#steppe prowl

[mammoth-clangen]

Ok so technically Summit won but i have no self control so u get Steppe Prowl as well, bc she has already has a ref from her debut >:3

Ice Fangs have both a given name and a surname, which are passed from mother to daughter and father to son (trans individuals can decide which parent they prefer to take after, or which children are given theirs, ie: Summit took his father's) This will be explained in comic too but it's not a spoiler so i have decided you are allowed to know as part of the teaser cx

Important: No, these two having refs does not mean they will inherently be joining the Kindred! As you can imagine that would cause quite a stir XD

Enjoy this meme i made months ago while drawing Moon 6 X'D

[isthenapoleoncute]

My Napoleon is sitting by the fire in this massive fur that he says Alexander gave him and refuses to budge and snarls whenever I try to confiscate it. What's gotten into him?

Napoleons love the smell of predatory tsars. It’s one of the ways Tsars lure innocent Napoleons who never hurt anybody no how into Russia: they pick up a sweet scent and go prowling for its source. Very sad.

However, so long as your Napoleon just has the fur, and isn’t near a Predatory Tsar, it should be fine. If anything, he will be so satisfied with the coat he won’t go wandering to the steppes! Let him keep it.

[maverick-werewolf]

Werewolf Fact #71 - Book Review: Sabine Baring-Gould's The Book of Werewolves

While it may not be a "werewolf fact" of the traditional nature, it's very important when studying folklore to know and understand one's sources.

One of the very best sources for werewolf folklore - and indeed other folklore and mythology besides - is Sabine Baring-Gould's The Book of Werewolves (or The Book of Were-Wolves as he called it), written in 1865. However, like any academic/rhetorical source, it shouldn't be taken at face value. Let's dive into why it's such a useful source - and why you shouldn't always take to heart everything Baring-Gould attempts to assert.

Already a scholar, Baring-Gould was a skeptical guy. It all began when, during his travels, Baring-Gould encountered several people terrified of a werewolf. He was baffled they truly believed in such a thing, and that it would stop them from wanting to traverse a road at night...

“If the loup-garou were only a natural wolf, why then, you see”—the mayor cleared his throat—“you see we should think nothing of it; but, M. le Curé, it is a fiend, a worse than fiend, a man-fiend,—a worse than man-fiend, a man-wolf-fiend.”

Baring-Gould, not intimidated, walked the road alone. However, along the way, the words of the others got to him, and he found himself frightened. The manner in which such preposterous superstition (naturally, he wasn't exactly a believer) would actually make him afraid at all made him very curious about such things and why people would believe in them...

This was my first introduction to werewolves, and the circumstance of finding the superstition still so prevalent, first gave me the idea of investigating the history and the habits of these mythical creatures. I must acknowledge that I have been quite unsuccessful in obtaining a specimen of the animal, but I have found its traces in all directions. And just as the palæontologist has constructed the labyrinthodon out of its foot-prints in marl, and one splinter of bone, so may this monograph be complete and accurate, although I have no chained werewolf before me which I may sketch and describe from the life. The traces left are indeed numerous enough, and though perhaps like the dodo or the dinormis, the werewolf may have become extinct in our age, yet he has left his stamp on classic antiquity, he has trodden deep in Northern snows, has ridden rough-shod over the mediævals, and has howled amongst Oriental sepulchres. He belonged to a bad breed, and we are quite content to be freed from him and his kindred, the vampire and the ghoul. Yet who knows! We may be a little too hasty in concluding that he is extinct. He may still prowl in Abyssinian forests, range still over Asiatic steppes, and be found howling dismally in some padded room of a Hanwell or a Bedlam.

Baring-Gould has his biases, but he also has an open mind about some topics, even if he's shut tighter than a bear trap on others, especially where anything scientific is concerned, as he was a big believer in the science of his time (not all of which is applicable to today). He's a complicated bag of tricks, and reading his work is quite an experience.

Whatever his biases and whatever one might think of his occasionally very judgmental and overly authoritarian words (i.e., he can sometimes think he knows better than everyone, including the people who actually lived during the time periods he's discussing), he is nothing short of phenomenal at his work of gathering and examining sources... even if he isn't always right. He contradicts his own research at least once, namely in relation to berserkers, but I won't go into all that (unless you read my edition of his book, of course; I discuss it extensively there).

He even spins some of his sources into thrilling tales. He honestly isn't bad at narration, able to paint an impressive and thrilling picture when retelling various werewolf (and other) legends...

But when dusk settled down over the forest, and one by one the windows of the castle became illumined, peasants would point to one casement high up in an isolated tower, from which a clear light streamed through the gloom of night; they spoke of a fierce red glare which irradiated the chamber at times, and of sharp cries ringing out of it, through the hushed woods, to be answered only by the howl of the wolf as it rose from its lair to begin its nocturnal rambles.

Something to note with Baring-Gould is that some of his sources are actually no longer with us. They did clearly exist, and he could access them during his own time, but they've since been lost, especially in such original formats (or they might be gone altogether). This is just another reason why Baring-Gould's work is irreplaceable as a source for many, many fields, not just werewolf studies. He cites and discusses works about many kinds of folklore, mythology, and even history, and he even provided the first English translation of the trail of Giles de Rais, a famous killer (and basis for the fairy tale Bluebeard). It's a fascinating read, even if you're just there for general folklore and mythology or if you're there specifically for werewolves or, broader spectrum, all manner of shapeshifters - he even talks a little bit about dragons!

However, when reading, bear in mind that Baring-Gould is not without his biases, as I mentioned before. He can be very judgmental of other scholars, especially from the past, but that isn't exactly uncommon even in modern scholarship. It's easy enough to read around, as long as you don't take everything he writes as fact. No scholar is perfect, no matter how impressive their work is, and that certainly includes Baring-Gould. He also approaches his work with werewolves specifically with the determination to relate them to "madmen" and serial killers, which is a consistent theme throughout the book. He will discuss werewolf legends and detail them well, but toward the end of each section, when providing his own assessment, he will generally offer how such things could be rationalized in his own mind. In doing so, of course, he does offer interesting discussion and food for thought, regardless of whether you agree with him (I agree with him at times but can also find him very disagreeable; it's like that with most everything one reads, so no shocker there). And, of course, his work even if only used for informational purposes is still impressive.

Biases is no reason to pass on what might be the best single source on these many topics. Besides, reading around potential biases is a skill everyone should learn.

One of his biggest downsides is that he doesn't provide English translations of all his quoted passages and sources. This was a problem in the original publication from the 1800s, and it continues into today with nearly all editions...

However, if you do want translations of nearly all of his quoted passages from various sources (as well as extensive annotations discussing werewolf studies, mythology, and more, and putting his scholarship into a modern context and even pointing out his errors, such as when he contradicts himself), then you need to see my edition of his work!

I personally translated and annotated The Book of Werewolves this year, and it's now available for purchase both through Amazon.com and my personal website, with a cover that's a different take on the book's original 1865 release...

Be sure to check it out at Amazon.com and my personal website!

If you buy it directly from me, I'll sign it for you, too. You can also download an ebook, if you prefer.

I assure you it's the best edition of this book you'll find. I know because I've bought nearly all of them trying to find one that's at all easy to reference. My edition even includes a bibliography that will assist you with further related reading, among other useful things. I've made sure the formatting is easily readable, so it's good for both casual reading and citation/quotation in research/academic projects. This was a lot of work, and I'm very proud of how it turned out, especially as I myself have worked with this book for years.

Final words: even with all my own personal biases about werewolves, the study of werewolf and other legends, and my opinions on some of Baring-Gould's assertions, I have to give Baring-Gould's work a 10/10 for being a must-read for anyone interested in werewolves. Trust me - if you love werewolves and studying their folklore like I do, you won't be able to put this book down, and you'll walk away with far more knowledge than you had before. Reading this book alone will give you a decent foundational knowledge of werewolf studies, while also touching upon other fields.

However, of course, I do recommend reading mine. Obviously. Especially because Baring-Gould is just so wrong about berserkers (hence, my own assertions)! But anyway.

That's all for now. Until next time, and be sure to check out my newsletter linked below!

( If you like my blog, be sure to follow me here and elsewhere for more folklore and fiction, including books, especially on werewolves! You can also sign up for my free newsletter for monthly werewolf/vampire/folklore facts, as well as free fiction and nonfiction book previews.

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[disturbnot]

i gotta know! because your character and your take on him are so unique! what ideas do you have about supernatural and where he'd fit in that world? care for a little headcanoning going on? cause i gotta see this. i'm intrigued!

as it so happens, dear new friend, i do have an ancient spn verse that i can make an attempt at blowing the cobwebs off of. although i'm going to preface all of this with the fact i haven't watched spn in quite a long time; i had my old verse for ash back in 2014, so some of the details have gotten a little foggy (both for the verse itself and for canon spn lore—i am LONG overdue a rewatch!) but i'll do my best to recount what i can for you. :)

if i recall correctly, ash's spn verse story is prefaced by the death of his father—a hunter that lived somewhere near the southwest us/mexico border at the time and originally hailed from mexico. i believe he and his wife/son were settled in arizona, but i could be wrong (details schmetails). anyway, one night ash's pops is off out on a local hunt; a scheduled descent of tzitzimimeh from the stars—skeletal demons of aztec mythology that are said to compose the stars at night. this shouldn't have been too much of a trial on paper, and yet the man is bested by the swarm. UNFORTUNATELY, the man's ever curious and wayward son snuck out of the house to follow him that night and found his father's body, with tzitzimimeh still on the prowl in the dark. but those weren't the only otherworldly entities slinking around the badland steppe, something else was stalking. it wasn't stalking for humans, though—it was stalking for the tzitzimimeh. the benevolent yet formless essence of the god quetzalcoatl pursued the demons, and found the devastated child in dire need of care and protection. quetzalcoatl, unlike many other primordial/progenitor gods, is of utmost benevolence. seldom partaking in their flesh or their sacrifice, it regards and holds humanity, all life on earth, with a fondest love known only to great mothers. and it aches for the child, yearns to help. it also keens for a vessel. in its nebulous form of abstract light, its powers are minimal, but with material hands... maybe not so much. maybe there is something it could do for the boy. what if it gave the boy the chance to correct this mortal wrong someday? how could he say no? two or three decades later, the boy has gotten old, bones burning with a latent primordial power the god is only too gracious to temper; his body does not deform or decay before quetzalcoatl's brilliant grace, for it sleeps somewhere within, at peace until it is needed for its own agenda against fouler gods. with time, it has become inextricably entangled with ash's soul—he could no longer tell you where he ends and the blessed serpent begins. goes without saying that this precarious union afford ash some very unique and powerful gifts... well, in exchange for a great glowing target on his back. tale as old as time, yes? either way, he carries on his father's livelihood and has worked long and hard as a hunter himself, albeit a hunter with significant advantages (not that this has gotten him all that close to avenging his father) — he likely specialises in cryptids and supernatural animals/creatures. back in 2014, i think i had it down that his mother was also dead, but? idk i will probably change that. i might change the whole thing! who knows? but this is what i have for the moment. tysm for asking, dixon! :D it was fun getting to ponder this again after so long on the shelf. 🙇‍♀️

[rionas-path]

Such hunger turns into voracity, Her ravenousness never to be appeased, Never shaken off or ever eased; Her clay home to such rapacity. Say I, to every prowling hunter’s band: Offer meekly with a generous hand, Those who fail to share their plunder Incite the ire of the Fox of Blunder!

In the steppes, mountains, forests, and deserts Alike, she chases after those who would see Themselves as lucky, daring, or free When testing fate, deaf to her presence. Yet, tribute all but gives her godly grant Of luck which spurs out from the fowler’s chant, Bestowing and bringing high favour And a night of quarry’s savour.

Her visage haunting and unmistakeable, Half beast, half kin-in-kind; brutish, her ways Beyond grace, whose favour swifty sways, A cutting tongue unassailable! Her history is wrapped in mystery A god this feral is surely slippery. However, it is known her essence Was made from stray flow’s coalescence.

