#spice wives

[anikamercat]

A scandal, indeed 🪻🌻🌹

The Spacewives Incident reminded me of those faux regency paintings so I decided to execute my vision :)

[the-coffee-fandom]

@aquilavela @abyssal-ali @sarcasticbambi

I’m a poor wife, but I’m a stellar spouse 😘

I am very poor 😔💸

guys hot uquiz was just discovered but I'm taking it about 100 yrs too late. anyways everyone share how wifeable you are.

THE WIFE RATING SCALE 1929

[youngexwivesclub]

Reneé with Karma Spice

[oldxenomorph]

garden of night

pairing: nyx/the reaper emperor warning: sexual content (size difference, body worship, alien anatomy, marathon sex, tentacles, nyx being a soft dom, breeding if you squint really hard), 18+ summary: during a particularly longer than normal shift in the underworld, nyx summons the emperor in the darkest depths of persephone's gardens to satiate her needs and desires.

“In the meantime, will you serve and worship me here, my love?” Nyx’s hands slide down the Emperor’s neck; one settles on her chest, the other slips underneath the collar her imperial robe, underneath the embroidery of the deep royal turquoise tentacles of the Great Sleeper, the golden and patina deco lines of R’lyeh.

“Yes, my goddess,” the Emperor replies. “Always.” Beneath her fingertips, Nyx’s feels the vibrations deep within the Emperor’s chest, caused by her abyssal voice, that sound of annihilation. A cold thumb gently caresses the Night’s face, tracing the outer edges of her cheeks as those red and black eyes of celestial death look upon her with such intense devotion, obsession, and love. It is the only correct answer, the only answer the Night accepts; to be served, to be worshipped, to have her needs tended to. Nyx rewards her with another kiss, as long as the night, as deep as the darkness.

--

Nyx’s hands smooth over the embroidered fabric of a violet cushion as she finishes setting up the little sanctuary in the deepest part of Persephone’s garden, where the shadows are black as night and the pomegranates hung like engorged hearts. A large klinai with plenty of royal cushions and a frame made from golden skeletal figures holding violet jewels in their rib cages; comforts for herself and the one she is waiting for. The Night looks over her work and takes a small pride in this area she made, this space that the Queen of the Underworld so graciously allowed her to use as she saw fit, enshrouded by her powers and the garden’s warm darkness.

The Emperor arrives soon afterwards, answering Nyx’s summons, crossing the threshold into this space made just for the two of them. In the dark the sanctuary, Nyx’s eyes truly shine like ancient stars, light has been burning since the beginning of everything, since Chaos lovingly put them into her skull and brought her to life. Eyes look up at the Emperor, taking in the immensity of her presence, drinking in the sight of the towering entity. Her great height makes the pomegranates that surround her head look like a crown of dark red hearts, like fresh and ripe organs eager to be picked, eager to stain her hands red, eager to make a mess of her.

“My love.” The Night’s ethereal voice bears a brightness born from her happiness of having her wife here with her, a greeting breathed upon a sigh, the sound drawing the entity closer, sealing the physical distance between them. Nyx’s sandaled feet leave the ground, rising to be just above eye level with the Emperor. Without gravity, she truly is like the great outer void, her hair flowing like the formations of interstellar medium, the stars luminescent, blinking like eyes. The most beautiful Night, her violet silk peplos and all her adornments making her otherworldly, held and worshipped by the cosmos itself. How she has ached all day and all night to touch the Emperor, to feel her, to have her, to pull her into her embrace.

Kisses, kisses, kisses placed upon the Emperor’s hollow cheeks, leaving faint imprints of her violet lipstick upon brutally scarred alien skin. Nyx wastes no time claiming her, hands gently cupping her face and pulling her in for more kisses, hungry to feel her lips against her own, hungry to have all that is within her. “I could not bear another day or night without you, O Extinction.”

Long, cold, spidery fingers gently caress the goddess’s face, carefully and lovingly touching her cold, pale skin, those red and black eyes taking in all of her beauty in the darkness, beauty accentuated by the regal ornamentation she wore. The Emperor returns every kiss, capturing Nyx’s violet lips with her pitch black ones, split from red scars cutting into them; she moves to place soft affections on the Night’s cheeks, blessings from Extinction Itself. Nyx leans into her wife’s gentle touch, her kisses, her embrace, her heart skipping a beat as she is claimed. She looks at her wife with starlight and dark shadows, happy to always be the center of the great entity’s attentions and thoughts.

“Nothing can keep me away from you, O Night. I will always find you.” An eternal promise, one she made to her when the universe was new and made again when they were finally joined in matrimony. The Emperor always answers Nyx’s summons, finds her before she knows she needs her. Black lips place another kiss upon her violet ones, full of sweetness and love that is infinite, endless. “You deserve to be in our bed, being served and worshipped by me. At all times.”

A soft smile spreads upon Nyx’s violet lips as looks into her wife’s eyes, continuing to cradle her face, tracing the lines of her scars, the red light bleeding through the pads of her thumbs. Behind her smile, she feels the pang of an ache in the dark of her heart, the hope that in the far future, when the Earth has been swallowed by the bloated corpse of the Sun, she will be free to eternally join her wife in her domain. “I know,” the goddess affirms, softly, almost a whisper. The Night should be in the Ziggurat, in the bed that they share, the song of her body and darkness being added to the building’s low thrum. The Night should be in the Black Palace, enthroned by the Emperor’s first shape curled around her. She dares not tempt the Fates by vocalizing more, but she knows that the Emperor can hear her thoughts, their shared material connecting them.

Nyx knows that her deepest wish will become true, her wife will see to it that it comes to pass. The Great Family will help, for they too want their Emperor and Empress to always be together in a single house, on a single throne.

The Emperor kisses her deeply, pouring her own emotions into her, opening all of herself up so the goddess can make her body her home, her sanctuary, her bed, her vanity, the black space that will always protect her. When the entity pulls back, Nyx smiles as she divines her thoughts and desires in her eyes, in the stars that die, eaten and stretched in the red accretion disks. And just as stars die in the Emperor’s eyes, the stars in Nyx’s hair drift closer to those hands that so lovingly hold and touch her face, pulled into the Emperor’s orbit, pulled towards her by her inescapable gravity; stars drag across her pale knuckles, stars that slip between her spidery fingers, stars that decorate her talons, stars that hover around her ring of matrimony, vibrating in time with metal imbued with the Old Worm of Eternity’s ancient bellowing song and the sound that bathes the Nuclear Chaos.

“In the meantime, will you serve and worship me here, my love?” Nyx’s hands slide down the Emperor’s neck; one settles on her chest, the other slips underneath the collar her imperial robe, underneath the embroidery of the deep royal turquoise tentacles of the Great Sleeper, the golden and patina deco lines of R’lyeh.

“Yes, my goddess,” the Emperor replies. “Always.” Beneath her fingertips, Nyx’s feels the vibrations deep within the Emperor’s chest, caused by her abyssal voice, that sound of annihilation. A cold thumb gently caresses the Night’s face, tracing the outer edges of her cheeks as those red and black eyes of celestial death look upon her with such intense devotion, obsession, and love. It is the only correct answer, the only answer the Night accepts; to be served, to be worshipped, to have her needs tended to. Nyx rewards her with another kiss, as long as the night, as deep as the darkness.

“How much time do we have?” The Emperor asks.

“As long as I want.” The goddess slips her hand further underneath the Emperor’s black robe and pushes the garment off the entity’s shoulders, letting it drop into a pool around her feet and tentacles. Her hands roam her wife’s broad chest, fingers slotting themselves perfectly into deep grooves formed by strange ridges, finding enjoyment and stimulation in the texture. Her beloved’s body, perfect in every way, made for her enjoyment. “We have all the time in the universe.”

As she lowers herself, Nyx pulls the Emperor down with her as she reclines onto the klinai, her form beautiful and elegant with all her silks and gold and jewels, her hair and constellations already spilling over the cushions she so carefully picked out. The Emperor sits on the edge, looking down at her, leaning so the upper half of her powerful body covered her. In the dark of the garden, the Emperor’s eyes and brutal scarification are brighter, the red intense in the absence of light, the shadow she cast over the Night deeper, darker, blacker than anything within the Underworld. The violet of her earrings match the glow of Nyx’s jewels, a pulsing violet, a swarming with darkness, alive and hungry. A soft hum leaves the goddess as she feels the way her wife looks over her body drenched in the silk of her peplos, eyes that focus on all her curves, eyes that devour every line of her shape.

Only the Emperor can look at the primordial goddess in such a way, eyes that burned intense with lust for her, with the need to have her, the desire to be pulled into her darkness and indulge in all of her flesh. All of the Night’s pleasures — the sensuous, the extreme, the euphoric, the ecstatic, the supreme, the sublime — just for Extinction. Nyx is as feared as she is desired, the object that occupies the minds of so many gods, entities, and lesser beings. They dream of having her, of claiming her, of sinking themselves deep inside her, becoming the sires of her children, the mothers of her children. Such privileges, only the Emperor has. The Night wants no one else but her, only her, all of her.

Spidery hands, long metallic black talons at the end of each long finger, hands not unlike the incubators that carry the embryos of beautifully terrifying daughters, carefully remove the Night Incarnate’s stephane, the skeletal pins from her hair, and her intricate necklace. They deftly undo the clasps that hold the top of Nyx’s peplos together with her himation, loosening the fabric. Nothing pleases Nyx more than being undressed by her wife; each piece of her ornamentation, every layer and fold of silk, all of it slowly being pulled away, revealing more of her shape. Hands cup softness of flesh covered in luxurious dark violet and black silk, fingers carefully work the goddess’s sensitive areas, teasing her, eliciting a low sound as she is kissed by the Emperor again and again, her mouth descending upon her neck now that it is bare. Her black lipstick leaves deep imprints upon her skin, markings only she will know about when her necklace is put back on. Desire, hot as the burning core of a star, spreads and seeps into the dark spaces within Nyx. Her hands rest over the Emperor’s, enjoying the sensation of the transitional textures at her wrist, where tight, pale alien skin becomes her black, chitinous, biomechanical body. She wants her wife to do more, she guides her hands, giving her permission to do as she pleases, so long as it pleasures her.

Anticipation and arousal tauten Nyx’s heart. Her amethyst lips part to release the tightness within her as a sound, soft and with need, escapes. With great care, the Emperor’s long fingers pull down the front of the dress to reveal the Night’s breasts, beautiful flesh finally uncovered; large, soft, pale with faint black veins, with soft, dark nipples now hardened from stimulation, each adorned with gold and her beautiful, pulsing, violet jewels hanging from them. A blush blooms to the surface of Nyx’s cheeks as she feels her wife’s eyes upon her, as she feels her hands and tentacles upon her soft form.

There are songs and poems written about the beauty of the Night. None compare to witnessing the actuality of the Night Herself.

“O Eternal Night….” Extinction’s abyssal voice caresses her, she feels the cold notes of its machine baritone throughout her body; vibrations in her pulse, the sound consuming her from the inside. A soft sound escapes her as she feels the Emperor’s tail carefully, gently trace its bladed tip along the heavy curves of her breasts, enjoying all of her contours. “My goddess…. My wife…. My love…..” The Emperor leans forward, capturing the goddess’s violet lips with her pitch black ones, spoiling her with such sweetness, spoiling her rotten with such affections, hands resting on her body, tentacles slipping further underneath her dress. Nyx could just kiss the Emperor all day and all night, never getting tired of the way her lips feel against her own, enjoying the way she opens her mouth to let her in. A pleased sound comes from deep within the Emperor’s chest as she deepens a kiss, the song of a black hole’s gravity.

Nyx dislikes it when her wife’s lips leave hers, but the feeling is brief as she feels them on her skin once again, the entity moving her kisses lower, leaving behind more visible lipstick imprints. A delightful sigh leaves the goddess as she is tended to so lovingly, as her wife fixates on her neck, her chest, everywhere from just underneath her collarbones, down her sternum, moving to swells and softness of each of her breasts. Cold fingers and sharp talons brush over her nipples, causing them to ache in response. The sensation, the arousal, intense at it travels through her, Nyx adjusts her hips, allowing for large tentacles to push the violet silk of her dress up, allow her legs to part and welcome the strange texture of her wife’s chest between them as the great entity settles herself into a position to properly kiss her, properly worship her. Despite the danger of the Emperor’s sharpness, her every angle designed to be deadly and hard and all consuming, Nyx does not fear her hurting her; she trusts the Emperor to always take care of her, to use her dangerous anatomy to only provide pleasure, to turn to her body into an instrument of love and pleasure. Nyx lets out a soft moan when her wife fills her hands with the soft flesh and kneads, gently, talons continuing to tease her, ensuring that she is in a constant state of arousal. The starlight gold of her eyes glows brighter, condensing the energy of violently hot stars within them, incandescent with desire.

Extinction pulls away to open her mouth. The black tentacles within come together to form a long, oil black tongue, wet and dripping with her black tar. She looks into the Eternal Night's eyes and waits to be granted permission.

“My beautiful Emperor,” Nyx sighs as she tucks a long strand of vantablack hair behind her wife’s ear. Her fingers move around the curve of the entity’s ear, lavender nails trace the complete line of her jaw, stopping at the tip of her chin. A low, abyssal sound crawls out of the Emperor’s open mouth, that long, tentacle-like tongue writhing and causing more black liquid to drip in thick, viscous strings. “I did not tell you to stop.”

Something akin to smile appears on the Emperor’s scarred black lips, the corners briefly pushing into the taut, cold alien skin, ruined by the brutal red scarification and cybernetics.

Nyx’s lungs expel a gasp as she felt her wife’s tongue on one of her nipples, black lips descending upon it as the entity tongued and sucked the sensitive flesh and jewelry. One of the goddess’s hands instinctively rested on the Emperor’s other hand that was occupied with gently kneading her other breast, squeezing its softness, every moment of applied pressure eliciting sounds of delight, the pleasures of sensuous indulgence emerging from her mouth as moans. Fingers touch Nyx in ways that make her crave more and more and more from her wife. Her heart pounds loudly in her ears, she knows the Emperor’s tongue must feel her pulse, those hands must feel her veins pump the black ichor throughout her body; the entity’s tongue curls around her in a certain way that makes her begin to rock her hips against her wife’s chest, needing to feel her size against her, needing to feel her immensity. The idea of her breasts being covered in markings left behind by the Emperor’s kisses, rings of black lipstick around each of her nipples, jewelry dripping with black tar, echoes of her wife’s worship, her adoration, makes Nyx moan again and again, makes her arch her back, makes her press herself against her wife’s mouth, encouraging her.

“My love….” The Night’s beautiful and ethereal voice slipping out of her mouth upon long, soft breaths as her wife’s mouth and tongue now switched to tending to the other dark nipple and its jewels. She thinks about how the Emperor’s love is going to show through her dress of dark silk when they are done, how it will be hard to fully conceal every kiss, every impression her lips leave behind. She thinks about the black lipstick markings showing above the folds of her peplos, on the swell of her breasts, on either side of the gem of darkness dripping from one of the skeletal mouths of her necklace. Everyone will see how every part of her as been loved in ways only the great entity can love her. Such thoughts swarm inside Nyx’s head, a heightened state of arousal that consumes her, makes her body eager, makes her desperately grasp the Emperor’s tentacles that have congregated around her, cradling her, hold her in place, her fingers barely able to fit around them. The goddess tips her head back, into the cushions as she feels every one of the Emperor’s kisses, the strange texture of her tongue as it lavishes her, black tar and black lipstick marking her. A soft sigh leaves violet lips as the Emperor’s other hand gently, deliciously, kneads the softness of the breast she just adored, talons delicately tracing every kiss she leaves behind, ensuring that they remain dark and visible.

