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nogutsnogloria · 21 days ago

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summary: lena has a dance recital and pope needs your help. feelings can’t be pushed down any longer.

andrew pope cody x reader

a/n: i was working on some of the requests in my inbox when i got distracted (sowwy) this is a continuation of what i am calling pope x lena’s favorite. i don’t necessarily think this is a chapter situation mainly because i suck at chapters. i write ideas as they come and inspire.

pope was screwed in a major way. lena’s dance class just came home with a set of mandatory steps needed to be taken for recital hair and makeup. staring back at him in big bold letters. do not deviate this is a non negotiable for all recitals your dancer will not perform if standards are not met. you had shown him the basics in order to keep it out of her face at class but now this looked way more complicated and he has no idea where to start. well technically he does: with an SOS text to you.

you message back with ???? i can be there in 10 minutes. he replies with a picture the piece of paper that contains the stupid rules. he’s never liked following rules. his own rule was no rules except when it came to lena, and maybe you now if he thought about it hard enough.

either you’ve missed the part entirely of his SOS text or you’re messing with him because you reply back omg andrew a recital, that’s going to be too cute! can i buy a ticket to go? he’s shaking his head with a small smile. i already have your ticket, lena made sure of that. but she won’t be dancing if i’m in charge of her hair and makeup this is why i need you. apparently she needs someone backstage to do this hair and makeup pre-show and for my sake and hers can you please help, it’s either you or one of the moms who hate me, or worse… smurf. there is a clear number one choice for me and lena.

he watches your three little dots signalling that your responding back and he finds himself holding his breath because this feels like a big ask of you to be his dependent’s special person when you two aren’t even dating. of course i can help! you can let the studio know that i will be lena’s stage hand. he releases the breath he was holding. i owe you.

the day of the recital came up quickly on you. you find yourself rushing to pope’s house with all the supplies needed to make sure lena is the cutest dust bunny any production of snow white has ever seen. hairbrush, gel, elastics, bobby pins. little clips to hold lena’s bunny ears on her head. the standard red lipstick and a good eyeliner to put whiskers on her face, exactly as the studio deemed necessary for the show. you’ll do her makeup backstage but you’re heading over to their house early so you can do her hair. not bothering with a knock you open the sliding glass door and smell the pancake breakfast being made. “smells good in here.” you take a seat next to lena at the table. “big day calls for a big breakfast” pope places a plate in-front of you and takes a seat on lena’s other side his own plate in front of him. you all eat with easy conversations between the three of you talking about events the big and the mundane since you all saw each other last.

you glance at the time. “i should get started on your hair while you finish breakfast. is that okay lena?” she nods and you get to work. the studio wants two french braids into a bun. you start by gently brushing out the tangles. pope excuses himself to make a call while you work. he’s on the phone watching through the glass door, because he can’t help himself. lena is chatting about something to you animatedly you are keeping the conversation going but you have your brows knitted in concentration on lena’s hair. you say something to lena that has her looking up at you and the both of you laughing. the sight is enough to make his heart burst but its the sound that can be heard through the little crack in the sliding glass door makes his knees buckle a bit. you’re also being so gentle. his only memory of smurf doing julia’s hair was it always seemed so rough and almost painful, lena looks pretty much relaxed as you are pinning her bun into place.

you tell lena she’s all good to go and tell her to change into her leotard and tights. she skips down the hall and you’re starting to clean the dishes. that makes pope wrap up his phone call. “hey deran i gotta go. see you at the recital.” he hangs up and goes back inside. “you’ve already helped enough today and you’re not even halfway through.” he pours you a cup of coffee. “go sit down, relax for a few before we have to head to the theatre” you roll your eyes playfully at him and sit at the island. “you’re kinda bossy, has anyone ever told you that?” he smiles at you and continues with the dishes.

it’s time to leave so that you arrive backstage on time. pope opens the passenger side door to the truck for you to get in before he is getting lena situated in her car seat in the back. he hops into his side and starts the car on its way to the local theatre. “lena are you getting excited?” you turn back to look at her. “i’m scared” you look at pope who has sported a new frown at lena’s admission. you turn back reaching your hand out for her to take. “its okay to be nervous. it’s a big new thing that you’re doing today. preforming in-front of a crowd can be scary sometimes, but you’ve practiced so hard at dance class. and me and uncle pope are so excited to watch you, all your friends are dancing right next to you, how fun is that? i love dancing with my friends” pope is in awe at how you were just able to completely validate lena’s feelings, without telling her she has no reason to be scared, like it’s regular conversation for you. you make it seem so easy. “plus i think uncle pope said we can go for ice cream after to celebrate.” he absolutely did not say this but who is he to say no to you, or lena for that matter, especially when you’re giving him the playful smile that he suspects you somehow have figured out is an automatic yes from him to anything you say. plus that information seemed to change lena’s mind. “okay yeah i am excited to dance.”

you arrive at the theatre and get out of the truck. this is where you have to leave pope to go with lena backstage, he hands you your ticket. “i will save your seat for you.” you nod and grab lena’s hand and head towards the dressing rooms.

in the dressing room you feel so out of place next to all the rich dance moms, walking around like they belong back here. but you try and hide your insecurities from lena, instead focusing on getting her ready. you help her get her costume on. you clip her bunny ears to her head and secure everything with a bit more hairspray. next you move on to the whiskers making sure that you’re putting all your perfectionist tendencies to good use for once. the lipstick is next, you don’t glob it on like the other girls’ moms have. just lightly putting enough on so it doesn’t bother lena or get everywhere. “i don’t like it when i can feel my lipstick stuck on my lips” you tell her as you apply. finally you are helping her put on her ballet slippers, the last step before the dance teacher will take over and you can escape the dressing room and go running back to andrew.

the dance teacher comes in and is taking a look at all of the girls to make sure everyone is presentable. she’s eyeing lena up and down which causes a pit to form in your stomach wondering if you’ve messed something up for her. the dance teacher speaks up “everyone listen up, if your little dancer does not look like miss lena then fix whatever you have done incorrectly” she’s pointing towards lena to show off your work which makes you let out a breath you didn’t even know you were holding. lena beams at you and gives you a hug. you crouch down to look her in the eye and hold her hands. “i have to go find my seat, but remember uncle pope and i are so proud of you and we know you’re going to do so good. we will be in the lobby waiting for you when the show is all done okay?” lena nods and the dance teacher comes to wrangle all the girls to get them show ready, you sneak out of the dressing room.

you stop at the vendor selling flowers in the lobby and buy a bouquet to give lena after the show and look at your ticket to find your seat. you head to the area you see andrew sitting beside his family and your suddenly feeling out of place again like you’re intruding on a family event, but you push it down and go to your seat. you slide into the one beside andrew, his hand brushing your lower back as you pass by him to your seat. you pretend like that didn’t do something to make you wish his hands were on you more often. he’s looking down into your eyes with a smile. “flowers? where did you find those?” you look down at the bouquet. “in the lobby but he was closing up i had to sweet talk my way into this these” he smiles at you. “yeah i bet you did, well now you’re going to make me look bad with nothing for lena.” without hesitation you hand him the bouquet. “give her these ones, they will be more special coming from you.” he’s wondering what you mean by that, you could have brought lena a rock and she would be talking about how special it was for days because it came from you. “you paid for them, i can’t take them” your thrusting them towards his hands “you paid for my ticket. think of it as a trade” you drive him crazy by never letting him pay for anything. “well you got all that stuff to put in her hair” you look at him with your sparkly eyes and he knows he’s lost this little argument before you even open your mouth to respond. “i bought those things with the cash that i randomly found in my wallet. it appeared out of nowhere like a reverse robbery” he knows that you know it was him but you let him have that little win. he’s biting back a smile ready to keep this little playful thing going when the lights dim signalling the show is about to begin.

the show starts and pope can’t keep his eyes off you from the corner of his eye. you are so supportive of all the dancers and he watches you melt at the little toddlers running around, and it melts him a little. especially when he looks past you and sees his and lena’s actual family not even hiding the fact that they’d rather be anywhere but here. when lena’s class is finally on, its your turn to take a peak at pope watching lena dance. you aren’t disappointed when you do watching him watch her with a proud pride that makes you smile as you turn back your face mirrors him watching lena dance around the stage with a big smile.

