#so maybe he didn't have the time or the opportunity

[centaurianthropology]

'EXU: Divergence' is the Series I Didn't Know I Needed Right Now

I’ve now watched ‘Exandria Unlimited: Divergence’ fully through twice, plus the cooldown multiple times, and from the beginning to the end of the first episode it hit me like a sledgehammer. It's probably the most brutal EXU to date, and it is also somehow the most uplifting.

It's such a departure from the other Calamity-era EXU series in the best possible way, and I wish we could have an entire longform campaign with this cast in this time and place.

Spoilers for episode 1 of EXU: Divergence below the cut.

‘Calamity’ was a tragedy in the most classic sense: powerful people at the height of their strength who damn the world in their hubris. ‘Downfall’ was also a tragedy in a different way, a family of gods coming together briefly to save themselves, but at what cost?

But ‘Divergence’ is a story about ordinary people. As the gods play their family games, and the powerful vie for even more power than they could ever use, and hoard wealth and resources beyond what they would ever need, these are just five people trying to get enough food and water and rest. Trying to survive in a world that acts first as an oppressive prison and then in indifferent chaos as the gods fight above them.

They're not even Level 1 adventurers. These are level 0 nobodies. NPC stat blocks. They don’t have classes; they have jobs. And in each of these people, we see the true heart of what good people can do in desperate and damning times.

I want to talk about all these characters, because I love them so much. I love the story they and their rolls are telling.

Nia isn’t a cleric with magical healing; she’s a nurse with some herbs and bandages and a little knowledge. Hell, in a world where misery is endlessly and pointlessly perpetuated by the games of the powerful, she’s not even a healer. She’s a repairer of bodies. She keeps feeding them back as grist in the mill, because what else can she do?

She can hope. She can believe that change is coming. But more than believing in it, she can act toward it. She can enact tiny acts of rebellion and kindness. Because maybe she is just repairing bodies, but she will desperately overreach and overplay her hand to try to buy them a little more time, a little more comfort, a little more light in the darkness.

She's young and naive, but her hope is still chosen at every terrible moment. Even when she falls into exhaustion, having prayed over her sister's locket and received nothing in return, Nia still chooses to act. She chooses to get up and, if water isn't coming to her, to go looking for it instead. She is doing better than the others, even if she's not doing well. And so she goes. She looks. She sees a friend die, wishing with his dying breath to see the rain.

And it rains. Not, to her mind, because a god walks across the world before her. Even if she sees the god, she's not looking there. She knows that Starmian made the rain. She sees the acts of people good and bad. She sees the power in hope.

Garen isn’t a fighter or a druid; he’s a stonemason with one arm and a hammer. And he’s a man who has spent so long under the boot of oppression, so long being ground down into nothing that he’s learned never to hope except when exhaustion takes him so fully that he forgets not to hope. That's when he can still see the faces of his family, instead of the prison he's lived in for so long he built most of it.

He is a character we meet in complete despair, but he's also the first to move past it. As soon as the opportunity for action arises, as soon as there are people in need, Garen takes his old and tired body and makes it work for people he’s never met, simply because an injustice is being done to them. Because he’s been waiting for longer than he can remember to stand back up after being beaten down. When he brings his hammer down on a guard’s head, when he breaks through a wall to save a bunch of dragonborn he’s never met, when he insists that they will not leave children to die. This is a man remembering what it is to stand up.

He wants to save everyone, well beyond what he's currently capable of, because once hope is rekindled he clings to it. He believes firmly that if people who can help others don’t do so, then what is the point?

Fiedra isn’t a rogue; she’s a gang leader with the ability to talk her way out of trouble. She also isn’t nearly the altruist that Garen and Nia are. She acts out of self-interest because that was how she’s survived as long as she has. She has a roach tattooed on her arm. She is a survivor, someone who can worm her way into a position of slight privilege even in the worst prison imaginable. And when she’s starting to feel the effects of exhaustion from their march north, she sneaks a meal from their dwindling food stocks that no one else gets. Because that is what a survivor does, even if it hurts others.

But she's also not so simple. She only eats the cheese after she checks to make sure her friend isn’t becoming exhausted as well. Because as much as she knows how dangerous it is, Fiedra cares. She shows it again and again in her interactions with Crokas, how she drops everything including her position of privilege and relative comfort in the prison to try to break him free.

Crokas is her family; her gang was her community, and she cared for them fiercely. And now all she has is Crokas (because the dice tell an amazing story, and those terrible rolls were incredible for her character development). So she looks after him. She jumps to his defense when it’s revealed that his breath weapon doesn’t work. She talks him up, tells everyone how great he is, explains things to him when he doesn't understand.

She’s not to the point where she’s capable of expanding that compassion out beyond the two of them (“The best I can do, kid” was a hell of a line). But she’s making steps in that direction. She survived a hellish march with these people. When she and Crokas found Starmian’s body she was the one who immediately asked where Nia and Erro were. Sometimes, when the shit hits the fan, all you can do is care for yourself and those you love. Learning to care for more than that tiny sphere is part of part of reclaiming the best of one’s personhood in the worst of times, and part of finally building a future instead of just surviving now.

Crokas isn’t a barbarian; he’s a massive bodyguard in way over his head. He has no idea what’s going on most of the time. He has an intelligence stat of 6, and he’s stuck in a world that keeps upending itself on him. Maybe he understood how life worked in a city with his gang and with Fiedra guiding him. Even in Rybad Kol, the worst prison imaginable, a man as massive and imposing as Crokas probably did all right, especially with Fiedra talking the Roaches’ way into running the Slop.

And then every dragonborn in the prison was taken to be carted off to die for a goddess he’d never heard of, purely because they were dragonborn. He can barely even understand that he’s part of a singled-out minority group, and certainly can't grasp the machinations of gods.

But he can see that, in the cart with him, there are children. And when they escape he might not understand how this happened. But he understands that this long march toward some hope for a future is currently killing them. They don't have food or water. Their feet are damaged for the rest of their lives by this endless walk north. It is SO BAD.

But he notices when those children start to become exhausted, so he walks like a monitor lizard with them riding on his back.

Because that's what strength is for.

Not to rule. Not to hurt. To lift up those who can’t stand, and carry them. Crokas may not understand what’s going on, but he understands what needs to be done, and what he can do. And the fact that he starts carrying those children, taking penalties against his constitution saving throws at the end of every bad day on the road, right after Fiedra ate that cheese in secret? The look on her face says it all.

Erro is not a ranger or a druid; he's a mapmaker who has survived for far too many years seeing far too many horrors. He is clearly almost as old as Garen, and is far more stubbornly jaded. Their lives have both been destroyed, but all of Erro’s travels, everything he’s done has ground him down to basic survival. He is practical, but still not cruel. Liam said in the cooldown that he’s been on a teeter-totter between simply surviving to live another day, and the thought he could even hope for a better world.

He’s not there yet. He’s more like Fiedra in his fatalism, even if he's not as openly cynical. And yet he still follows Nia when she goes out with Starmian to find water. He still looks after her, just like Fiedra looks after Crokas. And like Fiedra, he sees in Nia the hope he tries to smother in himself. Starmian dies, as Erro knew he would, because he’s seen dozens of Starmians.

But then the rains come. The gods give and take and take and take and give and take. The world is a cruel place, but he still watches a younger, more hopeful person fall to her knees with the rain in her hands as she cries in thanks.

I am immediately and completely enamored with these ordinary people living through extraordinary times. I can’t wait to see what becomes of them, how the world shapes them and breaks them and how they might lift one another and a community up out of the rubble.

I didn’t know how much I needed this right now. Because it’s SO BAD, but the very first word in the very first episode is hope. And more than hope, these people are embodying acting in tiny ways to build a better future. I know that myself and a lot of people have been watching the enshittification of the world around us and feel like ants under the feet of uncaring, cruel tyrants and gods. Like their games always lead to suffering, and they either don’t care or actively enjoy that part of it. And it's so easy to give in to despair, to become convinced that there is absolutely nothing that can be done.

But we are all level 0 ordinary people too. And we can still hope. We can still take acts of defiance and kindness, great and small. We can stand up again when we’re knocked down, even when it hurts. We can help those we love to live day to day, even while we can take what steps we can to build and lift up a larger community. We can live through hell, because even in that hell there will be moments of exquisite beauty and joy.

Because maybe all of us can find the rain.

[hansoleil]

★ ˙ ̟ ─── . “downfall”.

— cheol × reader. — 𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗿𝗲: smut. — 𝘄. 𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁: 3787. — 𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀: afab reader, toxic ex!cheol, unprotected sex, alcohol, jealousy, choking, a few slaps, oral (f. receiving), anal (just a mention) & inappropriate language. — 𝗻𝗼𝘁𝗲𝘀: so about my obsession with ex-boyfriends...

𝒔𝒚𝒏𝒐𝒑𝒔𝒊𝒔. cheol is your downfall and vice-versa.

Seven minutes. It had been exactly seven minutes since your night had been ruined. The name of the catastrophe? Choi Seungcheol. Your friends tried to convince you otherwise: it wasn't the end of the world to meet him here. But you were hardheaded. It's one thing to see the screenshots of his stories — that your friends casually sent you with the pure intention of cursing him out in every possible way — and it's another completely different thing to meet him in person for the first time in three weeks.

Everything was going well... a little too well — you should have seen something coming. One minute you were walking to the bar all happy, ready to order another one of those colorful drinks that made you lose a bit of your moral sense, and the next thing you know, you're running into a certain individual who didn't seem really happy to see you there. It was like seeing a ghost, you were sure your expression was mortified.

Now your party companions were trying to bring you back to your senses. There was no reason to feel intimidated by his presence: you were an adult and single, period. From afar, it looked like Rocky Balboa's team instigating him to win another fight. You were waiting for the moment when someone would hand you two boxing gloves and a mouth guard, but it didn't happen — too bad, you would have loved to beat Seungcheol up (he deserved it). The point was: you weren't going to let him ruin your fun. You had agreed to come with the sole intention of moving on, because it was about time.

That was it: tonight Seungcheol didn't exist.

Your biggest problem, however, was to prove to yourself that he, in fact, "didn't exist". Getting him out of your system wasn't an easy thing, not at all. He still left you disoriented without even having to talk to you and that was a bad sign — despite all the time you were apart, you didn't seem to be anywhere near getting over him.

You needed a distraction. Any pretty face would do, after all you didn't want anything serious, just someone who would make you stop thinking for a bit. Sneakily, you separated yourself from your friends, assuring them that you were fine and were just going to look for something to keep your mind busy.

Finding an interesting target wasn't a difficult task, you soon spotted a dark-haired guy leaning against one of the walls in the corner of the club. Judging by his look and posture, he seemed to be looking for the same thing you were: fun. At first, it was hard to approach him and start a conversation. The last person you had flirted with was Seungcheol — your flirting was a little rusty. But since the man also seemed to like you, it didn't take long for him to reciprocate your intentions.

Chatting away... you admitted that besides being handsome, he was also funny — had chosen so well, you wouldn't mind making out with him if the opportunity arose. You took another sip of your drink, still smiling at another one of the blatant pick-up lines he just kept throwing at you. You were hooked on his charming smile, but found it strange how quickly the man's expression turned into one of confusion out of the blue.

Was there something wrong with your hair? Maybe you had messed it up a bit. You raised one of your hands, trying to fix any possible stray strands. The air stopped in your lungs as you felt something wrap around your wrist, followed by a wet nudge on the palm of your hand — which you assumed to be a kiss.

"Princess?", the voice closer than you had anticipated. Okay. So the pressure you felt around your body was not a ghost. In fact...

"Che- Seungcheol?", was "surprised" the correct description? No, maybe "shocked" would fit the situation better. You couldn't understand. You had definitely seen him — you even had the impression that he made sure you knew he was there. But you didn't think he would have the audacity to come close to you.

"Found you, huh? Were you hiding from me, babe?", the loud music didn't refrain you from listening and you knew that your new "admirer" was also able to hear — the embarrassed behavior of the man in front of you wasn't helping you think. "Do you want to introduce me to your... friend?", you couldn't see it, but Seungcheol's face expressed disdain in every detail.

"What are you doing here?", dismissing all his previous questions, you opted to ask one yourself. His hand had already released your wrist and was now resting on your waist, as if it was only natural for him to do so.

"I'm taking care of you.", it had been a while since you last heard him this close, and it wasn't doing your mind any good.

"Do you know him?", a third voice broke through the bubble that surrounded the two of you. You barely had time to open your mouth when Seungcheol interrupted:

"Clearly, she does. And you? Who are you?", he spat the words as if the interruption was completely unwanted — and it really was.

"Wasn't talking to you. Do you know him, ____?", the other man retorted without taking his eyes off yours.

You were nervous. It felt like you were put up against a wall. Nodding, you mumbled a soft 'yes'.

"Still, do you want me to get you out of here?", he offered. Seungcheol let out a low chuckle, a shiver running down your spine. You felt him release your waist, as if he was letting you free to choose.

"Do you wanna go with him or do you want to talk to me, princess?", he took a step back, hands now inside his pockets. It was just an act, Seungcheol didn't doubt your answer for even a second. He knew the choice had already been made as soon as he saw you for the first time that night.

"I'm sorry.", you whispered to the man in front of you, feeling the need to disguise an indecisive expression on your face — as if you really needed to ponder the fact. Turning around embarrassed, you tried doing anything and everything to avoid looking directly at Seungcheol's smug expression. He shrugged at the other man as if to say "well..."

You were starting to wonder if you had given in too easily—but who were you trying to fool? It was Seungcheol.

[...]

The hand placed on the lower part of your back guided you to the bathroom. Avoiding looking around, afraid you were being observed by one of your friends — you didn't need anyone else questioning your morals, your brain was already taking care of that. Being the first to enter the room, you leaned on the sink counter while Seungcheol locked the door.

"Be quick. What is it you want to tell me?", arms crossed, you had finally breathed enough to be able to at least pretend not to be distressed by his presence.

"Oh, me?", he looked up, pretending to think. "I wanted to say that...", he approached you stealthily, as if you were going to attack him at any moment. "...that I miss you.", he confessed, already very close, threatening to put his hands on your waist.

"You made that stupid scene outside just to tell me you miss me?", you questioned incredulously, hated knowing he didn't have a plausible reason for dragging you here.

Well, he did have a reason, but one that you didn't want to hear.

"Missing you isn't enough?", he pouted. You took his hands off your waist as quickly as he put them there.

"No. It's not."

"You're being too cruel."

"And you're playing coy. Say it, Seungcheol. Why did you bring me here?", the use of his name was intentional, he needed to feel cornered in order to admit his own truths. The man sighed in exasperation. Bingo.

"Because I didn't want you near him. Is that what you wanna hear?", he faked a bored expression and that was enough to aggravate you more.

"That's your fucking problem! Do you like acting like an idiot or something? That's exactly why we broke up.", Seungcheol was like that before the relationship started, you don't even know why you expected anything different from him.

"And you think it's safe to trust a guy you just met?", he tried to turn the situation around on you.

"I'm old enough to decide what to do with my own life. I already told you to stop trying to control me, it's ridiculous."

"What's ridiculous is you pretending you didn't want to be here. I didn't force you to come with me, so why all this drama?", it hurt you to admit he had a point, you could have said "no".

"What if I hadn't come, Seungcheol? What would you do?", you both seemed to love rhetorical questions.

"I would have to leave in order to not beat that son of a bitch. Simple as that.", the threat didn't scare you — it wasn't odd of him. Seeing Seungcheol jealous was like finding a fork in the kitchen: trivial. There was no surprise in that.

"Do you hear how stupid you sound? It doesn't make any sense! You don't own me. If I wanted to be with him, I would."

"And do you want it?", he asked immediately, you avoided his eyes at the question — there was no need to answer. His hands went to your waist once again, but you didn't stop him this time. "Look at me, princess. How long are you going to keep pretending? I know you miss me too.", his face was now close, you could feel his warm breath hitting your skin.

"Seungcheol-"

"Cheollie.", he corrected. "Have you forgotten already, babe? It's been so long since I took care of you, right?", Seungcheol pecked your lips, smiling when he saw you getting closer — wanting more. Hand trailing gently between your legs, caressing your sensitive bud over your panties. "Missed me, yeah?", if you were more inexperienced you would think the man was talking to you — but you knew very well he was talking to your pussy, a strange habit. "Are your little fingers enough, princess?"

"Yes.", you agreed, trying to sound convincing.

"You sure you're not lying? I can see it on your face, princess. Getting all squirmy just listening to my voice.", he lifted your dress and picked you up carefully, placing your body on the counter. "When was the last time someone else played with this little pussy, baby?", already taking off your panties, as if it was usual. Pursing your lips, you weren't able to answer. "I was the last one, wasn't I?", he chuckled — his sounding more like a statement than a question. "It's no fun having sex with someone who doesn't know how to fuck you properly, right?", you could only think about how Seungcheol seemed to talk too much — part of it was true and the other part was a result of your wounded pride, you hated the fact that he was right. You frowned, irritated. "What's wrong? Do you think that bastard outside can make you this wet?"

"How about you just shut the fuck up and get on with it?" you barked, horniness and irritation fighting for the center stage of your brain.

"You've been without me for just a little and you're already being bratty again?", his fingers caressing your folds in a feather-light touch. "Do I need to remind you of your place?" he questioned, slapping your clit as a warning. Your body tensed, relaxing when you felt the same fingers massaging the swollen bud.

He carefully worked you open with two fingers, his eyes trained on your. The man smiled as soon as he felt how drenched you were. Thrusting a few times, he watched your face contort. Cheol slowly withdrew them, putting the same fingers inside your mouth. You showed no resistance, cleaning them up. He bent down with a spark in his face, loving your expectant expression. And that was the last thing you saw, eyes closing as soon as Seungcheol practically swallowed your pussy.

His restless tongue stimulating you in a sloppy movement, dipping inside your hole with easy, drool dripping everywhere. Your hands grabbed his hair as he captured your little clit between his lips, sucking it in a way that made your skin crawl. You moaned softly, not understanding how you had managed to stay without him for so long. He stood up slowly, leaving a trail of wet kisses on your body.

Seungcheol wrapped your face between his hands, pulling you into a kiss full of yearning. It was a bit of a mess, he acted like he would never be able to kiss you ever again. You could feel the desire and desperation mixed together — it was driving you insane. You did what you could to reciprocate, feeling lost now that he was starting to steal your oxygen. A rustling noise echoed on the room, followed by the sound of a zipper. He left your lips for a few seconds, just enough to guide his tip to your glistening slit. He went back to the kiss, both of you moaning sensitively as he sunk down on you.

Seungcheol seemed to have lost his arrogant demeanor, growling vulnerable against your lips, thrusting with need. He was indecisive, torn between kissing you properly and fucking you the way he wanted. Your body shivered with everything, you felt stretched open — him deep inside you. Kissing him felt like breathing again, but there was another part of you that seemed to be much more needy for Seungcheol — and it was to this part that you decided to give in. You broke the kiss with difficulty, the man didn't want to let go of you. Placing your palms behind your body to support your weight, you opened your legs even more.

"Fuck me...", you mumbled, breath hitching. You heard the man grunt as he grabbed your hips, pulling you to the edge of the counter. His thrusts grew harsher, almost animalistic. Bodies burning more, the wet sound from when your bodies collided buzzing inside your ears. You surprised yourself when you came, the wave of pleasure intoxicating your mind. Legs trembling, throwing your head back, not knowing what to do with yourself.