When the Emperor releases her from her mouth, Nyx lets out a soft whine, her eyes shining as they look at her, desperate for more of her, all of her. The entity removes the rest of Nyx’s peplos, violet and gold fabric slipping from her body, revealing her exquisite shape, the dress spilling onto the imperial robe that lay in a pool of its own fabric and blackness. Nyx’s breasts were so thoroughly worshipped, so throughly loved, her nipples hard, aching, tender, and kiss-swollen from her wife’s adoration and the stimulation from her jewelry. And they are thoroughly covered in the Emperor’s black adorations, everything she thought about and dreamed about made real; her neck, her chest, the very weight of her breasts covered in her wife’s love. The Emperor kisses her, claims her mouth for a deep kiss before moving lower, placing those same kisses on the softness of the goddess’s middle, those cold and spidery hands following the curves of her body, palms fitting perfectly within the shape of her waist. Nyx adores how her wife loves her softness, is fascinated by it; the goddess loves how she worships her body, for nothing else in the universe compared to the Night, nothing is as beautiful as the Night Herself.

The Emperor moves lower and lower until she is kissing the inside of Nyx’s thighs, leaving more imprints from her black lipstick. Her cold hands hold her thighs apart, fingers and talons firmly, yet carefully enjoying their plushness, the softness of her body, her flesh. A moan slips out of the Night; the thought enters her mind again of her wife’s kisses and devotion hidden underneath her dress while she finishes her shift, how if she moves to sit a certain way she will remember the feeling of her wife between her legs, how excruciating the last hours of her shift will be not having her wife to tend to her there amongst the vases of irises, in the shadows and ash of the House. Such thoughts deepen her desire, her lust for her wife, the most potent elements of her arousal coiling so tightly that it forms a singularity, gravity crushing passion and attraction and appetite and love and love and love into a single absolute point within her core.

Nyx lets out a sound, a soft gasp as the entity’s kisses move to her center. She then feels the Emperor’s tongue press against her warmth just as it splits apart into its actuality of many tentacles, all of them slipping into her, eager to explore and taste all of her pleasures. The Night Incarnate arches her back, pressing herself against her wife’s mouth, rocking her hips, wanting more and more of her. Held so tenderly by the Emperor’s hands, held in place by some of her tentacles. Nyx presses her head back into the cushions and lets out moan, the sound louder than she would normally make, a sound pulled out of her when those tentacles within the Emperor’s mouth reach deep within her to kiss her core, as they press against that singularity of pleasure, making the stars in her hair shiver, the jewels of darkness pulse faster, the constellations twisting themselves into non-Euclidean shapes. The grip her hands have on her wife’s larger tentacles tightens, more reach to curl around her breasts and knead them, as pleasure crashes through her, washes over every organ, every cell. All day and night she thought about how good it would feel to be tended to by her wife, how desperately she wanted to feel her, how she needed to have her. And now that she is here, her head between her legs, loving her, worshipping her.

Devouring her.

It is the thought of her essence being subsumed into her wife, of her darkness lingering in her mouth, that makes the Night come hard, her orgasm akin to a supernova. Stars explode and die within her hair, nebulae rise from midnight tresses. Her orgasm is so intense that it makes her skin hot, the searing, runaway nuclear fusion of those stars that have yet to explode. Nyx moans at a volume not typical of her, as she is held in place by the Emperor’s hands, as she is consumed and treasured and loved by the Emperor's mouth. One of her hands runs through the entity’s hair, sinking into long and beautiful strands of vantablack, fingers tightening at the very zenith of her orgasm, rocking her hips, holding her wife in place as she commands her to worship her utterly and completely; waste not an atom or iota of her essence, take into her stomach every molecule of her desire and love. Extinction Itself obeys wholeheartedly, enthusiastically: her mouth enjoying every hard movement, black lips kissing her and adoring her, black tentacles squeezing her tighter, as everything within her is easily, eagerly consumed, everything she gives taken into Extinction’s mouth, into her body.

A sense of tiredness overtakes the goddess in her post-orgasm state, fingers slipping from the entity’s hair as her body, relaxes. Her body feels heavy, lulled to rest by the softness of the klinai’s luxury, this bed she made for the two of them in the garden. Stars are born in her afterglow, far-flung nurseries across the universe becoming nebulae as stars are formed, born from her love and pleasure, stars that will one day feed the Emperor. In the aftermath of such extreme sensations, the goddess yearns for her wife, her touch, her kiss, her arms, her body. And she is not denied. The Emperor’s cold hands carefully touch her, cradling her face as those cold, black, scarred lips kiss her tenderly; they kiss her mouth, they kiss her flushed cheeks, they kiss both sides of the jewel on her forehead. Long fingers lovingly sink into her midnight black hair, parting the newly born nebulae and stellar formations. The feeling of her large black tentacles on her body provide much needed relief as much as they also curl around her, as they center her and guide her as she feels a second wave of arousal flows through her, as she rides it in her wife’s care.

“My beautiful Night. I am here, my love.” Hands carefully touch her, the same ones that bring her such pleasure also ensure her safety, her wellbeing. Black lips place such sweet blessings against the curves of Nyx’s body as the Emperor lays down next to her. She is so much larger than Nyx, her presence engulfing, her immensity all-consuming, her gravity crushing. Yet her body is the Night’s sanctuary, her bedroom, her throne, her vanity, her unending love. The goddess instinctively climbs on top of her wife and lays down, finding her shape more comforting than any soft luxury, placing her head right where her heart should be.

It is not enough to be right where her heart is; Nyx pulls herself upwards, so her face could nestle in the crook of her wife’s neck, so she could easily be kissed, so she could be easily loved and tended to as her body continued to ring. “My lovely Nyx.” The sharp tip of the Emperor’s tail make single motion to trace the contour of the Night’s flushed face, the line of her jaw. Such tenderness followed by the softest caress of her cheeks by long fingers and sharp talons. “Exquisite in every way. Do you know how happy I am that I get to spend every second in every universe and every eternity worshipping you, my Nyx?” The Emperor pulls the Night Incarnate in for a kiss, full of softness. A kiss so loving that it makes the dark heart of the Night Herself thumps loudly in her chest, makes her body warm and pleasant, makes her starlight eyes look at her wife full of love. She rests her head on the Emperor’s shoulders, eyes becoming heavy; she feels the great entity fully engulf her. “You are my everything, O Night.”

The heart shaped pomegranates pulse.

—

Pale fingers idly run over the structure of the Emperor’s tail that has wrapped around her. They move to feel the texture of her arm that has also wrapped around her. The Eternal Night, engulfed by Extinction, held close so that her flesh retains the imprints of her body, Starlight eyes open slowly. It is hard to tell how much time has passed. An hour, maybe two. Enough to allow her to feel ready to continue,

The Emperor opens her eyes as well and loosens her embrace, maneuvering herself so sets Nyx down beneath her as she holds herself up by her strong arms, her hair spilling over her shoulder, a curtain of vantablack that covering the Night. A sound escapes the goddess as she feels her wife’s body press against her backside when she leans down to kiss the back of her neck. Were it any other night (or day), Nyx would have commanded her to take her right that second. So enticing the prospect of feeling her wife’s hands on her soft hips as she pushes herself inside, but what the Night truly wants is to hear that abyssal voice be unable to do anything but moan and whimper her name, sounds so perfect and carnal and only for her. The goddess turns around, capturing the great entity’s lips in a kiss, her hand resting on the middle of her chest.

“Lay down.” Nyx voice holds the entity’s attention, makes her let out of heavy breath. Already aching just from goddess commanding her, just from feeling her body against her own. Nyx would not have it any other way; a great and powerful being so eager to listen to her, so eager to be hers and only hers for eternity and every eternity, so eager to let her do as she pleased with her. “It is my turn to have my way with you, O beautiful Emperor.”

The Great Lord of Extinction obeys, taking Nyx’s place on the klinai, laying her body down on the mattress, her head resting amongst the cushion propped up against the headboard. Nyx parts her wife’s legs, perfectly situating herself within the space they formed. Starlight eyes devour the sight before her, eyes eating everything before her: the Emperor’s powerful biomechanical body, hard and shiny and black as the outer void, black as dark space, black as the end of the universe, a shape so beautiful and devastating. Nyx loves the size of the Emperor, loves how much bigger than her she is. Perfection is the word that enters the goddess’s mind; her body, her material, everything about the Emperor is perfect, made to be this way by the hand of her creator, the same thing that made her siblings, Azathoth and Shai-Hulud. A perfect entity with perfect daughters. Beautiful, perfect, wife. In the dark of the sanctuary, the dark of Persephone’s garden, Nyx’s eyes are bright with hunger, the deep kind of hunger, a craving that can only be satisfied by the Emperor.

“The Reaper Emperor should always be in my bed,” the Night muses, her ethereal voice repeating her wife’s words, her hands feeling the thickness and strange texture of her wife’s thighs, fingers tracing every ridge, moving upwards. “She should always be open, and aching, and ready for me.” Nyx touches the space between the Emperor’s legs. Her hands perform the ritual that opens up her wife’s body, hard biomechanical exterior shifting to reveal a soft structure eager and readily accepting fingers that sink inside her, accompanied by midnight tentacles, thick appendages of darkness and stars touching the great entity, prying her open, slipping into her. The Emperor belongs to the Night. She was hers to claim, hers to fuck, hers to command, hers to love. The Emperor’s tentacles wrap around the legs of the klinai as she opens her mouth to let out a moan, as her arousal aches within her.

Stars from the primordial goddess’s hair are drawn to the Emperor, captured by her crushing gravitational pull. Nyx lowers herself, placing kisses on the Emperor’s body, fingers slipping out of her, replaced by tentacles, moving over her powerful, biomechanical shape, slipping themselves into the every ridge and deep space erotic in its very construction, always calling for Nyx to touch her, to use her as an instrument of pleasure made only for her. She moves her kisses lower, lower. Against the shiny, hard, chitinous material, the goddess leaves deep amethyst markings, lipstick leaving behind matte imprints all over her hips, between her legs, her thighs all the more obvious, violet on top of pitch black. Her tentacles inside the Emperor remove themselves, allowing for her to kiss where the entity was most sensitive, where she kept her arousal deep inside. For a moment, it was the Emperor’s turn to whine, to whimper at the feeling of being empty, of not having her wife inside her. The feeling is fleeting, Nyx kisses her at her entrance and parts her mouth to taste Extinction.

The Emperor’s body so eagerly and readily opens for the Night Incarnate. It produces such beautiful reactions from the way the Night kisses her, the way her fingers touch sensitive darkness that makes the softness pulse, the way she claims her with only her mouth and tentacles. A body made just for Nyx’s enjoyment, exquisite in the way it obeys her, responds to every one of her commands, submitting to her and only her. Even as Nyx indulges in her wife, she rewards her with touch that sustains her arousal, touch that makes her ache and throb deep within. Fingers that roam powerful thighs, slipping in and out of every deep groove, tracing the ridges around deep openings, relishing in the hardness of her exterior, so different from her own softness. Fingers careful to not disturb the markings her lipstick left behind as they hold the Emperor in place. It is the Night’s turn to devour her; her tongue, her lips, her kisses, her mouth consuming Extinction with a zeal, a voracious hunger. Nyx lets out a deep, pleased sound, ethereal even when her mouth is occupied, the vibrations of her voice causing the Emperor to become flushed.

“Nyx….” Her name, drawn out by a low, deep moan. The sound deep and abyssal. Nothing pleases the Night more than hearing the Emperor say her name. Hearing it as a sound of pleasure arouses her, makes her rock her hips, makes her moan into her wife, the reward of her vibrations from her beautiful voice against the Emperor’s anatomy. It makes the entity moan again, the goddess’s name in her mouth and on her lips once more, causing the stars amongst midnight tresses to shiver and accelerate their aging, obliterating their own planets as dark energy builds up in their cores, making them ripe for eating.

Beneath her fingers, Nyx feels movement, a throb, that aching organ desperately wanting to be let out. The goddess replaces her mouth and her tongue with thick tentacle made of stars, easing them inside her wife, pushing deeper into her, filling her to the brim, causing her to arch her back.

“Not yet.” A soft reprimand, she sinks her fingers in deeper, then eases them out, her own tentacles mimicking the slow motion. Deliberate, the goddess extracting every pleasurable sound, every whimper, every desperate moan from the Emperor. She watches the entity’s expression, starlight eyes gleaming in the garden’s darkness, taking in the way she her blushes look like bruises underneath the pale flesh of her face, the way her hips move in seeking more friction, her body eager and greedy for anything that belongs to the Night, needy for her touch or her kiss. Her body produces the purest form of her black tar, material that is thick and viscous and makes it easier for the goddess to truly claim her.

Nyx adjusts her position, looking down at her wife as her tentacles slowly pump in and out of her, and imagines one day properly fucking her. She looks down at the Emperor, her eternal love, this giant entity that writhes underneath her, wanton and desperate for her. A low sound leaves the Night Incarnate’s dark lips as she imagines holding Extinction’s great hips and fucking her, filling the deepest part of her with violet darkness until she was full, until her black tar grew thicker and heavier within her, until she was inside her veins, inside her heart, inside every organ and swarming every atom. Nyx dreams of endless nights, infinite and long nights of fucking her deeply, filling her with darkness that will mix with her black tar and give her daughters.

For a moment, the Night Herself slips her fingers into the Emperor, staying firming within her as she feels how the entity’s body reacts to being completely claimed by the goddess. When she removes her fingers, viscous, black annihilation drips from them. The material that created her beautiful daughters, the material that gave Nyx their children, the material that is the death of stars, the rot of galaxies, the end of the universe, the material that transformed the goddess into the Eternal Night; the blessed substance protected by the Great Family, more powerful than any golden ichor. Nyx slips her fingers into her mouth, pressing them against her tongue and cleans them, all while her eyes of golden starlight glow with an intensity in the dark garden, brilliant, piercing, the luminance of hungry pulsars. Her eyes never leave the Emperor, enjoying the way she looks at her, the way her broad chest rises and falls, the way she can hear the black hole deep within her pulsing in time with her arousal, aching painfully, deliciously within her; the Emperor desperately wants to touch herself, to coax out her arousal, to be inside the goddess, to climax and pour herself, all of herself, into her. But she lays there, clutching at her own tentacles as she watches, entranced, in love; the glaze of desire coating her strange eyes, lust bleeding into the influence that radiates from her body, she aches for her wife’s mouth, a low and drawn out sound leaving her.

“How wonderfully rich you taste, O Emperor,” Nyx says, her fingers now clean and bare. She leans forwards, she crawls back into the position she was in previously, running her fingers over the lipstick markings and strange biomechanical textures on the Emperor’s thighs. Those hands, slender and beautiful, push open the Emperor’s legs again.

“Better than nectar….” She kisses the insides of the entity’s thighs, leaving more markings, imprints of ownership, for the Emperor’s body belongs to her, her perfect second-shape hers to enjoy. When they are done and when the Emperor puts back on her robe, all will be able to see the violet kisses on her thighs, the lipstick markings in the space between her legs. The thought makes Nyx press deeper kisses into her wife’s hard, powerful thighs, her own hunger making her slightly breathless.

“Better than ambrosia….” She kisses the entrance revealed by her ritual, violet lips marking the sensitive area, for everything within the Emperor belongs to her. Desire surges in her ichor, arousal so deep and intense as it tightens within her, and makes her moan at the thought of so many sets of eyes looking at the Emperor’s body and seeing how she has been thoroughly claimed by her wife. The eyes of so many familiar faces looking at her, seeing how the goddess likes to kiss her and devour her.

“Better than spice….” She kisses the entity’s center again and parts her mouth, pressing her tongue into her wife, into that darkness that eagerly welcomes her back.

The Emperor lets out a deep moan, pulled from her core as everything within her so readily responds to the goddess, so quick to gift her that black substance. Nyx hums as she readily indulges in the pure essence of Extinction, rewarding her with more stimulation, knowing how sensitive she was, enjoying more of the deep moans such attention causes. She continues to kiss and tongue as she sinks her tentacles of stars in deeper, one pushing with firmness that sought to draw out more of the black tar for the goddess, causing the Emperor to nearly come. But the entity holds it back, obeying her wife’s command, saving herself for when she is given permission. In return, the Night savors her, praise given in the way she tenderly kisses the pulsing softness.

“Nyx….” The Emperor’s mouth begin to fill with black tar, the substance coating the writhing tentacles that made her voice deeper, the substance coating her sharp teeth, black and wet as her lips pull back on the last syllable of the goddess’s name. Black oozes down her chin and neck as she moans, slowly becoming undone, making a mess of her own dark material, her own arousal that is beginning to affect the rest of her body. How the Night enjoys the sound of her name coming from Extinction, her wife, while in such a state, so consumed by the pleasures being wrought upon her, by her own lust and love for the goddess.

