#still squatting in one of the villagers' houses

[emilianadarling]

Loving the lil resource pack that adds some variety for dog buds!! 😃 This sweet lil Shiba Inu crossed my path on my way to go caving and then we both crossed the path of my very first Warden and had to make a run for it OOP.

[xazse]

CAN YOU PLEASE DO A PT 2 OF

SUGURU AND SATORU MEETING A CURSED HYBIRD PUPPY!GIRL WHER GOJO GOSE BACK TO THE PUPPY GRIL PLSPLSPLSPLSPSLPLSPLSSSSS

Notes: LMAO GLAD YOU LOVED <33 I HOPE THE PEOPLE WHO ALSO REQUESTED ALSO SEESTHIS: @appleblueberry-pie @postsarenerverdaily

2nd part of this: CursedPuppy!Reader

Pairings: Satoru x CursedPuppyGirl!Reader x Suguru

Tags: Fluff, Satoru and suguru are in jujutsu tech together so in this they are minors, light kissing, petting, (I don’t want to sexualize them as minors so this is sweet and fluffy)

Satoru is doing something he really should not be doing, it’s just too irrestiable.

He’s sneaking back to where he had met you, hoping and praying that you were still there. Suguru had been watching him like hawk, he knew Satoru would attempt to come back and find you, at least that’s what he had thought. Satoru gave it a couple of days before he’d come search for you again.

It was difficult but he had finally managed and now with his six eyes he would search for you. It was nighttime so the village was down and asleep, he carefully made his way to the old house a little far away from the village. He used his technique to search for your energy and found it, he almost jumped for joy. He followed it and you hadn’t felt his energy yet: weird but he ignored it.

You were squatted down poking at some water so adorably. Your back was turned to him so he cleaned his throat to get your attention. You were quick to whip around and see exactly who it was. The smile that graced your face was damn cute, Satoru’s heart was craving in on itself, you immediately jumped to your feet and ran to give him a hug.

He hugged you back so hard, kissing your forehead and saying just how much he missed you. He scratches behind your ears, which makes your cute tail wag at a high speed. You aren’t understanding his words but nonetheless you give in to his kisses and warm hugs. As Satoru is enjoying the moment he comes to the realization: What is he to do to you?

Suguru is livid when he comes to the Gojo estate: still composed of only gojo. To find flickers of a similar cursed energy he had felt that day. Satoru really does not listen, nor does he understand what the curse could capable of.

“Satoru.”

“Suguru.”

“You’re extremely hard-headed you know that.”

Suguru looks down at you cuddled up with Satoru on the couch where you lay on his chest, light breathing indicating you were sleeping and so peacefully so. You were wearing different clothing, shorts and a shirt that looked too big for you.

Satoru sighs and waves his hand in the air but not too hard as to not stir you awake, “you knew I was gonna do this” Suguru is left with nothing to say as he completely agrees.

“So what are you gonna do when a mission comes up?” Suguru says while making his way to the pair of you, sitting down in the open spot where Satorus head is. “You can only threaten the higher ups for so long you know” “I know that, we’ll work around my packed schedule, aww suguru are you worried about her being alone here?”

Suguru ignores that in favor of poking at your sleeping face, he’s mainly poking at your fat cheeks, you seem to be a little too comfortable for a curse. Satoru lightly swats at his hand, before giving you more kisses on your forehead.

“She’s a little cute, only a little” “only a little? stop fooling yourself Sugu” Suguru flicks at his forehead and Satoru clutches it while feigning hurt.

You start to stir awake, they both still completely and watch you. First you sit up slowly, stretch a little, and your eyes land on suguru. You weren’t this close to him during your first encounter before so you’re quick to crawl over Satoru: (he’s completely offended) and sit in his lap, you sniff at him, grab him, and mess with his hair. as surprised as Suguru is he makes no move to remove you.