Dizzy, you called out to him. Your arms no longer had the strength to support your body weight, you could feel them shaking as you tried to stay in the same position. The man's hands forcing your legs open didn't help you much either.

"Open up for me," he demanded with authority. Seungcheol didn't even need to explain, you already knew what he meant — you were used to it, you'd done it more times than you could remember. You rested your forearm completely on the cold marble, afraid you'd fall if you tried to support yourself with just one hand, your torso lowering as a consequence. You felt him withdrawing in a slow movement, the man knew that this caused you a tingling sensation — he did it just to see your face twisting.

Your trembling hand went down to your spent pussy as soon as he finally pulled out completely. Fingers separating your folds, fully "opening up" to Seungcheol.

"Fuck, just like that...", he started jerking off vigorously, eyes focused on the middle of your legs. The crease between his eyebrows became more evident, mouth opening with sensitivity, letting his breath escape unhindered. You watched him guide the tip right to your hole, knowing exactly what was coming. Your walls tightened against nothing when he finally came, making sure to spill it right on top of your pussy - he didn't even close his eyes, just to watch his cum dripping.

His hand closed around your neck without much pressure, just to pull you in for a dirty kiss.

He devoured your lips skillfully, biting and sucking on them with hunger. Using his tongue in an obscene way, as if he was fucking your mouth with it — even smiling while at it, because he knew you thought the same way. You were so blissed out, you almost didn't notice when his other hand slipped between your legs again. His two fingers collecting the dripping whitish liquid and sticking it inside your hole. You tried to grab Cheol's wrist, still too sensitive. It was no use, he was clearly stronger than you, continuing to stimulate you with ease.

"Trying to waste it, princess? Then I'll have to give you more.", he whispered against your lips, still smiling at the way you tried to refuse his fingers. "Turn that ass for me.", he patted your thigh to reinforce the command — a not-so-strange possibility popping up in your mind. What if he...? Your eyes widened and he had the audacity to laugh at your expression. "That's not what I meant, princess... not today, at least.", he lifted an eyebrow. "And don't act like this, I know you miss that too.", he tried to contain his laughter. "Don't worry, I'm just playing with this little pussy today.", he assured you, sticking the tip of his thumb in your used hole. "Hurry."

You sighed, struggling to lift your tired body from the counter. He helped you as soon as he lost patience with your slowness. It didn't take long for you to finally be facing the mirror, feeling his rigid body pressed against yours. Looking in the mirror, you couldn't be startled by your state, the man behind you had already ruined you so many times it wasn't even worth the surprise anymore.

"You look so fucking hot like this, princess.", he nuzzled your neck affectionately, his strong arms surrounding your waist. "All worn-out after getting fucked so good, right?", he now massaged your breasts carefully. "Do you like being like this, babe? Looking all dumb for my cock?", his tone made you wet in a very embarrassing way. Seungcheol wasn't drunk, but it was noticeable that he had had a drink or two — he was too uninhibited, too cruel.

"Cheollie..."

"Do you like it?" he squeezed your nipples painfully, demanding an answer.

"I do."

"Now, it wasn't so hard, was it? Gonna fuck you a little more, princess. So you can remember who owns this pussy.", he gave two or three light slaps, reaffirming his own words. Seungcheol used his legs to force yours open, thrusting himself inside you easily — you were still drenched, his previous actions helping the process. You felt your legs weaken. Knowing it wouldn't be long before you came again you decided to play with your luck. You were one of the few people in the world who, in their right mind, had the courage to play with Seungcheol's ego.

"You don't own me.", you forced the words out between gasps — having him so deep inside you didn't help you with your diction.

"Repeat it.", he sounded stern and that only made your situation worse. "I told you to repeat it.", the force of his thrusts increased. You had to hold your own body weight with your palms, otherwise you would've fallen face first on the counter.

"Cheol..."

"You can't even speak and still think you can decide anything?", he chuckled smugly.

The growing pleasure was overwhelming your senses to the point you felt like crying. Arching your body even more, squirming with how good he was fucking your pussy. You whimpered softly, trying to contain yourself. Your body was pulled swiftly, the man's chest now completely glued to your back. His pace was now slower, but the thrusts were still harsh — slow and strong. Your eyes squeezed shut, you didn't know how much more you could take.

"Open your eyes.", as always, the command came with something to inflict a little pain on you, this time your hair was the target. It was far from being effective, only making you squeeze your eyes tighter. "Fucking open it or I'll stop."

Now that was effective. You obeyed with difficulty, glimpsing one of the most filthy scenes you had ever seen. Seungcheol gave you a depraved look through the reflection of the mirror. Your body shaking, breasts bouncing as he fucked you, promiscuous. The sound of your skin clashing echoing through the bathroom also didn't help. His hand trailed up to your neck, closing itself against your throat again.

"So I don't own you, right?", he whispered, his orbs still staring at yours through the reflection.

"N-no.", you don't know where you found the strength to keep teasing, being so close to come undone again.

"But who's making your little pussy cum? Hm?", he squeezed your neck, very pleased with your face. "Are you letting someone else fuck you by any chance? I bet you didn't.", his calloused fingers caressed your clit, your eyes almost rolling back. "You wouldn't do that, would you, babe? You're not a slut...", he whispered the last part, he knew it was degrading — and, even worse, he knew it turned you on. "You only know how to act like a little slut with me, right, princess? I didn't even need to try much. It was so easy making you give it to me.", he slapped your thighs a few times, as if reprimanding you for the mentioned fact — totally contradictory. "But it's just because you love me, yeah?", he groaned softly, pushing himself deeper. You nodded, your eyes closed, completely surrendered. "Do you love me? Say it.", he growled close to your ear, feeling you cumming. Your pussy gushed again, body shaking as you climaxed.

"I love you.", it was just a weak whisper, but you knew he had heard it — the big smile he gave you in the reflection made it quite clear. You felt him thrust a few more times, staying close when he finally filled you up, cumming deep inside you. A chaste peck was left on your shoulder.

"Such a pretty girl...", he admired your ruined state in the mirror. You looked exhausted, whoever saw you would be able to assume what Seungcheol had done to you. "I love you so much, princess... will you stay with me, baby? Will you let me take care of you again?", his tone was pleading, big eyes seemed to shine more than ever.

You didn't need much time to think, this choice had also been made along with the first one. You were never in a position to deny Seungcheol anything.

The two of you were each other's downfall.

# — © 2025 hansoleil ᯓ★ masterlist.

[rosedere]

Sea dew and the Benevolent Sea Witch

Sea God! Azul Ashengrotto x Shrine maiden (Afab) Reader

Summary: Every spring the benevolent Sea Witch of the Coral sea requires a young maiden to be married to as a deal for centuries to protect the small alcove hidden from the rest of the world; most women are courted and picked using a similar method to the Sea witch by recieving a Brooch from their bethrotled. Shocked when a intricate and beautiful Brooch finds itself to you the mystery deepens when said brooch is the chosen one from the one and only legendary Sea witch of the Coral sea.

Gen TW: Yandere Content, Dubious consent, Misogyny, Kidnapping, Stalking, Violence, Hypnosis.

You are here: Prologue: Tears of a Single Maiden

Next chapter: The Shrine above the Sea witch

-

My Sea star, The connection to the small world above. Will you finally come with me to the bottom of the endless Oddessy I rule?

The tide came to your feet, the brine stinging your legs as more seaweed hit between your clothed thighs.

His hand crept closer to you under the rushing waves; gently running over your own as he sat with his legs parallel to yours, currently tucked underneath you in a blanket of sea green.

“I think I love you (Name)”

You didn't bother to look at the mist-haired boy.

Enjoying the blue hour, casting upon you the distant cry of seagulls cawing to signal the return to their home in the rocky cliffs above you both.

“You love my company, not me.”

Gazing upon the horizon breaking over the water, ignoring his hand creeping to hold your left pinky fingertip, experimenting, feeling it under the waves hitting you once more.

“I do enjoy your company—but I don’t think I can part without you either.” He sighed.

“I'm sure there are other eligible brides you'd prefer over me.” You shrugged.

“Speaking of, why don’t you ever go into the village?” You looked over to the boy's ethereal face; his unnatural blue irises were already looking at the side of your own tired and worn face.

“It's like you live under the sea witch's arc or something.” 

He only chuckled, leaning into you, feeling him, his touch leaving delayed responses onto yours.

“Maybe I do—you never take me up on my offer to come over anyway.” He purred, “You know I'd love to come home with company.” 

Dismissing him, you only looked away, escaping his gaze, looking back at the sea.

“It seems next week is the start of May,” he said.

His finger running over yours in a soothing motion.

“Don’t remind me,” you exhaled.

I know I'll never be a perfect bride.

“Why so? I heard it's exciting for every woman of the village to have a chance to meet the sea witch.” He chuckled.

“Not I—do you realize it's my last year to be considered a bride to be offered to anyone?”  You felt a tear prick your tear ducts.

“I thought by now someone would have been swept off their feet and picked me.” You sniffed.

Embarrassing… crying in front of this guy

“I don't even want to try again anymore; I just want to live my life and forget about these stupid traditions.”  You swallowed the sob, focusing on the fading light on the horizon.

He didn't say anything for a long time.

You thought maybe he finally got annoyed with the theatrics, if only you found the secret to getting him to leave you alone earlier…

“What if I choose you as my bride (Name)” You felt your heart drop into your chest.

“You're worthy of being a wife to me; if all of those fools up on the mainland can't see it, that's on them.” 

He began to close the distance, his hand still clasped over your hand. The tension between him and you was boiling, trying to close the gap between you and the push and pull of the rising tide.

“I have to go,” you stuttered, standing up, letting you both part from each other.

He stood up as well, trying to match your pace as you raced back to the empty sandy shore behind you both. Making the way back over the sandbar to the shore was hard with the new shells washing up, a prime opportunity if only your strange friend wasn't here tailing behind as you looked for your ragged canvas bag still sitting against the rocks.

“(Name), just consider it; I don't want to see you sad like this during a joyous month,” he called over the rushing waves.

You didn't bother answering, only grabbing your canvas bag and drying the worn, frayed ends of your shorts from the salty water.

“You realize even if I wanted to, I couldn’t—” 

“But why? You dont care that much for rules of your town here instead of being in the village” he snided

“Or is it because you want to win the sea witch's heart?” His lips curled into a smile, the beauty mark on his chin stretching.

“No—” you exhaled a breath you didn't realize you were holding. “I just want to leave this island.” 

You looked back at the boy, who was now clearly unamused. “I've already made myself a fool for a long time, hoping to be picked by anyone.” You looked out at the changing dark obsidian water now out on the horizon.

“I want to see the world beyond the coral sea. I heard there's actual music you can listen to whenever you want and actual things called phones I want to try,” you dreamily sighed.

“Here it's just so boring.”

He only watched and didn't say anything else, his bare feet still as a statue.

“You understand, right? I'm not alone in my thoughts." You merrily grabbed your hair tie, taking care to twist it into a low bun.

“You are alone.” 

He gazed harder at you, his pale crystal eyes boring into you.

“The outside world is even more brutal than here—at least you're protected from danger and can live properly here.” "You can say that because you're young; there's still hope you can pick a maiden whenever you want.” You rolled your eyes. Slipping your sandals next to you, you checked all of your things were still in there bag, His eyes watchful over you as he stood with his bare feet on the shore.

“Goodnight, I've got a long day tomorrow scavenging.” You turned around to face him, giving a wave.

You were about to walk towards the cliff climbing back up to the rocky path leading to your small hut a few miles nearby.

His hands brushed over your outstretched wrist. Stunned, you looked over your shoulder to see him confused, mostly by how strange he was being.

“(Name)”

He pulled you away from the cliffs to face him under the moonlit sky.

You could see his cheeks flushed as he held onto the sleeve of the thin cotton shirt. The way he maneuvered awkwardly, his eyes focusing hard over your face. Slightly parting his lips to say something before restarting and then finally taking a deep inhale. “Please come with me to my home, just one night.”

Bewildered, you only felt your face frown immediately, not portraying the true feeling of discomfort to him.

“Maybe another time.” You truly didn't even mean those words, but if it meant you could go back home and forget whatever was going on with your nameless friend.

His eyes gazing hard into your own, but he decided to let go.

And with that you climbed back home to the lonely coast path into the young night.

-

…

He was able to slip his skin off with ease, under the solace of the arc that protected his kingdom and people from intruders.

His long tendrils uncurling around him, the true size of his body being revealed underneath the large pool leading to the tunnel of his kingdom only he knew.

“Eh, back already, Azul?” the nasally voice belonging to his twin eels.

His lazy eyes watched as he transformed into his mythical form, the large spidery arms he took on crawling underneath him as he made his way into the burrow further into his private chambers.

The eel followed behind with curiosity; his brother was most likely somewhere tending to his royal garden off in the surface of hollow coral reefs.

“So did you convince her to become a mer yet?” The twin twirled underneath the large, colossal-sized tentacles waving to be in front of him in the rocky crystal hall.

Azul didn't say anything, only weaving past the eel mer gliding to the large open cavern that was his room; the piles of gold shipwrecked treasure and the large amount of gems sparkled a path leading to the large shelf wall enough to fit his large body inside, his prized treasure hidden underneath the blinding treasure and relics.

The one he was supposed to give to you when you stopped being so stubborn.

“Floyd, I need you and Jade to do something important for me.” He stopped in front of a large bubble in the middle of the room; flicking a hand over the ball, an image was cast all around the room. Azul peered into your eyes; you were almost home, sneaking back into your temple without any of the sisters knowing you were with Azul.

He'd only smile to himself; let them catch him with his bride-to-be. He was also done with traditions passed from his grandmother and mother for generations.

It simply wasn't going to work to have a disposable maiden he didn't want to entertain and pretend to play husband and wife with only for the sake of tradition.

“How do you feel about having two legs instead of a tail?” Azul's beauty mark curled higher up his cheek, the grin of pure glee.

“What? Like we can go up to the surface?” Floyd excitedly swam in a circle. “Oh, I'm not falling for it; what's the catch, Azul?” Floyd narrowed his eyes at the giant being.

“You may or may not like being in disguises, but I'm sending you to capture my bride.” Azul bluntly ordered, conjuring a gold magic to his fingertips. A vial was revealed after the flicker was done.

The liquid is a bright gold, shining like shimmery sand under a blue sky.

“(Name) is who I need you to do anything to bring her to me before the ceremony in May.” He shifted a large eye down to the patiently wagging eel below him.

“Do you think you could do me this one favor? I can let you two go out to the surface more often if you succeed.”

“I'm in,” Floyd excitedly swam by

"Besides, “you don't even have to ask Azul; we just want you to be happy, he chirped before clicking back into Mermish.

Azul couldn't hold back his powerful smile; he knew that his two confidants from childhood would be the ones to fulfill his desire.

He just had to sit a thousand leagues under the sea for you to return to him.

-

Note: btw forgor insp by these few Request if unaware for the real inspiration of this series 🖤

The Pearl Brooch

The Fisherman

Eclipse (havent posted on this blog as of posting but will update the link for the Tumblr post once I catch up with crossposting ✊)

[dors-ee]

It could also have been such a good opportunity to explore the pple that otherwise are cool and good but for ie truly don't believe the world is already falling apart, the ones in denial syaing "no no it's ok our civilozation is not collapsing" or "we'll deal with it for the veil". this kind of very human denial of sometimes very obvious thing. Play with psychology, explore it.

I find this lose lose situation fascinating and so interesting. They're both bad but one is maybe not that bad, or at least gives a chance... but does it? Isn't there always still a risk, like a sword hanging off pple's head, ready to fall at any moment by keeping the blight contained?

Isn't it better to let it go maybe? let it express it's rage, let the world try to get back to a balance by itself, with all the elements of it and not some part still locked away?

But then would be the question with the dragons and their blood. Is all of them that tied the veil away being gone... truly good then for nature/the world? Isn't the world now doomed either way with all the archdemons gone? Whatever is done things are fucked up beyond repair? Or is there another way?

like the environmental stuff for me should be considered. The place of world/nature, and how "the veil is a wound inflicted upon this world" and unatural. Not just for the living beings but nature, the order of things, the universe, how it works. if any part of it is till sealed away unaturally and at risk of collapsing... is it ok? (+as i developped epxloring this dragon blood thing OP mentionned).

There's also the element of fairness, of reparation. The blight is an horror... but its mere existence is horror itself, the conscience of the titan taken away? Awful! Absolutely awful! Maybe it should be freed.

Maybe their anger should be let go off.

Maybe a real destroy everything to have a blank page would be better, than the "épée de Damoclès" that is rhe blight, always hanging off pple's head. Left to fester and rot in its corner.

Isn't it just gaining time to cut down thr veil?

Or is it giving the time to find another way to deal with the blight? A sufficient enough new beginning?

I do not have the answer to any of those, but they are interesting to explore I think. And I am sad we didn't get to. I was so bloody excited for this game bc I had heard of the complexity of the previous ones. Bc I truly thought we'd get this. Even if the story was just basic "kill evil elven god" (which tbh is a bit boring in my opinion). If we had this layer of complexity, around the veil, around righting the wrongs, about nature/the world and its state and balance etc etc. just... If we had more complexity. More to think about, more be challenged on.

I wanted something interesting and complex that would challenge me... I got disney. So yeah ok it's fun at first, but tbh even the fun gameplay gets tiring real fast when there's nothing else to hold things together. No other interest in it, nothing else to chew on. Basically no real reason to play, no incentive to go through it. Empty fun is not my fun... (and I do not judge the pple that can do with veilguard and find it fun and compelling and interesting. Or just find it fun and for them it's enough. Like any other opinion on it or experience with it, I do not judge at all.)

edit : 1. could have been an opportunity to interrogate solas about how he speaks of reparation and the old world ... for the elves. not the dwarves. He doesn't truly want to restore the old world, he wants the elven empire. Is it truly fair?

2. when pushing the reflexion about natural order of the world, restoration of the world, etc. Bioware did something fucking awful in making the pple associated with real life jews... unatural beings basically. Pple that weren't supposed to exist : The spirits taking on body by stealing other pple's BLOOD. Basically doomed the world : war by angering the titans, then creating the blight this unatural awful disease. In itself it's bad but then you get the the veil made partially to contain the unatural disease they created unless the world will be fully destroyed... they doomed the whole world basically. And if before the veil the blight was contained another way blabla, now the veil is what contains it. The elves coming into existence by stealing from another species and disturbing everything...

Their existence is unatural and basically doomed the world...

for the race supposed to be a representation of Jews/indigenous pple.

...

hm. Yeah.

The thing that keeps killing me about the Veil discourse and the fact Solas was planning on destroying the world by removing the Veil is that, especially after Veilguard, we have the confirmation that inaction would have been worse.

It's made very clear in DAI and Trespasser especially that the Veil is failing. It's becoming thinner in thinner. Each Blight's bloodshed are so terrible that some places have a Veil that never recovered. There are already hole in the veil in DAO for the Warden to try to fix in places where the Veil has been torn into pieces (Soldier's Peak and the Blackmarshes especially). And Arlathan and Sundermont where also regions that were said to have had the Veil permanently sundered because of the terrible horrors that happened then.