Love makes the darkness throb, like a hot night. The Night’s fingers part the entity further to fully let her darkness kiss Extinction’s core and drench her aching arousal. She pushes the tentacles tending to her in deeper, causing a long, heavy, moan to expel from those scarred black lips, the goddess’s name stretched out by those many drenched and drowned tentacles in her mouth. Such sounds she makes, the eagerness of her body, pliant and open and always ready to have Nyx, to receive her, to accept her, all of her love, her horrors, her beauty, her needs, her obsession.

Every action is accompanied by an open mouthed kiss, the Night continuing to claim Extinction even while she indulges in her, devours her. Nyx pushes her tentacles, her tongue, her fingers into the entity all at once. The Emperor lets out a moan so deep and long and loud, the sound melting into the her repeating the goddess’s name, every utterance pushed further apart by sounds to total submission, her insides and pleasure totally in the hands of the Eternal Night. So beautiful the Emperor is, nearly undone, holding herself back, waiting for Nyx, waiting to be given permission to come, waiting for the goddess to take control of her. Tentacles reach deep into the Emperor’s core and Nyx enters her mind, her voice consuming all of her thoughts as she continues, as she reaches deep into the Emperor, as she fills her with the immensity of her presence as the primordial, all-consuming Night.

You are mine, O Extinction. I want to be deep inside you, I want to feel you around me, I want to hear you call out my name as I push into you. I will fill you with my darkness, I will insert myself into your black material, so that your daughters will also be my daughters. I want thousands of daughters, each and every one with our colors, filled with my stars, made from your tar; our darkness, our blood, together. You will give me thousands of beautiful daughters. Every night will be a long night for you, my love.

Nyx’s eyes, golden light becoming like white hot hypergiants, the violence of the universe in all its glory and radiance, look up at the entity and she projects into her wife’s mind a single command: Come for me, O Extinction Mine.

The Emperor’s body shudders as she orgasms, tossing her head back, her hips held in place as Nyx presses into her, as tentacles sink as deep as they can, as the goddess takes in all of the black tar. Her tail wraps tightly around her waist, hands grip tightly onto her own tentacles as her body is ravaged by pleasure so intense and extreme. It is drawn out, made longer as Nyx stimulates her, mouth and fingers and tentacles performing a ritual that makes it feel endless.

How the Night loves it when her wife is so thoroughly fucked, the Undying Mind of the Old Machines melting into a mass that only produces thoughts of her, as those wet black lips and black teeth and writhing black tentacles form her name and a series of pleas, her voice dripping and heavy within her mouth: “Please don’t stop, Nyx…. Please…. O Night, don’t stop…. My love…. O Nyx…. I love you…. I love you….” So beautifully submissive and obsessed with the goddess, begging for the Night to be relentless and unending, fully giving over control of her body, her orgasm, her black tar, everything. A wicked smile graces the Night Incarnate’s lips as she extracts another series of decadent, desperate moans and unrestrained pleas as the Emperor’s orgasm is stretched, longer, longer. Nyx takes in everything, holding her wife in such a way that allows her to completely enjoy her, to devour her the way she was meant to be devoured.

When the Emperor’s orgasm waned and she had no more to give, Nyx frees her. Starlight tentacles slip out of her. The Night sits upright, wiping the edges of her lips, her lipstick now slightly smeared, cleaning anything she might have missed.

Beneath her, the Emperor lays there, breathing deeply, her eyes still vibrating. Tentacles the held the klinai’s ornate frame loosen, her tail joining them as it limply drapes itself over the edge. The vantablack color of her hair seemed even darker, blacker. Nyx observes her carefully, looking at her eyes and how heavily lidded they become, how her hips make subtle motions to chase the friction needed to sustain her arousal within. The entity’s entire being reacts to Nyx, her body has such deep desires and needs; she wants to sleep, she wants to come again, she wants her wife in her arms, she wants to feel her mouth on her, she wants more, more, more. How beautiful the Emperor looks after being so thoroughly devoured by the Night, so wonderfully and lovingly fucked.

“My beautiful, perfect wife,” Nyx crawls over her large frame, hands gently cupping her face as she places gentle, tender kisses on her lips and on her scarred cheeks. The allure to stay like this forever, resting against her wife’s form, feeling her chest rise and fall underneath her own, feeling the black hole within her pulse in time with her own heartbeat, the dark hearts of Night and Extinction perfectly in sync. The entity leans into her touch, kissing her with such hunger, kisses her all over and pressing more black lipstick marking into her pale skin, whispering: Mine, all mine. My beautiful Nyx. Mine. Nyx holds her close, running her pale fingers through her wife’s beautiful hair, every stroke slow and comforting, smiling she basks in those words of possession. Hers, all hers. The goddess caresses the Emperor’s face, touching her with a soothing gentleness, guiding her, anchoring her. “I am here and I am yours,” she whispers, her voice hushed and just for her to hear. No amount of praise Nyx can give her is enough, but she gives her all that she can regardless.

“Are you ready for more, my love?” Her hands rest on the Emperor’s thighs, fingers waiting to be given permission, her body awaiting permission even as she is control. “I am far from done with you.”

“Yes, my goddess,” comes that abyssal voice. “Please…. I need you….”

Cool fingers delicately, carefully coax out the Emperor’s arousal. It aches, hard and heavy in Nyx’s hand. Such a terrifying and beautiful organ, reacting as pale fingers wrap around it. The Night’s touch is euphoric to the Emperor, her head sinking into the softness of cushions, tipped back in ecstasy. Black tentacles curl and slip into Nyx’s hair, wrapping around her waist, around her arms. They urge her her to continue, the Emperor praises her with the act of being touched all over, to which the goddess leans into, her violet mouth parting to let out an ethereal moan as more tentacles open her. She looks up at the entity, watching pleasure take hold of her insides, watching that black mouth open to let out a low moan, a deep and luxurious sound as the special oil black organ reacts to the goddess’s firm touch. It has its own pulse, it throbs from her attention, it aches for her.

“Such an exquisite being you are,” the Night praises her wife, amethyst lips forming a soft smile as she feels her wife’s tentacles trace every marking left behind on her skin, every memory of a kiss, every recent memory of her tongue. She pulls out another deep moan from the Emperor as she rewards her by carefully touching the parts of her arousal that make it ooze, seep with love.

There is something more that Nyx wants, the reason why she summoned the Emperor here to this dark corner of Persephone’s garden.

A sound escapes the Emperor when Nyx’s hand leaves her arousal, a deep whine, needing to be touched once again. But the Night pulls herself forward and straddles the Emperor, her body underneath her, between her legs. Starlight eyes look down at the great entity, how her arousal looks resting and aching between her thighs, running her hands up her wife’s powerful arms, unable to wrap her fingers around those. Enthroned, the body of Extinction the seat from where the Eternal Night rules.

“I have been thinking about this all day and all night, my eternal love.”

Nyx takes in all of the Emperor. Pure, raw lust makes her sight hazy as her mind narrows to focus only the sensation of easing her wife’s shape into her, the feeling of hands and large tentacles that help her. The ache of her own desire, she feels all of the Emperor within her, and it makes her moan from deep within her chest, a sound extracted from the darkest chambers of her heart. If she moves immediately, it feels like she could come. Instead she lets herself acclimate, she allows herself to wait, to enjoy all other sensations that amplify this one: the Emperor’s hands that greedily fill themselves with the softness of her thighs and the curves of her backside, the large black tentacles around her waist, that tease her by slipping between her breasts, aching and covered in the Emperor’s love, admiring how her pulsing gems look amongst the thick tentacles.

“O Night….” The great entity breathes, her hands moving from her wife’s thighs to the inward curve of her waist. She holds the goddess in place as she as she completes their joining, into the darkness of the Night. “I am yours.”

The heart-gorged pomegranates pulse.

—

A dream gestates in the mind of the eldest Queen. She dreams of an ovomorph, black and violet and glittering with stars.

—

The Night Incarnate slows her movements after this last orgasm, hips rocking steadily to just barely, enough to keep herself and the Emperor in a joint state of hungering desire, desperate for one another. Hands pressing firmly on the great chest of her wife, fingers that run the length of her body and slide deeply into every possible entry point, every hole, every void, every formation opening up to her.

Beneath her, the Emperor’s head lay back into the klinai, her vantablack hair spilling over the plush cushions and onto the title floor, strands mixing with her black tentacles that remain still during this intermission. How unspeakably beautiful she looks: the glazed look of desire in her strange eyes, vibrating, consumed by pleasure, her mouth unable to form coherent sentences, only Nyx’s name repeated over and over and over again in her abyssal deep voice, her earrings of darkness Nyx gave the Emperor pulsing amongst the black of the entity’s hair, shifting slightly whenever she moves her head.

Nyx looks down to admire her work, drinking in the sight underneath her, her starlight eyes intense and bright as they move over the Emperor’s body.

A soft moan leaves her as she begins to feel her wife move her hips again, letting out a deep breath to release the tightness in her chest as she sets a pace and position that she likes. Tentacles replace her hands to hold the goddess in place, her hands now free to have all of Nyx’s body, hands that indulge themselves in every curve and all of her flesh, hands that exist to pleasure her and caress her, hands that exist to worship all of her. The Night falls in love with the Emperor all over again, the feeling of making her heart glow like the core of a star. New deep violet nebulae form in her hair, the pinpoints of light and dark matter creating new formations, stellar nurseries born from the way her body processes the Emperor’s black tar, wombs that will birth black suns that cast entire words in crushing darkness and take away all color.

Strands of midnight black spill over her shoulders, the sections unaffected by gravity flare out, revealing the infinite dark, full of stars.

A particular thrust, sharp and deep, sends her over the edge once more. Nyx’s orgasm is hard, it makes her moan in ways that are only reserved for the Emperor’s ears and the heart-shaped pomegranates, her voice contained within this dark sanctuary. She is so beautiful when she comes. Veins darken underneath her pale skin as the black ichor within her rushes throughout her body. Parts of her body open upon to pure darkness, violet and full of stars older than the ones in her hair, older than the Milky Way, aging within the infinite void until they are ripe, until they can be fed to Extinction. Nyx leans forward, her hands pressing down on her wife’s chest, fingers sinking into holes to hold onto her as she moves her hips, each time taking her wife within her deeper and harder until it touches a point within her that unleashes pure ecstasy, pleasure so potent and euphoric that it takes away all semblance of thought; there is only desire, there is only lust, there is only pleasure so beautiful and raw that it should only be experienced by the Night and Extinction.

It does not take long for the Emperor to follow Nyx. That single motion makes her arch her back and tentacles make way for her hands the hold onto the goddess’s waist, keeping her in place as she fills her with her dark material, essence eager to be within the darkness of the Night. In her ecstasy, Nyx moans the true name of her wife, the word escaping her violet lips, the word drenched in her pleasure, drawn out by the way her orgasm waxes and wanes. Nyx loves the Emperor’s true name, loves the way it feels upon her tongue, loves to say it during these moments; a word so perfect that only few beings in the entire universe are allowed to utter it. The way her ethereal voice says the word, colored and crowned in the aura of their their lovemaking, their unending desire for one another, is the Emperor’s favorite.

The Night keeps her wife in their world of pleasure for just a little longer. She watches the great entity’s eyes vibrate with an intensity, her black mouth agape, her pulse racing just beneath her fingertips; her orgasm coming in waves and surges that are intense and all-consuming. A dark flush creeps along the angles of the Emperor’s scarred face, her hips pressing into Nyx’s as she sought to push herself in deeper. “Oh…. Nyx….”

“That’s it.” The goddess encourages the great entity, praise accompanied by ethereal moans from the way everything within her feels, warmth and love that mixes underneath her skin and into the rich black ichor within her. Nyx commands her, guides her, coaxing everything out of her. “Give me everything, O Extinction, my love. Everything, everything.”

Her hands drift downward, pale fingers tightly holding onto the Emperor’s waist as she feels her beneath her, she listens to her wife’s voice make such pleasingly deep sounds as her ecstasy is drawn own, extended for as long as she wants, as long as she commands. Underneath her fingers is her wife’s pulse; the goddess feels it everywhere, between her thighs, deep within her core, the sound engulfing her, the thrum as thick and dark as the pulsating heart-shaped pomegranates. She feels her own heartbeat begin to sync with the Emperor’s every pulse in perfect time, everywhere within her body, every point of stimulation entering her; heavy, rich, concentrated in the darkness of the garden. The Night tightens her grip on her wife as she comes again, as she opens herself again, she moans again and again as the Emperor affixes herself to the deepest part of her and gives her everything. All of her love and all of her black tar, binding them together, their souls and their flesh and their insides becoming the same.

Within the goddess, the Emperor’s material becomes the endless night, the darkness at the end of everything. All of it for the Night Incarnate, only for her, made to be within her, made to saturate her cells, her organs, her atoms. All of it for Nyx.

Stars across the universe age rapidly, they are on the verge of death.

The Emperor is warm when everything ends. Warm like when she indulges in the Old Worm’s spice melange. Nyx would extend their mutual pleasure more, but they are both thoroughly spent and satisfied. This is what Nyx wanted when she summoned her wife to her, the stress and tension within her gone now.

When she no longer feels her wife inside her, the goddess crawls further up her large frame. She holds the entity’s face and kisses her. Kisses, kisses, kisses with a hunger, an endless and insatiable craving for the Emperor. She deepens her kisses, parting her mouth in a way that encourages the Emperor to do the same, letting the Night claim her, letting the Night into her.

Slender fingers trace the lines of her wife’s face with a gentleness, the Night marvels at the Emperor, venerates her being as she strokes her vantablack hair. “I love you. In ways that are beyond words, O Extinction,” Nyx says between adorations, her celestial voice even more beautiful after all of their lovemaking, the afterglow making the stars within her hair bright and ripe. “You are mine. You are so beautiful and you are mine.” She rests her head in the crook of her wife’s neck, forehead pressed against the black ridges of her biomechanical exterior. “When I look at you, when I touch you, I am filled with happiness, a joy unending.”

The Emperor gently caresses the goddess’s face, long fingers and sharp talons carefully smoothing over her cheek, carefully running through her midnight black hair. Her terrifying eyes are soft from their love, having calmed down from her sustained ecstasy. “I love you. My beautiful Night.” The sound of her abyssal, machine voice, that teeth-rattling baritone that for her is lowered to its absolute depths, makes the Night Incarnate shiver delightfully, she feels every syllable in her spine, she feels heat blooming beneath her pale cheeks. “I happily belong to you. My goddess, my wife, my Empress, my Eternal Night.”

Nyx smiles softly as she feels the Emperor pull her closer, where their bodies fit together perfectly. In the dark of the garden, her pale flesh has a soft glow to it, all the stars that will be born and all the stars that will die, full of love. The Emperor wraps both of her arms and her tail around her tightly, which makes the Night endlessly happy, being held in her eternal embrace; she presses herself even closer in the hopes that the strangeness of her wife’s shape will imprint into the softness of her flesh.

The goddess glances up and sees how enlarged the heart-shaped pomegranates became, how they pulsed like actual hearts, thumping loudly in time with her own and the Emperor’s. She rests her head on her wife’s chest, fingers once again moving over the biomechanical exterior.

“Come back with me to the Ziggurat,” the Emperor says sleepily while placing lazy kisses on the column of her wife’s neck.

Nyx hums softly, at the offer. It is tempting. She has not kept track of how long they have been here, not that it matters, because now her responsibilities call to her, pull at the thoughts in her mind even as she enjoys the new set of kisses on top of the others that already adorn her neck. She should go with her, go back to the place that is her true home, that dark place where she is surrounded by the Emperor’s daughters. The goddess’s starlight eyes look at the Emperor’s tired face, at the deep circles underneath her strange eyes, how they yearn to close but only if Nyx is in her arms. Violet lips capture the scarred black ones of her wife, deep enough and tender enough to keep her awake just before she slips from her embrace and stands before the klinai and the lounging form of her wife. “I just have a couple more things to do and then I will be home.”