Shifting and lurking among the Communion In the time of tyranny: of Amber’s Domain. Her part minute, though not in vain, Stayed faithful to the Sisters’ union. When the twilight of Azure hue Commenced, her moniker she did accrue. A sacrifice etched on mural stone, A missing arm, gnawing on bone.

[hotgirlmythology]

What if I made a woman who wasn't assertive and self-confident wouldn't that be crazy haha

Anyway yeah here is a character bio about a woman who is most definitely not especially self-confident, although she may be able to pull out the assertiveness on occasion. If she is feeling dramatic enough. She is generally quite a cheerful person anyway despite this, mostly because she knows what she enjoys doing and is able to do it for a living. What does she enjoy doing? Why, herbalism of course! Nara is a young human from a village in eastern Galania that nobody bothers to name because it's just "That village on the hill, yes that one with all the sheep". She was never quite down to earth enough to do a great deal of farm work, especially the harvests and any kind of work involving sharp scythes and sickles. So her family was ok with letting her bunk off most of the time to work with herbs under her unofficial master, Jerellah, a 70-something ex-gardener, ex-vagabond with a penchant for such things and a suitably mysterious past that at least makes for some good stories now and then.

Although she is well-liked throughout the village, she is also not particularly prominent or well-known. To most she is just that slightly waifish young woman with her hands stained a mottled purple from all of the dyeing herbs she keeps messing with. The dark of her eyes can be off-putting when talking to her for a long time, especially with the way she stares unblinkingly into one's eyes to get their attention. Her clothing designs consist mostly of mottled shawls and cloaks meant to help her blend in with the mossy woods, concealed from those ill-fated eyes that prowl in the dark. Browns and greens and greys dyed by her own hand and wrapped around herself, she becomes nearly impossible to spot if she stops moving.

She may not be bosom friends with anyone, but she hears a lot. Particularly from soldiers who come wandering through, needing medical attention - they talk a lot to the silent woman with the dark eyes while she stitches them up and presses comfrey into the cuts. Faraway schoolhouses and libraries, the cities where the proper alchemists live, all places she has heard about before but enjoys hearing again and again. The life of a more scholarly-minded person can stagnate pretty quickly if not given more material to bolster her work, and despite her attempts to decipher the faded pages of some books Jerellah managed to scrape together, the writing is next to impossible to even see, let alone read. One day, she hopes to visit one, although the centers of learning in Galania don't look very well on shabby old shawls. Though Jerellah has cautioned her, having been close to powerful people before and knowing their scant regard for those of her station, she still harbours this desire to go and "complete" her education, as she sees it. There was never going to be enough to keep her at home.

Her horsewomanship is decent, as it is for most people in the east of Galania. The wide plains that coat the majority of the landscape there lend themselves to frequent horse use, and they are influenced by the horse nomads in the steppe beyond their border. Crucially, she is very light and easy for a horse to carry, and she is also caring and borderline silent unless she absolutely has to speak, all attributes that make horses like her very much. The forays she makes for herbs and berries and such foraging require enough travel that she basically has to keep one of her family's leggier horses for herself all the time - Jerellah does not keep one of his own because he doesn't trust anything to transport him but his own two legs, given he has had a wagon collapse under him, a horse come down with colic and a canoe overturned in a freak storm. Her preference to ride the horse, rather than drive it in a wagon form, is unusual in a sedentary village, and she carries urgent messages to the surrounding villages when needed. The horse is called Celimeyre, meaning Waxing Moon, as it seems that the longer she walks the more confident her stride, until she seems to fly across the land.

Nara is not the type to want to go on a long adventure of travelling discovery. Her home on the hill is quite enough for her, and the only thing that lures her from it is the prospect of more learning. However, with the war on the Elves in the north drawing soldiers from all Galania to fight against a common foe, she has seen men and women coming back with the most outlandish injuries, magical injuries. As the war drags on, her eyes are increasingly turned to the north, where medically minded people are desperately needed and knowledge is gathered both from the front and from the captured elves. Of course, she would never be taken by a recruitment party, given her lack of build, but she was a hardy woman for all that her musculature refused to grow. Besides, following a bunch of farmers with the aid of her cloaks would not be difficult. The prospect of her head being taken off by an arrow was not an enticing prospect however, and it would take a while before anything would actually make her seriously consider it...

[midnighttiger]

Melodia, a healer and Anadari's mother. I never typed up a bio when I originally uploaded this to dA, but she's one of my favorite characters. <3

Melodia was born and raised in the taiga region west of the Sangai tribe's forests. When a tribe of snow leopards from the neighboring mountains encroach on the taiga inhabitants' territory, new struggles for power and survival force Melodia and her family out of their homeland.

Having left her father behind, she and her mother travel eastward across the steppe, picking up on the art of medicine and healing. The two eventually go their separate ways, but Melodia finds a new tiger named Prowl living on the grasslands. The two bond, fall in love, and eventually Melodia falls pregnant with his young. Prowl grows distant, however, and for reasons never explained to her, he leaves her to raise their cub on her own.

Traveling east, Melodia comes upon a drying river while in labor beneath the hot tropical sun. A stranger who doesn't speak her language comes into view before she succumbs to her exhaustion. When she awakes, she meets Komodo, a tribal healer who helps her in the birthing process. He provides her a home and prey in secrecy until the two are found out by the tribe's leader, and to earn her stay under his watch, Melodia agrees to work as a fellow healer for the tribe.

Notes:

Larger than former mate, smaller than her son

2 stripe colors

2 bands before tail tip, no other markings

single stripe across chest

ear fluff swoops down

eyelashes + "mask"

nose marking similar to Anadari's

Playlist - "Lace and Paper Flowers"

[witchlingsandwyverns]

your abandoned temple au fic when? 😔💔

Nonnie, I gotta be real I hit a major roadblock and I've been struggling to get back into it. Major imposter syndrome hit halfway through my draft (~3K-ish words in my outline omg!!!) and life ate up creative time for a bit there with moving house. But we are getting back into the grind and I appreciate you keeping me accountable with your continued interest, SO as a thank you, an early spoiler-free snippet:

Pre-mission brief, they’ve done a few of these now: Disappearances on the Steppes, sightings of large unspeakable creatures in the woods led by a figure that defies description, other than repeated mentions of ‘horns’. One survivor, a young male, reports stumbling upon an altar in the woods, with a deer skull adorned with hearts impaled on the antlers. The male barely escaped the wood with his life, gored by a monster seemingly ordered by a figure cloaked in furs and shadow. Even more unsettling, there’s been rumblings around the Prison and even Amren agrees with Rhy’s paranoia that the events seem too sudden not to be connected. After the third report of this figure prowling closer to the outskirts of the Illyrian territory, Rhys asks Azriel to take Gwyn on a recon mission. Examine the altar site, report back. They are to observe, nothing more. Between Azriels intimate knowledge of Prison inmates and Gwyn’s extensive knowledge of ceremonies, artifacts, and history, they are the best team for the job to see what kind of threat they are dealing with.

Facts, questions, theories and banter weave into a dance, practically a ritual by now they do to ease them both into who they might need to be out on the field. Who they needed to be to research, to confirm any rumor, explore any truth, to spy…

[skxrbrand]

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐁𝐑𝐀𝐒𝐒 𝐂𝐈𝐓𝐀𝐃𝐄𝐋 - 𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐡𝐚𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐫 𝐈𝐈𝐈

The Brass Citadel is so impossibly vast that all other strongholds pale in comparison. Its main gate is made of eight-pillared arches.[1] The metal of the walls is decorated with red-veined marble and is broken by jagged outcrops and serrated spurs of blood-stained brass, while every parapet is covered in gargoyles that can spew streams of molten meal on any besiegers.

Champions that have been slain in the many fighting pits hang from the gibbets, skinned and bleeding down the walls to collect in the moat, which is filled with boiling blood.[3] Within the Citadel there are blast furnaces, armouries, rage factories, prisons and the Brass Throne of the Blood God, a mighty edifice that sits on an ever-growing mountain of skulls, each one representing a martial victory for his followers.

Sections

Lair of the Flesh Hounds - Cavernous lairs can be found beneath the citadel where the hounds gnaw upon the bones of their prey between hunts.

Throne Room - Eight vast columns rise from a carpet of bone to an obsidian ceiling, the air filled with the scent of a myriad of abattoirs. Those who enter find themselves stained with blood from the humidity. Karanak prowls around the chamber whilst the Brass Throne sits atop a ever-growing mound of skills.

The Great Stockade - A vast enclosed steppe deep within the citadel where thousands of Juggernaut herds endlessly rove, clashing brutally with each other. Favoured Bloodletters given the chance to tame one of these daemonic machine-beasts.

Gates of the Vanquished - Gates in the Brass Citadel where defeated daemons of Khorne must pass through if they were defeated in combat. To pass they must say their eight-syllable names to its Gatekeeper and declare who has bested them.

The Neverpit - A vast Arena where Khorne's daemons kill and die for his entertainment or to keep themselves occupied until the next great enemy arrives to do battle. 

[harpagornis]

Multituberculate Earth: Birds

(As with all animal pages so far, this only goes so far into the Oligocene… for now)

At first, the avifauna of this timeline evolved much as ours. Only the toothless crown birds survived the KT event (though outliers like Qinornis may indicate other lineages survived briefly; one study did note the similarities between pelagornithids and ichthyornithids, but it hasn’t made the plunge), several lineages quickly producing megafauna to replace non-avian dinosaurs and other great reptiles. Gastornithiforms and ratites occupied large herbivore niches on land, pelagornithids and lithornithids attained large wingspans as competing pterosaurs ceased to exist and giant penguins and plotopterids were the first vertebrates to occupy large predatory niches at sea (barring sharks of course). To say nothing of the massive variety of smaller birds like stem-tropicbirds, the passerine-like zygodactylids and carnivorous parrots.

But the absence of an Azolla Event put avian evolution in a very different track from the Eocene onwards. For starters, without a mid-Eocene cooling to alter forest biomes, lithornithids and presbyornithids didn’t decline, thus preventing an opening for several lineages like cranes, storks and pelecaniforms. Many groups that depended on the cooling temperatures, like seagulls and relatives, also did not get the opening they wished for. Some modern groups you might assume quintessential, like ducks and shorebirds, were either greatly crippled or did not get to rise.

Likewise, the evolution of flying mammals put some pressures on birds that our bats didn’t have, but for the most part both groups managed to co-exist. Niche partitioning is easy when you can fly anywhere to get resources, after all, and birds are no strangers to it given how they co-existed with pterosaurs and other Mesozoic flyers for over one hundred million years.

By far the greatest challenge faced by birds thus far was the Grand Coupure, leading to a dramatic collapse of forest habitats. For European and Balkanatolian flightless birds it was particularly hard as their isolation in Europe came to a drastic end, but several flightless lineages remained in the Oligocene.

Because there are lots of Cenozoic bird groups, some more understood than others, this is something of a work in progress. However, I will list the bird groups that I have most assuredly set in stone.

Palaeognaths

The so called “old jaws” might be something of a misnomer, as some Cretaceous birds already had a neognath palate and their own palate is much more advanced than in some other early birds, but regardless they do invoke that prehistoric mystique. In our timeline the sole survivors are the flightless ratites + tiny tinamous, animals that truly seem to come from the era of the dinosaurs.

In this timeline, ratites similarly diversified, with rheas and other poorly understood taxa in South America and Antarctica, members of the cassowary/emu line in Australia, elephant birds in Madagascar (and possibly mainland Afro-Arabia) and a variety of stem-ostriches in North America, Europe and Asia. But it is another group, the flying lithornithids, that remain the most diverse and arguably spectacular group.

In our timeline, lithornithids started the Cenozoic in style, dispersing across the northern continents as forest dwelling probers like modern woodcocks. They were far more efficient flyers than our timeline’s surviving flying paleognaths, the tinamous, there being evidence of migratory behaviour and stork-like soaring, and some species attained quite large sizes. In our timeline the mid-Eocene cooling seems to have doomed them, but in the prolonged hothouse conditions of this timeline they managed to acclimate and diversify further.