Solas acts panicked when he learns the Wardens are trying to kill the last archdemons saying it will make the situation worse, and for years I argued that the archdemons are probably seals that held the Veil in place and if all of them were killed, it will collapse. At the time i thought it was an elaborated plan by the Evanuris - i didn't think there was a bond between them unless it was true the Old Gods were the Forgotten ones, but that by using the Blight from the Fade the Evanuris were trying to affect those seals to thin the Veil and either a Blight will punch a hole in it, or once all the archdemons will be dead they will be freed.

This isn't the conclusion Veilguard took but i still had a point where it mattered the most: The Archdemons' lives were tied to [the Evanuris who's lives were tied to] the Veil and if all of them died [and killed the Evanuris linked to them by doing so while separated from their respective Evanuris, as evidenced by there being only 2 Evanuris left in Veilguard], the Veil would collapse.

When Solas awoke, it was barely ten years after the 5th Blight. He didn't even know until then that the Blight had leaked from the the prison he had made.

Corypheus acted up on the Wardens' mind BEFORE Solas got involved with him. We know that from Legacy since it's when it started for Corypheus (and Solas supposedly awoke a bit before Mark of the Assassin according to the webseries Redemption).

Corypheus was affected by the Blight he got from the Evanuris, and wanted to do anything he could to tear down the Veil to get to the Black City.

If Solas hadn't offered his orb to Corypheus, if he had stayed in slumber even, The Wardens may have killed the two last archdemons in panic. Or, and that even if Solas gave up on his goal in Inquisition, eventually centuries down the line the two last blights would have happened and the Veil would have collapsed.

There is no scenario in which Solas doesn't get involved that doesn't end with "The Veil falls down and the Blight locked in the Fade is unleashed on Thedas".

Solas' plan is specifically to take down the Veil in a way that doesn't unleash the Blight and the Last of the Evanuris. He will try to salvage as much as he can doing so but that's the core of it.

Leaving aside all the others dilemma about the People, about the Spirits, about Slavery, about everything that has motivated Solas on top of it all: IF Solas didn't act, the Veil would have collapsed on its own and the world would have ended in a way worse way.

We can debate forever about how deadly Solas' plan would have actually been. In Veilguard he says a few thousands of people would have died because he took precaution. I still believe one of the major reasons people would have died are tied to the way Curing Tranquility Also Leave People Who Were Tranquil In a Vulnerable State That Easily Get Them Killed and it would have been the same for people to reconnect so deeply to the Fade (re why Solas asks Cassandra if she thinks it's worth it to still cure the Tranquils and why it mattered).

We can also argue whether this was the only possible thing that could be done.

But like one thing is certain: even if Solas killed absolutely everyone except the elves by collapsing the Veil, it would still be less damage than if the Veil just collapsed on its own. Which would have happened sooner than later. It wasn't an IF. it was an WHEN.

The "Elven God's blood can keep the Veil up and fully repair it" was a full cope out that makes genuinely No Sense (they were NEVER gods to start with, and personally the reason i liked the Archdemons to be the seals more than the Evanuris was bc of what Yavana says in the comics about the dragons being the blood of the world, something much, much bigger than the elves ever were) just to punish Solas anyway.

But the fact people still act like Solas taking down the Veil was him planning the End of the World and It's Bad are just not interrogating themselves on what the Veil is doing.

It was either a controlled apocalypse that will avoid as much damage as possible, or one that will happen at random and will leave no possible chances of salvation.

Just letting the world end by inaction isn't exactly any better than trying to do something.

It's somehow the same logic as Rook and Varric never being blamed for unleashing the final blights. Accidentally triggering the end of the world, or just knowingly letting it happen are fine, but trying to actually do control damage is bad actually.

The Alternative should have been to find another path. One Solas was too prideful, too blind to newer ways, too isolated to have considered himself. One that could remove the Veil without this amount of destruction. Not to reinforce the Veil all together.

And i just think it's unfair to look at Solas plan of destroying the world as the basis to judge he's a bad person without ACKNOWLEDGING what the options actually are. Not even in term to defend Solas, but in term of, do you understand what's at stake????

[collectivephilosopher]

ARCANE WASTED POTENTIAL (PART 1)

I feel like a dumbass because I actually didn't expect that Isha would die 😭😭😭. But I suppose that was my fault since my friend told me the deathflags were everywhere.

I thought Isha's story was about PASSING THE TORCH. Like– like think about it. I thought Jinx was going to die and Isha will continue Jinx's creation but with better mindset, in a better living condition. Like, it makes sense, right?

Vander and Silco grew up in Zaun that were so oppressed that the air was lethal to breathe on. Isn't this was what Felicia was worried about? Like having kids? In this damn economy? I think it's agreeable that Zaun is doing better when Vander and Silco took over (or at least closer to independence). During their time together and after their fallout. But both died never being able to see an independent Zaun.

Imagine what could have been.

Silco passed down the torch to Jinx. Jinx was reluctant at first, having being a Jinx and all that. But then during the Stillwater prison break, she realized that as long as Zaun is under Piltover's oppression, Isha will always be in the risk of danger. Ekko could come in, showing/reminding Jinx of another side of Piltover oppression that does not involve the enforcers, he could also show Jinx too the effect of shimmer on the kids who fell victim to Silco's shimmer empire.

Jinx then decided she'll do it. She'll take Silco's torch. She knows Silco's vision (and arguably Vander's too but maybe we can insert Vi into this). But she won't be like Silco. She won't sacrifice the cause for the end goal. She won't stay still like Vander aswell. Keeping status quo will only mean the only torch she will pass down to Isha is the current one, the oppressed, contaminated, covered in blood, grief, and trauma kind of life.

So she'll learn from them two. She'll fight for the children. For Isha, for the future generations, and for her inner child. For Powder that was never able to grew up in a healthy environment. Besides, acceptance by her people actually feels kind of nice. Jinx's story will be about her successing the mission her fathers failed. Achieving what all three of her fathers fought for. And for that, Jinx then will die breathing in Zaun's independence.

She then passed the torch to Isha, who despite having to spend her childhood under Piltover's oppression, will have the chance to grow up in a better Zaun. It won't be perfect but at least Zaun will be undergoing reformation during this time. Isha will be Jinx but without the psychosis that was often debilitates Jinx. She'll have a healthier mind, a healthier vision and view of Zaun. Then one day, she will pass it down to her own children, the kids who will grow in a reformed Zaun.

I just think it's such a missed opportunity to use Isha only as plot device and emotional leverage for Jinx. Besides, it'll tie up nicely with the parenthood theme in S1. That the strings of event passed down from Silco, Vander, then Jinx was not just tragedy for the sake of tragedy. It's about the struggle of these people passing down a torch for their children, designing it as such to their best effort so that their children won't get burnt holding it.

[poisonsage808]

strange love

John Munch x Stripper!Reader

they think i’m insane, they think my lover is strange

• It really shouldn’t have panned out in his favor, considering he was an asshole on your first date.

"So what do you do?" He asked, struggling to keep boredom from his tone. He hates small talk.

"I'm an entertainer," your hands fidget nervously, "of sorts."

"Well, as long as you're not a stripper." He chuckles.

You, of course, do not.

• To his continued utter perplexity, the date concluded without you throwing insults or silverware at him. You suffered each and every question that you said no one had bothered to ask you before. The thought of dates prior ending abruptly after you'd surrendered the information, you alone with the check, made him more upset than you!

"The bad ones weed themselves out, right?" You joked bitterly, shrugging like you were unfazed but he saw the bleeding heart on your sleeve, "Anyways, I can't really blame them."

John tilts his head, "Why?"

"Would you wanna date someone you knew was ogled nightly by strangers, maybe a coworker or business partner? Everyone says it doesn't bother them until it does."

"That bothers you," he states like the fact that it is, "so why don't you stop? Do something else?"

Pausing while lifting a glass to your lips, you sit straighter and send a smile right to his heart, "You should know why; you're in the same boat as me, it's just named something else. Why don't you stop being a detective even though it's detrimental to your love life, hm? Because we don't believe we should live our lives for anyone other than ourselves."

• Your occupation didn't bother him half as much as his delusions did. He always attracted the wrong type of women, four failed marriages and a looong string of exes can attest to the fact, what business did he have dating a stripper thinking it would lead to what he really wanted? He didn't need another 'I told you so' from the universe

• He went home, alone, denying your comparison because it couldn't possibly be even remotely similar. Your words haunt him the entirety of the next day and later he calls to ask you out again, purely intending on picking your brain and, ideally, prove you wrong. He ends up stepping deeper into the trap you swore you didn't lay, so, maybe, there was a chance he willingly entered and couldn't bring himself to leave

• He’s an old fashioned man, he doesn’t fully get it. Like most, he wants to “save” you and get you out of this line of work. He tries to understand though and therein lies the difference. John still makes jokes about it, however knowledgeable he may be now, he feeds into it every time you complain about work and say you’re quitting,

“Oh no,” he says flatly, dropping his book and turning his attention to you. “Want me to check the classifieds for you? Or I have a buddy in hotel management that needs help manning the front desk, you can stand there and look pretty instead.”

“Don’t be a dick, babe.” You grin despite your irritation.

“I just called you pretty, how am I being a dick?”

• That's not to say you two don't have your fair share of arguments about your job— or his for that matter. There are times where your schedules don't line up or the stress of work gets to you both, resulting in a fight. It shocks him and you that neither of you takes the opportunity to cut losses and leave. It doesn't matter who started what, it always ends with a soft gesture that can only mean no one's going anywhere

• In the past, you’ve both been scorched badly enough to make you wary of a sudden flame. John’s (mostly) open and honest about everything on his mind but god forbid you ask him what his favorite color is. He’s slow to let you in all the way but when you manage to get there, close the door behind you because he doesn’t want out

• Fashion is a surprising forte of his and, wow, does he love shoes! Broke a heel? He has a shoe repair man that knows him by name. You need new pumps? He’ll come with you, have you test them out, holds your hand and says ‘give us a little twirl’. Don’t forget he’s still John Munch, he’ll let you know if he thinks a pair is ugly

“You look ravishing, sweetheart, an absolute dream… if you buy those abominations on your feet that dare call themselves as stilettos, I might accidentally throw them off the Empire State Building, though.”

• Far would it be from John to control your every move, he almost never even thinks of asking but sometimes the fear is unmanageable. John’s job is hard enough as it is only now he walks around seeing your face in every victim, terrified one day they’ll pull back the white sheet and that worry will become a reality. So can you blame him if he holds on too tight? If he asks you to call in sick because he has a bad feeling or demands you stay home because a freak is out there killing strippers? You try not to.

“Don’t argue with me on this, please, just lock the door and don’t answer it for anyone that’s not me. Please.”

• Being apart for days at a time makes phone calls very important… only John hates talking on the phone, keeping his replies shortened to “yeah” and “mhm”. Sometimes you can hear someone in the background and will take the conversation in a dirty direction to get him riled up. Other times you know the call is coming to an end and quickly say,

“I miss you, handsome.”

His voice quiets and turns impossibly soft, “I miss you too, beautiful.”

Laughter erupts close by him, the familiar voices of his infamous squad teasing him. You can’t help but grin as the line goes dead, feeling victorious that you won over the possibility of ridicule.

• Because he does miss you, terribly. You make him throw caution to the wind, you turn his brain to slush and have him forget how to tell himself no. He thought he got rid of this bad habit where he rushed in too quickly— then he asked you to move in with him. It was unceremonious and obviously not thought out, but you still said yes. Now, even though your schedules aren’t always on your sides, you two can at least take comfort in knowing the other will be coming home at some point

~

“Twelve bucks? I’m not paying twelve bucks for a spoonful of yuppie punch– I’d punch a yuppie for free, though. How the hell did these people get their liquor license? This is robbery.”

You’d know that sarcastic voice anywhere.

In a club packed like sardines and music blaring like a morning alarm– terrible combination, really– he shouldn’t have heard you the same way you shouldn’t have heard him. Still, you snorted, an unattractive sound, that you tried to mask with your hand. The second you did, he couldn’t take his eyes off you and was struggling to maintain a passive expression. You were willing to bet that if you went to the back and checked your phone there would be an SOS text from your boyfriend, trying to give you a heads up.

He looks pleased as punch to have caught you.

“Sounds like someone agrees with me.”

“Yeah right, you probably paid her to laugh.”

You turned with a shy grin, debating how you wanted to play this scene. Behind the darkened lenses of his glasses you could sense John studying you, wondering the same thing.

“So which is it, gorgeous, do you agree with me or did money jump out of my wallet and into your hand?”

You feel your cheeks warm while you attempt to stifle a laugh at his compliment. Hot and sexy you heard every day but the rare bouquet of praise John gave you was consistently refreshing, and he was a walking dictionary so the compliments were endless. His partner’s eyes go wide at your reaction. You’ve never met any of the detectives he worked with but from John’s stories, you gather it’s Fin.

“I’d report my boss for theft but that might make me a hypocrite.” Sweeping over your hips, you gesture to your outfit. Or lack thereof, your favorite piece was two zippers away from leaving you fully naked.

That gets a smirk out of him, “I dunno about that. You don’t look like a rip-off to me.”

You dare to step closer, wasps of coffee and leather hit your nose. Clearly enjoying the attention, John angled himself to block you from Fin and placed a hand on his hip. Like a bird, he preened when you took his tie in your hands, standing straighter and puffing out his chest. You lowered your voice and he chased after it, allowing you to gently pull the silk.

“You here for business or pleasure, handsome?”

“I’m—” You wouldn’t find out what he was going to say, there was a loud, fake cough behind him. John sighs, mouth pressed into a straight line and leaning back slightly, “Detective John Munch, a—”

“–And I’m Detective Tutuola. We need to speak to this boss of yours.” His partner chimed in, shoving his way back into view. The two shared a private conversation with their eyes that left them both glaring.

Jack, the bartender, set a tray with two martini glasses on the counter and whistled for your attention. Reluctantly, you allowed John’s tie to slip entirely from your fingers to grab the tray.

“Follow me.”

It wasn’t an offer. Taking John’s hand you began walking backwards, leading them to a booth. His fingers link with yours like it’s the most natural action in the world, leaving you on top of it. You had to bite your lip to contain your excitement.

“You’re not worried you’re gonna break an ankle?” He asks too seriously, quirking a worried brow at you.

“Haven’t yet.” Your reply isn’t reassuring him in the least. “Hey if I have to look for a new job you’d tell me, right?”

“Well I’ve only been asking you to for the past two years. Will me arresting your boss actually make you quit? I’ll feel really stupid if that’s all I had to do to keep you to myself.” He teases, winks, then turns your wrist over to place a delicate kiss to your knuckles.

John releases you to slide into the booth beside his partner, looking damn pleased with himself. Staring with narrowed eyes and a befuddled frown, Fin finally speaks his mind.

“…I’m missin’ something.”

“Gee, you’re quick today. Tutuola, meet my girlfriend. Ethereal light of my life, this is the infamous Fin.”

“How do you do?”

To you, the man smiles kindly, “Just fine, thanks, lovely to meet you. One second—“ The slap he gives John’s arm, however, is audibly loud and full of petty anger. “You have a woman!? And you never told me!? That’s messed up, Munch, I’m your partner.”

“First of all, ow. You can’t just hit people because you’re mad at them, didn’t they teach you this in grade school!? Keep your hands to yourself, you acrimonious oaf. Secondly, I did tell you— it’s not my fault you thought I was kidding. Thirdly, I told her about you which, if you think about it, is arguably more important.”

John leans back when he runs out of hot air, dramatically rubbing his arm. Already accustomed to your comforting weight around his shoulders, he doesn’t blink when you hug his neck in front of his partner.

“He says you’re the best partner he’s ever had.”

“I did pay her to say that.���

“Yeah, I bet you did.” Fin winks, like you’re sharing a secret, “I’ll keep his bony ass safe for you, mama.”

Tapping your arm, John turns his head so he doesn’t have to yell over the music anymore, “We really do need to talk to your boss now, sweetheart.”

"Duty calls, you answer." You hum, sliding your arms off him to release him from your embrace, "I'll get her for you. See you tonight, handsome."

Mindful of your lipstick, you lean in to ghost a kiss to his cheek but he discards your caution and steals a proper, quick peck. John grins at your surprise, feasting on it. Snickering, you playfully swat his arm before walking away. You can feel his reluctant eyes struggle to let you go. Fin smirks and jostles his partner as you depart, much to his provocation.

"You dog!"

Munch waits a moment to wipe the mark from his lips, grinning at your frame as it fades away.

"Woof."

[slitheringghost]

Making Sense of Lily's Last Moments

Lily Evans is textually and in fandom lauded for her sacrifice, but if you stop and really think about it, Lily's last moments are extremely bizarre, and, to be frank, make her seem kind of incompetent rather than the battle hardened soldier she was:

1. She doesn't have her wand on her when Voldemort is hunting her family down and they could be in danger any moment, which is insanely careless (James does have his, even though he leaves it for just a couple moments just as Voldemort arrives)

2. She wastes precious time blocking the door with cardboard boxes when she knows Voldemort can just wave them away and then more precious time trying to reason with Lord fucking Voldemort despite having wandless magic abilities, begging Voldemort for mercy when the entire reason they've been in hiding for a year is because they all know that, y'know, Voldemort has no mercy (And Lily, the Muggleborn, who has lost the most to this war, knows this better than anyone)

As I explain in this post, we have similar scenarios in which the characters do fight - Amelia Bones "put up a real fight” against Voldemort. Bellatrix uses knives as backup when disarmed of her wand. Dobby saves Harry via wandless magic in the same book we see Lily’s death and her controlling wandless magic at 9. Harry avoids curses from Voldemort/Bellatrix/other Death Eaters by hiding behind stuff. Bellatrix initially escapes Dumbledore who's the better duelist over Voldemort, etc. So while escape is highly unlikely, isn't impossible either. And there's no way Lily wouldn't go down fighting if she had the option.

There's a lot of moments in the series where we as readers go "well why didn't the characters just do XYZ instead, it's such an obvious answer!" especially with how limitless magic in HP is. But I generally assume there's some in-universe reason that would make the characters' choices make sense rather than just accepting that they're stupid and incompetent.

I'm constantly on my soapbox about how fandom should adapt the interpretation that Lily had a plan and did dark magic to save Harry and to defeat Voldemort, which is my personal reading of the text However, if I haven't convinced you on that (...yet), here are some possible ways to fill in the gaps and make Lily's choices seem less strange. (Even if you don't think the canon version makes her look incompetent, these are just fun ideas to play with regardless!)

Why Lily didn't have her wand

Lily's wand broke at some point during a particular dangerous experiment. We have canon examples - Ron's wand in CoS, Harry's in DH (How did Voldemort's wand survive the blast if his body evaporated and end up with him in GoF then? Who knows...). Realistically, the Order would prioritize getting Lily a new wand ASAP because it's so obviously necessary, so maybe it happened close-ish to Halloween and they didn't have the time or opportunity. It could be an interesting parallel to Harry's own powerlessness in DH without his phoenix wand.

@keepmycandleburning's explanation in her fic I'm quicker includes a dark interpretation of James and Lily's marriage, where James took Lily's wand hostage as a method of abuse.