It takes no effort for the Night Incarnate to get dressed. A wave of her hand and she is one again in her violet peplos and adorned with gold around her neck and shoulders, violet gems and sapphires and ruby-eyed skulls adorning her chest and in her hair. From afar, it is seem as if all she did was enjoy a nice moment of peace in the garden with the Emperor. The truth is in the details. Nyx touches her thigh as she remembers all the kisses her wife left behind, her hand gently touching her chest, carefully tracing the black lipstick markings could be faintly seen. Details of secrets for her to enjoy and to make the time pass by quickly. The Ziggurat and the Black Palace call her home.

“Will you walk with me back to the House?” The goddess asks, turning around to see the Emperor rise to her full height, towering over her. “I do not want you to leave just yet, my love.” Woven in between her words is the desire to show off her wife.

“Anything for you, my goddess,” the Emperor replied as she pulls on her imperial robe, her tentacles adjusting her long hair so it lays perfectly down her back and between her other tentacles. Nyx eyes follow the line of the robe, the faint silhouette of the Emperor’s shape before the black and turquoise fabric settled to conceal her, gold starlight following the embroidered turquoise tentacles of R’lyeh down the collar and hem of the exquisitely made garment, a gift from the Great Sleeper and his beautiful wife Idh-yaa. A knowing smile graces the Night’s lips as she examines her work, the violet lipstick markings that adorn the Emperor’s neck, her chest, and her thighs. Pride makes her eyes brighter as she takes one of the larger tentacles offered to her.

“I would greatly enjoy what you told me earlier,” the Emperor says as they cross the threshold of the garden and into the East Hall where vases overflowing with irises await the Night Incarnate. Beneath her stoic mask, Nyx is ecstatic, it takes all of her self control to maintain her composure, even as another of her the Emperor’s tentacles caresses her face.

The Emperor offers her hand, to which Nyx leaves takes, her feet once again leaving the ground. “If my wife wants thousands of daughters, then she shall have thousands of daughters.”

Night and Extinction kiss with renewed passion born from their eternal desire and hunger for each other, amongst the irises, uncaring of who might see them. The stars that congregate in the darkness and ash of the House of Hades shiver. In Persephone’s garden, the heart-shaped pomegranates pulse.

[wyvernspirit]

im actually looping 2 playlists i made for my braintrot rn

one is based on Gem this season of secret life

and the other is for Shiny Duo in secret life

[veryintricaterituals]

What if I stabbed you and you poisoned me and I torched all of our possessions and burned down our house (and we were both girls 👉👈)

[theeyeofthetigger]

Catching up on the demon slayer anime while there’s also new RWBY was very inspiring

[eddis-not-eeddis]

1 Peter 3: 1-4 

Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives;

2 While they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear.

3 Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel;

4 But let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.

I'm just saying. If verse three prohibits me from braiding my hair or wearing jewelry, it also prohibits me from wearing clothing.

[fairandfatalasfair]

Saw Dune part 2

It is... really obvious that this is a story that is suffering from having not bothered to set up the essential pieces of its worldbuilding, and also not having thought very much about how the pieces it did use are supposed to fit together...and as a result they made a story that never quite makes complete sense, and doesn't really engage that effectively with its themes, and the relationship dynamics fall flat.

And like... I get that the worldbuilding of Dune is very complicated and it's hard to fit all of those details in. But the result is a narrative that's not really grounded in cause and effect and instead is just grabbing for cool visuals and playing up the religious fanatic imagery, and I found it fell flat.

Like it's fine. And Chalamet continues to do a better job with the character than I was expecting. But the writing is just all over the place.

[baldurianbookhoarder]

In the end game credits, there is a "Thank You from the team" section where everyone who worked on the game got to shout out whoever they wanted. These were my personal favourites.

[protonpowered]

Look me in the eyes and tell me Emperor Nefarious doesn't have commitment issues

[starkwlkr]

happy life, happy wife | hugh jackman

an: “you attract what you fear” GUYS IM SO SCARED OF A 55 YEAR OLD AUSTRALIAN 😭 definitely thinking about making marvel actress!reader x hugh an actual series… i have ideas

marvel actress!reader

Deadpool & Wolverine Press tour - Hot Ones

Hugh felt like he was going to die. Each wing was getting hotter and hotter, but immediately when he heard his wife’s name he forgot all about the spice.

“Hugh, your wife is part of the Avengers, how does it feel having your wife be part of such a huge franchise? Have you two talked about a potential team up with the X-men and the Avengers?” Sean asked.

“My wife . . . Oh god, I think I’m crying-”

“I can’t tell if you’re legitimately dying or completely in love with your wife.” Ryan told Hugh.

“Wait . . I am completely in love with my wife and I would legitimately die for her.” Hugh gasped as he rearranged Ryan’s words.

“Is that in the contract she made you sign when you married her? ‘I vow to die for you’. My contract said I had to give all my money to my kids and wife.” Ryan said.

“No, she’s amazing, um, if I start talking about her I think I might go on for hours,” he laughed. “Our kids do want to see their parents fighting the bad guys together. We would love to team up, maybe it could happen.” Hugh smiled.

“The entire movie would be them making out and her beating the shit out of you. I’d pay to see that.” Ryan added.

•••

Comic Con 2024

Like RDJ, your last Marvel movie had been Avengers: Endgame. After being in ten mcu films, it was time to say goodbye to your character.

But that was in 2019.

At this years comic con, you were back. The cast of Deadpool & Wolverine had taken the stage and showed their appreciation for the fans. After their panel, it was time to announce Marvel’s upcoming projects. Kevin Feige announced the Fantastic Four, Thunderbolts, Captain America 4, and finally the new Avengers movies, which everyone was extremely excited about.

After showing the title card for the upcoming Avengers film, Kevin turned to the audience.

“Something people have been asking, as of late, is who the heck is going to direct these two movies?” The audience clapped.

From the side of the stage, you were nervous. What if the fans didn’t like the idea of you directing the next two Avengers films? Your worrying caused Hugh to come to your rescue.

“Hey, they loved you as an Avenger, they will love you even more.” Hugh kissed your forehead. “If anyone says anything about this decision, they have me to deal with.”

You laughed at his words. “I really love you so much.”

“Love you too, bub.” Hugh was about to kiss you when Ryan cut in.

“I really love us too. I convinced half of the people here that we’re a throuple.” He said in the most serious tone ever.

Kevin announced you as the director. Your doubt of the fans not liking the announcement was proven wrong when you walked the stairs to the stage and stood next to Kevin. They cheered when they saw you were back.

As you said a few words, thanking Marvel, Kevin and the fans, you were being recorded by Hugh, who was being recorded by Ryan.

“That’s my wife!” Hugh cheered from backstage, holding his phone in his hand.

“She’s Marvel Jesus now, holy shit!”

•••

WIRED autocomplete interview

“Is Hugh Jackman married?”

“Yes, to me, Y/n, probably to half the population,” Ryan answered. “He’s Australia’s biggest slut.”

“All the times, I proposed.” Hugh laughed. “But yes, I am married and I love my wife very much. She’s stuck with me forever.” He lifted his hand to show off the wedding band.

“Funny, because she texted me right now. Her and Blake are in the courthouse getting married. So Deadpool three was actually made so our wives could divorce us and marry each other.”

[oldxenomorph]

spice of eternity

pairing: nyx/the reaper emperor warnings: drug use (spice melange), sexual content (alien anatomy, nyx being a soft dom, orgasm delay). 18+ summary: shai-hulud's gift is best enjoyed in the company of one's soulmate.

The Emperor opens her strange eyes that reveal eternity and the death of stars; spice is as essential to the universe as extinction and chaos, it is an engine. She looks at the Night Incarnate, studying her through a heavily lidded gaze. The stars around Nyx’s head shiver; the Emperor could eat them, swallow them whole.

---

Spice burns blue and a small amount can burn for hours.

The Emperor lounges amongst cushions and pillows as she breathes deeply from the long and elaborate kiseru pipe, the minuscule amount of spice in it burning bright embers when it comes in contact with the fresh oxygen from her inhalation. When the entity exhales after holding it in her lungs, plumes of intense blue emerge from her mouth and nose. The smoke creates a deep blue haze in the vast room, like an azure veil that conceals her and the shapes of her daughters that surround her, curled up against her and amongst her tentacles.

Shai-Hulud’s gift reacts differently for her than it does to organic life. The Emperor’s cold body feels warm, it reminds her of when she was a child curled up in her sibling’s protective embrace, when the universe was young. Her body becomes heavier, more tired; spice beckons her to rest, to close her eyes, to be enshrouded and engulfed by its blue smoke. Warmth blooms underneath her sharp and hollow cheeks, it crawls to the tips of her long fingers, it congregates in her chest and forms itself into a mass, a young star on the precipice of being fed to a black hole. 

Her free hand idly cradles the head of one of her daughters that has claimed her lap, sound asleep. A spidery thumb repeats the same motion, smoothing over the biomechanical structure of the xenomorph’s cheek, talons careful not to disturb her slumber. The room is full of xenomorphs, lazy and curled up amongst each other, amongst the softness of cushions and pillows, comfortable and content with where they are because they have their mother all to themselves. 

Whenever the entity exhales, there is blue, it replaces her breath. Spice makes her body its home while she indulges in it. She leans her head back against a cushion, her red and black eyes half lidded as she watches the streams of blue rising up into the Ziggurat’s darkness. The building itself facilitates this altered state, shaping itself around her mind, the low thrum mixes with the blue haze that permeates everything, seeps into everything. The inside of her mouth becomes stained, spice mixing with black tar, black tentacles, to create ultramarine. The longer she indulges in Shai-Hulud’s gift, the more sensitive her body becomes. Memories of the past give way to the present.

In the blue of the Old Worm’s spice, the Emperor sees the figure of her goddess wife, the Night Incarnate. She sees her shape, the smoke forming the flowing silk of her regal peplos, her beautiful hair that always seems unaffected by gravity. Embers create the stars and constellations in her hair, around the crown of her head; the brightest embers form her eyes, hot and intense like the Pleiades. The Emperor gets lost in this vision of celestial beauty, the way it looks at her, beckons her; the vast of night in all her glory, all the stars that yearn to be eaten, to be fed to her, heavy and eager to die.

The door on the far side of the room hisses open, granting access to a figure clad in an ancient, flowing, violet dress. A figure that looks so much like the one the spice melange formed for the Emperor. When they get closer, carefully navigating the room full of sleeping daughters, the entity’s scarred and pitch black lips form a lazy smile.

Nyx parts the veil of smoke.

“I thought I might find you here.”

Red and black eyes look up at the goddess towering above her, a sight that the Emperor always enjoys. Nyx must have recently ended her shift in the Underworld and changed out of her heavy ornamentation. The Emperor exhales and blue begins to curl around her wife, inviting her to come closer. Spice makes the violet she wears saturated and vibrant, it makes the darkness in her jewels pulse in a rhythm meant only for her, alluring, irresistible. Spice makes the gold she wears vibrate with the same frequency as the gold from Carcosa; yellow that is alive, frenzied, and full of eyes. A hum leaves the great entity.

“I did not know I was hiding.” Blue seeps through her black teeth whenever her lips part, whenever she speaks. “Sit with me, my beautiful Night. I have missed you all day.”

Dark amethyst lips pull into a smile and the Night Incarnate takes her place next to the Emperor, who wraps one of her tentacles around her, pulling her closer. The goddess rests her head in the crook of her wife’s neck, while she places a hand on the entity’s middle section, slender fingers idly tracing the lines and ridges and textures of her biomechanical exterior. A low sound emanates from the Emperor, enjoying the touch of Nyx’s cool fingers against her body, how they offer relief from the warmth inside her. The Emperor lazily kisses her forehead, next to the jewel of darkness, her fingers finding themselves in her hair, running through strands of midnight blackness and constellations, stellar formations broken apart and brought back together with every slow movement. 

The two of them stay like this for a while, until Nyx’s hand moves upwards, sliding up the Emperor’s sternum, and cups her face while she places soft kisses on her neck, her lipstick leaving behind faint violet imprints. The Emperor breathes deeply, a sound escaping her. She captures the Night’s lips, her kiss deep and hungry, lingering, insatiable even when it turns soft and sweet. Spice and smoke in her mouth seeks the Night, it wants to crawl into her body.

The xenomorph resting in the Emperor’s lap makes a disapproving clicking sound. 

“I believe your daughters have spoken.” Nyx pulls away, her hand slipping back to where it was originally. “We have to wait.”

The Emperor makes something akin to a groan, slightly annoyed. Yet she still continues to cradle the xenomorph’s head in her hand, even when her daughter shifts positions, facing away from her. Yet she still requires her mother to continue caressing her cheek, soothing her. 

Still, the protestations of her daughters do not stop the Emperor from staring at her wife. Red and black eyes, their edges now searing with spice-blue, linger on the shape of the Night Herself, watching the way it moves underneath the deep violet silk of her peplos, looking at the way the luxurious fabric falls to reveal her shape. The lines of her body call to her, inviting her gaze, the haze of blue intensifying the entity’s desire for her. Her eyes linger on the jewel of darkness sitting perfectly atop the swell of her breasts, her bare neck that begs to be covered by markings from her black lipstick. It takes all of the Emperor’s strength to tear her eyes away.

Another one of the Emperor’s great black tentacles idly wraps around Nyx. It smooths over of her shoulders, settling around her arm and around her waist. The Emperor sinks her head back into the cushions, closing her eyes. She can feel one of her daughters climbing up onto the mountain of softness behind her, situating herself so her eyeless face can be right next to hers, long tail loosely wrapping around her neck. The spice within the pipe continues to burn, wisps of blue smoke rising from it to join the haze that permeates through everything in the room, the dark air becoming replaced with Shai-Hulud’s gift. 

Nyx touches the Emperor’s face, her slender fingers cradling the great entity’s visage, a thumb gently loving over the black of her lips. The Emperor opens her strange eyes that reveal eternity and the death of stars; spice is as essential to the universe as extinction and chaos, it is an engine. She looks at the Night Incarnate, studying her through a heavily lidded gaze. The stars around Nyx’s head shiver; the Emperor could eat them, swallow them whole.

“What does spice taste like to you, my love?”

The Emperor brings the pipe to her lips and inhales deeply, her lungs becoming full of spice. When she exhales, a plume of blue expels from her mouth and a rush of sensations the inform the taste on her tongue and in her throat, the rest remaining in the darkness of her body.

“Star anise. The blessings Azathoth and Shia-Hulud placed upon my cheeks when I was born. The first stars fed to me by Nyarlathotep and Nyog’sothep. The sweetness of our first kiss. The first time I held my daughters, when I named them, when they grew into Queens and I saw the eldest had your colors. Our sons, the end of the universe.” The Emperor’s long fingers ran through Nyx’s hair. “Like our wedding night. It tastes like every one of your kisses and every time you touch me. Like lavender. Like you.”

As she spoke, Nyx’s hand came to rest on her chest, slender fingers gently moving over its biomechanical texture, until it found the perfect place, over the Emperor’s heart. When the entity finished, as stars and constellations coalesced after being split apart, the goddess moves herself until she was eye level and presses her forehead against the entity’s. The violet darkness from the jewel embedded in her flesh meets red scarification as the Emperor leans into her touch, focusing on the new feeling of her wife’s cool hand on her chest.

“May I try?” The goddess asks when she pulls back.

The Emperor hands Nyx the pipe. She watches her wife’s violet lips as they touch the mouth of the pipe, her pale fingers and wisteria nails gently resting on the elaborately decorated stem that depicts the Old Worm of Eternity wrapping around it. Spice in the bowl glows intense with the new intake of oxygen. The Emperor finds herself falling in love with Nyx all over again as she takes in the sight of spice-blue leaving the goddess’s mouth, the edges of her starlight gold eyes become lined with blue, eyes becoming like blue supergiants. Shai-Hulud wants the Night to have this gift, to indulge in its properties. For even she, the darkness of the universe, needs spice.

“What does spice taste like to you, my beautiful Night?”

Nyx hums and exhales, smoke leaving her. The pupils of her eyes dilate slightly as she processes the sensations brought on by partaking in spice.