Some lineages were lost in the Grand Coupure, but those that survived were ready for the spread of open habitats. Many forms occupy niches taken in our world by cranes and storks, prowling the steppes or stalking the swamps for small animals and nutrious plant matter. Others have diversified as shorebird analogues, probing along the coastlines. Some conversely became smaller and hoopoe-like; lithornithids were already more efficient perchers than other palaeognaths, so a few managed to capitalize on arboreal niches.

Though efficient flyers, lithornithids lack tails, relying mostly on their own wings for steering (for reference, see videos on tailless kites or hawks). Like in their ratite cousins it is the male that protects the eggs and offpsring, though in some derived species the young are superprecocial and can fly soon after birth, a condition seen in many Mesozoic birds. Many species have glossy eggs and feathers like cassowaries.

Other than lithornithids, there seems to be some other flying palaeognaths about. The stem-ostrich Eogrus for example is traditionally considered capable of at least some flying abilities, while flying stem-kiwis must be around somewhere given Proapteryx. And, of course, there’s the ancestors of tinamous, which have not yet debuted in the fossil reccord for some reason (in both timelines).

Pelagornithids

The so called “pseudo-toothed” birds due to tooth-like serrations in their bills, these seabirds are a mystery. Sometimes they are grouped among albatrosses and other higher waterbirds, other times they’re considered closely related to waterfowl, with most recent studies putting them in a polytomy between both groups. As mentioned above there is a study that does note similarities between their jaws and those of aquatic toothed seabirds, and given that their serrations seem to share a true molecular origin with teeth I wouldn’t be surprised if they were surviving toothed seabirds all along.

Anyways, besides the “teeth” (which were acquired late in life, implying prolonged parental care) the most notable feature of pelagornithids is their size. These are easily the largest flying birds of all time, some reaching wingspans of over 7 meters. Because they lack the quadrupedal launching of flying mammals and pterosaurs, they compensated by become extremely lightweight like living kites, thus while they look fearsome they most hunt small, soft prey like squids. Its even possible they can’t flap their wings anymore, relying solely on thermal soaring like modern frigatebirds (and not dynamic soaring like albatrosses), to which they can be considered close analogues if much larger.

While the evolution of giant insulonycteriids might seem like a disaster for these enormous birds, in truth both groups get along just fine (most of the time). The giant flying mammals are most robust and can hunt proportionally larger prey and even dive, so if the pelagornithids are the frigatebirds the insulonycteriids are the albatrosses and gannets.

Pelagornithids in both timelines have been extrariordinarily resilient, surviving from the PETM and Grand Coupure in spite of their effects to the marine biosphere. They died out in our timeline just as humans evolved, for unclear reasons; we’ll see if they have better luck here.

Gastornithiformes

Like ratites gastornithiforms lost the ability to fly and attained large sizes, occupying the niches left by ceratopsians and other herbivorous dinosaurs. They are clearly galloanseres, though its currently debated if they are closer to waterfowl or to galliforms.

Like ratites, they attained a cosmopolitan distribution, with gastornithids in the northern continents, dromornithids in Australia and Brontornis in South America, though gastornithids disappeared from Asia and North America in the PETM. Unlike ratites they have massive, powerful beaks, apt to crush through seeds and harsh plant matter like branches. In Europe they in fact were the most common megafauna, with few large mammals, much like in our timeline. With the Grand Coupure the collapse of rainforests and the arrival of Asian predatory mammals they disappeared from the former island continent, but they continued to thrive in Australia and in South America.

Presbyornithids

Presbyornithids are a clade of long legged waterfowl that first evolved in the Cretaceous and attained a diversity peak during the Paleocene, before declining in the Eocene of our timeline, reduced to only the terrestrial, goose-like Wilaru by the Miocene. This is often attributed to competition with anatid waterfowl, but studies show that they were incapable of filter-feeding, so they must have occupied fairly different ecological niches at the water’s edge.

In this timeline, they kept thriving thanks to the continuous hotshouse conditions, and more overtly diversified in piscivorous and crustacean eater niches akin to those of shoebills, spoonbills and even pelicans and ibises. Consequently, many of these waterbirds did not evolve in this timeline.

A partiular clade related to Wilaru kept exploring terrestrial biomes. These developed a novel way to process food: chewing it. Yes, some birds can chew (even used in the past to explain phylogenetic relationships between cuckoos and mousebirds before genetics said nah), using the cranial kinesis common to all crown birds to slide the upper jaw against the lower jaw in a pestle and mortar like way.

These birds, the Chakranatids, found thus a way to not only process plant matter more efficient while minimising fermentation, so they for the most part retained the ability to fly. Still, some have become large flightless herbivores, a distant echo of the Mesozoic hadrosaurs.

Palaelodids

The niche of ducks was instead taken by a decidedly non-waterfowl clade: the palaeolodids, relatives to flamingos and grebes. Neither divers or specialised filter-feeders (barring some species), these birds are rather generalistic, adapted to swim and catch small animals and plants with their broad beaks. They first debuted in the Oligocene in both timelines, though they might have a potentially older origin given grebes and flamingos split further back in the Cenozoic and Eocene fossil birds like Juncitarsus seem to represent the last common ancestor between these three groups.

Coliiformes

(A suggestion by Tozarkt777 on reddit)

In our timeline’s Paleocene, before passerines had evolved and spread to the northern hemisphere, the songbird niche was held by the Coliformes, an order that now only includes the mousebirds in our timeline, but back then comprised of many more species and many more niches, from generalistic grain-feeders to raptorial forms. They were most diverse in the Paleocene and Eocene before losing ground from there onwards.

Their decline likely is attributed to the PETM, and with the warm conditions of Multituberculate Earth having been maintained, so did mousebird rule. These are now the dominant small birds in the northern and African canopies, passerines now mostly restricted to small insectivores and nectivores.

Cariamiformes

Represented by the vicious little seriemas in our timeline’s present, this group is best known for producing the infamous terror birds. However, a variety of other extinct groups also existed in the early Cenozoic, including another clade of infamous flightless killers, the bathornithids. Though known from usually more fragmentary remains, they too were incapable of flying and had deep, powerful beaks, well suited to tear flesh.

Proving that mammals still oughta fear theropods, the terror birds spread far and wide in the Eocene. Eleutherornis and relatives terrorised Europe while Lavocatavis and kin terrorised Africa; it is in fact unclear if terror birds evolved in the Old World and later raft/swam (or flew, if the last common ancestor still could fly) to South America like many mammals did or if inversely it went the other way around. We do know at least that Eleutherornis is a late comer to Europe as it arrived only in the mid-Eocene, so the group likely didn’t evolve there, though many other cariamiform groups were present, from the crow-like Salmila to the herbivorous, also flightless Strigogyps.

Meanwhile, South America was host to a larger diversity of terror birds, and across the sea North America was ruled by a large diversity of bathornithids. Both groups co-existed with predatory mammals in both timelines, and attained large sized species over two meters tall. The African and European species seem to have gone extinct in the Grand Coupure – the later doubtlessly affected by the extinction of indigenous prey and the arrival of new competitors – but the Americas saw an adaptive radiation in response to the spread of open grasslands. Predatory mammal groups may rise and fall, but these dinosaurs seem to be a constant, though for how long remains to be seen.

Besides large predatory forms, there are a variety of other poorly understood forms, like the aforementioned European species. Some, like Elaphrocnemus, appear to have been efficient flyers, less adapted to run like their terrestrial cousins but capable of soaring for long distances. while others like Qianshanornis seem to have been functionally similar to hawks and eagles. Most of these groups died out in the Grand Coupure, unable to cope with the loss of forest habitats.

[taabanqestir]

#FFxivWrite2024 Prompt #12: Quarry

They were five in all, robed the same and crouched behind a boulder. Just beyond, a lone buzzfly hovered, scouring the grass for its next feeding of insect. It was little match for the four youngest of them, fresh as they were with bows in hand, and even less so with the elder accompanying them. Training was most of their young lives to this point, honing their skills to provide and protect. Though not the fiercest of adversary, the buzzing, floating being beyond was elusive and quick, wiry and harder to hit, providing a good challenge for sharp shooting.

What wasn't a good challenge, were the other beasts of the area. The larger gulo were fierce and rabid, the rancid morbol could wilt your defenses with one exhale, but the tigers, with their sometimes fulms-long tusks were the quickest, and made many an overzealous hunter disappear. Tigers like the one approaching from their Eastern flank. Wide-eyed was the first to spot it, followed by a turn and steps backward away from the prowling creature. A click of tongue, then a soft whistle yielded no reaction from the others.. Closer it came, ready to pounce.. Why weren't they paying his warning sound any mind? Heel met unseen stone and the youth fell backward to his seat..

"Tie-grrrr!"

Silence engulfed the area, immediate and across the steppe in whole. The beast stopped still and stared, and a glance to either side saw the other hunters doing the same. Eight familiar eyes fixed on him, angry, accusing. It was a slip, a mimcry of a foreign traveler, but it was a misstep nonetheless. In a flash, four bows were drawn and four arrows were nocked, every one of them pointed at him.

The Au Ra shot up in bed with a heavy gasp, eyes wide and neckline damp. It took a few moments for him to remember to breath, but once he did, he could take in his surroundings. A familiar bed, in a familiar hut, on a familiar island.. A hand reached up, finding lip and chin bare, exposed to the night air. Beside him on a table the missing fabric lay, folded neatly and diligently.

A small pain seeped into his mind as thoughts of a past life grew hazier with each passing night.

[belabellissima]

OKAY I"M HOMEEEE IM SO READY TO READ THIS

🌌 I had this whole spiel planned about how I was a mastermind who assigned myself as your secret santa as part of an elaborate scheme to seduce you into being my friend, but actually I think between us you might be the mastermind??? 

💭 WHAT IF I TOLD YOU NONE OF IT WAS ACCIDENTAL????? We really were both playing 4D chess with each other to make friends 😂

ngl though actually going back and rereading all the secret santa messages I can totally tell its you now... like it sounds like your online voice and im kinda like How did I not pick up on this?????? Also not me throwing hints that I had an anonymous fic in one of my responses to you (I was literally like.... don't be suspicious.... don't be suspicious... you can say you've written a modern fic but don't elaborate....)

🌌 And while she might have been foolish enough to stray closer to the Wall, even she understood there was no chance of besting a wolf in the dark. Or, gods-forbid, one of the faeries that lived in the Northern parts of their land.

💭 The double meaning here though!!!! Northern could be both spring which is just… north, Or it could be the ✨ Night Court!!!!! ✨

🌌 Mesmerizing—the lethal, gentle beauty of the snow. She should hate it, but maybe that would feel too close to hating herself.

💭 The quick 180 this hit me with emotionally, going from beautiful imagery to sobbing 😭🥺

🌌 Her fingers trembled. So much food—such salvation.

💭 Me: it’s a serious scene and a tense moment, don’t laugh

Also me:

🌌 He was enormous. The village hunters had said as much about the wolves that prowled in the northern territory, had spoken of animals large as ponies with an unrivaled stealth. She’d assumed their stories were embellished. No animal that massive could be so quiet.

💭 Andras my love I adore you but also this is what I always imagine:

🌌 Yes, that instinctual voice agreed. The fae are dangerous. The fae are merciless. End him now and save your village from slaughter.

A prickling sensation along her back struck Feyre with a new fear—that he wasn’t alone. But she couldn’t hazard a glance over her shoulder to be sure, not without taking her eyes off the wolf.

💭 IS RHYS THERE COAXING HER???????? IM!!!!!!!!!

🌌 She stared at him until that coat of charcoal and obsidian and ivory ceased rising and falling.

💭 ☹️😭 rip andras you were a real one

🌌 And though nothing emerged from the trees on the other side of the clearing, she swore something in the vacant space stared back. Curious. Patient.

💭 Oh yeah Rhys is sooo there and already in love (unless….👀)

🌌 Fine. She slid her eyes past them dismissively, searching the crowd for unfamiliar faces, someone who might be inclined to buy a wolf hide. Like the tall, raven-haired man sitting on the lip of the broken square fountain, without any cart or stall, but looking like he was holding court nonetheless.

