#space datura

[metalhead-brainrot]

[Album of the day] Ethereal Sands - From Dust To Stone

Aubagne, FRA || 2024

[Genres] industrial metal, post metal, prog metal

[Themes] Middle Eastern metal

[FFO] Nile,* Akhenaten

[Thoughts] The most recent of many projects by Kosm, whom I know from a free Weedian** release: Bong of Nothingness - Space Datura (instrumental stoner doom).

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* Other relevant posts.

** WEEDIAN's page || a post where I talk about them

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[syensy-art]

Artfight attack for @somberine of their character Datura and my character Wawel >:)

[stonerzelda]

umm does anyone know where i put my sparkly water colours 👉👈

[maybefae]

Why Are Others Grateful For You?

Pile 1 - Pile 2 - Pile 3

Remember, this is a general reading and it may not resonate for everyone or completely. Tarot is a tool to help guide but you are responsible for your actions and life, you choose your path.

Tips!

|Pile 1

Tarot: Eight of Cups, Two of Wands, Six of Swords, Knight of Swords, Ace of Swords, Four of Swords, Page of Pentacles, Ten of Cups, Six of Cups, The Star

Oracle: The Horse and Bluebell (modest fortitude), The Otter and Cattail (peace), The Bobcat and Blackthorn (patience), The Squirrel and Chestnut (preparation)

I don’t know if it’s because we just entered Mercury Retrograde but I could not, for the life of me, figure out how to start this pile. But it could also be part of a message that I had previously gotten just from the cards. I think this could be from your coworkers, classmates, or maybe just in general, people are grateful for your attention to detail. Your perfectionism could drive you crazy but I think people are grateful for the fact that you make sure everything is in order so nothing goes wrong. I keep getting that you could feel like it’s a hindrance and maybe it’s because it stems from anxiety. And maybe you do get a lot put on your plate because people expect you to be able to handle it (which is a downside to why they are grateful). 

You also hold an air of peace. You could be a very soft person (you don’t have to be) and you hold a space for people without really realizing. People love to be around you because you genuinely soothe their nerves and worries. Once they step foot into the room you’re in, once they are enveloped by your presence, it feels like they are teleported into a whole different world. You’re like the sound of a babbling brook, birds singing as they fly through the trees, leaves crunching underfoot on a dirt path through the woods…People can finally take a breath when around you. You could notice that people are more willing to open up to you, even the most shy person would talk to you. People could also find it easy to fall asleep around you. But I also get the sense that you aren’t that for yourself. You seem like a very worrisome and anxious person. 

You could have stuck up for someone in the past and they are grateful for that as well.

For the people you have walked away from, people that you don’t align with anymore, they are grateful that you walked away. You may have had guilt even though it was for the better and they could have acted cold after, but just know they are grateful that you did. They probably wouldn’t have become the person they are if you didn’t walk away. They don’t want you to hold the guilt anymore because you did the right thing. They still love you and the love they gave is yours to keep.

You could also encourage people to follow dreams they had as a child or just dreams in general. You make people’s pure self come out, their inner child…And it inspires a lot of hope. You could also be good with children. And you hold a lot of patience, even in moments that make you worried. They are grateful for the space you give them.  

You have lovely characteristics, Pile 1. And I wish you realize them and turn them towards yourself since I feel like you don’t think this way about yourself. But with people that push the limits, protect yourself and put up boundaries.

|Pile 2

Tarot: Four of Wands, King of Pentacles, Seven of Cups, Ace of Cups, Page of Swords, Five of Pentacles, The Emperor, Ace of Pentacles, Five of Cups, The Fool

Oracle: The Horse and Bluebell (modest fortitude), The Bee and Pomegranate (productivity), The Coyote and Datura (deceit), The Skunk and Magnolia (protection)

Before I even got the cards out, I could already feel the protective and determined energy coming from you. I had instantly reached for my oracle to shuffle your cards before even clearing pile 1. You are the manifestation of ‘when life gives you lemons.’ You could be given cups that you aren’t happy with so you decide to pour the water out and then fill it with what you want. You are a go getter. And honestly, people are grateful of characteristics that others could find absolutely annoying.

You are the backbone of the workspace, the family, and/or whatever relationship you have with others. You are willing to speak your mind which doesn’t leave room for second guessing, creating a strong foundation for any relationship. In the workplace/classroom, projects get done, deals get made, and the environment thrives. You are a very prized asset to any organization. Also, if you are good at tactics and work manipulation (like sales or areas that need it), they are grateful for that.

In interpersonal relationships, people see where they stand so they know how far they can open up and don’t have to guess who they are to you. You don’t let anyone walk all over you. And to the people you care about, you don’t let people walk over them. People like how cunning and witty you are.

This one was pretty straightforward and it feels like this is what people notice about you the most, so I suppose it also makes sense that it was based on your characteristics. Blunt, determined, and no room for bartering. You could have also been burned in the past and so this is why you are the way you are so you don’t get hurt again. People do notice how strong you are and are honestly are inspired by the way you picked yourself up and kept going. There are lingering hints of sadness and anger as I’m ending this so you could have a hard time showing softer emotions, which is why I couldn’t get any other reasons. There are ways to merge your boundaries, the hard shell you have, while letting the walls down (especially to personal relationships). The people you’re closest with do want to see you relax, even if they appreciate how strong you are.

|Pile 3

Tarot: Ten of Wands (reversed), The Chariot, Justice, The Empress, The Sun, Four of Pentacles, Knight of Cups, Ace of Pentacles, Queen of Cups (bottom of the deck)

Oracle: The Vulture and Asphodel (upheaval), The Beaver and Birch (home), The Hound and Pear (loyalty), The Finch and Peach (romance), The Rooster and Sunflower (communication)

There is a slight 18+ message that I got (so if you’re young, please skip this bit). But if you have a lover, they are grateful for how balanced and fair it is in bed.

This one does have a heavy romantic feeling over it. This could be a partner or a future partner coming through, to be honest. But I think you can adapt this to anything (we’ll see).

So before I even got cards out, your energy washed over like a princess/prince/liege stepped into the room. Your energy gives Rapunzel from Tangled in a way. Like it’s the pure form of the princess (not the warped idea where people want to be a princess just to get what they want). You felt bad for pile 2 as you stepped into the reading. Then, I was reshuffling the oracle and the romance card was shown. I kept it in so I can have cards pop out but once I was done, I HAD to find the romance card and pull it out but I also pulled out the communication one. This is why this reading is so romance heavy. I honestly feel like it’s from a partner or a future partner, maybe partners from the past. 

You are The Empress card embodiment. They think you are so beautiful (no matter your gender) and they just feel grateful for your mere presence. You can make a bad boy good. They are so grateful for the change you brought into their life, even if it was sudden and hard to adjust to. You molded them into their peak form and they are more than grateful. And I think they show that by being healthily obsessed with you. They know they scored a rare gem and they won’t treat you any less than.

You seem to also have it easy? Not in a bad way! You just seem to breeze by issues with a wave of your hand and a “I can handle it” attitude. Maybe you calm peoples worries and help them get through issues that they think are really stressful. It’s like the energy of getting all worked up over something but once it is done and passes, you look back and wonder, “I was worried over that?” 

Others are just so grateful for your love. You could like cooking and offer to make meals or randomly bring food by. But you are just so abundant with the love you give to others. You make people feel at home. Your partner is also grateful for making your house a home (maybe they never got that so they finally get to experience that). They are also grateful for your loyalty. You make everything feel alright…And you are also good with communication. In general but also more so towards your lover. They are grateful that you don’t play games and that you don’t leave any questions between the both of you, even if there is a hiccup in the relationship. I’m actually tearing up right now. Someone is just so grateful for your existence in their life and what you bring them. And I had so much to say at the end that it didn’t feel like any organized thought. People are just so overwhelmed by you in a good way, like a ray of sunshine. You’re so lovely, Pile 3. 

Dividers: @inklore

[astra-ravana]

Working With Hekate

Goddess Of The Threshold

Other titles: Keeper of the Gates, The Triple Goddess, Bringer of Light, Night Wanderer, and many more

Colors: Black, silver, gold, red, white

Herbs: Asphodel, trillium, ebony, fly agaric, garlic, aconite, yew, datura, cypress, belladonna, saffron, foxglove, mandrake, willow, black poplar, dandelion, mugwort, henbane, mandrake, yarrow, myyrh, lavender, oak, mullien, thornapple, bittersweet, poppy, wormwood, sage, rue, fumitory, dragon's blood, rowan, black copal

Crystals: Moonstone (especially black), labradorite, mother of pearl, black tourmaline, obsidian, black/smokey quartz, lodestone, nuummite, serpentine, auralite, abalone, corundum, zicron, hematite, jet, lapis lazuli, pyrite

Element: Earth/water/darkness

Planet: The Moon, Saturn, Pluto

Zodiac: Scorpio (Aquarius)

Metal: Silver, copper, bronze

Tarot: The Moon, The High Priestess

Direction: All

Date: November 16th, the Night of Hekate

Day: Any

Animals: Goats, wolves, dogs, owls, snakes, horses, crows, bulls, sheep, skunks, lizards, dragons

Domains: Thresholds/liminal spaces/boundaries, crossroads, witchcraft and sorcery, the Moon, herbalism, the poison path, necromancy, nocturnal magick, truth, secrets, hedge-riding, shadow work and integration of shadow-self, baneful magick, protection, knot magick, foraging, divination, creatures of the night, the Underworld, the Otherworld

Offerings: Keys, hair of a black dog, any of her sacred plants, representations of any of her animals, divination tools, black mirrors, wands, athames, bolines, blades, things in sets of 3, fruit, wine, blood, rituals/magick in her honor/name, feathers, fossils, shells, bones

Symbols: Blades, fire, keys, crossroads, gateways, doors, entrances, moons, torches, wands/sceptres, whips, the number 3

[datesinredink]

could you possibly write headcanons you have of how the rise yanderes would like psychologically manipulate/punish their darling? i’m all for physical violence but what do they do to mess their darling up in the head?

ty very much for reading this if you do :)

THANK YOU SO MUCH RAGHHHHHH!!!!! Since this is such a fun question to answer im gonna order these from most to least awful. The ranking is just my opinion and i would LOVE to see what other people think jhwhnwiurfj i decided to chug a soda to write this and i think that was a great decision because i immediately came up with smth for donnie because of it.

I decided to search up some ACTUAL psychological torture methods that have been/are used in real life and let normal manipulation take more of a backseat so that this didn’t end up too repetitive- honestly would recommend researching it, it’s a fun topic.

Trigger warnings: Very unfun use of technology in your arm, Drugging, More drugging, Even more drugging, Withholding of food/water (+ a more mild example of doing so but it still happens), Mild descriptions of gore, Mentions of blood, general yandere stuff like kidnapping, and likely others- please ask me to tag anything else triggering, because unfortunately I am not perfect.

1- Donnie.

This might be surprising to some of you. Yes, Leo is the manipulator- he’s the face man, the people guy, but I think that in terms of sheer awfulness- Donnie is going to win here simply because of the potential with his tech.

He’s a genius with access to mystic powers who has incredible skill with both designing and creating various machines and gadgets. I think that he’d be very creative, just considering how much he thought to fit into just his bō staff.

My first thought was that he could come up with a small device (which might be able to double as a tracker) to embed under your skin that could move around. It would skitter up and down your arm like a beetle (likely your dominant arm, just to be worse) and be a nice cherry on top of anything else he could come up with.

To pair with that, he could force some type of hallucinogenic drug down your throat- after some googling, LSD would be a likely candidate. While apparently it usually only causes “pseudo-hallucinations” (where you know that they aren’t real, whereas true hallucinations would be where you think they are), true hallucinations can happen, and the pseudo-hallucinations combined with the environment alone would be enough to cause a panic attack. Not even to mention the kind of drugs that the mystic city might have. (edit: i just found out about datura??? GODDAMN THAT’S A STRONG DRUG.)

Also, I think that Donnie would actually take decent care of you prior to any sort of escape attempt or broken rule. He’d hate for you to waste away in a dark room for the rest of your now shared life, so he would take you outside to some private space for a set amount of time everyday while you’re chained to him and probably gagged so you don’t call for help- you need time in the sun and exercise, after all. That’s why I think he’d also stop doing that if you broke a rule. You don’t want to be anywhere near him, and he supposes that he’s fine with that- but if you really don’t want anything to do with Donnie anymore, then you’ll just have to deal with losing all the luxuries that came with him being so caring.

He’ll lower the temperature in your room and take the hoodie that he so graciously gave you and waltz on out. He still brings you food and water, but now it’s less frequent and more random since now he’s prioritizing his brilliant inventions. Sorry dear, but weren’t you the one who begged him to leave you alone? Now he is. What’s the problem?

2- Leo.

Even if you haven’t done anything wrong (yet), being kept in his room would probably be a nightmare. I feel in my adhd soul that he would NOT be good at keeping it clean. It’d be living in a constant mess, and as someone who has lived in a perpetually messy house, it will definitely take a toll on your mental health. Not to mention the additional noise from whatever he and his brothers are doing. You wouldn’t be allowed outside of it either, not for a while at least, so you’d never know what day or time it is.

Other than the already constant sensory of his room, I think that Leo would mainly use threats- of which he goes through with. Not against you, though, but against your family, (what’s left of) your friends, and any other loved ones you might have. He’ll drag their unconscious body into whatever room he’s keeping you in, and wait with you for them to wake up.

While you two are waiting, he’ll lay out everything he’s planning to do to them in awful detail- and lucky you, he even left out some things as a nice surprise!

You’ll be tied to a chair and forced to watch as their guts fall to the ground from the clean slice in their now empty abdomen while Leo picks up and talks about their functions one by one. You silently wish that you never told him that you admired his skills as the team medic.

When he’s finally done rambling about the various viscera laying on the cold floor, he’ll force you to help him clean up- “so that Raph doesn’t get mad about the mess”, as he says. He’ll hold you in his arms when the two of you are done, whispering in your ear about how sorry he is that he had to do that, but you really did force his hand, and you know that, right? If only you had listened…

When the list of people you can bring yourself to care about finally has 0 names, Leo starts to instead take things away from you. He starts small, gradually taking and taking like the parasite you’ve learned he is until all you have left are the clothes you wear and him. He’ll even deprive you of food and water for periods of time, and you can no longer tell if you wish he would shut up for once or if you’re grateful for at least anything to distract you from the constant pain in your empty stomach.

Mikey and Raph landed themselves towards the bottom because I think that they’re both more lenient with punishments (Raph would be afraid of hurting you beyond repair physically OR mentally and Mikey has generally been shown to be very patient and forgiving with people he cares about), but I also think that they might be more exhausting to be stuck with GENERALLY, wearing you down slowly in day-to-day life rather than harsh punishments for breaking whatever rules might be in place for you.

3- Raph.

Raph would try to instill learned helplessness into his darling, to make them understand why he always has to be so careful!