once the recital is all done you head to the lobby with andrew’s family and wait for lena to come out. pope suddenly feeling protective of you, and your too good for his world watching smurf’s eyes look at you up and down. he walks over to you to block you from her line of sight. you don’t have to wait much longer for lena to come bounding over still in costume, pope scoops her up in his arms and the family surrounds her now turning it on like they actually cared to spend their afternoon watching the recital. lena has had enough of them so she’s wiggling out of pope’s arms to go running over to you. you pick her up in a hug and feel her give you one back. “lena that was so good, did you have fun?” you feel her nod against you. “so much fun. thank you for coming and helping me. look at the flowers uncle pope got me” she’s proudly holding the flowers up to you. “those are so pretty. we better get going so that we can get them in some water.” your looking up at pope hopefully conveying with silent eye contact that you have given them an out. “yeah we better get going it’s been a long day here for us, thanks for showing up” with that he leads the way back to his truck, lena still in your arms chatting to you about what happened backstage after you left her. pope gently grabs her out of your arms so he can buckle her into her car seat. “uncle pope are we still stopping for ice cream?” he looks at you in the front seat trying to hide a smile and then back at lena who’s looking up at him waiting for his answer. “of course we are, we’re celebrating an amazing performance”

he stops at the little spot close to the house and lets you and lena order. he doesn’t get anything and you roll your eyes at him calling him boring which makes him huff a laugh as he goes to pay. lena has grabbed your hand and pulled you out the door so you can’t protest to him about it. the shop worker hands back the change saying “you have a beautiful family.” he turns back to look at you and lena, she’s still in her dance costume, your swinging her hand in yours around and she’s smiling and giggling at whatever you just said. he nods at the worker in thanks and leaves the shop to join you and lena on the bench that you found where you enjoy your ice cream and the company.

you’re finally all home from the big outing. well back to pope and lena’s so you can collect your things that you left there, and go home. pope cannot stop thinking about what the ice cream shop worker had to say and how bad he wanted it to be true, how that if it was then you wouldn’t be leaving again to go to your own place.

“hey i was thinking about ordering pizza for dinner, you should stay. lena would probably like your help better taking that hair down” you don’t even look up from your bag where you’re making sure you have everything. “oh are you sure? you already fed me pancakes and ice cream today i’m going to start feeling like a bit of a free loader.”

he looks down at you and what he really wants to do is shake your shoulders so that you understand what he says next, instead he grabs one of your wrists so that you stop what your doing to look at him. “all the things you do for lena without batting an eye, all the things you do for me, you are the opposite of a free loader in this house. okay?” his eyes are so intense when you look into them and your skin is tingling on your wrist where his hand is wrapped around you don’t even know how to answer him, how to tell him that you would do everything all over again in a heartbeat because even though this whole thing started with just wanting to make sure lena was taken care of, it has selfishly turned into excuses to see him too. you settle with a nod of acceptance and a “sure i will stay for pizza” he lets go of your wrist to go order. you stay to eat pizza and help pope to finally coax lena out of her costume and into her pajamas so that she can go to bed. you’re with her in the bathroom taking out all the bobby pins out of the bun leaving the two braids in her hair on her request. next you’re helping her gently wash off the makeup and leave her to brush her teeth. “hey i’m going to put her to bed but do you want to stay for a beer after?” you nod at his offer. “sure”

your sitting on the couch when you hear lena’s door softly close for the night. pope heads to the fridge and pulls out two bottles and opens them bringing them back to the couch. you take one and turn to face him. “the lady at the ice cream shop said something interesting to me today.” here goes nothing pope thinks. you take a sip of your beer. “oh yeah?” he leans in a bit closer. “yeah told me i had a beautiful family after you and lena went outside” he’s eyeing you for a reaction, you give him an adorable one without realizing of your eyes going wide in shock like maybe you’ve been caught doing something you shouldn’t. reminds him of the night he met you lena’s bedroom at smurf’s with your tiara on. “i, oh, uh what did you tell her?” you stammer out. “nothing, i didn’t correct her. just thanked her and went out to join you two.” you can’t think of anything to say so you just stare into pope’s eyes. you start with an “andrew i-“ and he cuts you off before you say something. “i think i didn’t correct her because i wanted it to be true, it made me realize that i haven’t made a move because if i mess this up im not just messing it up for me, but also for lena. you are the best thing that could have possibly happened to us coming into our lives when you did.” you look at him with glassy eyes, and he speaks again. “i would really like to try with you if that was something you’d want” you grab his hand and answer with a simple “yes” that makes him smile at you “yeah?” you’re smiling back and nodding still holding his hand. “you have to do it proper though i’m not just going to kiss you tonight because we shared our feelings that we’ve both had for a while.” you admit to him that you feel the same way. “you have to wine and dine me even if we are doing things a little backwards.” he laughs at how cute you are. “how about next friday night? i get a sitter and i take you out?” you smile and look up at him through your eyelashes. “yes please.”

#andrew cody x reader #andrew pope cody x reader #pope cody x reader #andrew cody x you #andrew pope cody x you #pope cody x you

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wonderjanga · 9 months ago

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Biblical Marvel

This is connected to the Revival post. If you don’t want to go find that, let me give a quick summary of it. In that post, Mary and Freddy die a lot in their Marvel forms. As a result of this, Billy has to revive them a lot. It honestly stresses the poor boy out too because at the end of the Revival post, Billy finds some grey hairs. So, yeah.

Anyways, so people think Marvel is god sent in human form to protect them. (Let me also connect this to the Billy is Really Old post too. In that post, Billy has been a hero since 1940.) It explains why he hasn’t aged over the almost 80 years of him being a hero. Not only that but once, a homeless person asked him to turn water to wine, and he did, though that’s more a of Jesus thing.

Speaking of Jesus, some people think Mary and Junior are Jesus split in two. I mean, Mary has blue eyes (from C.C.) and brown hair (From Marilyn) for Christ’s sake. Not only that but her name is Mary. Maybe Jesus/Mary is honoring his/her mother. And as for Junior, maybe Mary took the looks and he took the gender?

Marvel: *sorting through letters and replying to a bunch of fan mail while sitting at a table in the kitchen.*

Wonder Woman: *Sitting next to him, eating ice cream*

Flash: *zips over and is now leaning on Marvel’s shoulder looking at the fan mail* “Dude, is that fan mail?”

Marvel: “Yup.” *finishes replying to a letter and putting it in the ‘done’ pile*

Flash: “How do even get fan mail? Do they know your address or something?”

Marvel: “Whiz Kid.” *picks up a super fancy looking letter*

WW: “Pardon?”

Marvel: “Whiz Kid. He gets them, and then he gives them to me.” *opens fancy letter*

Flash: “Wait, that little dude who does the radio show?”

Marvel: *Doesn’t like being called little but thinks it would be weird for him to defend himself while in Marvel form* “…Yeah… That ‘little’ dude.” *Takes out letter and reads it before sighing*

WW: “What’s wrong?”

Marvel: “The pope asked me to dinner again.” *sighs again and puts letter down on table to slouch and spin in his chair like a depressed little kid* “Now I gotta think of another excuse.”

WW: “The pope? As in the Catholic pope?” *eats bite of ice cream*

Flash: *looks to WW* “You know who the pope is?”

WW: *looks to Flash* “Yes? Flash, I may be from Themyscira, but I’m not completely ignorant of man’s world.” *looks to Billy* “If you don’t mind me asking, why don’t you want to go?”

Marvel: *shrugs as he slows his spinning to a stop, having came up with an excuse. Picks up letter and starts replying* “I don’t know. Do you want to have dinner with a guy you’ve never met?”

WW: “I see. I suppose not.” *goes back to eating ice cream*

Mary: *Watching a show on a TV in Mount Justice*

Robin!Tim: “Mary? Could you help me with something?”

Mary: *pauses show* “Huh? Yeah sure.” *flies over to Tim* “What’s the problem?”

Robin!Tim: *sitting at the kitchen at the counter with a laptop* “Can you tell me everything you know about angels? I’m writing a paper about it for school.”

Mary: “Oh. Uh, sure?” *Proceeds to talk Tim’s ear off for the next 15 minutes about angels and their different types and personalities and such*

Robin!Tim: *finishes paper* “Thanks a lot.” *closes computer and hops off chair*

Mary: “No problem, but why’d you ask me specifically? Why not use the internet?”

Robin!Tim: “Aren’t you like the primary source?” *heads back to his room*

Mary: *confused*

*Captain Marvel flies down and asks to pet a woman’s dog when all of a sudden, a mother holding a child runs up to him*

Mother: “Please cure my child!” *holds child out to him* “You can perform one of your miracles, right? Please!”

Marvel: “What?” *looks between Mother and child.*

Child: *looks really sick*

Marvel: *gets concerned at the sick child* “You haven’t taken him to a hospital?”

Mother: “It’s too expensive! Please! Just this once.”

Marvel: “Uuuuuuuuuuuhhhhh…” ‘Solomon! Help me!’

Solomon: ‘Repeat after me, Billy’ *proceeds to rattle off healing spell*

Marvel: *repeats spell and heals child*

Mother: “Oh, thank you! Thank you!” *hugs child tight* “I’ve never been much of a religious nut, but now I’ll have to start believing more. Thank you so much!”

