyalty in the harsh landscape of the snowy North. When a magic mirror breaks and curses Kay to be blind to all of the good in the world, he is taken by the Snow Queen and locked in her ice palace. It’s up to his friend Gerda to trek across the icy plains and rescue him and his frozen heart.

THE BROKEN SWORD BY POUL ANDERSON: 237 pages.

Inspired by Norse mythology, The Broken Sword is a dark high fantasy that has somehow been packed into just over 200 pages. Skafloc is a human boy who has been raised by elves amidst their war with the trolls. The elves require the use of the sword Tyrfing, which the mighty Thor broke in order to stop it destroying Yggdrasil -the tree that brings the earth, heavens and underworld together. Only the giant Bolverk can fix it and it’s Skafloc’s job to persuade him. As well as this huge undertaking, Skafloc also needs to face his dark changeling self! This is ideal for Tolkien fans who need a quick whimsical adventure in a strange land.

THE WILD SWANS BY HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN: 64 pages.

I’m aware that this is the second Christian Andersen Pushkin edition in this post but LOOK AT THEM! The Wild Swans is a little-known story about a princess whose 11 brothers are turned into swans by their evil stepmother. Despite being determined to break the curse, the stakes are high and huge sacrifices will need to be made to reunite the siblings. It’s a heartbreaking story about familial love and loyalty.

2. GENTLE GIANTS: Read a fairytale or retelling over 500 pages.

CRESS BY MARISSA MEYER: 560 pages.

This sci-fi retelling of Rapunzel is actually the third book in the Lunar Chronicles series. Although each book is a retelling of a different fairytale, the characters do overlap and therefore it is best to read them in order. The good news is that you have plenty of time before the readathon to read both preceding books -Cinder and Scarlet. The series is incredibly unique, quirky and funny with some truly shipworthy romances and madcap adventure.

COMPLETE FAIRY TALES BY BROTHERS GRIMM: 1019 pages.

Ok, so this may be cheating a little BUT what would FairytaleAThon be, if you didn’t dip into some classic original stories at some point? This Penguin Vintage Classics edition of the tales collected by the Brothers Grimm is a simple yet beautiful chunk of a book that I believe should be a staple in any fairytale lover’s library. Featuring the original gruesome versions of classics such as Hansel and Gretel, Little Red Riding Hood, Twelve Dancing Princesses and so many more, there is bound to be more than a few of these 279 twisted, disturbing stories that you love!

CHILDREN OF BLOOD AND BONE BY TOMI ADEYEMI: 544 pages.

It was one of the biggest books of last year and its sequel is on its way next year. Children of Blood and Bone is inspired by the Orisha (deities) of West African mythology. It follows Zelie, a young girl with magical powers in a world where magic has been taken away and people like her are hunted by a tyrannical king. However now she is on a quest to avenge her dead mother and restore magic to her homeland. Followed by her brother Tzain, a rogue princess Amari and enemy prince Inan, this is a truly unique YA fantasy that I found completely unputdownable.

WICKED BY GREGORY MAGUIRE: 512 pages.

This prequel to The Wizard of Oz is best known as a hit West End and Broadway musical but the source material is also a fantastic read. Elphaba has been an outcast and persecuted all her life because of her green skin and this doesn’t change when she starts at Shiz University, where she meets the beautiful, queen bee Galinda. After a reluctant start, they soon form a friendship and band together with Munchkin boy Boq and quiet Vinkus prince Fiyero to put the injustices of their world to rights. Spanning over years of Elphaba’s life, Wicked features forbidden love, high-stake drama and challenges your idea of what evil really is.

3. IF THE SHOE FITS: Read any fairytale or retelling on your TBR.

Of course you should use your own TBR for this challenge but I’ve chosen some popular releases over the last couple of years that just might be on your TBR anyway.

CIRCE BY MADELINE MILLER

Not only is it a beautiful book but the story inside is truly captivating, bewitching and heartbreaking. This is a feminist retelling of the Greek myth of Circe, the sorceress living alone on the island of Aiaia with a talent for potion-making and a penchant for turning sailors into animals. In this version, Circe is banished to Aiaia by Zeus when he feels threatened by her unique brand of magic. There she develops her craft, tames the animals, grows herbs and even encounters travellers such as Daedelus, Icarus and Odysseus. After angering both mortals and gods, she needs to decide where she truly belongs to protect the thing she loves most. Madeline Miller is a gorgeous writer and Circe is a masterpiece.

THE HAZEL WOOD BY MELISSA ALBERT

Although not a fairytale or a retelling, The Hazel Wood has many fairytale elements and therefore, I feel it more than qualifies for FairytaleAThon. It follows 17-year-old Alice who has spent most of her life moving around with her mother because bad luck and disaster seems to follow them around. Alice’s grandmother is the author of a book of dark fairytales set in mysterious Hinterland. When her grandmother dies and her mother goes missing, Alice has almost nothing to go on. She teams up with classmate Ellery Finch, who also happens to be a superfan of her grandmother’s stories, to find her mother and discover the secrets of her grandmother’s creation. It’s the perfect remedy if you’re craving some fast-paced, whimsical action. THE SILENCE OF THE GIRLS BY PAT BARKER

Ok so it’s ANOTHER Greek myth retelling but this is another book that should really be on your radar.  The Silence of the Girls tells the story of the women affected by the Trojan war, who have been largely ignored by the original myth. It focuses primarily on Briseis, a Trojan queen who became a concubine to Achilles after he murdered her husband and brothers. Her life in the Greek camp is a world away from the one she led in Troy and she is now a slave to the army. When commander Agamemnon wishes to claim Briseis as his own prize, she finds her fate entirely at the mercy of the two most powerful men of Greece as the war wages on. It’s an engaging accessible version of the story with some lovely female friendships, intricate and illicit romances and an ending that will definitely touch your heart.

GEEKERELLA BY ASHLEY POSTON

This quirky, nerdy YA romance is enormous fun to read! Vegan food-truck worker Elle is a superfan of hit sci-fi series Starfield, a love she shared with her late father. When a cosplay competition is announced to celebrate the upcoming movie reboot, Elle has to enter. The prize is a ticket to the Cosplay Ball at the fandom’s convention ExcelsionCon and a meet and greet with the new Prince Carmindor. However, when it’s announced that the role will be played by teen idol Darien Freeman (who her stepsisters are obsessed with) Elle isn’t hopeful he’ll do the part justice because surely a pretty boy actor doesn’t know the first thing about Starfield, right? Told through the viewpoints of both Elle and Darien via alternating chapters, it’s full of dramatic irony and the subtle similarities to the story of Cinderella are so fun to pick out. Our group book for this round is its recently released companion The Princess and the Fangirl, so what better reason to pick up Geekerella if you haven’t already?

