#spot ellain

[uhohdad]

THE GIRL WHO CONQUERED THE MOUNTAIN

KÖNIG X READER

You & König have been chosen as unwilling participants in a twenty-four person fight to the death.

WARNINGS: 18+, NSFW, 183k WORD COUNT, AO3, Protective!König, Virgin!König, Loner!König, 18yo!König, Possessive!König, TouchStarved!König, GentleGiant!König, To You Anyway, König Pines Hard, Fem!Reader, Mentor!JohnPrice, Slow Burn, Smut, Fluff, Angst, Blood & Injury, Graphic Violence, Death, PTSD, Suicidal Ideations, Alcohol Abuse, Explicit Sexual Content, Dom!König, A Lil’ Sub!König Too, Dirty Talk, Size Kink, Nipple Play, Blow Jobs, Fingering, Slight Exhibitionism, Consensual Degradation, Praise Kink, Gentle Sex, Rough Sex, First Time, …And A Second, Perhaps A Third & Forth

CHAPTER ONE | PREV | CHAPTER NAVIGATION

➤ THE GAMECHANGER II

First Part Of This Chapter Here

You can’t move, can’t open your eyes. You don’t want to know what’s going on one couch cushion over.

You cannot handle another memory of brutality.

It’s happening inches from you, close enough you can feel the breeze of flailing limbs on your face, disturbing tufts of your hair. But your couch cushion might as well be your own private island, immune to the sound of Ellaine’s haunting screams and the repeated puncture of flesh and the air so thick with the smell of metal you can taste the tang on your tongue.

The past is your friend in this moment, a collage of gory distractions to keep you from adding another to the collection.

Ellaine - Ellaine is making it difficult.

Her shrieks are starting to break through, shattering, continuous, she hardly seems to pause for breath.

Pharus’ thigh isn’t helping. It knocks into yours as he struggles for the life that steadily escapes him.

Ellaine’s heels take off in a sloppy, uneven run, and Konig leaves you alone with weird and awkward once more, present to listen to him take his wet, gurgling, final breaths.

Ellaine is muffled in an instant. There’s the sound of a quick, mild altercation, and then Konig’s heavy footsteps return.

You don’t open your eyes even when he stills. You don’t want to know, you don’t want to. The blackness behind your eyelids is a better alternative to any of this.

You wait, and you pretend.

You wait until the nothingness lulls you into a false sense of security, and you pretend that you aren’t where you are, that Konig hasn’t done what you know he’s done, and there was never anything before or after this inky blackness.

Eventually you do find the courage to pry open your tear-blurred eyes.

Konig stands a few feet from the other side of the drink table, illuminated by the soft flickering glow of a hundred fake candles. Ellaine is snug to his front, airborne with an arm around the crease of her core. You’re reminded of the boy from eleven, flailing as he was lifted into the air by his ribcage moments before his death. Konig has silenced her with a palm flush over her puffy lips, her stifled screams have turned to stifled pleas.

You take a deep breath before you carefully turn your head to the right.

A swollen face, a limp body, and a pair of silver medical scissors lodged through Pharus’ repeatedly punctured throat. A steady stream of blood gushes from his wounds, his button down and tie stained with a growing patch of brilliant red.

Konig’s voice isn’t grit, nervous, or frantic. It’s spoken clearly and evenly.

“What do I do with her?”

After a beat, you carefully tilt your head up, and finally meet Konig’s eyes.

His face is entirely unreadable. Stone cold. The only thing of note is the heavy rise and fall of his chest.

He’s offering her to you.

Laying her fate in your palms, the judge and jury to his executioner.

You’re frozen in your spot, as if making any action will cement your fate, as if moving will make it real. If you just sit here, maybe, just maybe, the problem will go away.

It does not.

For minutes you sit on their couch, watching as Ellaine thrashes in Konig’s unyielding hold. Her hysterical tears collect on the side of his index finger and the blood stain on Pharus’ suit grows in your peripheral.

You’re processing.

Konig’s kill, the life that sits in your palms, the catastrophic consequence that is to come - but your brain won’t let you. You keep trying to cram the information in, in hopes to conjure up a plan, an opinion, or at the very least a thought, but you can’t seem to make sense of what has happened.

Konig waits patiently, letting Ellaine scratch up his forearms with her golden fingernails, until you give up trying to think your way out of the impossible.

You clear your throat, fix your hair, and rearrange your skirt. You sigh, and give yourself an encouraging nod before you meet Ellaine’s tear-welled eyes and pick up your croaked voice.

“Well, Ellaine, - I - I guess you ought to be extra good.”

Your lips warp, your shoulders pull up, and an awkward laugh leaves your lips. It’s almost like you’re trying to wave away tension at an uncomfortable dinner party with a joke you’re not confident in - but Ellaine does not find this as disarming as you intended.

Her exaggerated tinsel eyelashes pinch shut, and her muffled screams reach a peak before petering off in a fit of sobs.

You lock eyes with Konig, holding his intimidating stare for a few moments longer. You look to Ellaine, and then back to him, and when you speak, your voice is hesitant but challenging.

“Tie her up.”

Konig nods, and when he searches for something to restrain her with, you have no moral qualm reaching over Pharus’ fresh corpse, fussing and ripping the blood-soaked tie from his collar.

Ellaine’s pleads and sobs are at full volume once Konig releases her mouth to take the tie from you. He lingers for a moment on handoff, exchanging Pharus’ blood with a graze of your fingers.

You haven’t been able to let go of him since you lost him - but this - it’s like it’s the first time you’ve ever touched him.

A spark starts at your fingertips and shoots up your arms until your chest is blooming with that cozy, dizzying warmth.

Konig’s eyes are twinkling and his mouth is stretched into a cozy grin. He takes the bloody tie as carefully as he took your ribbon, even with a woman scratching and screaming desperately in his arms.

It’s too far gone now.

There is no amount of good behavior that will breathe life back into the fresh corpse of the Capitol elite on the couch next to you.

Every worry, every fear, every problem that became pressing the moment they called your name on reaping day has melted away and been replaced with a rush of intoxicating freedom and power. That same feeling you had at the oasis in the arena - because it is easy to not worry today when there is no tomorrow.

Ever since the games you have been living in purgatory. Half awake, half asleep, and a million miles away from the nearest living soul.

But now -

Now you are awake.

Knowing that you and Konig both took a turn you could never turn back from, and clearly don’t regret in the slightest, is exhilarating.

This is entirely uncharted territory. Exploring the boundaries that lie beyond the boundaries you never imagined you’d cross.

Together.

Konig studies your face for a few more seconds before he lets Ellaine fall from his arms and to the floor.

You shift on the couch to put some distance between yourself and weird and awkward, snatch an untouched wine glass, and take careful sips as you watch Konig restrain Ellaine with her husband’s blood-soaked tie.

So rough.

You’re afraid he might just break something on Ellaine, the way he’s jerking her limbs and yanking her back into his reach when she tries to crawl away.

You’ve gotten so used to him being your refuge - you almost forgot how dangerous he truly is.

Those arms, big and so unfathomably strong, could crush your bones to dust with less effort than it takes for him to tie his shoes.

You can feel it when you’re in his arms. The potential of his strength. Dulled down for your comfort, but still very much present. Dormant, but waiting.

It’s thrilling.

Watching him use his full strength, easily overpowering another one of your threats, especially while dressed like that. Half of his chest exposed and glistening, his forearms tensing as he tightly binds her wrists and ankles, the occasional grunt of frustration aimed at her for not being the ideal hostage.

Oh, and how she begs and pleads and cries and whines.

Poor thing.

“Gag her.”

Konig moves to follow your command the moment it finishes leaving your lips.

He doesn’t bother looking around. His fists curl into the fabric of his shirt and with one stiff tug, he sends buttons flying in all directions. One of them bounces off the drink table with a plink. He slips the shirt from his arms, rolls it up, and creases Ellaine’s cheeks with the taut, bunched fabric nestled between her puffy lips. He plants a dress shoe in the center of her spine to keep her muzzle tight until it’s tied off on the back of her head with a few harsh jerks.

He then waits for his next instruction.

Your faithful, dedicated servant.

Standing tall and proud with those pretty blue eyes locked onto you and that glistening chest rising and falling. Ignoring the bound and squirming woman at his feet until he knows exactly what he’s to do with her. Putting you in full control of his strength.

The thought is entirely intrusive.

Snap her neck.

Snap her neck like you did the boy from eleven.

Snap her neck and remind me one more time that your love for me knows no bounds.

You hold Konig’s stare. Dangerous and safe, icy and warm, unhinged and devoted.

You don’t want to think about Ellaine or her fate, resting in your sweaty little palms.

All you really want to do right now is explore this new, intoxicating feeling with the love of your life.

So you put a pin in it.

You beckon Konig to your presence, and he’s with you at once, sidestepping the glass table to snatch you up by the back of your thighs with a bounce, resting you around his bare waist and holding you tight in those strong, deadly arms.

You meet in a rough, passionate kiss, exchanging hums and messy tongues. Your hands are all over him, smoothing over his tight, warm shoulders and chest, devouring any part of him in reach.

Konig squeezes the crease of your thigh, and gives an approving hum at the sharp gasp that leaves you. He uses his rough hold to grind you against his slacks.

“Konig!”

Your stare briefly darts over his shoulder to remind him of the pathetic one-woman audience behind him. His eyes narrow, and a sly smile spreads on his face.

“Tell me you don’t want it.”

He savors your stunned expression, the breath he stole and the pretty wide eyes that flit around his face.

At your compliant silence, the corner of his lip twitches up, and he pulls you back into a sloppy kiss. Bloody nails tighten into the back of his shoulders with each brush he makes across the front of your skimpy panties.

Konig’s hands thread through the back of your hair as he carries you down the hall and away from the uninterrupted grating song of muffled sobs and pleas. You don’t break the kiss the entire journey to Ellaine and Pharus’ bedroom, held together by overeager tongues and wandering hands. He closes the door behind you both by forcing you against it. He holds you here for a moment, three shameless, drawn-out ruts into you, before he hauls you to the bed and places you on the rose petal covered blankets. He straddles one of your legs and climbs up the bed until he’s looming overtop you. You can feel him - already straining against the give in his slacks and seeking relief with your thigh.

“You’re all mine,” He grits.

He dips his head to kiss your neck, and rolls hungry, needy grunts along your skin while his assured hand trails up your stockings and sneaks underneath your skirt. He cups the entirety of your cunt over your panties, his large hand swallowing you whole and his possessive touch robbing you of breath. A warm, demanding presence between your thighs.

“Alle meine.”

He breathes his jagged words between the slobbering kisses and sucks on your neck. His brute fingers sink further into your slit, nestling your panties between your lips and pressing his fingertips into the inviting stain of arousal.

“Mein Gott - So fucking wet.”

His tightly pressed fingers massage wide circles and turn your breaths hitched.

“All for me,” He reminds you, “You want my fingers? You want to feel me inside you? Hm?”

“Yes!”

Konig doesn’t bother taking the time to pull off your panties. He tears them with a grunt and lets the meager scraps fall to either side of your hips. The side of his finger glides up and down your slit, his knuckles grazing against your twitching thighs.

He scoffs, and his eyes meet yours. A smug grin grows on his face as he drags his teasing finger through your arousal.

“You’re dripping, you need me this bad?”

You nod with a truly pathetic whine, but it’s still not enough. He swirls the pad of his finger around your entrance and ignores the way your hips mindlessly search for pleasure.

“Tell me how bad you need me.”

His prods at your ego scorches your cheeks, and you can’t seem to look anywhere but the floor as you coax the words out.

“I need you,” You whine, “I- I need you more than I’ve ever needed anything else.”

He scoffs as his finger pushes into you.

“I know,” He says. His eyes narrow, and his brows pinch, “Where would you be without me, little one? Hm?”

He doesn’t get much of an answer, only sputtered breaths and squeaky gasps.

“You were made for me and I was made for you.”

The pad of his thumb presses to your clit and rocks back and forth, working your dripping cunt.

“There is no other way.”

He’s pushing you this time, giving you just a little more than you can handle. Keeping your breaths choked and your body squirming.

“You want me to stop? You have to say it.”

Your teeth sink into your bottom lip to bite back the desperate noises on your tongue, and your legs are trembling from his slow but strict plunges to his knuckle.

He gives a pleased hum, baring his teeth when the corner of his lip lifts in a grin. His half-lidded eyes trail down to your chest, watching you heave on your uneven breaths.

Without breaking his pace, his free hand rests on your hips and smooths up your side. He trails up the curve of your torso, bunching your shirt at his hand.

He stops on the cup of your lingerie. His large, hardened hand palms your breast, roughly kneading and following your squirms.

“Take off your shirt.”

Your shaking fingers can hardly obey, fumbling for your hem and peeling it off, revealing the lingerie and Konig’s groping hand beneath.

Gluttonous eyes scour you from head to heels, devouring your body in your skimpy outfit.

Suddenly you don’t mind it as much.

He meets your stare again, and something shifts in him. His brow creases, his eyes soften, and his pace slows.