Marvel: *Little confused by sudden mention of religion* “Your welcome? Have a good day, miss.” *floats off the ground, giving her a little wave before flying off*

*Freddy is hanging outside one of a meeting rooms in the Watchtower because he wasn’t allowed in due to the face he looked like a kid. He’s now talking to someone on the phone.

Junior: *talking on a phone he magicked from God knows where while floating a foot or two off the ground*

Kid Flash: *bored out of his mind, leaning against a wall, standing next to him cause he also wasn’t allowed in for the same reason*

Junior: *ends call*

Kid Flash: “Who were ya talking too?”

Junior: “My friend, Cain.”

Kid Flash: “What, like bible Cain?” *was joking*

Junior: “Yup.” *didn’t realize he was joking*

Kid Flash: “What seriously? The Cain from the Bible? The Cain that stabbed his brother? The Cain that’s immortal because he stabbed his brother?”

Junior: “Yup.” *starts typing on phone, a little too nonchalant about the conversation*

Kid Flash: “And Cap just lets you be friends with him?”

Junior: “Uh yeah? Why wouldn’t he? You know he’s friends with him too, right?”

Kid Flash: “Wait really? Shouldn’t they hate each other or something?”

Junior: “No? Cain’s pretty chill.”

Kid Flash: *blinks a couple times at that* “Huh.” *he seems a little surprised*

*The meeting ends and the heroes file out of the meeting room before Kid Flash can ask another question*

#billy batson #captain marvel dc #dc captain marvel #shazam #fawcett #fawcett city #fawcett comics #freddy freeman #mary batson #mary bromfield #wonder woman #diana prince #the flash #barry allen #kid flash #wally west #captain marvel jr #mary marvel

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bendableperformer · 1 year ago

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For context, I’ve attempted to make Popee in blender two times prior to this (2019 and 2020) and they turned out… kinda shitty tbh

The image I posted originally is my model sheet for the third iteration, which is the closest to cannon yet (obv)

He’s in the sculpting process right now. I’m def gonna take my time to get his as accurate as possible before I retopologize him.

I’M AT IT AGAINNNNNNN

#popee fanart #popee the clown #popee the performer #ptp popee #blender #Popee #popee the ぱフォーマー #insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and improving each time but never reaching perfection #or something

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inthedayswhenlandswerefew · 2 months ago

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The Keys Of Heaven [Chapter 4: The Giver Of Life]

Series summary: Three years ago, Father Aemond Targaryen performed a miracle. Now he is a cardinal, a media sensation, and a frontrunner to be elected pope. You are a nun who has been brought to Vatican City to assist with the papal conclave. But when your paths cross by happenstance, you must both reckon with your decision to join the Catholic Church…and what you want from the future.

Series warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), references to abuse and violence, volcanoes, bodily injury, death, peril, scheming, pining, some drugs/alcohol/smoking, Catholic trivia you never asked to learn, kangaroos!

Word count: 6.6k

🦘 A very special thanks to my Aussie slang consultant @bearwithegg and also her mum (any mistakes are mine) 🦘

💜 All my writing can be found HERE! 💜

Tagging: @mrs-starkgaryen @chattylurker @lauraneedstochill @ecstaticactus @neithriddle, more in comments! 🥰

🗝️ Let me know if you’d like to be added to the taglist 🗝️

Boats speed past him as he approaches Nea Kameni, fishing vessels, sailboats, small yachts weighed down with tourists and celebrities and business tycoons, and even if they were to turn back towards the erupting volcano—which none of them are—they wouldn’t be able to carry all the people stranded there to safety without going under themselves. This is why when Aemond commandeered a boat from the Old Port of Fira, he chose the largest one, a Grand Banks trawler that can withstand the burden of fifty desperate souls clawing their way abroad. The owner, a man in a suit who looks like he could afford the $2,000,000 price tag, had just been coming down from the cockpit and immediately handed over the keys when Aemond demanded them. Who could mistrust a priest?

“What will you do, Father?” the man had asked in a thick Greek accent, and then, when he saw Aemond’s pale blue eyes flick to the rupturing volcano: “No, you can’t, it’s suicide.”

But it’s not: it’s a resurrection, a chance to be born again. Aemond’s cassock is a humble and undistinguished black, the color of mourning, the death of his old life, the promise of something brand new. Why should people worship Mother Teresa or Joan of Arc or Thomas Aquinas and not him? It is not talent that he lacks. It is only their attention; it is only a miracle.

Now asteroids of pumice and scoria and basalt and obsidian are raining down into the waves thrashing around him, sea spray swashing up over the deck, and the sky is dark with ash and noxious lung-searing fumes, afternoon turned to nightfall. Red veins of lava are snaking down Nea Kameni, and the tourists trapped there are like specks of ants as they flee across the island, their own boat buried in a landslide and useless. And it is not just thankless obscurity that Aemond is leaving behind. It is the person he was when he left Nisyros as a teenager, escaping things he does not think about if he can help it, and most of the time he succeeds.

The ocean is sloshing, swirling, steaming where lava spills into the waves and makes them boil, and to leap into the currents would be certain death. He knows he won’t have long once he docks; even in the shelter of the tiny crescent-moon harbor, the boat will soon be ripped from its moorings by the fury of the sea, and then he will be trapped too and perish in the cinders and the heat and the suffocating toxins that have replaced the oxygen in the air. So he climbs over the deck railing and ropes the vessel to one of the piers that is still standing, and by the time he turns to wave to the castaways they have spotted him and are flocking to his boat in the same way thousands of believers once received the loaves and fishes from Christ.

“Father! Father!” they are screaming in the apocalyptic gloom, the earth quaking and the air like acid, and as they sprint down the embankment he points to warn them: a lava flow that is pouring from the exploded crater, a red-glowing river that will consume them. The tourists look back and see the molten cascade and shriek hysterically, pleading, praying, knowing they cannot outrun it, feeling the lethal heat of it already, blisters bubbling up on their exposed skin.

And then—as Aemond’s hands are still raised in warning, as the tourists have their back to the lava flow as they race for the boat—a new fissure opens up in the earth and Aemond watches as the lava floods down into it, and the besieged visitors to the island are spared. Then they are swarming the boat and Aemond is helping them aboard—Thank you Father, bless you Father—and already he can hear them repeating a lie he does not correct: Did you see that he stopped the lava? It was there and then it was gone, a godsend, a miracle.

It’s almost too dark to see, but Aemond steers the boat out of the harbor and begins crossing the narrow strait of the Mediterranean Sea back to Fira on Santorini. As his passengers cling to each other and meteors of volcanic rock pummel the vessel and splash into the waves, he reaches into one of the pockets of his black cassock—one day red, one day white, he cannot stop himself from thinking—and finds there the rosary that a girl once gave him on a beach in Sydney, Australia. He thinks of her sometimes, but not in a way he could explain to anyone else. She is a ghost, a whisper, far more than a friend, far less than a lover, and yet a ricochet that he hears again and again in moments when he thinks he has forgotten her.

What if I never met her on that beach? What if we had never left?

There is a blinding pain and then the impact of his body hitting the deck and then nothing, and later Aemond will learn that a piece of pumice struck his left eye and fractured his skull. Blood flashes red across the white paint, hemorrhaging like the poisons from the earth. His ash-soiled collar turns crimson and sopping. As the boat is tossed by rough waves and the sky grows ever-darker, the afternoon sun eclipsed, Aemond’s devotees staunch the bleeding and keep him safely aboard, and one of them takes the helm and manages to guide the vessel safely back to Santorini.