Why Lily didn't fight with wandless magic

Despair and depression can sap your magical power - examples include Merope, Tonks, dementors affecting the magical power of Azkaban prisoners', etc. Perhaps Lily had post-partum depression which sapped her wandless powers, or even just the general despair of fear for Harry's and her own and her loved ones' lives, being trapped in hiding, her family and other friends being dead, etc. Also interesting because until then Lily had a safety net compared to a lot of other Muggleborns - who were in constant fear of having their wands taken away and no wandless magic to fall back on - due to her magical power, but she ultimately ends up deprived of that too.

I still think Lily would've tried, like, anything else other than the cardboard box thing and begging Voldemort, but at least this makes her actions less weird and more like the brilliant witch we know she was.

[the-stars-in-between]

You'll Need It More Than Me (She'll Need You More Than Me)

A little something inspired by the fifth headcanon because I couldn't help myself. Love me some tragic sibling relationships.

The sense of déjà vu tasted like ash and ozone in her mouth as Athena watched Hephaestus get banished from Olympus like she had been before him. Everything was the same as last time, down to the last word spoken by the God-King. Except for the tears silently streaming down Hera's cheeks.

This time, the Queen of the Gods was devastated to see her true child leave — flesh of her flesh, blood of her blood. Athena knew that if she could, Hera would offer her own life for Hephaestus’. But goddesses could not die, Hera could not move from her place beside Zeus' throne and this was perhaps the cruelest of punishments.

(Athena would do it too, take Hephaestus' place so he could stay by Hera's side. As a family. It wasn't like there was a place for her anymore.)

Ares' rage beside her seeping into the white marble like poison made her lose her mind, made her want to take that step forward and save Hephaestus from his fate. Or maybe it wasn't Ares, maybe it was all her.

A look from Hera, full of sorrow and anger, made Athena stop in her tracks. Obviously Hera did not want her help, did not need her. Athena's eyes sharpened beneath her helmet and she placed a hand on Ares' arm to stop him from doing something even more foolishly reckless than her.

Hephaestus looked so small in Zeus' shadow, scared and fragile. Almost human. Has she ever looked this small? Not in daylight anyway.

(She had never had the opportunity to be an infant.)

(But it wasn't about her. It was never about her.)

Zeus tore Hephaestus from Hera's arms and for a moment Athena's blood froze in her veins as she thought Zeus was going to yeet him from the mountain. She took an instinctive step forward.

“I’ll do it,” All eyes turned to Athena — Zeus's savage satisfaction, Hera's cutting disappointment, and Ares's corrosive disdain — but she composed herself, keeping her head high.  “I shall take him to the mortals.”

If there had been hope between Hera and her before, it was over. Not when Athena was the hand that snatched her true child away. 

Zeus smiled. “Great idea, child-of-my-mind. Come dispose of him.”

Athena stepped forward toward Zeus and he dropped the infant into his arms without warning. She made her forearm guards disappear before he could collide with the rough metal, cradling Hephaestus as gently as possible. She felt more awkward than a newborn fawn, all sharp elbows and violent hands. 

Without a backward glance, Athena left the throne room, her wings spreading behind her as she took flight.

.

.

.

Finding a mortal family she trusted to care for Hera's son, her brother, was surprisingly not the hardest part. Parting with him was. It felt like she was tearing her chest open and ripping out her own lung. As a goddess, she didn't need to, but it hurt to breathe all the same. 

She landed in a forest, away from men and gods, and carefully brushed Hephaestus' cheek. Hephaestus grabbed her finger and babbled, so happy that Athena's heart could burst with joy.

“I'm sorry you won't know your mother,” Athena apologized softly. “She… she’s wonderful. And you deserved to know her. I'm so sorry, Heph.”

Tears fell down Hephaestus' cheek and he looked up at her with big, round eyes, full of innocence, empty of judgment. It wasn't fair that Hephaestus had to grow up without his mother. Not when Athena knew how incredible it could be.

But maybe he didn't have to. 

Hera had once promised her that she would be loved forever, perhaps Athena could pass on that promise even if it no longer applied to her. Summoning to her the necklace Hera had given her centuries ago — hidden in a pocket dimension, never on her person, never too far away — she placed it around Hephaestus' neck.

She smiled in spite of herself when she saw the iridescent colors of the little metallic peacock. She had truly trusted Hera and her promise at that time, and the necklace had continued to bring her comfort long after the rift between them had widened. 

“I hope you have a happy life,” Athena whispered as she kissed the infant's forehead. "Remember that you are so, so loved. More than you will ever know.”

When Athena left, Hephaestus clutched in his hand a peacock necklace and an owl feather.

Some Slipping through my Fingers headcanons (is it a hc if it's my story? Wouldn't lore be more accurate? Does it matter?):

Athena's first crafting-related hobby was embroidery from when Hera gave her an old project to occupy her with way back. She always kept that hobby, but she's switched to weaving more since she has her official domain to distance herself from her childhood.

Athena and Ares spent a pretty long period living in a palace with their parents before Hephaestus built their own palaces. Little Ares had a proper "Do you want to build a snowman?" phase with his older sister. Athena may or may not have soundproved her door for a while against his knocking (Mean, mean owl. XD Also peak sibling behavior)

Athena refused to settle down in Lake Tritonis for the longest time. She held onto hope that she'd be taken back to Olympus soon. She started training hard to be good enough to be allowed back, and feels extra guilty because Pallas' death gave her exactly that, though only once she didn't want it anymore.

Athena is actually not Zeus' eldest daughter, she's just the oldest he claimed. Persephone was born very very soon after the Titanomachy. (teen pregnancy go brr) and neither he nor Demeter like to talk about it.

Hephaestus has a necklace with a peacock pendant that Athena left with him when she brought him to mortal family to raise. It was the same pendant Hera gave her when she was younger to remind her she was always loved.

Aphrodite was washed up on the shore near Olympus in a shell a lá Birth of Venus. Nobody knows exactly how she ended up in the sea, not even herself.

Ares likes the smell of  olives but not the taste. (Yes he gives them to Athena)

Hera's animal form is a white peafowl (wedding dress birb fr), not a "common" female peacock. She does keep the peacock color scheme for herself tho cos it's pretty.

Post-Triton Athena only very rarely goes completely armorless outside of sleeping. That doesn't mean she always wears a full set, but she does mostly wear something on her torso at least. Something non-metal like leather would already be considered casual. 

Athena called Metis "Mama", so she would never consciously call anyone else that, even when she was younger. She got to calling Hera "Mom" tho (Hera cried a little. All her kids, bio or adopted, call her Mom btw), post-Triton, Athena calls Hera by her name. She addresses Zeus by "father", but refers to him as Zeus when speaking about him. When she feels extra like hurting herself, she'll refer to Hera as "your mother" around her siblings.

Chat, what do we think? :)

[biteyoubiteme]

raspberry stains

vampire!sunghoon x fem!reader

❦︎ synopsis: left alone on the streets of your small village you are offered the opportunity to trade your life for only a small price to pay. You are given to vampire prince sunghoon who has not had a taste for blood for almost a lifetime. Not because he does not feel hunger but because he has not found the one that temps him. ⸝⸝⸝⸝⸝⸝ warnings: vampires, blood, blood drinking, angst, dark themes, reader held against her will, biting, no protection, creampie, prob forgot some sorry

⋅˚₊‧ wc: 18.5k ‧₊˚ ⋅

❦︎ ⸝⸝⸝ now playing: sacrifice (eat me up) -enhypen an: thank you to my bestie @beombunni who sent me an ask after we watched so much en o'clock together on a late friday night. I do not think ill be writing a lot for enha and I will not be taking requests for them! I do hope you enjoy this tho bc I love vampires so much <33 this is not proofread pls forgive me sweet angels I am a monster

[m.list]

To be a gift was to be a blessing. Young girls and boys were picked up off the streets of dying villages, rampant with sickness and filth. The heavily coated royal servants cased the roads, their scent fragrant and foreign. Even if they were not turned they still had that enticing pull to them, lined with the beckoning aura of the vampires just by association. Or maybe it was because no one in your village had seen such decadence, that slow prowl, ruby red gems dripping from chains slung around their bodies showing you who's kingdom they belonged to. 

You had only heard stories of the vampires sending to find feeders outside of their kingdoms. Not stolen, kidnapped, or captured. Persuaded by the idea of a full belly that none born to this kind of poverty had ever experienced since falling away from their mothers. It's why when the servant leaned down next to your half-stiff body, trembling from the cold wind, you let him. Let him breathe in the scent of you, eyes closing as you send a prayer for some kind of savior from this cold hell you had been born into. Fingers numb as you held them, knowing that as tight as you had gripped it should have hurt, knees pulled to your chest, the half moth eaten blanket wrapped around you the only relic you had from once living between four walls and not against one. 

“Have you ever been fed from before?” It was that single question that made you blink back to reality, looking at the pale face inspecting you. He was a vampire, you could tell from the faint ring of red around his iris’ but it didn't scare you as you had been told it should have. Even if you would be taken away, anywhere would be better than the cobble street digging into you, staining your clothes. It wasn't a bed as you had tried to convince yourself every night as you faded to sleep. If they locked you in a cellar you're sure even if it's cold it would at least keep you dry from the snow, blocked from the wind. 

“Never,” the word sealed your fate like a fresh wax stamp. They had not believed you, not fully. They turned over your wrists, tipped your chin looking over your neck and any hot spot most vampires liked to drink from often, just to make sure they found no puncture marks. You were weak and malleable, easy enough to pick up and carry away like the bodies they carted after the plague. 

You didn't ask questions, not when they handed you broth to drink, breaking the unintentional fast you had found yourself stuck in. not when they led you out of their horse-drawn carriage and through the back doors of a towering stone castle. It had been a long journey, one you spent most of your time relishing in because of the momentary block from the constant wind you had been subjected to while on the streets. But you should have watched the way in so you could have had some hope of knowing the way back out. 

Be grateful, you didn't say the words out loud but they kept on a persistent loop in your brain, rattling around your skull until you wouldn't think any other thoughts but that one demand. You should be grateful, everyone you knew would have told you the same thing. You had food coming at the same hours every day, new clothes that were nicer than you had ever worn, made of fabrics you had never seen in your town's shop before it was run down and ransacked. And they kept you in a small room with a fire, tended often by a maid who did not look at you. But it was all a very pretty cage. 

And after a full belly and a right bed to sleep on your mind was clearing. Every little thing that you had been told about the vampires was coming back to you in small spurts. They did not take nicely to anyone besides themselves and their feeders, on occasion, but even then the feeders were their property and not their friends. And you knew even if they were being nice, making you stronger, and dolling you up, it all came at a price that you would have to pay in blood. 

You didn't know how painful the cost would be, the stories were filled with conflicting reports. You had known a girl who had taken a vampire lover once and she had come back hazy-eyed and begging to see him again. It was not the kind of inhibition you would have wanted to lose. The girl you had once known had come back hollow, not in the sense of being bloodless but of being bound to a feeling that was unlike any other. And that made you scared. Even more so than horror stories that had come back about the burning that set place in one's veins the second they had been bitten, the draw of blood being sucked clean from them had felt like a hot iron branding them in thin lines all over their bodies. Pain was one thing, loss of oneself was another. 

You had wanted help, you had not cared about what would happen to you when you were starving, cold, and so so alone. You would have let them bite you right then without a second thought but you had time to think over what it all meant now. You would be stuck here, bound and passed around like a bottle of cheap wine they found for a good deal because to them you were just a thing to be owned and put away once done. Sure they fed you but it was only in turn to feed themselves. They clothed you but only so that they could look at something pretty while they took from you. At least they had you warm with a bed you could rest on but you're sure that blood warmed was better than blood cold. 

The thoughts of leaving showed up even before they came in with the pearl necklace. The length of the pearls strung together is worth more than you had thought possible for a piece of jewelry. The beads looked like white opal, heavy against your collarbone as they fasted the necklace securely. A long trail of them beaded down in a row dangled down your back as if it was a long lead. Because it was a collar, not a fashion statement. You were nothing more than a pet for them and you knew it the second one of them pulled on the string while trying to see if it was in place. The movement had sent your hand to your neck, fingers slipping between your windpipe and the beads, tugging on them to try and see if there was any give and finding none at all. 

It had made you cry, feeling the pearls cold, the weight down your back made you straighten, wanting to get away from the feeling, the shock of them like frozen fingertips on your spine. They set out clothes for you, silk and chiffon, flowing around your waist and legs, your wrists wrapped in soft mesh cuffs sprayed with a faint perfume. They were making you look appealing, pinching your cheeks, your lips, trying to get more blood flow through them.  

“He will find you very pretty,” one of the many handmaids muttered as she pressed a cloth to the corner of your eyes, collecting the tear that had threatened to spill. “The prince enjoys pretty things,” 

You watched the way your chin trembled in the mirror, your teeth clenching to try and get the image out of your head of some prince who would want something pretty to feed from. It only made you want to run from the through, from this castle dawned in candlelight and heavily velvet-covered curtains. You haven't seen the sun in over a week, not unless they let you walk up the winding stairs from your room to the kitchen. The soft light comes through the diamond-patterned glass. But they didn't take you down to pick what you wanted for dinner anymore after you had tried to run. 

It had happened in a blink, the door was open, the cold air sweeping in around your ankles the second you made it down the last step. It had been a split-second thought, your body had already been on edge, flight or flight taking over your every sense but you hadn't had an opening or outlet to get the feeling out. And so the second you had seen that bright light, blinding from only having seen the light of the fire in your room for so long, you took the opportunity and fled. 

They had caught you and you didn't even have it in you to fight it anymore. The words going round and round, again and again, be grateful- be grateful- be grateful- 

“You won't be staying in here for long, most gifts stay with their charge,” a handmaiden comments, fixing your skirt making sure it's laid exactly where she wants it to be. “And I've seen your room, it is very nice,” as if that was supposed to make you feel any better as if it would stop the tears from slipping.

They could set you up with everything you had ever wanted but it would not make you forget that once you had complete control over everything in your life. Yes, you had been in the streets, half alive with no hope, willing to take any option to get you away from it. But now all that was settling over you was fear. Your stomach always turned, everyday you twisted your hands together, worrying at your nails, twisting the mesh cuffs around and around your wrist, trying to distract yourself from the bugs making a home in your belly. You wonder if other gifts had felt butterflies or the same mayflies you had; the kind that picked over dead things and not sipped from vibrant flowers. 

It felt wrong to enjoy something that felt like dying even if you didn't know what it felt like to have teeth scratching over a vein just yet. This was supposed to be a blessing but all you felt was the feeling of being trapped, lured in with a small chunk of cheese like a mouse right before it was snapped in half. You were wiggling, each tear a squeak, a cry for help. But no one who set a mouse trap that was intended for death helped save the mouse they had captured. 

They made sure the pearls would never come off. Welding the latch shut after you had hidden them. The weight of them stuck and still not familiar when they finally got you ready to be gifted. They had prepped you enough, fed you enough to bring life back into your face, and the person you saw in the mirror was one you would have never recognized at first glance. She was not you and you hated the one who would have you because they had done this.  

When they brought you from your room they twisted the pearls until the lead was in front, easy to pull you along behind the servant they had sent to bring you down. You did not fight this time, not when all their eyes were on you and you felt as if you had given up on yourself. Not only were you scared but you were done. You had missed the opportunity to make it out, they had been fast, and there had been nowhere to hide before you hit the treeline of the surrounding forest. If you ran again they had people who would see exactly where you were at any time, and you didn't know the woods or the way back to your village. There was nothing to do but give in. 

They had gone over the list of things you would have to do for the vampire you would be assigned to. The long list was told to you over and over again. But they kept up the same few points, never let another feed from you, you were to be theirs alone, listen to them at all times, and follow them close. It felt silly to be treated like a puppy with attachment issues. 

It wasn't until they had brought you to the throne room that you first laid eyes on Sunghoon. In an instant he had caught you in his stare, almost as quickly you saw the slight tremor in his nose, a twitch that was stilled within the second you had seen it. He swallowed thickly, jaw working as he took you in. Everyone turned to you, looking over what they had done to make you as close to perfect as you needed to be as a gift. 

Your throat was tight with so many eyes on you. The rows of vampires make the air smell too sweet and alluring. Your body was telling you to run, pulse pumping and hammering in your ears. Sunghoon sat at the raised dais with his father, the throne he sat on only slightly smaller, still forged in gold, intricate patterns of ivy surrounding his head like the laurels worn by the gods. 

“I got you a gift,” the sultry voice of the king was heavy in the empty air. A room full of still vampires was like a room full of statues, his voice carried between their bodies echoing even if he did not speak up louder than if he were ordering tea. “It's good luck to be gifted a feeder on a solstice and I'm sure you will find her to be very sweet, my men went out looking for only the most decedent of feasts for you,” 

And Sunghoon could smell the sweetness on you, the perfume sprayed to your wrists only highlighting the temptation you should have brought to him. For a second he could feel his fangs tingle for the first time in what felt like forever and he had wanted to let them down but then he caught that faint hint of something bitter. His stomach flipped, and he tried to keep his face clear; tried not to let his weakness show. You were scared, the fear tinting your blood with something he couldn't quite put his finger on. 

Sunghoon had spent years unable to explain why he found it so hard to feed when it was all but expected of him if he wanted to live. He had never met a starving vampire, he had known the hungry, seen them in the streets fighting over meals but it did not feel as if they were being carved open from the hollowness. Sunghoon had been hollow for what felt like years, only stomaching drops of blood at a time before they threatened to come back up. He had never seen a vampire sick like he got, had never come across someone who shivered at the scent of a perfectly healthy girl so willing to turn her wrist to his waiting mouth. But he could not bring his fang forward to do the job, not when he smelt that faint thread of fear in their blood. 

They had been tainted even if only a little bit but it was there poisoning them. And he could smell it on you even across the room, your beating heart loud to his ears, echoing the promise of being full. He did get hungry, he was always hungry, and you did tempt him, but he knew that fear was marbling your blood like the fat marbling a steak, others found it gave the blood a spice that was needed but to him it only made him cringe. 

You were a gift and he could not turn you away, not when it would show weakness to those who did not know how much of a struggle it was to feed. He would look as weak as he felt when he was so empty. And if you were scared he didn't want to make it worse by trying to feed and coming away unable, then it only colored the blood with the taste of disappointment and that was worse for him to stomach. 

“Thank you, my king,” it was the only response he could muster, eyes finding the pulse point at your neck, watching the thumping vein like he was expected to. But as he watched he could scent the way it made you feel, could tell the others envied him as they smelt that spicy sweetness as it flooded the room. The only other feeder here was his father's, the pearl necklace chained to the side of his seat as he had her standing right by his side. 

He knew that having a feeder always available was a display of wealth, always a meal ready whenever he even felt the urge. But anything would be better than subjecting someone to be tied to his side when he was already broken. A vase that had cracks in it so that anything added would spill out of him. He didn't want to keep you any more than you must have wanted to stay by his side. Royal feeders could not be fed on by anyone else and so he knows that you were unmarked by anyone else's fangs. And he would not be able to show you that it wasn't supposed to feel bad, that he had been told it was a pleasurable feeling if one found the right match, but Sunghoon had mourned that he would never find the one. 