“Dressed up all for me?” He breathes.

This one is not so much cocky as it is a genuine question. A reassurance.

“All for you,” You whisper.

A breathy, relieved laugh spills from him. He ducks his head, and presses a kiss to your neck while his fingers continue to thrust into you. The kiss starts gently, just a brush of his lips against your skin, and steadily deepens until his tongue is licking wide strokes over your shoulders. His teeth graze over your flesh, a sharp contrast to his slick, soft tongue.

“You want another?” He whispers against your skin after a long, wet stripe, “Hm? You want me to fill you?”

He kisses your neck as you nod, breathy, squeaky moans on your lips.

“Say it.”

“Konig- I need you, I need more, please-“

He scoffs, lubing up a second finger with your arousal and lining it up with your cunt.

He’s a bit more patient with his second finger, pushing in with gentle movements while he sucks on the sensitive skin of your neck.

Every rut he makes against you draws a huffy, warm breath from him.

“I can’t wait to feel you.”

He’s fucking you at teasing pace - slow, seamless glides in and out of your slick cunt while his thumb rolls up and down your clit with each gentle pump of his finger.

You can only offer a whimper in response, your back arching off the bed to lean into his touch, jutting your hips out to keep his fingers hitting that spot that floods your lower abdomen with an intoxicating warmth. He sits up, flitting his stare between your face and his fingers as he carefully builds up speed.

“Look at you. So wet. You’ll soak my cock with this dripping cunt.”

You’re hypnotized by his touch, by his fingers, his filthy, growled words. Putty in those powerful, killer hands.

When you close your eyes and your head throws back in defeat, Konig puts his hand just under your jaw with a strict grip, warping the flesh of your cheeks beneath his fingers.

“Look at me. I want to see you while I fuck you.”

You obediently meet his crinkled eyes, his gratified smile.

“Do my fingers feel good?”

You can only nod weakly in his hand, a stuttered breath tapering into a squeaky moan.

Konig’s eyes flit around your face as he grinds against your thigh.

“You want me? Hm? You want me inside you?”

You nod against Konig’s forceful hand.

He doesn’t need much convincing. His soaked fingers leave your cunt and he releases your face, smearing your arousal along his waistband in his scramble to undo his slacks. His fingers are impatient to his own detriment, he struggles to pop the button and fumbles long enough for his teeth to clench in frustration.

He kicks his pants to the side and not-so-gracefully strips off his underwear. Firm hands leave little choice on spreading your thighs as he settles between them, and as soon as he’s towering over you, he guides himself to your soaked cunt and slides the tip of his cock down your slit.

You both let out a whine, and you can hear it - the obscene sound of him lubing himself up with your arousal.

Konig presses one of his hands to the mattress next to your head, and lowers himself to press his lips to yours. He keeps his face inches from yours when he pulls away, captivating you with intense eyes.

“Are you ready for me?”

He sounds dangerous. His husky purr offers you one last chance to back out before you take on more than you can handle. It’s exhilarating, tightening the knots of excitement he’s making of your insides.

He swirls his tip around your entrance and applies a bit of pressure, giving you just a taste of what he has in store for you.

You offer a shaky nod, and he presses a gentle kiss to your forehead before he sinks his soaked tip into you.

“So eine enge muschi.”

Konig’s head falls forward as he mumbles gruff praises, or degradations, you’re not sure.

Your nails claw at the tensed forearms locking you in at either of your sides. Trapped by massive arms and perfect physique. Pinned under such a powerful being, his form consumes you while he fucks your entrance with his tip.

“You’re going to take it all this time. I don’t care how long it takes. You will feel all of me.”

An insatiable, ravenous grin stretches on his features at the look of worry you give him.

He lapping at your walls with a pace that keeps you squirming and whining beneath him. Not quite uncomfortable, but intentionally provoking, giving you just a little more than you can handle. Reminding you that you’re out of your depth, making sure you know that you are at his mercy. Keeping your nails clawing at him and the strained moans flowing freely. Taking pleasure knowing all you can focus on is how he’s splitting you open and stretching you out.

“Das gefällt dir? Ja? You like that?”

Your affirmations are wavered, you can hardly finish a word once it’s started, each one ending on a raspy breath.

“No one can fill you up like I can,” He grits, “This cunt is all mine.”

He pauses when you wince and your head throws back on the mattress.

“Mm, too big for you?”

You respond with a whiny sigh, which he must find amusing, because he laughs.

Konig lowers himself, pressing his front flush to yours, the tip of his nose brushing along your cheek as he leaves you kisses. His hands graze over your stomach and sink between your legs, tightly pressed fingers massaging over your clit.

“Braves mädchen - working hard to take me.”

His praises are just warm breaths against your skin, and he groans when you clench around him.

“You ready for more of me? Hm?”

You nod, and Konig resumes gently working you open with a hypnotic roll of his hips and a rusty sigh. His arm flexes as he rises, getting a better look at the pathetic, squirming thing beneath him on the mattress. Taking pride in the way you unravel before you’ve even managed to swallow all of him, full and drooling after just a few fingers and half of a throbbing cock.

“Weak little girl.”

Konig’s head tilts down, his eyes narrow, and he snarls.

“You need me.”

Konig eases more of himself into you, his eyes lull behind his eyelids and his bottom lip snags between his teeth. His shoulders pull up, and he shudders.

“So warm und eng um mich herum.”

A cry leaves your lips, legs trembling and head thrown back in defeat. Konig gives you a few much-earned breaks to let you adjust to his size. As he waits, he leans down and buries his face into your neck, back to nibbling at the sensitive skin. Entertaining himself by licking and slobbering and sucking more marks to the surface while his tightly pressed fingers trace wide circles over your clit.

The breaths he takes between showers of his affection are huffed. He occasionally forgets he’s supposed to be patient with you, such a delicate little thing, his hips rutting into you momentarily before he corrects himself. You can feel him pulsing inside of you when he stills.

He pulls away from your neck, meeting your stare with half-lidded, drunken eyes.

He studies you for a moment, and his voice turns soft and wispy.

“I love you,” He says.

“I love you, too.”

You give his shaking biceps a squeeze and smooth your hands up his shoulders. You cup his jaw, drawing him closer to meet you in a tender kiss.

He presses his forehead to yours when he breaks the kiss with panting breaths.

“You feel so good,” He whispers.

You lace your fingers together around the back of his neck.

“You too,” You whisper back.

He smiles down at you, crinkled eyes sparkling and a weak laugh of disbelief on his lips.

He narrows his eyes at you again, his smile turning into something smug.

“You want more, little one? You want to feel more of me?”

You nod with a nervous, choppy sigh. It’s more than a tight fit, you cling to his shoulders for support as you focus on taking him. You can feel his muscles working beneath your fingertips as he eases himself in and out of you.

“So ein guter schwanzwärmer.”

You stutter through a moan, and even though you’re obviously struggling to take him, you’re still grinding down on him without thought.

“Sehr gut-”

He shivers overtop you, panting breaths and his head hung. His bulging muscles are shaking, struggling to restrain himself from pounding into you.

You can’t think about much else other than him, filling you to the brim and teasing that spot that makes your thighs twitch. As he nears bottoming out, the condensation pours from his tongue, huffed and strained.

“Going to take all of it, ja?”

You let out a whine, your fingers trembling and pathetic moans leaving you without permission.

Both of your strangled breaths stop as the base of him presses to your front.

“How does it feel?” He huffs, “To feel all of me?”

You can’t even respond, intoxicated off the feeling of him stuffed deep inside of you.

“Does it feel good to be full?”

The pressure between your legs is splitting, painful - but in a good way. You don’t dare ask him to stop, aching to keep yourself full. You nod up at him, meeting his stare with drowsy eyes.

“You look so pretty on my cock.”

He sinks his hand between your thighs, his fingers making wide circles over your clit once more.

“Es ist meins,” He breathes, “It’s for me.”

He lets out a choked groan when you tighten around him. He can’t hold himself back from grinding into you.

“So eng.”

His eyes roll, huffy pants on his lips. His thumb hones in on your clit and gives it gentle scrubs.

“Konig?” You whine with a grind, “Need you.”

His cock twitches inside of you, and he’s happy to oblige.

He gently slides out about an inch before slowly pushing back in. The circles tracing around your clit waver, a broken groan on his lips.

When you don’t ask him to stop, he does it again, coaxing himself in and out of you, fighting every instinct in his body to fuck what little sense remains from you.

Konig’s eyes pinch, a breathy moan leaving him.

“Too - sch- too weak to handle me? Too much for you, little one?”

Konig’s dirty talk is wavering, strained and slurred and interrupted by heavy pants.

His flushed lips are perpetually parted, face rosen. He can’t resist quickening his pace, entirely submit to your warm, dripping cunt.

“Es tut mir leid - Bitte - ”

His rhythm quickly melts into one of desperation.

“Konig!”

“Tell me - tell me to stop.”

And while your cunt is aching and sore with him buried deep inside of you and his thrusts transitioning into pounds, you don’t dare tell him to stop.

He’s rocking your entire body, your chest bouncing in response to his quickened thrusts. The sound of your slicked cunt lubing his cock intertwines with the claps of his thighs against yours in an obscene chorus.

The moans leaving you are choked and squeaky, but when you try to cover your mouth, he grabs your wrists and pins them to the mattress.

“No,” He grits, “I want to hear you.”

You let out a cry, twisting and writhing your core under his hold.

“Konig - Konig please!”

You’re not even sure what you’re begging for, all you know if you don’t ever want him to stop.

Each of his brute pumps into you is a burst of pleasure, and as he quickens his pace, it melts into one continuous euphoria. Everything is aligning, it’s like he’s helping you fulfill your destined role on this earth. This feeling - it’s why you were born, it’s your purpose.

To be fucked by him.

Used and filled with his thick cock, to let him spread you open and lose himself to your warmth at his whim. A sore cunt is your price to pay, your burden to bear for not being worthy of handling a being so powerful.

You’ve come entirely undone at his hand, drooling and mindless while he forces your body further up the bed with each of his reckless pumps into you.

His grunts are ravening, gravelly and low.

“Genau so… Du willst mehr, nicht wahr?”

He lets go of your wrists, his hands finding your chest instead. He slinks into your lingerie, roughly kneading your chest beneath greedy fingers.

With little warning warning, Konig pulls out and flips you over with enough force you have to steady yourself with your palms and a gasp. You’re already babbling incoherent pleas at his absence, but before you can even move your weak, shaking limbs to lift yourself, he’s smearing your arousal between your thighs and searching for your dripping cunt with his eager cock.

As soon as he’s sinking into you, he leans down and presses his glistening chest to your back. His palms slide down your arms until he’s engulfing your hands, lacing his fingers with yours to pin your locked hands to the mattress.

You let out a cry when he bottoms out, his hips rutting against you and a low, sinful grunt in your ear as he works his cock against the walls of your tight cunt. His grip on you tightens, and he gives three gentle thrusts before he’s back to snapping his hips into you, returning to his reckless rhythm.

“F- ha- Konig!”

“Gut,” He breathes, “So good for me.”

Each plunge forces you further into the mattress, cheek smushed and fingers clawing at the blankets beneath his hold.

It’s all you can focus on, the overwhelming sensation, not a thought that runs through your mind as you take him, all of him. Lost to the addictive heat in your lower abdomen and the splitting ache between your legs.

Your vision is just a blur, and you can feel the vibration of his grunts on your back, the heat of his moans on your cheek.

“S’big!”

“Take it, mein seiger.”

He kisses the side of your face before he presses his cheek to yours, scratching you with his prickly stubble with each thrust.

“Nimm meinen schwanz.”

Konig breathes a low groan.

“Feel good?” He asks through clenched teeth.

It’s more of a taunt than a genuine question, because the answer already lies in the shake in your legs, the squeaky moans coerced with each powerful thrust of his cock into your wet cunt.

“You like it rough? Hm?”

He’s without restraint, plowing more of his needy cock into you before you can recover from the previous thrust of his hips.

“Naughty girl.”

Each moan that leaves you is filtered through the speed of Konig’s merciless slams, stuttered and choppy with each bottom out.

“Konig, F- Konig!”

“That’s it, mein sieger. Who does your cunt belong to?”

“You- you!”

“It’s mine,” He grits, “I earned it.”

He releases you, and his arm snakes around the crease under your stomach to yank you to your hands and knees, tightening his grasp on your sides to keep you from squirming away from his greedy cock. In this position, he’s somehow able to stuff even more of himself into you, and each thrust forces an embarrassing, repetitive squeak.

“Pretty noises, little one,” He grits.

He plants a kiss to the top of your head without breaking his pace, his hand reaching down to knead the plush flesh of your ass.

“Taking this cock so well, aren’t you?”

The only thing you can offer is a wavering moan, thoughtless and surrendered to the brute cock stretching you out and abusing your cunt.

“Schau dich an. Can’t even talk.”

His forearm wraps around your collarbones and he gives you another tug, lifting your hands from the mattress and arching your back into his chest. A possessive hand wraps around your front, groping your breast under rough, avid palms.