💭 HES HERE😍

🌌 He was handsome, ungodly so, and smiling to himself like he knew it.

💭 Of course he does girl!!!! He can hear you think it too! Also having Rhys be THE mercenary!!!!!! Galaxy brain take right there!!🤯

🌌 No,” Feyre said. “I’m just curious. I’ve never seen you here before.”

I would have noticed you, she thought.

💭 Rhys has to be so smug right now

🌌 As he contemplated her response, his gaze snagged on her arm and his smile faltered. “Are you a painter?”

💭Oh the way this made me feel like Amarantha sent him to find who killed the wolf and he was not expecting it to be his painter🥲

🌌 “I hail from Illyria,” he said. At her blank look, he added, “A tribe of people nestled in the steppes of a far-away mountain range.”

On the continent, she filled in.

💭 I love a good misdirect through omission it’s just so satisfying

🌌 Things look promising from where I’m sitting.” Was he… flirting with her?

💭 Leave it to Rhys to start flirting immediately😂 love that for him

🌌 Impressive kill, little huntress. You must be a good shot.”

“If I weren’t, I’d be dead.”

💭 AAAAYYYYYEEE THERES A LINE I KNOW!!!

🌌 She let him count, her mind far away while she plotted their different options of escape, including the scenarios where she had to drag her sisters kicking and screaming from their beds. It was preferable to a vengeful faerie doing the same.

💭 Oh the dramatic irony!!

🌌More of that wicked amusement spread over Rhys’s face. “Friend of yours?”

💭Isaac/Rhys interactions are always so fun!!!! Rhys trying trying so hard to be chill and not reveal jealousy, Isaac like “who tf are you???” Ahhhh 💯

Also Isaac saying he’s getting married only to be the one trying to stop Feyre meeting new people…. Side eye my guy

Also I’m sobbing bc this was where I fell asleep still reading😭 phone still in hand when I woke up, so close to the end, wondering why I couldn’t remember how it ended before I realized 🤦🏼‍♀️

🌌 And as she walked, she found herself thinking about Rhys, unflinching at the bite of winter. And how, for that short time she’d been drenched in the heat of his gaze, his eyes the first vibrant color she’d seen since winter had overtaken the village, she’d forgotten what it was to be cold.

💭🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹

OKAY I FINISHED AND I LOVED IT HOLY SHIT IT WAS BEAUTIFUL RHYS WAS AMAZING FEYRE WAS HEARTBREAKING AND BRAVE AND I LOVE THEM BOTH AND YOU!!!!!!!!! THIS GIFT IS SO PERFECT 💝💝💝💝💝💝

We Bleed the Same - An ACOTAR retelling

The forest was a labyrinth of snow and ice... The beginning to a story we know, unfolded a little bit differently.

HO, HO, HOHMYGOD, plot twists upon plot twists! This is dedicated to my @acotargiftexchange giftee turned anon I've been secretly in love with for... years??? For @belabellissima I really hope you enjoy this, and I'm hoping my mastermind plan to seduce you worked now that we've both unveiled our secret identities

Read on AO3

-

The forest was a labyrinth of snow and ice.

Feyre had been monitoring the parameters of the thicket for the better part of an hour, but with the angle of the sun lowering past the horizon and the gusting wind blowing the tracks of any potential quarry, her vantage point in the crook of a tree branch had turned useless. Not that there was much quarry to begin with. For years, the hunters have been saying that the animals were pulling back, going deeper into the woods than most humans were willing to pursue. Even today, Feyre had ventured further than she usually risked.

She’d woken that morning to the sounds of her sisters’ growling stomachs, and she couldn’t bear meeting the hollow stare in Elain’s once bright eyes to tell her that they would spend another day without eating. Desperation had dragged her closer to the Wall than any human should dare—not just because of the faeries who lurked on the other side of the invisible barrier, but because she was now edging into wolf territory. The town hunters had warned her that they were on the prowl again in numbers. But Feyre reasoned that if the wolves hung near, it surely meant there was nearby prey to keep them fed. Unless wolf prey was the very thing she was becoming, delivering herself at their feet as she eased off the tree and stretched her stiff limbs with a restrained groan.

The icy snow crunched under her fraying boots. What little snowfall had melted already seeped through the worn leather, dampening her thin socks, but like many things, Feyre had long become numb to the cold. She wiped her ungloved fingers over her eyes, brushing away the flakes clinging to her lashes. In the woods, there wasn’t time to be cold or hungry. Even as exhaustion gnawed at her, she shoved it away, focusing on her surroundings, on the task ahead. That was all she could do, all she’d been able to do for years: focus on surviving the week, the day, the hour ahead.

Only a few hours of daylight remained. Given how deep Feyre had ventured, if she didn’t leave soon, she would have to navigate her way home in the dark. And while she might have been foolish enough to stray closer to the Wall, even she understood there was no chance of besting a wolf in the dark. Or, gods-forbid, one of the faeries that lived in the Northern parts of their land.

Whispers were becoming commonplace on market days—tales of strange folk spotted in the area, tall and eerie and deadly. Traveling peddlers had begun sharing accounts of distant border towns, left in splinters and cindered bones. In the eight years Feyre’s family had lived in the village, they’d never witnessed such an attack. But if a faerie did decide to soothe its immortal boredom by playing with one of the townsfolk, it would need to cross through these very woods to fulfill that whim, and Feyre would be the first to cross its path. Even so, she couldn’t go home. Not yet.

After a few minutes of careful searching, Feyre crouched in a cluster of snow-heavy brambles. Through the thorns, she had a half-decent view of a clearing and the small brook flowing through it. A few holes in the ice suggested it was still frequently used. Hopefully, something would come by. Hopefully.

Her family wouldn’t last another week without food. She wore that knowledge in the weight of the quiver looped over her back. Each of the arrows was a reminder that if she failed, if she missed or came home empty-handed, then Nesta or Elain or their injured father might not survive the winter. And she would break the promise she made to her mother all those years ago.

Feyre sighed through her nose and eased into a more comfortable position, calming her breathing as she strained to listen to the forest over the wind. The snow fell and fell, dancing and curling like sparkling spindrifts, the white fresh and clean against the brown and gray of the world. Once, it had been second nature to savor the contrast of new grass against the dark, tilled soil; once, she’d dreamed and breathed and thought in color and light and shape.

Feyre couldn’t remember the last time she’d done it—bothered to notice anything lovely or interesting. Stolen hours in a decrepit barn with Isaac Hale didn’t count; those times were hungry and empty and sometimes cruel, but never lovely. She went into the barn to forget, to lose herself for a few hours in the feeling of another living, breathing being. To remind herself that something existed beyond the perpetual numb.

But it never mattered how long she stayed in that barn. The cold always seeped back, and Feyre was no longer convinced it wasn’t a part of her. How else could she be crouched in the center of the lethal winter and find herself struck by its beauty? The snow fell lazily now, in big, fat clumps that gathered along every nook and bump of the trees. Mesmerizing—the lethal, gentle beauty of the snow. She should hate it, but maybe that would feel too close to hating herself.

The howling wind eased into a soft sigh. Soon, she’d have to return to the muddy, frozen roads of the village, to the cramped heat of the decrepit cottage where her sisters waited for their next meal. Some small, fragmented part of her recoiled at the thought of returning.

Then, a pair of bushes rustled across the clearing.

Drawing her bow was a matter of instinct. Feyre peered through the thorns, and her breath caught. Less than thirty paces away stood a small doe, not yet too scrawny from winter but desperate enough to wrench bark from a tree in the clearing. A deer like that could feed her family for a week or more. Feyre’s mouth watered.

Quiet as the wind hissing through dead leaves, she took aim. The doe continued tearing off strips of bark, chewing slowly, utterly unaware that her death waited yards away.

Feyre was already contemplating how she could dry half the meat, and they could immediately eat the rest—stews, pies … the skin could be sold or perhaps turned into clothing for one of them. Feyre needed new boots, but Elain needed a new cloak, and Nesta was prone to crave anything someone else possessed.

Her fingers trembled. So much food—such salvation. She took a steadying breath, double-checking her aim.

But there was a pair of golden eyes shining from the adjacent brush.

Feyre stilled.

The forest was silent. She hadn’t realized how unsettling the quiet had grown until the wind died, and the snow paused, and even the trees seemed to hold their breath, a riveted audience as the wolf inched closer from the brush.

He was enormous. The village hunters had said as much about the wolves that prowled in the northern territory, had spoken of animals large as ponies with an unrivaled stealth. She’d assumed their stories were embellished. No animal that massive could be so quiet.

Now, she witnessed it stalk forward, unheard, unspotted by the doe. His gaze was set on her, a sentience behind those glowing eyes that caused her mouth to dry. Her lips began shaping a wordless prayer to a nameless god, begging mercy from whatever divine power might be watching this clearing.

The voice that whispered to her was innate. He looked like a wolf, moved like a wolf. Yet she knew no animal of the mortal realm could possess such stillness, such intelligence. But a faerie could. Was it paranoia, her fears becoming unbridled and taking hold? Or was that voice in her mind the work of some primal, long-forgotten instinct remaining from the days when her people were kept as slaves?

Fae, the voice whispered. Not a wolf, a faerie.

She found herself reaching over her shoulder for her heaviest and longest arrow. An arrow carved from mountain ash, armed with an iron head. She’d purchased it from a traveling peddler during a summer when she’d had enough spare copper for extra luxuries. If legend were true, the ash wood could deal a mortal wound to the otherwise invulnerable fae.

The only proof humans had of the ash’s effectiveness was its sheer rarity. The High Fae had supposedly burned all the trees long ago. So few remained, most of them small and sickly and hidden by the nobility within high-walled groves.

For three years, the ash arrow had sat unused in her quiver while Feyre deliberated whether the overpriced wood had been a waste of money. Now she drew it, praying that the rumors were true, that she wasn’t staking her life on fiction.

Faerie or not, there would be no outrunning him. She could let him kill the doe and sneak away while he was distracted, but then she would be returning to her family empty-handed. This was winter, where ruthlessness was all she could afford.

And if it was indeed a faerie’s heart pounding under that fur, then good riddance. Good riddance, after all their kind had done to humans. If she let him live, then she risked him creeping into the village to butcher and maim and torment.

She would be glad to end him.

Yes, that instinctual voice agreed. The fae are dangerous. The fae are merciless. End him now and save your village from slaughter.

A prickling sensation along her back struck Feyre with a new fear—that he wasn’t alone. But she couldn’t hazard a glance over her shoulder to be sure, not without taking her eyes off the wolf. Feyre gripped her bow and drew the string back, training the arrow on his powerful, silver body. She had only one ash arrow, which meant she couldn’t afford to miss.

The wolf sank onto his haunches, preparing to strike. There was no time to second guess. He shot from the brush in a flash of gray and white and black, yellow fangs gleaming as they wrapped around the doe’s neck.

Feyre fired the ash arrow.

She swore the ground shuddered as the arrow found its mark in his side. He barked in pain, releasing the doe as his blood sprayed onto the snow—so ruby bright, not any different than her own. He whirled towards her, those yellow eyes wide, hackles raised. His growl reverberated in the empty pit of her stomach as she surged to her feet, snow crunching beneath her, another arrow drawn.

The wolf merely stared, his maw stained with blood, the ash arrow protruding so vulgarly from his side. The snow began falling again, and he looked at her with the sort of awareness that made her fire a second arrow. Just in case—just in case that intelligence was of the immortal, wicked sort.

He didn’t try to dodge the arrow as it went clean through his wide yellow eye.

Only once he collapsed to the ground, legs twitching, did Feyre notch another arrow and turn towards the thicket at her back. Her eyes anchored on the point of the arrowhead as she swept her aim blindly between the trees for any sign of that looming presence she’d sensed.

There was only slow-drifting snow, skeletal trees, and the soft whine of the dying wolf.

Alone, that residual intuition told her. Safe.