“Traitor! Traitor! He’s not the one who saved you!” You just tilt your head at his words and giggle at his antics, Suguru really is interested in your tail, he grabs it a little too rough and in turn your quick to jump up. “Not so hard Suguru” Satoru scolds, he can’t believe he has the opportunity to tell him off it excites him a little. Suguru raises his hand towards you as a sign of an apology, you don’t seem to understand this gesture so he grabs your hand and guides you back to his lap.

He’s gentle with rubbing your ears, so soft and reactive they are. He can see your leg twitching just a bit when he rubs the back of your ears, you seem to love attention, love when all eyes are on you. Satoru leans over and gives you another kiss but this time on the cheek and when he’s pulling away you follow him, you really are goddamn cute, Suguru can fully admit that.

You shuffle so you’re back on lap properly and wrap your arms around his neck, placing your face in the crook and sighing loudly.

“Sorry Satoru it seems you’ve been replaced” Suguru laughs sinisterly

“Replaced? Me?!” Satoru stares for a moment before getting up and walking to the kitchen, he’s rummaging in there for a while before he walks out with some cake on a plate, and he sits at the end of couch and begins poking at it while glancing at you occasionally. You sniff the air and notice the cake, Satoru has deemed that you love sweet things as much as him so he expects you to crawl over and be all up in his face like you usually do, it’s cute when your mouth automatically opens like he’s meant to feed you.

You don’t do none of that, you bury yourself deeper in Suguru’s shoulder and play with his hair, to rub it in Satoru’s face while he sits there mouth open astonished, he tilts his head a little to give your cheek a little kiss, you react with giving him multiple kisses. All while Satoru is pouting obviously and loudly.

[pseudowho]

Infiltration, Chapter Seven: The Captive Goddess

Nanami Kento and the reader must pretend to be married to infiltrate a deadly Curse-user cult and take it down from the inside.

*SMUT/NSFW/18+*

A slow-burn fic with fluff/comfort, angst, smut and heroics from our favourite salaryman.

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Nanami Kento had long-since erected walls to the outside world. Very few were allowed a glimpse to his inner sanctum, and assessments of him as cold, aloof, ghoulish, humourless or melancholy provided his armour. He was externally unflappable, methodical, analytical; but under the water, his feet paddled frantically, and he felt his heart a million miles away, perched at the edge of a precipice.

Kento swam in Cursed energy; Father Tatsu was having trouble packing it back in-- the Cursed energy that had never belonged to him-- now he had shown his hand. The air was as thick as treacle. Grimly assessing that he had no choice but to fight if he wanted to give you a chance to escape, Kento rolled up his sleeves, the seal releasing on his Cursed energy as Overtime unlocked. Father Tatsu bared his teeth.

"Will it be me then, instead of that woman you call your wife?" Kento's stomach twisted as Father Tatsu picked at his nails, flippant and disinterested, "I say that...but she'll be gone by now, of course. No blood left for the leeches."

Kento read his adversary, his face impassive as he hummed in thought, seemingly considering you tactically, instead of with the gut-churning dread he really felt. I shouldn't have let her go, Kento tortured himself, bitter, she went back, and that's my fault, and she's gone already--

Kento went through mental acrobatics-- home and dead? Home and injured? Captured and home? Captured and taken to the Shrine? Captured and taken somewhere else? Captured but fought to the death? Captured and--

"She is useful," Kento mused, detached, "but not necessary for this part of the mission. It may be a blessing for her to die now instead of--"

Father Tatsu laughed, "Dead, my boy? No, no. The Goddess prefers to consume them while their heart still beats."

Kento felt a swoop of success at his easy fishing. Captured and taken to the Shrine. Taking a few steps back as Father Tatsu's power swelled, Kento's eyes glanced through the windows overlooking the village, in the direction of your house together. Kento sighed.

"Our mission was reconnaissance and escape," Kento lied smoothly, "so while it's a shame my colleague has likely been neutralised, there's no value in both of us being taken out. If you don't mind, I'll be leaving. I don't imagine it's long before my...institution arrives, to finish the job."

