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thejakeformerlyknownasprince · 2 months ago

Note

could you please do a Beauty and the Beast au with Jake and Cassie, I love your content!

The day he came of age he went forth, as all younger sons must, to seek his fortune. For his parents had no other heir, his only brother having disappeared many years before.

They sent him with what they could, his parents. A few days' meat, wrapped in preserving cloth. A sturdy bow and a hunting knife. The warmest fur-lined cloak they owned. "Return to us," they told him, "make your fortune and return."

The younger son walked, all that day and into the night. He knew this forest well, having lived at its edge all his life. But as he continued on, always with the sun at his back in the morning and ahead in the evening, the trees grew dense around him. Their trunks were so thick around that three men holding hands could not have encircled one, and their topmost branches blotted out the sun. Many days he walked. Many days he ate and shot. Many days he waited for his eyes to grow used to deeper darkness and deeper still, and then for many days he walked on.

One morning, as the days grew warm and the first spring roses unfurled, he awoke to a howl of pain echoing from somewhere far in the distance.

Hand on his knife, cloak drawn back, the younger son moved toward the sound. It was strange, the sort of howl he had never heard before despite living near these woods his entire life. As he drew closer he at last understood why: it lacked all harmony, and a single voice on the wind. As if a jackal were out there, and yet speaking with the voice of a much larger dog.

When at last he found the wolf, he found her caught in a snare.

The ropes were drawn tight around the beast's legs and snout, tying her to the ground and to the surrounding trees. It was like no snare the younger son had ever seen, far too many knots and anchors for any single animal. The wolf howled hoarse and heaving in her despair.

Just for a moment as he looked upon her, the younger son thought of his hunting knife, and of his empty satchel. Then he looked not to the wolf but to the forest around, and he felt unease dance across his skin. "Where is your pack?" he asked aloud.

The wolf lifted her head to look at him. "Where is yours?" she answered, in his tongue.

Again they stared, looking each other over with care.

"We have a saying, among men," the younger son said. "About wolves who are alone. A lone wolf is a dead wolf, we believe."

"We have a saying about men who are alone," the wolf said. "That a man alone is easy prey."

"I come to seek my treasure," the younger son said. "For my family has no other way to provide for me. What brought you so far from your kin?"

"I know of a treasure," the wolf said. "For the taking, for any man bold enough to take it. Among the enchanters far to the north. The journey is far, but the reward is great if you can brave the cold. It is said the maker of puppets will grant a boon to any man brave and diligent and clever enough to reach his inner hall."

The younger son took off his cloak, and showed her that he wore the skin of a great striped cat from the lands on the edge of the world, one who stalked through snows deep enough to bury a man alive and yet never lost strength. It had been passed through his family for many generations, its origin lost to time, but he knew that it would shelter him through the long nights to come.

"Very well," the wolf said. "Let us go, then."

He cut her loose, and together they walked the forest. She was a skilled hunter despite being alone, returning with rabbits and squirrels. In return he dug them roots and used nimble fingers to remove blackberries from the vine once he had paid the price in blood for such sweetness. They slept each night curled beneath his cloak of sunset and shadow-colored fur, and they woke each morning to put the dawn at their right and journey on.

"What is your name?" she asked him, one night as they sat before the fire feasting upon a deer they'd worked as one to kill.

The younger son looked at the wolf, their eyes lit gold from the fire. "How do I know that you are not fairy folk?" he asked. "For I know of no other wolves who speak men's words."

The wolf considered. "Cassie," she said. "My parents call me Cassandra, but my true name is Cassie."

If she was fair folk, then she would not be able to lie. And it would be a dangerous thing indeed, to give a human her true name. "My parents call me Jacob," the younger son said, bowing low despite his blood-sticky hands. "But my true name is Jake. What story underlies your name? An odd name indeed, for a wolf."

"It's an old story, where I'm from," Cassie said. "Of one who sees far, but cannot speak of the truths she sees. She knows of what's to come, but she is the only one who does, and thus even if she did speak such truths she would be dismissed as a liar. A strange name, not one oft-chosen."

"What truths do you know, Madam Wolf?" the younger son asked.

"That the roses are beautiful tonight," the wolf said.

Strange words, for there were no roses visible around them. But the younger son remembered the power of her nose, and contrary to her name chose to believe her. The beauty she spoke of must be one beyond human senses.

"Jacob," she said. "Jake. What story explains your name?"

"A man saved my ancestor's life. He was called Jacob, and thus so am I." He did not ask the wolf the question upon his tongue that night, nor all the next day.

They spoke in those following days of the younger son's hopes for his parents, once he had enough money of his own to make them proud. They spoke of the wolf's skill with hunting, and the things she heard through the trees that no mere human would. They did not speak of the past.

A figure stepped into the road before them, shrouded and cloaked. The younger son nonetheless recognized his stride, and moved toward him straight away with open arms and open smile. "My brother!" he said. "It has been too long. We thought you lost."