4. CREATURES OF THE DEEP: Read a book with mermaids, sirens or sea monsters.

As this is a summer round of FairytaleAThon, my co-hosts and I decided that we wanted to dedicate a challenge to stories that feature cool blue waters. We agreed that this book doesn’t have to be a fairytale, folktale or retelling; it just has to feature a mythical aquatic creature.

TO KILL A KINGDOM BY ALEXANDRA CHRISTO

This dark retelling of The Little Mermaid sees Princess Lira as a ruthless collector of princes’ hearts. However, when she kills a fellow siren, the Sea Queen punishes her by turning her into a human and taking away her singing voice. She needs to bring back the heart of Prince Elian in order to return to the sea. Prince Elian is himself a siren-hunter and when he rescues a drowning Lira, she promises to help him destroy all sirens but of course, she has her own motives for getting close to him. Although I’ve seen mixed reviews for this book, I really enjoyed it for the concept. Lira is a much more powerful, more formidable figure than Ariel and the story is much more brutal. I’d definitely recommend it for anyone who feels like Ariel deserved more.

THE PISCES BY MELISSA BRODER

The Pisces is an incredibly strange novel about Lucy who has recently split from her long-term partner and is lacking inspiration for her thesis. In the hopes that it will help her forget her problems, she agrees to spend the summer in LA, looking after her sister’s house and foxhound. While there, she goes on a string of grisly Tinder dates, attends a therapy group for love addiction and falls in love with a mysterious but gorgeous surfer dude… who appears to have scales over the entirety of his lower body… It’s funny, it’s weird, it’s sad in parts but it’s also somehow bloody brilliant. Be warned that there are some pretty graphic sex scenes, so perhaps avoid it if you’re sensitive to that!

THE GLOAMING BY KIRSTY LOGAN

This is a wonderfully charming magical realism book following Mara and her family, whose island is surrounded with magic and stories. When tragedy strikes her family, Mara finds solace in enigmatic Pearl who introduces her to a new way of life and possibilities she never dreamed of. Torn between the traditions of her island and the ever-changing course of the sea while still haunted by the past, Mara needs to decide which is the best path for her to take. Kirsty Logan is a lyrical genius so if you like beautiful imagery and strange diverse storylines, The Gloaming is a great choice for you.

THE MERMAID AND MRS HANCOCK BY IMOGEN HERMES GOWAR

Set in the 18th century, The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock is a beautifully written and surreal read that will appeal if you’re looking for a more literary, social history-led mermaid book. Merchant Jonah Hancock learns that one of his captains has sold his ship for what is apparently a mermaid. Naturally this piques the curiosity of the area and he is soon thrown into upper class circles, where he meets the beautiful, accomplished Angelica Neal. Soon enough, both of their lives take a new course at a high price. It’s a pretty big book so I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it if you’re not already a historical fiction reader but it’s definitely a unique story of obsession and intrigue with bags of wit.

5. TRY THE GREY STUFF: Read with a yummy treat.

Naturally, your choice of reading snack is ENTIRELY your choice but these are four of my favourites to get your tummy rumbling!

ICE CREAM

The perfect treat for a hot day. Just don’t let it drip onto the pages!

COOKIES

Is there anything more tasty than a plate of warm, gooey, freshly baked cookies? Pretty sure there isn’t!

POPCORN

If your book is painting beautiful cinematic images in your mind or the drama is getting a little tense, you might want to grab some popcorn to add to the experience. MOZZARELLA STICKS

Possibly my favourite savoury snack ever. A few mozzarella sticks dipped in sweet chilli sauce is simply delicious!

6. A WHOLE NEW WORLD: Read a fairytale or retelling with a diverse character.

ASH BY MALINDA LO

This bisexual retelling of Cinderella is one of my favourites ever. Ash dreams of being taken away from her miserable life with her stepmother by fairies so when she meets handsome but dark fairy Sidhean, she thinks her life is about to change. Then she meets beautiful huntress Kasia and begins feeling things she hasn’t felt in a long time. But how can she choose between true love and her fairytale escape? It’s sexy, enchanting, incredibly intense and I absolutely devoured it.

A CURSE SO DARK AND LONELY BY BRIGID KEMMERER

This was our group book for the last round of FairytaleAThon, so if you joined us then, there is a good chance you’ll have already read A Curse So Dark And Lonely. It’s a recently released Beauty and the Beast retelling which has been getting a lot of hype in the book community. It follows Harper, a teenage girl living in Washington DC with her ailing mother and dismissive older brother. When she intervenes in a street incident, she finds herself being pulled into Emberfall, a broken kingdom ruled by Prince Rhen, who has been cursed to relive his 18th year until a girl falls for the vicious beast he has become. With evil forces at work, Harper and Rhen need to defeat more than a curse to save the people of Emberfall. Harper has cerebral palsy and as a result, she has developed a strength and feistiness that I don’t think I’ve ever seen in YA fantasy. It’s a must read for anyone who loves cursed hearts, easy-to-root-for characters and page-turning tension.

EVERY HEART A DOORWAY BY SEANAN MAGUIRE

The first in the Wayward Children series of novellas, Every Heart A Doorway is the perfect twisted fairytale. The premise explores what happens to the children who have been to magical lands on their return to the real world. Ever-changed by their experiences, they are often take to Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children, where everyone is seeking a door to the fantasy world they’ve left. When Nancy arrives, darkness and tragedy are just around the corner. There are asexual and transgender characters, multiple ethnicities represented as well as plenty of dark whimsical adventure. It’s certainly a strange little series but once you start it, you’ll be hooked.

THE WRATH AND THE DAWN BY RENEE AHDIEH

A retelling of an Arabian Nights story, The Wrath and the Dawn tells the story of the young king Khalid who murders a new wife every night. When her best friend becomes one of the slain, Shahrzad volunteers to be his next bride with every intention of not being the one who ends up dead. Through the power of storytelling, she survives night after night and inexplicably finds herself falling in love with Khalid, who appears to be nothing more than a tortured soul -much like the rest of his palace which seems to have more than a few secrets. It’s a novel full of tradition, elegance and fantastic world-building. You’ll definitely get swept up in this one!