Father Tatsu snarled, his attempt to reel Kento to the Shrine failing. His Cursed-energy grew at an uncontrollable rate, and Father Tatsu appeared drunk, gulping back nausea, staggering. Both considered each others' moves; breaths balanced on a tightrope.

Father Tatsu darted for Kento, so much faster and stronger than his age would normally allow, and Kento jacked sideways into a roll. Righting himself, fingertips to tatami in a balanced squat, Kento swept one leg out under the staggering Father Tatsu, who landed with a resounding slam on his back. Dropping back to his haunches as Father Tatsu lay, stunned, Kento lifted the same leg, slamming the back of his booted foot down onto Father Tatsu's face.

With a nauseating crunch-pop, Father Tatsu's nose broke, lips split, choking on blood and teeth. Lifting his leg once more to land a killing blow, Kento's ankle was grasped in two obscenely strong hands; despite his leg being swathed in Cursed energy, he felt a crack ricochet up his leg, the pain like a gunshot.

Father Tatsu looked so briefly shocked, before his face twisted into a snarl, sloppy and bleeding, yanking Kento's leg, trying to pull Kento in by his broken ankle. He doesn't know how to control the power, Kento realised, hot pain flaring up his leg, because he's never had so much of it.

"Scum," Tatsu snarled, as Kento resisted his pull with gritted teeth and stubborn determination. Tatsu vomitted, hot blood, tooth fragments and bile soaking into Kento's jeans and the tatami below them. Kento watched in muted horror as the man's body seemed to swell and churn, Tatsu briefly contorted with torturous pain before sinking his fingers into Kento's leg, bellowing like a bear.

Father Tatsu was bloated with power, and it refluxed out of him in a gruesome, violent belch, when he stood, swinging Kento in an arc to the other side of the room. Beams splintered under the sinews of Kento's body, on the wall overlooking the village, and it buckled, part of the ceiling shunting down, showering Kento in plaster, clotting with blood on his forehead.

Kento stood, solid and tall, his breath hitching with the agony of standing on a fractured ankle. Kento focused his Cursed energy there, desperate for support, cursing himself for never mastering the art of Reverse Cursed Technique.

Kento was sloppy with distraction, each second away from you lowering your chances of survival. Father Tatsu crouched, arms and fingers twisting into himself like gnarled roots, an unstable implosion. He jutted forwards, staggering, animalistic, his face contorted with rage and failed restraint.

Kento turned on a pinhead, gripping a jutting ceiling beam, before kicking the crumpled wall with a roar of pain, striking a point of critical weakness. The wall collapsed outwards, and Kento and Father Tatsu were met with the cold slap of the drifting snowstorm, before Kento leapt, the remnants of the room's ceiling folding like a blanket over Father Tatsu.

Kento's belly swooped as he dropped three stories, landing in fresh snowdrift with a soft thud, before jackknifing away into the storm, making for the village gates, for escape. Kento heard a cry of rage from the devastated room behind, carried by the wind, making his gut churn with shame.

"Coward! Coward!"

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I'm underwater.

"...feed this one...goddess..."

"...too much...all the others already..."

Warm. It's too heavy. Hurts.

"...arguing!...orders..."

"...tender first...likes them begging..."

I'll just sleep let me sleep go to sleep--

WAKE UP!

Who is that? Love him. Want him.

You're running out of time. Darling. WAKE UP!

Your injury gripped you, and you sank, unbidden, into the deep once more.

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"If you don't ask him out for a coffee, I will. Maybe for me, or maybe for you." Your best friend cringed, squealing with laughter as you slapped at her.

"If you've only come in here to bother me," you chided, urging your friend to the staffroom door, "then go away, you must have something better to do, you pest--"

A gentle knock, and the door swung open, forcing your friend to spin back to you, grasping your shoulders with wicked joy, as Nanami Kento walked in behind her, his eyes questioning. You glared daggers at your friend, giving her an almost imperceptible shake of the head. Naturally, she ignored you.