The figure did not speak, only drew his bow.

The first arrow whispered past the wolf's left ear, even as the younger son cried out in protest. The second struck solidly into her shoulder.

"Stop!" the younger son cried once more. "Don't hurt her!"

In response, the figure turned and fired on him as well.

The younger son ran forward even as the arrow pierced the flesh of his arm, and tore through. "Stop!" he called again, and "Please!" to no avail. Desperately he drew his knife, and — when the figure notched another arrow and drew back to fire at the wolf — the younger son drove his blade through flesh and lung.

A terrible silence filled the glade, when at last only two bodies breathed there.

"Jake?" the wolf dared to ask, once her breathing had slowed.

The man stared down at the familiar face revealed by the cloak's fall, pointed toward a sky that now gave no light to those eyes. "This was not my brother," he said. "It could not have been. Some fairy trick, some illusion."

The wolf looked at the figure, scented its clothes. She considered for a span: he had saved her life. "Yes," she told her companion, her gaze on the sky. "It must have been."

When the sun began to lower between the trees, they were forced to walk on. They built a small fire far enough from the glade that they could not longer see the crumpled form, and the wolf explained to the man how to tend their hurts. Under her guidance he drew out the arrow from her flesh, then packed both their wounds with a paste of leaves that would draw out infection before binding them with tight linens to make the skin heal smooth.

"You know a great deal of medicine, for a wolf," the man said as he boiled willowbark to a tea, at her instruction.

She heard the question that had lingered in his heart, for all that his tongue was too kind to give it voice. He saved her life, at great personal cost. "I was not born a wolf," she confessed. "I was as human as you, until three days before the day that you found me. That was no mere trap which held me, but the remains of a spell to bind me in this form. I committed a great transgression, and now I am exiled in this shape until..." She met the man's eyes, which were steadfast and kind. "Until the end of my life," she lied.

"What could you have possibly done to deserve such a fate?" the man asked. "For you are selfless and wise, Madam Wolf."

"Perhaps too selfless," the wolf said bitterly. "I gave shelter in my home, to one I should have turned away. I was fooled by appearances, by the surface seeming of innocence and candor, and thus I am cursed to look like that which I am not."

"Giving shelter is no great sin," the man said. "Quite the opposite, where I am from."

"She was a slaver."

The man's cheek grew pale, but he did not speak.

"The child with her was not her daughter, but one she had kidnapped to replace with a changeling. Concern for the child fettered my eyes, so that I let them pass freely through our lands." The wolf stared into the fire, ears flat to her head. "The slaver claimed that she had come to regret what she had done, and that she was on her way to return the child to its family. I chose to believe her, for all that she had no proof. And for that, I am to live out my days as you see me. A hideous beast, human no more."

The man knelt on the ground before her, so that they might look eye to eye. "There is beauty in your poultices, I find," he said. "There was beauty in the steadfastness you showed in joining me on my quest. There is, I believe, even a beauty to be found in choosing the care of a child over revenge on one's enemies."

The wolf scented the wind, as she considered his words. "The days grow shorter once more," she said. "Soon only the marigolds will bloom."

They slept that night underneath his warm sunset cloak, and did not look back as they walked on the following day. That day was indeed shorter than the one before, the spheres turning on and the blackberries turning forth smaller fruit.

Many days on, the man shot a rabbit as the sun rose, for meat was more precious with each passing day. But as he drew near to his quarry, a hawk dropped from the sky and sank talons through the neck of the wounded creature, killing it in a trice. The hawk tossed the arrow aside, tearing into the open flesh underneath.

Hawk was no chicken, but game was scarce. The man nocked a second arrow, and took aim.

"Wait!" a voice rang out. And despite all that had happened these past weeks, the man's heart raced in surprise as he understood it was the bird who spoke to him. "I should not have stolen your prize," the hawk said. "But we hunger too, for meat above all."

Slowly the man lowered his bow. The wolf ran to his side, her eyes upon the hawk as well. "Sir Hawk," the man said, "are you also a human under a curse? If it is so, then do you know how such a curse might be broken?"

"He is no human." The figure who stepped out from the trees then looked human enough, but the light behind his eyes had a sharpness that drew up the hair on the wolf's hackles. "We are the Wild Hunt. You are a curiosity, little man." A smirk danced at the corner of his mouth as he spoke.

"I answer to Jake, and she to Cassie," the man said, before the wolf could stop him. For he had not heard tell of the Hunt. "What are your names?"

A third creature stepped forth then, this one with no resemblance at all to human or hawk or any other beast the man had ever heard of. An elf, perhaps, if an elf could also be a blueberry and a scythe and a deer with the eyes of a snail. "It would please me," the elfen creature said, "to answer to Ax."

"Tobias," the being with the light behind his eyes said, tilting his head at the bird, "means 'one who speaks with angels' in your human legends, does it not? And what are angels but wings and eyes? As for me..." He smiled more, behind the dark veil of his hair. "Marco, I shall call myself. As they say, you are what you eat."