It’ll happen the next morning after a particularly bad argument between you two, and when he’s suddenly letting you handle sharp objects again- but oh no! For some reason you feel so sluggish and dizzy today that you messed up and sliced open your arm. It’s ok- Raph’s here for you! He’ll either patch up your arm himself or take you to Leo, and after it’s taken care of he’ll scold you and say that it’s fine, maybe he’ll give you another chance next week. And he keeps his word- once again, you’re allowed to try your hand at chopping some veggies with him or Mikey- and again, you feel dizzy and accidentally cut yourself.

This will happen many more times- or not, if you give in easily enough- at least until Raph finally decides that he just can’t keep doing this. He brought you to the lair to keep you away from harm, and despite it being to teach you a lesson, he just can’t bear to watch blood drip down your pretty skin.

So instead, he further seals you away- locking you in his room and wrapping one of his hoodies around your head. He’ll keep you like this until you finally learn.

He won’t starve you, at least. He’d hate to watch you waste away after everything, so you’ll be fine physically, but it’ll be hell to not be able to see or properly hear anything. It’ll also be more difficult to breathe properly through the fabric, so I wish you luck with that.

He’s infuriatingly nice throughout the whole thing. Of course he’s angry when you argue with him- when you hurl insults and and completely unfounded whining (yeah right) at him. Sometimes he hurriedly leaves the room so he doesn’t do anything he regrets- but when he comes back- despite your wishes that he wouldn’t- he just wraps that damned hoodie around your skull and chides you for your hostility, leaving you to wonder if this could really be better than death.

You feel insane rambling to his plushies, of which you now know the individual names of, but it’s an admittedly nice bit of company to have when your only other option is Raph. Honestly, you’d rather deal with Ms Cuddles by this point, and she even managed to wring a scream out of Donnie.

At least it’s something you can actually have even an ounce of fun doing that he won’t take away for being “too dangerous”. As long as you can tolerate his absolutely smitten behavior when he finds you talking to them.

Be careful about how loudly you complain, though- it might just land you being completely swaddled in blankets and left to go insane on his bed.

4-  Mikey.

I think that if you were to try and escape from Mikey, he’d conclude that his love simply needs to spend more time with him! Maybe if he shows them how wonderful life is with him, they’ll stop trying to run away!

Unfortunately, I doubt his sleep schedule is very consistent. He keeps you up late at night to try out new spraypaints, recipes, games, anything he can find to do with you will be done. You hardly get the chance to sleep well, and the peace you get in dreams is frequently interrupted.

When he does take a break, he insists on sleeping in the same bed, and it’s much harder to fall asleep with him staring holes into you, as though he were trying to memorize every single detail.

It takes a damn long time to get Mikey to knock it off, too. You have to guess that stubbornness runs in the family, if his brothers are anything to go by. Unfortunately, said brothers’ coddling of their youngest has resulted in quite the persistent guy, and you’re quickly losing the energy to refute him. You wonder how long you’ll need to sleep for the giant spider in the corner of your vision to go away.

When the box turtle finally does realize how much of a toll his shenanigans have taken on poor you, he decides that as the person responsible for you, it’s his job to make sure that you get plenty of rest- and if you refuse, Dr Delicate Touch and Dr Feelings are always here to make sure you’re convinced!

He does a sort of 180- where he once forced you to do everything, he now forces you to do nothing at all, even when your mind screams at you to get up and move. He’ll slip something he stole from the pharmacy into your food and carry your sleeping figure back to his room for your seemingly infinite nap.

In between consciousness, you’ve learned to just stay in bed, maybe draw or write something related to all the adventures you go on in dreamworld.

Fun fact, over sleeping has a couple negative side effects- it increases the risk of diabetes, obesity, headaches, back pain, depression (like you don’t have that already, being kidnapped and all), and heart disease! I wish you the best of luck.

When he finally believes your rest to be sufficient, everything will go back to normal. Except, of course, the lingering paranoia of when it’ll happen all over again will continue to haunt you.

Who knows, maybe he’ll continue drugging you just to keep you a little more complacent. Can’t have you running away all the time, right?

[themusingsofacurlyhairednerd]

Datura Pt 2

Author's Note: I initially wrote Part I and 2 as one piece but it was too long, so here's the next part :) Not sure how long this fic will be, but buckle up 'cause it'll be a good ol' enemies to lovers, political intrigue fic for however long it takes for me to figure out an ending.

Summary: Something has been hunting you for your powers and it's finally caught up with you. A Rhysand x Reader UTM What If.

Content Warnings: Suggestiveness, a little NSFW near the end, before we get to the ANGST (we're gonna suffer but we're gonna like it); that red headed bitch makes her first appearance; bit of cursing; canon typical violence. 

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All attempts at speaking fail, your mouth opening and closing without any sounds coming out. Your head spins, mind reeling. This can’t be real, can’t be happening. That tonic from the priestesses had to have something weird in it. This was a hallucination.

Yes. Hallucination, that had to be it.

“We can’t stay here,” says the male, his large hands still tight on your shoulders. There’s a coppery scent on him, something damp on the edge of his shirt sleeve, brushing against the exposed skin of your shoulder. Blood. He’d been the thing those other guys were screaming at.

Your stomach twists, heart slamming in yours ears, sounding like drum beats again. No. No that wasn’t your heartbeat at all, that was the drums outside. Great, while the Spring Court was having a giant orgy you were lost in some sort of cave with… what even was this male?

Was he even fae? You still can’t see a thing in the dark.

You recover yourself enough to step out of his grip. “I’m not going anywhere with you,” your voice trembles as you speak, hands shaking at your sides. You’re defenseless out here, even with your own magic, you've never managed to control it enough to use it. “I can’t even see you.”

A mistake. You shouldn’t have admitted to it.

A flicker of light flares, glittering and spinning like…

Stars. There are actual, tiny, glittering stars swirling around his fingertips. The glittering light illuminates the walls, much higher overhead than you’d thought initially. There is much more room to move around in general, but the darkness had been so thick you’d mistaken it for rocks. The light doesn’t pierce all the way through though, only the space between the two of you, the darkness beyond still moving and shifting like a wall. Your eyes track it back to the towering male ahead of you, the darkness drifting off him like a mist. Not the darkness of the cave at all, but one of his own making. It moves on his whim around the two of you, a bit of it still caressing your spine, your bare legs, while the rest hovers like some sort of bubble. A shield perhaps, you know the High Fae can make them, but it is just as likely to be a cage.

You try to summon claws, focusing your thoughts into getting your hands to change, shift, but nothing happens. Nothing but a slight twinge of pain in your skull.

As if he knows it, feels it, the stranger reaches a star flecked hand out to brush a tendril of hair off your forehead, his callused hands warm against your flushed skin. You shiver despite yourself.

“I’m sorry I scared you,” he says. That voice is rich, low, a lover’s purr.

He is fae, not the monster you had initially suspected. You aren’t sure what people usually wear on Calanmai, but the dark pants, the loose fitting shirt, half unbuttoned to reveal a swirl of dark ink across his bronze chest, and boots seems out of place. As if he’s over-dressed. Half a dozen rings glitter in the starlight spinning between his slender fingers, but you cannot ignore the blood that’s dusted over them.

“What happened to the others that came into the cave?”

A shadow passes over his face, dark brows furrowing. He’s a gorgeous male, by far the most handsome male you’d ever seen in your life, but that look, as the glow in his eyes dims, pupils expanding so there was nothing but endless darkness… it's like looking at the paintings of the Death Gods you’ve seen in your books. The shadow at your back writhes as if agitated, only settling once the look has passed and the violet returns to his eyes.

“They wanted to hurt you,” a low growl.

You shiver. “Why’d you call me out here then, if it’s unsafe?”

He tilts his head, a predator assessing prey, only cold calculations in that gaze. It’s an effort not to squirm under the scrutiny. “It’s not safe there either.”

“In my home?” You counter.

“In Spring,” he returns.

“Spring is perfectly safe, it’s practically the only place that-”

He moves faster than you can blink, clamping a hand over your mouth. “Don’t speak things like that in places like this!” He hisses. It’s not anger on his face, though, it is fear. You feel the chill of it seep through the bubble of darkness he’s created. His whole body shakes with it.

What do males with this kind of power fear?

It makes you nervous, wondering, but not as much as having a stranger put their hands on you. You sink your teeth into the flesh of his palm so hard you draw blood, and as he yanks his hand back, you move to run. Only to find the shadows blocking your path, no longer wisps, but solid, like adamant. You practically bounce off it.

“Let me out,” you order.

He stares down at his hand with a smirk, amused. “That was cheap.”

“I don’t like being touched by strangers,” you hiss. “Now let me out or I’ll really fucking bite you.”

He chuckles and the sound of it skitters over your bones, makes a whole other type of shiver run across your skin. Perhaps that’s part of the magic of Calanmai, the ability to remove the usual inhibitions and allow the souls to merge as the magic of the land demands. You quietly curse yourself for being so powerless against it. With enough training you should have been able to shield from it, but there’s no time for it now.

“What if I like being bitten, hm?” He teases.

“Then you’ll love when I rip your fucking throat out with my teeth.”

He takes a step closer and tilts his chin up, baring the full expanse of his throat to you. “I’ll let you, but then, how would your find a way out of the cave?”

“Bastard,” you snarl, but you can’t stop yourself from watching the way his throat works when he swallows, the way he grins at the roof, watching you, calculating what your next move will be. He knows he has you right where he wants you, it’s like watching a cat play with a mouse.

He slowly lowers his chin, still grinning. “It’s this way,” he gestures with a hand and the wall of shadows moves further into the cave.

You stare after it, than at him. “Isn’t the entrance the other way?”

“Trust me.”

“I don’t even know your name, why would I trust you?”

He reaches out and grabs your hand, but before you can pull away from him again, he’s pressing your knuckles to his lips. They’re surprisingly soft against your skin; electricity shooting through you, as he says in a voice made for the bedroom, “Rhys.”

Rhys, Darkness Incarnate, apparently. His name was an answer to a question you’d been asking yourself the last couple of years. Strange as the circumstance are, he fits exactly what you’d imagined the voice that had hounded you would sound like. Putting a face to the voice was strangely comforting, like there was no longer some strange threat hanging around your head every year anymore.

“I’m Y/N.”

You’re sure you’re an idiot for telling him. It’s not like he’s dropping the shield and letting your run out, it’s still there, caging you in as you move through the cave, side by side. Just because he’s leading you somewhere doesn’t mean it’s somewhere good, this very well could be a trap. Your head hurts trying to figure out what’s real, what’s likely. You’re not entirely convinced this still isn’t a hallucination.

He tries your name out on his tongue, nodding to himself, like he’d been looking for the answer to a question too.

Your heart clenches in your chest at the sight. There is something lonely about him you can’t quite place.

“Has it really been you, calling me these last couple years?” You ask softly; you’re trapped down here with him, might as well pass the time until you get to whatever bitter end awaits you.

He nods as you take a sharp left and descend down further at a slopping angle that has you holding onto the walls for support. It’s colder the deeper you go, despite the budding summer heat the rest of the court is feeling outside. You’re trembling as the path goes from soft sand to smooth, icy stone, the rock seeping all heat from your body on contact.

“Yes,” Rhys confesses. He stops for a moment, head tilted to the side like he’s listening for something, more shadows leaking from him, slipping through the shield to do Mother knows what.

When he looks back at you, his eyes are dark, sad. “It’s not safe.” He repeats. “I was trying to warn you.”

You run your hands over your arms, trying to get some heat back. Without a thought he’s unbuttoning his shirt and sliding it over your shoulders. The move if effortless, gentle, so at odds with what’s happening you can’t do anything other than slide your arms into the too big sleeves and pull it tight around you on sheer muscle memory. Its warm; the scent of jasmine and citrus and the sea all over it. You strangely want to bury yourself in it, until that scent is burned into your skin, your lungs, until it’s the only thing you breath. Calanmai at work, you can only assume.

With a hand on your back he prompts you forward again, even as he continues. “I didn’t know what else to do, it was my only chance to reach you.” His palm takes up the expanse of your lower back, you are so small next to him.

“But why me?”

The swirling tattoos cross over his chest and back, leaving a small gap between his shoulders, like there’s something supposed to be there, some small piece of him missing in those gaps between the ink. The urge to run your fingers over them is almost overwhelming, you have to pull your hands into his shirtsleeves to stop yourself.

“You’re-” he pauses and you swear you hear claws scratching somewhere above you.

Instinctively, before you can stop and think about what you’re doing, you press yourself closer to him. It’s the most natural thing in the world for him to slide an arm around your shoulders and pull you against his side. He’s all sleek muscle, a warrior’s build, though he carries no visible weapons. Perhaps, with powers like these he doesn’t need any.

The shield shudders around the two of you as he draws it in so close there is no room to move away from him.

You don’t dare speak again, the stillness he radiates tells you enough.

Several long minutes pass before the shield moves outward again and he gives your shoulder a reassuring squeeze signaling that the two of you should press on.

“What do you know of your parents?” He says finally, loosing a sigh of relief.

“I don’t even remember them,” you say. “What do you know of them?”

“I fought against your father in the War,” he replies .

Your father was a soldier?

“He’s a very powerful male,” he continues but all you can focus on the choice of words, the current tense, as if your father is still alive. “As was your mother.”

Your head spins; he grips you a little tighter like he knows it.

“There are a lot of powerful people who would like to get their hands on your power,” he says.

Its an effort to swallow. “I don’t even know how to use them,” you whisper.

He winces. “You have no training?” It almost sounds like horror in his voice.

You stare down at your hands, like their the source of all your problems. “My uncle said they would just… click.”

“Cauldron boil me,” he curses.

“I take it that’s not what you were hoping to hear?”

The cave split into four directions, one way covered with stalagmites dripping a strange glowing liquid, another bursting with flowers, a third full of rubble, the fourth the only clear path out. You go to that one, cautiously, Rhys keeping his head tilted, listening to what dangers might lay ahead.

“You’re vulnerable, is all,” Rhys says softly. “And there’s not enough time to change that now.”

A sense of foreboding lands in the pit of your stomach. “How much time do we have?”

“I have to be gone by sunrise,” he answers.

Gone, the foreboding turns into outright anxiety, stomach now twisting in knots. You resist the urge to reach out and take his hand. It’s nice having him here, you’re not ready to give this up just yet. “So there’s a reason you only call to me on Calanmai?”

He only nods.

“What happens if you’re still here by sunrise?”

He runs his tongue over his full lower lip, thinking.

“Are you like a vampire or something? Do you go poof?” You make an exploding gesture with your hands and he laughs, the echo bouncing off the shield. You’re not sure why it’s the laugh that makes you decide to trust him fully. Maybe some naïve part of you thinks if he meant you harm he wouldn’t be laughing at your stupid jokes.

“No,” he says, hand on his stomach as he fights to catch his breath. “Nothing like that.”

You watch the way his muscles shift as he catches his breath, the way his chest rises and falls. You’d like nothing more than to run your tongue along the sharp planes of him. You can’t stop yourself from wondering if you’d be able to taste the jasmine and citrus on his skin if you did.

“You’re sure? Let me see your teeth?”

He flashes you a grin that makes your stomach do flips. “See? No fangs.”