"I'm so sorry, I can't come to lunch with you today after all!" She bemoaned, "I've got so much to do. You'll just have to eat alone." Your mouth dropped open at her shameless audacity. She excused herself quickly, past Kento, the door closing on you both.

There was a heartbeat of silence, and you adjusted yourself quickly, giving Kento a breathless smile in apology for your friend.

As you moved towards the door yourself, crippled by Kento's presence, you heard his silky voice behind you.

"I normally eat alone. The good company in this place is limited."

Your hand retracted briefly from the door handle as you turned to Kento, blushing. His heart skipped, his decision quick and life-altering as other, rejected paths trailed away, unchosen, alternate fates unravelling.

He folded his newspaper with a light clearing of the throat; "That being said...I know a good bakery. If you'd like to join me for lunch."

Your smile was as soft as dappled sunlight, and Kento felt something deep within him pass irretrievably to you.

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You woke with an agonal gasp, floundering in chains as a bucket of ice-cold water was flung over you. Your head spun and pounded, belly shaking with nauseous, racking shivers. Your wrists creaked against your chains, engraved in symbols; your stomach dropped as you realised your Cursed Technique had been completely neutralised by your bonds.

As soon as you raised your head to look around you, a backhanded slap across your cheek made your teeth crack together and your head rattle; a hit you knew, vaguely, to be from a man, instead of a woman. Your tiptoes pressed to the floor as you hung, coughing.

Nought but footsteps in front of you, something dark and slick across the stones, red-black light writhing and flickering in the gloom. Your foot caught on something as you tried to stand. A second slap had you feeling your captor was enjoying this.

"It's nothing personal, my dear." The voice tickled recognition in the back of your mind, but you hitched against the chains, your head and face battered. You tried to grab your thoughts, like catching smoke. Your captor had rightly ensured you had no chance to fight back-- no monologues, no grandiose speeches.

"Well...a little personal. Breaking into my library. Making a fool of me. The Fathers really did hope it wasn't you two, you know? Such talent."

A punch, deep to your gut. A scurry up your leg, a sharp squeaking bite that sank through your trousers and popped through the skin of your thigh. You were crying out now as you kicked the Librarian's rat off your leg, you were sure, but your head was ringing, vision spinning, cold seeping through to your bones.

You almost begged for mercy, but bit it back, wordless and gasping. Your feet slipped on the part-frozen slick beneath you. Your foot caught again, your floundering throwing something forwards; ragged fabric, dark with slurry, crunched bone, gristle and flesh peeking through it. You retched as the putrid-sweet smell of fleshy rot hit you. Leftovers, you thought.

The squirming nature of the light in this vast round chamber had you throwing your head back, staring upwards with bloodstained vision. An extraordinary mass of black arms and legs writhed above you, the inchoate flesh constantly changing as hundreds of blackened screaming faces, kicking legs, clawing hands moved within it, reaching out. As if in recognition of your acknowledgement, a pulse of Cursed-energy like a weapon of war shook your bones. You'd have dropped to your knees, if not bound.

"When your pain is pure," the Librarian continued, adoring, revenant, "she will devour. She shall be released. Our captive goddess, she of the fertile land, finally imbued with the righteous power needed to debride this festering country."

The Librarian approached you, his leathery hands cupping your face lovingly, shushing you as pink-stained tears ran down your cheeks. He spoke softly, as if gifting you such a boon.

"You will be part of something bigger now, sweet girl. You were misguided...but she is forgiving." The Librarian brushed tears from your tender, swollen cheeks and you grimaced in pain. He looked up, as snowflakes slipped occasionally down past the writhing mass, and reached into his pocket. With a flick, a pocket knife opened casually in his hand.