7. RAGS TO RICHES: Read the group book.

THE PRINCESS AND THE FANGIRL BY ASHLEY POSTON

Our group book this round is The Princess and the Fangirl and I can’t wait to dive into it! It’s set in the same fandom as Geekerella but is not a direct sequel, so you can technically read it if you haven’t read the previous book. It follows fangirl Imogen who is on a mission to save her favourite Starfield characters Princess Amara from being killed off. However Jessica, the actress who plays her, is desperate to shake off the pressure and intensity from the fandom and would actually quite like to bow out of the series. I don’t want to know too much more about it but I know it involves an F/F romance and I’m guessing there’s a case of switching places or mistaken identities at some point, given that it has been touted as a retelling of The Prince and the Pauper. I am INCREDIBLY excited for this one and I hope you’ll be picking it up too!

Hopefully I’ve given you some ideas for your own TBR. I’ll be posting my own next week, so look out for that. This round looks like a good one!

[vankoya]

Fight Blood with Blood.

Genre | Witch Hunter AU.

Pairing | Jeon Jeongguk / Feminine Reader.

Words | 6,611 words.

Conspectus | Amid the white of the snow, the pitch black of the night, the small witch besmears the calm scenery as a speck of crimson. Marring Jeongguk’s every thought like the death of him.

Warnings | Blood. Vague gore. Character and animal death. Also note that the ‘reader’ is referred to as small and tiny. This is not necessarily what her figure is, it is just how Jeongguk visualises her in comparison to his own size, which is comparably much bigger than the size of real life Jeon Jeongguk.

“This is the truest of crimes, you know.”

The air is bone cold. Ice crackles and pops beneath the two wooden wheels of the cart. Breath steams in puffs of white at his lips. 

But she is vibrant. Blood against the white backdrop of snow that sticks to the soil, tucks between the frostbitten bark, and drips from icicles clinging to dead branches like daggers threatening to fall. Thick scarlet flows in the cotton of her red riding hood coat. Jeongguk pales beside her frame that nestles into his hulking side, a black mass of fur trim that tickles the cut of his jaw; wraps in grimy leather boots around his calves; shimmers in the onyx metal of the shotgun resting against his thigh.

Often, it is difficult to remember who is the monster. The cardinal or the crow.

“What is?” Jeongguk hums, tries to act indifferent but he knows she sees right through that facade now. Like mist clinging to the glass of a windowpane, her warm palms had effortlessly wiped the condensation away weeks ago, and he just as easily allowed her to. It is almost as though he wanted it, for her to peer in and take a look, to see that his insides are just as black as his plumage.

The handcuffs jingle when she lifts her wrists into view, leans into him. She feels warm against his arm, tempting. “These little darlings. Enchanted with a binding spell that I knew how to perform by the age of ten. You claim to hunt my kind, yet you need us to do so in the first place.”

“Touché.”

It is true, the hunters need them, those malevolent, selfish witches with their wicked fingers and tongues, as evil to their own kind as they are to all but themselves. Anything to have the upper hand, the benefit, the promise of another hundred years to crease the skin of their knuckles with lines of the cast; the making, the destroying. Fight blood with blood, they say. But she, the little bird that Jeongguk found whistling a sweet tune between evergreen trees, chasing a sickly rabbit to have in a stew, to ground the bones for later magic, never fit into that mould. Not an inkling suggested that her voice has ever crafted an incantation that’s seared villages down to the ashes, pulled a human apart limb for limb and eaten their heart from the inside out, poisoned a lake that supplies fresh water for the three towns within a fifty mile radius.

He still does not know, after all, what she did to land here beside him on this winding, snowy road in the middle of here and there. Handcuffed, wrists raw from the biting metal, trembling around her soft voice that chirps every now and then to the man that will claim the bounty on her head. A couple ten thousand. Not the biggest that the hunter circle has known, yet the largest sum he will ever stuff into his own, dirtied pockets.

“It’s getting dark, will we make it?” Her lips pout, brow daintily pinching. A pretty little thing, she is. Probably a murderer, too. All the ones that look like sugar and cream have thick tar running through their veins, pumping out of their heart.

But Jeongguk bets she tastes as sweet as cherry pie and has thought such a thing since five weeks ago when she willingly offered her hands to the jaws of the cuffs. All the way up until this very day.

“No, we’ll have to set up camp in the woods,” Jeongguk mutters with blatant distaste, eyeing the withered horses that seem to stride slower as the sun descends at a steady pace behind the thick blanket of overcast. The present threat of the darkening evening lugs at their hooves, weighs down at the tips of his own lashes in an unwelcome lethargy that has him pulling their reigns, guiding them off the path; neither too near to the tracks where a wandering by crook can steal his loot, nor too far that they completely lose the way.

She shrinks closer to his body now, looking absolutely unsure with her wide, fawn-like eyes, nervous as the horses tiredly wind them through the stark naked trees. Her teeth cling to her swollen lower lip again, and Jeongguk wants to hold her rubescent cheekbones between his grubby fingertips and kiss her silly. A dangerous, dangerous thought.

“Is the big bad witch afraid of the wilderness?” Jeongguk hums instead, admittedly satisfied at the way she tucks her stocking-covered knees into the side of his thigh, melding ever so near, handcuffs tinkling like fairy music; a sharp reminder ringing through his hearing of who she is, why she is here.

“I just–“ And she shivers, the kind that ripples from your toes to your nose and rattles your teeth in its trek– “Hate, hate, hate the cold.”

“We’ll build a fire,” Jeongguk chuckles, knows of at least three other ways he can keep her warm though retains those thoughts, tightly sealed underneath his tongue, “or we’ll try, at least. Might be too wet.”

She grumbles under her breath while Jeongguk pulls tight on the reins, the horses snorting and huffing white mist as they come to a standstill in a small clearing of white space, surrounded by the stark silhouettes of tree trunks. Effortlessly, he swings off the cart like a swooping crow and tends to the two black beauties, unhinging the pole between them, numb fingers fiddling over the buckles and leather straps of the breast collars, traces, and bridles; soothing them under his breath all the while, palms gentle on their smooth, midnight coats. The air is colder on his lips by the time he is releasing them from the weight of the cart, carefully lowering the front onto the snow-covered ground. Though his hands slip at the last fifteen or so centimetres and it suddenly thumps down. His ears perk up at the tinkling of chains, the panicked shriek and scuffled scramble as the witch struggles to keep upright on the seat.

“You’re still up there?” Jeongguk frowns, to which she lifts up her shackled wrists and stares levelly at him, encouraging him to roll his eyes. “You could’ve jumped down.”

“I’m cold, weak, and bound,” she huffs, gaze trained on him as he strides around to her side of the cart, “so it didn’t seem like that fantastic of an idea to test out. I don’t want a face full of snow.”

“No, we most certainly don’t want the imprisoned witch to suffer,” and although the sarcasm is laced lethally through his tone, Jeongguk stretches his long arms out to her anyway. Dark, strong muscles that look like reaching shadows amongst all the white. “Come here.”