“Mine.”

A sharp breath is sucked through your teeth as cruel fingers tighten around your nipple. You nod frantically, offering desperate, unintelligible praises.

It’s not good enough, though, because his fingers only squeeze harder while he holds you in place by his tensed forearm.

“Yours!” You get through a cry.

He releases you with a pleased hum, intemperate fingers gliding down your soft stomach until his palm melds to your front. The tips of his fingers swirl into your lips, spreading you open to rest on your clit. He doesn’t even have to move them, each of his cruel thrusts forces you across his thick fingers.

All you can do is take it, overwhelmed by his ruthless cock and his possessive hold on your cunt, passive to his powerful thrusts. You couldn’t fight it off if you wanted to, every limb weak and trembling.

Konig suddenly lets go of your cunt and gives you a guiding nudge back onto the mattress. You can’t hold yourself up on your useless arms, let alone catch yourself, so you end up with your face buried in the covers while the hands on your hips keep you right where he wants you, on display.

He changes his pace, he begins to give you one powerful thrust and waits for you to finish bouncing back before he gives you another. He’s using his full strength, not at all holding back.

He’s fucking you like he’s mad at you.

It’s like he’s trying to prove a point. Just the pace itself feels mocking. Degrading, even. So rough and brute on each plunge before he slowly pulls himself out of you, only to force himself back in with everything he has. After his hips collide with the soft flesh of your ass, he lingers on the bottom out, a slow grind against your drooling walls. Again and again, forcing a gasping moan with each merciless pound. Bullying your poor cunt, filling you to the brim with little warning other than the rhythmic beats he makes with your flesh, like he’s training you to be prepared to take all of him at a moment’s notice.

“A filthy little girl,” He spits, “Listen to you.”

And you have no choice, his ruthless cock burying inside you and forcing the moans to spill from your lips whether you like it or not. His fingers dig into your skin to keep you from being shoved across the mattress at his strength.

“You are mine.”

Konig changes his pace again, he keeps the same force of his thrusts, but he picks up speed, giving little time to recover from each ram of his ravenous, throbbing cock.

“I’m going to fill you up, now, ja?”

You can’t even respond, limp in his hold, the world a blur and half your irises hidden behind drunken eyelids.

Konig gives you three brutal, sloppy thrusts, a sinful grunt on his lips and your hips crying under his tight grip. He holds his final thrust, snug against you as his finish marks his claim deep inside you. His body writhes, his moans stuttered and choked as he milks himself with a few lazy, wavered pumps. You can feel him pulsing against your walls, the grip around your wrists tight and shaking.

You can’t move, can’t even think, riding out your high as he catches his heaving breaths overtop you. Both his body and his cock twitch in the aftershocks of his finish.

He stays inside of you as he carefully rests your pliant arms back on the mattress, hunching over to press the first of many soft kisses on your shoulders.

His question is hesitant - small and ashamed.

“Are you okay?”

You nod into the blankets, and after a polite pause, he peppers more gentle kisses along your shoulders.

“That felt really good,” You mumble.

Konig laughs and brushes your miskempt hair from your face, getting a better look at your blissed-out grin and after-sex glow. He nuzzles his way to your cheek to leave a kiss.

“Did so well for me,” He whispers, “Mein sieger.”

Konig sits up, his hands smoothing down the curve of your back, slowly pulling out of you with a few overstimulated tremors.

He collapses on the covers next to you with a heavy sigh and a hand lost to his hair.

You still can’t seem to bring yourself to move, humming contently into the mattress. A light knuckle traces along the dip of your back as you soak in thoughtless bliss.

“I love you,” You mumble.

He scoffs, and while you’re still face down on the mattress with your eyes closed, you can tell he’s smiling, too.

“I love you too.”

Konig rises from the bed, and disappears into the master bathroom. He returns moments later with a damp washcloth and prompts you to roll over so he can clean up the puddle of arousal and finish between your thighs.

It’s weird, but even though he was inside of you moments ago, you feel embarrassed at being exposed like this to him, letting him tenderly swipe the cool cloth over you.

He tosses the washcloth carelessly to the ground before crawling back into the bed with you. He lies face up, and lifts his arm above his head to invite you into his side. You happily accept his offer, resting your head on his chest and slinging your arm over his waist. He’s warm to the touch, silken and inviting, cozy and safe.

You hum behind a content smile as he plucks rose petals from your hair, and when you speak, your words come out like a tune.

“We are so fucked.”

Konig snorts, and his chest bounces your head on the following laugh.

“Why are you laughing?” You ask through a giggle, “It’s not funny.”

“I don’t know,” He says, “Why are you?”

You both devolve into a fit of contagious laughter. Everytime you think you’re winding down, a snort kicks off another round of stuttering bodies and wheezing, squeaky giggles. It goes on for far too long, until your stomach hurts and there are tears in your eyes.

“Maybe no one will notice,” He says after a long-winded sigh.

“No dice.”

You both fall into a lull, lost in the sensation of fingertips playing with locks of your hair or tracing lazy patterns over your back.

“Are you hungry?” He asks.

“I could eat.”

“Want to see what they have?”

You go to sit up, but Konig stops you.

“Ach. Äh, hold on.”

“Right,” You say, “Forgot about her.”

You rub out your knuckles in a moment of consideration, and find you don’t feel like thinking about Ellaine right now.

“Lock her in the bathroom,” You say with a dismissive wave of your hand, “I’ll figure it out later.”

“I’ll take care of it,” He says.

He puts his pants on, and goes to work.

You’re thankful he’s willing to do the dirty work. You don’t want to see Pharus or Ellaine right now.

He leaves the door cracked so you can hear him, to reassure you he is still present. His footsteps, the occasional shut of a door.

No screaming.

You pick at your painted fingers until he returns. When he steps back into the room, he lingers by the door, his eyes darting to the side and his bloody fingers wriggling at his sides.

“Want to shower?” He asks.

You nod.

He looks to the side again, and his hand reaches over his chest to rub the crease of his elbow, smearing blood on himself.

“Together?” He asks.

Your eyes follow his, and you nod again.

You use Ellaine and Pharus’ master bathroom, and it takes far too long for you both to put your heads together and figure out how to work the excessive buttons and knobs, but eventually you manage a heavy stream with a survivable temperature. You both finish stripping down, and step into the countless water jets spraying from every direction.

You don’t even have to say it, there’s an unspoken agreement between you to clean each other. He leans down so that you can reach his hair to wash it out, massaging the soap over his scalp until it foams at your fingertips. Konig’s eyes close, humming contently at your touch.

As he rinses off the suds, you get started on his body, lapping up the sides of his neck and rubbing wide circles down the curve of his shoulders. Your trail to bulging biceps and forearms, washing blood off as you go. You linger on his firm chest and torso longer than you need to as you lather him up.

“Thank you,” He says.

“Mhm.”

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?” You ask.

“For - For ruining it.”

Your brows pinch, and your voice softens.

“You didn’t ruin it,” you say, “You saved me.”

He follows your whim when you gesture for him to turn around, and there’s a long pause as you work suds over his back.

“I’m different,” He says softly.

“It’s okay. Me too.”

“No, not like that.” He turns to face you even though you aren’t finished with his back, and he sighs, “I keep hurting people.”

“Me too.”

“No,” He says, “Physically hurting people. And I-”

Konig swallows, and looks down at his open palms. He takes a deep breath before he finishes, his hands turning to fists and dropping at his sides.

“I like it.”

His eyes finally meet yours, a crease in his brow and his weight shifting from leg to leg with a weak sway as he waits for you to respond to his confession.

“Okay,” You say.

He looks to the side, and reaches up to rub out the back of his neck.

“Okay,” He says.

The heavy stream of water on porcelain soothes the following calm silence before he breaks it again.

“I keep having nightmares,” He blurts, “Where I hurt you.”

You wince, shoulders braced and face warped, and you have to refrain from saying ‘Me too.’

“I’m afraid I will,” He says, “I don’t want to, but I’m- I’m not - “

“It’s okay,” You cut, forcing your shoulders back into position, “You won’t.”

There’s a pause before he whispers, his words almost lost to the water raining down on you both.

“You’re afraid of me.”

You tense again, and you’re honestly not even sure if the next statement is a lie or not, but you’re not eager to give it much thought.

“No, I’m not.”

“In the dreams,” He clarifies.

“Oh.”

You let out a heavy breath.

“I’ve been having nightmares too,” You say.

You’re hoping it helps him to know you’re going through the same thing, but you can’t help but feel like it wasn’t the right thing to say. Like you’re just minimizing his pain or redirecting the focus to you when he’s obviously trying to lean on you in this moment.

“Do you dream of me?” He asks carefully.

You swallow, your eyes flitting around the tile through the blanket of steam clouding the shower.

“Sometimes.”

“Bad dreams?”

“All of my dreams are bad.”

“But-”

You turn and snatch up his forearms with insistent but gentle hands.

“Konig, it doesn’t matter. They’re just - they’re just dreams. We- that was fucked up, and our brains are just trying to make sense of it, and it - it all just blurs together. I don’t know. All I know is that after the nightmares I wake up and I love you more than I did yesterday. I need you more than I did yesterday.”

Konig can’t bring himself to speak. He just swallows and nods, those soft puppy dog eyes staring at you as the water rushes over his skin.

When he finds his voice, it’s soft.

“I love you,” He says.

“I love you too,” You whisper.

You give his arms a squeeze before you let go of him.

Your stares linger on each other for a moment. You’re usually pretty good at reading his eyes, but this one eludes you. Somewhere between worry and awe.

As Konig washes out your hair, you fall victim to the tingling sensation on your scalp. You close your eyes and tilt your head back for him until it’s time to rinse.

His hands are gentle as they smooth bubbles over your body. You feel tiny - watching his big hands swallow whatever part of you lies beneath his touch.

“You’re beautiful,” He says.

“Oh yeah?”

“Ja.”

You bite back your smile.

“You’re not so bad yourself.”

Those pretty blue eyes flit down to your shoulder as he delicately massages bubbles over your skin. He lingers here, and it takes you a moment to realize his thumb is running side to side over the spot that you clipped against the hedge maze.

You look down, and with furrowed brows, you breathe your discovery in a tone that suggests you left something important behind.

“My scars are gone.”

“Mine too,” He says as he begins to work down the rest of your arm, “Even the ones from home. You didn’t notice?”

You look down to the arm Sapphire split open with her knife, and find there’s no evidence of your altercation.

“No.”

You stick your leg up to inspect your calves and find spotless skin, no evidence of the cuts the peacekeepers made when they forced you into the shards of your tantrum. You haven’t really been paying much attention to your body, it’s felt so far away from your thoughts ever since the games.

“I don’t like that they do things to you while you’re sleeping,” He says as he lathers up your sides.

Your lips pull to the side.

“Yeah, I guess I never thought about it.”

“Don’t now,” He says.

“Okay,” You say.

And so you don’t.

Konig takes extra care in sudsing your chest, massaging your breasts beneath kind fingers.

“Just being thorough,” He says with a responsible nod.

“Of course.”

After you’re both clean and dry, you help yourself to one of Ellaine’s shirts, Konig replaces his pants, and you make your way to the kitchen. You position yourself behind Konig, almost like you’re hiding from whatever waits for you at the end of this hall, your steps light and your fists tight at your sides.

You’re surprised to see little evidence of Pharus’ death and your hostage.

Pharus’ body has been removed from the sitting room, presumably in the hall bathroom with Ellaine. You can’t make out a sob, a whine, or even a snivel as you pass the closed door.

You squeeze Konig’s hand when you notice the blanket he threw over the blood stain on their couch cushion, surely for your benefit, and Konig squeezes back.

It feels weird to be rummaging in someone else’s fridge, especially since the owners are being held captive in their own home, one of them a still-warm corpse, but you get over it fairly quickly.

It’s your final meal, after all.

You both spread just about everything in their kitchen on their fancy dining table, your feast illuminated by a chandelier that rain shimmering crystal droplets from its golden branches.

While the table is about the biggest dining table you’ve ever seen, you and Konig pull your chairs as close together as you can, sipping on wine and picking apart your feast.

“Should we run away?” You ask.

He shrugs as he tears off a hunk of meat from the wing of a cooked bird, answering through a mouthful.

“If you want. Where would we go?”

“I- I don’t know. Maybe we could-“

You trail off, not really knowing where you were going with the sentence when you started it. Everyone in Panem knows your faces, you wouldn’t make it two blocks, let alone escape the city.

“All these people - they look crazy. So what if we just made ourselves blend in? Dress up and hide in plain sight. Or -”

Your eyes find Konig. How do you disguise a boy this big? In the arena you clocked him from yards away even when he was covered head to toe in gear.

Your eyes flit away as you think on it some more.

“Price?” You ask, high pitched and already doubtful.

Konig shrugs again.

“Yeah,” You sigh.

Not even Price could save you from this one. You didn’t really want to drag him into this, anyway.

You push away your plate, leaning back in your chair with another weighty sigh.

“Let’s come back to it.”