The man did not drop his bow, and the wood drew tight under his hands. He did not ask why the wolf's teeth showed between her lips, not where the Wild Hunt could hear, but he did not fail to notice.

"Dine with us," said the one called Ax. "You provided the meat, thus it is only fair."

"We eat only that which we provided," Cassie said. "Thus, it is only fair."

More creatures drew around, as the man made fire and drew water to stew the rabbit over the coals. Some were from the human legends: tunnel-makers, tree-herders, three-fingered apes. Some looked like the one called Ax, some like nothing more than tiny soft fish. Some, most frighteningly of all, looked as human as the smiling being that called itself Marco. One dropped herbs into the stewpot, another a rasher of fat to season the meat. Roots went into the pot, and fragrant grasses. Soon the smell grew so delicious that it became impossible to think of anything else.

"You are too kind," the wolf said, when Marco handed a bowl her way. Her mouth watered, but she swallowed hard. "We have just eaten a large meal, and could not take another bite. Not one single crumb. Neither of us could have so much as a drop of broth, for we are fit to burst."

Jake stared at her in surprise, for they'd had only bitter lichens to chew for nearly three days. But he kept his mouth shut, and he did not reach for the proffered bowl.

"You refuse our gift?" the one called Marco said. His smile remained, but so did the light in his eyes. "Our food will not suffice to sate you?"

"You have showed us great kindness already," Cassie said. "We would not want to grow greedy."

"There was a frost last night, Madam Wolf." Marco's smile grew. "Did you know that? The roses are all dead."

These words struck her like a blow, Jake could see, for all that he knew not why. Cassie drew into herself, ears flat and tail stiff, but her next words came out clear. "I care little for roses," she said, staring the fae creature in the eye. "Though their scent is sweet, their flesh does not nourish me. And I prefer not to bleed for no reason. Far better to plant cabbages, far better to harvest peas. Give me ordinary and serviceable flowers, not beautiful and cruel."

"You asked my friend about curses," the one called Marco said, looking now to Jake. "If you will not take our food, let me give you a different gift: the way to break the curse that transforms a human to a beast."

Jake knew to be wary, but his arms betrayed him in leaning him closer to hear every word and his heart betrayed him by growing faster in his breast.

"A human must swear fealty to the cursed one forever," Marco said. "This human must abandon the family of their birth and dwell forever in the home of the afflicted, never once returning to the hearth of their youth. The human must swear an oath to obey the afflicted in all things, to honor their every whim, and to love them from the depths of their heart. That, Sir Human, is the way to break the curse."

"But this is wonderful news!" the man cried, turning to his companion. "I will gladly swear such an oath." The joy died from his voice as her tail lowered still further, its plume trailing the ground.

"One thing more," Marco continued. "The oath must be sworn before the last petal falls on the last rose of summer. Otherwise, the curse takes hold forever. But then, your companion would have known all this already."

Jake had seen as much already, from Cassie's demeanor and the soft whine of her breath. "Cassie," he whispered, caring not who heard, "Why did you not tell me? I would have sworn this oath, abandoned my family, obeyed you and loved you forever."

"Such a thing would be monstrous," Cassie told him. "And you are kind. Your family cares for you, and they depend upon you. I do not want a bondsman or catamite, and I will not become a slaver to save my own skin. Wolves are swift and strong, hearing much and scenting more. I chose, my beloved friend, and I do not regret my choice."

The man stood, then. He bowed deeply to each person around the fire. Side-by-side he and the wolf walked away from the beautiful and bountiful fete. They'd walked only the span of the clearing when a voice spoke his name. His full name, the name he had not given.

His kinswoman stood there, when he turned to find the voice. The kinswoman he had long since given up as dead, for she had gone into battle and never returned.

"There is another way to save your beloved," she told the man. "Eat of their food. Drink of their wine. Thus you will be young forever, and both of you as beautiful as the dawn."

She spoke truly. There was no chance of a lie, for she was one of the fae now. And she was beautiful, the most beautiful woman either the wolf or the man had ever seen. Forever she would be young. Forever she would hunt, and fight, and dance. Never would she see home again. Never would she leave the circle of the Hunt.

"Be well," the man told his kinswoman. "I will speak of you, when I return home. You have not been forgotten, nor will you be."

Then he embraced her, before he and the wolf walked on.

The following night the frost came again. What few flowers may have remained curled up their leaves, and bare bulbs littered the bushes. The man and the wolf spoke little, and only of trivial concerns.

At last they came to the gates of the enchanters' castle. The guard who stood outside had the seeming of a child with wide eyes and missing teeth, though the man knew enough by now not to trust such things. "Why do you seek to enter?" the guard asked.

"I seek treasure," the man said. "I will not be turned away."

"You will die if you enter," the guard said. "Most men do."

The man straightened his spine. "I will not be turned away."