Wetly sniffing, she shuffles close until his hands can wrap around her red waist, thumbs pressing into her bottommost ribs and thinking how simply he could crush them when he lifts her up and out of the cart. Once her laced boots are touching the ground, she stumbles a little and Jeongguk balances her with a hand on her shoulder, staring at her pinched and pretty features until she looks up at him, curiosity piqued, and only then does he break away. Jeongguk crosses the open space to near the looming trees and misses her murmured “thank you” when it drifts quietly after him.

Beneath his palms, the bark of each tree is soggy and sodden with melted snow. Jeongguk lolls his head back with a tired groan, and the sky is truly dark now, some of the brighter stars managing to dimly flicker through the sheet of grey clouds.

“No luck?” She calls, and Jeongguk tilts his body just so, enough that he can see her wearily eyeing the horses that hang their heads low, nudging one another.

“Completely saturated.”

“Well, I have an idea, but I don’t think you’ll like it.”

Jeongguk stiffens at that, something terrible striking through his heart and he struggles to keep his face composed, biting down on the twisted hope that tries to leak into his voice, “What might that be?”

She lifts up her wrists as she had done so in the cart no more than a few moments ago, exhibiting that same, level stare that manages to pierce through him, even when they are metres apart. “I can make a fire if you unchain me.”

The laughter that barks out of his throat is sharp, piercing; disbelief and disappointment mixed tightly together into the harsh, grating sound. Of course, of course. How could he think it would be anything other than that? A fool, Jeongguk, a complete and utter fool. Still, he watches her, the way her features remain unchanging, deadly serious and stoic, not giving anything away. Just like that, he falters, considers.

It takes seven steps to reach her, to loom above that tiny frame like the shadows that slink and play around the clearing. Even so, she is more dangerous than he ever could be. The crow may be the predator, but the cardinal is just as cunning.

“Can I trust you?” Jeongguk narrows his eyes, scrutinising her, though she upkeeps her calm play.

“No, of course not,” she’s honest at least, unusual for a witch, “but the risk is up to you. We either freeze over and die just like that, or you can have a little faith and let me build us a fire.”

The ideas circle through his mind again, the other ways to keep warm. He wonders what her skin feels like, if it is soft and plump, hot to the touch. But it seems to be a concept that will be fruitless to tease out of her, witches never being too easy to tempt. And so, for the sake of another day to survive, he rifles around his coat pocket until he pulls out the silver key.

Her eyes do not even zone in on the metal, the means of her release, remaining to keep on Jeongguk’s face and such a matter convinces him all the more that perhaps, it will be okay.

Jeongguk takes her left wrist, bringing it up so that he can fit the key into the cuff there, jostling the binds about until the teeth snag on the latch and the shackles unhook, gape open enough for her hands to easily slip out. His gaze does not leave her own as he stuffs the handcuffs and the key back into his coat pocket, proceeding to fold his arms and raise a thick eyebrow, hoping she is convinced by the brave facade that he stretches and moulds around the thin anxiety clinging to his form.

She sighs. He startles.

“Can you please take some bark from the trees? Just a few handfuls, doesn’t matter if they’re wet,” the witch skirts around him, gingerly rubbing her raw wrists, gaze flicking across the snow that she steps through. Her boot prints are dainty compared to the stomps of his own that press deeper into the white. When she notices that Jeongguk has not moved, nor said a thing, she looks back over her shoulder. A bloodstain beautifully marring the gradient of black to white. “Please?”

“Oh,” he shakes his head, thinks about the sleek onyx of his shotgun, shakes his head again, “yeah, I’ll do that.”

They both work in silence, with Jeongguk peeling and the witch still observing the ground that she treads. He has one armful by the time that she is crouched down, eyeing a spot at the centre of the small clearing, the fingertips of her right hand intermittently clawing at the snow in between shaking the ice from her nails, hissing and cursing under her breath because of the cold. Jeongguk keeps a distance of three feet from her small, hunched form, watching her dig and dig until she reaches the frozen dirt underneath, to which she elicits a pleased sound.

“May I borrow your knife?” She speaks without looking at him, a tiny palm splayed out just beside his boot where the hilt of the blade barely juts out. He wonders if she has noticed it nestled there since the day he chained her up, if maybe she plotted using it against him like this.

“As long as you don’t gut me,” Jeongguk says lightly, but the joke is no joke, and they both know it as he reaches down and pulls it from the strap, carefully twisting the blade in his hand and offering her the hilt.

It is only then that she finally flits her gaze up to him, doe eyes watching widely with amusement, swallowing him whole.

“If I had wanted to kill you, I would’ve done so the moment you unchained me. No, even before that, I would’ve snapped these shackles myself,” and he looks so alarmed that she laughs, a song caught in the still, chilly air. “Like I said, I’ve known this spell since I was ten. Sure, magic is harder to undo than it is to create, though it’s not impossible. Besides, if I really wanted to use that knife against you, then instead of asking you, I would’ve casted an incantation that charms you into handing it over to me without you even realising. You would only notice once the hilt is sticking out of your heart.”

She takes the knife from him then and, instead of driving it into his calf like he thought she might, she starts hacking it into the snow, breaking the frost apart to reach the soil underneath.

The cardinal is an enigma. Jeongguk, scared relatively shitless, knows that one fact for certain.

“Why aren’t you trying to escape? Nor attempting to kill me?” He cannot help but ask, a mountain of questions piled high in his throat, demanding to be spoken while she continues to scrape away the snow.

Her grin is tiny, soft and wicked, like the fact that he says “attempting” is hilariously sweet, to think that he even has a chance against the likes of her. “I’m not escaping because I deserve this awful end. I’ve lived a handful many decades, and I’ve done terrible things that merit a dismal way out. My time to die has come. Maybe a little earlier than I expected, though it happens to the best of us.”

Jeongguk wants to ask more, wishes to pick apart her bones and search the marrow for the answers, more truths, to learn of the genuine honesty about herself and who she is. But whatever he wishes to say becomes lodged in his mouth when he watches her bring the blade to her palm and cut a clean slice through the flesh. Crimson that looks like liquid black beneath the moonless sky instantly bubbles to the surface and spills into the clear patch of dirt that the very same knife carved out.

“W-What are you doing?!” He panics, which the witch has found among her years is a common reaction to the sight of blood, the very essence of mortality. She finds it rather ironic how blood is considered bad because the only way it can come into visual perception is through injury; meaning harm and danger and death. Thus, it is only safe and okay when it is trickling through veins and arteries, out of sight and mind.