You turn towards him, pressing in closer, teasingly assessing, like you’re unsure. Calanmai has made you bold, you have to admit. Even with the new time limit closing down on you, you can’t help but stop for just a minute to enjoy this side of the male before you.

“So what are you then? If you have to work under the moon?”

“I’ve been many things,” he says, his eyes drifting down to your lips.

“And right now, what are you?” You press.

“Right now…” he places a hand on your hip and pulls you flush against him. “Right now I’m all yours, Darling.”

You must be somewhere close to where the party is happening above, because you can hear the drums again, as if the music is beating from within the rocks of the cave walls, the reverberations vibrating under your skin. It’s too much, too loud, pushing you closer to him, the silence that fills your head when he touches you the only way to make the noise stop.

Perhaps this was the plan the whole time: Get you away from the crowds, somewhere secluded, get you to trust him, to embrace him, but you can’t stop yourself from stretching up on your toes to kiss him. Did it matter in the end? He groans as he deepens the kiss, one star flecked hand sliding into the strands of your hair, angling your head for him to easily swipe his tongue into your mouth. The kiss is demanding, but soft somehow, like he’s desperate for it, you, but not holding so tight that you can’t pull away from him if you want.

The shadows return, dancing over your skin, skittering higher and higher up your thighs, across your waist, your chest. You let your own hands explore the broad expanse of his chest, skin silky and warm beneath your fingertips.

If this was the plan all along, you don’t care. This is good.

He tastes like starlight, like the night chilled wind across a calming sea. It conjures one in your mind, gentle waves lapping at a moonlight shore; there’s music floating across the water, the sounds faint and distant but much more soothing than the demand of the drums above you.

All too soon he’s pulling away from you, gentle kisses placed against the corners of your lips, your chin, the underside of your jaw. “Wish we had more time,” he whispers into your skin. “Want to take my time with you.”

You’re absolutely molten, very aware of how soaked your panties are, just barely covered by your thin shift. Any other night you might have had more presence of mind to be mortified that you were so wet just from kissing someone, but not tonight. Tonight it makes sense, is the only thing that makes sense.

He brushes his nose along the column of your throat, scenting you. “We really should keep moving,” but his hand trails down your front, tracing the valley between your breasts, sliding lower.

You tilt and kiss him again, hand tangling in his onyx hair. Nothing has ever felt as good as kissing him, you doubt anything else could ever compare. Unfair that you only have one night, one moment, you’re sure he’d ruin anyone else for you given the right amount of time.

He indulges you, just as hungry as before, hand still sliding lower, until he finds the hem of your panties through your shift.

You ache between your legs, have half a mind to beg and plead for him to touch you. Your feelings about Calanmai be damned, you want him to keep going, to kiss you, touch you, ruin you until the time he has left is spent.

Deft fingers find the hem of your shift, pulling it slowly upwards until he can bunch it up in his hand.

“Rhys,” you whimper into his lips.

His pupils are lust blown, lips kiss swollen and pink. “I know, I feel it too.”

You are used to the feeling of your power prowling beneath your skin, a caged animal begging to be released, this is not entirely different, but instead that power is replaced with him. You want, need, him everywhere. Need him to keep kissing, touching.

He slides his hand under your waistband, movements slow, precise, letting you indulge in the scrape of his callused hands over your soft skin. The movement alone is almost too much, your breath rasping out of you, trying not to squirm. He’s so close to where you need him…

“Rhysand!”

A female voice shakes the cave, the shield. Rhys jerks away from you like the voice hit him, eyes wide.

You grab onto the edges of his shirt and snap it closed around you like it will hide what you’ve been doing.

Footsteps echo, the cave shaking.

Rhys glances at you, eyes wide. “Stay quiet.” He says it in your mind, as easily as he has done for all these years. You don’t have time to ask how he can do it, or why, as he runs a hand through his hair, fixing it, before sliding out of the shield. It swallows you, tightening so you can’t run, can’t see what’s happening.

You barely dare to breath, as the footsteps stop not far from where you are. “Busy are we?” The shield can’t keep out the voice.

“Hunting as you asked, My Queen,” he says smoothly, casually.

Queen?

Whoever she is, she gives a mirthless laugh. “You call what you’re doing hunting now?”

“You said to use the caves-”

“I didn’t say fuck some whore in them,” she snarls. “I can smell her on you.”

You’re mortified enough to wonder if your powers could let you somehow dissolve into goo and melt into the floor.

“All part of the plan,” Rhys answers and your heart sinks as his words hit home.

“So you know where she is?”

“Of course,” Rhys says and the shield suddenly vanishes, the cold absence of it hitting you in a rush.

You give a little squeak of surprise, tightening his shirt around your exposed body as your eyes adjust to the soft gray light of the cave. You spent two much time here, the sun now rising outside.

The woman before you was tall, slender, eyes dark, mouth a cruel, pinched line. The blood red hair only serves to make her all the more pale and as she takes you in, her teeth flashing in a grin, you get the feeling that this what a wolf looks like when it sees a lamb.

“This little thing?” She stalks towards you and you take a step back, some instinctive, primal part of you recognizing that the more space between the two of you the better. You can still turn heal and run if she’s far enough away.

“Don’t worry, little one,” she coos at you, reaching out a claw tipped hand. Her blood red nails are sharpened to spikes, bit it’s the ring, with a swiveling, life like eye in the center that makes every muscle in your body tense up. “I’m here to help you.”

“Fuck off!” You hiss. There’s only one exit, the way she came, slopping upward, the floor clearly damp with morning dew. You’d need a good head start to make it up there first.

Rhys is watching you with the same intensity he’d kissed you with and you wish you had something to hurl at his head. You should have known better than to trust him.

“Quite the mouth on you,” she purrs. “I hope Rhysand put it to good use.”

Something in you chest cracks, a lump forming in your throat. You need to get out of his shirt, get the taste of him out of your mouth; he played you like a fiddle and if whoever this lady is hadn’t shown up, would have used you for his own amusement. And you would have let him.

“What do you want?” You bite out, inching closer to the exit.

“As I said,” she says slowly, like you’re too dumb to understand. “I’m here to help.”

“I don’t need help,” you throw a withering glance at the male. “From either of you.”

“Oh but that’s just not true, is it, little one?” She doesn’t move, but something feels wrong. You don’t know why, but your whole body suddenly freezes, heart slamming in your chest.

No not frozen, you’d move if you could, but you can’t. It’s as if something grabbed hold of you, held you in place.

“There are a lot of people looking for your, Princess.”

Princess? This is a mistake. A terrible, terrible mistake.

“Oh she doesn’t know, does she?” She smirks at Rhys, who shakes his head in conformation.

“Imagine that, the daughter of the King of Hybern, raised a simple little farm hand,” she grins like she knows she’s won, even as your head spins.

Hybern. You knew the name from your history books, the King a ruthless tyrant who nearly destroyed Prythian to get back his human slaves. Your mouth is dry, your hands might have shook, could you move your body.

She curls her fingers in a come here motion and as if someone has you on strings like a puppet, you take two steps towards her. You try to dig your heels in, fight it, but the hold over you won’t budge. You walk until your close enough for her to graze the tips of her claws under your chin.

“There are a lot of bad people trying to find you, little one.”

The only thing you have full control over is your mouth, so you snarl and flash your teeth, wishing you had the ability to grow fangs, “I’m pretty sure you are the bad people, bitch!”

She smirks but the grip she takes on your chin is anything but kind, your jaw groaning under the crushing weight of her grip. Her nails draw blood, crimson trickling down your jaw. “Poor, delusional little thing. Don’t you worry, we’re going to take good care of you, aren’t we, Rhysand.”

He grins, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes, “Of course!”

“Your father will be very pleased to hear you’re alive,” she says to you.

To Rhys she says, “Bind her, I don’t want her trying to run again.”

You still can’t move, can’t flee. Some small piece of you wants to beg, plead for him to let you go, to prove you wrong about him, but you’re pride won’t let you. Not as more wisps of shadow curl around his wrists and hands like snakes, no more stars to be seen.

“I should have ripped out your throat,” you snarl.

The shadows jump from him, twining around your wrists and ankles, not the gentle caresses from earlier, tightening until you can barely move your fingers and toes.

Rhys grins at you, shrugs, but it’s in your mind that you hear the same quip from earlier, “I would have let you.” It’s not teasing this time though, it’s sad, haunted.

Doesn’t matter, he’s still checking your hands, tossing you over his shoulder like you weigh nothing. You tell yourself you won’t cry here, won’t give either of these bastards the satisfaction, there will be a time for that later.

It’s not much farther before sunlight blinds you, only a few steps of Rhys’ long legs before you’re out of the cave. You’d been so close. It had been right there this whole time! Had you not been so distracted, had those stupid drums not been so loud you might have made it. Might have gotten to go home.

[nevadancitizen]

-> CH. 3: OF TRUE AND FALSE MEMORIES

synopsis: you hitch a ride to the heartlands. hopefully your driver doesn't mind you leeching for just a while longer.

word count: 3.6k

ships: Arthur Morgan/Modern!Reader, Van der Linde Gang & Reader

notes: hey ummm merry christmas eve here's an early present. also zion as a concept of faith is mentioned but i am not a zionist trust it's just that joshua graham is unfortunately a mormon 🙏

TOSoA taglist: @one-green-frog , @photo1030 , @mavenhavenn , @fathermarama , @its-yummi (if you'd like to be added to the taglist, just ask <3!!)

THE OLD SOUL OF AMERICA MASTERLIST

You know the trail to Dead Horse Point well by now. Something is a bit different – but still, Joshua and Daniel and the Dead Horses and Sorrows welcome you and your mules, Rook and Bishop, all the same.

Follows-Chalk, Drumming-Storm, and a few other Dead Horses crowd the mules, offloading everything you had on them: books, kettles, blankets, guns (and accompanying black powder), tobacco, and alcohol. They mostly crowd Rook, as she’s the heavyweight of the two and carries more – Bishop’s more of a riding mule. The Dead Horses wander off soon after, arms full, taking everything to its respective place. 

Joshua approaches you, adjusting the bandages near his eyes to see you better. “You’ve got on well.”

“Yes, sir,” you say. “Happy Trails treats me well. I’m their employee, but I’m also their friend.”

“Yes, but this?” Joshua gestures at the people putting up what you’ve brought. “All this product? They must have put a lot of trust in you.”

“They put more trust in my steeds,” you say. “Both got some burro in them. And they can kick as hard as them, too – especially Bishop.”

“That, I don’t doubt,” Joshua says. 

You watch as Rook shakes her coat out, causing her carrying gear to jingle. Bishop wanders closer to Joshua, nudging at his shoulder and nipping at the bandages that cover Joshua’s arm. Joshua lifts his arm (slowly – again, he’s bandaged all over) and pats the side of Bishop’s face.

“They like it here,” you say. “Maybe it’s something about the canyon. Or maybe they just like you.”

“Zion is a godly place,” Joshua says. His voice, though deep and abrasive, carries a heavy tone of affection. “Wherever man may be, he always dreams of Zion. These creatures may share our same dreams.”

“That’d be nice,” you hum softly. You reach out and place your hand under Rook’s jaw, and she leans forward into your touch. Her big, brown eyes blink slowly as she looks at you, then around the campsite, like she’s appreciating the sight.

“We should probably get going,” you say. You look over at Joshua. “I need to load up on daturana and datura hide. That’s what Happy Trails wants in exchange, anyway.”

“Go talk to Winding-Path,” Joshua says. “She knows what you’re owed.”

When you look to your right, Follows-Chalk is hurrying over, a hand raised and a smile on his face. The painted markings on his face crease and stretch with his smile – rather than spider legs creeping up his cheeks, they look like laugh lines.

“Hoye!” He greets. “It’s nice to see you again.”

“Nice to see you, too,” you say. You reach out to grasp his hand, and as soon as you brush it – 

A bump in the road jolts you awake. You let out a small, confused sound, then settle. 

You’re in the back of a wagon, crammed between folded-up lodgings and kitchen supplies. Your knees are drawn to your chest, and your back is to the wooden side of the wagon. 

Before packing up and making yourself fit into the space left on the wagon, you weren’t really told much of anything. From what you’ve gathered, the men (“men” being the young-ish, able-bodied ones) robbed a train, and now you and the gang have to flee. It seems like you fit right in, because they have a penchant for pissing off the wrong people, just like you.

“Hey, you’re finally awake!” Hosea calls from the front, where he sits next to Arthur.

“Yeah.” You shift and take a quick, deep breath as you rub the sleep from your eyes. “Yeah, I’m up.”

“We’re nearly to the Heartlands,” Hosea says. He turns so that he’s facing you with his arm resting on the back of the seat. “You ever been there before?”

“No,” you say. You sway with the trail in the dirt road and the way Arthur drives. 

“We’re settling up in Horseshoe Overlook,” Hosea says. “It’s near a livestock town called Valentine – all mud and morons, if I remember right.”

“Huh,” you hum. You look away from Hosea and around you. 

It’s different from when you were up in Colter. It’s warmer, for one. The trees aren’t dredged in snow – instead, their branches are covered in leaves, each one green and upturned. Grasses and flowers sprout from the dirt ground, which is now soft and malleable instead of frozen and cold to the touch. Everything is just nicer. 

For a minute, you just listen to the sounds around you. It’s calm. Birdsong fills the air, and you can see animals bounding through the trees of the forest and grasses of the valleys (for the first time in a while, honestly – cities don’t lend themselves well to wildlife). 

What was that dream about? You wonder silently. I was… in the Dead Horses’ camp. But that place is completely fictional, even in this… timeline? Coma-fever-something dream? I don’t even know at this point.

You hear the sound of moving water and look to the front. Arthur is guiding the horses into a stream, which the rest of the caravan has cleared without a problem. 

In the middle of the water, you feel a shock and hear something break. You clutch to the side of the wagon and feel that the driving is a little… off.

“Get us out the stream,” Hosea says. “You gotta keep us moving, but calm.”

Did you just ask Arthur to be calm? You shout in your head. Arthur is the epitome of everything that isn’t calm! He barely feels things, and when he does, he’s meaner than a gas station tweaker – and he’s not even on anything!

Arthur (yes, carefully, you’ll admit) pulls the wagon out of the stream. Just as he does, you feel another shock and a shift. You scramble to hold onto a canister as it nearly falls out of the back of the wagon. 

“Ah, shit!” Arthur curses. He draws the wagon to a stop.

“Okay, let’s take a look,” Hosea says. 

You move and shift the items so that they’re pushed further up the wagon, where you were sitting just before. You hop off the back of the wagon. Sure enough, the wheel has just popped itself right off. 

“You alright back there?” Bill calls from up ahead. 

“Does everything look alright?” Arthur snaps as he hops off the driver’s seat. 

You can see Javier shift in his seat in the wagon ahead of yours, trying to get a better look. “Well, what’s going on?”

Arthur walks closer to you, accessing the damage. He throws a hand up in the air and groans. “I broke the goddamn wheel!”

“Alright!” Hosea chimes. “Let’s get it fixed.” 

“You need help?” Javier calls. 