"Is your husband coming?" The Librarian asked, slow and thoughtful, "Perhaps not. I cannot feel him." Your heart crunched with pain, tears now rushing down your face in a strangled sob, hoping against hope that Kento was escaping, instead of dead.

"It is no matter." The Librarian supported the small of your back as he punched the knife into your gut. All the air shunted out of your lungs, your mouth hanging open in a voiceless gape, agony burning through every nerve of your body as the Librarian swiped the knife sideways through your belly. A slow, fatal wound. He pulled his hand away, drenched in your blood as you began to slip underwater again.

"She will taste your pain. She will come. Do not fear, sweet girl."

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You slipped out of the bathroom, skin still glistening with steam as you wiggled a towel around you, hunting for the tinny ringring-ringring of your phone.

Into your bedroom, throwing discarded clothes aside, and reaching into your pocket, you found your phone. You answered without looking at the caller ID.

"Hello?" A brief silence on the other end.

"I'm...sorry. You must be busy." That familiar voice, that made your belly twist and throb with want, velvet and slurred. You sat on your bed, gripping your towel around you.

"Kento?" You squeezed your phone until your knuckles were white. You heard a sigh and a shuffle, and blurted out in a panic, "No, wait! Don't hang up!"

A pause again.

"I just wanted-- I needed someone to--"

"Kento I--...I'm always here. For you to talk. About anything."

A thousand unspoken truths passed between you in silence. You closed your eyes, bringing your knees up to your chest with your arm wrapped around them. You felt Kento wrapped around you, warm as you waited.

"It's...it's just been a long week," he continued weakly, "Too much. Just way too much. I didn't get to see Haibara-- it was the anniversary, and I--"

You bit your lip, tears stinging in your nose for Kento. Reassurances flurried out of you. Kento felt himself warm through with your voice, slumped in his armchair, whiskey on his knee, shirt and tie open and messy over his broad chest.

You spoke over the phone, for the first time ever. The intimacy of his breaths, his slow chuckles, the crushed velvet of his tipsy voice...with your eyes closed, he was right beside you. He may as well have been in your bed. Your skin pricked with goosebumps as you heard him shift in his chair, releasing a gravelly groan with his aches and pains.

"You can-- you can come over...if you like. I'm not-- not doing anything," you offered, cringing with regret and anticipation as soon as the words left your mouth. You heard Kento's breathing hitch at the other end of the phone, before he breathed out a long, shivering breath.

"I...not tonight," he spoke, hesitant. Your stomach dropped, blushing, tears threatening to spill out as your face twisted in despair, mortified.

"I've been drinking...and you deserve better. So much better. But...tomorrow?" Your heart leapt, wondering how you would possibly wait that long. You bit your lip, burning with desire and delight as you nodded quickly.

"I-- yes. Yes. Please." Kento huffed out a laugh that had the hairs on your neck stand on end. You shivered in your cold, damp towel.

"Are you alright?"

"I'm fine, just-- just still in a towel, I was having a bath." Kento's breath hitched again, and you were sure you could hear his embarrassment.

"God, I'm so sorry," he pressed against your hurried reassurance, "I'll go, just...go to bed. Warm up, I'll...I'll see you tomorrow." You blushed, kicking your legs, wiggling your toes, overwhelmed with joy.

"Okay. Yep. Bed, I'll-- I'll get dressed," you squeaked, unable to help yourself, teasing him with your feigned innocence. He hummed, low and unreadable.

"Sweet dreams," he said, voice warm as honeyed tea. A brief hesitation, as you both held on...the call ending with a beep.

Kento dropped his phone onto the table beside him, cupping his hands over his mouth. His thighs bounced on the chair in thrill, and he fumbled, swearing as whiskey spilled all over his lap.

The next day, he scooped you into his arms off bloodstained concrete, shielding your gaze as your friend's broken body was shifted into black bags.

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Kento had long-since left the village, since heading to the gates in swathes of snow, his broken leg giving and buckling under him as his Cursed-energy buffeted. He had escaped, cold and tactically driven; better just one dead sorcerer, than two dead sorcerers, after all.