"And you?" the guard asked, looking to the wolf.

"I am no man," she said. "And I seek to enter for love."

The guard stood aside, then. "There will be three trials. If you turn back, you may. If you go on, you die. If you go on and you do not die, you may ask our leader for a boon."

The first trial lay before them, a dark cavern. Together they walked into the dark. The air grew cold around them, and colder still. The man drew his cloak around himself and his companion, and as one creature with six legs they crept onward.

No speck of light was visible no matter where they looked, no tiny glimmer to relieve the blackness. It mattered not. They followed her nose, and onward they went. The cave continued until they were sore of foot and trembling in every limb, but they dared not stop to rest in this cold. The cave continued until his eyes conjured phantom sights and her ears drew forth imagined sounds, but they drew closer still to each other's warmth and walked ever forward. The cave continued until thirst swelled his tongue and cracked her nose, but they staggered onward.

At last it ended in a lush garden, trees dripping with fruits. A mark of their trust, that the man looked to the wolf and waited for her nod before he tore loose a soft sunrise-pink orb and bit into its flesh. Together they supped on the fruits, leaving a trail of stones behind them as they went.

The second trial sprawled before them at the far side of the courtyard. The pile of grains was nearly the height of the man's shoulder and would have taken half a day to walk across, each one as golden as the gold that locked the door they would need to go on. Once again Cassie's nose served them well, as did Jake's clever fingers. Though it took all that day and into the night, they found a gleam of real gold amidst the grains.

One part of a key revealed itself. One part, of perhaps a dozen, from the look of the lock.

They started at each other in new knowing, amidst the tiny fragment on the ground between them. "Perhaps it is for the best," the man said after a time, "that you have no time limit awaiting you anymore."

Despite her sore feet and weary heart, the wolf laughed with him. Then they set to their task.

The sun rose on their search, and it set once more. Twelve winter-short days they sorted grain, twelve winter-long nights they drew forth fragments of the key. From sunup to sundown they searched, and when the light failed they went on by touch. But the time passed lightly, for all the while they spoke to each other of all they had seen on their journey there and all they hoped to see on their way home.

When at last all the pieces fit into one whole, they constructed the necessary device and placed it into the lock. With a twist, the man unlatched the door and let them forth into the courtyard beyond.

The third trial fell upon them like a thunderclap. The guardian was human-shaped but fought like no human, arms around the man's throat, legs around his chest, strong as an entire team of oxen. The man wrestled and fought, outmatched but not beaten, even as the guardian drove him to the ground and the wolf sought any tender place for teeth or claws.

The man cried out in pain, exactly once, as the guardian's hand landed upon his hip and the joint was wrenched forth from its socket. His eyes met those of the wolf, through the cage of the guardian's arms, and once again new knowledge passed between them.

Cassie ran on, leaving him. Heart-heavy but sure of foot, she ran on. The far portcullis was aloft, and she passed through the final door to confront the head enchanter who lay beyond.

There was a smile on the puppeteer's face, when she burst forth into his antechamber. He was many, and he was all alone. He had the same eyes as the guard at the door. "Very well," he said. "You have proven you are brave enough to face the unknown, diligent enough to work beyond weariness, and clever enough to win against a stronger foe. Thus you will use a boon well, if I give it to you. What boon would you have?"

"For my companion to be brought to this room and given his wish," the wolf answered, "and for him to be hale and healed when he arrives."

The puppeteer laughed. "Clever indeed, my little friend. It shall be done."

And the man stood among them, pale with surprise but unharmed. "Once again you have saved my life," he told the wolf.

"Once again you have saved mine," she told the man.

Kneeling before the puppeteer, the man spoke his wish aloud.

Thus she was transformed, into a maiden strong of arm and callused of skin. And the younger son took her hand, and thus with his fortune did he at last return home.

#animorphs #beauty and the beast #long post #animorphs au #beauty and the beast au #jake berenson #cassie animorphs #cake #hope op doesn't mind i borrowed from other celtic and judeochristian and classical myths beyond the original fairy tale #and that i couldn't get myself to use the original ending with its Unfortunate Implications through a modern feminist lens #plus it'd be wildly out of character for cassie to lock jake into a bargain to save herself

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pininghermit · 4 months ago

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To Linger is to Love

AN: I was so pissed after reading 17 year old love interests that I had to write a better one. It was urgent and very much necessary to write it before a block. (Arwen coded reader goes so well with him)

Genre: romance and pining

Pairing(s): Vampire hunter D x Elven Reader

Summary: You are an elf, your time on this earth long since passed. Most of your kin have vanished into their blessed realm, leaving behind only echoes. Yet you linger, bound to a world that no longer sings your name. For him.

Long have I sought your path, son of Dracula," you whisper, and D turns, the moonlight painting your face in silver, a vision etched from the dreams of the old world.