Hosea waves him off with a hand. “I reckon we can handle it.”

You quickly step back as he and Charles make their way to the back of the wagon. Arthur hoists up the wheel so he can roll it towards the wagon. Hosea and Charles pick up the back, and Arthur forces the wheel back into place. 

You hurry over and pick up a crate, putting it in the wagon. You hop up into the bed of the wagon and take a small chest from Charles, placing it where it belongs.

“Hey, look at you.” Arthur says as he checks the back of the wagon. “You ain’t so useless after all.”

“O-oh,” you say after a second. “You’re talking to me?”

“I am.” He looks up at you. The brim of his hat casts a harsh shadow that partly obscures his eyes. “Did I… offend you, somehow?”

“No, no!” You laugh nervously and take another crate from Charles. “I just wasn’t sure. Sorry.”

“Uh-huh,” Arthur hums. 

“Hold on,” Hosea almost hisses. 

You look over at him, and he’s looking to the side. You follow his eyes and see three figures on the ridge of a cliff, each perched on a horse. You can barely make out their facial features, but they look like Native Americans.

“What you think?” Arthur says lowly. 

“If they wanted trouble, we wouldn’t have seen them,” Charles says. 

“Poor bastards…” Hosea raises his arm and waves, but doesn’t call out to them. “We really screwed them over down here.”

Yeah… You think to yourself, still looking at the figures on horseback. It’s not much better in the future, either. I’d tell you all the details, but then I’d be put in an asylum.

“Come on,” Hosea says. “Let’s not push our luck.”

You take your eyes away from the figures. Instead, you help Charles pack up the last of what’s meant to go in the back of the wagon. 

As Arthur and Hosea hop on the front of the wagon, you make yourself comfortable on top of a trunk. Charles sits across from you on a rectangular crate. 

“Not too far now. Stay on this trail,” Hosea instructs Arthur. “We’ll follow the river, then cut left inland.”

You look around as Hosea starts telling Arthur about how the poor the natives were treated in this area. “Stolen clean away from them it was, every blade of grass,” he says. Even though it’s wrong (reprehensible, even), you understand why white men wanted this country. It’s breathtakingly beautiful – or maybe it just looks that way because it’s not what you’re used to. It’s not asphalt and smog and a concrete jungle in place of real land that lives and breathes.

“I heard some of the army out here was particularly, uh…” Hosea thinks for a second. “Unpleasant about it.”

“Unpleasant?” Charles echoes. “How do you rob and kill people pleasantly?”

“You… say please?” You try to joke. “And thank you?”

“Something like that!” Hosea laughs. “That’s the perfect way to simplify something more complicated for the benefit of our blockheaded driver here.” 

You cringe a little. You don’t really want to be roped in while Hosea’s insulting Arthur so freely and carelessly. 

“Hey, don’t blame nothin’ on me,” Arthur says. “Never forget, y’all – this here’s a conman, born and bred. Just ‘cause it sounds fancy don’t mean he knows a damn thing ‘bout what he’s talkin��� ‘bout.”

A nice pseudo-quiet settles over all four of you. (Pseudo because while it’s true that none of you are talking, the noise of the forest around you fills that silence well.)

“So…” Arthur starts. “Charles. What happened to your tribe?”

“I don’t even know if I have one. Least, not that I can remember,” Charles says. “My father was a colored man. They told me he lived with our people for a while – a number of free men did – but… when we were forced to move from our lands, the three of us fled. I was too young to really remember much.” 

His expression hardens a little. “All my life I’ve been on the run.”

You feel your face twist a bit and a pang of empathy. Empathy – not sympathy. You don’t feel pity for Charles. You know a feeling familiar to his. Maybe you weren’t literally pushed from your land, but you sure as hell know how it feels – skipping from shelter to warming center to temporary housing to shelter.

Addicts, even child addicts and children of addicts, are liabilities. You were a liability.

Charles’ voice brings you from your thoughts. “A couple years later, some soldiers captured my mother. Took her somewhere. We never saw her again. We drifted around. My father was a very sad man, and the drink had a mean hold on him. Around thirteen… I just took off on my own.”

His eyes flit over to meet yours. “What’s that look for?”

“Sorry.” You duck your head and look off to the side. “It’s just… I understand.”

You leave it hanging at that. Then, you look at Charles out of the corner of your eye. He’s waiting for you to continue. You glance at Hosea and Arthur. Neither have turned around to look at you, but you can tell they’re waiting, too. 

“My dad wasn’t around. Like, at all,” you say. “And my mom liked to go to trap houses to get stoned out of her goddamn mind.”

“Trap houses?” Hosea echoes. “What d’you mean by that?”

A cold shock shoots down your spine as you remember that, yeah – this is 1899! And you’re from the future! And you can’t let slip that you’re from the 21st century!

“A trap house is a house where people go to buy and sell drugs,” you say as you think of a lie. “Sorry – it’s slang from the Frontier, I guess. Hasn’t made its way eastward yet.”

“Huh,” Hosea hums. “And what did you do before you found yourself here? If you don’t mind my asking.”

The dream! The dream! Your mind screams at you. Remember the dream!

“I worked for a company called Happy Trails Caravan,” you lie. “Had two mules – Rook and Bishop. I spent most of my time travelling alone, and delivering to the tribes in the Mojave.”

“And how was that?” Hosea asks. “I can’t imagine travelling all the time leaving a lot of room for friends.”

“Oh, yeah. It was nice, but still a little lonely,” you say. “I started doing more local runs across the north of the Mojave around six or seven years ago. Made friends with some of the tribes in Zion Canyon. I started working that job when I was maybe… fourteen? And spent around a decade going cross-country before I did more local deliveries.”

“That was about the age we found young Arthur here – maybe a little older,” Hosea says. “A wilder delinquent you never did see! But he learned fast.”

Arthur scoffs. “Not as fast as Marston, apparently.”

You and Charles exchange a look and he speaks up. “I don’t understand. What’s the problem between you two?”

“Eh…” Arthur shrugs. “It’s a long story.”

You cup a hand by your mouth and half-whisper to Charles. “Marston’s the wolf guy, right?”

He just nods in response. You drop your hand and lean back, looking around at the scenery again. Arthur leads the wagon right by the wall of a sheer cliff drop. You look up at the ridge and the trees silhouetted there. 

“We still headed the right way?” Arthur says. 

“That depends,” Hosea says. “Are we still heading west, in search of fortune and repose in virgin forests, as we planned? No. Are we heading in the correct direction on our desperate escape from the law, eastwards down the mountains? Yes, I believe so.”

You smile to yourself a little. You don’t really know him all that well, but so far, Hosea’s shaping up to be one of the people you can trust. If not, he’s a nice storyteller, at least. You guess that counts for something.

“You know this area?” Charles asks. 

“A little. I’ve been through a couple of times. There’s a livestock town not too far from here, called Valentine.” Hosea hooks his thumb over his shoulder at you. “Was telling them and Arthur about it earlier. Cowboys, outlaws, working girls. Our kinda place.”

“O’Driscolls?” Arthur asks. 

“Probably them too,” Hosea says.

“Pinkertons?”

“Let’s hope not.” 

“And this place we’re going…” Arthur shifts, giving the reins a light snap. “Wait, what’s it called again?”

You turn and watch the riverbed pass by as they continue to talk. The place is called Horseshoe Overlook, like Hosea told you earlier. They talk about the Blackwater job and about Dutch doing things that weren’t like him. (That confuses you a bit. He’s a nice guy, as far as you can tell. But everyone has their limit, and from what you can infer, the ferry was Dutch’s limit.) A few more sentences later, you get the distinct feeling you shouldn’t be listening in on this conversation. Instead, you turn to Charles. 

“Are you doing okay?” You ask. 

“I’m fine,” Charles says. “Do I… not look okay?”

You laugh awkwardly and scratch your cheek. “No, no. I’m just… asking to be polite.”

His eyebrows draw together a little and he frowns a bit. “Okay.”

You inhale deeply and draw your lips into a thin line, then nod, then look away. 1899 is such a weird year to be alive. Or… to be in a coma in? Like, you’re in a coma and your coma dream is set in 1899. This is so confusing.

Javier’s voice from up ahead breaks your thoughts (and keeps you from going into a spiral, really). 

“There you are, brother!” He points further down the trail. “Head in there and follow the track for a bit.”

“Thanks,” Arthur says. 

“Hey, slow up,” Javier calls. “I’ll jump on.”

Javier catches up as Arthur slows down. He hops up onto the tailgate step, holding onto the side of the wagon for extra support. You give him a smile and he nods in return. 

“Any trouble getting in here, Javier?” Hosea asks from up front. 

“No, it went well,” Javier says. “This is a good spot.”

“Excellent!” Hosea says. “I think this’ll work for us. For now, anyway.”

You lean to the side and watch as Horseshoe Overlook comes into view. It’s a nice spot, like Javier said. Some of the grass has already been worn down from all the recent moving around the people and the horses have been doing. A few tents have already been set up, but not all of them.

“Here we are, folks,” Hosea says. “Home, sweet home.”

“You weren’t wrong, Hosea!” Dutch calls from inside the camp. “This place… is perfect.”

Hosea climbs off, and you take that as a hint to get off and start unloading. Charles looks inside the trunk you were sitting on before and tells you that it’s bedding. You take it from him and head over to the tents. 

Most of the rest of the day passes like that. Everything needs to be unpacked and worked on. There was a small interruption when Dutch got up on his soapbox and gave a quick speech about everyone pitching in. He told the gang their fake backstory – that you and the rest of them are a group of itinerant workers whose factory got shut down up north. 

Evening comes quietly and quickly, and night follows it. The sheer drop on the outskirts of camp serves as a nice place to sit and think. 

The stars are so much more bright than they are back in your time. (Your time? Or is it real life? Waking life? Who knows? And, at this point, who cares?) They twinkle and blink and almost seem to dance. They group together and look like they’re spilling from one center source. The moon is nice and full on the horizon. You can see the craters and indents in her surface. It’s like you’re looking up at millions of silver nails driven into dark blue velvet, with the white head of a spike serving as the moon. It’s beautiful, for lack of better words. 

“Hey.”

You gasp and tense, glancing over your shoulder. It’s Arthur. 

You return to looking up at the sky. “Jesus… What do you want?”

“Charles told me to ask you if you’ve eaten,” Arthur says. “Well? Have you?”

“Uh, yeah,” you say. “I’m good.”

Even though you think the conversation is over, you can still feel Arthur behind you. It seems that these people either don’t know how to end a conversation or it’s just different in 1899. 

“The stars.” You glance over your shoulder at Arthur, then away again. “I’m… I’m looking at the stars. If you were curious.”

“Uh huh?” Arthur hums. “And what’s so fascinating about them stars?”

“It’s just that, uh… I couldn’t see them as well out west,” you say. “Where I’m from. Here, I can see them so clearly. They look so real.”

Like I could just reach out and touch them… I mean, this is a coma or something like that. Maybe I could. Maybe I can. 

“I mean, I know they’re real,” you say, your voice laced with laughter. “I’m not – I’m not stupid. They’re just pretty. That’s all.”

“Whatever you say,” Arthur says. 

He steps forward into your peripheral vision. You glance at him, then away, like a child after they’ve been scolded for staring. You push down the instinct to shrink away and look at him.

He takes out a hand-rolled cigarette and puts it between his lips. He strikes a match with the bottom of his boot and lights it. The cherry of the cigarette lights up his face, casting warm light and soft shadows. 

“You want one?” Arthur asks. 

“Huh?” You blink, then look away. “No. No, thank you. I don’t smoke.”

“If you say so,” he says. 

You can see Arthur look up at the stars out of the corner of your eye. He takes a deep drag from his cigarette, then exhales the smoke through his nose. The cherry of the cigarette flickers, then resumes glowing softly. 

You join him in looking up. Sure enough, the stars are still there, and the stars are still real. All seem to spill from a single source. The moon is a little higher above the horizon – no longer touching it, but hovering in the sky. 

 Usually, you’d never get moments like this. You’d usually work from sunrise until sunset and pick up extra shifts and overtime where you could. It’s nice to see the world like this. Natural. Raw. Even if you have to ignore Arthur’s presence extra-hard, you still manage to enjoy the moment. 

Everything’s just so slow back… then? Back now? Back now. Everything’s so slow back now. It’s like a break. A break from the jackrabbit-style, too-quick, so-fast-it’ll-give-you-a-heart-attack type of living you’re used to. A forced break, but a break nonetheless.

Breaks are nice. You watch a star flicker, twinkle, then blink into darkness. 

Maybe you should take breaks more often. 

[un-petit-sanctuaire]

Hollow

Pairing: Sylus x f!MC

Genre: Angst

Rating: General

Word Count: 1.5k

Summary: You deal with your grief after his death.

Author’s Note: The idea for this story came to me right after I finished reading Sylus’s myth. I wanted to explore the grief we feel after losing him, as seen through our MC’s eyes. It also reminded me of Wings by Birdy, a song that beautifully captures the numbness and emptiness of mourning a loved one’s passing, which I think serves as the perfect companion to this piece.

Anyway, this is my entry for the Fan Art Contest #WhereDrakeshadowsFall under the fiction category! So if you could show some love in my original post in my X account, I’d be forever grateful. <3

I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I poured my heart (and tears) into writing it. ♡

✧˚ ༘ ⋆｡ ˚✧˚ ༘ ⋆｡ ˚✧˚ ༘ ⋆｡ ˚✧˚ ༘ ⋆｡ ˚✧˚ ༘ ⋆｡ ˚✧˚ ༘ ⋆｡

How long had it been?

Days? Weeks? Months?

Ever since that day, I had lost track of time.

The climb felt steep, though I couldn’t decide if it was the hill or the weight in my chest. Each step was a struggle, as if invisible chains were bound to my feet, dragging me back, telling me to stop.

It had been easier when he was here, hadn’t it? He would simply scoop me up in his arms, his wings slicing through the air as they carried us effortlessly to the top. Back then, the ground was alive; vivid red datura swayed under the breeze, their petals dancing around us in the wind. Now, the earth was cracked and barren, and the only thing that moved was the dust stirring under my feet.

I paused at the top, breath catching—not from the climb, but from the weight of his absence. In my head, I could almost see us sitting there, arms wrapped around each other. His soft chuckles seemed to ring in my ears as he brushed a stray strand of hair from my face.

The hill felt like a stranger now, unfamiliar and hollow, much like my world itself had become without him.

I made my way toward the stack of flower crowns on the ground, some of them decayed and withered, their petals brittle and curling at the edges. Kneeling down, I placed a new one on top—delicate blooms I’d gathered with painstaking effort from the forest. My fingers lingered on the flowers, brushing against the soft petals, as if holding onto something tangible—something real. Something to remind me of him, to keep my memory of him alive.

There was no grave, no mound of earth. Only these crowns marked the spot where his body had been when I held him in my arms in his final moments.

I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply. For a split second, I thought I could still smell the flowers as they had been when the fragments of his soul dissolved, enveloping me for the last time.

Holding back the lump rising in my throat, I whispered,

“Hi, Sylus.”