Konig gives a hum that suggests that he knows that you both know you’re absolutely fucked.

There’s an awkward pause, where you tap your nails on the tabletop and you suck on your teeth.

“Wanna snoop?”

Konig hums again, this one a mixture of amused and curious, and a smile tugs at his lips. He wipes his face off with a cloth and tosses it on the table.

“I’d love nothing more.”

You’re hardly gentle about anything as you shuffle through drawers and rifle through cabinets. Making a mess of the place more than you are looking for something, really.

Ellaine and Pharus’ suite is your new temporary oasis, a once-arena to make a playground of - because you know come morning you’ll be dead.

“Found a remote,” You say, holding it over your shoulder and giving it a wave.

“For what?”

“Dunno.”

You turn, fingers fumbling over the sleek, smooth screen of the remote.

It seems to be in control of everything. Their fireplace, the lights, the television, the automatic curtains. One of the buttons turns on a water fixture that you didn’t even realize was there. A waterfall cascades from the ceiling and pours into a small pool that reveals itself from retractable tiles in the floor.

You near the stream and stick your fingers into the flow, watching as the water parts, creating gaps in the seamless, perfect wall of water.

When you’ve had your fix, you shake your wet hand, flinging droplets in all directions before you return to the remote.

Another press of a glossy button and a camouflaged glass door slides open with a zip, leading to their balcony outside.

You approach the window of their suite and peek out into the open air. Their balcony is bigger than the one at the tribute tower, and much higher up.

If you had pants on, maybe you’d ask to sit in the crisp nighttime air, but the harsh wind on your bare legs already draws goosebumps to your skin and makes you shiver.

Wait, though.

You step out onto the balcony, and find the switch for the heater. Almost instantly, a blast of air drapes you in a cozy warmth and protects you from the high winds.

Thanks, Ruby.

You don’t need to coax Konig outside, he’s at your heels without request. You intertwine your hands and snuggle up to each other on one of the many patio couches, wearing warm smiles and exchanging plenty of kisses. It feels eerily empty, there’s enough furniture on this balcony to host a party. And while it’s barren with just the two of you - you wouldn’t have it any other way.

Konig breaks the silence first.

“It’s too bad,” He says weakly.

“What is?”

He doesn’t answer right away.

“It would have been nice.”

And you sigh, because you know what he means.

The sun is setting over the desert, and your time together is limited. You will never get to have your happily ever after, and what little time you have had together is tainted by games and suicides and prostitution and twenty-two dead tributes.

“Yeah,” You say, “It would have been.”

Your heart aches for domesticity with him. Living in victor’s village back home, so rich neither of you would have to break your backs in the fields again, and still have enough to go around for the starving people in Nine.

Waking up next to him, cooking meals with him, grieving together in the privacy of your home. Cuddling each other to sleep every night and being intimate without all of Panem watching.

Oh, and you would have had a shower.

You’re not crazy about a lot of the displays of extravagance the Capitol has to offer, but now that you’ve had a taste of a steamy, warm shower, you’re not eager to let it go.

Konig doesn't look up from his lap.

“I’m sorry,” He whispers.

“No,” You say, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s my-”

“No,” You cut, “We did this together.”

Maybe it is for the best, anyway.

Maybe joining the twenty-two is a better fate than being haunted by them.

It still would have been nice.

You wonder what Konig would be like in your little hypothetical life of domesticity, and you come to the realization that you really don’t know what he does in his leisure.

“What did you do on Sundays back home?” You ask.

Konig shrugs.

“Chores.”

“Well, yeah, but - for fun.”

He shrugs again.

“Y’know,” You start, “I just realized that I really don’t know that much about you. I mean, I know enough. But-”

Your eyes flick to him.

“Who are you?”

“Not much to know,” He says with a shrug.

“Oh, come on.”

“Ich weiß nicht. I ruined my life and it’s been the same ever since.”

“Ruined your life?”

You look at him expectantly.

His eyes dart between either of yours, his irises slightly flicking side to side before he looks away.

“S’okay,” You say, “You don’t have to say.”

You look back to the sky, your foot rocking back and forth on its heel.

“You don’t know?” He asks quietly.

“Don’t know what?”

His face warps, and you frown.

“What’s up?” You say.

He just shakes his head.

You don’t push.

“Do you want to play a game?” You ask.

“That depends,” He says with a hum, “What do you have in mind?”

“It’s called Love Hate.”

“I’ve never heard of it.”

“It’s ’cause I just made it up,” You say with a grin.

“And how do you play?” He asks.

“You tell me things that you love and things that you hate, and I’ll win the game because then I’ll know things about you.”

He hums in consideration as he half-heartedly inspects a lock of your hair.

“Okay,” He says, “I love you.”

“That doesn’t count.”

“No? Why not?”

“Because I already know that.”

“Hmm. I love…”

He trails off as he thinks on your prompt.

“I keep trying to fill in the blank, but you are the only thing that comes to mind.”

“Stop it.”

He kisses the height of your cheek, and raises his brow.

“Make me,” He prods.

“Them’s fightin’ words.”

“You don’t remember the last time?” He says, “How did it turn out for you?”

“Oh!”

You lunge at him, and you’re not really sure what your plan is, but you find yourself in his lap and your arms wrapped around his waist in effort to force him onto his side.

It’s as laughable as you think, and he confirms it with that hearty laugh that makes your chest bloom with a fuzzy warmth.

He’s immovable, and once he has a hold on your forearms, you’re done for.

A firm but gentle grasp, just enough to keep you from yanking free while you squeal and giggle and squirm on his lap.

He gives a tug on your arms until you’re face to face. His eyes narrow and a riling smirk grows on his face.

“I love you.”

He closes the gap between you with a wet, slobbering kiss, and pulls away with a smack before he lets go of your arms.

“Looks like I win.”

“That’s not fair,” You whine.

“Mm.”

He feigns his innocence with a shrug as he rests his hands on your hips.

“All is fair in Love and Hate.”

You scoff.

“I hate that.”

After a pause, your brows furrow and your smile fades.

“Do you not like talking about yourself?” You ask.

He shrugs.

“That’s too bad,” You say with a defeated, dramatic sigh, “I guess you’ll be hot and mysterious forever.”

“Hm. If I’m less mysterious, does that mean I will be less hot?”

“I guess we’ll never know.”

He looks away, and takes a breath.

“I love reading,” He says.

“Yeah?”

“Ja.”

“What’s your favorite?”

He looks away, and gives something of a reserved laugh as he thinks on it.

“What?” You ask, nudging him with a grin.

“I really liked the love stories,” He says.

“Yeah?” You ask.

You find your grin growing into a full blown smile.

“Yes,” He says with a nod, “It’s stupid, but-”

He trails off, his eyes staring off at the clouds.

“What?” You ask with a laugh.

His lips fold in as he bites back a grin, dimpling his rosy cheeks.

“Äh, I - I always used to picture the girl as you.”

“Yeah?” You ask through a laugh.

He bites his lip, and nods.

“Ja.”

“That is stupid.”

While your words are harsh, your smile could not be wider. It’s obvious you don’t mean it.

“Do you want to see if they have any books?” You ask, “You could read to me?”

“If you want,” You add.

Konig leaves a featherlight kiss on your forehead.

“Yes.”

You both head back into the suite, and poke around for a bookshelf. This suite is so massive, you wouldn’t be surprised if it had its own library.

One of the walls in an office is lined with shelves, bursting with books and golden nicknacks. There’s so many books, you don’t think you’d be able to read them all in just one lifetime even if you tried.

You hop up on a desk, crossing your legs at the ankle with a gentle sway, and watch as Konig browses their book collection. Ogling his form from behind, really, mesmerized by the hypnotic push and pull of his back muscles with his movements. His fingers run over the spines, occasionally pulling a book from its place to thumb through it.

He must have found one he liked, stepping over to hand it off to you, silently waiting for your approval. He doesn’t have to wait long. You agree without even skimming it over, handing it back to him before you both make the maze-like journey back to the balcony.

You nestle between Konig’s legs, pressing your back flush to his front and resting your head on his chest. His bare arms wrap around you, hovering the book just over your lap. He reads to you like this, the deep vibration of his words on your back and his raspy voice painting a story in your head.

A love story.

And even though it’s stupid, you picture the boy as Konig.

So cozy, so warm, wrapped up in those safe, deadly arms. You rest your eyes, and let yourself melt into his hold.

Even with a hostage and a corpse waiting for you inside, and the price to pay for this rebellion just around the corner, it’s the most relaxed you’ve been since that last day in the arena. A pleased smile on your face and your thoughts replaced with the story he reads to you. Losing yourselves to another world, a world without games and kills and forced intimacy and impending execution.

At the end of the first chapter, Konig takes a break to shower you with kisses from behind. He starts with the top of your head and trails down your neck, quickening the pauses between kisses until you have no choice but to giggle and squeal, his rapid kisses and scratchy stubble too stimulating to handle.

At your pleads and insistence that it tickles, he hums in consideration through the furious kisses in rapid succession on your neck. Holding you tight in those strong arms as you try to squirm away while the book flops around in your lap.

When you’re really out of breath, he relieves you with one final, slobbering, noisy kiss before turning the page and starting a new chapter.

You settle back into his chest with a huff, and get lost in his voice, his story, the vibration of his words on your back.

He even does voices for the different characters, and after every chapter, attacks you with his kisses from behind until you’re out of breath from laughing and squeaking.

Somewhere around chapter seven, your mind starts to wander away from the book.

It’s not intentional, but Ellaine creeps into your thoughts. The sight of her restrained and gagged and trapped in a bathroom with her dead husband clear in your mind.

Oh, Ellaine.

Ellaine, Ellaine, Ellaine.

Whether or not she lives or dies, it will not change the consequence that is to come.

Your fate is sealed, you have nothing to lose.

Do you want to drag her down with you?

You do not want to think of her. You don’t want to decide her fate. You are desperate to free yourself of her so that you can go back to enjoying yourself with the love of your life.

… It’s funny, though.

Maybe you should feel bad about taking a life, about traumatizing a woman by slaughtering her husband in front of her, restraining her and forcing her to be held hostage with his fresh corpse while she knows her fate is to be decided by two unwell district kids -

But you don’t.

The detail that bothers you the most, the tricky little hang up that keeps you from feeling guilty - is that when Ellaine was begging and pleading for her life, screaming at the top of her lungs - no one came to her rescue.

If it had been you, if it had been Konig - it would not have mattered what was done to you, how much you screamed and cried for help -

It would not have come.

And then you find yourself thinking of Price.

Days after his games, forced into the bedroom against his will so soon after losing the love of his life, unable to defend himself in the face of grave consequence.

And you find yourself thinking of all the victors that have come before you. And of the twenty-two tributes who have sacrificed themselves so you could live, who very well would have been subjected to the same.

Willow and Sapphire and Eleven and Sage and The District Twelve tributes with their hollow stares -

Even Titan wouldn’t deserve this.

You keep trying to put yourself in Ellaine and Pharus’ shoes, but no matter how hard you try, you can’t.

You can empathize with the ignorant Capitol citizens somewhat. Because if it had been you, born in the Capitol instead of an outer district, living a prosperous life from the start, maybe you would be just as ignorant.

But you just know, deep down in your core, even if you were elite, you would have never purchased a person with the intent to have them pleasure you against their will. You would soon end another life at your own hand than do such a horrendous thing to another person. The is no level of ignorance that could possibly justify this.

Before the chapter ends, before Konig takes his kiss break, you interrupt him mid-sentence.

“Kill her.”

You ride the expand and deflate of Konig’s chest with one deep breath.

“I already did.”

You peel yourself from his front, core twisting to face him.

“You did?”

He doesn’t look worried, or scared of your reaction. His expression is even.

He nods.

“Okay,” You say.

“Okay,” He says.

He finishes out the chapter, and showers you in kisses until you’re laughing and squealing and rid of your thoughts of Ellaine.

When the end of three far-too-short hours nears, it feels as if the sun is setting over the desert quadrant.

Neither of you acknowledge the bittersweet air.

After the ninth kissing session, you sigh and lull your head dramatically on his shoulder.

“I should probably put pants on,” You groan.

“If you must.”

“I feel like I should. A girl should wear pants if she’s going to be executed.”

“Ja?”

“Ja.”

He gives that inaudible, amused laugh, the one that bounces his shoulders.

“Wanna poke around their closets?” You ask.

He gives you a kiss on the top of your head.

“Yes.”

There’s enough clothes in Ellaine and Pharus’ closet, you’re sure you could wear one outfit a day for the rest of your life and never run out of something new to wear.

Usually wearing the lavish Capitol outfits repulse you, but you find you’re actually having fun rummaging through Ellaine’s closet. Maybe because it’s in your control now. You get to pick what crazy, outlandish outfit you get to wear instead of being forced into some uncomfortable get-up against your will.

“Oh hoh hoh,” You drum up, “What about this one?”

You program the screen that controls their automatic closet. The outfit you selected whips out, a truly ridiculous thing.

You think it’s technically a bathrobe, but it’s so grand you feel it could be the dress of a princess.