And when Aemond wakes up three days later—missing an eye, gaining immortality—the first thing he does is fumble for the remote so he can turn on the television and see witnesses acclaiming his miracle on Alpha TV: Father Targaryen saved us, Father Targaryen made me believe again.

~~~~~~~~~~

“What’s going on between you and the nun?” Lucky asks.

He and Aemond are standing beside the koi pond in the Vatican Gardens. It’s early, and the older cardinals are still scraping their arthritic bones together as they crawl out of their beds. The December morning is grey and dull like iron. Near the bottom of the pond, comets of gold and white and red and black scales travel unhurriedly through rippling water like the darkness of the night sky.

Aemond, preoccupied, puffs on a Karelia cigarette. “I told you. We met when we were children.”

Lucky lights a cigar and takes an impatient drag. That’s not what he meant, and they both know it. “Who is she to you now?”

“Nothing. We’re friends.”

“Not a good enough answer.” Lucky flicks ashes onto the sand-colored tuff pebbles, damp with daybreak mist. “Auclair is running around saying you have an improper attachment to her. Kazi told me there was candle wax all over her face. How did that get there, I wonder? Par hasard?”

Aemond hesitates. His cigarette smolders between two fingers of his right hand, a tiny pinpoint of pulsing red light. “I was consoling her. Auclair...in the chapel, she accidentally dropped a candle on his cassock, and he grabbed her arm.”

Lucky’s brow furrows, incredulous. “He struck her?”

“He startled her.”

Lucky doesn’t understand. “And this compelled you to...lose your composure entirely, risk everything we’ve worked for? Auclair startling a nun?”

Aemond shrugs, peering into the koi pond. “It’s difficult to explain.”

“Aemo, are you serious about this?” About being the next pope.

“Yes,” Aemond replies immediately.

“Because...you know...it would not be the worst thing in the world if Jake got it. Or another moderate, an obscure consensus candidate we could dig up, some old unassuming Italian, the conclave is full of them. And if we pivot now, we might be able to box out Jahoda, even without you.”

“But that’s not what you want.”

Lucky smiles and opens his hands. “I am of the conviction that your gifts are too extraordinary to waste. I think you’re the best of us.”

Aemond averts his gaze as he takes a drag on his cigarette. “I’m not without flaws.”

“Oh, you have them, I’m sure. Pride, wrath, envy, lust.”

“A multitude of earthly motivations.”

Lucky chuckles, a gruff baritone rumble. “And who among us is selfless? Kazi joined the Church because in Poland in 1985, his job options were soldier, coal miner, or priest, and priest was the clear winner. Cam wanted his parents to be proud of him, I wanted a better life in Haiti. And Lando…well…I’m not sure, perhaps that was genuine.” Lucky exhales a plume of smoke and looks at Aemond. “I won’t pretend to know your ignoble reasons for joining the Church, but I’m certain you had them. Mortals don’t often do things out of pure altruism, we are imperfect by design. But that doesn’t mean we can’t still try to make the world better.”

“And you believe my elevation will facilitate that.”

“I do,” Lucky says honestly, then his expression turns fierce. “But you must either commit or get out of the way. You cannot sabotage this conclave and give the Chair of Saint Peter to someone like Jahoda, and you cannot be the pope if you intend to continue indulging your temptations. It is not just a sin, it is murder. When you hurt the Church, you are hurting everyone who might have been saved by it.”

Aemond nods, but he is still distracted. He finishes his cigarette and tosses the end of it into a row of laurel hedges slick with dew. Then he gazes across the gardens at the stone statue of Saint Agatha, eternally young, sinless, vulnerable. He says softly: “I just never thought I’d see her again. I couldn’t remember her name or her hometown, but I knew she wasn’t from Sydney, so how would I ever find her? Then to cross paths with her here...it’s an almost impossible coincidence. And to let her go for the second time seems so wrong. Painful. Intolerable.”

“Do you think I don’t know what it feels like to care for a woman? To love one, even?”

Aemond is stunned; he’s never heard this before. He waits for Lucky to continue like a priest listens silently in the confessional booth.

“I had a girlfriend when I was young,” Lucky says after a while. He kicks away some of the tuff pebbles, drops the end of his cigar in the trough, buries it in the shards of volcanic rock. “And she got pregnant. I couldn’t marry her, I was already planning to join the Church. But I promised that I would provide for her and the baby to the best of my ability. It would have been like Auclair’s situation, you know? Rumors, sure, but that’s all. Visits a few times a week. A child with my face. She took it better than I thought she would, honestly. She understood why I wanted to be a priest, and she knew we would all benefit from my position. She was pragmatic, even at eighteen.”

He has a child? Aemond thinks, astonished. He understands what that’s like?

But no: It would have been like Auclair’s situation, Lucky said. Not it is, not it was.

“She was living with her parents because she couldn’t live with me,” Lucky continues. “And one night when no one else was home, men broke in to rob the house thinking it was empty. They found her, and they killed her, slit her throat down to the vertebrae of her spine. There was no reason for it. She wasn’t trying to stop them or anything. She was hiding in a closet, six months pregnant, just waiting for them to leave. And if she and I had been living together in our own home, she wouldn’t have been there when those men shattered the window and climbed inside. I think about that all the time. It never goes away. Forty years later, and I’m still picking up the phone every day, hearing her father’s voice tell me what happened over and over again.”

The burning in Aemond’s throat makes him think of embers, lava, the gridiron Saint Lawrence was roasted alive on. He lays a gentle palm on his friend’s shoulder. “Lucky, I’m so sorry.”

“There have been times when God spoke to me so clearly it was like He was standing in the same room. And then there were other times...” Lucky closes his eyes for a moment, breathes deeply and unsteadily, shakes his head. “Many, many others, when I heard nothing, and my doubts filled me from my heart all the way down to my fingertips, and it was so heavy and so dark, and it’s contagious, you see, that sort of faithlessness. Contagious and unbearable.” Then, miraculously, he smiles. “But when I saw the news reports about what you did on that island, all those people you saved...parents, children, lovers, friends...all the sudden, it was so much easier to believe. How can one deny the existence of God when a miracle worker walks among us? Fifty witnesses, fifty lives spared, there’s been nothing like it since the ancient times, if you even give credence to those accounts. God has blessed you so abundantly, Aemo. How can we ignore that?”

Aemond lifts his hand from Lucky’s shoulder. What did God have to do with it? “I think I understand,” he says instead.

“In my good moments, I remember the suffering of Christ and all those martyred saints, souls who were so pure and so loved by God, and who were welcomed home by Him when their time came, and who will live on eternally. I have to believe that, Aemo. That we aren’t forsaken, that we aren’t alone, that death isn’t the end. All people have to believe that.”

“Then I’ll do everything I can to win,” Aemond says. When he looks down at the pond again, he sees a dead koi floating there, its scales a vibrant glittering gold. Another one? He gestures to the fish. “Help me bury it.”

Lucky is mystified. “Why?”

So she won’t get in trouble. So they won’t send her away.

“Just help me,” Aemond insists, and Lucky does.

~~~~~~~~~~

“It’s like Whac-A-Mole with all these Italians,” Kazi says over lunch, miming smacking them with a mallet. He means the three candidates that have rapidly surged and then fallen again when it became clear they didn’t have the votes: Cardinal Edoardo Rossi, Cardinal Davide Marino, Cardinal Frederico Abatantuono. The frontrunners remain unchanged; but in the last ballot, only a single vote separated Aemond from Jake, and they both lagged conspicuously behind Jahoda. Lando, now with five silent, anonymous supporters, is clearly stymied.

Outside, it has been drizzling. You and the other nuns are delivering baskets of bread and bowls of Sicilian-style fish stew to the cardinals: garlic and herbs and vegetables and sea bass, capers, golden raisins, a steaming broth of white wine and blood red tomatoes. Across the dining hall, the nonagenarian Cardinal Bogdi Marcu of Romania has spilled soup on himself and Sister Nuru is helping to clean him up. The lean, white-haired Cardinal Auclair is stalking between the tables, pausing to whisper to other cardinals, who frown and nod at whatever he is telling them. You feel your stomach drop, but try not to appear nervous.

He’s duplicitous, and everybody knows it. He’s a sinner, he’s a liar. And he doesn’t have proof of anything.

“How’s it going?” you ask brightly as you set a bowl of stew down in front of Aemond. “I didn’t get to say hi at brekkie.”

You certainly didn’t; he was absorbed in conversations with his companions and had barely looked at you. Now he is still evasive, sipping his glass of water and pretending to brush bread crumbs from the sleeve of his red cassock. Randomly, you wonder what he is wearing under it. Beneath your white wool habit, you have on a simple navy blue cotton skirt and a light jumper, striped with black and white. “Hello, Sister,” Aemond says flatly, fidgeting with the large gold cross that hangs from his neck.

Kazi gives you a brief smile but then resumes his commentary on the revolving door of Italian candidates. Lucky and Cam don’t acknowledge you, in the same way so many cardinals treat the nuns as invisible. You are perplexed; your heartbeat is thudding, hot and ashamed.

What do they know?

“Thank you, Sister,” Lando says quietly as you serve him his stew.

“Everything alright?” you ask Aemond, trying to sound cavalier.

Please don’t ignore me. Please don’t decide this is over.

“I think it’s best to keep some distance for now,” Aemond replies, a low murmur without eye contact.

“Sure.” You steel yourself, keep your expression impassive like a statue’s, then hurry back to the bowls of stew that are still waiting to be delivered. Your white runners squeak against the tile floor. The thin iron chain of your medallion is cold against your throat. Your composure must waver once you’ve turned away from the cardinals; Rhaena is concerned when she sees you.

“Are you good, mate?” she asks.

You force a smile. “Yeah, just a bit knackered.”