Each time I came here, I wasn’t sure what I was looking for. Closure, perhaps? Or maybe it was the ache of missing him—the longing to at least talk to him, to feel his presence again. My mind was probably playing tricks on me now since he was gone. There was no body to speak to, no corpse. Just the hollow space in my chest screaming in silence.

Maybe that’s what I was searching for—to fill the hollow, even if just for a little while.

“I brought you fresh flowers,” I said, forcing a faint smile to tug at the corner of my lips. “Remember when you told me Tarus City could have flowers bloom everywhere for me? Well, you need to take accountability for your words now. I can only forage flowers from the forest—and with great effort too, so you’d better be grateful.”

I scoffed lightly, pausing for a moment.

“Climbing here was never easy. I wish I had wings like you—then I could just fly up.”

But what he said once was right. I was a young dragon who had just grown horns. And I had no wings.

“A bit useless, don’t you think?” I murmured. “A dragon without wings?”

I wrapped my tail around myself. At least I had a tail, though it wasn’t as big as his. I curled myself up, hugging my knees as my tail coiled around my waist and legs.

He used to do the same whenever he embraced me to sleep.

“Anyway… I’m getting used to my horns.” My fingers instinctively brushed against the sharp, rough surface sprouting from my head. “The first time they appeared, I kept knocking them against the wall.” I could imagine his amused expression if he had seen me like that.

If he saw me, that is.

Sylus, did you see me grow my horns?

The thought tightened something in my chest, and I hugged my knees closer.

“It didn’t hurt as much as I thought it would. You did tell me it hurt a bit when you grew yours.”

But it didn’t hurt because they grew, did it, Sylus?

It hurt because you wished they hadn’t.

You wished you never had those horns and tail. You wished you were never a dragon so you could fit in. You wished to live like a human. To be human.

My thoughts spiraled with memories etched deep into the back of my mind. A young boy standing before his reflection, a dagger in one hand and a broken horn in the other—both slick with blood. He was trembling. He looked terrified.

He looked like he’d seen a monster.

Like he was the monster.

I wished I had been there to hug the boy.

“If we had known each other when you were little, would you have loved your horns more?” I whispered, my lips trembling. If only someone had told him how beautiful they were, he probably wouldn’t have endured the pain of trying to remove them. If anything, those horns only made him even more beautiful. If only he could have seen it.

If only he could have seen his reflection through my eyes.

Even after he was gone, the nightmares still came. Nightmares where I was in his body, where I was him. Alone. His kind wiped out, leaving him as the last dragon in a world where he tried so hard to be accepted as a human.

Yet he couldn’t be human.

And that was okay.

I would tell him it was okay.

But the Legion didn’t see it that way. Not when they drove their weapon into his chest.

“I’m… sorry.”

The words trembled out as I choked on my tears. I wasn’t even sure what I was apologizing for. Was it for not being there for him? For knowing his life hung by a thread because of sins he never committed? For what others had done to him?

Or for being the one who would one day grant him his true death?

Before I knew it, my cheeks were wet. Tears fell silently, landing on the petals of the black datura at the bottom of the stack—those already withered and decaying.

It really hasn’t been the same without you, Sylus.

I wish we had more time.

If we did, maybe I could have made up for the years he spent alone. Maybe he would have known what it felt like to be truly loved—to have someone care for him so deeply it hurt when he was gone. When my dragon was gone.

Maybe then, he wouldn’t have felt so much like a monster.

“You told me…” the words stumbled from my lips, shaky, “…that our lives were bound together now. That you… wanted me to stay by your side. Until the end of time.”

And that’s what I’m doing now, Sylus. I’ve been constantly looking for you, searching for you. Begging, even, on some nights for you to come back. You promised we’d never betray each other. That we’d be tied to one another. I’m sure you wouldn’t break that bond.

You’ll come back, won’t you?

I wiped my tears with trembling fingers, forcing myself to calm my breath.

“You know, I managed to finish the requiem on the organ,” I finally uttered after what felt like an eternity. “I hope you heard it last time. Would you like me to sing it for you again?”

The requiem—a song for the departed, meant to soothe the dead.

Once again, my fingers brushed the petals of the flower crown I’d placed earlier as I began to sing. The melody spilled from my lips, soft and broken at first, then steadying as the notes filled the empty air. With each verse, my heart grew heavier, the weight of grief pressing down until it felt unbearable. Tears streamed freely now, but I kept singing. I needed to finish it—Sylus would want me to finish it. He loved it.

I just never thought I’d be singing it for him after he departed.

Each note I sang carried the weight of all the words I didn’t get to say, the moments we’d never have, the love I probably didn’t give him in full. It was as if the song itself wept, wrapping the barren hill in its sorrow, mourning him with me.

As I sang the final note, the sound lingered in the air before fading into silence.

“We’ll be together again… in this life or the next.”

The wind stirred the flowers, sending a few petals drifting into the air. They danced briefly, catching the light, before disappearing into the horizon. I took a deep breath and slowly rose to my feet, brushing the dust from my knees. My tail uncurled, swaying lightly behind me as I stood tall.

I’ll come find you again, Sylus.

[maevesque]

a/n: Hurt. With slight comfort, if you squint. (jk, it's fabricated)

My dragon is gone.

She sits on her knees, her arms positioned like it was when she was holding him.

Sylus, her dragon. The Fiend she had fallen in love with. The time it took for the feelings to blossom suddenly felt too short. 

Emptiness. 

She stares at the empty space that once was filled with the presence of him. Now all that was left were the flowers that floated around her, as if they didn't want to leave the place just yet.

Or perhaps, this was a way for Sylus to say he didn't want to leave her yet.

She closes her eyes, the wind howling with a sense of anguish and longing. It caresses her body, and she swears she can feel the touch of claws, sharp enough to leave a deep wound, yet was nothing but gentle when holding her, carding through her hair. 

"You must press on…" 

There it is again. His voice. Only he wasn't kneeled in front of her, his claws wrapped around hers, ensuring she doesn't let go of the handle of the claymore, ready to help her commit the final act.

No, she feels him behind her, the warmth of his chest against her back, the soft brush of his lips against her ear, and the gentle curl of his dragon tail wrapping around her waist. And tears fall down her cheeks, dampening the soft skin he once brushed his claws gently against. 

She refuses to open her eyes, even when the wind that carries his voice tries to coax her to open them, she refuses to. She wants to commit those garnet-like eyes to memory, so that she'll never forget about them. How they look at her with so much softness, like a gentle touch.

She doesn't want to face the reality that she's alone. That he's… Gone.

"You'll never be alone, O' Great Sorceress… For I will always be with you." 

Her eyes open, the field scattered in ashes from the angry flames drawn by The Fiend. The sky is an angry mixture of reds and grays from the fire and smoke. Everything was crumbling to ruins and she didn't care about any of it. The cities can continue burning as the people frantically run for any source of safety. 

Doomsday had arrived and she would make sure they all paid. 

These obsidian crystal shards that disintegrated into petals finally float away, passing through the bright red daturas, turning them black as the petals finally drift towards the clouds. 

The absence of tears was no longer there as streams fell down her cheeks, tainting her dress as she grips onto the fabric and clenches her teeth, her eyes then gaze up to the clouds and she wonders if Sylus was looking down at her. 

She laughs through the tears, the taste on her tongue a bitter taste with nothing sweet. The mark on her neck from her beloved burns and she wants nothing more for it to sear into her very soul.

"My dragon is gone."

[aztecbrujeria]

I felt my heart shatter…I held onto him as long as I could and the smile upon his face and the left over dying datura…it whispered away from me like sand…

“I CURSE YOU…I CURSE YOU…MY DRAGON HE’S GONE!!!”

I don’t know how long I’d been sitting up in his bed asleep screaming as hot tears coated my cheeks. I was still in my dream watching the vision of losing him…

Sylus watched for just a moment as I sat up sleepily but was muttering. Placing the laptop and phone beside him he carefully began to reach out when he saw my lip quivering. He was dumbstruck and then rushed for me embracing me from behind as he watched the unbridled grief wash over me.

I thrashed against him reaching out to the empty space of his room while shrieking like a banshee. Crying for him, my dragon, it was his deep voice and strong embrace that slowly woke me up. My hand let go of the sheet I held, probably ruined, and my other fell beside his leg. He rocked me back and forth my curls falling and sticking into my face.

I turned around slowly becoming more aware and saw his lovely vermillion eyes alarmed.

“Sweetie…you were dreaming…”

Fresh tears pricked as I turned and raised up to my knees reaching for his face.

“It was you…it’s always been you…you promised…”

Sylus’s eyes were so sorrowful before they flashed with love.

“I’m sorry sweetie I’m not going anywhere now…”

Still cupping his face I reached up and pushed his hair from his face stopping where the horns should be.

“I know you…Stayrus…my dragon…I know you…”

I kissed him and he held me tighter against him. The kiss holding the truth…I felt it then our souls resonating…humming and making the melody only we could hear…

[suzdin]

DATURA

Summary: Dave and his team have been sent to kill you, but the night pans out differently than you anticipate.

Warnings: ¡SEX POLLEN! Implied noncon due to sex pollen. Fictional drug use. Mentions of weapons/guns/murder (duh). Threeway sex. Gun play, unprotected p in v, creampies, masturbation (f), fingering, spit roasting, oral (m receiving), use of sex toy on reader, anal, spitting, light degradation, choking, spanking, rough sex, squirting, let me know if I missed anything. No use of y/n. Picture is for aesthetics only, as reader is not given a physical description.

This fic is extremely feral and not for everyone, and that’s okay. <3

Word Count: 4,800-ish

Taglist: @kellybelly1978 @ohheypedrito @darkheartgatita @laughing-in-th3-purple-rain @sonderosa @missladym1981

And of course I dedicate this to @survivingandenduring and @kateispunk for holding a gun to my head until I wrote this inspiring me to write this 😘

——

Dave prods his index finger at the highlighted portions of the floor plans on the tablet, which he presents to his compatriots.

“There are entrances here, here…and here,” he points out, tapping the third for emphasis. “She’ll be expecting those. Watching them.”

Dave brushes his bottom lip with his thumb, brow creasing in contemplation.

“Ari and Resnik can head off the two main entrances. Joel, you take the side. And I’ll enter…here.” He places a finger where there’s a hastily drawn ‘X’ facing a private alley and courtyard.

“Don’t see a door or window,” the tall, tan man to his left drawls, placing a hand on his hip.

“Right. There’s a secret entrance there which leads to a crawl space left over from the city’s bootlegging days. None of the residents know. And guess where it exits?” Dave asks, eyes darting between the three men.

He places a finger where the bedroom closet would be.

A smirk twists Joel’s mustache. “Shit,” he says, scratching thick, weathered fingers through his scruff. “Gonna hit ‘er from all sides.”

“Exactly,” Dave responds, mirroring the way his companion places his hands on his hips. “We’ll strike at 10 PM sharp. That’s when the main festivities begin. No one will hear a thing.”

——

Dave crouches next to the hatch that leads to the secret door beneath the building, long since defunct due to the city’s proclivity for flooding.

A crackle resonates through his ear piece.

“Miller. Anything?” Dave asks.

“Nothin’,” Joel answers in a low southern lilt, positioned at the bottom of the narrow stairwell on the east side of the building, clicking the safety off on his Glock.

“Ari, Resnik? Station yourselves. Miller, I’m going in.”

“10-4,” Joel returns.

Dave yanks up on the metal hatch and it opens with a jarring creak, drowned out by the roar of the crowds on Bourbon Street and another jazz band playing their rendition of Oh When The Saints Go Marching In for probably the 1,000th time that evening.

He slips in easily and finds a peeling red door, which is shockingly ajar. A stray cat rushes out with a shriek, spitting feline obscenities at him.

“Fuck!” Dave snarls as the dark, furry void streaks past him and into the night.

“What’s goin’ on?” Joel’s voice.

“Nothing. Fucking cat. I’m inside.”

A low, throaty chortle sounds through Dave’s ear piece.

“Eat shit, Miller. Start heading up. I should reach her apartment in five.”

“Unless there’s more cats guarding the place.” This time it’s Ari’s voice. Dave pointedly ignores him.

The crawl space is narrow and damp, crushing in at him from all sides and choked with cobwebs and god knows what else, but it’s surprisingly not the worst place he’s ever been.

The space quickly dead ends into a ladder that looks like it’s seen far better days, rusting from the bolts outward. Dave can’t help but wonder if it will support his full body weight.

“‘M at her front door,” Joel remarks through the ear piece.

“Climbing the ladder now,” Dave responds as he begins his ascent, gripping the bottom rung and giving it a hard jostle to test its integrity.

The metal rungs protest and groan under his weight, but the structure holds true.

The boys had thought it absolutely ludicrous when Dave had come to them for their help with the hit. Four men for one single woman?

Bullshit. A waste of time and resources.

That is until they’d familiarized themselves with your rap sheet. Just shy of forty murders in less than a decade, and a weapons and ballistics specialist to boot.

But it would all end tonight, and that price on your pretty little head would be a nice cherry on top.

He reaches the hatch leading into your closet a moment later, twisting the mechanism that holds it flush to the wooden floor above.

He draws the Beretta from the holster on his hip, clicking off the safety as he strains his hearing to listen for something, anything, that would give him pause; that would make him abort the mission.

He hears nothing but the music seeping in from the streets through the century old brick.

“I’m in, Joel. I’m in,” Dave whispers, lifting the hatch as he silently crawls inside your closet, the scent of you overwhelming his senses, making his nostrils flair. Cock already half hard in his dark denim jeans at the prospect of another name scratched off his list.

Your name.

——

Joel makes short work of unlocking your door, pushing it open with his foot as he replaces the Glock with the heavier semi-automatic at his back, holstering the pistol on his hip.

His face pinches. You hadn’t even locked the deadbolt, despite having one, a feeling of dread slithering up the crease of his scrotum, perspiration pricking at his skin.

You’ve been waiting for them.

You register Joel first, his heavy footfalls impossible to conceal under the creak of the original wooden flooring. It’s almost laughable how loud they’re being, Joel making a ruckus behind you and the other rustling somewhere in your closet, probably smelling your panties for all you know.

Joel finds you at an open window, back facing him as some loud pop song he doesn’t recognize drifts up from the Quarter below. You’re naked aside from a short, black pleated skirt that barely ghosts the lower curve of your ass, a silver and white fox tail peeking out from beneath the hem of said skirt.

Though he can’t see it from his current vantage, a gun rests on the window sill in front of you. You’re starting to think you won’t be needing it. Not when the man at your back could have already taken a clear shot at you and didn’t.

You lean slightly forward, revealing more of your ass to Joel and cheering as you catch a handful of colorful Mardi Gras beads from one of hundreds of floats below, waving your arms triumphantly over your head before you slip the necklaces around the lovely column of your neck.

Joel spots Dave then, mocha brown eyes shifting to his comrade, his expression unreadable. The Beretta drawn to shoulder height, trained at your head, but he isn’t pulling the trigger. Not yet.