The witch stays quiet and calm, dropping the now tarnished blade to the snow and dipping her fingertips into the sticky, red mess accumulating in her other palm. They come away dripping, soaked in the colour of her very own coat, and Jeongguk observes with his lips parted, shoulders rigid while she draws nonsensical script into the frozen surface of the dirt she has cleared. Witch language, looking twisted and evil, like it is going to reach out and bite him if he dares to look away.

“Blood magic,” Jeongguk finally whispers, completely baffled.

Her laugh is melodic, soft, accompanied by the frost that forms on her breath as she continues to write. “Did you think all of this red was simply for show?”

The corners of his lips would quirk towards the darkened sky if he were still not so surprised. “I thought it may have just been your favourite colour. It suits you.”

“So does your smile. It makes you less intimidating.”

Jeongguk cannot tell whether she might be joking, for she is quite possibly the most frightening thing that this forest will ever see. His threatening presence is infinitesimal in comparison to her own.

The inscription is seemingly complete when she lifts her hand away from the intricate cursive, looking back up to Jeongguk with a beckon of her dirt-and-blood-caked hand, following with a point of her forefinger to the exposed soil.

“Drop those on here,” she requests of him, and albeit slightly hesitant, Jeongguk gradually closes the distance and kneels down beside her, the cold seeping through his thick pants as he arranges the bark into a misshapen pile over the nearly invisible crimson marks. She beams at him, a curve of white that sparkles between her lips and causes his heart to race before she faces the beginnings of a fire and squeezes the rest of the blood from her wounded palm atop the already damp pieces of tree.

Jeongguk watches her press the gash against the snow, wiping away the remnants of crimson, and only a moment later does he realise she is whispering rapidly beneath her breath. A spell that loops and winds through the quiet clearing, frosts white at her lips until suddenly, with a cracking sound like a snapping branch, the bark ignites in a burst of well-needed warmth. Candescent orange licks along the dead bits of tree, sizzling when the tongues of flame venture too near to their snowy confines.

“There, we won’t be dying by the hands of the cold tonight,” she says, though Jeongguk hardly notices her soft voice in the clearing with his eyes peeled on the sight of the gash on her palm slowly healing itself. A sinister sense of danger thrums heavy in his chest, fingers itching to reach for the icy metal of the shotgun and level the barrel at her heart, yet he snaps his gaze towards the kneeling witch when her lips part a second time. The smile she wears is too tender; cast with warmth by the flames.

“Pull the rear of the cart to the edge of the fire and we can use the bed as a seat instead of the snow. That way, our coats won’t get wet and we’ll stay warm.”

Jeongguk wordlessly, ludicrously, abides by the word of his prisoner. He lugs the cart away from the horses and turns it so that its bed faces the fire and the witch, albeit with a fight from the snow getting caught in the old wheels. The flames reside close to the edge of the bedding, though, with the cold wetness that has seeped into the wood of the cart’s structure, there is hardly a single chance that it would catch alight. Obviously pleased with this turn of events, of having a flickering fire and a relatively dry space to lay, the witch claps her hands rather sweetly, wincing a little and pouting over the sharp sting at the impact made with her wound.

Jeongguk carefully skirts around the cart so he can sit on the edge of the bed; a bundle of darkness huddling into itself. He inclines his chin towards her hand and says, “Isn’t it painful cutting yourself to perform magic?”

“Not anymore, though it hurt like hell when I was just a kid,” the witch inspects her palm, the puckered gash that no longer bleeds. “But back then, I only did magic that required a small amount, only pinpricks to fingertips. I can control how much blood comes out, so I could’ve made the inscription for the fire with just a slice the size of a paper cut, but it would’ve taken much longer. The bigger the wound, the faster the magic.” She presses a handful of snow to the freshly sealed cut, holding it tight between her palms, cocking her head as she looks up at Jeongguk. “Also, didn’t you know I was a blood witch?”

“Not a clue,” Jeongguk looks away as the confession slips from his lips, sheepishly rubbing a hand at the nape of his neck. Out of the corner of his eye, her expression appears genuinely baffled, staring at him with saucer-wide eyes before returning her focus to the fire.

“Isn’t all of that information already provided to you before you hunt? So you know what you’re facing?”

Jeongguk scowls at the way in which she adjusts the alight bark, her fingers dipping into the fire without a care, coming out unscathed, a black ash that dusts her knuckles being the only evidence of the contact. “No. Your papers were untouched, save for the sum of your bounty. There was not even a smudge of ink to suggest what your abilities were, what you had done to earn such a penalty. That’s why I took you on when nobody else would. There’s always a fear when it comes to chasing the unknown.”

She ceases toying with the fire and swoops to her feet with airy elegance. “But you’re not afraid?”

“Everyone’s afraid, that’s natural human instinct,” Jeongguk says with a shrug, making space for her on the edge of the cart. The witch sidles up to him much like she had before sundown, packed into the heat of his side, and Jeongguk oddly, suddenly, feels warmer all over. “But the unknown tends to be the worst of them all. If everyone is too frightened to face it, then it will come for them just as quick.”

“You have a brave heart,” she smiles, teeth like pearls, “if I was worse off, I’d eat it.”

The itch to leap for his shotgun on the front seat of the cart nags at him once more. He is unsure whether it is the fact that he knows he will not reach it in time before she retaliates, or if he truly feels no impending desire to use the weapon against her, but instead, he says, “And being executed isn’t something you consider as ‘worse off’?”

The whites of her teeth slip away, hiding behind the firm line of her soft lips. “No. In this world, it’s quite possibly one of the better ways to die. Dishonourable for a witch, of course, since we take pride in letting our own magic do the bidding.” She picks at a fingernail, swings her small, booted feet. “I’ll burn at the stake, won’t I? I hope they scatter my ashes deep in the forest. It would be nice to rule there.”

“To rule?”

“They always take the ashes far from the town they burn the witches in, don’t they?” She asks, looking up at him once more for confirmation. Jeongguk nods at the tiny bloodstain that she is. “That’s because even when we are burned, our magic still thrives, albeit in a weaker state than when we die naturally by our own magic. You see, our bodies are merely vessels for the magic, and our souls are integrated with it. Once our magic and soul is without a body, they will accommodate the particular vicinity that the body last existed. The range of this vicinity depends upon the strength of the witch and how greatly she fostered her magic throughout her lifetime. So, if they were to leave the greater portion of the witches’ ashes within the town, the magic and the souls would combine and inhabit it, and it would be safe to say that the townsfolk would be absolutely doomed with all the magical beings and monsters that would spring up there.