“Cinnamon. The cradle of Chaos’s voice, their blessings upon my face as the universe was born. The first time I saw you in the Black Palace. Our first kiss. Our lovemaking. The feeling of the black centipede’s legs on my skin. When Nemesis was born and I shaped her to look like you, like us together. Our sons, the end of the universe that looks like you and I.” She holds the pipe up to the Emperor’s lips as she continues, as tendrils of blue smoke and stellar medium slip between her teeth whenever she breathes. “Breathe deeply for me, O Extinction.”

The Emperor obeys and feels the black hole in her chest expand, the event horizon trapping the heat in her body. She brings the pipe up to her lips and takes another long inhale. The spice sits in her lungs for as long as possible, allowing it to fully saturate her insides. When the Emperor exhales, the atmosphere of the room becomes heady, potent. Nyx rewards her wife with a kiss, devouring the rest of the smoke in her mouth.

A chorus of hisses and clicking sounds interrupt the the Emperor and the Night again. In their Rl’yehian dialect, they promise to leave them alone, so long as they get a blessing from their mother. The Emperor can never deny their requests, she would do anything for them. Though it takes a while the Emperor gives each of them a kiss: on their cheeks, on their foreheads, she loves them. The one in her lap is the last one to get up, stretching, taking her time. After she receives a kiss from the Emperor and another one from Nyx, she disappears into the darkness of the Ziggurat, into the labyrinth of vents. 

Then, Night and Extinction are finally alone in this room, in this heavy haze of spice.

Nyx takes the pipe from the Emperor’s hands and draws deep from it. She exhales and the smoke is a magnificent color, intense and royal, the perfection of the darkest night. A free hand runs her slender fingers through the long, vantablack hair of the Emperor, hair so black that it devours everything, light unable to escape it. Nyx holds the pipe up to the Emperor’s mouth. “Again, my beautiful Emperor.” The Emperor obeys, she always obey Nyx. She takes another deep draught of spice, holding it in her lungs again as she gently takes the pipe from her wife and sets it on a silver tray next to the single, small container, a cylinder of spice. The motifs of the Old Worm decorate everything. One of her tentacles pushes the tray away.

Nyx runs her hand down the Emperor’s torso until she reaches a section that only she knows has access to, fingers that know what grooves to fit into, what lines to draw, a sensual ritual to get the Emperor to open up for her. A low sound leaves the great entity as Nyx dips her fingers into her. “You are warm,” she says, her voice tinged with slight surprise at first, wonder the second, lust the third. 

There is a sound of affirmation that leaves the Emperor, the vibrations of the sound coming from deep in her chest, a sound accompanied by a long exhale of blue smoke. The spice has made her pliant and malleable in the Night Incarnate’s hands. Another abyssal sound leaves her as Nyx dips her fingers deeper into her, black tar tinted with the deep blue of spice begins to well her mouth. “Nyx….” Her voice draws out the last syllable as it becomes tangled with another moan. 

“I’ve always enjoyed doing this to you, O Extinction.” The Night Incarnate’s voice is so beautiful, low and ancient and otherworldly, the sound of dark space; it is steady, it demands worship, he commands the Emperor, fills her with awe and desire. “I will not pass up the chance while you are warm.” She sinks her fingers in deeper and the Emperor lets out a slightly louder moan from the shock of pleasure that surges through her system. Her arousal throbs within herself, desperately wanting to emerge, but Nyx continues her ritual, slowly moving her fingers in and out. The Night takes her time, she draws out the Emperor’s ache, her darkness seeps into the great entity. A heavy breath leaves the Emperor, the blue that leaves her mouth an intense color, the mass of warmth inside her now a furnace, like the perpetual burning one inside the Old Worm. 

Hips involuntarily jerk upwards, causing Nyx’s fingers to go deeper, and another shocked moan is punched out of the Emperor. The goddess places a cool hand against the entity’s chest, which she instantly takes, holds onto tightly as her arousal mounts, the ache inside her almost unbearable. Tentacles twist amongst themselves, coiling and gripping anything they can hold. Speech is next to impossible, whatever the Emperor wants to say becomes stuck in her throat, blue-tinged black tar leaking from her mouth, coating her already blackened teeth.

Ah-haha. Nyx’s ethereal laugh cuts through the headiness of the Emperor’s hot arousal and spice. Strands of vantablack hair press against the entity’s scarred, hollow cheek as she turns her head to get a better look at the Night, attracted to the sound, the cushions adjusting to the change in weight. “Patience, my love.” Nyx leans down to place a sweet kiss upon her wife’s black lips. A kiss that lingers, it tempts the great entity, it always leaves her wanting more. Nyx begins to move her fingers again. “The night is young.”

The Emperor’s lets out a deep exhale, blue leaving through her mouth and nose. Nyx’s hand smooths over the biomechanical architecture of her chest, slender fingers dipping into strange textures and touching the darkness in her chest cavity to feel the low vibrations from the sounds she makes; the goddess enjoys it, her serene face bearing a smile, her starlight eyes captivated by the impact her touch and her words have. Extinction is made open and available for the Night Incarnate, her long vantablack hair spilling over cushions and black tentacles, the blue haze making the red of her scars and the violet of her earrings intense. The goddess is playful, she dips her fingers in deeper just to hear the Emperor moan her name loudly; her name is the only thing on Extinction’s lips and the only thought swarming in her mind.

Hips buck sharply and the Emperor groans, a deep sound of pure lust, she feels her ache throb all the way in her gut, her chest, her throat. She desperately wants release, but the goddess instead changes the way she touches her, finally coaxing out her arousal. “Nyx…!” Her wife’s touch makes her melt, her arousal eagerly filling the goddess’s hand; the way slender fingers feel wrapped around her ache nearly undoes her.

“Not yet,” Nyx commands in her ancient voice. The Emperor breathes heavily and makes a low, desperate sound as her wife’s hands leave her. Through the haze in the room and in her eyes, the entity watches as the goddess slips off her peplos, undoing claps and ties and sliding the layers of fabric off her body effortlessly, revealing her perfect form, her body beautiful, immaculate, soft. Red and black eyes watch the way the spice reacts to touching her, blue smoke gliding over her skin, the haze draping over her like gossamer; spice condenses new stars around her head. Nyx moves closer to her and as she gets closer, her hand rests on one of the Emperor’s large tentacles, sliding upward as she positions herself, straddling the great entity between her legs. “I have yet to have you, O Extinction.”

Nyx lowers herself onto the Emperor, taking in all of the entity’s arousal, every inch of her ache and need to the hilt. A drawn-out moan escapes the Emperor, a sound that mixes with the spice as she arches her back, as blue-tinged black begins to leak from her mouth. Her hand rested on the entity’s middle, signaling for her to only move slowly; fingers slipped into oil black grooves and textures, Extinction’s biomechanical body eagerly accepting her, eagerly listening to her. The Emperor’s hands immediately touch her, filling themselves with her softness, needing more contact with her; long and spidery fingers, long black talons, eagerly find the goddess’s thighs, her hips, her waist, her breasts. Nyx leans down, a hand resting on one of the Emperor’s hands that touch her, and claims the entity’s black lips in a hungry, spice-laced kiss.

“Savor me, my love,” the Night says when she pulls away, her body straightens upright, resuming her control over the entity as she begins to ride her. The Emperor obeys, her hips moving slowly, lazily, the heaviness of her body made heavier by the spice; she focuses on the warmth engulfing warmth, intoxicating warmth, her hands filling themselves with her wife’s flesh, the curves of her body. She lets out a deep moan, something from the core of her gut and chest as she controls herself, as the hot and all consuming desire from since her wife first touched her continues to build up. The Night devours her with pleasure and lovemaking, those starlight eyes bright and hungry, spice-blue light, the color of the hottest stars, burning at the edges.

A couple of the Emperor’s tentacles rise to wrap around her wife’s waist. Tendrils of blue smoke twist themselves amongst the wet and writhing black tentacles in her mouth. Her sensory field narrows, there is only warmth and softness. The warmth around her, the heat within her, the softness of Nyx’s body. A moan leaves her as her hips find a slow rhythm, pace and movement that lets her feel all of her wife, that sustains her ache for as long as Nyx wants, that elicits such songs of pleasure from the dark lips of the Night Herself.

“You’ve been so good for me,” Nyx rewards her with praise, leaning forward to touch the Emperor’s face, her hand snaking downwards to rest over her heart, the black hole pulsating in her chest. “Beautiful and all for me.” Through her haze of arousal and lust and spice, the Emperor observes her wife’s state: she sees the blue tinge that lines her golden eyes vibrate, feels the black ichor in her new blue-black veins pulse underneath her fingertips, the softness of her flesh that craves stimulation, the bruising flush of her cheeks. Her hair is so beautiful, a curtain of night, full of stars.

The Emperor falls in love with Nyx again and again and again. Every time she looks at her, every time she hears her speak, every time she looks at her. She loves relinquishing control over to the Night Incarnate, her beautiful Eternal Night, her Empress. Nyx begins to ride her harder, both of her hands now on the Emperor’s chest, pressing down. The Emperor is ready to give her what she wants, ready to finally be allowed to climax, to pour herself into her wife. A deep breath causes blue to expel from her mouth the same time she let out another moan, words mangled and incoherent, rendered only as a deep sound; the blue smoke of burning spice slips over the Night’s body, caresses her, sinks into her, the whisper of a touch along the curves of her shape.

Nyx’s hair spills over her shoulders. Her perfect, beautiful face shows all the signs of pleasure: brows knitting together and upwards, the light of her eyes intensifying, the dark flush of her cheeks becoming deeper, her mouth slightly open. Smoke crawls into her body with every inhale. Her earrings jingle softly, movement making the gems of darkness clink against one another. As her wife’s hips move faster, harder, the Emperor reaches upwards to touch the Night’s face and bring her down for kisses, sweet and hungry kisses on her lips, her cheeks, her neck.

Violet lips kiss her back, desperate and greedy kisses that claimed the Emperor. Captivating, deep violet lips, now tinged with spice-indigo, parting to allow speech, her sensual, celestial voice finally saying the words the Emperor longed to hear since she first felt her wife’s touch. “Give me everything. Worship me.”

Hands and tentacles hold onto the goddess tightly as the Emperor fully indulges in bringing her wife to orgasm in tandem with her own. Even through the haze, she works towards that zenith of pure, raw, ultimate pleasure. She wants to reach that point with her wife, who guided her here, joined together by the same spice-imbued air, now soon to be joined again by the same spice-infused black tar. When the great entity exhales, when she lets out a moan, blue curls around the goddess.

There is only the name of the Night Incarnate in her mouth, her name caressed by black tentacles and blue spice, as she sinks as deep as she could into the goddess and fills her core. Her own orgasm was intense, she arches her back, pressing herself deeper into her wife as she gave her everything inside her: every atom of love, every future kiss, every night and hour joined together in absolute desire. The spice joins them in visions of every possible way the universe will end, of every child they will have in every eternity. The Emperor feels Nyx’s hips stutter to an end, the goddess pressing her weight down onto her to ensure she was as deep within her, tightening around her; she repeats Extinction’s true name over and over again, bursting from her celestial voice like a song.

Spice blessed by the names of Night and Extinction.

They lay in each other’s arms, exhausted, completely spent. Nyx presses her ear to the Emperor’s chest, listening to the hard pulsating sound of the black hole deep within, like a heartbeat thumping in the darkness. (Inside the Emperor are the songs of the end, the hum of Reapers communicating with each other, the sound of the Ziggurat and the Black Palace merging into one, coalescing noise. Inside the Emperor is the sound of a primordial supermassive black hole.) Her eyes glow with she incandescence of stars fated to die as supernovas, their glow intensified by the haze and by her afterglow. The Emperor runs a hand through her wife’s hair, long and spidery fingers slowly passing through stars and darkness. Such a motion is difficult to maintain, the spice makes the Emperor’s body heavy and their lovemaking has drained her of energy.

When Nyx separates from her, she pulls her wife into an embrace, holding her head to her chest, letting the great entity be lulled by her own heartbeat, the dark of her heart a magnificent and eternal machine. The Emperor hears interstellar space, the dark space between the stars and separates galaxies. She hears dark matter and dark energy whispering her name, an echo of Nyx’s voice. She hears nebulae churning, interstellar medium fermenting and growing new stars, ready for the Night to place in their fated quadrants. “My beautiful Emperor.” The Emperor looks up at her and accepts her slow kisses and the blessings she places on her face, her cheeks, her forehead. “Perfect for me,” the Night says in between kisses. “My beautiful, perfect wife.”

The Emperor adjusts her position as Nyx’s embrace loosens. She lays on her side, her head fully enjoying the plush softness of the pillows, and holds out her arm for Nyx to join her. The goddess joins her, also laying on her side as the Emperor lets her arm drape over her curves, her tentacles wrapping around her in loving embrace. Is does not take long for the two of them to fall asleep, happy and content, warm and loved.

The spice in the pipe continues to burn, thickening the haze that envelops the two entities.

[evilminji]

I woke up to this thought? And it made me smile~

Wrong way Au?

It's EASY to fly from point A to point B. Linear. Just on long, no traffic, straight line. And if you get lost? Go higher! There you are! But "normal" reporter families with Totally Human genetics can't exactly DO that.

Plus? It's part of the whole Americana thing!

Childhood.

Gotta do a road trip, see weird road side attractions, camp and hike a bit. Go somewhere other then the farm for once. Soooo~ everyone into the car! Yes, you too, Kon.

And don't look at Lois, kids. She hates this idea as much as you do. But it's for Dad. So we're doing it. Get in the car. Some times loving people means "suuuure, honey! I TOTALLY want to sit in an uncomfortable car for hours for your nostalgic dream trip!", so get comfy.

Problem is? He either can't navigate for SHIT (unlikely) or this patch of nowhere? Possibly haunted? Cursed? Fuckey. Very, very Reality Fuckey. Far more likely, honestly. They THINK that was the a same barn the passed four times now... but it looks... wrong? Off. Worse each time, in ways that are hard to place.

Where the FUCK are they Clark?

According to the GPS?

Here.

(You are Here. You are Here. You are He-)

Oh, THAT'S not cursed! She fucking KNEW they shouldn't have left the city. FUCK the countryside. She likes ONE(1) small town and it's where her in-laws live, THANK YOU VERY MUCH! If they die, she swear to GOD-!!!

Then Jon points to colorful tents up the road. A mix of the kind you buy at big box stores and Ren fairs. Balloons. What the fuuuuuck? "Fenton Family Reunion"?

Was... was that THERE a second ago?

Clark's very deliberate Not Too Tight Grip Of Panic ™ on the steering wheel? Confirms that No Honey, it was not. Kon points out? That eventually they ARE going to run out of gas. They should stop.

Words can not express how little the Kents want to do that. They have KIDS to protect. This feels "magical fuckery" to them. AKA? One of the few things Kryptonians very much CAN NOT handle.

And luck getting ahold of anybody back there kids? No? Emergency lines too?

Fuck ™.

Okay! Guess we're stopping! Stay behind us.

They park.

There are campers and trucks, modified tanks and trackers. A few horses grazing side by side with an honest to God moose and two mules. A Llama. Someone's anchored a dirigible. A boat with spindly chicken footed legs, like it's the house of baba yaga's sea faring love child. The name Fenton is slapped on everything. Peoples faces.

Grinning.

Everything grinning.

As they get closer, the racket gets louder. Crashes and smashes. Roaring laughter. Explosions. The screech of metal failing and the whine of energy overclocked. Fatty meats cooking. Spices from around the globe. Radios and instruments, at least one of which violently cuts off in a smash.

They pass an almost violently balloon choked arch, into chaos.

Grinning giants, everywhere. Every color, every shade, every race imaginable. The spectrum of humanity laid bare. Made large. Grinning, Grinning, Grinning. Crashing into each other, against, through. Smashing and laughing, as everything breaks around them. Titans.

Darting underfoot, children. Fast with wild eyes. Mad grins and fae laughs. Wives and husband's, partners and friends, dancing in and out of the chaos. Just as destructive. Perhaps MORE so. Grabbing meals from grills, laughing and joking, tossing children into the fray, all as they effortless hold conversations of their own.

Like a Dionysian revelry, all madness and joy.

Then they are noticed.

"Cousin!"