“Have a snooze this arvo?”

Before you can reply, there is a loud voice from across the dining hall, Kazi cackling as he points to one of the windows: “Oh look, there is a rainbow outside. No one tell Jahoda, he will spend all afternoon lecturing it about how it is destined for Hell.”

Cardinal Auclair leaps up from where he was hissing to a group of cardinals from Ireland. “Brother, can we desist with this slander? In his work on the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Jahoda played a pivotal role in the drafting of the Dignitas Infinita of 2024, which condemned violence and discrimination against homosexuals—”

“While the Church itself remains prejudiced against them. How many stones can we hurl from our glass house?”

Auclair smiles patiently, as if he is speaking to a child. “Cardinal Jahoda has unfailingly advocated for the dignity and salvation of every person, no matter how imperfect. Perhaps if you read more, you would know that.”

“I read about how he spoke out against the distribution of condoms, even in the midst of HIV outbreaks,” Kazi flings back.

Jahoda stands, his chair screeching against the floor as he pushes it out. All gazes snap to him. Cardinal Auclair looks on with eyes that flash like silver coins, grinning. “You progressives, you visionaries,” Jahoda growls, his voice deep and commanding. “You will take a system that works for ninety out of a hundred people and burn it to the ground until we can all suffer together. The Bolsheviks promised liberation. The Soviets promised equality. The Enemy wraps sin and chaos in beautiful words and thus we are seduced, but Brothers, we must resist this temptation. Our Faith has endured for two thousand years, but what is the Church without traditions? What should we ask the over one billion Catholics on the planet to believe in if we do not know ourselves, if we are forever redacting and revising and daring to place our weak mortal judgment over God’s?”

Throughout the dining hall cardinals are muttering, some in disapproval, more in concurrence. Kazi rises to his feet. “But the Church is always changing, Brother. Should we never have permitted Mass to be held in local languages, or moved away from our teachings on the divine right of kings, or improved our working relationships with other faiths—?”

“And yet it is this tolerance of other faiths and doctrines that so often imperils the most vulnerable!” Jahoda says, and now some of the cardinals are applauding. “I still remember that summer when Brezhnev’s tanks rolled into my country. I remember helping my neighbors paint over all the road signs so there were none left except those that pointed the way back to Moscow, I remember giving the soldiers wrong directions as they threatened us with their guns, we who were children, we who were having our innocence destroyed before our own eyes.”

Kazi sighs; he’s heard this so many times. “Yes, yes, Brother, we all know you were there in Prague championing democracy—”

“And my father took a bullet for it!” Jahoda thunders, and no one has anything to respond with except hushed awe or reflection or shame, and after a moment Kazi sits down and gives Aemond an apologetic glance like he knows he’s made a mistake.