Once again, you have slipped through the veil of sound, your steps so light that even his supernatural senses faltered. Such silence belongs only to the eldest of beings, elves of forest and sea, who carry the light of a world shrouded in memory.

Yours is a light that lingers like the final notes of a song, woven into the very fabric of the earth. Elves, the true nobility of the old world, are what his kind have always sought to emulate, though they never could.

Now you stand before him, timeless and haunting, and D drinks in your presence as a wanderer drinks rain. He cannot help himself.

Even the shadow of his father’s name, the sacred Ancestor, fades to irrelevance in this moment. Too many lifetimes have passed since last he saw you; too many moments stolen by the cruel march of time.

In your eyes, he sees the weariness wrought by his absence, a sorrow deeper than grief, as though the world itself has tried to erase you. Yet you remain, defiant and whole.

When your hand rises to touch his cheek, he cannot resist. Your touch, featherlight and eternal, undoes him. You lift his hat, and he bows into your palm as though seeking absolution.

Of all the souls he has encountered, damsels in peril, admirers, and mourners—none have touched his heart. His heart has been yours, always yours, claimed by the fairest creature of the old earth.

You, the princess of long-forgotten elves. You, the moonlight upon your father’s valley. A star fallen to a world that no longer deserves you.

“I am not welcome in your halls,” D murmurs, his voice low and weak to your unyielding gaze. The words are truth; your father, lord of the elves, bears no love for him. To your kin, he is an intruder. A dhampir who defies the old ways.

But elves have little love for any beyond themselves and their kin. However, their immortal hearts were more easily swayed by vampires than by men who destroy their sacred groves.

You smile, a secret held in the curve of your lips. "When did my father’s disapproval ever stop you?" you ask, your voice a melody that hums in the air. Even the simplest words are a song, a fragment of the music that shaped the world.

With playful grace, you tug gently at his ear. D, ever the stoic, leans into the gesture without protest. He would not harm you, even in jest.

"My heart is my own to give," you say, the eternal debate stirring again between you, inevitable as the tides.

D frowns, though in your presence, even this resistance feels like a burden. "It is no life for you," he counters, his voice heavy with sorrow.

"Listen to your father. Return to your world." He steps back, the absence of your touch leaving an ache he cannot name. The grief in your eyes strikes him like a blade.

How many times have you stood like this, warring with love and duty?

He is dhampir, trapped between worlds, cursed to atone for his father’s sins. Neither mortal nor immortal, something forever between.

You are an elf, your time on this earth long since passed. Most of your kin have vanished into their blessed realm, leaving behind only echoes. Yet you linger, bound to a world that no longer sings your name. For him.

The forests will fall, as all things do, to the greed of men. Your kin will dwindle, their blood staining the soil that birthed them. D cannot bear to imagine you among them, cannot endure the thought of your light extinguished in this broken world.

“Life and death are not meant to coexist,” he whispers, his voice trembling. “This world is not yours. To remain here will bring only sorrow.”

Your gaze holds his, steady and enduring, as though it has borne the weight of eternity itself. There is no anger, only unshakable resolve that cuts through his darkness. “Then I choose sorrow by your side over an eternity apart,” you reply, your words gentle but firm, like ancient trees weathering countless storms.

A breath catches in D’s throat, but you do not relent. “You and my father may forbid our union,” you continue, a melody filled with pain and defiance. “And I shall comply. I cannot force you to love me, but I will not stop loving you. If you do not wish my company, then I shall remain here, waiting, until my heart fades into this earth, forgotten as my kind has been.”

For a moment, your eyes blaze with a light so fierce it sears him, cutting through the walls around his heart. It is not a sharp pain, but a deeper ache, the agony of yearning for what cannot be.

D is silent, his breath heavy with unspoken words. In your wisdom, he finds no argument, no foothold to deny the truth you have laid bare. For all his efforts to save you, all his noble intentions, he has only brought you suffering.

And yet, in your gaze, there is no blame. Only love. Unfathomable, undying.

He turns his head, as though the sight of you is too much to bear, but your image lingers behind his closed eyes. How cruel it is that the one thing he cannot allow is the one thing he desires above all else.

“You deserve more,” he murmurs, his voice faltering. “More than I can give. More than this life will allow.”

“And yet,” you answer softly, stepping closer, “it is you I have chosen.”

For a long moment, D doesn’t move. His hand hovers over yours, trembling, before finally closing around it, warm and firm. Slowly, he leans in, his lips brushing against yours in a kiss so delicate it feels like an apology, a promise, and a farewell all at once.

“I shall love you to my end,” he whispers, his voice heavy with a sorrow he cannot escape. “Never will you carry the burden of heartbreak, for my heart will always be yours. Yet there is no union for our tale.”

You rest your head against his chest, the steady rhythm of his heart beneath the leather a comfort against the ache of his words. The faint scent of jasmine drifts from you, wrapping around him like a memory he can never quite hold.

“So be it,” you murmur, your voice soft, steady. “I shall not ask for a union, as long as we walk under the same stars, as long as the winds speak of you, and for so long as I am able to await your return.”