One of them booms. Locking eyes on Clark. He doesn't even have time to move, doesn't realize until too late, in all the chaos, that the man meant HIM. A running start is followed by a brutal, full body, flying tackle. Clark is taken skidding to the ground and into a headlock.

"LETS WRASTLE~!!"

He watches in helpless confusion as, with high-pitched war cries, a pair of twins jump Jon. They are wearing war paint. Krypto already taken out by a glowing green dog, now confused and wrestling off to the side. Lois has whipped out her tazer. Kon between her and who ever comes next.

By the time he wrestle his "cousin" off of him, he's lost sight of them both.

Dives into the fray.

Magic be damned, that's his FAMILY!

It... It's the most fun he's had in years. That any of them have. He finds Lois in a breathless, screaming, debate/fistfight with her new best friend. Samantha "call me Sam Or ELSE" Manson-Fouley-Fenton. Kon is in the mud pit, wrestling other teenagers in some sort of battle Royale. Jon? Has become king of the ferals. The other parents are impressed.

His years of Damian wrangling finally paying dividends, apparently.

By the time Clark FINALLY tracks down Krypto, there is already crowd and it apparently six heel turns deep into the WWE Grand Saga of the Fenton Pet's League. Krypto, what the hell. No. No you may NOT "form one last alliance against my sworn wrestling enemy, to prove the true meaning of Christmas!" It's the middle of SUMMER!

Clark... Clark is so tired.

He's also a Fenton now. Yes, he KNOWS that's not how anything works. YOU try explaining that! He's on the call list and card list. It's like the Addams family out here! They just... just DECIDED him and his family were related! They've apparently DONE THAT BEFORE!

They leave with directions, fudge, more leftovers then anyone could possibly eat, and a massive new extended family. One that honestly? The Justice League SHOULD have known about. The sheer destructive chaos they get up too? EVERYONE should be aware of them. It seems impossible NOT to be! But? According to THEM, it's a "family thing". Reality tries to ignore them for "it's own sanity"? What???

So yeah.... no more road trips.

How was YOUR weekend?

@hdgnj @legitimatesatanspawn @nerdpoe @the-witchhunter @lolottes @babbling-babull @dcxdpdabbles @hypewinter @mutable-manifestation

[zepskies]

Maybe More Than Enough

Pairing: Dean Winchester x F. Reader

Summary: You’ve been a friend and ally to the Winchester brothers for years, but you and Dean break new ground while on a stakeout to catch a witch.

AN: Here’s another entry for @jacklesversebingo! It’s also based on a request from one of my lovely Patreon members: @lacilou. 💜

Prompt: Window—Letter Opener—Binoculars

Request: I'd love to read about Dean and the reader who's his age or even a little older.

Song Inspo: “Over the Hills and Far Away” by Led Zeppelin

Word Count: 2.9K

Tags/Warnings: A bit of angst, bit of hurt/comfort, bit of spice.~

💜 Jacklesverse Bingo Masterlist

Discreetly from the passenger side of the car, you peered through the binoculars again. Your target was in view through the unusual circular window: an average looking white man in his fifties, peeling a tangerine from the comfort of his kitchen.

According to his driver’s license, his name was Martin Reynolds. Sam was investigating the sudden death of his wife, Laura, and the wives of two other men in the small town of Whitebury, Mississippi. Laura was the first victim, so you and Dean were watching Martin for any suspicious activity.

Your companion shifted in his seat. You could hear the give of the well-worn leather against denim. The Impala wasn’t exactly inconspicuous for a stakeout, but he refused to be trapped in your “tiny-ass” Toyota Camry all afternoon. You preferred the term compact.

“What’s our he-witch up to?” Dean asked.

Your lips twitched at a smile.

“We don’t know if he’s a witch,” you said, but you passed him the binoculars.

Dean’s mouth quirked to one side before he took a look. “Well, he probably isn’t a shifter.”

“What makes you say that?”

He gestured back at the window and gave you back the binoculars. You peered over and saw that Martin had half the tangerine in his mouth while he opened his mail with a letter opener. It flashed like silver in the afternoon light.

“If that is silver, it would rule out a lot of things,” you agreed, “but it still wouldn’t tell us why he killed his wife.”

Dean looked over as a white Porsche pulled into Martin’s driveway.

“Hmm, well, I’d say motive is comin’ in hot. Literally,” he said, watching intently when a young woman stepped out of the car. Her dress was as tight as the ponytail tied high on her head, a coil of blonde bouncing down her back.

You sighed, with a roll of your eyes. “Typical.”

You noticed the way Dean’s smirk wiped the boredom away from his eyes. It was annoyingly handsome, along with the neatly trimmed stubble across his cheeks, framing a strong jaw and the enticing bow of his lips. You had to resolve to ignore all of it, heaving a small sigh.

You wedged the binoculars between you both and toyed with the silver rings on your fingers—both a fashion statement and a safety precaution.

“Could be a demon deal,” you said. “Three men sporting Touch of Gray, three wives over 40.”

“Damn. That’s cold,” Dean shook his head, crossing his arms from the driver’s seat. Always from the driver’s seat. “That’d be pretty cut and dry though. Downright stereotypical.”

You gave him a smile. “Since when do you like it complicated?”

“Like it?” he scoffed. “What I like and what I get are on two different fucking hemispheres.”

You sensed bitterness there, underneath the dry remark. You looked away from the scene in the kitchen where Martin was pouring Barbie, his presumed girlfriend, a glass of white wine. Just like you thought, Dean’s brief good humor faded, falling into his resting state. It was a harder look than you were used to seeing on him over the years. His lighter, devil-may-care attitude in his younger days seemed to gain a little bit of edge every time you saw him next.

A few decades of bullshit, blood, and loss will do that to you.

But every time he called, you answered.

“You okay?” you asked. You tried to hide the depths of your concern, but maybe you just weren’t good enough. Dean glanced at you and forced his crunched brows to relax, as if he’d caught himself opening the hatch a little too much. Letting his true depths come to light a little too long.   

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m good,” he replied.

Sure. Always good.

You met him with a long look, your head rolling onto your shoulder.

“Hey. You can be honest with me, you know,” you reminded him. “What, you think I’m gonna tell Sam all your secrets?”

Dean smiled a little, but he shook his head, remaining stubborn.

“Look, I’m fine. Just the usual bullshit,” he said. “Nothing you gotta be dragged into.”

You frowned. “What, aside from this hunt? Aside from the last ten years of bailing your ass out?”

That last part was more joking. The truth was, Sam and Dean had helped you just as often as you’d tried to help them.

Now, Dean just shook his head. The fact that he didn’t levy back a smartass response further let you know that something was off with him. 

You bumped his arm lightly over his jacket.

“Come on, tell me all about your man feelings,” you teased. It had its intended effect, bringing a reluctant smile to Dean’s lips. He shot you a look, and you couldn’t help but admire how the dimming sun caught in his eyes, that pale green.

“Whatever. Like I said, I’m good,” he said, deflecting further by turning up his music. Yet another Led Zeppelin song was playing, but at least this one was more mellow. The guitar riff filled the car at a moderate volume. You guys were still on a stakeout, after all.

You shook your head, despite your smile. “You sound like a grumpy old man.”

His brows popped up. “Old?”

You shrugged impishly.

“‘Cause if I’m not mistaken, you’ve got a bit more mileage than I do,” he retorted.

You laughed, shoving his shoulder.   

“Well, that’s just rude,” you said. “You’re not even a year behind me. Matter of fact, you’re just a few steps shy of Touch of Gray in there. I can even help you find your shade. I’m thinking, what, medium brown with a hint of silver fox? Could be very George Clooney.”     

The disgruntled look on Dean’s face had you dying.

“Now that’s just uncalled for,” he said, even though his lips were curving upward at the sound of your laughter. Without you knowing, he took in the infectious sound, and the way you pressed the back of your hand against his arm while you tried to get ahold of yourself. It was everything he’d ever liked about you.

Easy. That was what it was, being with you.

The hard part always came afterward, watching you leave.

Letting you leave.

“It’s just…I don’t know,” you said, biting into your lower lip. You smudged your lipstick there, a dark, juicy red. It was distracting enough that Dean almost missed what you said next.

“You seem weighed down.” Your eyes were more serious then, beautiful and warm in their honesty. “Every time I see you, it’s like you’ve got fifty more pounds on your shoulders.”

Dean didn’t have an answer for you, even as he held your gaze.

His cell phone ringing cut through the guitar melody slowly fading into the next song. Dean fished it out of his pocket and answered Sam’s call.

“Hey, what’cha got?”

Your hunch proved correct. Sam tracked down the demon that made soul-claiming deals with a handful of men from the same golf club. All of them bored of their wives, and all of them with too much money on their hands—enough that they refused to lose any of it in a messy divorce.

It was like the opposite of the First Wives Club, and you were sickened.

When you and Dean questioned Martin, he felt just guilty enough to spill his guts.

Sam managed to gank the demon on his own, which left you and Dean with a conundrum: what to do with the marked men who sold their souls. No matter how much justice you thought they deserved, their souls were still damned to Hell either way. As Dean pointed out, that would be price enough to pay.

You were sour about it, but you let Martin and the rest of his scheming bastard friends go…after leaving him with a well-placed knee to the nads. At the very least, he wouldn’t be making any more scheming bastards anytime soon.

Dean was still smirking when you two piled into the Impala. Sam was waiting to be picked up at the bar across town, where he’d found the demon.

“Shut up already,” you laughed.

Dean shook his head, still grinning as he put the car in Drive.

“I didn’t say anything.”

Your smile remained, but not for long as you stared out the window. You liked the evening time, where there was still light enough to see, but the world was winding down in shades of orange-gold and violet. The streetlamps were slowly coming on, lighting the way along the road.

The car pulled to a stop at the red light, there at a busy intersection.

“Hey.”

Dean’s voice, deep and a little tired, caught your attention.

“You okay over there?” he asked. He was side-eying you again, this time in concern. You could see it behind the usual gruffness.

“Yeah, I’m good,” you said. “Just makes me glad I never got married. Else I might’ve gotten shivved just so he could get out of paying alimony.”

Dean sucked his teeth. “Apparently it’s a bitch.”

You gave him a dry, withering look. He chuckled and briefly reached over to squeeze your arm.

“Hey, come on. That shit’s not happening to you,” he said. “He’d have to be dumb, deaf, and blind.”

You tilted your head at him, a small smile lighting up your face again. You couldn’t help the way your face warmed in a blush, especially with the way he was looking at you, all smirky and charming and unequivocally Dean.  

“Green light,” you reminded him.

He returned his attention to the road. His right hand was molded onto the steering wheel casually. His left rested on his thigh, while his fingers bounced to the beat of a song off his second favorite Zeppelin album. And you knew that, because he’d been playing it on repeat all day.

Many have I loved, and many times been bitten. Many times I've gazed along the open road…

You watched his profile, for a moment spellbound. The sky dimmed over his shoulder, casting him in both light and shadow, gold and dark.

“Have you ever…” You didn’t even know where you were going with this, but you’d already opened your mouth, and Dean was already glancing your way, with half his gaze on the road ahead.

“You ever gotten close to having something real? Someone who's not gonna shiv you when you’re fifty,” you said.

A laugh caught in his throat. “Hell, I never thought I’d see my forties, but here we are. Apparently I’m old.”

He shot you a wry look. You smiled.

“That’s one hell of a way to avoid the question,” you said.

Dean shook his head, this time with a sigh under his breath. For a second, you didn’t think he would answer you. You almost didn’t blame him.

The music filled the silence in between.

Mellow is the man who knows what he's been missing. Many, many men can't see the open road…

“Once,” Dean admitted. “I thought I had it, but uh…didn’t take.”

“Was she a hunter?” you asked.

Dean shook his head, his eyes staying on what lied ahead.

“Just wasn’t my life,” he said. “Couldn’t keep dragging her into mine.”

There was a lot there, buried deep. You couldn’t even begin to find a shovel, so you let it be. Though you should’ve predicted the way he turned it back on you.

“And you?” he said, brows raised. “Never had a douchebag in a sport coat, playing Caddyshack at the club every weekend?” 

You shook your head as you laughed. If nothing else, Dean could paint a picture.

“Definitely fucking not.” You rested your chin in your palm, your elbow finding purchase above the door handle. “You know me. I’m either too much or not enough.”

You didn’t notice it then, but Dean looked over at you with a frown tugging at his lips. He didn’t like the melancholy in your voice, or the way you turned to look out the window, like you were trying to hide from him.

Instead of putting voice to any of the thoughts rolling through his head, he kept driving.

The Impala rumbled to a stop in the parking lot in front of the bar. You were ready to meet Sam for a couple of beers inside. You grabbed your bag resting on the floor between your feet, but Dean’s stayed your hand, his own wrapping warmly around your arm.

You looked over at him with blinking, expectant eyes. He met you with sincerity.

“Anybody who says you ain’t enough, doesn’t know you,” he said. And then, his smile was back, quirking up at the corner. “At least, not like I do.”

Slowly, you smiled back. Your blush fairly radiated down your neck as well as your face, but you crossed your arms.

“So I’m too much. Is that what you’re saying?” you said.

He chuckled. “I plead the Fifth on that one.”

You fell into a fit of laughter along with him, and you both climbed out of the car feeling a little bit lighter. The blaring red neon sign above the bar blinded you for a moment. You turned to see Dean fiddling with his keys, trying to pick out the right one to lock up the car.

Some deep-seated feeling compelled you to go to him. You made your way around the hood and stopped just behind him. You called his name softly.

Dean turned to look at you over his shoulder. He was surprised to find you there so close. It led him to turn around all the way.

You didn’t give him, or even yourself time to think.

You grabbed the edges of his jacket and pulled yourself up to press your lips to his. It was more or less a gentle kiss. Just a sweet, slow meeting of lips. You pulled away just as slowly, the heels of your boots lowering back down to the ground.

Dean blinked his eyes open. When he came back to himself, he looked down at you in surprise and with a hint of a smile. He had the imprint of your lipstick smudged across his plush mouth.

“What was that for?” he asked.

You smoothed your hands over his jacket. It was a bit too hard to meet his eyes, so yours landed somewhere around his chest. It was also too hard to say what you really wanted to say, so you settled on half of the truth.

“A thank you, I guess,” you said. “And maybe the next time I see you, you’ll have a little less weight on your shoulders.”

His calloused hand cupped your cheek, and he earned your gaze, blinking up at him through your lashes. You couldn’t name everything you saw in his eyes, but it was more than just surprise or lust. In fact, he seemed to be debating with himself, fighting something deep inside.

You saw the exact moment he made his decision.

“Maybe we should make it count then,” he said, his thumb brushing over your lower lip.

You didn’t even trust your voice, but your gaze drifted down from his eyes, to his mouth. Your shallow nod in agreement was like releasing him from his chains.

Dean framed your face with both hands and drew you into his kiss, like he was breathing life into you. You certainly felt alive.

You clung to the back of his shirt, to his arms, while he gathered you flush against his chest. His strong hands glided their way down the small of your back, eliciting tingles down your spine. All the while, he drew you in deeper and deeper with each new sensuous glide of his lips against yours.

You yelped in surprise when he turned with you in his arms, just to press you into the side of his car. Dean pulled open the door to the backseat, and you climbed in willingly. He followed after you, at the same time you dragged him over by the front of his shirt. Soon his jacket was wrenched off his shoulders along with yours, both tossed somewhere in the front seats along with his shirt.

While you explored the new expanse of tanned skin, roaming your hands over his strong, broad shoulders and dipping down his back, his lips had fastened to your neck, teasing and grazing with his teeth along your pulse point.

You were already moaning and panting in his ear, your body arching to meet his as you slung a leg across his lap. He grabbed onto your thigh and squeezed, pulling you even tighter against him.

Still, you couldn’t help but smile in amusement.

“Aren’t we a little old to be making out in the backseat?” you said.

“You can be a little old for a lotta things, sweetheart,” said Dean, his voice gravel and deep as sin. “But this ain’t one of ‘em.” 

AN: Some spicy flangst there for ya! It was honestly refreshing to write some Dean after working on so much Soldier Boy. I love that guy, but he gives me stress sometimes. 😂 Trying to cure Dean's angst is a fun break! 💜

Read the Sequel:

Bonus shot! Resless Nights:

Summary: After a tryst you instigated in the backseat of his Baby, you and Dean have started something new. He’s just not sure that you’re as “all in” as you claimed to be.