Feyre eased the arrow off the bow before turning to face the carnage. Her hands shook at the sight of the blood gushing from the wounds she’d given him, staining the snow crimson. He pawed at the ground, his breathing already slowing. The snow swirled around them, merciless as the arrow through his eye, almost to the goose fletching. She stared at him until that coat of charcoal and obsidian and ivory ceased rising and falling.

A wolf, she told herself. Only a wolf, despite his size.

Still, she couldn’t shake the creeping sensation of being watched as she crouched beside both animals. If nothing else, it encouraged her to work quickly. She couldn’t carry both animals back to the village—even the doe alone would be a struggle. But it was a shame to leave the wolf. His pelt would fetch decent coin or at least make for a nice cloak to fight off the winter chill.

Though it wasted precious minutes—minutes during which any predator could smell the fresh blood, if there wasn’t already one circling—Feyre skinned him and cleaned her arrow as best she could.

When she was finished, she wrapped the bloody side of the pelt around the doe’s death wound before hoisting the deer across her shoulders. Grunting against the weight, Feyre grasped the legs of the deer and spared a final glance over her shoulder, past the steaming carcass of the wolf to the forest beyond. Wind whistled against the hollow branches, obscuring any sound of nearby creatures.

And though nothing emerged from the trees on the other side of the clearing, she swore something in the vacant space stared back. Curious. Patient.

Feyre swallowed before sparing one last glance at the bloodied snow. Maybe she was unsettled by the gore, by how little remorse she felt for the dead thing. Grief was too heavy to hold with a doe around her shoulders and several miles separating Feyre from her cottage. Maybe she told herself something was watching so it could bear that burden in her place.

And maybe a creature so capable of mourning would be equally capable of forgiveness, so that when Death inevitably arrived on her doorstep—be it days or months or years—maybe the eyes that fell at her back would mourn for her, too.

-

The trampled snow coating the road into the village was speckled with brown and black mud from passing carts and horses. Elain and Nesta did their best to dodge the particularly disgusting parts as the three of them trekked their way along it.

Feyre was aware that her sisters had only decided to accompany her because she’d be selling the hides today. It was market day, which meant that the meager square in the center of town would be full of whatever vendors had braved the brisk morning. The snow had cleared some in the night, leaving Feyre hopeful that traveling peddlers had gambled the journey. She found they usually offered her a better price than the local merchants.

From a block away, the scent of hot food wafted towards them—spices that tugged on the edge of her memory, beckoning. Elain let out a low moan behind her, and Feyre’s mouth watered. Spices, salts, and sugars were rare commodities for most of the villagers. It had been a long while since Feyre and her sisters had eaten anything besides bread and game meat.

She fought the temptation to stare too long at the food vendors as they strode into the busy market square. Spring was still a long way off, and the forest had been particularly unforgiving this year. They needed to be smart with any excess coin, even if the scent of fresh tarts drifted towards her from the doors of the passing bakery. They were luxuries of a time before.

“I’ll meet you here in an hour,” Feyre said to her sisters, not giving them a chance to respond before she slipped away into the crowd.

Feyre took her time to assess her options. There were her usual buyers: the weathered cobbler and the sharp-eyed clothier who came to the market from a nearby town. She could feel the eyes of the cobbler and clothier on her, sense their feigned disinterest as they took in the satchel she bore.

Fine. She slid her eyes past them dismissively, searching the crowd for unfamiliar faces, someone who might be inclined to buy a wolf hide. Like the tall, raven-haired man sitting on the lip of the broken square fountain, without any cart or stall, but looking like he was holding court nonetheless.

It was hard to place him at first. He was handsome, ungodly so, and smiling to himself like he knew it. She might have pinned him as a lord’s son for the swaggering arrogance that radiated from him, but the clothes were off. He bore well-made leathers and a fur cloak. Not the finery of a lord, but from his full cheeks and glowing skin, he didn’t strike her as someone scraping for his next meal, either. He turned, and the pommel of the sword strapped across his back answered her question. A mercenary.

It wasn’t his sword that stilled her approach, though its silver scabbard was polished with enough care that it reflected light even with the overcast sky. It was his eyes, turning to meet hers. Such an interesting color—not quite blue, but a deeper shade, almost violet, and like his sword they were brighter than seemed possible in the bleak winter. They twinkled with amusement as he beheld her.

Feyre’s mood immediately soured. She didn’t have the patience for condescension today. She might have turned around, but he’d already seen her, and the coin purse strapped to his weapons belt looked heavy enough that she decided to stay. Mercenaries were well-paid in this territory.

“Well met,” he said, nodding his head in a gesture of greeting as equally foreign as the lilt to his voice.

She pegged him as anywhere between twenty-five to thirty years of age. His sensual, swaggering grace spoke of youth. But there was a hardened edge to him, one that said he’d been in this trade long enough to expertly wield the sword at his back, and to adequately punish anyone who made an inconvenience of themselves.

Feyre didn’t want to linger and find herself on the opposite end of that sword, especially before knowing if he was interested in buying from her. She sucked in a breath to offer her pitch and found herself blurting, “Where do you hail from?”

His brows raised. She suppressed an exhale of relief that it was intrigue sparking in his eyes, and not disapproval for wasting his time. “That depends.” Feyre couldn’t draw her attention away from his violet stare, even as it flitted over her shoulder, making a quick assessment of the passing villagers trying their best not to gawk. “Will my answer impact your willingness to do business with me?”

She supposed that meant others in the village had turned him away already. A surprise, given his exceptional beauty, but she supposed that amounted to little in the face of prejudice. Feyre knew well enough that a person’s circumstances didn’t define them, and that the judgment cast by the village was harsh on its best days. With the added rumors of neighboring villages being ransacked, she could imagine the wariness they might pay a stranger with a sword. Even a beautiful one.

“No,” Feyre said. “I’m just curious. I’ve never seen you here before.”

I would have noticed you, she thought.

In part because he was massive, even sitting down. A mark of the trade, she supposed. No one would hire a mercenary who looked like her—gangly from hunger and drowning in her layers. Unlike her withering figure, he was broad and well-muscled. Strong. She couldn’t remember the last time she felt that way.

As he contemplated her response, his gaze snagged on her arm and his smile faltered. “Are you a painter?”

The question caught her so off guard that she bristled, her weight shifting onto her back foot in case she needed to cut and run. The mercenary laughed, softly, and nodded at the fleck of paint on the sleeve of her tunic. Paint that had to have been there from three summers ago, damning evidence that this tunic was old and rarely washed.

She swallowed, apprehensive at his observation. Why it was relevant to someone like him. “I like to paint,” she said, because she wouldn’t go as far to call herself a painter. Her skills were rudimentary, at best. “Does it matter?”

An odd look crossed his face, as though he was retreating to some distant memory. Then he offered another of those arrogant smiles and mimicked, “No, I’m just curious.”

Fair enough. One personal question in exchange for another.

“I hail from Illyria,” he said. At her blank look, he added, “A tribe of people nestled in the steppes of a far-away mountain range.”

On the continent, she filled in. There was nothing like that here, at least not on this side of the Wall. When the land was divided all those centuries ago, the faeries had allocated a slim strip of plains and woodlands to the humans. Anything so majestic as a mountain range was left to the fae above the Wall, but at least these lands were hospitable without magic.

“No wonder the winter doesn’t phase you,” she said, gesturing to his cheeks and nose, which lacked the rosy flush that was surely painted on her own. “This weather must feel mild in comparison.”

“It’s been many years since I’ve returned to the Illyrian Mountains,” he said. He kept his voice light, but Feyre sensed they were treading towards unwelcome territory. “And the conditions in these lands have been harsh, but they may be letting up soon.”

Feyre frowned, glancing toward the sky. “You think so?”

There were at least two months remaining before winter yielded to spring. But perhaps wherever he came from, the weather changed sooner.

When she glanced back at the mercenary, he was staring at her, a smile playing on his full lips. “Things look promising from where I’m sitting.” Was he… flirting with her? Feyre must have spent too long debating it, because the mercenary drew her out of the thought by nodding at her satchel. “What business does a pretty thing like you have with a mercenary like me?”

It was absurd to feel flattered by his words. Feyre couldn’t remember the last time someone had bothered to pay her that sort of compliment. Certainly not Issac, who was inclined not to speak a word during those moments she found herself undressed beneath him. That was perfectly fine with Feyre. She preferred silence over a lie.

She fought to hide her scowl, but from his laugh, she thought it was unsuccessful. Pushing aside her rising ire, she said, “I have a wolf pelt and a doe hide for sale. I thought you might be interested in purchasing them.”

He ran those remarkable eyes down her again. Feyre coaxed herself to remain steady, to lift her chin as he crooned, “Does that make you a huntress or a thief?”

It was difficult to determine which would be more impressive to him. Feyre held his stare as she answered, “I hunted them myself. I swear it.”

He would not understand what it meant to her, that vow. After their world had been cleaved by the fae, humans had deserted their religions and holidays. In Faerie, they relied on magic to bind a person to their word, but they had no such tools here, no Cauldron or Mother or any other deities to swear upon. Here, a person was only as good as their word. To Feyre, and to many of the villagers, a vow was sacred. But if he fashioned her a thief, he may not consider her word as bond.

“A huntress then,” he purred. His attention fixed on her satchel. “Let me see.”

Feyre pulled out the carefully folded hides. “I was only after the doe, to feed my family. But the wolf got to her first. And I made sure I was the one who left the clearing alive.”

The mercenary gave a low whistle as he examined the hides with an expert eye, running his hands over and under. She expected to be met with incredulity, but she marked awe in his voice as he praised, “Impressive kill, little huntress. You must be a good shot.”

“If I weren’t, I’d be dead.”

That truth sobered him. Sobered them both. He assessed her for a long moment, then lifted his gaze over her shoulder, where Nesta and Elain were doing their best to eavesdrop without being spotted.

He pursed his lips. “I’ll take them,” he said, before naming a price that would have sent her staggering if she didn’t keep a tight grip on her composure. He was grossly overpaying.

Feyre leveled her shoulders. “I don’t need your pity.”

“No,” he agreed, eyes darkening. “But you need to stay out of those woods, and I know you won’t keep out of them if your family is starving.” The question must have been plain on her face. He pitched his voice lower. “I think you know that this wasn’t any ordinary wolf. It won’t take long for its kind to come sniffing, and you may end up leading them right to those sisters of yours.”

She refused to glance over her shoulder and offer merit to the fear he was trying to churn in her gut. He wanted her to look at her sisters and see their slight figures, so fragile and defenseless against a creature like the one she’d encountered yesterday morning. Her stomach roiled despite her efforts. “Are you trying to scare me so that I hand the coin right back to hire your protection?”

The mercenary chuckled, but it lacked any warmth. “My services have already been bought by a local lord. I’m just trying to warn you, from one hunter to another. You go back into those woods, and you’ll be courting your death.”

She wasn’t brave enough to ask if he was speaking from experience, if he’d once been hunted by the fae after killing their kin. If she was smart, she’d heed his words and use his coin to get her family on a boat headed south, somewhere far away from the Wall. But would they believe her, would they be willing to go?

“Think on it,” he said, as if she wasn’t already. She held perfectly still as he reached into his heavy cloak to withdraw his coin pouch. She let him count, her mind far away while she plotted their different options of escape, including the scenarios where she had to drag her sisters kicking and screaming from their beds. It was preferable to a vengeful faerie doing the same.

Maybe it was for the better. The land left for the humans in this realm had always been an afterthought, and the governing queens had never paid much attention to this small colony of villages. She’d heard things were better on the continent, the land warmer and more fertile. Elain could garden, and Feyre could learn to make paints from the petals. It was a nice thought, a comfort against the more dangerous one—if she didn’t convince her sisters to leave, a faerie might come seeking revenge for the one she felled.

Feyre’s awareness was jolted back into the cold market square by the press of metal against her palm. She blinked, and violet eyes filled her vision, creased in feint amusement.

“What’s your name?” He asked.

The weight of the coins felt heavy. She knew if she glanced at her sisters, she’d find them drawing closer, sensing the transaction was over. What would he do with her name if she gave it to him? She couldn’t imagine anything good could come of it.