Father Tatsu was certain, howling insults into the snow like a wolf on the mountain. His bounding strides cratered the floor beneath him as he lurched through the Temple, throwing aside the questioning approach of the kimono'd woman. She slammed into the wall in a wet crunch, hit with the force of a high-speed traffic collision. Father Tatsu lurched out into the snow, retching and vomiting again.

Father Tatsu stood strong against the piling drive of snow, a maelstrom against a maelstrom. The village was barely visible in the sea of white, as he staggered towards the black-veined, dead hill of the shrine.

Watching the man zigzag up the hill from a snowy roof, a man surrounded by allies raised his hand to pull his balaclava low, his eyes tempered like chocolate, determined.

"Time to move."

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Your heart crumpled under the weight of grief, for a promised life with Kento, never fulfilled as you hung, dying in the red-black gloom. You regretted nothing of the past; only the future you had let slip through your fingers.

The writhing goddess thrummed above you, and viscous pulses of overwhelming power thickened the air. You tried to drink it in, a desperate grasp at life.

A familiar voice called your name in the gloom. You had slipped underwater now, sunk under ice, tangled in reeds.

Kento had nightmares about how he found you, broken, bleeding, hanging and cold, until the day he died.

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One chapter to go! 🤭🤭

Chapter Eight: Unchained, LINK HERE!

@angelofthorr @nn-hh192 @vxmethyst @moonmalice @daisynik7 @heyitsmirae @black-swan-blog27 @vocosys @mischiefmanaged71 @silkspunweb 🐈‍⬛🧎‍♀️ @deegausserr

[mixelation]

more (a)synchronicity. the meetcute <3

ummm okay so one thing to remember is that minato has met tori TWICE and simply does not remember her because he hasn't realized she's the main character. but she remembers him. not fondly.

*****

There was a platoon of Kumo-nin squatting in a small riverside village. Minato killed them, as part of his general orders to keep enemy ninja out of the smaller countries as much as possible. He also found that getting on civilians’ good sides made his life easier. If he was lucky, they’d tell him some info and offer him food and lodging. 

He killed the first three Kumo-nin almost instantly when they came out of a home to confront him. The fourth and fifth took a couple minutes to hunt down, as all the villagers ran around and screamed and fled into their houses. The seventh had taken an old lady hostage in her own home, which was just pathetic. Minato caught the old lady as the Kumo-nin’s body fell. 

“Hey,” he said, putting her back on her feet. She was shaking, and he had no idea if that was just an old lady thing or she was upset. He smiled his most harmless and disarming smile at her. “Are you alright?”

He didn’t hear her answer— which didn’t really matter, because no one looked into his nicest smile and didn’t think they were okay— because someone stepped into the doorway. 

Like most of the homes in the village, this woman’s house was a single room. The Kumo-nin had darted in here at random and left the front door open. Minato turned, expecting to see a village leader or warrior. That’s usually who came and talked to him, before he could properly trot out his charm. Civilians were often terrified of ninja, especially in the small countries where they could be attacked or displaced by their wars at any moment. 

It wasn’t a leader or a fighter in the doorway though. It was a young woman, who watched him with curious dark eyes. Her dark hair was pulled back tightly, and the only thing that seemed slightly remarkable about her was that her frayed dress was an uncommon style to this area. 

“Hi,” Minato said brightly, friendly as can be. “Um— I just saved your grandmother here from those nasty ninja...”

“She’s not my grandmother,” the woman replied. She leaned against the doorframe, casual as could be. “But thanks, I guess. You’re not a nasty ninja too?”

“I’m a ninja,” Minato confirmed. He winked performatively at her. “But I’m not nasty. I’m from Konoha.”

She snorted, unimpressed. Well. He supposed his charm couldn’t work on everyone. 