A silken pink wrap with a matching belt to be tied around your waist. Adjustable, just what you need while playing dress up in someone else’s closet. The hem would drape onto the floor, but not too much, just enough to create an alluring drag behind you. Both the sleeves and the hem are lined with a soft, bushy pink fur.

Dramatic, but above all, comfortable.

Konig offers little commentary, just watches as you slip the silly thing on and secure the ribbon around your waist. You give the long, loose sleeves a shake, arms entirely swallowed by shiny silk and dancing tufts of pink fur.

You move to a mirror to get a better look at yourself in your puffy outfit.

“Can you believe these people wear this stuff? And actually - mean it?”

You twist your body in the mirror and move your arms, watching as the furry edges slink with your movements like big fuzzy caterpillars. You try to imagine Ellaine wearing such a thing around her house while she -

What do Capitol citizens even do in their freetime?

Surely not chores.

Would Ellaine wear this just to nurse a glass of wine and read a book?

These people are so strange.

When you don’t get a response, you turn to Konig with a mockery of the Capitol accent primed on your tongue, but your face falls when you see his expression.

His brows are raised and his lips are the slightest bit parted. He catches your eyes and flits his stare away, but his cheeks are almost as pink as the fur.

“Oh?” You ask, looking down at your silly outfit with a laugh, “Yeah?”

He clears his throat and shrugs.

“You just - it suits you, is all.”

“Alright. I think I’ll keep it, then. It’d be quite the execution outfit, don’t you think?”

Konig smiles.

“Now we have to find one for you,” You say.

“Ja?”

“Ja,” You say, “Unless you want to be executed shirtless.”

“Hmm.”

Konig steps over to the giant mirror and takes in his form. Giving baby flexes and staring at himself like he’s actually considering it.

“I just might.”

You wrap your silken, fuzzy sleeves around him from behind, a cheeky grin peeking around his ribcage, catching his stare in the mirror as your hands glide up and down his torso.

“I wouldn’t mind,” You say.

His eyelids lower.

“Mm. I’m sure you wouldn’t.”

You give his waist a squeeze, smushing the apple of your cheek against his side.

It was supposed to be the end of your backwards little embrace, but you find yourself lingering. Drawn into his scent and melting into the heat radiating off his muscles.

You close your eyes and take a deep, satisfied breath.

Without breaking the embrace, Konig shuffles in place to face you, and you let him, loosening your hold until you can clamp your arms back around him. His hands find your shoulders with a reassuring squeeze before smoothing down your back to hold you tight in return.

A feeling you’ve felt only a handful of times returns - stepping through the fall forest, funneled into a barbed hedge maze, an exchange of a ribbon as the sun sets over the desert.

That ominous finality.

It feels like it will be the last time you will ever hold him, and it makes your throat ache and your eyes swell with tears.

So you don’t let go.

You hold him, a tight and warm embrace, breathing in his scent. It feels as if everything, all of it - paranoia and mistrust and tokens and young love - games and kills and deaths and double suicides - has led up to this moment.

It’s long overdue, but this is where your story ends.

You don’t let go of him until the doorbell chimes its song throughout the suite. You jump, face already contorted in a wince as your wide eyes dart around Konig’s face in a silent plea for help. His hands find your shoulders, and he gives you another squeeze.

He shrugs, and it seems he will be executed shirtless.

Konig cups your trembling jaw in his hands, bends down, and presses a long, tender kiss on your lips. Gentle enough to nearly convince you that you’re made of glass.

He pulls away slowly, and intently studies your face with a ghost of a smile.

His thumb brushes along the height of your cheek before he pulls away, and you know that it’s time.

Konig keeps you behind him as you make way to the foyer. He creeps open the door, and the peacekeepers are quick to surround you as you step from the crime scene and into the hallway. You prime yourself to be handcuffed, picking up your arms to display your wrists in surrender.

And nothing happens.

Without really giving it much thought, you just assumed as soon as the time was up, they’d somehow know you killed Ellaine and Pharus. As if the peacekeepers would bother to stick around and check on them, to make sure you both lived up to expectation.

But they don’t.

They just escort you from the suite and march you down to the armored car.

You had not accounted for this.

In your head, your fate was cemented. You knew where you would be killed, when, and at whose hand.

This delay has flooded your oasis with uncertainty.

It’s coming, you know that. The President will absolutely be checking in with them for a full report, and have someone check on them after radio silence.

But when?

The countdown is ticking, and you no longer know when it will expire. You almost wish the peacekeepers would have put the bullet in your head as soon as time was up, because you know waiting for the other shoe to drop is going to be incredibly agonizing.

While you look more than guilty, fists clenched and sweating from every pore, your saving grace is that everyone thinks you just endured an evening of being forced into intimacy for the first time. Surely anyone would think that’s the reason you’re acting strange.

Konig, on the other hand, looks unfazed. Standing tall with his bare shoulders back, his eyes half-lidded with indifference. His hold on you is still tight, though.

Only the echo of commanding boots and almost comical slaps of slippers fill the silence as you’re both escorted back to the suite. You didn’t want to be executed in heels, you decided, but Ellaine’s feet must have been huge. Your feet have to cling to the slippers to keep them from falling off while her ridiculous bathrobe drags behind you.

Price is waiting for you on your return, buried in papers spread over the dining table. He sighs loud enough you can hear it from the elevators, and without looking up, he waves a dismissive hand to relieve the peacekeepers.

“You two - Go change and get cleaned up. C’mere when you’re done.”

You follow his order without pushback, abandoning Ellaine’s robe for something just as comfortable, but nowhere near as fancy, and replace the underwear Konig destroyed in the throes of passion.

Ruby practically runs over to you both on your return.

“Oh, my victors! I missed you!”

She gives you a kiss on the cheek, and has to beckon Konig to lean down so she can do the same to him.

“Your very first dinner party! How did it go?!”

“Ruby!” Price barks from across the room, “Let them breathe.”

Ruby clicks her tongue and rolls her eyes at you both.

“Nevermind him. He has been in such a mood,” She waves a limp hand in your direction, “You’d think having not only the first victor of his career, but the second as well - he’d find time to unsour that attitude.”

You just give her an uneasy nod. Price ignores her jab and pointed glare, and instead makes a sharp, one-note whistle to beckon you both.

Price doesn’t acknowledge you right away. He’s focused on his paper with tense shoulders as you stand at attention before him, the scratch of ink dragging across the page the only sound filling this stale room.

It feels like you’re in trouble.

He must know.

Somehow, somehow he figured out what you’ve done, and he’s about to lose it on you both.

You glance at Konig, who meets your stare from the corner of his eyes. His brow perks and a sly, knowing smile tugs on the corner of his lips.

“Are you hurt?” Price finally asks without looking up.

“Huh?”

“Are you hurt?” He repeats, “Did they hurt you?”

“Oh,” You say, “No.”

“Romeo?”

“No.”

When Price looks up he gives you a quick scan, and his face hardens when he locks onto your neck.

Your hand springs up to touch the spot he’s scorching with his stare.

Blood? Is there blood there?

The jig is up, caught, busted.

He knows.

Price’s bruised eye twitches and he turns his head to snap in Ruby’s direction.

“Take her down to medical. Get those fucking marks off‘er neck.”

Oh.

Konig’s strawberry kisses.

“Its so late, John, at least let her-“

You flinch when Price slams his fist on the table, stationery hopping on the tabletop and clattering on their descent.

“Just do it!” He shouts.

Ruby flinches, her hand springing up to her collarbones. She stammers for a moment before swallowing whatever words she had in mind, clears her throat, and looks to you.

“Come on, dear.”

Ruby coaxes you down the stairs with a gentle wave, her hand resting on your shoulder to guide you along.

You shoot a look back to Price, who’s staring at the table with a hand covering his jaw. You wonder if you should just tell him they were marks Konig left behind, but your instincts don’t let you. You deem it to be too incriminating. Like if he knew Konig was the one leaving strawberry kisses on your skin instead of Capitol buyers, he would somehow jump to the conclusion that you committed a double homicide.

You can’t figure out how he would make the connection, but you go with your gut regardless of the potential to relieve his distress. It seems too risky.

Price is rather intuitive.

Konig accompanies you down to medical, obviously, and strangely, Ruby correctly assumes that Konig is the one who left the marks. There’s no one in the halls, but she still leans in and speaks low as you walk to avoid embarrassing you.

“Y’know, it’s not very proper for a young lady to be parading around with love marks on her skin.”

She looks over you to tilt her head at Konig.

“Maybe more discreet next time?”

If you hadn’t just killed two people, maybe you’d find it annoying that Ruby’s so worried about your modesty. How much modesty is left to preserve when you and Konig have not only been intimate in front of all of Panem, but just hours ago you were two murders away from being victims of forced prostitution?

In medical, some foul smelling concoction is smeared on your neck, and you’re both sent to bed almost as soon as you’ve returned to the suite.

Konig isn’t as upset at having to sleep in separate rooms tonight. At his door, he pulls you into his front and slings his arm around the back of your waist. He tips your upper half backwards, leans down, and presses his lips to yours. This one’s neat - precise and firm and unable to be ignored.

He keeps you pinned to his chest in his suggestive hold and studies you with crinkled eyes and a pleased grin.

“See you tomorrow, mein sieger.”

You swallow and give a faint nod.

“I hope so,” You whisper back.

Getting to sleep is no easy feat. You keep waiting for the peacekeepers to barge into your bedroom and have you drug away to be executed in front of the whole country for your crimes.

But they don’t come, and the arms of rest eventually become too tempting to resist.

You sleep in your quarters.

Willow and Sapphire sit at the foot of your bed, their knees folded and their legs just to the sides of them. You’re feet from them, but it looks and sounds like you’re underwater. The words they’re speaking aren’t making sense, but their faces are relaxed and they wear smiles. Occasionally one of them will burst into a fit of laughter.

You feel so at ease, so peaceful. You find yourself entranced by Willow’s nimble fingers as she braids Sapphire’s hair.

All three of you flinch at the bang, and whip your heads around to catch the door splintering into a thousand shards. The warmth in your chest ices over as Konig’s menacing form steps through the rubble.

You try to look back to Willow and Sapphire for help, but Willow’s been flayed and Sapphire’s only got an empty, bloody socket for an eye.

Willow’s skinless body lets out a haunting, guttural moan, smearing blood on the covers as she crawls over to you. You try to run from outstretched hands made of only bone, but Sapphire snatches you by your bicep. She and Willow lock you in place so they can let Konig run his sword straight through your neck.

Breakfast is a lot.

It becomes obvious very quickly that Ruby doesn’t know what’s going on. Not just about the murders, but about the prostitution in general. She keeps asking about how the dinner party went.

Did you have good table manners? Were you polite to the sponsors? Did you thank them for the gifts?

Price gets stiffer with each question she asks. You give polite, reserved answers when it’s clear Konig’s not interested in responding.

You try to keep your responses to a two-word maximum, terrified you might let your secret slip. The entire meal you are worried Price can somehow read your thoughts. Like your misdeeds are written on your skin in bold capital letters.

Thankfully he doesn’t look up from his plate. He’s busy picking at his meal with his fingers, hardly taking bites. Separating something from his food and tossing it roughly around his plate.

Konig doesn’t seem worried. While you can’t sit still or untense your muscles, he’s entirely relaxed next to you. His legs spread and his thigh pressed to yours, slouched in his chair to Ruby’s dismay.

You start when his free hand finds your knee.

He smooths up your thigh, delicate fingers tracing along the inseam of your pants. His touch is stirring, curious fingers exploring the sensitive skin of your inner thighs.

Konig plays it casual, his face bored, keeping his attention on his plate.

Your first urge is to swat him away -

But you don’t.

Instead you sneak panicked glances at Ruby and Price to make sure they’re oblivious to Konig’s wandering hands.

You shoot Konig a look, but he doesn’t meet your eyes. You do catch his lip twitch up in a barely-noticeable pleased grin, one you wouldn’t notice unless you were looking for it.

You don’t have the forethought to suppress the sharp breath you suck in when he squeezes.

When his fingers relieve their possessive hold on you, Konig continues to trace circles on your inner thighs.

His movements don’t waver, he continues to eat his breakfast as if he’s not feeling you up in front of an audience.

He runs out of leg, his hand sliding further down the valley of your inner thighs. His pinky lifts from the crease of your leg to graze over your front.

Your fork shakes in your hand, your lips parted to release shallow breaths. He’s just barely touching you, but his faint touch has a powerful rousing effect. A burning heat scorches your cheeks, and you can feel that familiar, thrilling wave of heat rushing to your lower abdomen.

Your fidgeting legs and twitching hips push into his touch with little thought.

You’re having trouble hiding the shake in your fingers and the look of horror on your face, but you still don’t swat him away.

“You have another dinner party tonight,” Price says gruffly.

Konig’s hand pulls away from your thighs the same time your head whips up.

“What? Tonight?”

Will you even make it that long?

At any moment, peacekeepers will barge in and take you both prisoner.

“Yeah. A sole sponsor,” He grunts, still inspecting his plate, clearly displeased with his flawless meal.