“Tell me yours first,” She countered.

That errant smile grew. And she understood why he had chosen to become a mercenary. Feyre only hunted in the woods out of necessity. If tomorrow she discovered she would never need to raise her bow against another breathing creature, she would feel relieved. But from the way his eyes sparked, fascinated at this new game afoot, she knew that he was the kind of man who hunted for thrill. That this information, basic and inconsequential as it may be to the rest of the world, had become his new quarry.

He raised a hand, offering it into the space between them.

“Rhys,” he said.

Wind played at his raven hair, swiping pieces across his forehead. Feyre stared at his outstretched hand. Broad and flecked with the odd scar, his hands were more elegant than she’d expect of a mercenary. They wouldn’t have looked out of place against the ivory keys of a pianoforte or gripping fine cutlery at a Lord’s dining table. Maybe that was the danger of him—the charming smile and the clever eyes. Perhaps his foes saw a pretty face and underestimated what he could do with that sword. Maybe the poor mercenary was one littered with scars, whereas Rhys walked away from his battles unscathed.

“No family name?” she pressed.

“They’re not needed in my trade.” Rhys leaned forward, flexing his fingers in invitation. “And you, little huntress? What name might I inquire after to ensure you’re still alive in a week’s time?”

Rhys. She had no way of verifying if that was his true name. Maybe he changed it every place he went, never assuming the same identity, never leaving a trail. If a faerie found him one day and demanded to know where that wolf pelt had come from, what would stop Rhys from revealing her name? Especially if it could spare his own life.

He wouldn’t ask if he didn’t think it would be useful to him one day. She wouldn’t delude herself by buying into his purred words and bedroom eyes. Feyre took a step back, steadying herself.

“There’s only one huntress in this village,” she said. “They’ll know who you mean.”

The mercenary lowered his hand, slipping it casually into his pocket. “I told you mine.” Velvet as the melted chocolate being sold by the cup two stalls away, Rhys leaned closer and whispered, “That makes our debt uneven, love. I may seek payment for it one day.”

A shiver crept down her spine, though she couldn’t determine if it was from the threat of the words or the sultry promise in his voice. Feyre curled her hand around the strap of her satchel, fingers tightening over the worn leather like she didn’t trust he wouldn’t try to snatch it from her. “I have to go,” she said, her tongue feeling thick. From the cold, she reasoned.

He waved a hand over her shoulder, smirking at whatever caught his eye. “I wish you luck, then.”

Feyre turned, expecting to find that Nesta finally summoned the courage to yank her away. But the mercenary’s lazy smile wasn’t directed towards Nesta and Elain, ducked conspicuously behind the clothier’s wagon. It was aimed across the square. Where, leaning against a building, arms crossed over his chest, Isaac Hale watched their interaction through raised brows.

More of that wicked amusement spread over Rhys’s face. “Friend of yours?”

Friend was both an understatement and too generous of a word. They’d vaguely known each other since Feyre’s family had moved to the village, and one afternoon they wound up walking down the main road together. Their conversation had been inane and perhaps a bit awkward, but a week later, she’d pulled him into a decrepit barn. He’d been her first and only lover in the two years since.

Their trysts were erratic and haphazard; sometimes they’d meet every night for a week, others they’d go a month without seeing each other. If recollection served, it had been almost six weeks since that last frantic shedding of clothes and shared breaths. He has grown lean since the last time she saw him, his brown hair a bit shaggier.

There was no love between them. There never had been. But the last time she’d seen him, Isaac told her he’d soon be married. A piece of her heart had sunk at the news, and she’d avoided seeing him since. Now, she weighed the apprehension in her chest against the reprieve of company, that bit of selfishness that made their bleak and wretched lives more bearable.

Feyre blew out a breath, watching Issac incline his head in a familiar gesture and amble off down the street—out of town and to the ancient barn, where he would be waiting if she decided to join him.

“Yeah,” Feyre said. “A friend.”

If he believed her answer, he didn’t press. She didn’t imagine her pathetic love life would be of much interest to someone like him. There was no room for wives and children in his lifestyle. Perhaps the occasional love affair, though he likely didn’t stay in the same place for very long. Maybe that was why there was understanding in the way he nodded. Like he, too, needed the occasional warm body to remind himself that there was life outside of the daily horrors.

“Just try to stay out of trouble.” His eyes gleamed in a way that suggested staying out of trouble meant staying far, far away from him.

She didn’t get a chance to respond before a slender hand clamped onto Feyre’s forearm, dragging her away. Elain waited beside the clothier’s wagon, shivering despite her cloak as she watched Nesta pull Feyre away from the mercenary.

“Mercenaries are dangerous,” Nesta hissed, fingers digging into Feyre’s arm. Even Elain’s face had gone pale and tight. “Don’t go near them again.”

“He was fine,” Feyre said, yanking herself free. “Generous, even.”

“They’re brutes, and will take any copper they can get, even if it’s by force.”

The silver coins in her pocket said otherwise. Feyre glanced at Rhys, still sitting on the fountain. He hadn’t taken his eyes off her. She glanced away, feeling her cheeks warm, knowing she’d made it obvious they were talking about him.

She shoved a hand in her pocket, suddenly desperate to escape this market and those piercing violet eyes. She pushed a twenty-mark copper towards Elain, not bothering to look at either of them as she said, “I’ll see you at home.”

They didn’t protest. Feyre thought it was miraculous how swiftly a mercenary’s business became acceptable if it meant a new pair of boots, but she held back the sharp words on her tongue. Her sisters wandered off, already whispering about what they should buy.

Like an arrow trained at her back, she could feel the mercenary’s gaze tracking her as she wove through the market stalls, not even bothering with subtlety in those rare moments when she gathered the courage to glance over her shoulder. He merely grinned at her, shameless.

She intentionally left down the same street as Isaac, just so Rhys might assume she was on her way to meet the farmboy. And think twice about following her. When she reached the ancient barn, she paused. Isaac would be waiting to undress her on the other side of the splintered and peeling wood. She could already feel the hot breath on her spine, the hay straws biting into her palm, her knees. Maybe it was better to see him in case Rhys didn’t think twice about following her. And maybe because she could feel a pit in her chest yawning open, and she thought Isaac’s strong, work-roughened hands might be able to hold it closed for just a little longer.

Just enough to feel warm again, for an afternoon. Before she returned to the cottage and remembered that she killed a faerie yesterday. And might very well have put a price on her head—on her family’s head—because of it.

He’s married, a small, rational voice reminded her. Maybe it’s time to move on.

Besides, the last thing she wanted was to get him killed.

Feyre walked past the barn. She ought to feel proud of her dignity, but it didn’t soothe the pit in her chest, a tempest of ice and darkness that slowly seeped out with every step along the frozen path back to the cottage. No amount of stuffing her fingers into her armpits could banish the cold. It was here, it was her.

She sighed, watching the breath expel in a cloud of frosty air. There had always been an undercurrent of darkness that drew her and Isaac to each other, but now she wondered if she was too frozen, too hollow, even for him.

And as she walked, she found herself thinking about Rhys, unflinching at the bite of winter. And how, for that short time she’d been drenched in the heat of his gaze, his eyes the first vibrant color she’d seen since winter had overtaken the village, she’d forgotten what it was to be cold.

-

Hours later, after another dinner of venison, Feyre’s family gathered around the fire for the quiet hour before bed. She watched the flames flicker in the fireplace, absently bathing in the precious heat before she and her sisters would retreat into the bedroom, where they’d huddle together for warmth beneath threadbare blankets.

Nesta and Elain whispered and laughed together about some encounter they’d had with a handsome apprentice in the marketplace. There was the odd lull in laughter, in which Nesta would slide her eyes to Feyre as if daring her to make some comment about Tomas Mandray, a woodcutter’s second son who would allegedly be proposing to her any day now. They’d fought about it the day prior, but it felt like centuries ago.

All evening, she’d been trying to summon the courage to admit to her family where that wolf’s pelt had truly come from. What it had come from. She wasn’t certain how they would react or if they would even take the warning of the mercenary seriously. Father might. He’d once traded one of his wood carvings for the wards etched around their cottage’s threshold, supposedly meant to protect their home against faerie harm. It was one of the few things he’d bothered to do for them. If the fae scared him enough that he’d barter with a charlatan for those useless engravings, maybe the threat would be enough to rattle him into action again.

Except he was dozing in his chair, his cane laid across his gnarled knee. And she suspected she would get nowhere with her sisters without his aid. He had no sway with Nesta, but Elain would listen to him. And wherever Elain went, Nesta would follow.

Tomorrow, then. She would speak privately with her father and worry about convincing her sisters later.

Tomorrow was a nice idea.

But then a roar cleaved through the still night. The cottage door burst into splinters. And her sisters screamed as snow flooded into the room, flurrying around the enormous, growling shape that appeared in the doorway.

[bloodycassian]

ABO - Reader x Azriel fic. N S F W!! NSFW. (TW - small attempt at persuasion/leading reader away from party non con. THERE IS NO NON CON AZ TELLS HIM TO GTFO)

The dazzling bright lights of Velaris shone and sparkled. Illuminating the various colored fae and their questionable outfits. The city bustled, primed with energy and tension. As the nights grew ever shorter, the halfway point of the Nightfare grew closer. Only a week away, and the city seemed like it couldn’t handle any more decoration. Any more visitors. It was a wonder some of the shops were still open, and not completely out of stock yet.

Costumes, leathery outfits, food of all sorts… all of it was prominent while more and more tourists flooded the streets. At this time of night, patrons packed the bars and restaurants around town. Even the more questionable foodstalls were hosting fresh, warm meats from the Illyrian steppes. Classic stews, soups and the scent of briskets and sauces hanging heavy in the air.

Those scents, along with the wild, tinged smell of hormones. Of anxiety, and sex and.. Gods it was intoxicating. 

Watching the fae huddle into nightclubs and hotels was one of the best people watching experiences of the year. It was why Elain was with you, to enjoy the best view of it all. That, and to avoid any alpha catching a hint of her scent. Her very, very prominent scent that had been triggered just a few days prior to the festival beginning. You hadn’t hesitated before letting her into your home while she avoided Rhys and the like, understanding that she really couldn’t control when it would happen to her. 

So, needless to say, Lucien was on his way. Quickly. All the way from Spring court where he’d been caught up with Tamlin’s own festival of sex and mating bonds. You wondereed just how they’d stayed together despite the temptations everywhere. But, just as you, Lucien was a Beta. He understood better than anyone else in the Inner Circle that sex was nothing…that exciting.

Yes, it was great, but not in the way that Alphas and Omegas made it seem. And after watching the streets of velaris turn into an orgy for so many years… you wondered just how much you were missing out. 

“I’m going to head down to the bar. Get some fresh air, maybe a few drinks. Do you want anything?” You asked Elain, who busied herself in the kitchen. She’d already made three loaves of bread in the two days she’d been here. 

“No, thank you. I’ll be here though, waiting for Lucien.” She sighed, dusting her hands of flour. He’d promised her to be here by the end of the weekend, to winnow her away. Somewhere they could take care of her heat together. Somewhere that wasn’t your apartment, hopefully. 

It was still sad though, seeing Elain without Lucien was like a flower without sun. A beautiful, powder covered flower. You leaned in to give her a half hug and took a finger of the batter she mixed. “Hey!” She slapped your leg with a spatula while you made your way around the island. 

“Needs more salt!” You called while the door shut.

+

Thankfully by the time you made it to the least busy bar in town, the sun was setting. Which meant the alphas that prowled the streets had finally been allowed inside the clubs. The wait for the beer was still atrocious, but you had time. 

Besides, you needed to get away from Elain’s overpowering scent. Even as a Beta, it still messed with your mind to have that smell so near. It made your senses stand on end, and your body sensitive to anything that touched it. 

So yes, the beer was needed. It was a priority before going to see just what Rhys had planned for his own Nightfare celebration. To see just who showed up, and who didn’t. To monitor every lip bite and scent of desire that laced who. It was political as much as it was sexual, when it came to Rhys’s parties. 