“Also, different terrains host different types of magical beings. Imps and old demons dwell within forests inhabited by magic, though my magic would be strong enough to birth a talking tree and a dragon to protect the forest, too,” she says as casually as one would when figuring out what they are going to purchase from the market. Jeongguk feels rather stunned into silence, wide eyes blinking at her, absorbing all of the information that she speaks like water on parchment paper. Her sweet smile returns as she says, “That is why I hope to be scattered within a forest. It would be nice to rule one, don’t you think?”

He nods dumbly, brow knitted at the centre, and then asks, “It’s true then? The stories of the forest in the far East homing an albino two-headed dragon?”

“Yes, and it is an exceptionally powerful one, at that. The witch, Aenwyn, died by her own magic there. That is perhaps why it is more favourable for the humankind to burn us down to ash and decimate a great intensity of our magic with it, since the vicinities in which a witch’s magic inhabits when she dies is much, much stronger if she dies the way that we are supposed to. Aenwyn was over five-hundred years old, and she had lived within that forest for at least three-hundred of those years. A witch can tell when her time is up, so Aenwyn grew a tree around her body and let the magic eat her up, then the magic spread through the tree’s roots, which extend to all ends of that forest.”

The little witch traces her palm where the gash was buried. The skin is no longer raw and scarred; pearly smooth like it was before she had taken to it with the blade. She looks up at Jeongguk again, hooking her chin on his shoulder and looping her crimson arm around the midnight black of his own.

A foreign heat simmers underneath his skin, burning the frostbitten skin of his nose and cheeks all the brighter, especially when she softly says, “Not even fire could burn that forest down. Nothing other than a witch that is beyond stronger than Aenwyn would be able to eradicate it, and even then, that witch would die and the land that the forest stood upon would become a cursed site for demons to rule with the extreme levels of magic living in its soil. Luckily, Aenwyn was a kind witch, so there is no need for her forest to be destroyed, even if the humankind believe otherwise because of the two-headed dragon. They can be kind too, you know.”

At that, Jeongguk cracks, a breathy chuckle escaping him and she curiously watches him all the while. He notices her small hand resting upon his wrist and, without thinking, he takes it between both of his own, running a thumb over the bony knuckles. Beside him, her expression transforms, teeth sunk into the still swollen flesh of her lower lip. Jeongguk knows this is terribly wrong, touching her like this, feeling something come alive within his chest at the thought of having the witch he is sentencing to death for his own financial benefit tucked closer against him. A small furnace of warmth.

She tilts her head slightly to the side and asks, “What’s so funny?”

“Dragons and witches being kind, that’s the complete opposite of what I’ve been taught my entire life,” Jeongguk hums, staring at her hand clasped within his own. He sighs deeply, white mist gathering at his lips and dissipating almost immediately, and then settles his eyes upon her, watching the lambency melt into her skin. “Are you cold? Would you like to lay down? There’s sheepskin in the trunk.”

“Please,” she urges, teeth beginning to chatter now that she is no longer caught up in her own ramblings of forests and curses and the ashes that she is soon to become.

The cart creaks and wheezes as Jeongguk shifts so that he can reach the trunk strapped on the opposite end. He notices with an irritated groan that the locks are frozen over, so he grabs the shotgun from where it sits on the bench and busts the ice by slamming the stock against the metal, effectively shattering them. The sheer sight of the grey sheepskin inside warms him, and he gleefully pulls out the two rugs, each of which are certainly big enough to cover at least three people. The little witch must notice this, her soft voice piping up from behind him.

“Let’s lay one on the cart and then use the other as a blanket.”

Jeongguk, looking over his shoulder at her, hopes that the flush sitting high in his cheeks will be mistaken as the biting cold. “Are you sure? You don’t want one to yourself?”

She shrugs, and the dark may be hanging low in the clearing, unassisted by the fire that backlights her frame and melds her expression into a shadow. But Jeongguk swears that she is acting coy when she says, “We’ll be warmer if we lay together, anyway.”

“Are you trying to seduce me so that I won’t see it coming when you kill me?”

The witch laughs, tinkling sweetly in the air, and she crawls up the cart so that she is sat beside him. Here, he can see her pretty smile; glimmering something absolutely wicked. Jeongguk finds that he hardly cares. Jeongguk has somewhat always wanted to know if poison tastes like sugar.

“That’s a secret!” She giggles, and then helps him lay the grey mass onto the damp wood. Her voice is light when she winks and says, “Don’t worry, I’ll make it painless.”

He should take those words as a threat; loaded like the shotgun resting atop the closed trunk. Each word a bullet that’s just waiting to be driven through his heart. Instead, he lays on his side and wraps one half of the remaining sheepskin around his bulking frame and then watches silently, wide-eyed, as the witch begins to unhook the large buttons of her blood-red coat. The red riding hood image peels slowly from her figure, inch by inch.

The cardinal sheds. Revealing that, underneath, she was a crow all along. Just like him.

Jeongguk takes in her attire. Pitch black and skintight. Thick thermals that stretch from her throat to her wrists, all the way down to her booted feet; thighs and biceps and waist banded with belts and straps inscribed by witch language. Outlining the curves and dips of her figure like a dream. The orange light of the flames dances against her right side, melting into the onyx fabric, and Jeongguk only realises she is staring at him expectantly when she clears her throat.

“A-Aren’t you going to be cold?” Jeongguk stutters, trying to tame the thoughts that skip wildly through his mind. Nonetheless, he lifts up the sheepskin with his arm, welcoming the witch inside.

“I’ll be fine, you’ll keep me warm,” she hums nonchalantly, sliding between the rugs. Jeongguk can feel his pulse in the back of his throat as those words fill the air, expand in the clearing, and envelope him whole as she melds her small body to his own. Frozen, dumbfounded, all he can do is stare at her until she huffs and yanks his still hovering arm down so that the sheepskin embraces them and, similarly, he embraces her.

“See? Warm,” she grins up from where she is tucked into his chest, and Jeongguk, a man who is supposed to be a ferocious witch hunter with blood money wedged in his pockets, cannot help but soften into a dangerous, vulnerable state and smile back at her. When she notices the curve of his cracked pink lips, she snuggles in closer, the heat of her breath lingering on his chin when she whispers, “I wasn’t lying when I said your smile suits you. It’s like daylight breaching the horizon at dawn.”

Jeongguk shudders, neither a sensation of discomfort or pleasure. His body, under her insistent gaze, just cannot help but quake. “I’d stop there, if I were you. You’re making it hard for me to resist a prisoner.”