The nights had passed with him thinking about how it was the last thing he wanted. He had lived this long with the hunger he could spend the rest of his life like this. It didn't even hurt anymore, didn't ache as it had when he was a child. Back then it had been an unbearable pain, trying to swallow fast mouthfuls to make sure that even a bit would get down, but it was only for a small time that it would curb any hunger he felt. He would curse and cry over the pain, beg to be like anyone else, and he had tried to use his compulsion on a human once, but still, even under the spell he could taste it, the overripe fruit flavor like sickening wine on his lips, staining his teeth and making him break apart into a mess of pleads. 

He wanted to be like the others, even in their disgusting overindulgence, anything was worth wishing for when he was so empty. But no amount of blood could make him feel the same joy they felt when everyone else fed. So he was okay with being alone, okay with the thirst, the pain of being empty. But it was not your cross to bear, he did not want you to worry over him, hating him he could stand, he would weave that into an excuse as a reason to send you back wherever it was they had found you. But he could not say that now with the audience before them waiting for his elation at the perfectly sweet gift his father, his king, had given him. 

The staff member was quick to pull you along by your pearls but at least when they pulled you forward they did not choke you as it had when they pulled you backward. He left you right at the first step, the black and white marble, glossed and reflecting the candlelight back at you. When the pearl chain was dropped it was heavy against your chest and for the first time you found comfort in the weight of it, the only thing that was now a constant, something familiar in the room of unfamiliar. 

Sunghoon stood, his head dipping down as he bowed, bent halfway, one hand on his stomach and the other at his side before righting himself and meeting you at the bottom of the steps. He reached out and you flinched, eyes screwed shut, worried to feel the brush of his fingers on you when he grabbed the pearls to tug you up the steps to stand right next to the throne he had gotten up from. But the ghosting of his fingers did not come, your eyes peeling open to look down at where he held his palm up for you to place yours. It was a soft invitation that you did not want to accept. 

He was so very pretty when you looked up at him, eyes following the moles on his skin like connecting the stars to make a constellation in the night. He looked at you blankly, lips set in stone, still a faint shade of pink, eyes lazy and waiting for you to put your hand in his. You could hardly see the red line around his iris, so dark it was fading into the darkness of his gaze. You watched the way his mouth opened only the smallest bit, take it, the words not even spoken so that it would only be caught by those looking at him and not heard. He blinked, slow, lashes matching the dark strands of his hair handing on his brow. 

You followed his command, scared he would take the pearls and tug you like the other one had. He was cold, skin silky smooth as your fingers graced his, not wanting to give him access to your palm as if that would make it any better to have your hand in his. “Careful of your skirt,” he muttered looking down at the way the fabric pooled on the ground, easy enough to step on while you made your way up the dias. Your free hand twisted in your dress, picking it up so that you could have your slippered steps unblocked as you followed him. He did not pull you along, did not lead you, he was there as someone to make sure you did not fall and that was it, dropping your hand the second that you made it up safe. 

Next to him on the armrest of his chair, a loop was welded in, the perfect spot to hook your pearls to and make sure that you wouldn't run. But he did not attach it, only let you stand there like some coat rack next to a door. Your lips pursed, you had been told not to cry, warned over again that it was not something they wanted to see; you were to be grateful, not tearful. 

But Sunghoon could scent the saltiness building behind your eyes, could tell you were about to cry just by the way you had been shot through with sadness in a second. He had no way to make it better, not when they still had an hour to sit in the throne room to watch the rest of the gifts brought in. From all over people had traveled to give solstice gifts to the crown for good favor. He had no time to get away and he knew the second they dismissed everyone he would have to explain himself to you. He could already predict the way you would smell then, the sadness maybe even twinged with disappointment, that's how they usually were. 

And it wasn't as if you didn't smell divine to him already. He wanted to taste you, his father was right, you were the sweetest he had ever come across, but this was still overtaken by fear. And now being closer to you he could feel the ache in his fangs more prominently, a twinge that hurt along his gums. But it faded when the tears threatened. 

You stood there, looking out over the people, watching as they came up one by one and gifted things, placing them on a pile at their feet. You should have been tossed right amongst the jewels and lavish wines tainted with blood. You were no better than the spoils they collected now, only you had a heartbeat they were kind enough to recognize and put to the side as ‘extra special’ but it was only a ruse. 

It took forever for them all to finally be dismissed for dinner and it was then that real panic began to sink in. You watched the way they picked themselves up, working their way out the door chatting, and going over what was waiting for them in the dining room. But your eyes were glued ahead watching how freely they walked, watching how they went left and not right where you knew the kitchen was tucked away for the feeders and remaining unused by the rest of them. If he took you out the same way you could run, head right and since your pearls were in front of you it might be easier to slip by without being tugged back. 

But it was a pipedream you knew as much and it's why the tears did not stop at your lashes but finally slid down your cheeks without a sound. 

“For tonight could I gain permission to skip over this feast?” The prince's voice was heavy, the question sinking into you like a stone thrown into the lake. He wanted you alone. 

“Of course,” it was no secret from the king the struggle Sunghoon had. It was less a secret how much he had tried to rectify the situation. You were the last option in a long list of failures, the king did not need his people watching the way his son would react if he could not take in even a mouthful of one of the most tempting feeders found in over a century. 

His finger touched the tip of your elbow, a light command for you to follow after him as he stood up. He lifted his hand out again for you when you reached the steps, your sniffling loud even to your own ears as you pressed your fingertips to his, letting him lead you down the way you had come up. “And Sunghoon,” it made the boy next to you pause in his tracks, the edges of his lips dipping, lips pursed as he waited for his order, “try this time,” 

“Of course father,” but even you could tell it was strained, half said because he was expected to. 

The prince did not grab your pearls only expecting you to follow behind him as his footsteps echoed in the hall, so much louder than your soft slippers they had given you. Something that you had realized was so that you wouldn't run; in the woods, you would need more than something so easily pierced through by a lone thorny branch. The thought of escaping only passed briefly once, your heart rate quickening at the idea made Sunghoon turn around, the doors already closed to the throne room, but it didn't mean his father would not be able to hear him. “No,” he didn't need to elaborate, not when you were so clearly turned to not follow him. 

“I-” but he cut you off with a shake of his head, waving a pale hand in the direction of the stairs. 

He did not move until you did, waiting for you to make it next to him before he continued his ascent up to wherever it was he was planning on keeping you. The castle was too large for you to remember the turns he had taken before reaching his room. Your mind was overrun with the fear of what would happen the second he closed the doors behind the two of you to focus on the left and right turns. Your breathing was coming out in huffs more focused on coming out through your nose, every drawl in from your lungs feeling erratic and strange. 

The hallway to his rooms was long and dark, none of the candles lit as you felt your feet start to drag, every step slower and slower as he pushed open his door. He stood there with his arm extended, half in the dark, a soft glow of the fire inside fanning over his pale skin. He did not pressure you to go forward, let you stand there and look at him, trying to catch your breath, trying to right your mind and not turn around again to run. “I just want to talk,” he spoke low so that you wouldn't get scared by the sound. 

If before you had found yourself to be caged they were testing how easy it was to recapture you now, how easy it was to get you to follow commands. But you had nowhere else to go so shakily you raised your hand to wipe at your tears, nodding as you made the last few steps towards his door. You don't want to touch him as you pass but it's inevitable in the small space, shoulder brushing his chest. It makes you shudder, you try and pull yourself together but the sound of the door closing behind you is enough to make it worse. The tremble cascading down your limbs that even the warmth from the fire does not help to calm. 

The space is large enough to have been the biggest room you had ever seen, taking up more space than even the one they kept you in before with some of the other girls. The fireplace itself is larger than the one in your local town's bar, neatly tended and cleared of ash. A neat set of a couch and chairs sat right in front of the flames, perfect to cozy up and read from the bookshelf that was tucked into the corner. It was dark, the windows covered with the same thick red velvet curtains as the rest of the castle. It blocked the moonlight you're sure would have been coming in to cast the bed in a silver glow. 

To the far corner, there was an archway into a bathroom, the tub partially covered with a dark wood divider. There was only one other door, half hidden behind the sheer canopy of the bed was right next to a dark nightstand with a book, left open with a thin-bladed letter opener as the bookmark. You could hear the girls telling you how lucky you were to be given to the prince of all people, not a lesser royal aristocrat with no space but to send their feeder back down to the waiting hall next to the kitchen where they had first brought you. 

But even that had felt better than this. You would have been amongst humans like you, not stuck so far from where everyone was that you would have to pray you could find a way out. And it wasn't your room, it was his room that you were invading. The sheets were still slightly rumpled from where he must have been sitting before leaving. It made your stomach turn again, even if you had shared with all those other girls you wouldn't have been trapped as severely as you were now. 

But Sunghoon did not move further into the space after closing the door, the survey of the room was quick so that you wouldn't have your back to him. And there he stood taking you in his hands by his sides, palms turned up. “I'm not going to feed from you, not now, and even if my father asked me to try I won't, not unless you want that but I can tell it's not in the cards right now,” he gets the words out in a rush, “the room is mostly yours now, you can have the bed, it's better than what they expected you to sleep on but I have no qualms about taking the spare room,” he nods to the door half hidden, “I won't bother you, and later we can have the wardrobes switched so that you have the space,” 

The shock was quick, he was giving up the space for you, a prince shoved in a closet and for what? To make you feel less scared? It wouldn't change the situation, it wouldn't make you come around. “I don't want your pity,” it was the only word you could think of to classify the situation. It felt like pity, it was more than you had thought or asked for but it didn't make you any less fearful. 

“It's not pity-” 

“What is it then? Some kind of truce? A scheme? If you're going to take my blood, just take it and get it over with, pretending you won't will only make it worse,” the words are bitter to your tongue but they come out just as you had wanted them. His brows drew close, lips downturned. If you were to be nothing but a blood bag to him you didn't need to be treated nicely, you knew the truth of the situation and it was not in your favor. Let him take from you, let him be a monster but you would not let him play nice when he was anything but. Giving you the bed was not a bandage to the situation but something to make it feel as if you owed him for this small grace. 

“I'm not pretending, I do not want to feed from you, and so I won't. Believe me or not I do not care but I'm not going to shove you in the closet like some petty gift I did not like and won't remember until next spring. You can have the room and it's for my own conscience that is true but also because it's right,” he shoves his hands into his pockets, taking the long way around the edge of the room so as to not get close to you, your eyes following him as he goes. “We can talk in the morning,” it's the last thing he says before he picks up his book from the nightstand, closing it around the blade you wished you could have kept before disappearing behind the door. 

The soft slam is enough to make you let out a breath, the huff bringing forth a new wave of tears as you shake your head, ashamed to be crying in the first place. You didn't want to lay in his bed, not when it was still wrinkled and near the door he had gone through. You didn't want to sleep at all, not here, not when you didn't know what would happen when you closed your eyes. But you did know you wanted warmth so you curled yourself up against the bookshelf near the fire. Your back was guarded and both doors in your eyeline as you tried to get yourself to stop crying. 

Sunghoon could hear the constant stream of tears, his book tossed to the floor next to him while he looked up at the ceiling from where he lay in bed. The tingle in his gums had gone, his stomach sick as he took in the unease of the situation. He didn't think he would have left you alone to cry but it had felt like the only thing he could do with everything he had been given. He wanted to say sorry, apologize for everything but not knowing if that was the right thing to do.Leaving you felt right, staying in the small bed, the small room, felt right. He didn't need the space anyway, didn't want it, and he could care less about anything else so long as you didn't think he was some hungry monster looking to drain you dry when it was farthest from the truth. 

But it was impossible to convey that to you when you were so terrified, he could tell you were on the brink of giving up, that if he had turned away from you for even a second you would have run off. It was easy to let you go, he wanted you to have what you wanted but if you ran he would have to explain your absence. They would know it was a lie if he said he overfed to the point of you dying, he wouldn't smell like you not even faintly, he wouldn't have a body to prove it, and it was almost an impossible thought with his track record. If his father thought for a second that Sunghoon had fed so much as to kill a feeder he would have been ashamed for wasting a gift that he could have kept to keep him sustained for years. 

He could not just let you go without consequence for that action, he needed to let you go after explaining that you were not the one. But his father had gifted you to him in front of so many people. Sunghoon knew that even if he could not feed from you, he would be told to keep you even if it was to show off a lie. People questioned why Sunghoon wasn't around at feasts, questioned what kind of king it would make him if the time ever came if he could not indulge like the rest of them. His father hadn't called him weak but he could see the word in his eyes when he confessed time and time that he could not drink from a vein. 

They had given you pearls, that royal leash a life sentence whether you knew it or not. You would be tied to him until he found a way to get you out but running right now was not an option. And just like him he could tell that you got no sleep, your heartbeat never slowing down, the fear still keeping its constant trek through your bloodstream. He could not stop thinking it over, listening to your soft crying, it only made him feel like he was turning himself inside out keeping you here. He didn't want to be a captor, didn't want to be the person who was tied to another just because it was expected of them. 

And when he saw you there, sitting watching the fire before you noticed him he could see the beauty behind the teartracks. They had made it so that you would look like a goddess, a blessing for him that would keep on giving, and yet neither of you felt very blessed. Not when you noticed him move just enough to catch your attention. Your heart is hammering as you push yourself to stand on weak legs. Your eyes lined in sleep, hand twisted in the dangling pearls that fell right to your navel. 

“You must be hungry,” even if he could not feel the hunger anymore he knew that others kept up a comfortable schedule with the feeling if it went past curtain times. “I can take you down to the kitchen or I can have someone bring your meals here, whatever it is you want,” 

You caught onto the hope of seeing the kitchen, of walking past a window to feel the sun, of being so close to the exit you knew. “The kitchen,” you kept his eye, trying to show him that you were watching him, but it felt like you were playing a game of who would back down first, a game you didn't think you would win at all. 

“And after?” he tilted his head, his clothes wrinkled from his resting, the hollows of his eyes showing faint bruises from restlessness. 

“After?” Sunghoon didn't need to scent your blood or hear your heart when you had the fear written so clearly all over your features. 

“I don't find it fun to be locked up in the room all day, if you wanted to go to the library, the gardens, wherever it is I can take you,” 

It felt like an illusion of freedom, he would not leave you alone, you were nothing more than a prisoner with her guard going around from room to room before he took his payment at the end of the day. But the gardens sounded enticing, and learning about the castle felt enticing. If going around and looking at every corner of your cell to find a loose bar you could slip from was an option you would take it, watched or not. He had not come out of the room all night, you had waited and he did not once even try the door knob. If you could find a way out today, finally count the turns on the way down and up you would be able to sneak out tonight. Your wardrobes were not switched and you could take anything you needed to make yourself unrecognizable before leaving. 

Your fingers twisted in the pearls, tight enough for you to feel the pull as if leading yourself to speak. “The gardens…” 

Sunghoon nodded once, “We can go after you have had a proper meal,” he gave you space to get yourself ready and waited by the door for you when you were done. He held the door open for you again just as he had when letting you in. and this time you made sure to know the way down not needing to know the way back up. You counted the right turns, the left, the amount of stairs you took, and where the kitchen doors were. 

But you weren't hungry, too busy thinking over the map in your head and how it was forming along with all the other information you were keeping, like how many people you had passed. Left, right, right, stairs, left, right, left, door. It seemed so easy but you knew if you were scared it would flicker out like a candle near an open window. Sunghoon collected things for you, taking the basket with the two of you as he led you down to the gardens. 

You had believed for a long time vampires could not step foot in the sun and that would have made all of this so much easier if it was true. But the vampires were only annoyed in the sunlight, eyes sensitive but not to the point they could not see. And most of the time it was grey in the sky, the clouds low most mornings just like this one where the fog settles over the emerald green hedges. Here they did not have to worry much about the direct sunlight because there hardly was any around. 

The fresh air was more than enough to make you relish in one small victory on a growing list of losses. Even with the soft mist clinging to your lashes, cooling your heated cheeks it was enough to make you crack a sad smile. It had been so long since you felt anything besides worry and panic. But your smile didn't last for long, not when you lowered your head and could feel the weight of the pearls still around your neck. As much as they had become a habit to hold it was not a comfort but a reminder of being stuck and bound to them. 

Sunghoon watched the way you toyed with the necklace, not even noticing that you were doing it as you watched the sunset later in the day. He did not ask when you wanted to go in, did not ask if you wanted to go anywhere else, just gave you the space to breathe even just a little bit. But he watched how your fingers tightened when it was finally dark, your food untouched in the basket he carried back up to the room. He placed it down on the nightstand when the two of you made it back. 

Your nerves were on high alert being in private with him and he could tell. “You should try to eat and get some rest tonight, tomorrow we have to spend dinner with the others, and it's best to be ready,” 

Dinner, vampires didn't eat anything else to sustain themselves. You knew they could but it did little to help curve their hunger. Most of them drank from a vein or a glass tainted with liquor, most of them enjoying blood laced with wine. But you knew that they would not be sitting around sipping from glasses over light conversation. Sunghoon didn't know how to explain his plan without confessing how burdened he felt. “I didn't lie when I said I wouldn't drink from you, I will keep my promise but we are still expected at the table,” 

You watched the way he swallowed, his lips turned down. He felt small, the confession right at the edge of his tongue but it would not come free, “I-” he watched the way your knuckles flexed, fist twisted around the contract the two of you had found yourself bound to. And he couldn't even hold up his end of the deal. “I'll find somewhere else to sleep tonight,” 

But Sunghoon had nowhere else to go, if anyone found him outside his room they would gossip. His father would hear eventually and know that he had not tried, he would know he had failed again over something so small, something that was supposed to be so natural. And so he sat right outside the door, hoping that thinking of him being somewhere else even if he was still a doorway away would help you find even a wink of sleep. But he could hear the sound of your pacing footsteps working round and round the room. 

You worried at your lip, tugging at the pearls around your neck and trying to pull them free for even a moment's breath. He said he wouldn't try unless you said he could, he said he wouldn't but you had no way of knowing if he was telling the truth. You hardly knew him at all, didn't know if he was known for being deceptive and you could not afford to be lied to, not when it felt so lasting to be here. You would not only have to live with being fed from but would have to live with being played for the rest of the time you were sitting around here. 

And it wasn't even about being bitten. You knew that you had given yourself up to it, knew it the second you had let them pick you up without saying anything, you had turned in so much to be here and you would sit here and try to make it okay. Tomorrow it would not surprise you if he lied and bit you right there at the table in front of them all, it wouldn't surprise you if he went back on what he said because you expected it. And at this point, it did not matter anymore because your mind was working again and again, be grateful, be grateful, be grateful.  

You would have to be grateful, stomach the upset, and swallow your pride. So you sat at the side of his bed, sinking into the mattress just enough to know that if you fell back it would envelop you like the petals of a flower. And you felt so tired after being up for so long. And even with the soundtrack of your mantra ringing around in your skull you picked up the same rhythm of the floor plan. Said it again and again like counting sheep, laying over the sheets that still smelled of him. That faint scent of white flowers was sweet and alluring. 

It was upsetting to like the way the smell of him made you feel. Vampires were made to be the kind of beings you could not resist even if your body was telling you that something was not quite right about the situation. You knew fight or flight and being in a room full of them only triggered the sense. But here, warm in his bed, looking up at the canopy that he must have looked up to a thousand times, resting your head on his sweet smelling pillow you could not find it in yourself to want to run. Not until after you rested at least. 