So you downed the beer and gave the bartender a silver mark before leaving, ignoring the eyes that lingered on you a bit too long when you exited. 

The night air was refreshingly cool against your damp skin. The walk to Feyre and Rhys’s wasn’t too far, but with the pheromones and being so near Elain the last few days, your body was overreacting. 

The bouncing, swaying bodies were like a sea of glowfish. The paint on them was that like starfall, made by Feyre herself. It was also a fantastic way of being able to see different bodies in the crowd. For the guards to be sure that no Omega was being taken right there on the dancefloor. That no Alphas were pressuring them. It was unlikely at this meeting, but it was standard practice for every Nightfare event. Though the room reeked of alpha dominance, you found yourself enjoying the music and it’s hard beats enough that you swayed to the music. 

You waved to Cassian, who you spotted across the recessed dancefloor. He leaned on a moonstone pillar, nursing a tall drink and talking to someone. Someone with no paint along their body, it seemed. Even with the green glow marks on Cassian’s neck, he still seemed intimidating. Given his status as a Beta, he was here as Rhys’s personal guard while he and Feyre talked to guests, danced and drank with them. Built allyships and, if they wished, swapped partners for the night. 

You didn’t involve yourself with their sex life. Never bothered with a royal’s mating rituals, as a personal rule. Things could get messy much too quickly, if the wrong people found out. If that royal decided they were no longer interested, and decided to knot a new omega or beta instead. It wasn’t common, but enough rumors had spread among the summer court that you weren’t going to attempt to involve yourself in that kind of mess. 

“Enjoying yourself?” A warm voice murmured beside you. A brown eyed male, with bright auburn hair approached with an extra drink. He handed it to you, and nodded for you to follow him away from the dancing. 

“As much as I can.” You sniffed. He was an Alpha. And from the hair, likely a powerful one. One that belonged to the Autumn court, judging by his dress. “Considering all you alphas always stink up my favorite bars.” You grinned, hoping to bait him. It wasn’t like you to flirt, but with the contagious euphoria in the room, it was impossible to resist. 

“You say that like you dont like my scent, little Omega.” He purred, dipping his head close to your ear. “I can smell your slick from the bar.” 

Your cheeks flashed with heat, all the way to your pointed ears. You.. it wasn’t possible for him to smell you. Your pharamones were just like a humans. No more than that, unless you were aroused. “W-what?” You stammered, faking a smile as to not be rude. The male could hold high position in Autumn. Not that Beron would listen to anyone other than his eldest. 

“Come with me, I know what you need.” He wrapped an arm around you, and was pulling you so quickly from the floor that you had no idea what had happened. At first you were within eyeshot of Cassian and that dark figure, then they were far off in the distance. The cavernous house swallowing up the rest of the party like a pit. 

“I’m not an Omega- I cant..” You began to explain to him, but he shushed you, cupping your face in his hot palms. His breath reeked of liquor and rot, but behind it all… that aromatic, demanding scent of alpha. 

“It’s alright darling.” the party was getting farther away now. Even more than before. Then, in the warm breeze that gilded your face, you realized… he was winnowing.

“You’re Lucien’s brother.” You gasped, shoving him away before he could make another winnowing leap with you. Nearly at the front door, you were grateful for the guards there. The last line of security for incoming or outgoing visitors. 

“Not usually how I’m greeted. Normally it’s Berons son. Or Eris’s brother.” He straightened, pulling his jacket more securely over himself. Like straightening a crown, only this green and yellow flecked jacket was likely worth three months rent. 

“I dont get involved with Royals.” you muttered, and moved to pass him. But he blocked you with a muscled arm. 

“And I dont usually get involved with so called Betas. But here we are.” He sniffed close, and his lips pulled back in a snarl like smile. Danger. This was very close to being dangerous, and wrong in so many ways. Not only was he scenting Elain’s heat on you… but now Elain and Lucien would scent him on you. The alpha stench would reek on your skin for days after making that contact. 

“Goodbye, Vanserra.” You waved a hand, and pushed against his arm, but he curled it, pulled you close to him. 

“My name is more than that, you know. It means power, wealth.” His chest to your back, you could feel the length of him pressing against your backside. As much as you hated it, your body did respond to it. Your thighs tensed, pussy clenching and becoming hot at the mere thought of getting fucked in this position. 

You whimpered, and you felt the smile as his cheek touched your ear. Why wasn’t anyone checking this area? Gods, if Elain found out you’d slept with her mates brother..

“It also means asshole, in general.” A gravely, rage flecked tone said. The Autumn prince straightened immediately, leaving you squirming in place while your hormones took over your senses. The voice seemed to come from nowhere, until… your breath left you in a huff. A sigh of relief despite your thoughts going to a different kind of relief you desired. 

“Leave. Now.” Azriel’s calm voice was nothing to disobey. That cool undertone was the slayer of many enemies in his time, and if the Vanserra knew better than to test that legacy, for he vanished within a blink, leaving behind only the musky scent of warm apples and dying leaves. 

Azriel approached slowly, half expecting you to attack him with the look upon your face. He didn’t know if he should even be here. If he should have called Cassian over instead, considering his job was to specifically not get involved. To only observe, and send the Army General to handle anything he saw as a threat.

But Cassian was too far away by the time Azriel had noticed your disappearance. He’d kept an eye on you all night, noticing how different you seemed under the glow of the faelight. How the roiling bodies stared at you from time to time, observing, then scenting. He could have sworn one of his shadows heard whispers of ‘omega, omega omega’ in the crowd. 

And standing here.. Within scenting distance… Well he couldn’t help himself. He held a hand out to you, offering an escort. A knight, to defend you if you needed. If you had somehow become an Omega overnight, he would stop at nothing to protect you. You stared at him for a long moment before taking his hand, and pulling him into a hallway full of low faelight and plush rugs. 

“Thank you. I dont know what he was saying about being an Omega, and he wanted me and-” He nodded, but that look in his eyes… where those eyes were now staring. At your body, up and down and lingering on your hips, on your neck, your breasts… “Azriel?” You hissed, hoping to snap him back to reality. There was no Omega here, surely the scent of Elain was washed off of you by the male that had been all over you. 

“I- Your… Your scent is..” He cleared his throat, and his eyes were burning. Like a male in a rage, they smoldered on, desire billowing from him like a summer heat. IT did something to you, pulled at your very core and commanded your most innate desires. Took over your thinking, your control. Everything that made you enjoy his presence was escalated. He was more than a friend now. More than an ally, more than anything you’d ever viewed him as. 

“It’s Elain’s heat…not me.” You whispered, voice nearly breaking at the thought of him no longer being interested.

Your low whine, deep in your throat nearly broke him. Nearly shattered him in two with indecision and hunger. “Your scent. It’s you. You smell…” He groaned under his breath. Your breathing hitched, and butterflies took over your stomach. He had been the dark figure watching you beside Cassian. The one without the paint. The shadow guardian. 

Your hand squeezed his, and that was all the approval he needed. He pulled you, fast walking father down the hall until coming upon a large oak door. He shoved it open with ease, and his mouth was on you in the same move. “

You couldn’t even tell what the room was for before he was pushing you back, back back onto a cold table. A large, steady countertop. A chill ran though you, his hands went to your hair, clearing it from your face and neck while he moved his hot, sloppy kisses to your neck. You back arched, and he growled in approval. Your eyes flashed open at the soft bite, and you realised… he’d brought you to the kitchen. The pots and pans overhead swayed and.. “What if someone comes in?”

His hands went to your breasts, kneading them softly. A finger flicked over your nipple, and he kissed you again, teeth scraping your bottom lip. “They should know better.” He grinned, and finally met your gaze, a hand going to the hem of your top questioniongly. You nodded, and with one swift rip he had it off of you. He took a moment then, hands tracing up and down your sides while he admired you. 

“Fucking beautiful.” He sighed, leaning down and taking a nipple into his mouth. 

He was perfect. Utterly, and completely perfect by every meaning. His hair was lush, and the perfect texture for pulling when you wanted him to move somewhere. Like, your pants for example. He flicked them off with ease, his own going along with yours in the corner shortly after. Once naked, he took a long look at your body, while stroking his long cock. One slow pump, and precome slicked him fully. You hissed, and made to take a hold of his length yourself, but he held you back. “Let me taste you.” He asked, pulling your chin up to look at him. Splayed before him, you couldn’t say no. 

You nodded, and he set to work. Slowly, tracing his fingers, then his lips up your thighs. Your body was overheated, and your skin felt too tight. Your sex ached for him, ached for anything to fill it. Gods you needed this so, so badly. Hadn’t realised just how burning hot you’d been until his tongue lapped over your wet entrance, and soothed some of that ache. 

Your groan elicited his own in return, and he lapped at your entrance like a starving male. Like he’d never have this again. Slowly, he moved up until he flicked over your clit, sending sparks over everything. Turning the building ache into a complete need for him. He looked up at you, from beneath his lashes, and the sight of him there was almost enough to make you come. He was loving it, reveling in it. Hearing your sounds and whines of pleasure was all the pleasure he’d need for a lifetime, he was sure of it. 

“Please-” you panted, grinding down on his face. You were close, so so close from just his tongue. Imagining what that cock would do… You pulled him off of you by the hair, dragging him up to your lips. His mouth tasted of cool black power, and you. Both of your markings on him. Now it was your turn. “Fuck me.” You commanded, in a low tone. His eyes were alight. How could he deny this? How could he drag this on any more, when he himself was ready to explode? 

Azriel held up two fingers, just in front of your lips. Smirking, you ever so slowly kissed them, then took them into your mouth, coating them with your saliva and sucking on them just as you wished you could with his lovely cock. 

His eyes didn’t leave your lips, as he stroked those fingers over his head, pulling on himself a few more times before aligning himself with your entrance. “You want this, baby?” He muttered, petting down your sides yet again. The counter was the perfect height for him, the perfect angle for him to ease into you. 

You nodded, arching and grinding, trying to get him into you. “Say it.” He demanded, keeping himself just at the edge. He wouldn’t let you have this easily, then. 

“Fuck me.” You demanded, pulling him forward with your heels. The Hiss of pleasure he released was immediate upon feeling your warmth, your tightness. His lips opened in a silent moan, eyebrows pulling together at the sheer exquisite feeling of you. Gods he could live like this. He could die right here and be happy. 

He waited a long moment, letting you slowly release his backside before pumping back in, slow and long. Your soft moan had him twitching, had his knot growing at the base of his dick. He’d only fucked Omegas before, always with the fear of pregnancy. But this.. A Beta that he could knot and- He began fucking, pulling you further off the counter, letting his hips slap into your thighs. He was going to knot you. He was going to make you come over and over again if it killed him. 

He was better than you could have dreamed. With every stroke, every seated entrance of his cock inside you, he hit that spot. The dull ache flared with each thrust, building and building until you were writhing beneath him and couldn’t see anything but his ruffled hair and wings. 

The wings that were now splayed out, and moving in time with his thrusts. His hands held you in place with bruising force, but gods it felt so good. So right, and so perfect inside of you. So filling and- He tipped his head back and moaned so loud it drowned out the party music for a moment. “I’m close… do you want me to-”

“Yes, Yes I’m your Beta-” You panted grabbing for anything to hold you in place while the pressure came to a peak. 

It felt as if his cock grew, as he surged and slammed into you over and over again. A warm darkness skimmed over your body, and the stinging, filling sensation of his knot pushed inside your entrance. It stuck, and grew more, twitching with his come. “Fuck fuck fuck-” He panted, his nails biting into your skin. His cock twitched perfectly into that spot that had been begging for him, the knot pressing it harder into you. And as he released, your own pleasure clamped down on him. He shuddered as you came, your walls pulsing around his full cock. 

He panted, and shook as your hips rocked into him. Slowly, ever so slowly, he gained enough strength to push you onto the counter together, so he could hold you in his arms. His knot shrunk, and even when it did he still stayed inside you. Holding you, peacefully until sleep caught you together. His warm wing folded over you like a blanket for the night. 

[lailyn]

A Prince's Ransom

Summary: Loki is over a thousand years old. Why he still keeps getting kidnapped is anyone's guess.