▶️ Keep Reading: Restless Nights

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[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

Cannibals [Chapter 2: Roses and Forget-Me-Nots]

Series summary: You are his sister, his lover, his betrothed despite everyone else’s protests; you have always belonged to Aemond and believe you always will. But on the night he returns from Storm’s End with horrifying news, the trajectories of your lives are irrevocably changed. Will the war of succession make your bond permanent, or destroy the twisted and fanatical love you share?

Chapter warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), violence and murder, bodily injury, Aemond needs comfort, Helaena needs to make a choice, Aegon needs revenge, Red needs stitches.

Word count: 6.4k

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Too much to drink, blood on your teeth; you stumbled going up the Grand Staircase and bit your lip and now all you can taste is warm copper. It’s the past, but the recent past. Viserys isn’t dead yet, but not far from it either, an unquiet ghost who groans from rooms cloudy with incense. Criston oversees Aemond’s training and Grandsire sits the Iron Throne when petitioners come begging for relief from taxes or the requisitioning of their livestock. Helaena plays with her children in the garden. Larys Strong dwells in shadowy corners of rooms, lurking, listening. Mother lights candles for her husband in the sept, tries to forgive herself for being so repulsed by him she shivers when her skin brushes his and comes away damp from the weeping sores.

It’s Criston’s nameday, and the court is celebrating as if it is a prince’s. Mother has ordered the kitchen to prepare his favorite foods—lamb marinated with figs and blood oranges, a myriad of olives, spiced wine, roasted eggplant, dragon peppers stuffed with cheese and onions—and the musicians to play Dornish ballads. In the midst of the festivities in the Great Hall, Aemond has been pulled aside by Grandsire to discuss a pressing concern: an idea, proposed by Master of Ships Tyland Lannister, to split the royal treasury and hide it in several different locations should a war of succession break out after Viserys’ death. No one knows what will happen when Father dies. Everybody is moving invisible pieces on an imaginary board, trying to convince themselves they are prepared.

Now the hour is late and guests are vanishing, and everyone seems to be drunk, the world warm and spinning, and you are going to your chambers to wait for Aemond. What you have together is new and exhilarating, and your pulse is thudding in your ears as you stagger down the hallway. You are going to take off all your clothes and wait for him in bed beneath blankets Helaena has stitched with red bats. If Aemond asked you for everything tonight, you’d give it; but you’re beginning to like his idea to wait. You will never fly a dragon into battle like Aegon the Conqueror’s wives, but this is one war you and Aemond can fight together: thwarting all other matches, at last claiming a victory that the realm must witness. Aemond wants a Valyrian wedding ceremony. He has no fear of your blood.

You are passing Helaena’s chambers when you hear muffled voices inside, things you should not listen to but are too drunk to politely ignore. Helaena is whimpering quietly. Aegon says, sounding like he is close to tears: “I know, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m almost done…”

You should leave, but you don’t. You are trapped there by the poison that slows your thoughts, by the horror that blooms in you like roses, thorny and maroon. You’ve never had to experience intimacy that feels like a violation. You never will. And you’re the only one of Alicent’s children that’s true for: Aemond’s first experiences were with a middle-aged prostitute on the Street of Silk, something Aegon mistook for a favor; Daeron will have to bed a Baratheon girl he barely knows.

After a few minutes the door opens, and there is Aegon swimming in a white nightshirt stained with red wine. He startles when he sees you, then averts his watery eyes. He is ashamed. He says weakly, his hair hanging in his face: “I try to make it good for her.”

“I know you do.”

“She loves the children,” Aegon explains, although you haven’t asked. “She wants more, and she understands how that happens. Now I only lie with her when she invites me. But that doesn’t mean she enjoys it. I just don’t want you to think that I’m…I’m…that I’m a monster.”

You shake your head, profoundly sad. “No, Aegon.”

“How do you not get…?” He rubs his own soft belly, then makes an arc through the air, miming a pregnancy. “We’re fertile stock. And I can’t imagine Mother allowing Orwyle to ply you with moon tea.”

You smile faintly. “We don’t do that, just everything else.”

A raised eyebrow; Aegon is intrigued. “Really? How adventurous. I’m surprised. About Aemond, not so much you.”

“We’re saving it until after our wedding. Something to look forward to.”

“Unless Grandsire and Mother eventually succeed in marrying you off to a painfully uninteresting, Andal-blooded lord with a formidable army or some nice ships or whatever.”

“And then Aemond will murder him.”

Aegon laughs, recedes again and becomes remote, goes out to sea like low tide. “It’s ironic, isn’t it? My marriage is built on obligation, and yours will be the opposite.”

You say like a confession, something you seek forgiveness for: “I’m so sorry, Aegon.”

“No, no, I didn’t…I wasn’t trying to…I mean…” He sighs, then looks at you, dazed drunk childlike honesty. “You and Aemond being miserable wouldn’t make my life better. I have no wish to disrupt your happiness.”

You don’t know how to respond. Aegon doesn’t expect you to. He gives you a drowsy little smirk, then meanders down the hallway. When he spots a maid, he snaps his fingers at her and orders: “Draw a bath for the queen.”

You retreat to your own chambers, where you walk right past your bed—you now feel no desire at all to creep naked into it—and kneel beside the roost by the open window. Most of the bats you call your babies are out flying, but Kingfisher clings to the dark blue velvet you keep draped over the large wooden box. He peers at you with clever black eyes, his ears perked straight up, and when you offer your palm Kingfisher scrambles into it. You pet him as your thoughts wander, slow, dizzy, morose.

Aemond breezes into the room, first swift and famished, then bewildered as he nears you. “Why are you sad?” And then, because he gets glimpses into your mind as well: “Something with Aegon.”

You shrug, not looking away from Kingfisher. You are trying not to cry. “I just wish the world was different.”

Aemond stares at you for a while. And you’re a little afraid, because if he grabs you and you tell him to stop, you don’t know if he’ll listen. But Aemond doesn’t grab you at all. Instead after a moment he says: “I’ll be right back,” and he leaves your bedchamber. He must go all the way to the kitchen across the courtyard of the Red Keep, because when he reappears he is carrying a small glass jar with a piece of honeycomb inside. He sits down beside you and opens the jar, wets his fingertips with honey, and holds them out to Kingfisher so he can lick them clean.

You smile at Aemond. “What are you doing?”

Instead of answering, he motions for you to dip your fingers in the honey too, and together you feed Kingfisher and watch the others swoop and glide outside, snatching insects from the starlit air like stolen coins.