#vampire hunter d #vhd #vampire hunter d x reader #fem reader #romance #pining and yearning #😌 I love this shit #elf reader #take that doris

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jayfrost-designs · 6 months ago

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Yep. XD I had her on the list to design a bit further down the line, but after realizing only days before it came out that there was going to be a new Legend of Zelda game to play, and then playing it for several days and super loving it, I just had to finally design the cat named after my favorite video game series. So here's the last drawing I have to upload in this batch, it's Zelda the kittypet, aka Violetshine's first girlfriend. XD

You can find the reverse side of her design here.

For her physical description, Zelda is described as a plump she-cat with a glossy pelt. I basically went all-in on making this girl as Zelda-like as possible while still staying realistic. She has a lovely regal look to her, a lovely thick coat, and long ear tufts to resemble Zelda's long, pointed Hylian ears. XD She has a scar on her leg from the first battle with RiverClan, where she was described as having a huge gash on one hind leg, the other scars are from that battle, the fight to drive the Kin out of RiverClan's camp, and the final battle against the Kin.

Her collar is of course a reference to the game character she's named after, if her owners are nerds (affectionate) enough to name their cat after a video game character, of course they're gonna get a collar that's as pink as Zelda's dress with a Triforce tag. XD The Triforce colors and the collar color are both color-grabbed from screenshots of the games, mostly OOT. Her collar is sparkly, hence the little dot/sparkle effects.

For her pattern, Zelda is just described as a tabby. I was definitely inspired by her wiki design as a very pale cream point tabby, but also a sort of golden point tabby felt very fitting for the golden-haired Zelda. I see a lot of fan artists giving her green eyes, which surprised me as most of Zelda's designs in the games have her with blue eyes, though she does have sort of teal-green eyes in BOTW and TOTK. Anyway, I always associated her with blue eyes, so that's what I gave kitty Zelda.

I sort of based her forehead markings on the Hyrule crest, but only loosely, she's not some magical cat who was somehow born with the perfect markings of a video game symbol, she's just a regular cat with realistic markings that happen to somewhat resemble it - she does have three triangle markings on her head, though, which is a nod to the Triforce. Also, I guess Vi has a thing for red-based point tabbies, given her later mate, and with the blue eyes Zelda looks a bit like her son Rootspring. XD

Overall, I'm really happy with how she turned out. :D Now that I'm done uploading all these, I can go back to playing Echoes of Wisdom. XD

#warriors #warrior cats #erin hunter #wc #Zelda #Legend of Zelda #Kittypet #The Kin #A Vision of Shadows

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sweetteaanddragons · 1 month ago

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Farande

In Beleriand - before she even knows to call it Beleriand, when it is just the forest, and she thinks the forest stretches out, endless, under the equally infinite stars - in Beleriand, Farande travels with her kin and her kin’s kin, a tangled web of families all wandering and hunting together.

She learns the songs of the hunt and the songs to call forth children when their mothers struggle to bear them, and she learns that she cannot sing these songs too close together or their power fades.

But they need both songs, so she sings both, sings the songs of the hunt with her brothers, sings the songs of life with her mother and cousins, voices always stronger when they chorus together, singing higher and higher, louder and louder, ever more joyous -

And then the shadows come.

(It is pure ill luck that her closest kin are hit the hardest. That one by one it is her brothers picked off on the hunts; that when the shadows strike, it is her mother, her father, her aunt, her aunt’s children, who fall.)

(It is pure ill luck that now, when the ripped open skein of kin who are left draw together, that she is the last to sing for her branch; the last who can sing the life song for the births; the last - )

(So many lasts.)

They choose to leave when the time comes. They sit around the fire, and they talk it out, and they choose to make the long journey.

She argues against it. She loves the stars in their lonely beauty; she loves the trees and how they whisper back her songs. She loves the echoes that bounce back from the valleys, promising she is not alone.

But her people want to go, and she is the last who can sing the life songs for the mothers.

(And there are whispers, even if she does not believe them, that the dead will walk among them in this shining new land.)

(And even if they do not - )

(Farande knows herself. She loves this land.)

(But no matter what its songs promise her, she knows she cannot bear to walk it alone.)

She does not mind the journey or the hardships of it. It is just another road to wander with her kin.

She does mind the arrival.

It is beautiful in this new land, and bountiful, and so they do not need every hunter as they once did; it is a choice she can make, of course, if she wills, to hunt on her own or to join the Great Hunt, if she decides she prefers it to midwifery.

One or the other, here; there are so many hunters here, so many healers. No one would ever settle for the songs of one not committed to either.

The dead do walk here, some of them. The ones who fell into too fast rivers and couldn’t climb up; the ones who fell from too tall trees, who ate too bright berries, who wrestled too strong beasts.

The ones who fell afoul of the shadows of Utumno - they will walk again, Farande is promised. They will. It will just be - long and long until then.