Contains spoilers for Thor: Love & Thunder

Patrolling New Asgard at night was a task Loki no longer dreaded. He coveted the silence, and the peace of mind that it promised. 

“I do not need sleep,” he had said to Thor, when his brother expressed his doubt about the soundness of the plan. Loki had proposed several security measures before, but this was the first one Thor had not passed tout de suite. 

“Night patrol is a thing of the past, surely?" Thor asked uneasily. "Don’t the people of Earth use electronic things now? Security cameras and such?”

“A great supplementary tool but surveillance does not ensure safety,” Loki argued. “Most of our soldiers died when Asgard fell. It is now down to us to make sure that the people are safe.”

“It’s alright, Your Majesty,” Valkyrie said. “The prince and I can take turns.” 

Loki opened his mouth to protest, but Valkyrie silenced him with a look. 

“The night isn’t yours alone, my Prince. You can’t hoard the shadows and not be challenged.”

It was a compromise that finally met Thor’s approval, and Loki was no fool so as to look the gift horse in the mouth. The bad feeling plaguing him lately had long since reached a crescendo and it was a win that came just in time. 

 ________________________

“The moon is hiding tonight,” Valkyrie warned some nights later when it was Loki’s turn to patrol. 

“I took down a steppe bison once with my bare hands,” Loki said absently. “Beasts don’t scare me.”

“No shit,” Valkyrie deadpanned. “But do be extra cautious, my Prince.”

“I’ll make sure all my pieces remain intact till the morning, my Lady.”

“Good. Makes the clean-up easier for the rest of us,” Valkyrie retorted. 

Loki laughed silently, acknowledging the concern nonetheless. “Sleep well, Val."

________________________

Valkyrie may be a closet worrywart, but it did not nullify her point. The woods surrounding New Asgard were still largely unexplored and Midgardian predators were known to lurk and prowl in the night. 

The newly constructed promenade along the shoreline was plain-looking but the view of the sea at night more than made up for it. 

Valkyrie was right. The moon was nowhere to be seen.

Loki inhaled deeply. It was something he never quite knew how to put into words, the smell of danger. How close or far, he could not tell. 

He raised his face to the heavens, ever more aware of his troubled thoughts. Whatever it was coming for them, would it come tonight? How? Who?

The darkness, a friend to him at other times, was his enemy tonight.

Without delay, Loki conjured a mage light, a beacon so bright it illuminated the entire plaza. He scrutinised the mostly darkened apartment windows and hoped he had not disturbed anyone’s sleep. 

Now the only shadows he needed to worry about were the many, many nooks and crannies in New Asgard his magic and light could not reach; he looked up at the rows of dark windows again with fear.

“I’m afraid that won’t be enough,” a voice suddenly whispered in his ear, “Did nobody ever tell you about the shadow on your back?”

Before Loki could turn, something sharp pierced between shoulder blades. In a split-second, all breath left his lungs, as did his magic, a turbulent vortex that drained out of the hole in his back like water.

Damn, was Loki’s last coherent thought before everything went black.

_______________________

When Loki came to, he found himself in total darkness and trussed up against a wall. He struggled against the binding, but there was nothing physical to rip, no hinge to tear apart. 

He fought for calm. 

Wherever this place was, there was still air to breathe. He was still alive. 

“Why am I not dead?”

No answer came. 

Was he the only occupant in this prison?

Loki closed his eyes and concentrated. Testing the strength of the bonds holding him was imperative. There must be a way he could reach his magic, some means of escape at his disposal. 

A low chuckle came from somewhere in the Darkness. 

Loki paid it no mind. He must not give the fear a name, no more power over him than it already possessed. 

Over the centuries he had shifted into countless nocturnal animals, and hence, honed his skills to such a selective extent that he could call upon their night vision at will. 

Loki reopened his eyes slowly. His vision adjusted.

His lips curled into a savage smile. “I see you.”

The hooded figure was seated a few feet away from him, as silent as a statue. It might as well be one; no scent emanated from it, no evidence of life or death. 

Loki’s composure slipped at the sight of the long, black sword it was holding in its hand.

No. He sagged in his invisible chains, feeling the strength leave him and all hope. No, no, no. 

The creature broke into a grotesque grin, his mouth a great, big slash across his cadaverous face. “So you require no introduction."

“What is it you want?”

“Straight to the point. I like that in a god,” he drawled. “Why prolong the inevitable?”

“You kept me alive for a reason. Let us have it and be done with all this bother.”

“I kept you alive for only one reason.” His captor's eyes glinted with glee. “Your brother’s axe.” 

Loki tsk-tsked. "You are a fool if you think my brother would pay such a high price for me.”

"You sell yourself too short, Prince." The figure rose to its full height. "I have eyes in the shadows and right now, your brother is beside himself. Soon, Stormbreaker will be mine, and I will open the gateway to Eternity!"

"Eternity?" Loki burst out laughing. "He would sooner have your head than let you lay a finger on his precious axe."

"Oh, he would, would he?" 

A flash of silver, and suddenly, something ice-cold and razor sharp pressed against Loki's neck. "We'll see."

 ________________________

The last image of Gorr holding the Necrosword against Loki’s neck froze in the empty space above their heads as the boy’s golden eyes turned brown and he bowed his head in regret. “I’m afraid that is as far as I can see, Your Majesty.” 

“You have done enough, Axl Heimdallson,” Thor said gruffly. “Thank you.”

“Where are you going?” Valkyrie demanded.

Thor said nothing. Blue began to envelop Stormbreaker’s handle with the summoning of his powers.

“Thor!” Valkyrie jumped to her feet.

"He has Loki!" Thor bellowed. "You would have me do nothing?"

"I did not say that."

Thor’s jaw tightened. "He has my brother, Valkyrie."

"And we will go to him," Valkyrie said firmly. "Once we have a plan."

“To hell with plans,” and Thor disappeared in an eruption of colours and energy.

“Thor, you fool!” Valkyrie cursed into the void where the King once stood. “Axl, can you try and reach them again?”

________________________

“Thor, you fool,” Loki cursed. “Why did you come?”

Thor ignored his brother. “Let him go. It is not him you want.”

The creature cocked its head. “Oh? And how would you know what I want?”

Thor shrugged. “It’s not that hard to figure out. It is in your name, the God Butcher. It sounds awful by the way.”

“Ah. So you have heard of me.”

“News gets around. It’s a bit hard to ignore when gods are being slain all across the universe,” Thor said, putting a hand on one hip. “But this is a bit below the belt, don’t you think? I mean, kidnapping? That’s so…old-fashioned.”

“If it works, it works,” Gorr grinned. “The axe, or your brother’s head.”

“Don’t give it to him, Thor,” Loki said tightly. “You must not let him reach Eternity.”

“I know what I’m doing, Loki,” Thor said. 

He took a step forward and offered Stormbreaker by the haft. “Come and take it.”

Using Loki as a shield in front of him, Gorr moved closer, but the moment he came within a throw's span, Thor withdrew his arm and flung the Stormbreaker in a wide arc. 

The magic axe flew around Gorr’s unprotected back in a circle and would have cleaved him in two, had the God Butcher not swivelled in time to block it in its path with the Necrosword. 

With a resounding clang, Stormbreaker bounced off the obsidian blade and landed on the ground some twenty yards away.

The backlash had Loki thrown face first into the dirt, slipping his captor’s grasp for a split second, but once more, his own shadow betrayed him. Before he could make a run for it, a thousand hands pushed him from the Darkness below, and into Gorr’s clutches again.

“You are going to pay for that, Odinson!” Gorr raged, spittle flying from his fissured lips, dark and thick like clotting blood. He raised his sword high above their heads. “I’ll give him a quick, clean death!”

Thor's eyes met his brother's in panic, "Stop!"

A cackle. "Too late," and the God Butcher plunged the Necrosword into Loki's heart.

________________________

"Noooo!!!" 

A thunderous roar shattered the silence of the Shadow Realm.

Gorr watched the God of Thunder sink to his knees and bow his head. 

Gorr understood grief. He understood it very well.

"All Gods must die, Thor," he reasoned with a gentleness that had been absent before. "It is written."

"Yes…" the corpse in his arms spoke. "But not today."

"What?" 

Loki's hands shot forward and wrapped around the hilt of the sword. With a hard, strong tug, the Trickster God pulled the blade in deeper, piercing his back and skewering Gorr straight through the chest. 

His mouth forming a perfect circle of horror and disbelief, Gorr the God Butcher, Keeper of the Shadows, disintegrated into dust. 

The Necrosword fell to the ground with a clang as Loki's double followed suit shortly, evanescing out of existence. 

"This is just a suggestion but maybe tone down the drama next time, Thor?"

Thor turned his head slowly. "That was a close call, Brother."

"Was it?" Loki purred. "After all these years, you still doubt me."

"I thought he had not released you for long enough. You really had me fooled."

"It was close, but I do have eight more lives to spare."

The slinky black cat emerged from the shadows and pawed its way onto Thor's lap. 

Thor buried his face into Loki's sleek fur and Loki let him. This was the only form he felt comfortable enough in to be held this way.

"Okay, that's enough," Loki declared a few seconds later. 

Thor looked his brother who was now back in his normal Asgardian form, up and down. "Any lasting damage?"

"I'm good," Loki said reassuringly. 

Then his face brightened. "Hey, since we're already here, wanna knock on Eternity's door?"

"Don't even think about it, Loki." Thor tightened his grip around Stormbreaker and around his brother both, just in case. "I should get you home before Valkyrie finds a way to murder us by long-range magic."

"All the more reason to do it," Loki cajoled. "I know what Valkyrie would want."

"Everyone knows what Valkyrie wants," Thor said. "A lifetime supply of - "

"Booze," Loki joined, and the brothers shared a warm, rare chuckle. 

Meanwhile,

"I heard that!" Valkyrie shouted into the air a million miles away in faraway New Asgard.

"They can't hear you, my Lady."

"Shut up, Axl."

[sroloc--elbisivni]

📚 👀 💯?

📚 A fic you wish you could display on your bookshelf

getting out of transformers to rec Swallows on the Beam, a post-canon FMA:B fic by shuofthewind where Lan Fan, the Emperor's closest bodyguard, has to go undercover at the Xingese court as a woman of the steppes to try and uncover a conspiracy and ends up maybe in a position to change the world. it's 200k and a work in progress and SO goddamn good, every time i finish rewatching the show i open this up to read it again.

👀 A fic that you love a normal amount

back into transformers to yell about Following the Tracks the 80k wip by LittleMissSweetgrass, an integration of Raoul and Tracks from G1 into TF:P. i'm generally very picky about tfp fic but this one was *chefs kiss.* Raoul is Raf Esquivel's older brother and it makes perfect sense and the bits that the author is weaving in from other continuities are done so deftly and so delightfully that the whole thing is just one treat to read. why isn't this canon so i can have fifty more fics in this universe, universe?

💯 A fic that makes you think #writergoals (i'm doing 2 for this one and you can't stop me)

The Ceremony Planner (TF G1, 8k, complete) by ohdeariemegoodness is hysterically funny. Ultra Magnus has to plan a wedding and is trying to do so methodically in the middle of absolutely unhelpful chaos. I love the humor, the character voice is so STRONG in narration and it colors absolutely everything in a not-quite-unreliable narrator way but also one where there's what you're being told and then there's the next layer and it's just. the whole thing is crawling into a character's brain and settling down there to tell a story in a way i desperately envy

speaking of things I desperately envy fair in love and war by CatsGirlsComicsAndThisOddball makes me lose my MIND over the depth and the layers of the narration. wip nearing completion at 96k of an ot3 soundwave/jazz/prowl where soundwave and prowl started out as the power couple of the Decepticons and had a liaison with a rando who turned out to be not only spying on them but also Optimus Prime's right hand and from there it gets all kinds of messy really fast. steph is doing this thing where she's layering about five different narrative timelines and perspectives all at once with some incredibly brilliant use of dialogue and code-as-brain-as-narrative that TF fandom sometimes does so well and making it look effortless and i am CONSUMED by it.