“Wha- Are we both going?”

“Mhm.”

You shoot a nervous glance to Konig, but he’s still eating his breakfast, unaffected by this news.

“Okay.”

You say it’s okay, but your voice is pitched so high it’s nowhere near believable.

“This is just marvelous,” Ruby beams, “I’m so proud of you two! How far you’ve come! And you know, these are very powerful connections to have! Who knows what kind of-”

“Ruby,” Price warns with a draw.

“Oh, what is it?” She says with an eye roll.

“Leave them alone.”

Ruby smacks her lips and shakes her head at you both with a wordless complaint.

“No, no, it’s… great,” You say, “I just - I just wish I would have known sooner. To prepare? How many more…dinner parties?”

“One day at a time,” Price sighs.

You’re starting to come to the conclusion that the reason the Capitol has been working so hard to keep you and Konig supervised at all times is to keep you from planning something disastrous.

Say, for instance, a murder in the tune of rebellion.

But Konig doesn’t need to take you somewhere private, and he doesn’t have to use his words.

In fact, he doesn’t even have to turn to face you.

His chin tilts up, and the curve of his fork rides down his bottom lip on a draw. He looks to you from the corner of his sly eyes, an eyebrow perks, and a smile grows around the prongs of his fork.

There is a moment of hesitancy - but you eventually agree with a faint nod and a harsh swallow. He thanks you with a squeeze on your thigh, and his bouncing leg knocks against yours under the table for the rest of the meal.

The silver lining of Price harboring the burden of thinking you really were forced into intimacy last night is that he can hardly say no to you. So when you and Konig ask to sit on the balcony after breakfast, Price lets you, with the one request that you keep the glass door open.

You don’t have the heart to break it to him that his attempts to keep you and Konig from planning something rebellious are useless, so you indulge him.

You and Konig cozy up on the balcony, nestling yourself between his legs and leaning back on his chest, just like you did when he read to you. His strong arms wrap around you as you ease yourself into his hold and let him plant soft kisses anywhere he can reach.

You lay like this for a while, trying to keep your focus from straying anywhere but the fresh air, the buzz of the city below, Konig’s generous kisses.

“Mein sieger,” He breathes into the crook of your neck, "Es tut mir leid-”

He kisses your shoulder, his wide, assertive hands gliding down your ribcage, your stomach, your hips.

“You got me so worked up yesterday,” He whispers, “I never made you finish.”

His hands wrap around the apex of your thighs, kneading the supple flesh beneath his fingers.

“Verzeihen Sie mir.”

His strong, rugged hands slide up your hips until he can hook under your waistband, slinking his fingers into your pants with a slow, teasing descent.

“I’ll make it up to you now? Ja?”

“Ko-”

“Shh.”

His hush, right in your ear, thickens your breaths and sends a shiver down your spine.

He flicks his head in the direction of the balcony door.

“Don’t want anyone to hear, mein seiger.”

Your thighs spread for his wandering hands, his warm, assured palms running over your bare thighs. You watch the outline of his hands through the fabric of your pants as they seek out the front of your underwear. Your breath catches at his firm, presuming hold over the entirety of you. He plants a kiss on your cheek as he massages wide circles over your panties, and keeps his face pressed to yours when he whispers his filthy nothings.

“I’m going to make you cum on my fingers. You can keep quiet, can’t you?”

“Here?” You squeak.

His free hand slinks out of your pants to run over your chest, kneading you through your shirt and brushing over your nipple with his thumb.

“Here,” He hisses.

He sneaks into your panties, gliding up and down your slit, spreading you open and lubing his fingers on the flood of arousal waiting for him. A low laugh leaves him as he plays in your slick mess.

“Did I get you wet earlier, little one?”

His question, whispered and cocky and rhetorical, hitches your breath and sends a heat of arousal straight to your lower core.

“Did you like it when I touched you with everyone watching?”

You flinch when he squeezes your chest, not painfully, but firm enough to make you suck in a breath sharper than a knife through your teeth. Your wide eyes dart to the open balcony door, dreading the moment someone walks out and catches you in the act.

“Mein unartiges Mädchen.”

Konig leaves another kiss on your cheek, as his fingers trace around your clit.

“It’s okay,” He whispers, “I will give you what you need.”

The fingers lost to your panties are teasing, light strums over your clit, an eerie contrast to the sudden drop of his next words. A warning, a reminder, a threat, and a promise - a low, dangerous growl against your cheek.

“I am what you need.”

You nod through sputtered breath, and while there is a chill frosting your spine, a desperate want to please him while at his mercy regardless of the truth - you know his statement is true.

You do need him.

You and Konig are intertwined, so tangled together at this point you might as well be one entity. Your love, your misdeeds, your victories, your deaths, your kills, your lust, your fears, your feelings.

Your very lives depend on each other.

You need him.

You’ve known it since the beginning, as much as you fought and refused and denied.

He fulfills his promise, his threat, keeping the heel of his palm flush against your front as he sinks his middle finger into you.

He huffs in approval from behind you, warm breath rolling along your flesh.

Your eyes flit to the open glass door - at any moment someone could come strutting out onto this balcony to see one of Konig’s hands stuffed down your pants, the other manhandling you like you’re his doll, and your need for him.

And maybe you should bat him away and tell him to stop to save you a level of an embarrassment you know you won’t be able to handle -

But you don’t.

“Hn-!”

“Quiet, mein sieger.”

The hand palming your breast moves to your jaw, two of his fingers brushing over your bottom lip. Obediently you open for him, letting him coax his fingers into your mouth and press them to your tongue.

You can feel him against you, aching against the slack in his lounge pants, making steady grinds against your lower back while he quickens the thrust of his fingers.

You have to resist the urge not to bite down on him as you suck on his fingers and choke down your strangled whines.

“Good girl,” He purrs, “Does it feel good?”

You give a muffled affirmation around the drool-soaked fingers in your mouth.

“Is this tight cunt still sore from taking your fucking yesterday?”

He punctuates his filthy question with a teasing swirl inside you, working you open before he begins to roughly plunge back into you.

His lips press against the dip of your shoulder and your neck. A gentle, disarming kiss before he nibbles at your skin and provokes a squeaky gasp.

“Sei doch still,” He hushes.

The flat of his tongue runs along his bite, his spit soothing the dull ache and his stubble prickly against your skin.

“Es ist okay,” He breathes, “Ich werde mich um dich kümmern.”

Konig’s finger is unrelenting, fucking into you as fast as he can without making too much noise while his massive arms bulge around you to keep you locked in place.

“Ich werde dich beschützen.”

Your carve indents into his fingers with your teeth, biting back the noises aching to leave you.

“Weil du gehörst mir.”

His voice drops to a growl, snarling against your skin.

“Für immer.”

When he sees you’re struggling to choke back your moans and whines, he allows you a break. His fingers come to a slow stop before he carefully pulls from your cunt, dragging through your arousal and up to your clit.

He keeps his cheek smushed to yours, his stubble grinding along your jaw as he rubs circles in your slick. His fingers slide from your imouth to sneak up your shirt, smearing your cool spit over your breast.

“Do you feel me?” He whispers with a drawn-out grind, “Do you feel how excited you got me, unartiges Mädchen?”

He gives you a firm tug until you’re sitting on his lap, a squeak escaping you as his tightly pressed fingers flick side to side over your clit at full speed.

“You have to be quiet,” He says, “You can handle that, can’t you?”

You can hear your own arousal as he quickly scrubs back and forth with a light hand. Maybe more accurately flicking side to side over your entire cunt, not at all precise, but effective. There’s no way he’d be able to go off course with the way his hand works all of you.

“S’too much,” You choke.

Your nails claw into his thighs, pressing yourself further into him to get away from the overwhelming, bordering on painful pleasure.

“You want me to stop? Hm?”

He scoffs when you shake your head. The arm slung over your front tenses, and your back involuntarily arches off his chest as you fight the cries and moans that sit on your tongue.

Konig’s fingers are ruthless, following your squirms and furiously swiping over your clit. Overstimulating you, daring you to make noises you have to fight with everything you have to hold back.

Your writhes against him turns his breaths huffed and only encourages the fingers seeking to ruin you.

Your teeth dig into your bottom lip, eyes pinched shut and swallowing squeaks to keep them from breaching your lips. Konig’s limbs are inescapable, blocking you in and navigating your wriggling with ease. The guiding pressure of his forearm on your middle to keep you against his chest or a firm leg hooked around yours to prevent you from closing your thighs.

Your trembling hands claw at his legs, and when you let out the start of cry he knows you won’t be able to hold back, he clamps his hand over your mouth, silencing your wail and forcing your head against his shoulder with his warm, stern palm.

“Sch, sch, sch.”

The pleasure building between your legs is so intense you’re unintentionally fighting it off.

“You’re going to cum from just my fingers? Hm?”

Your squeaks and cries are muffled by the hand that swallows the lower half of your face.

He knows very well you can’t respond to his taunts. Even without the clammy hand silencing you, you wouldn’t be able to form a coherent sentence because of his other hand.

You’re confident the sound of your own slick and his brute fingers can be heard all over the Capitol, and you’re sure at any given moment a figure will appear at the balcony door and catch you in the act.

Your fears do little to stop the return of that white hot star building in your lower core - flickering and expanding at Konig’s hand. Your entire body trembles in his hold, the struggle against your own pleasure weakening with every passing moment.

Your hands find his thighs, scratching at the cotton of his lounge pants as you brush against a grand finish.

It is intense.

Shockwaves of euphoria shoot from your core in all directions of your body. It’s for the best that Konig’s hand is muting you, because the cry that tries to escape you would have echoed through the streets below. Konig’s muscles tighten around you to keep you pressed against the strain in his paints as you stiffen and convulse in his hold.

Konig doesn’t let up through your intense finish, his fingers still swiping over your pulsing clit unforgivingly and manipulating your pleasure into something twisted. Trapped in his arms as you twitch and moan into his hand.

You tap on his thigh twice, and he takes the hint, coming to a graceful stop before he carefully slides his hand from your pants. He releases the bottom half of your face, freeing your huffs to catch your breath. His arms wrap around your stomach and tighten to keep you steady while he grinds on your backside.

“So gut,” He strains, “Mein gutes Mädchen.”

Your limp body is pliant to his hold, doing nothing more than pushing out heavy breaths. You melt into his whim, letting him keep you still with firm hands on your hips while he rubs against you through his sweatpants.

“I thought about you all night,” He whispers in your ear, “So pretty on my cock yesterday.”

His grinds quickly turn desperate.

“You feel so good. Ich kann nicht anders.”

His pants are nothing short of erotic, heavy in your ear and cut short with each rut against you. Snatched up in his hold and letting him slobber over your neck while you bask in the bliss he wrought.

His fingers tighten into your hips, and he has to stifle his groan with your shoulder.

“Ich bin dein,” He breathes, “Ich- Ich werde Euch dienen.”

Konig sputters through clenched teeth behind you, his hips spasming and his arms constricting around your ribcage so tight he’s making it hard to breathe.

He untenses after a few seconds, still except for the chest that presses into your back with each of his huffy, gravelly breaths. His hold loosens and he slumps his upper half on you, burying his burning face into your neck with a whine.

You rub the top of his thigh and turn your head, his hair tickling your nose as you plant a kiss on the side of his head.

“Did you make a mess?” You tease.

He whines again, squeezes you around your middle, and nods shamefully against your neck.

His apology is so quiet it’s barely audible.

“I’m sorry.”

“Awh. S’okay. You’re still my good boy.”

“I love you,” He whispers breathlessly, “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

You trace soothing circles on his thigh while you lean on each other, cooling off and enjoying that relaxing feeling that comes after finish.

Once his breathing has evened and his face drains its flush, you both wander back into the suite, avoiding making eye contact with anyone.

You return to the balcony with clean underwear. Konig lays back, and you follow suit, worming your way into the crevice between the cushions and his side.

You rest your head on his shoulder and a palm on his chest, riding the billow of his ribcage. You melt into each other like this, bodies conforming to one another as you bask in the day.

“I thought about your little game,” He says after a bout of silence, “About what I love and what I hate.”

He gives a proud smile, and adds, “Just for you.”

“Oh?” You say with a curious perk of your brow, “What do you love?”

“I love you,” He says.

A finger comes up to poke your nose, and before you can object to his unsatisfactory answer, he delivers what you were promised.

“And the stars. And bird song and jam.”

“Jam?” You ask with a smile.

“Elderberry, preferably,” He says, “But strawberry will do.”

He smiles, and plants a kiss on your forehead.

“And what do you hate?” You ask.

“I hate,” He draws, “That I’ve never had a pair of shoes that fit until I came here. I hate that this world has put you in danger. And I have never, ever hated someone more than that boy from District Two.”

Konig’s hands tighten into fists.

“It scares me,” He says, “How much I hate him.”

You just nod, and ignore the return of that uneasy feeling needling at you.

“So,” He starts, a fist untensing to delicately brush a strand of hair behind your ear, “Am I less hot now that I’m less mysterious?”