She wraps the words around her heart, binding them like a promise. Long and long.

(She is young, then, as she later learns to reckon things. She cannot yet begin to comprehend how long a wait can be.)

No one lives in sight of the Halls of the Dead, but a camp gathers just over the hills of it. Then the tents become buildings, and it becomes a town, a new word that twists oddly in her mouth. They can wait here, for long and long, and she can learn to sing only the life songs and not to long for the days when she ran through the forests with her brothers, spear in her hand -

Her aunt’s husband’s brother and his wife do not choose to wait. They take their children and go off toward the sea.

“We’ll be told when they return no matter where we are,” he reasons. “There’s no reason we have to stay right here.”

The others - the devoted among the clan - they stay. They wait.

For a time.

(There is a university in Tirion; a cousin wants to go.)

(There is a beautiful young elleth who loves the mountains, and one of her father’s kin wishes to marry her, and of course that means he must follow her there.)

(There is a choir. There is a guild. There is some new novelty.)

(And one by one - )

(What does it matter where they go? They’ll be told.)

(And Farande - waits.)

She can follow one of them. She can go even now.

She would have followed them, fierce and furious but followed, if they had all gone together. She had done it before; she would have done it for them again.

But they do not go together. They just go, bit by bit, and she stays.

Stays in a town with more people than she had once imagined existed.

It does not in any way change the way the words long and long curl around her heart, or the way she feels entirely alone.

(Before they leave, they try, some of them. Come to the festival, Farande. Come and dance, Farande. If you don’t like healing, it’s not too late to go join the Hunt, Farande.)

(Why can’t you just try to be happy, Farande?)

(Why can’t you just claw out the aching emptiness and smile like the rest of us? It’s been so long; why are you the only one that can’t sing past the grief? Why can’t you let it heal?)

(She does try, is the thing. She does try. She doesn’t know why it doesn’t work for her like it does for the rest of them.)

She hears gossip about the young prince, sometimes, everyone whispering about whatever outrageous thing he’s done now in his grief.

Why can’t he just try to be happy? Why must he make his grief everyone else’s to bear?

A flash of outrage, hot and sharp, stirs in her breast for the first time in years.

(She knows. Oh, how she knows.)

(And then the gossip moves on and the world feels quiet and gray again.)

She waits.

(She asks a maia when her mother will return from the Halls. Long and long.)

She waits.

(She asks a maia when her father will return from the Halls. Long and long.)

She waits.

(She asks a maia when her brothers will return from the Halls. The maia - pauses.)

(Her brothers, she learns, are not in the Halls.)

(Not all who were taken by the shadows died.)

(The brothers she loves are somewhere beneath the stars she loves, the trees she loves, and they are not singing the songs she loves. They are singing the songs they were twisted to sing, and she is not there to do her duty by them.)

She -

She cannot go back to Beleriand alone.

She cannot keep going to market, going to births, going to festivals and standing at the edges and trying to smile while -

She stops going much of anywhere.

Some of the women she tended come to see her. They bring food, she thinks. Maybe other things. They talk.

They try to talk to her, but as the weeks pass and she won’t answer, they give up on that and just talk to each other. Bright, cheerful talk of husbands and children and sisters and brothers. Of festivals and fashions and the latest gossip out of Tirion about what mad prince Feanaro is talking about now.

“He’s not mad,” she says.

The others stare.

It is the first time she has spoken in weeks.

“He wants to go back to Beleriand,” one of them says, into the silence. “He’s been stirring up crowds with his speeches at the University in Tirion.”

For a moment, she feels like she is back in the forests of her childhood, singing out a song into the trees in full confidence that one of her people would hear her and sing back. Notes wrapping around each other in perfect harmony, everyone knowing the song.

She stands.

Pauses.

“Which way to Tirion?”

The university square is packed with onlookers. Some of them are laughing, elbowing each other, bubbling with excitement; some of them are shaking their heads in disapproval.

Some of them are staring at the fountain the prince has leaped up on the edge of with hungry eyes.

(He has never seen the forests of her youth. She knows that.)

(But she knows the fire raging in his eyes. And every word that pours out of his mouth conjures up the stars blazing in her mind; conjures the shadows of trees; conjures the songs echoing still, surely, surely.)

There is urgency in his words as he speaks of return, and it pounds in her chest because, finally, finally, someone understands.

When he is done painting the air with visions of glorious return, she stands breathless until someone next to her spits on the ground and says, “Fool.”

She whirls on him. Rips into him with every word she has bitten back about their left behind kin, about the duty that is owed them, about -

Oh, everything.

When the man shrinks away, cowed, she feels a hand clap her on the back. “Well put,” a woman says cheerfully. “I don’t think I’ve seen you at one of these before. A lot of us like to go to the Rose and Thorn after; you should come with us.”

(You should come with us.)

“I am - not very cheerful company,” she admits.