Lowering the rifle, Joel lifts a fist in the air to signal to Dave, take the shot, asshole.

But he doesn’t, and neither does Joel, staring at your bared skin, the exposed hills and valleys of your body. Two men reduced to little more than their base desires in mere seconds. Exactly what you were expecting.

You finally shut the window and turn to face them when they do nothing but stand there, transfixed by your beauty. You’re wearing a masquerade mask in royal purple that’s trimmed with gold lace, cinched tightly behind your head.

You won’t be needing a gun when you can use sexuality as a weapon. It wasn’t the first time, and certainly wouldn’t be the last.

“Took you long enough,” you admonish, eyes drifting back and forth between the two men.

The larger one is broad and older, unkempt curls swirling away from his head, dusted with silver. The beard tracing his jaw is dark and patchy, a thick mustache framing his upper lip.

A red and black flannel stretches across the expanse of his upper body, tucked into dark wash jeans, ending with heavy work boots. His eyes darken in their regard of you.

His companion is also broad, only just less so, and younger than his comrade by what you guess to be ten or fifteen years. His face is clean and smooth with the barest hint of shadow, plush lips pushed outward in bewilderment, a black beanie pulled down to conceal his dark hair, matching the rest of his attire.

“Love the outfit, but a bit on the nose, don’t you think?” you ask the younger of the two men. The edges of his lips twitch upward in amusement.

You sway your hips slightly, making the tail between your legs wag to and fro, enticing the two men to ease closer. And they do. Exactly where you want them.

Dave notices your fingers dancing across the lid of a small metal box in the nick of time.

A new party drug originating from Ibiza, its purpose intended to act as a powerful aphrodisiac amongst the most experimental, but as with most things, too much could be dangerous, in rare cases fatal. It usually came in tab form, but it had been sold to you as a fine powder, and your plan was to drug them senseless until they fucked each other to death or you killed them, depending on how bored you got.

You grasp the ornate metal box in your fingers and flick your wrist outward, hurling the contents in a direct trajectory at Dave’s face, which would have hit the intended target had he not been ready to deflect the strike with a hastily lobbed pillow from the nearby sofa.

The cloud the hit produces is magnificent, a shimmery white mist which coats your face and lips and everything else in its path, inhaled through your sinuses and entered through your bloodstream as traces of the powder land on your tastebuds.

You spit and claw at your face, but it’s too late, and you know it.

You’re fucked in more ways than one.

The affects are almost instantaneous, a fiery hot inferno that builds low in your core, a lance of pain sawing through you from the inside out. Your pupils dilate and everything is suddenly too bright, too painful, every source of illumination having a halo that almost resembles a mushroom cloud in its brilliance, its potency.

You feel the sticky slick coating the inside of your thighs and you double over, clutching your guts, tears pricking at your eyes.

“Whatsa matter, darlin’?” Joel asks, your show of pain bringing him immense joy. “Can’t handle what you dish out?”

His cock strains against his jeans as he watches you and you groan, spreading your legs as you slip a finger between your folds in a bid to quell some of the ache. “Fuck…” you grit.

“Jesus, York, the hell’s wrong with her?” Joel questions.

Dave can only stare, transfixed, palming himself over his jeans.

Both men can’t help but jump when Resnik’s voice comes through the ear piece, so lost in your body they almost forgot why they were there to begin with.

“Everything alright?” he asks.

“Good,” Dave responds. “We’re…negotiating.”

“Negoti— fucking seriously?”

“Yes,” Dave answers firmly, his voice a low and husky. “I’ll explain later. For now, stay in a holding pattern, and make sure no one enters the building.”

Resnik starts to say something else, but Dave flicks off the ear piece and tosses it to the floor before he can finish, already forgotten. Joel follows suit.

“Help, please,” you whimper, stepping toward Joel as you fumble in desperation at his jeans. “Need it bad. It hurts.”

Joel abandons his weapons, drunk at the sight of you. His massive hands circle your waist, squeezing, desirous, lifting your skirt to cup your ass, exposing the tail tucked between your cheeks to Dave. You keen and without thinking, Joel bends forward to press his lips to yours.

“Miller, stop —“ Dave spits sharply, but it’s too late. Joel kisses you, deep and wanton, tongue swiping hungrily at your lips, and within seconds he receives his own dose of the drug, though not nearly as much as you.

He spins you in his grasp and hikes your skirt even higher up your waist, revealing your pussy to Dave, dragging two thick, callused digits between your dripping folds, bumping your clit. You moan and press your ass against him, the hard line of his cock nudging at the plug, heightening your pleasure.

“Y’like that, darlin’?” Joel murmurs into the shell of your ear.

“Yes,” you answer too quickly. “But I need your cock.”

“That so?” he answers gruffly, making quick work of his jeans as he shucks them off like a second skin, the drug already firmly rooting itself in his brain.

He tugs his boxers down, fat cock springing free from its confines as he shoves you forward, folding you in half over the couch with a broad palm pressed between your shoulder blades, notching himself at your entrance and pushing himself inward with reckless abandon.

You grunt at the reprieve, the sting of how forcefully he invades you, how he fills you.

Dave watches the events unfold in stunned silence, lips parted and skewed, unbuckling his belt as his eyes fixate on your face, your lovely sparkling eyes. The way your mouth hangs open when Joel begins railing into you with everything he has to give.

He reaches forward and plucks the mask from your face, discarding it, so he can see you. See how well you take it.

He drags the pad of his thumb along your succulent bottom lip, pressing it against your tongue, to the back of your throat, teasing. Testing.

He exhales a groan when you don’t gag.

He quickly steps out of his jeans and boxers, climbing onto the couch in front of you, roughly gripping the sides of your face so that your lips pop open for him.

You take him into your mouth without question, mewling softly, your throat and jaw burning with effort as he sinks himself into you.

Dave presses the barrel of the gun against your temple, his voice a snarl as he says, “Try anything and I’ll spray your pretty little brains all over these walls, sweetheart. Understood?”

You nod around him in affirmation as he begins rutting into your mouth, his other hand fisted tightly in your hair.

It isn’t long before Joel drags your first orgasm out of you, every muscle in your body constricting, relieving the pain only temporarily before it flares up again, white hot and slithering through your veins like molten metal.

“Thassit, darlin’. Takin’ that dick like a champ,” Joel praises, giving your ass a sharp slap. Every thrust of his hips knocking against the plug secured firmly in your ring of muscle.

“Fucking whore, letting two men enter you,” Dave growls, the gun pressed so squarely against your skull, it’s sure to leave an indentation.

Joel finishes inside you expeditiously with a low growl, panting into the small of your back as he collapses forward, knees smarting.

“Quick on the draw as always, Miller,” Dave tuts, clicking his tongue.

Dave’s fingers twist at your roots as he pulls you further onto his length, bottoming out with a shudder at the back of your throat.

“Fuck off, York,” Joel retorts, still fully hard inside of you. He tugs at the end of the tail, smirking playfully, causing you to moan.

“What if I shoved my dick up your ass next, sweet girl?”

You whimper around Dave in reverence. For both of them.

“Not a chance. That ass is mine,” Dave snorts. “Soon as I’m done with this mouth.”

Joel doesn’t argue. Your pussy feels too good, the way you squeeze him, and it isn’t long before he’s railing you hard again, never having gone soft, even at his age.

You cum a second time, soaking Joel, your release splashing down his muscular thighs. Your moans reverberating through Dave’s cock.

“Fuck, I’m not going to last like this…” Dave grunts as he pulls himself free from you with a pop of your lips, jaw hanging slack as Joel’s unforgiving pace doesn’t falter behind you.

“Trade places, Joel,” Dave demands.

“Not a chance,” Joel growls, the sounds of his hips slamming against your ass lewd and depraved.

“Now, Miller,” Dave reiterates, eyes deepening a shade as he lifts the gun away from your head to aim it at Joel.

“Fuck,” Joel spits, extricating himself from you as he and Dave exchange places. “Fine.”

Joel’s wide palms cup your face and he doesn’t waste time stretching your jaw and throat beyond their limits because fuck, he’s girthy. You taste the cocktail of you and him on your tongue.

He circles the outside of your throat with his hand and squeezes, feeling himself moving in your esophagus, grunting deeply as he watches you take him.

You jolt when you feel something cold, rigid and foreign dashing through your folds a second later, realizing in abject horror what is happening just as Dave pushes it inside of you and begins fucking you with it.

You moan, eyelids fluttering closed and Joel grunts deep in his chest, hand tightening around the cradle of your throat.

“Yeah, you like that, don’t you, slut? You like being fucked with my gun?” Dave grits from behind you.

You make a sound of supplication that tells Dave yes, yes you do.

He grins in satisfaction and drives the gun deeper, angling it just right, making you keen. The resulting squelch is deafening and obscene.

He pulls another orgasm out of you almost immediately, once again temporarily relieving the bubbling pain, sobbing around Joel, who’s already filling your mouth with more of his seed, spilling down your throat with a snarl.

He slows only for a moment, still hard as iron, ready to go again. And again.

Dave drags his lips up the curve of your ass and sinks his teeth into the meat of one of your plump cheeks, clamping down. You writhe against him at the small dagger of pain that courses through you.

“That’s it, sweetheart,” Dave purrs, giving the smarting cheek a slap.

As he continues to fuck you with the barrel of the pistol, his other hand skirts your tight star of muscle, fingers dancing around it.

His hand curls into the synthetic material of the tail, reveling the softness against his fingertips, and begins to tug slowly, lightly, testing.

You initially clench out of instinct, but relax your muscles as understanding settles over you, allowing him to pull it free from your puckered hole, letting it drop to the couch.

“Such a good girl,” Dave croons, tilting his face forward to place a chaste kiss there, the tip of his tongue darting out to circle your rim. You whine and arch into his touch.

“You should have some of this drug, York. Y’won’t have to worry about lastin’ then.”

“No,” Dave says as he lifts his head above your ass to lock eyes with Joel. “One of us needs to keep a clear head.”

“C’mon,” Joel taunts, swiping a finger through the mix of powder and tears still on your face. “Have a taste. Live for once.”

Joel extends his offering to Dave, hovering just over your lower back, inches from Dave’s lips. The men stare each other down, each of their movements slowing, much to your displeasure.

Dave eventually resigns himself, taking Joel’s fingers into his mouth and giving them a good laving with his tongue, tasting the sweetness of the drug, the saltiness of your tears.

Without warning, Joel succumbs to another high, exhaling a sputtered groan as you swallow what he gives you — what little of it there is at this point.

The drug makes quick work of Dave, twisting him into some kind of untethered beast as he drags multiple orgasms out of you with the barrel of the gun, his tongue flicking hungrily against your ring of muscle.

There isn’t a part of you that isn’t on fire. With desire, pain, fear. Fear that this will never end, that these two men will rip you apart from the inside out before all is said and done, but in spite of yourself, in spite of everything, you don’t want it to end.

“Lie back, Joel,” Dave commands and Joel does so without hesitation, his age getting the better of him, welcoming the relief he’ll receive as he makes himself comfortable on your couch.

Likewise, you’re happy for your jaw to have a momentary reprieve, as well, rubbing your tired muscles with your fingers as you catch your breath.

“Get on top of him,” Dave barks at you.

You willingly climb atop Joel, panting, lining yourself up with the slick head of his shaft. Joel’s heavy arm comes up to bar across your hips, pushing you down onto him until you sink all the way to his curls. The new angle making you keen and arch.

Dave presses you forward until your chest is flush with Joel’s, flattening you out before him. Joel doesn’t miss the opportunity to wrap his lips around yours again, kissing you sloppily, roving the wet heat of your mouth with his tongue, making you whimper as you begin riding him.

Dave spreads your cheeks apart and spits a globule of saliva at your puckered entrance, pressing two digits inside easily.

“Good thing you already loosened up that ass for me. You can take both of us, can’t you, sweetheart?” Dave murmurs and you simply nod, not wanting to tear your mouth away from Joel.

He lines himself up, placing the weeping slit of his head against your muscle as he begins pushing inward, inch by agonizing inch. Though you’re properly loosened up, there’s still a slight sting as your muscles contract and pulsate around him, stretching to accommodate his size.

You pant in hitched breaths, never having felt so full, so sated, before. It’s like they’re everywhere inside of you, consuming every inch of you like rabid jackals. Joel’s arms lacing around both you and Dave as both men begin to move independently within you.

You soon discover why they work so well as a team. Within minutes their movements are synchronized, a coordinated dance with you placed right in the middle, every downward thrust from Dave immediately proceeded by an upward lance from Joel. And they somehow manage to maintain said synchronicity for quite some time, even as they’re filling you to the brim with their cum.

They pump you full of themselves and you continue to drench them with every orgasm they drag out of you, your shared fluids sluicing down your bodies, soaking the cushions of the couch below.

It’s okay, you can just burn it if you actually end up surviving this. But hey, if you don’t, what a way to go, right?

Everything begins to meld together after a while, lines and vision blurred, your bodies practically stitched together at the seams, a perilous dance between the three of you in the throes of passion when the drug reaches its peak.

Their hands paw at you, knead you, your flesh supple and malleable under their large palms. They dig their fingers in, branding you, bruising marks left in their wake. Your head twists to and fro, tongue snaking between your teeth as you alternate between locking lips with both of them. You aren’t certain, but you think you see Joel and Dave link lips a few times as well, but it’s difficult to ascertain for sure, each scene of debauchery bleeding right into the next.

It goes on like that for hours, Dave and Joel occasionally switching roles, manipulating your overwrought body into a host of varying positions.

You have to stop a few times. For water, or just to take a break and a quick breather before you’re at it again, both men claiming your body like the primitive animals they are.

Dave has to call off his two remaining men when they practically try to beat down your door, understandably mystified and concerned, drinking in the vision laid out before them when Dave answers the door naked as the day he was born.

He sends them away when their motives shift and they make a sudden plea to join, letting them know in no uncertain terms that you are for him and Joel only.

You pout as you watch them leave, ever eager for more, but you don’t allow yourself to dwell on it, the three of you getting right back into the swing of things the moment they’re gone.

——

You must have shifted to the bedroom at some point during the night, as you rouse from sleep between two massive furnaces of men, a thin sheen of perspiration coating your still naked bodies.

You extricate yourself from the tangle of limbs and climb out from beneath them. You could easily put an end to them right now, if you were so inclined. But there’s something oddly endearing about the way they’re passed out in your bed, practically cuddling one another, Joel snoring like a chainsaw, that gives you pause. You’re amazed you were able to get any sleep at all with them in your bed.

You give them a final glance before you hastily make your way to the bathroom to clean up.

——

After your shower, you slip into a set of loose and comfortable sweats — a stark contrast from last night — tucking your pistol into the band of your sweatpants. You know, just in case.

You sweep up the remaining powder, making sure to wear proper PPE this time, salvaging as much of it as you can, should you ever need it again. As a weapon next time, you tell yourself.

Once done, you wander into the kitchen, chewing on two naproxen tablets before chugging what seems like a gallon of water to alleviate your dehydration and the various aches and pains riddling your body.