“Hmm. Let me see.”

You squint one eye and reach up to cup his face. He lets you guide him, tilting his jaw side to side while you hum and hah throughout your mock evaluation.

“It’s as I suspected,” You confirm with a sensible nod, “Still hot.”

“Gott sei Dank.”

You and Konig cuddle on the balcony, dozing on and off for the rest of the morning, catching up on the rest you missed out on last night. Plenty of kisses and sweet nothings are exchanged on breaches in wake.

Occasionally either Ruby or Price will pop their heads out to check on you and make sure you’re not up to no good.

But of course, you are.

Lunch is uneventful, and before you know it, you’re shipped back to the prep team to get ready for round two.

Tonight’s color is a deep red, a color that immediately reminds you of blood - so much so you get a whiff of a coppery tang. While your gruesome crimson is softened with more lace and frills, Konig’s silky button down is a solid deep red and offers little to distract from the bloodshed.

And this time, when you and Konig meet eyes in the dressing room, you share a smile.

Faint but unmistakable.

NEXT CHAPTER | CHAPTER NAVIGATION

[iviarellereads]

The Great Hunt, Prologue - In the Shadow

(THIS PROJECT IS SPOILER FREE! No spoilers past the chapter you click on. Curious what I'm doing here? Read this post! For the link index and a primer on The Wheel of Time, read this one! Like what you see? Send me a Ko-Fi.)

(Wheel icon) In which someone's being very naughty.

First, the dedication:

And it shall come to pass that what men made shall be shattered, and the Shadow shall lie across the Pattern of the Age, and the Dark One shall once more lay his hand upon the world of man. Women shall weep and men quail as the nations of the earth are rent like rotting cloth. Neither shall anything stand nor abide . . . Yet one shall be born to face the Shadow, born once more as he was born before and shall be born again, time without end. The Dragon shall be Reborn, and there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth at his rebirth. In sackcloth and ashes shall he clothe the people, and he shall break the world again by his coming, tearing apart all ties that bind. Like the unfettered dawn shall he blind us, and burn us, yet shall the Dragon Reborn confront the Shadow at the Last Battle, and his blood shall give us the Light.(1) Let tears flow, O ye people of the world. Weep for your salvation.(2) —from The Karaethon Cycle: The Prophecies of the Dragon, as translated by Ellaine Marise’idin Alshinn, Chief Librarian at the Court of Arafel, in the Year of Grace 231 of the New Era, the Third Age(3)

Thusly, the prologue begins, our perspective that of...

The man who called himself Bors, at least in this place,(4) sneered at the low murmuring that rolled around the vaulted chamber like the soft gabble of geese. His grimace was hidden by the black silk mask that covered his face, though, just like the masks that covered the hundred other faces in the chamber. A hundred black masks, and a hundred pairs of eyes trying to see what lay behind them.

The room looks ornate, but the roaring fires give off no heat, there are no windows, and only two doors. The walls are covered in tapestries, but behind them is bare stone. Bors doesn't like to think of where the room is, but he was summoned, so he came. He's glad the fires are cold, because he's wrapped in a huge amount of black wool to disguise his build and the fact that he's stooping to look shorter. He's not the only one taking this tack.(5) He watches his companions silently, because so often they make a mistake, give themselves away.

Servants, young men and women dressed in white and looking more than similar, circulate with drinks. He wonders if they'll need to be killed, but when he looks into one's eyes, they're as lifeless as a doll's.(6)

Some people don't bother to hide themselves. One woman is dressed in a scarlet red dress cut in a style that practically screams that she's someone wealthy from Illian, standing against a particular tapestry like she knows it will draw attention to her. Another wears a dress of a particular kind of fabric and cut that marks her from Arad Doman, and a bracelet bearing what could only be her house symbol, because "no Domani bloodborn would bend her stiff pride enough to wear the sigils of another House. Worse than foolishness."(7)

There's even a man in Shienaran clothes in sky blue, carrying himself like a soldier.(8) Bors prides himself on being able to read people and to know in an instant who they are. He sees others from Kandor, Cairhien, Ghealdan, even a Tinker, who he thinks disgustedly that they could do without.(9)

The disguised ones are no better. He spots the silver boots of a Tairen lord, lion spurs worn only by high-ranking Andoran Queen's guards, and a man with a tattoo marking him of the Sea Folk.(10) Then he catches two women wearing Aes Sedai rings in a row, both fully cloaked in black, and neither acknowledging the other. He curses them both, they're both less welcome to him than Tinkers.(11)

A chime sounds, and two Trollocs enter the room, followed  by a Myrddraal who commands them to drop and grovel. The whole room drops and chants a devotion to the Dark One, though Bors thinks internally about how the DO is sealed and the Creator is salvation, repeatedly cutting himself off with reminders that he serves “a different master” now. A voice tells them to rise, and Bors turns to look with just one eye. He sees a projection of a man, dressed all in red with a red mask. Would the Dark One appear to them as a masked man? Just one of the Forsaken, perhaps. He muses on how the Forsaken were trapped with the DO, and despairs that the women Aes Sedai were spared when the men were destroyed by sealing them all.(12)

The figure commands them to rise, gesturing with hands black and red, burned and raw. Would even one of the Forsaken appear to them so? The figure names himself Ba'alzamon, and promises that the Day when their master destroys the Wheel of Time and takes control of the world is coming. If he is the DO, he's switching between first and third person a lot.

He shows them three young men, one a mischievous country lad, one a curly-haired muscle guy with yellow eyes and a battle axe, and a reddish haired farmer or villager with blue eyes and a heron-marked sword.(13) He says that someone in the world will be, but isn't yet, the Dragon. He doesn't say why he's showing the boys.

“The Dragon Reborn! We are to kill him, Great Lord?” That from the Shienaran, hand grasping eagerly at his side where his sword would hang. “Perhaps,” Ba’alzamon said simply. “And perhaps not. Perhaps he can be turned to my use. Sooner or later it will be so, in this Age or another.” The man who called himself Bors blinked. In this Age or another? I thought the Day of Return was near. What matter to me what happens in another Age if I grow old and die waiting in this one?(14) But Ba’alzamon was speaking again.

Baa tells them to learn these faces well, and all sound and movement stop. Eventually some of the people around Bors start moving like they're talking to someone, but he sees nobody they're talking to, and he hears no word they speak. He quickly figures out that each is hearing their own instructions for what to do next.

The red-masked man appears before him, and Bors finally gets his instructions, to return to Tarabon and redouble his efforts for the Light,(15) and to watch and have his followers watch for the boys. His third instruction regards "those who have landed at Toman Head, and the Domani." The voice continues but Bors half tunes out, wondering what it means, none of it makes sense. (16) Abruptly the man grabs Bors's head and he's assaulted with visions and pain. An impossible sky with a great wind, a girl in white vanishing, a raven, a soldier in an insectoid helmet, a golden horn, a wolf ripping out his throat, on and on.

When it stops, the red man tells Bors some commands are too important to be known by the one who carries them out, and leaves.(17)

Bors thinks about the boys, naming them the Blacksmith, the Swordsman, and the Trickster in his mind.(18) Who are they? How important are they? Blue eyes could mean Andoran royalty, though not in those clothes, but there are some Borderlanders and Tairens and some from Ghealdan with blue eyes... that's no help at all. The Blacksmith's yellow eyes puzzle him even more.

A blank-eyed servant touches Bors's arm and leads him to the waiting room where he'd been led on his arrival before the meeting. He's told to change back into his own garments, nobody will see him leave here nor arrive at his destination, but it would be best to be already properly clothed.

The man who called himself Bors shivered in spite of himself. Hastily he undid the seals and buckles of his saddlebags and pulled out his usual cloak. In the back of his mind a small voice wondered if the promised power, even the immortality, was worth another meeting like this, but he laughed it down immediately. For that much power, I would praise the Great Lord of the Dark under the Dome of Truth. Remembering the commands given him by Ba’alzamon, he fingered the golden, flaring sun worked on the breast of the white cloak, and the red shepherd’s crook behind the sun, symbol of his office in the world of men,(19) and he almost laughed. There was work, great work, to be done in Tarabon, and on Almoth Plain.

=====

(1) Well, that seems rather definitive on the subject. (2) He will be a terrible force, but he will prevail. Weep, for you will be put through the wringer before this is over, but if you personally survive, so too will the world. (Is that a spoiler when the text is saying it literally here and we understand the context of literary foreshadowing and genre expectation? A 14-book epic is probably not going to end suddenly with a catastrophic loss, right? The fun is in finding out how we earn that success and what's lost along the way to pay for it.) (3) The New Era is the one our heroes are living in the year 998 of as of the last word on the matter. So, this was translated less than a millennium ago. (We don't talk about linguistic drift here, or how 770 years was enough to bring us from literal Old English to modern English.) (4) So, probably not that name in his daily life. (5) The last thing a Darkfriend is going to trust is another Darkfriend, the same way some people never really trust others because they know they're in it for themselves and will backstab the nearest target when that's the most expedient path to their goals, and what's to stop the next person over from being the same way. They project their insecurity and fear onto the motivations of others, and drive each other away. (6) Human puppets. If you still thought this would be a Ringsian tale, hopefully this chapter is setting up the appropriate amount of horror to change your expectations on that matter. (7) But then we get into the mindgames. How many layers deep is this? Would someone, in fact, give up their most ingrained comforts and symbols to ward off identification at a gathering like this? (8) I wonder if this is anyone we know. (9) Recall that even Egwene had some prejudice against them last book. A man like Bors has probably never been asked to reconsider the prejudices with which he was raised. (10) Admittedly, harder to fake than the clothing and accessory disguises. (11) This makes more sense at the end of the chapter, doesn't it? He may be a Darkfriend, but he's with the Whitecloaks for a reason, our Bors. But, look how quickly he judges each person, as if he's correct immediately. How many do you think he got right? How many do you think we'll meet again, or have met before? (12) So many assumptions in this set of Bors's thoughts. Some of this meshes with what we know from book one, but some of it is distinctly dissonant, and some of it is unknowable at this stage. (13) Hey, it's cha boys! Ballsy, what are you up to? (14) A clever observation. (15) It's enough to make you wonder if the Whitecloaks are really doing the Light's work in what they do. I say, as if we didn't have that whole Perrin and Egwene imprisonment sequence last book. (16) Someone's landed at Toman Head, and the Domani are one of the people there, from Arad Doman, which borders Tarabon just about there. It's on the map if you have a print edition, off on the left hand edge of the continent. (17) So, we have some unconscious planted commands. (18) Apt descriptions of their archetypes thus far, even though Perrin hasn't done much smithing on screen. (19) The golden sun, the emblem of the Whitecloaks. The red shepherd's crook, clearly a sign of specific role and/or rank. Shall we keep an eye out for anyone wearing one?

[papercutsunset]

Checked my class schedule and added room numbers to my calendar. Stoked to be back in the COOL science lecture hall btw. Fucking love the planetarium. (There's a reason the science lecture hall evoked in any Empire City mention looks like that.)

Anyway, the point of Bloodsaw's whole internal arc in this expedition story (BTTNP, actual title pending) is that they're (1) having a shit time mentally (I'll explain some other time) and (2) learning to open up and have friends for once. Friends are a hard thing for Caroline Bradshaw. Like, it's fairly normal to be nineteen and never really have had friends before, but they're not having a great time of it; and the story kicks off with them trying to cut Tiff off (in the middle of the effects of point 1), while Tiff realizes, a week later, that she actually does need to interact with them because they're kind of friends (ouch, oof) and cosmic work colleagues. So, because Tiff needs something from a mountain range in the Northern Realm, the two of them are forced to interact while Bloodsaw's imploding.

The majority of what's going on in their head has to do with coming out of point 1 and reckoning with point 2, thanks to Silvis drilling it into them that they can be cared for and Ben (who came with Tiff) forcing them to understand that they will be cared for and they get no say in the matter, which culminates in them resurrecting Tiff because she's dead, she was the first friend they ever had, and it's unfair that she's gone (and maybe it's selfish to want her back, but goddammit, they want her back. And the universe needs her to finish her machines and fix the planar breakdown, so suck it).

And, like, it doesn't fix them. They still break down in THP when Bern drugs them, even though they finally feel like the Saint. They ask for a divorce on the night of their wedding. They still have a hard time with things like letting Silvis see them cry, like when they're listening to the song Ernest, Grace, and Ryo wrote (at the end of their birthday, no less). They can't they're still kind of a dick, honestly, especially when they're tired or particularly sore-- because they're still themself, but it's nice to be cared for. And they can do that.