“Oh, that’s alright,” the woman. “Rumin’s not either - ” She waved toward a man, dark and serious, who had nodded fiercely to each word the prince had said. “ - but he comes with every time. A lot of the naysayers always show up too, see, we normally end up arguing all night. I think you’d be brilliant at it. Won’t you come?”

Rumin locks eyes with her.

Nods.

(Won’t you come?)

(The woman’s hand is still on her back. Warm and welcoming, like her cousins used to do when dragging her into adventures.)

“Yes,” she says. “I’ll come.”

#farande #silmarillion #years of the trees #fanfic #feanorian oc

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novaursa · 7 months ago

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My request: Roose Bolton x Stark!reader

Following the events of the Red Wedding, the reader’s life is spared and she is taken by Roose as his unwilling bride.

Bride of the Dreadfort

Requests are closed!

- Summary: You survive the Red Wedding, but for a great cost.

- Pairing: stark!reader/Roose Bolton

- Rating: Mature 16+

- Tag(s): @sachaa-ff @alyssa-dayne @oxymakestheworldgoround

Your body aches, a dull and relentless reminder of what happened at the Twins. The memory of the Red Wedding is fresh, a nightmare you relive every time your eyes close. You remember the sound of swords unsheathing, the screams of your kin as they were cut down, and the sudden, sharp pain of the spear that drove through your side.

Now, you’re here. Somewhere deep within the Dreadfort, the cold stone walls press in around you like a prison. You lay on a bed of furs, though no amount of warmth can chase away the chill that seeps into your bones. The wound from the spear has been stitched, but the pain lingers, gnawing at you with every breath. You are not dead, though there were moments when you wished you were. Instead, you are alive and bound to the man who betrayed your family, the one who slaughtered your brother and mother without a second thought—Roose Bolton.

The door creaks open, and you instinctively tense. You don’t need to look to know it’s him. Roose moves like a shadow, his presence quiet yet oppressive. His pale eyes lock onto you as he enters the room, as cold and unfeeling as the stone walls that surround you.

“You’re healing well,” his voice is calm, measured, as if he’s discussing the weather. There’s no emotion in his words, no sign of remorse for what he’s done.

You don’t respond. You haven’t spoken a word to him since he took you from the Twins. What could you say? That he’s a monster? That you’ll never forgive him? He knows that already, and you know he doesn’t care.

Roose steps closer, his gaze never leaving yours. He watches you like a hunter watching prey, his eyes calculating, always assessing. His hand reaches out, brushing a strand of hair from your face. The touch makes your skin crawl, and you flinch away, but there’s no escape from him. Not here.

“You will be my wife,” he says, his voice so calm it’s almost soothing, though the words themselves send a shiver down your spine. “You will bear me a son, and we will unite the North under House Bolton.”

Your stomach churns at the thought, but you keep your face still, refusing to give him the satisfaction of seeing your fear. You want to scream, to tell him you’ll never be his, that you’ll die before you give him what he wants, but the words remain trapped in your throat. What good would they do? Roose is not a man swayed by emotion or pleas.

Instead, you meet his gaze, defiance burning in your chest. “You’ll never have me,” you manage, your voice hoarse from disuse but steady.

Roose’s lips curl into a faint smile, though it never reaches his eyes. “You will come to understand, in time,” he says, stepping back as if the matter is already decided. “I don’t need your love. Only your obedience.”

The door closes behind him with a soft thud, leaving you alone in the suffocating silence. You let out a shaky breath, your hand clutching the fur beneath you as if it could anchor you to something real, something other than this nightmare. The walls of the Dreadfort feel like they’re closing in on you, the weight of your new reality pressing down on your chest.

But you are a Stark of Winterfell, and no matter what he does, no matter how much he tries to break you, you will not bow to him. You are stronger than that. You have to be—for your family, for the North, for the memory of everyone who died at the Twins. You won’t let Roose Bolton win. Not now, not ever.

The days pass in a blur of pain and quiet defiance. Roose visits you often, his presence always cold, always calculated. He speaks of the future, of his plans for the North, but you never respond. You won’t give him that. You hold onto your silence like a weapon, refusing to let him into your thoughts, into your soul.

But Roose is patient, and his patience is more terrifying than his cruelty. He doesn’t force you, doesn’t demand your affection or your submission. He waits, knowing that time is on his side, knowing that in the Dreadfort, the cold and the isolation will wear you down.

You wonder how long you can hold out. How long before the weight of your situation crushes you? But then you think of your father, of your mother, of Robb, and you remind yourself that you are a Stark. You were born in the cold, forged in the heart of winter. And winter never yields.

No matter what Roose Bolton does, no matter how many walls he builds around you, you will not break. Not for him. Not for anyone.

#game of thrones #got x y/n #got x you #got x reader #asoiaf x reader #asoiaf #asoif/got #a song of ice and fire #roose bolton #roose x reader #roose x you #roose x y/n #house bolton #house stark

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