But you did not tuck yourself in, facing the door and watching the handle as if that would provide you comfort with your eyes closed. You breathed in, deep and swallowing the scent you drifted off, half awake for your body wouldn't let you fall into true sleep. Sunghoon could tell this as he leaned against the wall, half wishing he would have gone into his new bed to rest but if you were to get little sleep so would he. He wanted you to trust him, not to trick you but just so that he could show his true intentions. 

So early before you had even snuck to take a quick bath without him around, he went to the kitchen and collected as many red fruits as he could, dark crimson cherries, the beads of a pomegranate, and the soft easily ground raspberries, anything that would stain his lips the color of wine. He folded them up into a soft cloth, tucking them behind his back as he went back up to the room. By then you were already changed and watching the door, waiting for him. 

But he did not burst in through the door as you had expected since this was his room and only partially yours, no, he knocked, knuckles light on the hardwood, he could have been confused with a branch hitting the side of the house with a soft breeze. The soft patter of your heart quickened nonetheless. Shoulders tightening, limbs locking, your flight was slowly turning to freeze without your permission. 

“You can come in,” the words were necessary but sickening to pull forward. 

Sunghoon was rumpled, eyes soft as he looked down at his hands revealing the bundle of fruit. He had crushed a cherry on his walk up when he passed a staff member, the juice slipping down his palm and wrist. You had only seen the red for a brief moment, the faint trail of it having your attention before he opened his hands for you to see the rest. “I know it's crazy,” he already felt small even suggesting his plan. 

This wasn't something that was expected of a prince, of any vampire. It was something that he had done when he was young, hiding away from the truth and still believing that his father couldn't tell he wasn't getting enough in his system. It felt worse letting someone in on his secret. “For the dinner, you're going to have to put some of these fruits in the mesh cuffs you have on. If they are already stained they won’t think anything of it,” 

It didn't make any sense to you as to why he would go to such lengths to keep up his promise to you. You could feel yourself pushing back at his kindness, he was slotted in your mind as an enemy and any amount of niceties would not place him anywhere else. “When it's time I'll grab your wrist and bite the fruit not you,” 

“Why?” your confusion was a mix of distaste and curiosity, your brows drawn together as you looked at his red-stained fingers. “Why not just bite me and get it over with?” 

He swallowed thickly, throat bobbing as he dropped any eye contact he had held with you. You took the opportunity to look over the moles on his face, finding the trail of them, already remembering as if it had been the map out of this room, only you didn't need to repeat it to yourself; it was as if you had already known the path. “I don't want your blood,” he clenched his jaw after he said it as if that was too much to have slipped out in the first place. 

You don't know why it felt like he had slammed a door in your face, the weight of it heavy and fitting so neatly against its frame. It shouldn't have hurt, your mind trying to recoil from the pain you shouldn't feel and yet did. You had wanted to be the one to twist the lock, press your back against the wood, and keep your feet planted. But here he was doing it all on his own. And before you could ask again, the why so close to being dropped between you like a thin glassed champagne flute, he left you with nothing but the maroon cloth stuffed with fruit and your waiting question. 

Before it had felt as if you had been given some kind of grace to work with. He had said he wouldn't feed from you like it was a gift you should thank him for. But now he was standing in front of you and saying he didn't want your blood, not that it was something he was holding himself back from. The words were settling over you and tightening around your limbs, you shouldn't feel anything except relief not worry about something being wrong with you. There was no reason to be thinking over this when you didn't want it in the first place, no reason to let the confession sink you so low. 

But you would do what you needed to do nonetheless, turning around and tucking the fruit against the mesh at your wrist. He would have his mouth there, close to your vein in only a few hours and it set your nerves aflame. Not only would it be him around but everyone else, the other vampires who would have teeth stained with blood instead of fruit. You would see the other feeders, the ones that you were supposed to be replicated after. You would see what rumor had been real, would it hurt them, or would it feel like bliss? 

Either one felt like a death sentence, slowly losing one's self with or without you noticing, one tricking you into believing it was okay and the other tearing you apart. It was all you could think about when he finally came back, his clothes changed and hair done to hang perfectly around his face. He first looked down at your wrists, laid next to you at your side neatly hiding the faint stain showing up. “It shouldn't take too long,” he whispered, fingers playing with the pearls slung across his chest. 

It was the first time you had seen such a chain on him, it matched your pearls perfectly, the latch made so that he could hook you up to follow him without him having to tug you along with his own hands. It wasn't fear that was slinking through you now but anger, hot and ashamed. “You're not tying me up,” you drew the line there, he could bite you all he wanted before he found you chined to him with anything more than a speech written contract. 

You backed up, legs hitting the bed and stilling you in your place. “I'm not going to be paraded around like that, like I'm a purse at your side, a dog at your feet,” you spit the words, letting them land at his feet and sticking to the world around you. It already felt like a curse to have the stupid chain around you no matter how expensive, no matter how pretty it was, nothing more than a reminder for him that you were little in comparison to him. 

“I didn't say you would be, I have to wear it, I don't have to use it,” he tugged on his own pearls looking down at them for the first time, “they want us down soon and I want to go over the plan again,” he looked up, catching your eyes to make sure you were listening. You nodded to let him continue, “I won't bite you, my fangs won't even come out, I just need to stain my mouth and your wrists, nothing more and nothing less, okay?” 

“Okay,” you would have to believe him now more than ever, this was a test that both of you would have to pass for both of you to feel comfortable in the situation. The trust is stretched thin enough to fall apart or be strengthened. 

Sunghoon could tell you were scared the second he was at his seat with you next to him sitting on his armrest. If he had even been tempted to feed tonight it would have been washed away the second the others came in and you were faced with them and their bruised necks and wrists. The faint puncture marks made by fangs over and over again only looked worse in the candlelight. Your hands twisted in your lap, wrists turned in so that no one could see the stains already made. Sunghoon wanted to say anything to calm your nerves, whisper it if only someone would not be able to hear but he could not. 

His father sat next to him at the head of the table, already ready to get the dinner over with as fast as the two of you did. He didn't want to see his son make a fool of himself if he couldn't even try to drink. He had seen Sunghoon unable to let his fangs down, watching him pull away with hardly a drop on his lips before he had to leave. He didn't care if he was putting him on the spot now with trying but he needed to know that he could get it done, needed to know he would make an effort as much as he could. 

But you could hardly pay any attention to anything else besides the girl in front of you. Dressed as you were, the gauzy fabric of her dress flowed around her like a breeze while she took her seat at her vampire's armrest. She didn't seem scared, she seemed excited to sit there, leaning back against him. Her faint smile was hazy, looking from his hand in hers. It didn't settle your fears but set them in stone, her wrist covered like yours, dots of blood staining the mesh. 

But It felt wrong to witness them the second the meal started, the intimacy shocking you more than the feel on sunghoons hand on your arm. In this room he was the only constant, his soft fingers tapping against your skin to get your attention. But it was hard to turn away the second the man in front of you flashed his fangs, the sight of them making your knees weak in the worst way. The soft hum of approval from the feeder he sank his teeth into slid across the table in a wave. Her lashes fluttered, pressing her wrist closer to his mouth without even having to be asked. She wanted it to happen, wanted him to take the long sips he was indulging in. No one was paying any attention to Sunghoon and you when they were so consumed by their own meals. 

Sunghoon slid his hand down to your wrist, the feeling traveling up to your elbow, the hair on the back of your neck rising as he looked up at you for approval. Sitting like this, with you higher, looking down on him and his asking gaze, you felt like drowning. Because for a split second, you wanted to know what it felt like, hoped that in some way you would know even just a little bit without him going too far, taking too much. And you were scared that with one look he would know you were thinking about him in that way, thinking about him doing the one thing he said he would not because of you but because he didn't want to do it.

Every soft movement he made with your hand in his was torture, fear slinking back into you, the spicy scent of it flooding his senses. He was so close to having your wrist at his mouth, your eyes stuck on him as he pulled up the mesh just enough so that he could make it look like he could get his teeth into place, the fruit trapped in the fabric. 

Your breathing was pulling closer together, each puff tumbling into the next, mouth slightly open as you watched his lips part. He didn't take his eyes off you, teeth in a neat row already looking as if they were tipped with fangs but unlike the man across from you, they did not elongate. His lips ghosted over your pulse point, the thrumming of your rushing blood soft against his mouth as he took in the first raspberry, the crunch mimicking the way it would have been when piercing into your skin. If you had to play the part you did it well, gasping as if it had been you he had bitten, shocked by the way his lips felt so gently against your delicate skin.

He pressed in further, hand wrapped around yours as you curled your fingers around his. The pitted cherry was next to find its demise at his sharp teeth, the juice of it slipping down your arm like a thin line of freshly spilled blood. Your free hand twisted in your skirt, watching the way he faked the look of pleasure from that first bite. 

You shouldn't feel this way, shouldn't feel like you wanted him to just slip up, have his teeth scrape against your skin if even just a scratch. And he was so gentle with you, lips pressed like a soft kiss, feeling the warmth of you against him made him hum, it had been so long since he had felt heat like this so close to him. He tried to keep his teeth as far away from you, he didn't want to scare you much less make it seem like he was on the verge of lying. Because he might have been lying to everyone but he couldn't lie to you, not when you needed the truth the most. 

Sunghoon watched the way you wet your bottom lip, watching his mouth, his throat as he swallowed. It felt dangerous and intimate, twisted in deception and staining his judgment. And for a second, the width of a hair, he could smell your blood go clean, whether it was in his imagination being this close to you or reality he had to pull away. And the spicy sweetness flooded over him again when you saw the way his mouth was stained like he had glass after glass of red wine. He licked his lips, wiping at the edge of his mouth, and tried to stomach the faint ribbons of hunger unraveling in his stomach. 

He tried to ignore it, ignore the fact he knew it was wrong, and yet how wrong could it be to hope that you could curb his hunger even if it was only an inkling of the feeling? But the memory of the way he had rejected the last drop of spiced blood was still fresh in his mind. He would not try again, not now, and not when you hadn't offered. But you had been pressing back on his mouth, pressing your wrist to him like you wanted him to do it or maybe it was his own delusion teasing him with the idea. 

And you would not look at him with his lips tinted a new shade of pink, the crawling on your skin closer to light touches and not the feel of spiders. He had not lied, he had kept his word and you didn't know what to do with that. 

You kept your distance on the way back to the room, distracted enough to climb into his bed the second he had gone to his. You didn't fight the sleep that came over you either, the days of unrest coming back to have you pay your dues. Nothing was without a price it seemed because even in sleep you were plagued with the reality of the day. In your dreams, you begged Sunghoon to bite you; held your wrist out for him, and let him take your blood. You could see his fangs and watched them right before he pushed them into you. The pain felt blinding, racing up your arm until it circled your heart, squeezing until you felt yourself snap up in bed, half a scream caught in your throat. 

Panting you held your hand over your heart, skin slick with the cold sweat you had broken out into only seconds ago that had felt like an eternity. Your subconscious was telling you no to the temptation pushed in front of you. You knew vampires held a power to pull people in, knew them to use it against even the strongest of people. And now you understand it all. He was calling on something deeply instinctual inside you, the surface layer of it making you fearful but whatever was underneath was dangerous and bewitching to your right mind. 

You could not go back to sleep after you were up already. Sitting with your back against the headboard waiting for him to come out of his room while you tugged on the pearls at your neck, not strong enough to pull them free. For a short time, you had even walked over to his bookshelf to look through the boring titles he had stocked up. No more letter openers waiting between the pages as you flipped through tome after tome. It's why the second he came out from the little room he had been sleeping you asked him to go to the library. 

Sunghoon was surprised by you asking him to go anywhere, you wouldn't talk to him if you didn't have to and you knew not to leave the room without him unless you did have a plan to escape. He jumped on the opportunity to please you, a silent thank you written into the action for the night before. 

He could not stop thinking about your soft gasp, the way you had watched him so closely. He had grown up with so many people's eyes on him, watching every little move he made and scrutinizing every wrong turn. It was not uncommon for any aristocrat, even one held as high as he was to want one moment without eyes on them. During feedings had been one of the few moments of peace he could have in a room full of people, that was until people started to watch out to make sure he was getting food in his system. But you did not make him feel nervous, did not make him feel as if he needed to be ashamed of what he was, of what he could not do and tried so hard to accomplish. You had watched him in awe. 

He liked to have your eyes on him, watching the way they fell to each spot on his face, the one right under his eyes, to the one on the side of his nose, and down to the edge of his lips. Your eyes lingered, tracing the shape of his mouth, the line he ran over his bottom lip with his tongue. He wanted you to look at him like that again because if you could persist he could drink his fill of your features, trace the line of your nose, the shape of your eyes, your lips, without fearing that you would get too scared to look at him ever again. 

When you looked at him like that he was not the monster he felt you saw him but just a boy trying to find his footing amongst the rest of them just like you were. He hated to know what your blood smelled like fearless, the sweetness enough to ache his teeth in just the right way, the kind of temptation that he was told to stay away from indulging so fiercely in.

But it was a distant scent, gone as quickly as it had shown up and yet he was stuck thinking about it as he sat with you in the library. He had given you space, let you go around and around to find whatever it was you wanted to look at. Finding his seat to rest with his book but his mind did not stop moving, he watched you; followed the invisible trail you drew with your movements. You traced your finger over the spine of each book you came across, reading the names to yourself. He tried to guess the next one you would pick, stacking up the titles that seemed to have grabbed your attention enough for you to pull it from the shelf in the first place, looking for a correlation if there was any except the face they had caught your eye. 

You were calmer here in the new space, even when there was not much sunlight except for a small window set into the ceiling. Just the small bit of light it let through even on a grey day was better than nothing at all. And you felt better having Sunghoon sitting around knowing he had held himself back even after being so close to your vein, even when around all the blood in the room. But it didn't put you at ease, not entirely with your dream still so close to the surface of your mind. You had never felt pain as you had imagined while asleep but even just a touch of that pain would have felt all consuming. 

Picking up a book you skimmed the first few pages, flicking between the yellowing pages catching the smell of aged paper and ink stopping randomly on a page you did not care to read. You had the intention to find a book to read but it didn't have to be instantly and Sunghoon was giving you enough space to take all the time you needed to find one. But you could spend so long just doing exactly that, turning to random pages looking for something to pull your attention long enough to want to start from the beginning. And just as you started to find that interest you slide your finger along the single page you had in hand. 

It was quick, the pain didn't even register until it was too late. The bubbling of blood bright red and nauseating. It was nothing but a thin line, right across the pad of your pointer finger, slicing the fingerprint in half like the visual representation of you being split down the middle. You felt heavy right at your center, a fist around your stomach, churning up your worry while the rest of your limbs felt so separate and far away. 

Sunghoon could smell the blood as soon as that first bead donned your finger, pricked like a sleep-entrance princess. The cinnamon sugar scent you had been carrying turned gingery and intense around the room in an instant. Chest heaving you stood frozen watching how the line darkened with each passing second. He didn't want to make it so obvious that he was making his way to you but there was no way around it when he was in front of you, wrapping your finger up in his handkerchief instead of delighting in your slip up. 

“It's okay, it's small, nothing too bad,” he tried to soothe, your hand curling around his, clenching around the cloth as if it was the only thing keeping you from that pain made from your dreamscape. Vampires were strong, you're sure that if he wanted he could rip the handkerchief in two without any struggle, just as easily as he could have split your skin like the thin sheet of paper with the edge of one fang. The fabric was keeping nothing from him, not while it soaked in the color of your blood like it would wine, the stain so close to the raspberries that had been left on your mesh cuffs only the night before. 

It was hard not to think of him as you had in your dream, but here there were no fangs present, just his understanding eyes and steady hand in yours. It was not as it had been in your mind with him lunging for the opportunity to hurt you. Having him this close to you made the power of him flood your mind. Every time he got near you found yourself leaning in and not away, the time together only bringing him closer past the borders you had built around yourself.

You tried to remind yourself that this is what they did, lured you in, with their intoxicating aura, cunning and clandestine. But even as you said it to yourself, let the warnings ring out like a dinner bell. You couldn't make the thought stick any more than you could the idea that you needed to be grateful. For this small second, you were nothing more than just someone who couldn't take their eyes off of the person in front of them. Needing to be closer, needing to find whatever it was you were missing in yourself and get it from him. 

The papercut was so far removed from your mind, everything blurring as you leaned closer, breathing in the same air as he did, each inhale slowing your pulse until you were just about to press your lips to his. The ghost of him just brushing your mouth is the kind of feeling that would haunt you for years to come. Both of you tugged away from the other as the sound of the library door opening echoed, the quick slink of the guillotine cutting the moment away almost as fast as it had started. 

The realization of what had almost happened was blinding, cutting across your vision and clearing your head as you turned away from looking at him. You had read about vampire compulsion and knew that even if they were not trying it could slip free and confuse even the strongest person. You refused to believe it was you alone who had leaned in, refused to believe it was you who had wanted him to be so close to you in the first place. But you could not stop thinking about the round shape of his bottom lip, thinking about how it would fit so perfectly between your own. 

“Dinner is soon my prince, I was told to give you fair warning,” the butler who had come in muttered, Sunghoon giving his full attention to him as if he could not bring himself to look at you. All you could focus on was the numbing of your fingers from how hard you held them, tightening and tightening with each passing second that you had to think about what had almost happened. 

Wanting to kiss him was unlike wanting to be bitten by him. Being bitten was in your contract, what you had been told would happen between the two of you. Being kissed was not something that should have been crossing your mind when he was going to be the person to ruin you. You could live with him taking your blood, knowing that if anything happened between the two of you that would be it. But the magnetism was not only calling the iron in your veins but pulling back your steely inhibitions. 

So much so that when you found yourself on the edge of his chair that same night, raspberries tucked in the stained mesh cuffs, pressing your wrist to his mouth without him even having to ask. His fingers curled around yours the same way, holding your hand, and wishing he was leaning back in, just enough to breathe in the same air again. Because even Sunghoon could feel his resolve tumbling down the cliff of his restraint, slowly chipping away at the hold he had because his gums ached, throat sore, his teeth scraping against your waiting vein. 

Your gasp was almost as sweet as he knew your blood would be flooding his taste buds. The need was shocking enough for him to pull away from you, keep your wrist at a distance because he was worried if he was any closer, if he smelled your blood go clean for even a second like the last time he would not be able to keep his fangs back. And he felt disgusted with himself from the thought of not being able to hold himself back. 

He did not want to be like the monster you must have thought that he was. Monster enough to not be able to stop himself and yet you were not thinking about him in that way. All you could think about was that you wanted it, wanted it so bad that you held onto his hand harder, waiting for him to bring your wrist back up. You could feel the part of your sanity leaving you, the part that had kept you in line long enough to think of an escape plan. 

The word makes you find yourself again because while you go back up the stairs you don't even think about remembering the way back down. And it's the first night that you don't worry about him coming out from his room while you sleep. The sheets now still partially smelling of you mixed with the faint intoxicating smell of him, the pillow lulling you to sleep without much effort at all. 

It was the first night you could feel the tiredness pulling in your limbs enough to where it didn't matter if you were scared it only mattered that you fell asleep. Aided by the ease you were feeling about wanting him closer to you than you should. 