Anyway, a crucial part of that is that the four of them (Silvis, Bloodsaw, Ben, and Tiff-- and Kepler, since he's there, even if he doesn't ever talk except that one time in TGE and only ever does mischief) get snowed in for a couple days. That, in combination with the road trip aspect of the expedition and the fact that Bloodsaw is slowly coming out of the slump they're currently in, means that the four of them are just kinda chatting. It's that sweet spot of, like... well, this isn't exactly plot, not really, because they're stuck in a cave-- but it's some essential characterization. Ben and Bloodsaw get to bicker a little, Bloodsaw and Silvis talk about cookies and about Gram Coldiron, Tiff does some homework. They're bonding in a way that they need to, especially after a couple days of dealing with a horrible wizard that was trying to kill Bloodsaw (that Silvis then murdered, Bloodsaw resurrected, Tiff got mad at Silvis for lying to her about trying to kill (she was more mad about the lying), and so on). Like, it's been a stressful couple days. They just need to have a few days to sit in a cave and do some homework and eat some pancakes.

And part of that is realizing that Bloodsaw, Tiff, and Ben all had the same gym coach, despite Bloodsaw having been in a completely different graduating class (on account of having gone to high school in the nineties), because Chad Brower is old as shit and loves his job. Bloodsaw also mentions that they were in the first session of Wonder By The Water after Chip Winger took over the camp, meaning that they knew all the camp counselors there-- Henry, Ruben, Ellaine, and Stacey. They mention off-handedly that one of the counselors was pregnant, and Tiff goes, well, yeah. Ellaine Stevens. She was pregnant.

Because Tiff knows that. First of all, Ellaine Stevens is Eddy's grandma. So jot that down. Second, she knows Stacey Blake is dead. She knows for a fact that David McFadden, noted werewolf hunter, tracked down Stacey Blake, dual werewolf-zombie, and killed her that past February, which was the catalyst for Denny not talking to her dad anymore. Denny was already struggling with that decision, but the fact that her dad came to town on her birthday and killed someone (even if that someone did bite Suzette Sweet, who was dead at the time) who was just trying to live her life in a cave, permanently eighteen and doing her best, kind of made the decision for her.

But Tiff can't say all that, because Ben's in the cave. Bloodsaw knows Denny is a werewolf, and knows Silvis wouldn't care. Lycanthropy is normal in the Northern Realm-- but it's not normal in the Mortal Realm, where Ben is from. Furthermore, Ben and Denny's parents are dating, which gets more context in this cave portion (and technically gets some more intro earlier on, because I've got my fingers in so many parts of the timeline). Ben can not know that (1) Denny's a werewolf, (2) Denny's dad hunts werewolves, and (3) there's all sorts of drama happening there, so she's just like "Stacey's dead. I'm not saying anything more."

Some plot stuff does happen in the cave. Like, absolutely. It kicks off with Ben literally falling down a mountain, Tiff getting a rock through her leg, and Bloodsaw (1) freezing and (2) healing Ben through some Mormon imagery (lol). (I did a lot of Mormon imagery in this one. Because I'm a little freak.) Tiff also has a full-on vision in this one. Like, full-on, without inducing it.

But the cave! Stacey Blake! She's real, she's dead. It's canon. I've got to go back and write that out now, lol.

1/7/24

[urisk-factor]

What about high spirit

Okay so it's basically a story set in a world in which long ago magic was everywhere, but over time it faded, until one of the last magic endowed people, a High Spirit, created many instruments and enchanted them with the last remaining magic, sealed them away across the land, and then passed away.

Nowadays, society is this weird mix of different sort of styles in different lands, so, for instance, there's this big desert with a steampunk sort of ab aesthetic.

Now, there is exactly one magic user left, a High Spirit who was cast out for her greed, and cursed with immortality so that she could watch everyone around her perish while she lived on forever.

Sick of living in the shadows, she claims the enchanted violin, puts the last of her own magic into it, making it far stronger, and goes on to take a huge bit of land from one of the kingdoms.

She puts the people of this land under a form of mind control with the violin, forcing them to do her bidding.

Now, nearby, a wedding is being held, when all this happens.

One of the musicians playing for the occasional has an ordinary instrument, but also the pair of magic drumsticks, although the magic part is unknown to him. This is Missy Andrews.

When the Outcast High Spirit, who I haven't named yet, plays her music, everyone at the wedding is caught under the spell, except for Missy as he holds and is connected to the drumsticks, which keep him from being affected.

He runs as far as he can, then hitch hikes back to his home town, where he meets with some old friends from school: Shannon Meek (she/it) and Mannie Pauler (she/her).

He tells them what happened, and they get understandably really worried. That is when Mannie, who is the one with the magic guitar, points out that Missy was at the wedding but wasn't mind controlled like everyone else, and if someone did that, they might just come after him to ensure no witnesses.

Shannon, who has the magic mic, suggests that the three of them bunker down in its father's place, as the guy is one of them Apocalypse Preps or whatever they're called, and Missy and Mannie agree.

(Also, side note, Shannon and Mannie are aware of their instruments magic, but neither knows about the other's instrument's magic, if that makes sense??)

So meanwhile the Outcast High Spirit is absolutely furious, because despite her violin's power, she knows a band of magic instrument wielders could absolutely ruin her plan.

After plotting for a small moment, she decides to hire one of the best bounty hunters in the land, this being Aster Gaer, who, unbeknownst to the Outcast High Spirit, has the magic bass guitar.

The plan is to promise to pay him wisely, because she doesn't know squat about bounty hunting so controlling him and telling him what to do with the violin is out of the question, but she does know that you can just buy the services of people in that line of work, and most of the ones she's heard of will do anything for the right price.

The thing is. She isn't actually going to pay him. When he either eliminates the threat or brings the threat back to her to deal with, she plans to take him under control.

So he sets out after Missy.

However, a very long way away, in one of the largest and richest kingdoms, the only child of the king and heir to the throne discovers a hidden cavern, with the magic piano/keyboard within. This heir is Spot Allain (they/them) who will, like Aster, join Missy, Shannon, and Mannie very soon.

[hnc02]

LANGUAGE OF CREATIVE WRITING: IMAGERY

A. IDENTIFICATION

Identify the type of senses used and underline the words that makes it connected to the sense.

Sight    1. His almost –black hair captivates my attention.

Sound  2. Ellaine has a high-pitched laugh.

Touch   3. Her hair feels wiry.

Smell    4. Freddie wears too much aftershave.

Taste    5. The pizza tastes extraordinary and mouth-watery.

Touch   6. The rocks still wet from high tide.

Sight    7. The way the sea seems as blue as the sky, making it hard to tell where one ends and the other begins.

Sight    8. The tiny pink shells in the white sand were picked by the little girl.

Sound  9. The cry of the fox sounded like a child is a terrible pain.

Touch  10.  His ex-girlfriend gave him a cold handshake.

B. Read and assess the statements below. Identify the correct type of imagery used in each item. 

“The color is repellant, almost revolting; a smouldering, unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight. It is a dull yet lurid orange in some places, a sickly sulphur tint in others.” – The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1892)

Visual Imagery

 “The hour was approaching at which the continental breakfast begins, or rather ceases, to tell, and the ladies bought some hot chestnut paste out of a little shop, because it looked so typical. It tasted partly of the paper in which it was wrapped, partly of hair oil, partly of the great unknown.” – A Room With a View, E.M. Forster (1908)

Gustatory_Imagery

 “There were strange, rare odors abroad—a tangle of the sea smell and of weeds and damp, new-plowed earth, mingled with the heavy perfume of a field of white blossoms somewhere near.” – The Awakening, Kate Chopin (1899)

Olfactory Imagery

 “I heard the rain still beating continuously on the staircase window, and the wind howling in the grove behind the hall; I grew by degrees cold as a stone, and then my courage sank. My habitual mood of humiliation, self-doubt, forlorn depression, fell damp on the embers of my decaying ire.” –  Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë (1847)

Auditory Imagery

 While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. “’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door— Only this and nothing more.”  – The Raven, E.A. Poe

Tactile Imagery

 C. Respond to the following statements briefly. 

1. How does language impact the reader?

Using language in writing is like choosing words to create tone to convey message and communicate our ideas to the readers. It makes the reader feel what they have to feel in their books or whatever they are reading, for example reading a newspaper which some parts or pages are using literal language will make the readers very informative and feel alert and updated on their surroundings while some parts of the newspaper are using creative writing such as stories for entertainment will make the readers feel entertained and hooked-up to what they are reading. And also, it will make the readers know if they are reading something educational or fictional. 

2. What is the significance of imagery?

Imagery is very important especially when in Creative writing. It makes the reader feel the situation even if it’s words only. It will make them experience like they are in the actual world of literature and will give them idea on what the author is trying to convey in their works.  

D. Write a short paragraph of your favorite foreign or local travel destination applying sensory details and types of imagery. 

My favorite local travel destination is People’s Park in Tagaytay. I remember when I first stepped on the bumpy road of People’s Park it was 6:00 in the evening, all I felt was the chilly atmosphere and my ears were filled with the buzzing sound of the tourists’ that are quietly having conversation with their companions enjoying the brilliant view of the city from the mountain. While we are walking and enjoying the cold air, we saw some fascinating spaces where you can buy souvenirs to keep. As we keep walking, we found a spot where we can enjoy the aromatic smell of the cold breeze and watch the glowing sun as it sets. As the time passes, the entire place became dark and shadowy that gave us a glittering and sparkling view because of the radiant lights coming from the city. It was 8:00 in the evening when we decided to go home. We bought some freshly carved and shiny wooden key chains and some tasty Espasol for our souvenirs.

BONUS ACTIVITY. Try to rewrite this sentence into a more imagery-rich one. You can use the sensory details provided.

The ancient floorboards creaked beneath her, cold, bare feet as she paced the room apprehensively.

The wooden floorboards were creaking as she paced the room frantically. As she walks back and forth bare footedly on the dusty floor, she was sweating cold but can barely feel it because of agitation and the tension she was feeling.

[dalaznews-blog]

Ice cream truck driver injures 3 in drunk driving crash on National Ice Cream Day, police say

http://dalaznews.com/news/us/ice-cream-truck-driver-injures-3-in-drunk-driving-crash-on-national-ice-cream-day-police-say/

Ellaine Durham was arrested for allegedly driving into a auto even though drunk.  (Virginia Seashore Sheriff's Spot of operate)

A Virginia lady was allegedly drunk Sunday when she crashed the ice cream truck she was driving into a auto, injuring 3 men and women -- on Nationwide Ice Solution Functioning day.

Ellaine Durham, 35, was driving the truck by way of Virginia Seashore when she strike a vehicle and injured the occupants, police reported.

The individuals in the automobile have been taken to a health-related center with non-life-threatening accidents. Durham was discovered in the vicinity of the scene, police stated.

A individual witness, Coeltryn Kirkland, claimed he watched Durham strike a tree and travel off. Kirkland described the scene to WTKR-Tv.

“It was chaotic,” Kirkland claimed. “The comprehensive aspect of their automobile was caved in. It appeared seriously terrible. I’m astonished it wasn’t worse than it was.”

Durham was billed with driving even even though intoxicated and a handful of counts of felony hit-and-run, the The Virginian-Pilot reported.

National Ice Cream Day is celebrated every third Sunday in July. President Ronald Reagan signed a proclamation in 1984 in honor of the dessert.

The Affiliated Push contributed to this report.

Ryan Gaydos is an editor for Fox Data. Abide by him on Twitter @RyanGaydos.

[urisk-factor]

so tell me about High Spirits 👀

Ok, so I just answered an ask where I talk about the basic story, but here I'm gonna talk about the main five!

Let's start with Missy Andrews, the one who causes so much trouble he gets a reputation for it! Missy is a cis woman, the only cis person in the cast, and uses he/him. He is a lesbian, and looks like this:

He plays the drums, and has the pair of magic drumsticks which basically create sort of magic porta drums so he can play. He stands at five foot ten.

Next up I'll talk about the singer of the band, Shannon Meek. While questioning her gender and sexuality, it doesn't exactly know who she is, but it does know that she uses she/it pronouns. I haven't exactly gotten a visual design for it yet though. She has the magic microphone. Also, it is about five foot nine.

Next is Mannie Pauler, who has the magic guitar (which can be acoustic and electric depending on what the player desires, in this case it is electric). Mannie is a trans woman using she/her pronouns, and is Queer. Again, I don't have a visual design yet. Also, she is only four foot eleven.

Aster Gaer is an interesting one imo because he starts as an antagonist. He is a trans man using he him, and is panro ace. He looks like this:

He is a bounty hunter at the beginning of the story, but quits to join the band after getting caught in what was essentially a bidding war between a king allied with the band and the Outcast High Spirit, who hired him. He has the magic bass guitar. He stands a whopping six foot eleven, making him a giant compared to everyone else.

(Oh, and side note, he dresses a bit different in the beginning, I might draw his bounty hunting uniform later).

Finally we have Spot Ellain. The non binary heir to the throne of one of the largest kingdoms. They use they/them pronouns. Their father is the king that I mentioned while talking about Aster. They have the magic piano/keyboard (same story as the magic guitar) which they found just before the start of the story. Sadly, again, no visual design (I started on one for them, got angry, and scrapped it). They are six foot tall, exactly on the dot.

(Oh, and, another side note: due to the history of magic in the world this story is set, not everyone looks very human, some moreso than others, which is why Missy has purple eyes, Aster's skin is grey and his eye is pink, and why Spot is most likely gonna have paw-like feetsies)