You’re starving so you put on a pot of coffee and whip up a simple breakfast of bacon, eggs and toast, enough to share. You plate the eggs and bacon on a platter and place them in the center of the table while you finish up the toast.

Your back is to Dave when he enters the kitchen. You feel the boards shift and you spin on the balls of your feet, drawing and raising your gun. You aren’t at all surprised when you find him doing the same — holding the same gun he fucked you with — dressed only in his boxers, your eyes locked, staring each other down in a deadly game of chicken.

“Easy now, kids. Thought ya worked out your differences last night,” Joel chides as he steps into the kitchen next to Dave, adjusting himself in his boxers.

You swallow, eyes blown wide, and you lower your gun first, even though you shouldn’t. After an uncomfortable beat, Dave does the same.

“We good?” you ask him.

“Yeah. Good.” Dave furrows his brow at you, unconvinced, but willing to play nice. For now.

“Smells great, sweetheart,” Joel says, seating himself at the table, helping himself to a plate.

You make a motion for Dave to sit.

“Could be poisoned,” he warns Joel, who flashes him and incredulous slant of his eyes.

“Fuck sake—“ you grit, scooping up a spoonful of eggs and shoving them into your mouth, canting your eyebrows at Dave as you inhale them. “Satisfied?”

Neither of them says a thing, but you catch a glimpse of Joel’s smirk below his mustache as he begins shoveling food into his mouth.

You finish preparing the toast and pour each of them a cup of coffee before serving yourself.

“Thanks,” Dave says, quietly, his eyes sliding down your body, tongue trailing his lips.

“You know, I don’t even know your names,” you say, glancing between the two men.

“Dave,” he replies. “And this is Joel.”

“Well, you already know my name. Nice to meet you, Dave and Joel,” you say.

Silence settles between the three of you while you eat, you seated between them, pouring more coffee when their cups inevitably empty.

You stay like that for a while, mulling over what to say next.

Dave is the first to break the silence.

“Thank you. For breakfast. And for…last night,” he says, averting his gaze.

You smirk.

“I’m not a bad person, you know.”

“Never said you were,” he responds.

“Just a name on a piece of paper.”

“That’s right. The infamous Datura.”

“I don’t kill indiscriminately like you do. I kill bad people. Corrupt politicians. Crooked cops. Genocidal maniacs.” You swallow down a swig of coffee. “But I guess I should have known better than to take out a senator’s son this time.”

“You know, we’re all putting our lives on the line, too, by not completing the contract,” Dave explains. “Should probably get the fuck out of dodge. Maybe you, too.”

His lips skew into a ghost of a smirk, eyes mapping the gentle slopes of your face.

“Yeah, I figured as much.”

“We might need an extra set of eyes, if that’s the case.”

You smile, leaning across the table, resting your chin in the bowl of your palm. Your eyes sparkle sweetly as they shift between Dave and Joel.

“Dave, are you offering me a job?”

His hand comes up to hook around the back of your neck, lips crashing into yours as his other hand grips and squeezes your hip, making you whine when his fingers graze one of many tender spots.

You hear a throaty chuckle rise from Joel next to you.

“Take it that’s a yes, darlin’.”

FIN.

[lephamquynhnhu]

Panacea

Chapter 7 (End): Beyond the Promised Sky

Dan Feng x Fem!Reader

WARNINGS/ TAGS: The reader has a default name, OOC, mentioned blood, violence. (This is a work of fanfiction, events are not aligned or relevant to the original work)

Word count: 3k4

Summary: He met you on a drizzling day when hydrangea fully bloomed on its field. Amidst the sea of mild pastel petals, Dan Feng never thought the flowery domain that intertwined your fate was the precise thing withered with you. They said he was a dragon, a hero, a sinner, but never a person with love, hatred, sorrow, or joy like everyone else in this world. However, it was a demi-truth. He committed the cardinal sin because of you.

Note: For the first line, I express my special thanks to Dr.Lecter in the Hannibal series for being a valuable reference in this chapter. Secondly, I am glad I finished Panacea at another crucial moment since I got an offer letter as a Villa host in a five-star resort. Finally, thank you for following this fanfic.

Do you like...depression?

From the pitch-dark space emerged a pair of brunette eyes dotted with a brightened yellow hue. The monster stinks like grave soil and corpses, causing a death emanation marries with a cunning aura that gives off those pupils, making cold sweat cascade along his spine like a dewdrop.

"I can smell your fear, little dragon." - The prison starts when his whole body comes to light. A gigantic embodiment with six raven wings, limbs full of sharp claws like cathedral spears, and scales on his torso play as invincible armor.

"I am not afraid of you." - Dan Feng calmly places the document on the table and settles his seat, staring back with his bleak green eyes. By guaranteeing the current heart pulse is eighty per second, Imbibitor Lunae ascertains that his condition matches the requirements.

"I didn't claim that; instead, you fear losing someone." - "The scent of Mimosa accompanied by Stephania for a tranquilizer and mistletoe plus Datura metel for the patient with epilepsy. Besides, I can sniff a vague blood smell on your sleeves. You must be absolutely desperate to wield the traditional approach to lengthen their lifespan when Cloudhymm is powerless." - The monster sniggers, his sinister smile spreading unto the earlobes to unravel abnormal canines. Primus Immortus may be evil, yet he is still an excellent apothecary with sensitive olfaction. Therefore, he can detect advantageous traces. However, Dan Feng remains silent with decorum, and his stern expression behind the cell is unreadable.

On the other hand, Primus Immortus is pleased with the end of his filthy soul because he has never drunk anything sublime like the sorrow of the High Cloud quintet. His nutrition is savoring people's misery. Like a hound, Immortus can sniff woes from the High Elder's irises handily obscured beneath the solemn mantle. He would like to play around the bush and pull more strings, yet his other side stops him punctually to secure the plan he is brewing. Primus Immortus decides to cooperate and comply with Dan Feng's testimony in exchange for the spanking sip he took because he knows he is the controller.

After the chaotic occurrence, Dan Feng received a poem that followed him via a micrometer of the security door. Echoing every corner of the shadowy corridor is a sarcastic treble.

"Amaranthine dawn shines through

Blushing clouds,

O willow-silk rain,

Blasting confederate roses."

The Long Scion exasperatedly slams the document on the table, and his chair shrieks in displeased noise as he takes the seat. Dan Feng has long forgotten the last time he was infuriated like this, and those cursed eyes keep haunting his mind when he is writing the report. That doomed prison was manipulating his emotions like a puppet while Dan Feng received a dump of garbage. Nonetheless, the topic Immortus mentioned hitting at Imbibor Lunae's bullseye just by a whiff nay, he hates to admit that Primus Immortus was right. He is hopeless.

After a couple of weeks, your condition has increased to a critical point, and the current treatment barely satisfies his purpose. Your aging process arises tremendously combined with Alzheimer and age-related macular degeneration. Moreover, you are even incapable of changing clothes or doing daily tasks, and the epilepsy is now unable to be depressed. The scenario of withered begonia beside your dressing table compared with your aging complexion beneath the pale moonlight. Those things lead him to a dead end.

The black ink spreads bolder and bolder, contrasting with underneath white papers as the High Elder immersed in wandering thought, then a pair of brunette irises with a light amber hue reappears and blends into the hollow void until his brush pan breaks in half as a token to snap him back to reality. In the dim light of his office, a sliver of thin incense smoke undulates around the space and tenderly swirls at his untouched document with a parallel line "North obligation. Absolute death is reverse." Imbibitor Lunae leaves a heavy sigh to review the conversation between him and Dan Shu at the medicine library. She handed the High Elder an ancient scroll of practicing black arts - an approach to ascend Zhen Ren, a higher being that can reach Nirvana to obtain an elixir without concocting.

"How do you...know?" - He clenched his sleeve, hiding his astonishment behind the limitless bookshelves while Dan Shu feigned to browse her file along the Braille, her snowy skin tone fingertips kissed book spines like a scanner as she relied.

"We handicapped always have other summit senses when losing another. Thus, I am able to read your energy. It is turbulent as an abyssal despair. You are going to lose someone, and you can't do anything. The search statistic of Liberian shows that you are trying to look for a unique recipe even though you attempted to deceive the system."

She stopped her line and pulled out a large book covered with leather and golden letters. "Your aura reminds me of my old wound, so I decided to help you. However, this is as far as I could help, and may good fortune always find your journey. " - Dan Shu then left like the wind.

On the last day of Primus Immortus, he probably is sick of the testimony questions and does not cooperate with Dan Feng anymore. Instead, he suggests a quid-pro-quo to gain "dignified" answers that Imbibitor Lunae accepts abruptly. Behind the ironic bars, Immortus seems to enjoy every moment of this trade-off game since his raven swings shaking and massive claws rake at the tense atmosphere when he listens to Dan Feng's childhood.

"What a tragic fate." - Primus Immortus monologues and eyes the opposite person - "Growing up with the destined mission and carrying the name of the High Elder through countless ages. Building up and bringing out the name of the High-Cloud quintet to this cosmos, plus witnessing its fall. But alas, you will eventually lose the one who sees you as Dan Feng."

"Does she remember your name? How does it feel when you kiss her?" - The monster adjusts his volume as the Long Scion is still busy scribbling his precedent answers, and the vibe changes rapidly. Cyan orbs sparkling like a torch illuminate all features of his countenance, a warning to remind Immortus has crossed the line because the marshall or a judge might hear their little play-game. Nonetheless, he is pleased with Dan Feng's reaction as his saliva rolls down and drops to the ground. Moreover, if there were not Celest Gold restraining his swings, people could hear the sound of swings behind the cell. Primus Immortus vigilantly stares back to watch how deep his string roots at the High Elder's soul.

"I have the last needed element to aid you in achieving your wish, Little Dragon. It will grant you the primal power equals Permanence." - He lowers his voice with vicious eyes glowing under the dark bangs and awaits the crackling spirit. Conversely, Imbibitor Lunae closes his tabs and readily leaves the cell, indicating that his heart is as solid as Marmorean. Looking at Dan Feng's retreating figure blending into the corridor, the monster reveals his last trump card:

"What if I said Zhen Ren could drink up the four seas?"

To Primus Immortus' expectation, the High Elder's footstep gives a halt as his heart pulse is immovable for a millisecond when hearing that sentence. He knows love affairs may not be enough to convince Imbibitor's fall, yet it will make a difference with the topic of compatriot.

Saving the Vidyadhara race is a proper reason to unlock the black arts.

However, Dan Feng merely breathes out and marches toward the security door without a glance, leaving behind his resonating footsteps from afar.

"How wick." - a familiar metallic voice reverberates at the unfathomable depth of the Premilinary Prison as Primus Immortus amuses himself without looking up at the frontal man. His white chignon is tied hard by a Dalbergia hairpin and remains motionless like a marble monument while a scarlet pupil glows amidst unstable light. Although half of his face emerges in the pitch-black dark, no one is unaware of his position.

Yinxing from the High-Cloud Quintet demanded an informal appointment with Primus Immortus.

He slowly detaches an electronic bug at the table's edge and smashes his hand-made device into dust: "What is in exchange for your 'last element'?"

The monster looks excited as hearing another member of the legendary team exploit his secret. A group of esteemed figures created illustrious feats and miracles for everyone but themselves, so their misery is holly nectar to Immortus, and occurrences are flowing as his scheme. The ivory canines spread across his twisted face when he speaks.

"What a pity. You are ineligible to operate 'that thing' properly. Only a descendant with a divine bloodline grants the privilege of touching it, and I already have had my things. However, if you successfully convince Little Dragon, you both may attain your joint target."  

Just as Primus Immortus expected, Yinxing's mind wavers like a dribble of water to cause a micro crackle in his spirit, and a triumphant smile stretches on his maniacal face. After the blink of an eye, everything is upside down as the blurring surroundings are confused into another timeline. Standing beside him are the rest of the High-Cloud Quintet, and Yinxing could say they are different yet the same people simultaneously. They wear unusual uniforms while idly chattering about ordinary topics under the cement ground with crowded transportation. To Yinxing, this scene seems peaceful, a surreal life that is too good to be true. As a result, he swings his sword to tear the unfolding illusion, but a flow of smoke lingers at his blade.

The girl who shares Bai Heng features said they nestle in the body of an Outer God, and she is the Paradox Guardian - named Dao Zhen - a doppelganger of Bai Heng from the other world. She exposes that this timeline used to exist but was erased because the history selected and ramified. Immortus possesses a kind of mystic eyes playing the role of an alien door leading to another Dimension by hypnotizing Yinxing and extracting a fragment of his conscience into an Outer God's body.

"If you stay with me permanently, we can live in any possible context." - She whispers beside Yinxing's earlobe and intertwines her fingers - "You love this face, don't you?'' - A cold exhale sweeps through as Dao Zhen grazes her nose against his collar, she tries to orientate him to become a second Guardian; as for Yinxing perspective, he finds it is a dilemma yet he decides to bare the sword to clarify his decision.

"Fight me if you dare! I will resurrect her and rebuild the High-Cloud Quintet. Not living in your cheap illusion arts." - He conceded Dan Feng in testimony privilege since he has never been into mundane activities in prison. Hence, Yinxing vaguely learned his unpublished situation. They can become an antagonist duo like Primus Immortus suggested.

The blade slashes Dao Zhen's afterimage and causes a space-shifting while his sword tip points at her and eventually claims his victory after an intense battle. Yinxing sees Dao Zhen vomit a wooden box and turns into black mud flowing toward his heels.

Abruptly, a recognizable ceiling of a clinic appears in front of his eyesight while gripping an exquisite carving box.

Light still shines brightly at the Artisanship Commission despite the darkness covering the sky in a black mantle because there will be a massive parade to welcome a new Yaoqing general called Feixiao. The former presider was assassinated when he traveled with his wife in a hot spring, but Her Ladyship is missing. Many rumors vine around and wander in their vicinity, yet Feixiao apropos quenched and controlled them.

Listing ordnance, checking the quality of gunpowder, and solidifying human resources remain coursing vibrantly before the kick-off event. People even could hear the sledgehammer of blacksmiths from afar.

Meanwhile, Yinxing and Dan Feng are discreetly confronting each other at the Fyxestroll Garden.

"You don't wish the High-Cloud Quintet to return to its renaissance?" - his reprimanded voice arouses the placid serenity between them since Imbibitor Lunae selected another path.

"It is a part of history, and we must respect the past. Stop striving to rewrite it like a moth to a flame because death cannot resurrect. Seeking immortality is illegal." - the Long Scion intends to turn his back and march forth, yet his heels halt when Yinxing reveals his buried secret.

"Although the Yaoqing has forfeited their wanted poster, they will pay seven trillion credits for Bai Lin's head, plus executioners will continuously send out to chase her to every galaxy corner. Furthermore, Feixiao is also here."

"I don't know what are you... " - an explosion swiftly roars through the inky sky from the Artisanship Commission, interrupting Dan Feng's sentence. A red-orange hue burns radiantly at a corner, and charcoal fumes flare up violently. Neither do they present punctually, nor do they put out the fire with ordinary water. The oil and gas will aggravate the situation; in addition to this plight, numerous Vidyadhara people assemble crowdedly for the parade - the last straw of limit breakthrough.  