“That’s good,” she giggles, and Jeongguk, curling both of his arms tightly around her, feels the gentle vibrations of her bird-like ribs; humming a delicate song. Her hands that are crushed between their bodies emerge, the fingertips resting gently against his throat. “You can kiss me, if you like. It’ll pass the–“

If Jeongguk were asked to describe it, he would say he was incapable of doing so. Two opposite poles colliding; a wave crashing onto the shoreline; the sky passionately meeting the distant horizon. Perhaps, a deathly dehydrated man finding water for the first time in weeks; plunging himself into the cool mass, inhaling it into his stomach and lungs until his deprivation is satiated. Kissing her feels this way, like a force smashing into chaotic harmony with another. Satisfying a yearning that’s magnitude is only completely understood in all of its fantastic intensity when Jeongguk slices the tongue of her sentence and instead, presses his own to the soft seam of her lips.

She is pleasant; unbearably so. He elicits the tiniest, almost imperceptible sounds from her, like plucking a harp. Slanting his mouth slightly to the right, and she whimpers. Tracing the plush flesh of her lips with the tip of his tongue, and she sighs. Pushing it past her teeth to meet with her own, simmering when they touch, and she gasps. The witch coils around him, locking their legs together, urging him closer with her hands snaking around to his nape, and Jeongguk untucks her long-sleeve from the belt, slips his calloused, cold hands underneath the thick black fabric and slides them from the small of her back up to her shoulder blades. Her entire figure trembles, starting from her toes and climbing northward. Jeongguk no longer strums a harp; he holds an earthquake that splits down the centre, spilling open.

Unexpectedly, she pulls away. Jeongguk opens his eyes, hazy at first, blinking until her bright face comes into view and he can see the saliva glistening on her swollen lips. She seems to be about to speak, though Jeongguk cannot help but kiss her again; brief, enough to taste the chilly air already settling in the spit. The witch smiles when he draws back and brushes their cold, reddened noses against one another.

“I don’t know your name,” she mumbles, sounding almost embarrassed. Jeongguk presses his lips to her own in a swift peck, scattering more to her cheeks where the winter draws chilly patterns on her skin.

“Jeongguk,” he murmurs at the centre of her brow, gliding his mouth down the slope of her nose, then to her lips again; a magnetic pull that he cannot resist. Jeongguk smiles there, pearly whites curving against the damp pink, and she places a kiss on his teeth. “And you?”

“___,” the witch grins, her abdomen bowing delightfully into his groin as she fits herself closer. “I like your name. Jeongguk. Je-on-gguk. It’s nice.”

“It’s nice when you say it,” he agrees, drawing his hands still underneath the fabric of her shirt to settle on her small waist, massaging there. “So is yours. ___. Pretty, like you.”

“It’s pretty when you say it,” she mimics around a mouthful of laughter. Jeongguk, deciding that poison tastes like cherries and blood, catches her lips with his own once more, taking the lower between his teeth and sucking the sweetness from it.

“Tell me what you did, ___,” he suddenly murmurs into the corner of her mouth. The touch of her fingertips leaves his neck and instead comes up to his face, searing against his cheek; burning through to the bone. “I want to know. No, I need to know why I’m sending you to your death.”

The midnight dances across her eyes, almost appearing sinister if not for the way her lips are tilted in the stretch of a small, sad smile. One that, although faint, holds the weight of a past cast in thick shadows; jagged claws hiding between the floorboards; monsters looming in the corners, waiting to strike.

“No, we witches are too selfish, I cannot tell you,” she whispers, and the words are razors that slice as they fall upon his lips. But Jeongguk still licks the wounds with care, watches as her gaze washes over with a placid calm. “But it’s bad enough to be burned at the stake. You would be strung up beside me too if they knew about this.”

But all Jeongguk can do is grin, the hard exterior cracking completely. Always for her; the monster disguised. He tucks her head underneath his chin, holding her close, so near. The warmth of her breath is a gentle constant against his throat.

Jeon Jeongguk probably deserves death for living in such sin, and he is a fool to believe that he will have anything else coming for him.

“Sometimes, I think that might not be so bad,” he whispers, eyes closing and at long last giving in to the lethargy that has wound tight through his muscles since midday. Tucked in the nook of his shoulder, her smile is one of glass.

The witch of scarlet with a pitch black past burns silently at the stake within four days of the cold, cold night at the centre of the forest, tightlipped with her eyes closed as the flames blister and lick her skin black and burn her bones into charcoal. She is so hauntingly quiet that nothing but the crackling of the fire fills the town square, sounding like breaking bones; dying magic; the carcasses of promises.

The bounty is never collected.

It takes them a while, most especially since they had such little information on the blood witch other than her potential whereabouts. But they do find him eventually when they are deep in the neighbouring forest to scatter her ashes. The hounds sniffing through the fresh layers of snow are the ones to discover the hunter first; looking an absolutely disgraceful sight, frozen over and drenched head to toe in blood, wrapped in mottled sheepskin. Not a speck of it is his own, and rather, it belongs to the two headless horses collapsed either side of his body. 

It was the heart failure that got him.

If she was still here to enunciate the tale, she would confess that it was pity. That the heart attack was so easy to twist out of him, suggesting nothing more than the fact that he was not going to live any longer than a month, anyway. Make that pity and selfishness. Pity, that he fell so in love with such a witch as blood to bone evil as her. Selfishness, that she did not wish for him to watch her die in the fire, nor did she wish to escape with him to a place far away, building something together, only to bear witness to his heart crumbling like cracked ice within a matter of weeks.

As the witch was swallowed by the rich, fiery tongues of vibrant orange and red, she could not help but find comfort in their blazing warmth as they twisted about her strung up figure. She imagined they were Jeongguk’s arms wound tightly around her on their final, frosty night together. Keeping her close, even after he had drifted asleep for the final time, even when she had never planned to succumb to such unconsciousness because she was too occupied with contemplating just how she was going to do it. That was, if she could do it.

So maybe the cardinal did quite love the crow after all.

Note | LET’S GET SPOOOOOOOOOOPPYYYYYY.

I have had this in the works since the middle of last year and it feels so good to finally have it polished off! This was originally going to be a part of my ATM drabble series, but I suppose it became long enough to deserve its own little post instead. Anyway, hooray for my first post since June and hooray for witches and Halloween!

All Rights Reserved © Vankoya. No translations, reposting and/or modifying of the material is allowed without my direct permission.