Maybe Aemond won’t win, you think, and what you feel in your ribcage glowing warm and low like embers might be hope.

~~~~~~~~~~

“Sister!” you hear someone shout frantically, and here comes Sister Penny hurtling out of the Domus Sanctae Marthae just as you are headed there to tend to the washing. There were two more ballots in the afternoon, two clouds of black smoke loosed from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel, and so there is no new Holy Father yet. Dinner is in a few hours. You are ravenous to see Aemond again and yet dreading it; he fills your skull like sea water, stormy, swirling, full of riptides.

What is happening to me? Where can this lead?

“Sister Penny?” you answer. She is characteristically frazzled, strands of unruly red hair escaping from under her veil, her pale freckled face flushed. She canters to you, huffing from the exertion.

“Would you do me a favor, Sister? I’m so sorry to spring it on you like this.”

“No wukkas, mate.”

“Would you please ride with Cardinal Marcu to the airport?” Sister Penny says. You envision him: slow and stooped and shaky, wrinkled, archaic, a relic of a far older Church, here only as an advisor to the cardinals, over eighty and therefore ineligible to vote in the conclave. “He has an urgent medical appointment he can’t reschedule, a CAT scan or something. Sister Augustina had arranged for him to travel home to Romania today, and she promised she’d accompany him to the airport, but obviously she’s not here anymore and I just found out about all of this when I saw Cardinal Marcu in his room packing his suitcase. He’s expecting a chaperone, and I have to supervise the dinner preparations.”

You study the brick wall that surrounds Vatican City. “But I’ll be allowed in again, right?”

“Of course,” Sister Penny assures you. “We have a driver, you’ll stay in the car the whole time. As long as you don’t speak to anyone outside, you haven’t violated your oath of secrecy.”

You smile, relieved. “Beautiful.” No one assisting with the conclave can contact the world beyond the Vatican for any reason aside from an absolute emergency, not even greeting the crowds gathered in Saint Peter’s Square, not even a phone call or a text. To break seclusion is to risk not just expulsion from the conclave but excommunication from the Church, lifelong banishment, perpetual dishonor.

“Assistants from Cardinal Marcu’s parish have flown in and will be there to meet him at the airport and escort him the rest of the way. You’ll just keep him company in the meantime.”

“Schmick.”

“What?”

“Cool, I got it.”

Sister Penny exhales, mollified, and pats your shoulder gratefully. Behind her, you see Cardinal Marcu shuffling out of the Domus Sanctae Marthae with one of the other Romanian cardinals, who is carrying Marcu’s suitcase for him and soaking in those last convoluted ramblings of wisdom. “Thank you so much for your flexibility.”

“That’s what I’m here for,” you say cheerfully. “To help.” And as far as Sister Penny knows, that’s true.

Soon a Vatican employee arrives, sitting grim-faced behind the wheel of one of the tiny white Fiat Pandas in a black suit and sunnies. He is heaving Cardinal Marcu’s suitcase into the boot and Sister Penny is wishing the elderly cardinal farewell when you notice Aemond watching from a side street, one of the narrow snaking paved paths draped in the shadows of the buildings. You wander over to meet him when it becomes clear he’s waiting for you to.

Aemond says uncertainly, looking at the gate and then back to you: “You’re breaking seclusion?”

“I’m not breaking anything.”

“But you’re leaving.”

“I’ve been asked to accompany Cardinal Marcu to the airport. I’m not stepping foot outside the car or speaking to anyone else. No phone, no radio, I won’t even roll the windows down. I’m not being unduly influenced. I’m not violating any rules. It’s cruisy, I’ll be back in an hour.”

Aemond glances uneasily at the gate again. “Tell them to send someone else.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t have the authority to refuse Sister Penny’s requests. But you do.”

But of course he won’t say anything; he can’t be perceived as interfering on your behalf, he can’t fuel the rumors. And so Aemond only frowns, vexed, conflicted, powerless in a way he so rarely is now.

“Goodbye, Cardinal Targaryen,” you quip as you turn away.

But he’s not done yet. “What if something happens and they won’t let you back into Vatican City?”

“You can’t talk to me anyway, so why do you care?”

Aemond doesn’t reply. He only watches you leave, his remaining blue eye fixed and brooding.

You spin around and walk backwards a few steps. “See you at dinner,” you say with a smirk. “From a distance, of course.” Then you whirl towards the car, your white habit gusting in the brisk December wind. On the periphery of your vision, the red pillar that is Aemond stalls a moment longer and then strides off in the direction of the Domus Sanctae Marthae. From the other side of the brick wall, you can hear that the crowds gathered in Saint Peter’s Square with their signs and their prayers and their candles are singing Joy To The World.

You climb into the back seat of the Fiat, and there the prehistoric Cardinal Bogdi Marcu is eagerly awaiting you. You have the sense he would be just as pleased to see Sister Rhaena, or Sister Penny, or Sister Nuru, or Sister Helvi, or anyone else, really; he just doesn’t want to be alone. This is one of the great triumphs of the Church, however marred it may be by the inexhaustible failings of mankind. You get a family for life, and it is over a billion souls strong.

As the driver exits Vatican City via a skinny paved street—passing through a gate monitored by the Swiss Guard—and follows the perimeter of Saint Peter’s Square, Cardinal Marcu points with gnarled arthritic hands and describes the features to you: nearly three hundred marble columns encircling the piazza, cobblestones made of volcanic basalt, two fountains, an ancient Egyptian obelisk that has stood at the center since the 1500s. Then he begins yammering about the horribly sinful shows he’s stumbled across recently while home in Romania—Big Brother, Survivor, Love Island—and how there’s been no decency on television since that shameless American president spoke about his affair with a White House intern, something Cardinal Marcu seems to think transpired just a few years ago. You smile and nod along politely.

Ordinarily, the ride to Leonardo da Vinci International Airport would only take half an hour, but traffic is bad and many of the roads near the Vatican are closed or altered to accommodate the tens of thousands of tourists who have made the pilgrimage here to witness the ascension of the next pope. From the back seat, you watch Cardinal Marcu toddle out of the Fiat and into the waiting arms of two assistants, and by the time you’ve returned to Saint Peter’s Square, dusk is descending and the sky is pink and gold. The driver sighs as he waits in a long line of taxis, the route blocked by a tour bus that took a wrong turn and is now being directed by a fleet of police officers to spin around on the narrow street. Your driver, avoiding the radio, turns up the volume as he listens to an Andrea Bocelli CD. You have the ludicrous temptation to ask: Can you play some Bruce Springsteen? Can you play Atlantic City?

From the far end of the piazza, you gaze at the façade of Saint Peter’s Basilica, where statues of Christ and his apostles preside over the sea of congregants with their flickering candles and their handwritten signs. You see supporters of Cardinal Jahoda waving miniature flags of the Czech Republic and Hungary and Germany, Jake’s followers from Lebanon and Jordan and Syria and Cyprus, Aemond’s devotees from Greece and Italy and the United States. One woman’s poster reads, alongside a newspaper article about what happened on Nea Kameni framed in blue glitter glue: I believe in miracles!

As car horns blare and the driver mutters in Italian, your eyes trace the perimeter of the square. Perched atop the marble columns like benevolent gargoyles are the statues of over a hundred saints: Saint Lawrence who was roasted alive on a gridiron, Saint Sebastian who was pierced by arrows, Saint Lucy whose eyes were gouged out, Saint Thomas Aquinas who died comfortable and revered. Absentmindedly, you touch the plain iron medallion that hangs from your neck. You wonder which of the statues is Saint Agatha.

A small, flimsy-looking metal fence separates the road from the entrance to the pedestrian area. The Fiat rolls forward a few sluggish meters, then stops again. The driver groans. You have to get all the way around the piazza before you can enter Vatican City via one of the stone gates manned by the Swiss Guard. You imagine—against your will, and yet undeniably—that Aemond is waiting there, anxious to ensure that you are granted reentry and thus your stolen time together is not yet over.

“I can walk from here,” you offer, before you remember that isn’t allowed.

“Stay in the car, Sister,” the driver barks in a thick Italian accent, then he gets out and slams the door shut behind him. Through the windshield, you watch him jog over to where the tour bus is still blocking the road and start shouting at the police officers. At first they yell back, then the driver shows them a badge identifying him as a Vatican employee and the police officers are suddenly much more accommodating, pointing him towards a side street that is blocked off by orange traffic barrels but will presumably be opened for him.

As you wait for the driver to return to the Fiat, you peer through the window at the crowd again. It is beginning to thin out, now that today’s ballots are past and twilight is approaching. The sky is turning fiery, blood orange and incandescent amber. The driver is walking back to the car and the traffic barrels are being moved aside. Your eyes catch on a group of Filipino tourists carrying massive cardboard cutouts with Lando’s face on them, and they are laughing as they chat with each other and share a package of Sky Flakes, and you smile and then—

There is a vicious jolt, the shriek of metal on metal, and the Fiat is spinning as it crashes through the metal barrier and into Saint Peter’s Square. Pedestrians are screaming and running; your head whips around and cracks against the window, and for a few seconds the pain is blinding, your vision black and your hands flying up to cushion your skull, and when you start getting glimpses of the world again you see just enough to realize what has happened: a lost tour bus has rocketed out of the side street and collided with the car, and as the bus squeals to a stop near the edge of the piazza, the whirling Fiat smashes sideways into one of the massive marble columns. The door you’ve been pinned against by the centrifugal force caves in; you are thrown from your seat and then yanked back by the seatbelt so forcefully the air is wrenched out of your lungs. You gasp for breath, letting your head rest against the cool window.

You think nonsensically, your skull hammering: I’m just going to have a quick snooze.

Your eyes dip shut for what could only be a minute or two. Muffled through the mangled car, there is the distorted, dreamlike warbling of voices: Italian, English, other languages too. You don’t want to wake up; being conscious is where the pain is, and the weights dragging you down into the darkness are overwhelming, intoxicating.

It’s too hot. Why is it so hot?

Your eyes flutter open, and what you see through the car window is rising threads of black smoke and the dusk-colored radiance of flames. Pedestrians from the square are pounding on the doors and shouting that there is a nun trapped inside.

That nun is me, you think dazedly, and then you lurch into full and horrifying alertness.

You click off your seatbelt and bolt across the back seat; both doors on your side of the Fiat are barred by the marble column. You unlock the door from the inside and then yank the handle...but the door remains closed. You try again, and again, and the car is getting hotter. It’s no use. The impact of the bus warped the door somehow and now it’s stuck, and you can’t get free. Pedestrians are pulling on the outside handle and trying to bust out the window, some are attempting to roll the car away from the marble column to unblock the other doors. The flames are growing taller, and now there is so much smoke the faces of the people trying to save you are obscured.