The old lady was still shaking terribly. Minato helped her into the big plush chair she had at the foot of her bed. As he did this, an older man he’d bet was the village leader appeared at the doorway, and the woman explained, in a surprisingly bored drawl, he was Konoha and that he’d killed all seven Kumo-nin. 

The seventh one’s body was still in the middle of the room. Minato stepped over it to greet the leader. 

“Is everyone alright?” he asked first. The leader boggled back at him. The woman just raised her eyebrows. 

The leader had barely acknowledged her. Minato was drawing a blank for what her role might be. Not important, not impressed by ninja, even charming helpful ninja… Village weirdo?

“I’m Minato, a Jounin of Konoha,” he introduced himself, jabbing his thumb at his headband. “Those ninja that were harassing you were Kumo. As your ally, I’m happy to—”

“Konoha isn’t our ally,” the woman said, eyes meeting his. A tiny smirk crossed her face. “You’re on the Grass side of the river. The Kumo-nin were our allies.”

Minato had known this. He introduced himself as an ally to basically all civilians in the smaller countries, to help with his friendly persona and promote Konoha’s image. People rarely called him out, because during this war, ninja were almost uniformly horrible to civilians outside of their homelands. A lone handsome and friendly Konoha-nin was almost always anyone’s preference, even if their country was technically at war with Konoha. 

“Also— why do ninja always talk like we have no idea what their hitai-ate mean?” the woman asked.

Well. It had never occurred to Minato that people in a backwater town might be well-versed in ninja customs. 

“Reina…” the village leader said, shooting the woman a warning look. Then he turned back to Minato. “The Kumo-nin were stealing our food, disrupting our work, and harassing our women. We’re thankful you got rid of them.”

Minato smiled. Reina rolled her eyes and walked away. 

The leader went on to say that he would happily host Minato for the night as thanks, but he would have to report the attack to Kumo. He apologized that the message would likely reach the nearest administrative camp quickly, only giving Minato a few days to vacate the area before they were alerted. 

“It’s okay,” Minato said cheekily. “I’m fast.”

The village buzzed to life after that. The Kumo-nin bodies were moved, rolled in cloth and lined up in the shade of the town square in case Kumo wanted them. Villagers rushed about, checking on friends and family. The old lady’s actual grandson bowed deeply to Minato in thanks. 

Minato sat on the edge of the bone-dry fountain in the middle of the square, watching all this. The villagers seemed a little jittery around him— eyeing him in evident fear whenever one scuttled past— so he didn’t want to do anything that might scare them. It was boring, but he obediently sat still and tried not to bounce his leg too much all day long. 

The village leader’s wife came over and introduced herself, and then offered Minato with some onigiri to snack on. He asked about the old lady and was assured she was fine. 

“I wouldn’t mind,” Minato said, turning up the charm as he accepted the riceballs, “chatting with you and your husband about anything interesting going on around here.”

“Around here…?” the wife said. “The most interesting thing is you.”

She smiled bashfully. Ah, well. At least his charms were working on someone. 

“No other ninja?” Minato pressed. 

“Oh,” the wife said. “Well, I’ll ask around. My husband will surely tell you more at dinner.”

She left. 

The sun lowered in the sky, and the village calmed. Reina sauntered over to him. 

“You look bored,” she said. “Do you want to do something useful?”

“Sure?” Minato replied, half-convinced she was going to tell him to go clean something.

“Don’t worry,” she said, and finally offered him a real smile. “It’s interesting.”

Minato hopped to his feet. 

Reina led him through the village, seemingly completely unbothered to have a ninja at her back. Civilians were like that, he guessed. It was weird, but it wasn’t suspicious. He watched the bun at the back of her head loosen ever so slightly with every step as she marched down the main road. 

(Improperly tied hair… also a very weird civilian thing.)

“There’s a ninja paper down in the river,” she explained as she walked. “I noticed it a few days ago. I guess the Kumo-nin put it there, but I don’t know why.”

“Ninja paper?” Minato asked.

She turned slightly to look at him with one eye as she walked. 