Sunghoon could tell the second you were asleep, breathing evening out, heart rate slowing down but it was the sweetness that did him in. The scent curled through the air, his deep inhale made the smell coat his throat, his mouth filling with venom, gums burning, body shaking. He didn't even remember making it out of his room, the darkness of his shadow pooling over you as he was backlit but the dying flames in the fireplace. But he could see the soft line of your neck, the delicate curve leading to the back of your hairline, the shell of your ear. The thin skin covering your eyes, down the shape of your cheek until he was looking down your jaw back to the curve of your neck, right over where he could see the soft rhythm of your pulse. 

He didn't even feel himself open the door, his hands balled into fists by his sides, nails digging into his palms, knuckles whitening from the tightness. Watching the faint rise and fall of your sleeping chest, the way your lips parted just slightly. He could associate your mouth with wanting to bite you because of how often he found himself looking at your lips the second his teeth were close to your vein. 

And for the first time in what felt like years Sunghoon felt his fangs push through his gums, digging into the unfamiliar spots of the soft flesh of his inner lips. Because you were too sweet to hold back from, the just ripe scent of fresh raspberries and the soft decadence of vanilla.

He was telling himself to pull away, to get away from the edge of the bed, lock himself in his room, and think about nothing else, think about everything that had nothing to do with you and your enticing blood. But he could not stop the thoughts from invading his brain; if before he had been physically sick he knew that this was a different kind of plague overtaking him. The kind that would have him stop at nothing to get to you, the kinda they wrote about in dystopian books about chaos and destruction. He felt like every bit the monster you must believe him to be and yet he could not find it in himself to care at all because he just wanted one taste, the smallest bit, a drop if anything else. 

It takes everything in him to stop from reaching out one finger, he wants just to feel the flutter of your pulse, just to know that there, underneath your unresisting skin was the warmth and cure to his hunger that he had not even known that he had been searching for. It had been so long since that he had even felt the soft fist in his stomach, the tightening working its way up his esophagus. The feeling was so close to how he believed it to feel for you that first day standing in the hall, stuck there standing in the doorway trying to catch your breath. It's that image that makes him leave, the fear he had scented then, had seen written all over your face, your body. If it had taken you everything to step foot into his room he would give his all to walk away now. 

So he ran, half stumbling to get away from the bed, the canopy swaying around the bed you lay from how close he had been to giving in and taking from you and not leaving you with the trust you had been working to give him. The door slamming is what woke you, he had not meant it but he didn't know how much he was trying to keep his distance. If he had stayed just right outside he could have smelled the fear course through you in an instant but even then he was holding his breath to make sure not even a bit more of the temptation could slip past his restraint. 

But you sat up, heart picking up its speed as you looked around in the darkness, the embers in the fireplace glowing so low that they mixed in with the ash, fading down into nothing but a pale blanket of twilight. He was gone, you knew as much, his door half open could not have slammed itself. Your hand had found its way up to your throat, feeling the clammy coolness coming over you from the adrenaline finding its home around your joints and in your stomach. 

The pearls you wore were warm and unwanted, a reminder of exactly how your plan had been fumbled through fingers wishing to run through Sunghoon’s dark hair. You tugged on the necklace, the leash, pulled until you could feel the pearls dimpling your skin. It felt impossibly tight to think about wanting him when still bound like this. In a single glance, anyone would know that you did not belong anywhere except under the blood-hungry. If you broke the necklace and collected the pearlescent beads they would keep you sustained long enough to go far away from here. 

But in his bed, smelling the faint white floral scent of him surrounding you mixed with the heady perfume of the wood burned fire it was so difficult to pick yourself up and run. It was worse because you wanted him to want you. Why must it only be you who had to resist the pull from the other, shouldn't it have been the other way around? Didn't they tell you that he would have wanted- needed to have you around him? That he would crave you with everything in him after only a few feedings since vampires got so attached and territorial over their feeders. 

You had found yourself in a thorny bush, pinched and kept in place, any slight movement left you with the stinging pain of betrayal. Flowers were supposed to be pretty not painful and yet all you could feel were the sharp thorns. He was supposed to be in your place, stuck and begging to be released by you; your blood the shears to snip away the twisted branches. But he didn’t want you, no lasting desire woven into what was supposed to be a tapestry of temptation after temptation. 

There was no lying in the reason why you picked yourself up off the bed, even less when you felt the tears start. To be unwanted was worse than to be here wanted with his teeth in your vein because at least then you could pretend you didn't enjoy it or let yourself know how much you truly did enjoy it and just succumb. 

So you ran, did what you said you would, and stumbled down the empty hall washed in nothing but darkness. The curtains were drawn close, the plush velvet carpet that ran over the center of the hardwood soft and slippery under your barefoot. You didn't even notice you had left your shoes behind in the room, thin and slippered or not it would have been better than nothing. 

The castle groaned, the shudder of the wind hitting the stone was nothing short of frightful when gust after gust was shaking the trees lining the property. The rain pattered on the thick glass windows even if you couldn't see it, it echoed in the empty halls like a warning. But you couldn't stop yourself now, not when you knew that if you saw him even for a second you wouldn't want to go back, beg him to know why you, why not you? As the lightning started to crack, thunder rumbling felt underfoot as you pushed the doors open to the empty kitchen that you had been waiting to do. 

The glow that cut across the sky lit up the whole expanse of grass and trees, the stretched limbs of the winter empty branches twisted, curling, and frightening for the second that they had been exposed by the lightning. The thunder was so close that you could feel it sync up with the unease washing over you. The rain was too loud to think and if you stepped out you would be drenched and cold by morning. Frozen over like a lake in late January. The tears came harder than before wanting to be back in his room as a redundant decorative house plant he kept alive because watching it die would be more hassle. 

Sunghoon had gone all the way to the kitchen when he had left. Picking over the stocks of what they had to have them ready for you in the morning when you woke up. In some twisted sense of an apology for something you didn't even know he had done. And had tried to make sure that he could stop the hunger. Trying to stomach a handful of raspberries as if that would help him any but it would give him no sustenance. He could not go down to find a new feeder, refused to go out and try to find anyone who was willing because it had never felt right, he had never been hungry for anyone until you. 

His fangs wouldn't even go back up, not when he felt as if you were invading every part of him, his flesh so weak that he was yearning to be close to you. Not only did he want his mouth pressed to your neck to eradicate his hunger but so that he could let his lips find places to remember, places that would make you feel just as weak as he did. 

Then he knew you were there, the loud wash of the rain echoing in the kitchens the second you had pushed the door open. He had started to learn the rhythm of your heart just as he had known his own, softly beating faintly behind his ribcage making room to take you in without him even realizing it. He knew the only reason you would be down here was to run, he was not dense enough to believe you had wanted to stay all of the time, not when you were so fearful of him in the first place. He had known of only a few feeders who had regretted their decisions to come here and even then the stories were few and far between.  

He wanted you to stay and it wasn't only because he had found himself craving you but because he had been missing something for a long time. Not only this feeling but some kind of twisted friendship or even just acquaintanceship. He had never felt so lonely, not until he wasn't alone anymore. Having someone to match up his breaths with even if they were a room away felt better than sitting alone in his room with nothing and no one to think or lean on. 

And now you were leaving, standing just at the edge of the doorframe with the wind beating the rain down on you. Your dress already so thin had turned sheer with the wetness, your chin dripping with droplets of water and tears. He ached to see you so ready to run. He had never before begged for things that were outside of his control, he could find balance within the chaos of others' decisions because like so many he never had an option to change things on a whim like so many people before him. He knew being a prince set him up higher; people believed he had the world right at his fingertip but it was nothing but emptiness sitting around a fireplace waiting to feel the same kind of hunger as everyone else around you. 

He wanted you now even if he had said he wouldn't, he would let you go, he would- but his fingers curled around your arm tugging you inside, away from the pelting rain, and into the circle of his arms. You were soaked clean through, shaking in his grasp but instead of pushing you away, you pressed in further. 

You don't need anything more than to smell the faint white flowers that had been left on the pillowcases. You pulled him closer, the thin tunic he wore twisting in your grasp as you pressed your face into his chest, knowing you shouldn't and yet needing it nonetheless. It didn't matter if he was also getting wet just from holding you and you didn't care if his coolness was not warming you but making you shiver harder. “I don't want to leave,” it was so easy to say it this close when it felt as if it was only you and him and nothing in between. 

They were words you didn't think you would say out loud let alone words that you had come to fully understand until they were leaving you. But here right against him, where you really wanted to be, it was hard not to say them. 

“Don't go, you don't have to if you don't want to but if you want to leave I can find some way to make it happen,” the words felt wrong, he didn't want you to leave but he wouldn't let you suffer. But you only held on, shaking your head and letting him hold you. 

“I hate this,” you grit out, wishing you knew why you felt this way. You knew yourself and this was so consuming, this need for him to want you back. Before it would not have mattered, the steps down from his room to this very door would have been going around your head, Left, right, right, stairs, left, right, left, door, not the constant echo of his deep voice telling you, ‘I don't want your blood,’ the line itself had found a way to worm under your skin. That worm burrows holes in your sound-minded reasoning, your weak heart, and even weaker flesh. “I hate that I don't want to leave and I hate how you don't-” 

“How I don’t what?” Sunghoon was finding it hard to take in full breaths because instead of flooding with fear when in his grasp you were leveling out into calm serene. The swirling scent of you overwhelmed him, feet planted so stiffly and it was the only thing he could focus on this close trying to keep his fang back. 

You push away keeping your fists in his shirt, his arms still circling you if he let go you would be back out the door in the rain. But you only looked at him, taking in the sight of his dark eyes searching you for an answer you didn't want to confess to. Saying it out loud, asking him all your questions would pull you apart into nothing but empty bones hollowed out as cleanly as the promises you kept for yourself. You had said you would run, promised yourself that it would be so easy to get out if you just had the way and now you stood here in his arms like it was nothing at all. But it was clawing up your back, stringing itself across your shoulders and around your neck like a damned albatross you had been burdened with; forced on you by your own hands. 

But you couldn't keep it in anymore, the words spilling free like a knocked over glass of wine, deep and crimson, “I hate how you don't want me and I hate that even if your need is the only reason I'm here it should be a blessing and all I can think was that I was gifted a curse. I hate myself for wanting you so bad when you don't even think about wanting me,” 

The words were like the slamming of a door, the lock heavy and twisting true as he took in your admission. He had wanted nothing more than to prove you wrong, wanted everything in him to give in but he couldn't. Not like this with you on the verge of leaving, not when you feared him still if even only a little bit. He wanted to give you everything you wanted, he needed for nothing, not until he felt this bewitchment overtake him even now opening his mouth to get the words out he felt his gums tingling. 

Sunghoon had teeth that already faintly resembled fangs, the permanent outline to tell you exactly who he was even under all the promises not to bite you. But now, his lips only just parted. You watched as they elongated, they were only a bit longer, but you could see the definition. Seeing the others with their teeth in the other feeders had been scary, all the malice written over their faces even if it were only what you had painted in your minds over their lustful glances and soft hands. But now you could see why the other feeders had leaned in at the sight, turned their wrists and chins so willingly at the sight as if they were nothing but marionettes to be controlled by the sight of their vampire coming to take from them. 

Seeing him, brows tight, and ashamed, he looked nothing more than a boy looking for forgiveness at the knees of your confession and you wanted nothing more than to give him the grace he so desperately sought after. You leaned in, entranced by his becoming call, every mole on his porcelain skin leading you back to the soft shape of his eyes and the plush pink of his lips. 

You were magnetic, pulling him in closer to you, not even from the faint ripples of hunger but from the allure of your every passing breath where you looked at him like that. He did not care about what you had thought about him previously, not about anything else except this moment where you wanted him and he needed you. 

Just one brush of his lips against yours was all that he sought after. He was so close to kissing you just like he had been in the library, so near the edge of a cliff he could not fall from and ever return, if there had been any rope tied around him it was his sanity and it had gone slack snapping halfway down once he muttered, “all I ever do is crave you, my appetite so unfulfilled not only because I'm struggling to resist you right at this very moment but because there is nothing else, no one else I have ever wanted more than you. It feels so unreasonably dangerous to subject you to my burning need and yet…” he let the soft puff of breath fall over your lips, taking it in and swallowing it down as if it were a star you had trapped in a jar. 

He was so close when the thought passed over you, the fading memory of the reason why you had run. The split second was like ink in a pool of clear water, unraveling like the fingers you had fisted around his heart and soul because he could not take for you when you did not want it, not when he could smell that spicy sweetness mixing together. But even then he wanted to try, just a drop would do no matter the burn, he wanted it. 

But he did not kiss you, he led you back up to your room, clenching his jaw and holding his breath all the way back up the stairs. He kept his mind on the next step he had to take and not the way the fabric of your dress clung to your skin, not the way the soft roar of your blood was the only sound he could focus on even through the storm hitting against the walls. The second he had let you go to bed and he found himself in the privacy of his own small space he could not stop the thoughts. 

He was starving. Completely empty of anything he had ever felt before. He had believed he had known hunger back when he was young, believed he would never feel anything worse in his life because there was no cure. He had felt in his bones there was no cure except time and suppression but this hunger had broken something in him. He had believed himself a stone mountain, the waves of hunger hitting the side of him gone dry only now he was beginning to believe he had been hollow the whole time, a cave that had been shown the light after the tidal wave came tumbling through to make the echoing emptiness known. 

He had known of the desolate expanse of his insides but had never felt as if they ran so deep. But he was a mess of nothing but clawing realization, it wasn't just that he wanted you, it was that he felt as if he would die without you. How he had distanced himself for so long, how he found himself restraining even now was taking most of his thinking because if he listened in he could still hear the pitter patter of your half asleep heartbeat waiting for him in the other room. The soft sound mixed with the mewl of his name. 

You were calling for him, drunk on a dream you tossed in the sheets, the fabric twisting around your legs, bunching your dress around your hips as you turned. It was some kind of sense that let you know that he had left his room. Eyes flickering open seeing him half hidden behind the gauzy canopy. Everything felt so sudden the second you said his name in that breathy whisper again he was half hanging on by a thread, finding himself leaning over you all over again. 

He loved to see you like this, whining and laying back against his pillows, tucked under him with the sweet aroma of your trust wafting from your blood. “Sunghoon,” his name is like a plea for something only he could provide. Because he knew the feeling, your name in response was the only answer he could find as he took in inhale after inhale of temptation. His fangs ached as he held back. 

You lifted your hands until they cupped his face in your palms, pushing back his hair hanging by his ears. It had taken so little time to memorize his features even when you told yourself that you shouldn't have, but there was no way you could forget about a face like his. With one finger you trace across his nose, watching his lashes flutter, brows coming in together as he groans. Your finger seeks out the sound, not from his throat but at his lips, following the shape of his cupid's bow. 

There was no resistance as you pressed your finger between his lips and pressed against his fang. Your shocked gasp was followed by a flood of the spicy smell of your fear but for a moment your blood was clean of anything but sweetness. You watched as Sunghoon’s eyes went unsteady, hazy from that one drop. The wash of the taste took over everything he could think about and it did not fix any emptiness but widened a cavern of uncontrollable need. 

It was fast, his hips sinking into yours, keeping you locked in place, your finger gone from his mouth as both hands found homes in his hair, gently holding as you found yourself frozen still waiting for his next move. Because he was at your neck, fangs brushing over your pulse now beating erratically just beneath the surface of your thin skin. It was taking everything not to bite down, even just the faint tracing, the feel of how fragile it was to break through and take everything he had been waiting for. 

“Do it,” but it felt nothing short of wrong for him to hear those words coming from you. He wanted it, could feel the way he would have begged to have more, and yet he could not take it without knowing you wanted it truly. 

The coolness of his body pressed against you and the drag of his teeth sent a shiver down your body, arching up into him, giving more room for him to bite you. It was in that movement that you felt how hard he was for you. Your moving hips only make it known, your begging gasps not only for his mouth but all of him. “Please,” it was desperate and caught in the back of your mouth as you whined again. 

Everything about you was so consuming, the way your fear was replaced by the sweet smell of your arousal. Your hands pulled him in closer, legs opening to push him into the cradle of your hips. And then he bit down. 

It was a flood of pure unadulterated euphoria, the first taste had been nothing like this, sweet, yes, but not the sugary saccharine flavor that had now overwhelmed him to the point of uncontrollable pulls of mouthful after mouthful. He did not think that he could find a way to ever be full, not when all he wanted to do was drink. To devour you whole and never apologize for what he had done, monster or not. 

And for you, the venom was numbing bliss, body going slack and malleable in response, nerves set to feel every feather light touch he gave. He was curving into you, pressing you harder into the mattress as you hummed, that hazy moan rippling through the air as you finally understood why people gave up so much for this one feeling. Nothing would be able to top this, not when you were slipping into some unknown part of yourself and finding that nothing had ever felt better. You would let him go on until you could not think but it was easy enough to do that because thoughts came in half-formed sentences, everything was by touch and sensation, stripped down to nerves that only sought out pleasure. 

Sunghoon had practiced restaurant all his life, he had never had to pull away from something or someone because he hadn't wanted to be there in the first place. But pulling away he found was harder than starting in the first place. Addicted in nothing more than half a second. But he knew he would have to stop and breathe, to let you breathe. His mouth stained red, he kissed over the puncture marks he had created, relishing in the tremble each brush of his lips made your body react with. “No, don’t stop-” the whine followed by the roll of your hips against him. “More, I need more,” 

“Just a second, too fast and I won't stop next time,” he kept his trail going, kissing and re-kissing over the bloodstains in the pattern of his lips from your jaw back down to your collarbone. He wanted to make a mess of you, teeth lightly scratching down the column of your throat loving the sound of your sensitivity. His body was trembling with the need to sink into you in any way he could consume you, body and soul. 

But it wasn't what you wanted, this whole time you had been waiting for this one moment, struggling to think you would enjoy it and now you were taught that you had been keeping yourself away from a feeling you never wanted to be out of. If he had asked for your wrist you wouldn't hold your hand behind your back but press it to his mouth. Your hands moved down his body, feeling the thin material of his shirt and needing to get your warm hands on his skin, needing the sensation to feed into your sensitivity. 

And for the first time, Sunghoon was flushed, pink cheeks and lips deepening in color. Your blood was so close to how he had looked stained with raspberry marrow. “You look so pretty like this,” he whispered, thumb moving to brush at the soft skin under your eye like he would catch a tear. “Where have you been hidden all my life?” 

But it didn't matter about before, not when he was all you could think about at that moment, all you could feel as you rolled your hips under him, needing him to understand that it was more that you needed. And he wanted it too, working on instinct, pushing up your thin nightgown following the line from your thigh up your hip, his fingers digging into your soft flesh at the sight of you. Neither of you worried about stripping completely, Sunghoon’s white tunic thrown aside and his pants unbuttoned by your nimble hands.  

Your gasp at the stretch of him pushing into you was so like the breathy shock from the first sight of his mouth on your wrist. Clawing at him you pulled his body in closer letting him sink in as much as he could and you felt full and unbelievably greedy. One hand dragged through the silky strands of his hair, cupping his skull and pressing his face back into your neck where he breathed in the delicacy of your pleasure, hot open mouth pressed over the marks he had already made resisting from drinking again just yet. Your other hand found itself scratching at his toned back, legs widening for him. 