You scramble over the center console and into the passenger’s seat, where you tug franticly on the handle. This door won’t open either; you are imprisoned, you are entombed. The people outside are backing away as the heat becomes unbearable. They are calling for firefighters who will be able to extinguish the flames or pry a door open or break a window, but by then it will be too late.

“No!” you scream, pounding your fists on the window. “No, don’t leave! Don’t give up yet! I’m still alive in here, please help me!”

But the fire is scorching, the fire is lethal; the metal inside the car is hot enough to scald you when you touch it. You are in an oven. You are dying. You are Saint Joan of Arc tied to the stake; you are Saint Lawrence being roasted alive.

“Help me!” you sob, beating your hands against the window. Sweat is slick on your palms and pouring down your face. Your skin is flushed and burning. The rubber soles of your runners are melting into the floor. “Help! Someone help, please!”

But your would-be rescuers are gone. No one can withstand the flames. You can just barely decipher their silhouettes through the wall of thick, churning grey.

You curl up against the window, fumble your rosary out of the pocket of your habit, and clasp the white pearl beads, taking deep trembling breaths into your lungs. Dark acrid smoke sears your trachea and capillary beds. Sweat stings when it streams down into your eyes.

“I’m not ready to go,” you tell God in a choked, terrified whisper. “Please don’t abandon me. I’m not ready, I’m not ready. There are too many things I haven’t done yet.”

And then you see him cut through the smoke like a red blade, undaunted by the inferno, moving swiftly so he won’t be consumed by it, won’t be claimed, won’t be incinerated. The fire glows on his face; the flames are reflected in the blue of his eye. Aemond rips his gold cross off his neck and then there is a clang and a snapping sound; later, you will learn that he shoved the cross into the door gap and struck it with the heel of his hand so hard he split his palm to the bone. The car door pops open, and you collapse into his arms.

You try to flee from the blaze with Aemond, but you can’t walk; your knees and ankles buckle, your skull is throbbing and the world spiraling. You stumble and Aemond grabs you, drags you, pulls you singlehandedly back from the brink of oblivion.

He’s on fire, you think dizzily as the smoke begins to clear and the clamoring pedestrians reappear, shouting in relief and astonishment.

“That’s him!” you can hear people saying. “That’s Cardinal Aemond Targaryen!”

Aemond feels the heat of the flames licking on his shoulders and rips off his cassock, and it billows in the wind like a red sail. Underneath he has on black trousers and a white dress shirt, the top few buttons torn open in the turmoil, a small gold medallion glinting against his bare chest. You’ve never seen this before. Through the haze of shock and smoke and pain, you wonder who he is wearing.

Aemond realizes before you do that the wool of your white habit has caught fire, and in seconds he has tugged it off of you; but underneath your navy blue cotton skirt and light jumper are smoldering too.

Is he going to strip me? you think, disoriented. Here in front of everybody?

But no, Aemond has other ideas; he hauls you into the cold pattering water of one of the fountains and splashes into the pool with you, cradling you as you sputter and shake violently, the adrenaline evaporating, the agony in your skull and spine all-consuming. You are crying as you cling to him. Your rosary is still tangled in your fingers. By the marble column, the Fiat is now entirely engulfed in flames. The sirens of firetrucks are approaching.

I almost died. And if that was the very end, what regrets would I have?

“I’m here, I’m here,” Aemond is saying, taking the pins out so he can remove your veil, smoothing back your hair with the hand he’s not yet aware he is hemorrhaging from, blood pouring from his palm like a stigmata. “You’re safe now. Shh, you’re alright. Nobody will hurt you. I’ll never let anything hurt you.”

Cardinal Seaborn appears, panting from his sprint across the piazza. His crimson cassock is rumpled and his zucchetto blown away, his face furious. Behind him, the metallic shell of the Fiat burns luminously. “You broke seclusion!” he booms at Aemond. “You could be disqualified! You could be excommunicated!”

“Then do it!” Aemond roars back, his blood running down your face, copper on your lips, scarlet salt on your tongue.

But of course, Cardinal Seaborn cannot dismiss him, this man who has just performed his second miracle and will so effortlessly be declared a saint upon his death. Pedestrians have gathered around the fountain like pilgrims to a holy site and are taking photos and video clips, they are cheering, they are praying, and they are chanting loudly enough that even the cardinals inhumed within the walls of Vatican City must be able to hear: “Targaryen, Targaryen, Targaryen!”

You murmur to Aemond as he holds you, icy water lapping at your charred jumper, your skirt fanning out like a koi fish’s tail: “Well, you’re defo going to win now.”

And then there in the fountain, as the dusk sky spins high above, you black out and sink into an infinite, starless sea of silence.

#aemond targaryen x reader #aemond targaryen #aemond x you #aemond x reader #aemond x y/n #aemond targaryen x you #aemond targaryen x y/n #aemond fanfiction #aemond one eye #hotd fic #hotd fanfic

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abbotjack · 2 months ago

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Do you think Pope could actually cope with someone genuinely loving him? Like do you think he has it in him to just let himself be loved by someone who doesn't want anything out of it?

(Hi I am anon who started watching because of your NSFW alphabet, about halfway through season 5 now, thank you for this blessing, Andrew is SO SPECIAL)

Yes. But only the way a man who’s spent his whole life bleeding learns to stop looking for the wound.

Because Pope Cody doesn’t heal. He endures. He survives. He buries. He memorizes the shape of the pain and calls it penance. And if someone were to come to him with love—real love, unarmed, unguarded, unearned—he wouldn’t know where to put it. Wouldn’t know how to let it live inside him without choking it to death with suspicion.

Because love, to him, has always been another kind of violence.

Touch was a trigger before it was ever a comfort. Care came with terms. Affection was a power play disguised as praise. His mother, that high priestess of conditional devotion, carved into him the first rule of survival: Obedience is the price of staying close. And he paid it. Over and over again. In silence. In bruises. In loyalty.

So when people talk about love—real, soft, steady love—he flinches. Not out loud. Not in a way you’d catch if you didn’t know him. But his shoulders inch tighter. His jaw sets. His gaze drifts. Because what they’re describing sounds too much like a trap. Like something that could be taken away.

And Andrew—the boy buried under Pope—he knows about being left.

He remembers what it felt like the first time someone walked out and never came back. He remembers the grief that didn’t get held. The questions that didn’t get answered. The silence that never got filled. He remembers trying to be good, trying to be better, trying to deserve whatever scraps of tenderness were rationed to him. And he remembers every time it still wasn’t enough.

Love, true love, the kind that doesn’t punish or require or mold or demand—it would dismantle him. Gently. Quietly. Without force.

And that’s what would make it so terrifying.

If someone offered that to him—love with no ledger, no warpath, no score to settle—he wouldn’t scream, wouldn’t break things, wouldn’t snap like people expect. That’s not his brand of chaos. He’d disappear. Shrink. Go still in a way that would feel almost holy. He’d answer less. Show up late. Say he’s tired when what he means is I don’t know how to hold this without breaking it. He’d sit across from them, eyes too bright, mouth too quiet, waiting for the moment they realize what he is and walk away.

Because they always have. That’s the law of his life: What you touch, you lose. What you love, you destroy. What you let in, burns.

But still—still—the wanting lives.

It’s there in every glance that lingers too long, every moment of silence that lasts just a breath past comfort. It’s there in the way he watches their hands when they talk, like maybe if he can memorize the way they move, he’ll understand something about safety. It’s there in the way he starts the car even when he doesn’t know where he’s going. In the way he drives through the night with no destination, trying to outrun a kind of hope he doesn’t have the words for.

And if they stay—if they stay through the shutdowns, the stormy silences, the volatility he doesn't mean to unleash—they’ll see it.

The cracks.

The sacred fissures in the stone.

He won’t say I missed you. But he’ll fix the loose hinge on their door without being asked. He’ll keep track of their schedule like it’s his own. He’ll bring back the brand of granola they mentioned liking six months ago, like it was a sermon he never forgot.

Because for Pope Cody, love is not a performance—it’s ritual. It’s devotion. It’s carrying someone in your every breath and pretending you’re not scared shitless they’ll leave anyway.

But don’t mistake that quiet for peace. There’s rot in the foundation. He’s lived too long in the shadow of his own sins. The things he’s done—the people he’s buried, the rage he’s swallowed, the lines he’s crossed to protect what little he had left—they haunt him. And when someone loves him anyway, it doesn’t cleanse the guilt. It amplifies it.

Because now he has something to lose.

And losing something good—something soft and sacred and real—would be the most violent thing he’s ever endured.

So he might push them away. Not because he doesn’t care, but because he cares too much. Because he sees himself as a curse. Because he thinks love from him is a death sentence.

But if they stay—really stay—something shifts.

He softens. Like something that used to be sharp learning how to hold without cutting. He starts making eye contact. He starts laughing, low and surprised, like he forgot what joy sounded like in his own throat. He says home and means it.

And eventually—slowly, reverently—he gives it back.

Not in declarations. In presence. In protection. In vulnerability.

That’s the holiest thing about Pope Cody. Not the violence he’s endured. Not the damage he’s done. But the miracle of him still choosing tenderness. Still reaching for something that terrifies him. Still offering his chest, scarred and sacred, as a place for someone to rest their head.

He’s not holy because he’s redeemed.

He’s holy because he tries.

Because every small act of love from him is a rebellion against everything that built him. Because he holds his own brokenness like an offering—and still finds a way to love through it.

And when he does love, when he finally lets himself be loved—he’ll never go through the motions. He’ll check the locks twice so they can sleep. He’ll sit beside them in silence when they cry, not trying to fix it—just letting them be, because he knows what it’s like to fall apart and not want to be rebuilt.

So yes. He could survive love.

But it wouldn’t be survival anymore. It would be transfiguration.

Because Andrew Cody doesn’t need to be saved.

He needs to be believed in.

And there is no one more deserving of holy, quiet, lifelong love than the man who thought it would kill him—and still dared to try.

(Andrew is so special. There’s something almost biblical about the way he suffers, the way he loves, the way he carries it all in silence. I’m glad you’re watching. Season 5 is brutal in the best way. Welcome to the long, slow heartbreak of loving a man like Pope Cody. You’re exactly where you’re meant to be.)

#ask #anon ask #pope cody #animal kingdom #andrew pope cody

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its-a-me-mango · 6 months ago

Text

THANK YOU ALL FOR AN AMAZING YEAR! HERE'S TO MANY MORE!

Alllright, final thing to close off today, and what better than with a great big THANK YOU to everyone for sticking with me for a whole year! Regardless of if you’ve been around since I first joined or if you only just followed me today, thank you so much for your support of me and my work. Knowing there are so many fantastic and wonderful individuals who all enjoy what I make is just indescribable, I get to wake up and enjoy creating things I love for the series I love so dearly all while so many amazing people enjoy what I make too. I really can’t put into words how thankful I am for everyone who follows me but genuinely from the bottom of my heart, thank you, thank you all for an amazing year and here’s hoping for many more to come!