[intergalacticrp]

NAME :// CERISE HOOD ORIGIN :// EVER AFTER HIGH AGE :// TWENTY-TWO GENDER :// TRANS FEMALE JOB :// STUDENT, DELIVERY DRIVER FOR PIZZA PLANET FC :// TRISTIN MAYS

There's blood on your lies         The sky's open wide                  There is nowhere for you to hide                           The hunter's moon is shining

BIOGRAPHY ://

TO BE WRITTEN BY PLAYER // WILL BE INSERTED ONCE WRITTEN

AESTHETIC ://

shewolf. a scarlet cloak. keeping your hood up. boots over heels. red plaid. girls bite back. she is leader of the pack. dark forests and the secrets they hold. a full moon, it calls to you. gray eyes. wild, rebel hearts. the feel of wind rushing past your face, your hair. don’t fear the dark. combat boots and leather jackets. the kind of bruises you’re proud of. running with wolves.

MISC ://

Cerise doesn’t ever really talk about her family, and for good reason. Her father is a wanted criminal, and her mother is the daughter of the lead detective who was once tasked with hunting him down. If Cerise ever let slip where her father is located not only would he be imprisoned, but she, her mother, and Ramona would also face harsh consequences.

She uses her mother’s surname instead of her father’s for obvious reasons. Cerise isn’t ashamed of her father, but she hides any connections to him to save herself from discrimination and keep her family safe as well. It’s something she and Ramona disagree on; her sibling bears their father’s surname proudly.

Cerise got into the university on an athletic scholarship for track and field. She’s wicked fast and has great endurance. It’s not the first sport she’s been involvement in before - having also played on soccer, football, lacrosse, and softball teams in her adolescent years.

Raven Queen is the only person who currently knows about Cerise’s familial situation. She also has a criminal mother and understands how Cerise feels. Cerise wishes she could tell Cynara - another one of her best friends - but they have a very strict moral code and might tell authorities what they know.

CONNECTION ://

raven queen : best friend. she’s the only person who knows cerise’s secret.

cynara wood : one of her best friends and her roommate.

ramona blakesley : older sibling. a secret. they fight often.

madeline “maddie” hatter : closer to raven, but still a good friend of cerise’s.

darren charron & sparrow hood : sexist guys who think way too highly of themselves.

blake belladonna : a friend of both she and raven. cheers for her at hockey games.

AVAILABILITY :// OPEN || TAKEN BY ████████

[emotionalmultimediaride]

Game release: "Scarlet Hood and the Wicked Wood" (PC)

Game release: “Scarlet Hood and the Wicked Wood” (PC)

Devespresso Games and Headup‘s adventure game Scarlet Hood and the Wicked Wood mixes side-scrolling with point-and-click puzzling in a time-warping storyline. At first glance, the game seems to be another visual novel with obvious risqué humor and questionable representation of women. While there’s certainly a lot of fan service to be found here, the plot and gameplay is much more fun than it…

[keengamercom]

#ScarletHood and the Wicked Wood Review: Kentucky-fied Trickin' #GameReview #Steam @HeadupGames @DevespressoG

[rusegamingblog]

Scarlet Hood and the Wicked Wood - Well , Butter My Bottom And Call Me A Biscuit

Scarlet Hood and the Wicked Wood – Well , Butter My Bottom And Call Me A Biscuit

During the last Steam Game Festival, I was able to play the Scarlet Hood and the Wicked Wood demo in its entirety. A game released by Headup Games, it immediately got my attention, even more so because it’s a partnership that worked before on The Coma 2: The Vicious Sisters, developers Devspresso Games. Scarlet Hood and the Wicked Wood is a step up from the last title for a few reasons. It isn’t…

[iaad]

(со страницы Scarlet Hood and the Wicked Wood (2021) - скачать через торрент - Игры 2021 - Онлайн игры - Miltor)

[linuxgamenews]

Scarlet Hood and the Wicked Wood gets and Early Access date

Scarlet Hood and the Wicked Wood to release soon on Linux, Mac and Windows PC for this puzzle adventure. Thanks to both publisher Headup and the developer of popular The Coma series, Devespresso Games. Both are eager to share the details and the arrival onto Steam Early Access. Scarlet Hood and the Wicked Wood to release on Steam Early Access, February 10. While featuring Devespresso’s signature manhwa style with hand illustrated graphics by Minho Kim. Also, a non-linear story written by T.L. Riven. Creating a very unique puzzle adventure taking place within a vibrant Oz-esque fantasy world. The game features a recurring time loop (think Groundhog Day). Along with unique branching story paths. And it's due to arrive on Linux, Mac and Windows PC. The initial launch will reveal the first four chapters of the game. Followed by several updates including a content update with additional chapters in late February. The final chapter, featuring multiple endings, will arrive with the official release. The full launch for Scarlet Hood and the Wicked Wood is due to release in March. Scarlet, the protagonist and a diva in the making, awakes in the realm of Glome. Doing so after being flung over by a rogue tornado. She discovers an electrifying world brimming with magic, beauty, and artifacts. All coming from a mysterious bygone culture. Her strange journey begins when she takes up the mantle of the Red Witch. And as a result, leads a troupe of Munchkins through the forbidden Wicked Wood. In a world full of riddles and wonders. She encounters witches, a tin knight, talking beasts, monsters, and many fearsome creatures to overcome.

Scarlet Hood and the Wicked Wood - Gameplay Trailer

The fledgling witch soon discovers a Recursion Hex has her reliving the same day. However, each death presents new opportunities to branch the adventure in exciting new ways. So with Scarlet Hood and the Wicked Wood, her decisions will lead to multiple endings. In the deep wood, where a bad hungry wolf roams. Also, there is a wicked witch that is planning to release her evil spells. So that Scarlet must rely on her wits and a cute fox, acting as her pathfinder. While working to overcome the disasters that await her at every turn. The only way to get through the wood is by solving puzzles that require logic. Or by finding clues that are scattered across the wood or in the shapes of items. Including conversations with the NPCs, writing on the walls, and much more. If stuck, players are encouraged to visit the community on Steam or Devespresso's Discord server. So you can discuss and find solutions to the puzzles with other players. Scarlet Hood and the Wicked Wood is a story driven adventure game. As Scarlet, you must relive seven days of misfortune, and make a series of decisions. All so you can guide your Munchkin troupe safely out of the Wicked Wood. Experience branching outcomes based on your decisions. Most importantly, with the game due to release soon. You can immerse yourself in a bewitching story of fantastic adventure.

Survive a narrative time-loop.

Solve ridiculous puzzles.

Follow your own multi-path story.

Unlock multiple endings based on your decisions.

Ogle the hand-illustrated graphics.

Use Scarlet's witching skills to avoid detection.

Scarlet Hood and the Wicked Wood puzzle adventure is due to release on February 10th via Steam Early Access. Arriving on Linux, Mac and Windows PC.