The only time Aemond touches you that night is to thread your long, silver braid through his hands; and why did you ever begin wearing your hair in a braid at all? Because you heard the reverence in his voice when he told you about Aegon the Conqueror’s wife Visenya.

~~~~~~~~~~

Now you are on the floor of your bedchamber crushing seashells, and the afternoon light cascades in hot and golden, a day that feels more like midsummer than autumn. With each whack of your tiny steel hammer—a gift from Criston on your nameday several years past—a shell breaks into irregular shards to be arranged on the board and then glued down; you have a jar filled with paste made from boiled animal bones and a paintbrush to apply it with. You collect and boil the bones yourself. Helaena and the children went with you to the beach to search for shells this morning, an arduous task as you were on the hunt for rare specimens: blue to mimic Tessarion’s scales. This mosaic is for Mother, a vision of Daeron to hang on her bedroom wall. He was sent away so he might turn out differently from the rest of you, but he will be home again soon. The Hightower army is marching across the Reach to King’s Landing, your youngest brother and his dragon safeguarding it from above.

You don’t have to be in the small council chamber to know that Grandsire rails against Aemond, that Criston struggles to defend him. Killing Luke was a disastrous mistake, no sane person could disagree. Now they debate how to proceed. Grandsire writes his letters: to the Lannisters, to the Baratheons, to the Triarchy. Aemond sees to the gathering of soldiers and supplies, moving tokens around the map laid open on a table in his bedchamber. Aegon wants to fly into battle. Criston tries to negotiate between them, and relays their feuds to Mother. Larys Strong shares the whispers he has heard of the Blacks’ machinations: Rhaenyra sick with grief and struggling to manage her forces from Dragonstone, Daemon abandoning her to take the haunted castle of Harrenhal in the Riverlands. Rhaenyra is a weak queen, and the Rogue Prince cannot stomach bowing to her.

You drop the steel hammer again—whack!—and as the cobalt-colored seashell shatters, Aemond steps into your bedchamber and closes the door behind him. He takes off his sword and his dagger, leaves them on the dresser, then drops to the floor and crawls on his hands and knees to you. He grabs your ankles and drags you under him; you giggle as your hammer tumbles out of your grasp and you wrap your legs around Aemond, pulling him in closer.

Aemond kisses you insatiably, his tongue parting your lips, his long silver hair spilling down to the floor. Then he says: “I have to go away.”

You know this has to happen. He has trained all his life for war, and now it is here. “For how long?”

“A week, maybe. Or a month, or a year. Nobody knows.”

“A year?” You’ve never been away from him for more than a few nights at a time. It is impossible to imagine.

Aemond takes off his eyepatch and flings it aside. His sapphire eye—cold, sharp, glittering fire—unnerves others, but to you it is a talisman of his faithfulness. In the boardgame you played as children, you were always the red bat and Aemond the blue wolf. It was a game of ambition, of cruelty, but sometimes mercy as well, and there were always exactly five players until Mother sent Daeron away to Oldtown. Blue is Aemond’s place in the family. He is cunning, he is arrogant, he is difficult at times…but he knows where he belongs. He would cease to exist without the rest of you. “Rhaenyra is bedbound on Dragonstone,” Aemond says, skating his thumb across your cheek. “Still recovering from childbirth and broken by Luke’s death. Daemon is far away in the Riverlands doing gods know what, there are rumors he’s taken up with some girl there. Now is the time to bring the Crownlands under Green control. House Thorne is already with us, next we will take Massey, Bar Emmon, Rosby, Stokeworth, Byrch, Harte, Hayford, Staunton, and Darklyn. They will bend the knee to Aegon, or they will burn. Rhaenyra will be encircled, and then we can do whatever we want with her.”

“What about the Celtigars of Claw Isle? They are Valyrians, they should honor tradition. The firstborn son always inherits. And Rhaenyra has defiled the bloodline with her Strong boys.”

“They must not see it that way. I’ve heard Bartimos Celtigar is her Master of Coin.”

“Traitors,” you hiss, and Aemond beams and kisses your forehead.

“Don’t worry, I have plans for them. Crabs are delicious when boiled alive.”

So Caraxes is at Harrenhal, Syrax is unable to be ridden and not inclined towards battle anyway, Vermax and Moondancer are both too small to be much of a threat to a dragon as ferocious as Sunfyre, let alone Vhagar… “Where is Meleys?”

Aemond chuckles. “Rhaenys won’t strike on her own. She doesn’t have the courage.”

“She might now that you’ve killed her grandson.” A pause. “Alleged grandson.”

“Luke wasn’t her blood, but Baela and Rhaena are. I’m sure she wants to live to see them grow up. I can’t imagine her flying to war for Rhaenyra and Daemon, the people who murdered Laenor so they could fuck on his grave.”

“He was buried at sea.”

“It’s a figure of speech.”

“I wish I could help,” you tell Aemond, feeling small and fragile, feeling worthless. If you had a dragon, you could follow him into battle like Visenya.

“Not everyone is meant to have wings,” Aemond says gently, and you wonder—as you have countless times before—if part of him is glad that he’ll always know that you are exactly where he left you, that you’ll always be defenseless. Then he distracts you. “Do you remember how you chased Vermithor all over Dragonstone?”

Of course you do: a trip to the mist-swept volcanic rock arranged while Rhaenyra and Daemon were travelling elsewhere, Grandsire fervently hoping that one of the wild dragons would bond to you and add to the Greens’ arsenal. None of them did, not even the Bronze Fury, the beast you had dreamed of riding as a girl, whose stories gave you a sensation like flying, like falling. “I wanted him so badly.”

“And to show his appreciation, he almost incinerated you.”

You smile up at Aemond, touching the scar that cuts down the left half of his face. After his maiming on Driftmark, he developed a phobia of needles. If he saw Helaena embroidering, he would become nauseous and unsteady on his feet. So he had the maesters teach him how to stitch wounded flesh, and after months of bloody observation and practice he was cured. He is not a man who lets others break him. He makes himself whole again, one brick at a time. “You saved me.”

“I couldn’t have you reduced to charred bones. I like you warm…and wet…and willful.”

Aemond wrenches you over and onto your belly, presses his hips against yours, crushes you into the floor with his weight. His left hand covers yours, your fingers interweaving; his right hand slides under your waist and stops between your legs, stroking you through your scarlet gown. You move with him, laughing, moaning, feeling the chill of the stone floor bleed into your skin.

Aemond whispers: “I need to be inside you.”

It’s a statement that is actually a question; he’s asking for permission. No, he’s begging for it. But you want the same thing. He’ll be gone soon, for a week or a month or a year. “Then do it.”

“Right now?”

“Right now.”

He lets you up and as he takes off his tunic and trousers, you crawl into your bed, a crimson canopy, curtains that billow in the wind blowing off the ocean. Now Aemond is here too and he’s tearing off your gown so he can possess you: not the sort of coupling that could result in a child, the other way. It’s a sin, of course, but so is incest, and so is murder, and so are pride and envy and wrath, and so at this point what’s one more transgression tossed onto the heap? You aren’t sure if you believe in the Faith of the Seven anyway. Rhaenyra is one of the most immoral people you can think of, and yet she has been abundantly blessed until now: married to the man of her design, absolved of all wrongdoing by Viserys. Why would the Seven shower gifts upon Rhaenyra while your own mother is so cursed? If they exist, they must be brutal masters.

You are lying on your belly on the soft feather mattress, reaching back to touch Aemond’s face and his hair as his lips claim your neck, your collarbone, your shoulder. You lift your hips so he can reach under you more easily, where wetness is pooling for him. His right hand caresses you with rough, insistent motions, making you ravenous and breathless, making you need him. With his left hand, he slips two fingers effortlessly inside; and then, once they are slick and dripping, he pulls them out and travels farther back. There is pressure, resistance, and then: a glorious, forbidden fulness that draws a moan from deep in your throat. Your fingernails bite into your pillows, your body moves in time with Aemond as his fingers thrust into you, first slowly and cautiously and then faster as he feels your muscles relax around him.

“Now,” you plead helplessly.

“Not yet.”

“I’m ready, I promise.”

“No, no, you’re not,” he purrs, and when you turn your face to his, he kisses you in a way that is slovenly, bestial, natural like the dark moist earth or the sea. No one else would understand this. No one else will ever need to.

Aemond’s fingers work on you until there is hardly any tension, then he yanks open the drawer of your nightstand to get the jar of Dornish olive oil he keeps there for exactly this reason. He drenches himself with it—his hardness, his thickness, his length—and spills oil all over the sheets in the process. Then he settles behind you again. It was your idea to try this the first time, one humid sunlit morning when you were desperate for each other, when you had an emptiness inside you his fingers alone could not cure. You needed him closer, just like you do now. And your climax was so intense it felt like it would snap your bones and unspool your muscles like loose threads.

As Aemond’s right hand strokes you—coaxing you closer, flooding your bloodstream with sweltering riptide lust—he positions himself and pushes in slowly, so so slowly, and at first there is a burning like there always is, but the oil eases his entry and your muscles are swift to accommodate him, they are supple and trained, and as he fills you there is an indescribable intensity as his heat melds with yours, and when you are this close to him it’s like you can feel everything he’s feeling, hear every thought that flits through his mind, and he knows exactly when to pause to give you more time, when to begin again, until he is all the way inside and he moans and rests his head between your shoulder blades, drinking you in through his lungs and his pores, his long silver hair whispering over your ribs.

When Aemond is sure he can last, he moves in you carefully, divinely. The fingers of his right hand—still circling, still pressing against you with commanding force—have you panting and powerless. It’s overwhelming, the fullness, the closeness, the warm blossoming euphoria…and if you’re sore tomorrow, you won’t care. Aemond could be gone by then.

“Harder,” you plead.

“No, Red, no, I’ll hurt you.”

Your hips quicken the rhythm, jolting back against him, and as Aemond gasps—taken by surprise, trying not to finish yet—a torrent like a wave of scalding blood rolls through you, and instead of dissipating to a froth like seafoam it keeps going, unraveling you, ruining you, until you can’t stand it anymore, and your spine and ribcage ache, and there is pain where Aemond is thrusting into you as he shudders and cries out in a low rasping voice midway between ecstasy and agony, like someone has buried a blade in him, like maybe he’s dying.

“Enough,” you sigh, and Aemond knows what that means. He withdrawals from you, gingerly and very, very slowly. Then he rolls you onto your back as you gasp for air, staring up at the distorted afternoon shadows on the ceiling. He kisses the side of your face again and again, murmuring through your hair in High Valyrian. Has Aemond ever said that he loves you? Not that you can remember. He acts as if he does, but still…sometimes you wonder.

When your pulse is calm again and the sweat cooling on your belly and your chest, Aemond rises and shuffles to the door, still naked. He opens the door and looks out into the hallway until he spies a maid and beckons her over. You see her silhouette just beyond the threshold.

“Fresh linens for the bed,” he says. “And a bath.”

“Yes, my prince.” The maid peeks in to where you are naked on the oil-stained sheets, and you cannot find it in yourself to act shy or ashamed. You aren’t. You smile wickedly at her and she skitters away, blushing and wide-eyed.

You loll together in a hot bath—Aemond drifting off as he leans against the back of the tub, you dozing with your head on his chest as soap bubbles pop in your hair—then he just barely manages to throw on some nightclothes and stagger back into your bed, not wanting his own room but yours, and he is asleep in just minutes. Outside the sun is setting and the sky is turning from flames to indigo, and the bats are venturing out of their roost to feed. You spend a while with them and then, starving, leave Aemond to rest while you go down to the kitchen to scavenge a plate of dinner, something hearty and satiating: bread, butter, venison pie, an apple tart, a pint of ale. You eat alone in the garden as your bats circle overhead. The members of the small council—with the exception of Aemond, dead to the world—are dining together, and Mother is eating with Helaena. You are avoiding Mother for now; after you and Aemond have sinned, you always feel like she can smell it on you, or see it, or hear the echoes of your moans, and there is such pitiful disappointment on her face you cannot bear to meet her eyes. She deserved a different husband, and children who she could recognize as her own.

When you return to Maegor’s Holdfast, you pass Aegon as he is trotting down the Grand Staircase, a goblet of wine in his hand and escorted by Sir Willis Fell. Aegon grins at you and says: “Aemond is practically comatose. You’ve exhausted him.”

“Well, he does most of the work,” you reply mischievously. “Where are you going?”

“To get my armor fitted. Aemond will have to have his finished tomorrow, I suppose. If he’s recovered by then. Try to keep him off you for a few hours, I know it’s a lot to ask.”

“I’ll let him know about the armor. But I don’t think he’ll want to wear it in the saddle.”

“Try to convince him. It could shield him from dragonfire in combat.”

“Right,” you say, and all at once your mood plummets, because this is real: the war is descending like a storm and your brothers must fight in it, must leave you, must risk their lives. Aegon waves goodbye and strides off to the armory across the courtyard of the Red Keep, Sir Willis Fell in tow and looking disturbed but trying not to show it.

Upstairs, Helaena is in the hallway with her children, and you can tell she’s overwhelmed by them: Maelor is yowling in her arms, Jaehaerys and Jaehaera both shouting and tugging at the skirt of her lemon-colored gown. Helaena is looking around for someone, perhaps a maid; uncharacteristically, she is unable to find one.

“Well hello there!” you say, kneeling and opening your arms so the twins can barrel into you. “What are we playing, huh? Hide and seek? Chase? Tame the dragon?”

“We’re trying to find Aemond!” Jaehaerys answers exuberantly.

“Oh, is that right?” You glance at Helaena, and she smiles awkwardly and shrugs. She must know where he is and is attempting to distract them so he can sleep.

She says, a bit flustered: “Mother went to the small council chamber after dinner, and the maid…I don’t know where she’s disappeared to all the sudden…”

“It’s alright, I’ll help them find Aemond.”

“Really?!” Jaehaera says, overjoyed.

“Of course!” Then you wink at Helaena, and she is relieved. “Let’s go check his bedchamber.”

“But we’re not allowed in there,” Jaehaerys says uncertainly.

And no, they usually aren’t; Aemond has too many relics they might break or maps they could rip or stain or knock his tokens off of. “It’s okay if I go with you. I’ll make sure we don’t touch anything important.”

“Yay!” the twins yell together, and then Maelor joins them between chomps on his own fingers, even though the details of the expedition elude him.

You swish in your gown—a pale drained pink, your wet hair in a fresh braid—towards Aemond’s rooms. Jaehaerys and Jaehaera dash after you, and Helaena trails behind them carrying Maelor. You hold the door open so the children and Helaena can enter, then follow them into Aemond’s bedchamber. The hearth is lit and crackling; papers litter his desks and tables, the wooden shelves are heavy with books. Mosaics you’ve made since childhood freckle the stone walls like birthmarks. You pick up a candle, light it in the fireplace, and begin igniting wicks around the room so the children will have more light. Helaena sets Maelor down so he can wobble after his siblings.

“Aemond, where are you?” Jaehaerys calls with a beaming smile.

You say: “Let’s check in the closets, and under the bed, and behind the curtains—” Then you scream and drop the candle, because there is a man in this room, and he has lunged out from the shadows. He traps you against the wall with a blade at your throat. Another man—huge, broad, towering—has cornered Helaena and the children. He holds a butcher’s cleaver in one monstrous fist. Blood drips from it in dark, viscous threads down to the floor.

He nods to Helaena and tells you: “Scream again and I’ll put this through her windpipe, and we can watch her try to learn how to breathe blood.”

You shake your head franticly. “I won’t scream, I swear I won’t.” You are thinking: Criston and Grandsire and Mother are in the small council chamber, and Aegon is in the armory, and Aemond is sleeping so deeply he can’t be roused…so who is going to save us? Who the fuck is going to walk in and stop this?

“Quiet,” the large man growls at the children. “No noise or Mummy dies.”

“Jewels,” Helaena says, taking off her necklace and earrings. The children cling to her, trembling and sniffling, weeping but trying not to make a sound. “We can give you these.”

“We’re not here for jewels, you dumb bitch,” the smaller man sneers. “We’re here for a boy. A son for a son.”

“No,” you whisper, realizing what he means.

“Aemond killed Lucerys Velaryon,” the large man says. “We’re here to kill Aemond. But Aemond doesn’t seem to be around at the moment, is he? Fortunately, any son of the Greens will do.”

Helaena shoves the children behind her, shielding them with her willowy body. From the Dragonpit, you hear Dreamfyre’s shrill screeches. “You can have me instead.”

“You’re not a son.”

“So which one do you choose?” the small man asks Helaena, raking the point of his blade back and forth across the front of your throat, leaving shallow nicks that glow sharp and searing.

Helaena doesn’t answer—she can’t, of course she can’t—and so the large man reaches around her and drags out Jaehaerys and Maelor. He pushes them to the floor and they cower there, clasping each other and tears streaming down their cheeks. There’s a dead maid over by the bed, you notice, the same one who saw you naked in bed earlier; she must have had the misfortune of stumbling upon the intruders. There is a gaping black hole in the wall on the opposite end of the room, the entrance to a secret passageway to the beach, an escape hatch that almost nobody knows about. But Daemon would.

“Which one?!” the large man demands, glaring hatefully at Helaena. “Choose or we’ll kill them both. We’ll kill all three.”

Helaena covers her ears with her hands and shrinks into herself, trying to disappear. Jaehaera hides behind her mother; Jaehaerys is petrified; Maelor, mercifully, doesn’t fully understand. If he was struck on his tiny blonde head, he would be gone before he had time to comprehend that his short life was over.

The men are assailing Helaena: “Choose or we’ll kill them all, we’ll kill them in front of you, we’ll kill them slow.”

“Helaena, pick one,” you sob.

She shakes her head. “No, no, no, no, no.”

Aemond, can’t you feel how afraid I am? Aemond, you have to wake up.

“All three?!” The large man taunts. “Alright, that’s fine, we can do it that way!” He raises his cleaver above the boys’ heads, and Helaena attempts to stop him.

He’s going to murder her too, he’s going to sever her arm or cut her throat.

“Maelor!” you burst out. “Maelor, the little one, she chooses Maelor!”

“What?” Maelor says, gazing up at you with vast shimmering eyes. And instead, the large man seizes Jaehaerys by his hair and hacks his head off his shoulders.

Blood spurts like a fountain, blood flows over the floor, blood soaks Helaena’s gown when she bundles her dead son into her arms. Forgetting the knife at your throat, you try to get to her; the blade drops and slits your flesh from your collarbone down to the top of your left breast. A river of red flows in a sheet down the front of your gown. Everyone is screaming—you, Helaena, Jaehaera, Maelor—but it doesn’t matter now; the men throw Jaehaerys’ head into a burlap sack and vanish together into the blackness of the passageway.

“They can’t get away,” you say numbly, and then you bolt after them. You grab a flickering candle off Aemond’s writing desk and plunge into the tunnel. There are blooddrops on the dusty floor, a trail of gore. Jaehaerys’ head must have bled through the sack. You aren’t thinking, you don’t know what you’ll do if you catch up to them. But if there is a boat waiting to ferry the men and their grisly trophy to Dragonstone, somebody must prevent them from escaping.

Jaehaerys can’t be dead, he can’t be, be can’t be, he was just here and he was smiling—

Someone catches your wrist and you shriek, but it isn’t the strange men. It’s Aemond, still dressed in his nightclothes, his sapphire gleaming, blood all over him and clutching his dagger in his other hand.

He tells you, taking the candle: “Go back to my bedchamber.”

“Aemond, they…Jaehaerys…he…they…”

“I know,” he says hoarsely. “Go back to where it’s safe.”

Obediently, knowing that he needs you to, you flee; you are passed by several knights of the Kingsguard with torches, their swords drawn, in pursuit of the murderers. In Aemond’s bedchamber is a nightmare you can’t wake up from: Aegon is wailing and collapsed on the blood-soaked floor with the mutilated body of his son in his arms, Helaena is slumped and paralyzed against the wall, Mother is weeping as she embraces Jaehaera and Maelor and takes them out of the room, Criston has just appeared in the doorway and stands there horrorstruck. You go to Aegon and lay a palm on his shoulder, the words impossible. Without looking—he already knows it’s you—he reaches up to grip your hand, so forcefully it feels like he’ll crush your bones.

“What the hell is…?” Grandsire says when arrives. Then he sees the blood, the body, and he sways and his knees buckle. Maester Orwyle sweeps in behind him, carrying a small wooden trunk of remedies. He comes directly to where you are standing.

“Princess, your mother asked me to tend to you.”

“What?” you reply dully, and he gestures to the bone-deep gash on the left side of your chest. Abruptly, agony flares there. “Oh. Of course.”

Orwyle leads you patiently to the chair at Aemond’s writing desk, then begins to clean your wound. He pours a small amount of milk of the poppy into your mouth, and you accept it passively. You are barely aware of it as his needle pierces your flesh and begins to stitch it back together.

“Is this what your letters have bought us?!” Aegon is shouting at Grandsire, who doesn’t know what to say. “Not safety even here in our own castle, but killers who breach our walls and butcher my son?!”

There are echoing footsteps, and Aemond emerges from the darkness, crossing into the rage-colored firelight of his bedchamber. “We got one of them. The guards are still searching for the other. We’ll find him, I swear we will. There was a boat in the sand, but we’ve taken it.”

“It’s your fucking fault!” Aegon screams at him. “They were here, they were looking for you, you killed Luke so they killed my boy, he was only six years old, he…he…” Aegon breaks down in sobs, then he crawls across the room to Helaena and clings to her, his head in her lap. Despite her shock, Helaena’s hands come alive again and she holds him.

“Aegon, it’s my fault too,” you say.

“What are you talking about?! You didn’t kill Luke Strong, you didn’t start this war!”

“I’m sorry,” Aemond says, almost too quietly to hear. “Aegon, I’m sorry.”

“Enough letters,” Aegon seethes, hatred splitting out of him, bloodlust that can never be satisfied. “You’re done, Grandsire. I relieve you of the burden of being Hand of the King. It never sat right with you anyway, did it? Enacting the plans of a degenerate like me. Well, now you can just watch them happen. Criston, we will go to battle now, no more delays. You will lead the infantry and I’ll be in the sky, and when we drag Rhaenyra from her sickbed I’ll let Sunfyre eat her, one limb at a time.”

“Yes, my king,” Criston says, still stunned, gaping at Jaehaerys’ small, headless body.

“I’m going with you,” Aemond tells his brother.

“I don’t need your help.”

“Yes you do. And I would never let you fly into battle alone.”

Aegon sniffles and wipes the tears from his face with his bloodied palms, leaving stains of clotting crimson there. Then he stands, touches his forehead to Helaena’s as a goodbye, and stumbles towards the door.

“Where are you going?” Grandsire demands.

“To torture that man to death,” Aegon says, and is gone.

Aemond turns to where you are sitting at his writing desk, Orwyle just beginning your stitches. Your eyes—glazed and drugged, grief-stricken and horrified—meet his, and you know that he is thinking that had the blade hit just a few inches higher, you would have bled to death. Aemond approaches. “Move,” he commands Orwyle.

Maester Orwyle meekly retreats; but first, he hands over the needle. And Aemond finishes mending your flesh, one painstaking, practiced stitch at a time.

~~~~~~~~~~

Aemond tells you goodbye on a bluff overlooking where Vhagar is waiting for him down on the beach. He keeps you a safe distance away; not only have you no dragon of your own, but the beasts also share an aversion to you, they snarl and slink away like they would in the presence of no other Targaryen. The wind is raging and the sun bright, the sky blue and full of slow-moving clouds. Helaena is curled up in the Dragonpit with Dreamfyre. Alicent is with the surviving children. Maelor shrieks and runs away when he glimpses you.

Under torture, the larger assassin revealed that he was indeed commissioned by a messenger sent by Daemon, and that all he knew of his companion was that he was a ratcatcher. Your brothers paraded every ratcatcher they could find in front of you, but none of them were the man with the knife. Aegon, believing their ranks had nonetheless been perilously infiltrated, ordered all the ratcatchers of King’s Landing to be executed. Now they hang from walls and bridges, attracting crows. Some people weep for the dead men, but many more weep for Queen Helaena, who is known to be gentle and kind. The details have reached every street of the city: beheaded in front of his mother, made to choose between her sons. Rhaenyra has given them yet another reason to hate her. Her mortal enemies grow more numerous by the hour.

“What if something happens here?” you ask Aemond, your hands in his, strands of silver hair raked from your braid by the wind. Under your gown, your bandages loop over your left shoulder and below your right arm; beneath them, your stitches throb and your heart aches. “What if we have to leave the city for some reason? What if when you return you don’t know where I’ve gone?”

“Then I will find you,” Aemond says, as if there is no other possibility. “You belong to me, you always have. That will never change. Here, in Dorne, at the Wall, in Essos or the Summer Isles, anywhere on earth, anywhere you go, you are still mine.”

You smile, and when Aemond kisses you, his long hair trashing in the wind, he is tender and harmless, and you are reminded that he can be this way sometimes. He isn’t always fierce. He isn’t always treacherous. “Take care of Aegon.”

“Of course I will.”

“Don’t come back without him.”

“I’ll carry him the whole way home if I have to,” Aemond says, and then he leaves you, stalking down the hill towards Vhagar.

That night, when you climb into your bed, you find a note there that Aemond has left for you. You unfold the parchment, wincing; each movement pains you, reminds you of the muscles that have been slit by the assassin’s blade. You will carry the scar forever. Aemond’s note reads:

Red,

When you are here…think of me.

Soon we’ll have everything.

In place of a signature, he has finished with a sketch of a forget-me-not in blue ink.

You close the note and hold it to your chest, the parchment scratching against your bandages.