Now, I do have a few special dedications to a few certain individuals, if I didn’t get the chance to include you PLEASE don’t think that I don’t value you in any way! There were so many cool and talented people that I wanted to thank but I simply didn’t have time to do so! You are all so important to me and it does kill me a little that I can’t thank everyone, but I am just one guy at the end of the day so again please don’t take it personally, I am still so thankful for everyone and I want you to know this. <3

ANYWAY LONG ASS BLOCK OF TEXT UNDER THE READ MORE

So, in no order in particular

@lizaluvsthis @shygirl4991 @b-r-i-n-g-x - I’m putting you all together as one because I always see you guys working as a group so it feels wrong to split you guys up lol. You were all some of the first people I ever saw in the SMG4 fandom and your contributions inspired me so much to make my own stuff too! Everything you guys make always has so much heart and soul put into it, Brewing Romance, Split into 3’s, Gay Ogres, they’re all some of the first projects I remember seeing and for that I wanna thank you guys for motivating me to make and create my own things within this fandom! Even if you guys aren’t as active now or have moved on from those projects, I still hold them dear to me so keep making and creating because you guys are all so amazing at it! <3

@mothsbakery - Moth my beloved friend, I don’t know where to start, when I first got into SMG4, I was so worried about sharing it with my friends because I was worried it would somehow get turned against me in some way (blame that damn trauma lol), so having you take a passing interest in it was such a major relief to me. I’m so glad I’ve been able to sit down with you and watch the few episodes that we have because they’ve been so much fun! I’m so glad that we’re friends even after all these years. I know I’m not always the best at keeping in touch but I do genuinely appreciate your friendship and all that we’ve done together. Please keep making and creating and enjoying what you love, seeing you come to my DM’s with your newest musical piece is always such a joy to listen to and it’s been so wonderful to watch you improve over the years! Keep being amazing Moth, I’ll chat to you soon I promise! <3

@strange0-0storm - STOOOORM!!! (POINTING AT YOU POINTING AT YOU) FREAK!!!!/J I’m kidding lol, Storm I am so glad I’ve gotten the chance to talk with you, even if it's brief, you are so fun to talk to that I can’t wait to get the chance to chat with you again about OC’s or just anything really! Your work is always so yummy, whether it's SMG4, Gravity Falls, Popee The Performer, and more, your art is always just so full of character and it just makes me wanna keep doing what I’m doing and it helps me not worry about branching out at some point to something else. No matter what I will always come back to your work because it's so amazing and it’s even better knowing it’s made but such an equally amazing person, stay awesome Storm! (also RhythmDoctor 4 life they should kiss and make out more JHBBSGHBSGH) <3

@bluesbox - Blue! Dude you are so freaking cool I cannot put it into words, not only is your work fantastic and such a joy to interact with, but you’re also so dedicated to characters lore and interactions that I can’t help but wanna be just like that! I’ll never forget when you first dropped the TSB lore presentation that shit was SO WILD, knowing there's someone who's so invested in other peoples OC’s (including my own!) to such an extent is honestly so amazing, and it really pushes me to invest more time into my own work! Knowing there’s someone out there who genuinely takes so much interest in it is so uplifting, so thank you for always wanting to know more about what I make as well as everyone else, we need more amazing people like you Blue, keep being you! (also PS, the way you give Mango glasses is probably my favourite thing someone has given him, it makes me so happy to see every time, don’t tell anyone shhhhh) <3

@libbytwq - LIBBY, LIBBY OMG I don’t think I’ve ever met another SMG4 fan who just gets the same sense of humor as me so well, I love being terminally on Tumblr and having someone else who is also terminally on Tumblr, it’s so refreshing lmao! Lore not only are you an amazing person to talk to, you are also so insanely talented to match, all of your work has so much charm and passion put into it that I can just sense it with every piece, I always want to know more with your characters like I NEED the full SMGL:E lore or else I will explode and die, that’s how good you are at getting people invested in your work! You’re so great at creating interesting and engaging characters/stories that it motivates me so much with my own work. You have so much love for what you do it’s so wonderful to see, please keep creating forever and always because your work is such an absolute joy to see. I love getting the chance to chat with you so much and I can’t wait to chat with you again, thank you for being such an amazing friend Libby! <3

@hamlos - Hamlos, your work is truly incredible. I really can’t express it enough, it’s so dynamic and flexible in such a beautiful way, everything you make is just so amazing and that's just talking about your art itself, the characters you have are so interesting I always want to know more about them, especially Cardiac I seriously love him so much and having him paired with Mango is so wonderful, they really go together so well! I’ve never had anyone go so crazy (positive) over my characters before and It’s so amazing to see, every time you come to me with your amazing work it’s always such a nice thing to see! I know I am not always the best at responding but I do always see and read everything you send me and it always leaves me with a big smile on my face. Even if you’re not super into SMG4 right now, thank you for all that you’ve done and all that you’ve made for me, HeartBeet will always have a special place in my heart and I hope it does for you too, they are gay after all lol. <3

@neo91502 @hexsie @aquaproductions - Grouping you all together even though you all couldn’t be more unique and individual, every single one of you is so special and amazing to talk to, I legit get so excited any time one of you joins a VC with me because all of you are so fun to hang out with for so many reasons! Neo omg you are honestly such a nice person to chat to and be around, you’re always so fun to hang out with and you’ve convinced me to sit down one day and listen to Epic the Musical because every time you go crazy over the word Epic, I can’t help but find it so cute lol. Nova your obsession with Hex3 is so sweet and I’m genuinely glad you’re having so much fun with it, seeing you go on rambling about your OC’s will always be such a joy to see and you know what yes one day I will draw Hex3 just for you, gimme a second though (dies first /j). And Aqua, I had no idea how much of a sweetheart you were to talk to, you are honestly so cool and I’m so glad to have you in my DM’s sending me amazing fanart that you know I’ll like, thank you so much for being so awesome and I’m giving you platonic smooches right back at ya so watch out!!! All of you are again so amazing and I can’t wait to keep chatting with all of you! <3

MY BELOVED WHO SHAN’T BE NAMED BUT I KNOW YOU’RE READING THIS!!! - Hai babe, listen, I can’t believe the whole time you’ve been dating me I’ve been an SMG4 fan, that must be so embarrassing to you lol /j but thank you so much forever and always for sticking with me. You are truly the light of my life, I treasure every moment we spend together and I am waiting for the future to come so that I can spend it with you forever and always. Thank you for not only indulging in my interests with me, but for enjoying me for who I am, everytime you call me cute for getting giddy over SMG4 it honestly makes my heart flutter and it reminds me of why I love you so much, I wouldn’t be who I am without you and I hope you can say the same thing for me. I cannot wait to get the chance to see you again in person, I need to kiss you sloppy style soooooo bad it's making me bark and growl grrr grrr bARK BARK BARK anyway I love you so much and I always will. (I will forever kiss you for getting me Smug I can’t believe you got him, he’s like a fucked up and evil son to me) <3

@ominus-potato @theartistisme43 @coralalala64 - Grouping you all together even though I have different things to say about all of you, but regardless, all of you are such amazingly talented people that I’d love to get to chat with you all properly one day, even if I’ve talked with you guys a bit it’s not enough! I’d love to get to know you guys better at some point lol. Ominus your work is just so good I can’t help but feel happy anytime I see it. I promise one day we will meet at a convention, I’m so mad I missed you once I won’t let it happen again! Cantro, your work is incredible!!! Every time I see it I’m so amazed with what you’ve made that it just gets me excited to see what else you can create, I am manifesting with all my strength that if you do ever decide to apply as a SMG4 machinima artist, that you get it because god damn you deserve it! And Coral, THE CREATURE CREATOR!!! I love your lil creatures so much, and OMG you have to teach me how to do such amazing pencil work, your work always inspires me so much and I’m so glad I’ve gotten the chance to chat with you a lil, your gif collection is truly frightening but in the best way possible. Again all of you are so amazing so please keep doing what you’re best at! <3

@tiredsmashbros - Tomm, Mr Tiredsmashbros, holy shit where do I even start with you. First of all, I would probably not be thanking half the people in this piece if not for you, I know how scary setting up a server was for you but I will forever be so thankful that you did. Finally getting the chance to chat with not only you, but so many amazing people in the SMG4 fandom has been an absolute joy and I am forever thankful for you for creating such an open and accepting space, you and Radiant are seriously so awesome for all the work you’ve put into that place. It’s from your server that i’ve learnt how wonderful and generous you are as a person, I really cannot think of anyone kinder than you Tomm, the way you always have an essay planned for every piece of fanart you get, from just your overall positive attitude, I am so glad I’ve finally gotten the chance to meet you after just being a fan of your work for so long. Your work has been such an inspiration to me and you’ve always been someone I wanted to chat with and the fact that I am now is!!! Crazy!!! I can’t believe you were scared of me at one point lol. Anyway thank you Tomm for being such a fantastic friend overall, I need to know TSB’s lore right now, can you whisper it to me I promise I’ll keep it a secret, regardless stay awesome dude, you deserve nothing but joy and happiness forever and always. Qwah Tuh (also Burgerfruit beloved, they should get weirder /j) <3

@doodledev1l - Doodle!!!!! Okay I know this sounds weird but genuinely finding another British SMG4 fan has been so refreshing, not only that but you’re super fun to talk to and be around so it’s even better! Getting the chance to hang out and chat with you is always so fun, I love getting to hear what you’re working on for uni and I always hope that it goes well for you, I know how stressful it can be lol. Regardless, I know you’ll do amazing because I’ve seen how dedicated and talented you are when it comes to your work, again I hope the rest of uni goes well for you because you deserve it, we gotta end your bad luck streak somehow lol. Thank you for being such an amazing person to chat and hang out with, keep up the amazing work dude, I’ll get you a tescos meal deal one day I promise. <3

PHEW, THAT’S EVERYONE, again thank you all so much for sticking by my side for a year! Doesn’t matter what time you showed up, I will always be thankful to know all of you, keep being awesome I love you all. I die now

Mango <3

#smg4 #mango art #smg4oc: mango #im... not tagging everyone lol #thank you all for everything. this year has been so amazing and I cannot wait for what comes next #I'm still in love with SMG4 i'm not quitting anytime soon lol

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