"Zhen Ren can drink up the four seas." - the High Elder stares at the Paradox box in his hand while Yinxing repeats an accustomed clause.

They are standing at the center of an invisible hexagon made from six Suppression Towers and ready to practice black arts. Inside the Paradox box is a pair of Mystic Eyes of a deceased Abundance Emanator, which is eligible to open the Supremacy Boundary to ascend the Long Scion and become a higher being. The left eye is a mirror to look through the past, and the right one is the key to unlocking the pruning future. To rewrite reality and unleash that power, they need to feed it with all heliobi in the Suppression Towers.

Dan Feng and Yinxing should have succeeded if they had complied with the Five Element Order.

"North obligation. Absolute death is reverse."

The hexagon's apex must face northward, yet they did not notice the line in Dan Feng's ancient scroll that led to a retrorse geometry against the feng shui order, causing the Grand Calamity to befall Loufu. The supposed door turned into a mirror that reflects the Backside of this world, drawing fantastic monsters to come through. Thousands of mythological creatures, demonic monsters, even Abundance abominations belligerent and wild beasts with Evil Dragons acting as their leader, descended upon Xianzhou, and the mirror is like a black hole hanging over the firmament with lethal levin.

On that day, no one dares to reminisce or talk about that appalling scene, and nobody records the precise duration of the catastrophe. They only remember the death toll with injured victims was unbearable, thousands of missing people. On top of that, the monsters' blood caused acid rain, melting agricultural fields and paralyzing their trading traffic, which caused all economic activities to stagnate. To mobilize all resources, Jing Yuan procrastinated the Ten-Lords Commission's warrant and approved the duel culprits Yinxing - Dan Feng temporarily attending Luofu's frontier. Additionally, he requested military assistance from other Xianzhou ships to block the Backside mirror.

"I have another personal affair to do. Please, leave me three hours, then I will present before the judges." Imbibitor Lunae grits his teeth to press each word as if gathering the last ounce of his strength to prevent crumbling.

Under the lonesome Exalting Sanctum's ruin, Hanya and Xueyi only stay still amidst the sound of silence.

Until the Long Scion intends to throw away his pride and kneels before two sisters, they timely stop him and accept his favor. As a result, the twisted fate between you two is going to its epilogue.

A feather noise accidentally wakes you up from your slumber, which is followed by a soft fabric rustle. You attempt to mouth your words, but none of the names lingers in your mind, and the fragileness sounds weaker than you expected. All your vital energy seemingly ebbs away as you watch inky shadow prints on the wall. Dan Feng's countenance quickly shifts from concern to rest assured as a dissipating cloud when he sees you are safe and sound after the turmoil (Maybe the forest's mythopedia is true). You wonder why he acts so weirdly as rushing to capture your wilt frame into his embrace, and the nose bridge presses against your nap coldly while Dan Feng's hot breath fans over your baby hair unstably. Although you no longer recognize this man, a comfortable warmth radiating from him is half acquainted, half foreign, and you realize the High Elder is quivering.

His clothed back soaks with sweat as your hand brushes the long locks, fingertips gently touching the fancy fabric pattern. A short-lived memory enlightens your foggy mind after a few stroking, bringing back a feeble sunray in your opaque irises.

"Ah...I remember who you are. Dan Feng, isn't it? It looks like I just woke up from a long dream." - He does not answer or proceed to any conversation, or in other words, his throat is stuck with a fiery lump, just inhaling the mild white tea fragrance in your hair as though mesmerizing it into his soul.

"I want to watch the dawn with you." - Your respiratory is getting weaker and unstable when resting your head against his firm chest.

"Can we wait until you get better?" - Dan Feng contemplates the gray sky beyond your window as a flock of birds flies across the hermitical horizon. However, he quickly surrenders your stubbornness afterward. The High Elder carries you towards the usual spot - an eminence used to sightseeing in your pasture.

The coziness from his exhale thawing the thin frost on your senile face wakes you up from a short nap. The purplish canvas tinge with a rosy hue and pastel orange color while dewy grass dances in morning winds, you two quietly await the rising sun. Your eyes shimmer in amazement when seeing old comrades standing afar and wavering hands toward your side. The sun shines around them like crowning a laurel halo.

"It...is impossible. Regardless of your wraith, I am happy to see you guys again." - You mutter under your breath as Irene wags her wedding bouquet, and Huang Yuan offers his hand to you while Pumpkin shakes his tail.

Nevertheless, your jubilance does not last long after a blink of an eye when the surroundings disappear into voidness, rendering your sightless eyes in which you do not feel any regrets backlog in your heart.

"Why do you look so sad, Feng?" - Your wilt hands full of freckles like a root trace his features to sense his sentiment.

"No, I am just..." - your hopeless motion abruptly intercepts the Long Scion's half-baked lie as you draw closer to give him one last kiss - "I couldn't wait for the next Autumn..." - However, you never get a chance to complete the line because your soul leaving even faster and the kiss forever falling on his shoulder.

Dan Feng dumbfoundedly gazes at the dazzling dawn and needs several seconds to process what is happening.

He desperately calls your name to wake you up but does not receive any response. Like a madman, Imbibitor Lunae carries your limp body toward the hydrangea garden and finally collapses from exhaustion. Amidst the sea of shriveling flowers, a useless person cradles his lover in anguish while the browny flower balls waver in soft breezes.

"Somebody....Somebody please save my Bai Lin!"

But alas, only the cricket chirping and leaves rustling sing your requiem. The sky is getting brighter, plus cotton clouds nonchalantly trekking across a pair of emerald orbs, and it is not raining. But why does water keep cascading on his face? Why can he not save his loved one even though he committed Ten Unpardonable Sins? Individuals often pray to them to be endowed with grace, but whom will he pray to?

After your death, the man who sees the world possesses an unparalleled power to traverse clouds and bestow rain, shaping forms as the world's of essence beckon, has already decided his fate. If he can not save you, Dan Feng will die with you.

Endnote: Alright! Who dies next? Gepard or Argenti?

[the-mortuary-witch]

HEL

WHO IS SHE?

Hel, also called Hella and Hela, is the name used to refer to the Goddess of the Underworld in Norse mythology. She is the daughter of Loki and the Goddess of death, disease, decay, and destruction. Hel is a mysterious, otherworldly deity who presides over the realm of the dead. According to the lore, her followers would be taken to her afterlife after death, where they would face their eternal fate. Though her domain is dark and seemingly frightening, Hel is a powerful and important deity in Norse mythology and has strong ties to the otherworld and the afterlife.

BASIC INFO:

Appearance: in Norse mythology, Hel is described as a very pale but beautiful woman, often with dark, pale hair. She is sometimes depicted as being very thin and gaunt, with a corpse-like appearance. She is also described as often being very sorrowful and sad, and she is known to be a rather ominous and sinister figure. She is often depicted wearing dark, gothic-style clothing and bearing a variety of symbols associated with death and the Underworld.

Personality: Hel is often described as being very sorrowful and solemn. She is often depicted as being a rather quiet and melancholy figure, lacking in the warmth and friendliness that is attributed to the other Norse goddesses. She is generally regarded as being a somewhat sinister and oppressive presence, and she is often seen as having a much darker and more brooding nature than her sisters.

Symbols: ankh, wolves, bones and skulls, ravens, corpse, scythe, fire, spiral, broom, rake, and Hagalaz Rune

Goddess of: death and the afterlife

Culture: Norse

Plants and trees: beech, alder, elm, ivy, juniper, willow, yew, nightshade, belladonna, datura, nettle, wormwood, elder, hellebore, mistletoe, and blackberries

Crystals: obsidian, amethyst, black onyx, bloodstone, jet, and black tourmaline

Animals: rats, wolves, hellhounds, black mare, dogs, crows, and serpents

Incense: myrrh, dragon’s blood, frankincense, and patchouli

Colours: dark green, black, dark blue, red, white, and dark purple

Numbers: 9 and 13

Zodiac: Scorpio

Tarot: Death, The Empress, The Tower, and Suit of Swords

Planet: Moon and Saturn

Days: Monday, Halloween, Yule, Samhain, Helrbjörg, and Allhallowtide

Parents: Loki and Angrboða

Siblings: Fenrir, Jörmungandr, Váli, Narfi, and Sleipnir (Odin’s horse)

Partner: N/A

Children: N/A

MISC:

• Wolves: which are often seen as the guardians of the underworld.

• Ravens and crows: associated with the realm of the dead.

• Pluto: the planet associated with death and rebirth.

• Moon: is the celestial object associated with death, madness, and witchcraft.

• The wolf Gnaa, whose name translates to "the one of the deep" and is the guardian of the underworld.

• Helhest: a mystical three-legged horse that can run across the sky and the sea, carrying souls to the World of Death.

• The black dog Cegrim: which is said to guide souls to the land of Hel.

• The Norns: who are the three Goddesses who spin the fate of each individual soul.

FACTS ABOUT HEL:

• Holds a biconical horn, called a drink horn, which she uses to drain the souls from dead mortals.

• She is the daughter of Loki and Angrboda.

• Garmr (sometimes also called Garm) is the dog or hound that is considered to be Hel's guardian and protector in Norse mythology. Garm is a demonic and monstrous creature, with the size and strength of a bear, the aggression and cunning of a wolf, and the ferocity and loyalty of a dog. Garm is also immortal and has the unique ability to never sleep or rest, which makes him an incomparable guardian and companion to Hel.

• Bears the nickname Goddess of the Dead.

• She resides in a giant estate called Helheim.

HOW TO INVOKE HEL:

To respectfully work with Hel, set up a sacred space dedicated to her and keep it organized and clean. Honour her symbols of death and rebirth with your attire, decorations, and rituals and rituals. Use colours associated with death and rebirth (black, dark purple, and dark green) in decorations and rituals. Light candles and incense during rituals and dispose of them responsibly.

PRAYER FOR HEL:

"Hail Hel, Lady of the Underworld. I come to you seeking your guidance and protection. Please bless me with your wisdom and help me to walk the path of death and rebirth. Guide me into the realms of darkness, so I may emerge stronger and more enlightened.” 

"Now that I have honoured you and asked for your guidance, I offer this as a humble offering in your name. Accept my gratitude and blessings, and may our paths cross again in the future. Hail to you, Lady of the Underworld, I bid you farewell for now. Hail Hel.”

SIGNS THAT HEL IS CALLING YOU:

• Feeling a sense of pull or attraction to her energy and teachings.

• Experiencing synchronicity or signs that point to her presence.

• You have dreams or visions about her.

• You hear/see her name on the TV, radio, online, in books, etc.

• You recently had a family member pass away

• You’re currently working on healing from religious trauma, specifically fears of death and Hell

• The Death card continually pops up in a reading

• Hagalaz rune is calling to you and showing up everywhere

• Hel’s animals are coming to you as a sign: dog, wolf, or horse

• An increased sense of devotion and reverence towards her.

• Feel drawn to her symbols or representations, such as skulls, bones, and Gothic imagery.

• Something in your life triggers an intense emotional or mental reaction where you feel a strong urge or desire to work with her and embrace her teachings.

• Experiencing a strong sense of passion, dedication, or devotion towards her.

OFFERINGS:

• Money

• Jewelry with dark or gothic themes, as she is often depicted wearing such items in artwork.

• Precious stones

• Weaponry.

• Alcohol or other intoxicating substances.

• Herbs.

• Food or drinks: tea, soup, meat, honey, bread, milk, fruit, and other delicacies.

• Mold.

• Items that represent the cycle of life and death: such as bones, skulls, jewelry with a skeleton theme, and plants associated with death and rebirth.

• Fire or candles: associated with the realm of the dead.

• Music and instruments: she was said to be a talented musician and musician herself.

• Dried flowers.

• Blood.

DEVOTIONAL ACTS:

• Keep a journal, record your thoughts and feelings about her.

• Create an altar or sacred space for her.

• Read or study books on Norse mythology and the goddess Hel.

• Pray to her and ask for her guidance and protection.

• Mindfully clean the graves of deceased loved ones. Talk to them when you visit. If you can’t visit your loved one’s graves, you can write to them and burn it. Watch the letter burn and think that the fire and smoke is delivering the message to them.

• Keep a small altar to honor your beloved who have passed and tend to it. Do not forget their names.

• Honour and embrace all of your emotions. This includes your negative emotions such as anger, jealousy, pain, etc. Accepting and acknowledging these emotions helps process them better and thus help you be a better person. Denying them allows them to fester.

• Do shadow work especially during Sundays.

• Do spirit work. Be cautious when you this and properly protect yourself and dismiss the spirit soon after.

• Do ancestral work and establish ancestral healing starting with you. This helps heal the ones who have come before you.

• Take time to sit in silence and watch the world move around you. You can do this in a symbolic way by leaving fruit like an apple outside and watch it rot.

• Meditate and learn the value of taking a pause in this fast-paced world.

• Accept change and adapt to it.

• Learn to appreciate the sudden changes or slight inconveniences in life. See the positive side of it.

• Learn the value of patience.

• Live your life as if it was your last (mindfully).

• Volunteer in cleaning cemeteries or in your local mortuary

• Keep a garden and care for it. (Some SDAs say she likes roses but she could ask you to care for other plants)

• Visit or volunteer in hospital work especially for the critically ill. Bring joy into their life even for a short while. You don’t know how much time they have left.

• Dress in neutral and dark colours.

• Dedicate a playlist for her.

• Collect animal bones. Clean then and breathe life into them (do so ethically, killing animals for bones is a blatant disrespect for Hel, the animal and the law).

• Adopt unwanted animals (the ones who are critically ill or are of old age) and give them the best life before they pass

• Carry an organ donor or a blood donor card.

• Enjoy fermented food and drinks such as wine and mead. Do not forget to toast to her name.

[prairiefirewitch]

Last year was pretty poor for my daturas so when I planted dozens of seeds this winter and only a single one sprouted, I thought this might be the first year in a long time that I would have no plants. I had jars of seeds from Mescalero that were a bit old, and jars of various seed varieties from my own plants, plus a few seed packets from Eimi and I tossed a bunch in a plastic strawberry tray and didn’t feel hopeful. But lo, datura seedlings have sprouted, 125 by my count and I have no idea what varieties I’ve got here.

I made the girls a nursery out of an old display box I made and I’ll know in a week or so which varieties I’ve got. So far I think I’ve got inoxia and wrightii but I’m really hoping for a few metels. If I have lots of survivors, I’ll be building a new bed because I’m out of space and didn’t expect to need to find room for dozens more plants. 🖤

[rubynymphyy]

three major team members who didn't make the cut for the championship team due to space limits and type matchups..

Kalmia: she/her, Jolly, mischievous [Larkspur's partner bodyguard] Columbine: he/him, Calm, likes to thrash about [may actually be a semi-authorized casino hustler. sort of like how pirates could be authorized as privateers. ... don't try this in real life.] Datura: he/him, Quirky, quick to flee [mechanic/technician, voted most popular employee by customer write-in vote for 'the guy with the arms' three years running]

Main championship team