If holding back from your blood had been difficult on its own, being this close was taking all the restraint he had mustered for years. He gave shallow languid thrusts, pressed right against a spot far enough to make your lashes flutter with every movement. You were slipping from your sane mind as if you had even been there for a long time. But his hold on your hip and the other hand fisting the sheets in a deadly strangle were the only thing grounding Sunghoon to himself without surrendering to nothing but needy instinct that ripped at his restraint. And you were whispering, lips hardly moving as you leaned your head back giving him more access to your fluttering pulse point. “Please, Sunghoon- please,” 

He let his hand on your hip slip lower, wedged between the two of you he found your clit, rubbing soft circles to match the slow thrusts he found himself unable to contain. You whined as his nose brushed over the bruised space he had created, his panting inhalation twisting your insides into a tight knot that only he knew how to undo. And when he bit down again he was overtaken by the complete sense of unquenchable thirst. 

For you everything was tumbling together in perfect ecstasy, his fingers, his body, his mouth, he was so in tune with you and you alone that it was easy to find yourself falling over the edge. Your moans and trembling body under him only make him lose a part of himself that he had been holding. His fingers once placed on your clit moved away so as to not overstimulate you now wrapped around your neck, gently holding you in place as he takes one final mouthful of a cure he never knew he would have found. 

He pulled his mouth away from your vein, fingers curling around the pearl necklace you wore, the willpower it had taken to do so focused solely on iridescent beads under hand. And then he followed after you, filling you with everything he had, shivering as he moaned into the hollow of your neck, into your ear. The necklace snapped as he leveraged thrust after thrust into you drawing out both of your highs as the sound of spilling beads against the hardwood floor rained down. The bed is a mess of the pearls, all of them slipping and trapping themself in any spot they could find between the two of you. 

You didn't want to let him go, not after the two of you were done and he was still slowly pumping his release into you and finding new places to kiss along your skin. “I would sacrifice so much to have you like this over and over again,” the rumble of his words vibrating against your chest, his voice deep and husky against your ear. 

He had taken the words right from you, as if he had reached into your head and pulled them into existence. Fear had been warping the mirror of your reality, the fear of the unknown blacking out the first instinct you had when faced with a single question, ‘Have you ever been fed from before?’ 

You had reached out and let them take you and it had been in a state of desperate worry that you did not know how much of yourself you would have lost to him if he bit you even one time. But being here, feeling the warmth of your blood under his skin settled your unease. It was never a question, not after knowing what it felt like to be had, not after knowing how it felt to be fed from. “You have me already,” you whispered, his ghosting lips catching the words right as they left you. “Just don’t hurt me,” 

“Never,” hurting a blessing felt like a crime he would never come back from. Kissing you until you tasted your blood on his tongue; until your heartbeats had synced. 

🏷taglist: @xylatox @cutehoons02 @cyjhhyj @izzyy-stuff want to be added to the taglist? check out my rules to see how to join! want to be taken off the taglist? send an ask! I do not write for enha this is my first time and I don't know how much ill be writing for them in the future this is for the taglist for this fic only!

[bluektw]

Another day another CK idea

Do we think Kreese taught the new Cobra Kai the weakness lesson from S4E7? You know, the "spot your enemies weakness" thing.

Do we think that if he did, Tory who already knew, would be able to find out Zara and Axel's weaknesses to help CK? Do we think she helped Kwon and Yoon see those patterns too?

Do we think since Robby knows this lesson too, does he use this against Kwon and Axel? Did he teach that to the rest of MD?

And do we think Silver, who co-taught the lesson, taught/will teach that to Iron Dragons?

[templeofvengeance]

Okay if you're the god of time why is it a Loki variant controlling the time tree?

"Because that is what needed to be done." Perhaps he should feel a sense of embarrassment, allowing a power grab from an Asgardian, much less that particular Asgardian, ascending him to a level of real godhood. But Khonshu felt no shame in this sacrifice.

"You forget-- or were unaware, little worm, that before him, there was another who claimed the threads of time, clamping them in a chokehold. I saw an opportunity to wrest away his hands, so time may flow freely again."

He was a time god. It was always a position he shared, even within his own pantheon. He could tolerate sharing it with that one, the God of Stories.

[beef-brisket]

Lucifer stared at the first man. Was he serious?! After everything he's done- he thinks he can just walk in here and ask for help?

The king looked at Adam up and down, he sees no reason as to why he would need help. Especially from Lucifer of all people.

But, maybe he could use this to his advantage.

Lucifer laughed: Oh, I bet you do. So, tell me.

Leaning back in his chair, Lucifer put his feet on the meeting table, enjoying the way Adam's eye twitched.

Lucifer: Why isn't Heaven safe for you~? You're their little golden boy! Adam could do no wrong! They used to tell me that, you know. Took every opportunity to brag about you. To praise you, for doing... nothing. So, you can't blame my curiosity when Heaven suddenly becomes unsafe for you- and by unsafe, do you mean they told you 'no'~?

Adam glared at Lucifer: Are you done?

Lucifer smirked: Nope! Could you imagine running to ME for help?! The Devil, of all people! Oh, Adam, you must truly be desperate! It's a good look on you~.

There were a few reasons why Lucifer was loving the fact that Adam came here without covering his face. It reminded Lucifer of how he broke Adam's helmet like it was nothing, and now, he could see every emotion that crossed his face.

Adam was beyond pissed off. He knew this wouldn't be easy. He didn't expect it to.

Sighing, Adam folded his arms and looked away from the king: Look- I just... need to get away for a bit. And the only place I can do that is in Hell. I... I don't fucking need you, alright? I just thought-.

Lucifer: Ah ah ah! Actually, Adam, you DO need me! And I quote: "Heaven isn't safe anymore and I NEED your help". End quote. You need my, Adam. And if you think I'm just going to let you wonder around MY domain, you're soarly mistaken.

Adam growled, glaring at the king. Lucifer even smiled when he saw hatred in the first man's golden eyes. He would feel threatened if he wasn't the king of Hell.

Adam: You're such a fucking asshole-.

Lucifer: Why? I'm only stating facts! I didn't say you COULDN'T come to Hell! It's just... if you're going to be taking up space in my home, you'll be paying your way~.

The first man was silent, staring at the king: I... "paying"?

Lucifer: ...Did I stutter?

Adam: N-No... just... "paying"... how? Did you want me to... y'know...?

Lucifer stared at the first man for a minute before laughing. For an uncomfortably long amount of time.

Lucifer: G-Goodness, no! I'm married, Adam! And uh- no offence, but I don't think you deserve my cock~.

Staring at the king, Adam wants to rub his face in the fact he's had his cock four times but he knew better than to say anything.

Adam: Fuck sake- fine. What do you want me to do, then?

Lucifer: Ooh, I don't know~... I want you to wear a maids outfit and do some housework~.

Adam: ...What?!

Lucifer: Don't get so emotional! That's my cost. You clean and cook for me when I'm not staying at the hotel, that is. This is a big ask, Adam, to protect you from Heaven, especially when I have no idea what's going on!

Adam: I just... look, it doesn't matter, alright? I'll do your bullshit housework just... don't tell anyone I'm here... please...?

Lucifer: ...Even my daughter?

Adam glared: Especially her. I'm not here for her bullshit redemption, I just need a few months to figure things out, alright?

Lucifer hummed and snapped his fingers, a contract appeared on the table in front of Adam.

Adam: ...The fuck is this?!

Lucifer: What? Did you seriously think I'd let you stay and work under me without a contract in place? Oh, Adam, try and rub those two braincells together, could you? Just this once?

Adam: Brain... what? What do they have to do with this?

Lucifer smirked and shook his head: Nothing. Nothing at all. Once that's signed, we can get going! I'm sure you're looking forward to seeing your new home!

Adam growled and summoned a pen: Don't talk to me like I'm some mutt.

The king rolled his eyes and waited for Adam to sign the paper. It was taking... a while.

Lucifer: Adam? Are you done?

Adam: Shut up, I'm reading.

Lucifer: Hm, that's all well and good, but mind speeding it up a bit? I have lunch with Charlie, and I still need to get to... situated~.

Adam glared and scribbled his signature: I don't need to get "situated", you bitch, I just need to be somewhere Heaven won't find me! For at least... seven to nine months... give or take.

Lucifer: ...Huh? That's... specific. But, never mind!

Snapping away the contract, Lucifer decided he'll check everything later. Walking over to Adam, he took his hand, and teleported them to his mansion.

Lucifer: Here we are! House Morningstar!

Adam couldn't help but braise himself, resting his hands on his knees as nausea washed over him.

Adam: F-Fuck...

Turning around, the king raised an eyebrow at him: You good there? Teleporting can be a bit rough... but I thought you'd be used to it.

Adam: I-I am fucking used to it. I just don't... do it a lot. I can fly, asshole, why would I... teleport places...?

Lucifer: Hm... who knows, who cares? Come on, keep up! We have so much to see and so much do in so little time!

Once Adam was sure he wasn't going to vomit, he glared at the king as he walked off, looking proud of himself. Fucker.

Adam: ...you better be worth it, you little shit...

Lucifer: What was that?! I can't hear you when you're so far away!

Adam: I wasn't talking to you! Asshole...

Adam the Exorcist

@beef-brisket

Lute looked up wide eyed as her commander was giving his speech and there was a little sinner coming up behind him.

Lute: SIR BEHIND YOU!?

Adam stopped and turned, he gasped and grabbed Nifty by the neck and threw her at the hotel crew and Lucifer, glaring at the lot of them.

Adam: THIS ISN'T FUCKING OVER!!

Lucifer: I think it is bud, you should go home.

Adam glared more, he was leaving because he wanted to not because this little fucker told him to. He waved his hand giving them the signal that extermination day was officially over.

Adam: Exorcists fall back!

Lute: But ..... Sir -

Adam: NOW Lute!!

She nodded and glared at the King and princess of Hell along with her friends. They all flew back to heaven and Adam flipped Lucifer off before he was fully back in.

Adam groaned when the portal closed, they had never had it go that wrong that fast. This wasn't going to end well.

-

Adam: Retire!?

Sera sighed she knew Adam wouldn't take this well.

Sera: Yes Adam, it's time you step down as the commander of the exterminators.

Adam: Is this about what happened!? Because it won't happen again.

Sera: You're right, it won't.

Adam sighed: But Abel? My boy is too soft to do that job.

Sera: There's no one else to do it. You nearly died down there we....... We can't lose you.

On one hand he understands where she's coming from, but he was meant to do this! The only reason things went bad was because Lucifer showed up.

Lute just HAD to kill the princess's pet.

Adam: I don't want him to die.

Sera: He won't. We will be doing a more regimented training routine. You deserve a rest Adam.

Adam: ..... Yes Sera.

She smiled and held out her arms, Adam hugged her. She was only doing this because she loves him, he knows that. Doesn't make it suck any less.

Adam went back to his room to lay down, he didn't realize how tired he was until he did.

There had to be a way that he could still be an exterminator.

Some how.

[sysig]

What you’d least like to hear (Patreon)

[lurking-latinist]

⛵

[avirael]

FFxivWrite 2023

Day 26 - Last

Rael and A'viloh had just returned to the Waking Sands from their first shared mission for the Scions of the Seventh Dawn and left the Solar after speaking to Minfilia, when they had an unexpected encounter.

Rael wanted to stock up on a few things and A'viloh decided to accompany them down to the common room when suddenly a voice called out for him from the other side of the room.

"A'viloh?", a Miqo'te stepped towards him and eyed A'vi incredulously. "I can’t believe it’s you! I heard the Scions talk about a recruit with your name but couldn’t imagine it would really be you!"

The man caught A'viloh off guard. He looked a good bit older than A'vi, had dark hair and wore an eyepatch over his left eye. A'viloh was sure that he had never seen him before in his whole life, so the fact that the man seemed to know him was pretty confusing.

"I’m sorry.", he said shyly. "Do we know each other?"

The man laughed at A'viloh’s reaction. "No, I am sorry! Of course you don’t remember me. When we left for Gridania you were only a few months old…"

A'viloh‘s thoughts were racing but he still hadn’t managed to connect the dots, so he just stared at him quizzically.

"Sorry, sorry…", the man laughed. "Let me explain. My name is A'aba. I‘m from the Antelope-Tribe from the South Shroud. You know you were born there, don’t you?"

A'viloh nodded slowly. "I know but I can’t remember anything of the place... Wait, this means you knew my parents?"

"Knew your parents?", he repeated with a chuckle. "Your father, A'vanoh, he's my uncle."

"Your uncle?… then you are my cousin??", A'vi asked in surprise.

"Yes! I recognised you immediately. You look exactly like your mother! Just like Tehmi!"

This confused A'viloh. He certainly did remember that his mother had long red hair and green eyes just like him but her name hadn’t been Temi. "My mother’s name was A‘tahja.", he retorted with furrowed brows

"Yes.“" A'aba nodded not seeing the contradiction.

"But then who‘s Tehmi?", A'vi asked.

Now it was A'aba‘s turn to look surprised. "You don’t know about her? I can’t believe your parents never mentioned her."

A'viloh shook his head.

"My father was an adventurer and worked in Gridania a lot. He took her and me to the city for training when we were thirteen years old, shortly after you were born, so it makes sense that you can’t remember A'tehmi.", A'aba explained. "But I thought your parents would have told you that you have an older sister."

A'viloh gasped. "A sister??" He felt like a chocobo had kicked him in the guts. "A living older sister?"

He needed to sit down. He remembered that he had an older brother and a younger sister but both of them had died the day their parents and the others had been murdered.

"I can’t promise she‘s still alive but the last time I saw her she was fine. After Carteneau we went separate ways, I decided to join the Scions but she wanted to see the world. So she took a ship to Old Sharlayan instead."

"Old Sharlayan…", A'viloh repeated absentmindedly, still processing the information that he may still have a sister.

"But how did you end up here, A'viloh. When we heard that the tribe had split up and left the Shroud we went looking for your parents but you were long gone. We found a small group of remnants from our tribe in La Noscea but they told us that your parents had left the Shroud towards the South, towards Thanalan. However we couldn’t find any trace of them there…"

A'viloh nodded. "I think we lived in Wellwick Wood for a while but then moved further to the South."

"To Southern Thanalan? We never expected you would have traveled so far! Why would you? There’s nothing out there but sand. Maybe we gave up too soon…", A'aba explained.

A'viloh shook his head. "I don’t know for sure what father hoped to find there. Maybe he had tried to reach the sea or go to Ul'dah and got lost on the way. We should probably have stayed at Wellwick Wood."

"Maybe we would have found you then but on the other hand the Calamity would probably have killed you there…", A'aba pondered.

A'viloh sighed deeply and looked to the ground. "They didn’t live to see the Calamity. We were attacked by Amalj'aa in Southern Thanalan. I’m the only one who survived…"

"Oh!", A'aba exclaimed but then nodded slowly. "I‘m sorry to hear that… but, to be honest, we already feared something like this might have happened. Otherwise we would never have stopped looking for you..."

"I don’t think that would have made a difference.", A'viloh offered to comfort him. "You probably wouldn’t have found us in time. I was only five years old then."

The other Miqo'te looked more shocked than comforted at that. "So young? What happened to you then? How come you're here now? Please, tell me everything."

They sat down and A'viloh started to explain, from the first things he could remember as a child until how he grew up at the Forgotten Springs. He left out Laqa and their unfortunate watery detour though, and skipped right to going to Ul'dah. Alone the thought of all of that still was very unpleasant to him, much less talking about it…

"I‘m so glad that you're alive and that I found you. It's good to finally know what happened after we left. A'temi would be so happy, if she could see you now!"

"A'tehmi…", A'viloh said silently, testing how her name sounded in his voice and how it made him feel. Tears started to prick at the corners of his eyes and he wished he could meet his sister right now. "I always thought I was the only one who survived, the last one of my family. I can’t believe I have an older sister… and of course a cousin!", he added quickly and looked up to A'aba.

His cousin just grinned at him and ruffled his hair. "Welcome back to the family, Viloh!"

[streetslost]

       CAT COULD HAVE BEEN WORSE at conversations, really. though were you to inquire that about her, she would say she was downright atrocious. yet, there was a contemplative THOUGHTFULNESS to how she approached situations that allowed her to maintain the beats... generally. to declare her as charismatic such as her companion or even a j o y to interact with were entirely different questions. there would come moments when she shut off or became disgruntled; leading to short answers and loss of interest.

                     but so long as her mind was at least mildly engaged, she could keep the flow maintained. the current back and forth was hinting as much, though it was growing evident that she was restless. after all, he had come across her in quite the situation, and the adrenaline hadn't properly disposed of itself.

      knuckles were cracked, and green depths peered at the dirt engraved in the crevices of calloused palms. some aimless w a n d e r i n g, though she seemed almost on a leash, always tugging back after she had taken a certain number of steps further from him. a hum was a tickle in her throat, brows thick and furrowed, harsh v shaped upon her forehead.

                 though as he ( shortened ) tail was woven for her, expression eased, and something almost disappointed would twinge at the corner of her lips. perhaps, maybe, for a fleeting moment, she had thought about herself and scott. maybe that he didn't forget her.

        foolish ideals.

                      "tha's sweet..." it was. sickeningly so. each other's escape. and for him - playing HERO - that had to be so welcome. love was an elusive concept to her, but she pondered the fantasy of someone pulling her away from the cold streets and into the warmth of life where her opportunities were as numerous and bright as the stars...

        hands dropped, and her pacing would halt for the time being. "heh, she give you enough in... terrible twos or wha'ever stage?" cat could barely handle herself and occasionally meatloaf. the idea of keeping a kid alive was frightening. her stomach scratched, and she was reminded of the cash she had obtained. "y'wanna snack?"

{➹} – THE HEDGEHOG HAD always been…well, friendly was the word some might use, but it wasn’t strictly true. Charismatic, maybe? Able to keep up a conversation naturally, even when he was in a less than pleasant mood. He always had been, and he didn’t know why. When he had been younger it was easy to chalk the reason up to him just enjoying the sound of his own voice, and even as a teenager (at least the first half of those years) he liked to gloat more often than not.

These days he had learned to listen, and well as offer friendly words. He knew now more than ever that people had theor own stories to tell. That theor lives were vastly different than his own, but there was aplenty to learn from each of them. He would give advice where it was asked for, though he knew his opinion and experiences weren’t something that all could relate to. Very few, in fact, could really sympathize with the hero. But he tried.

He always did. Always would.

It was probably one of his more annoying traits to some, that stubbornness, but Chaos knew that had kept him alive far longer than he should have been. Even if he had given up along the way at certain points. Yet he knew his story was one that would be, and already was, told the world over. He didn’t know how he felt about that, but he was willing to offer his version of it to those who asked. Like Cat.

Maybe he still didn’t quite know why she showed interest, but it didn’t make his enthusiasm falter. He wouldn’t have called their story a typical love story, more a story of chance and odd circumstance, but the hero was happy to tell it all the same.

"Never did, no. It helped we ran int’ each other here and there. She traveled with her band, an’ I was damn near everywhere trying t’ atop the world from being taken over. It’s funny t’ think about now, but we were a bit of a…break from our regular lives for each other. We spent a lot of time just talking, playing music, sort of just forgetting the world.” Something he truly believed that everyone needed at some points. That weird…forgetfulness of what their lives were at times.

“Funny t’ think our daughter will be three here soon, the time’s flown by. Can’t say we’re aiming for another anytime soon though. Her name is Lyra, and my wife is Mina.”