“You know the… special paper.” She drew a few random circles in the air with her finger for him. “With the squiggles?”

That was, actually, potentially, extremely interesting. It could be evidence left by their mysterious fuinjutsu user. It could be the final clue Minato needed to find them. 

Or, more likely, given the mystery fuinjutsu user tended to paint or carve onto natural objects, it was just one of the Kumo-nin’s fishing traps. But it could be a clue. 

They passed the border of the village, and the cobblestone street turned to a packed dirt path. Minato quickened his step slightly to walk next to Reina. 

“Is it doing anything?” he asked. 

She gave him a look. “Doing anything…? Don’t they just explode if you step on them?”

Not doing anything then, okay. So she just thought it was a safety hazard she’d need another ninja to get rid of. 

“You said it was in the river?” he prompted instead. 

“Yeah, it’s in the water,” she said. “It’s like… um…” She made a few hand gestures which were meaningless to Minato, and then had the grace to look embarrassed. “Well, you’ll see.”

The path rose over a slight hill, and then they could see the river down below. It wasn’t very big or impressive here, but a lot of trade traffic would come through here in peace times. The banks were manmade stone walkways, to aid with the horses than sometimes lead boats. 

“It’s up there,” Rein said, pointing. She stepped off the path to make a more direct route across the grass down to the riverside. “I marked it so I could find it again.”

They walked maybe thirty minutes. Minato didn’t mind. The breeze was nice, and this area of the country was all open fields, meaning he could see down the river for what felt like miles. It would be sunset soon, and the sun was already glinting off the water in pretty ways. He still preferred the shade of Fire Country’s forests, but it was nice to be able to see so far every once in a while. 

He did try to talk to Reina, as they walked. She didn’t seem like she had much to say about the maybe-seal she was walking him to, but a good shinobi was always fishing for information. 

She seemed cagey at first, but with some light, half-joking flirtations that made her make unimpressed faces at him, he got her to open up about her life. She complained the village had nothing to do and that she had to walk to another town if she even wanted to buy a book. When he asked why she didn’t leave, she looked at him like he was stupid. 

He was almost starting to take those looks personally. 

“Because I have no money, and ninja are shooting fireballs at each other all over the place,” she said. Then she looked away, kicking a pebble down the embankment and into the river. “Plus someone has to raise my little brother.”

At some point, Reina’s bun loosened to the point where she had to take it down. 

“Ugh,” she said, pulling the tie and then shaking out her hair. “Did you know war can make hair tie shortages?”

She held up a deformed elastic tie for him, as if making some sort of point. 

“Why don’t you just… use a ribbon?” he tried. He knew Kushina liked the elastic ones because she was always complaining about snapping them, but Kotone had only ever used cloth ties. 

Reina stared at him like the thought had never occurred to her. Minato smiled uncertainly back. She was a village girl. Surely she knew about traditional hair ties? Or pins? What were hair pins for? He’d picked them out of lovers’ hair before. They must have been doing something. 

Minato suddenly felt like he’d only ever known two women in his entire life. 

“Your hair is curly,” he observed, and then immediately felt deeply stupid. 

“Oh,” Reina said, a hand resting where her hair fell over her shoulder. It was quite long too, although not as long as Kushina’s. It was also clearly tangled and unwashed. “Well, right now it’s more like a mess…”

“I think it’s pretty,” Minato said, flashing his best, most charismatic smile at her. “It suits you.”

He wasn’t even lying. It really did make her look like the village weirdo, suiting her perfectly. 

She turned away, her cheeks clearly pink. 

Ha! Gotcha, Minato thought. Finally. 

They came to the right part of the river a few minutes later. Reina had stacked up a tower of flat river stones right at the edge of the embankment. Minato stood next to the tower and peered down into the river. It was only maybe knee-deep at the edge, and the water was clear enough that he could easily make out every stone at the bottom. 

“It’s further out,” Reina said, pointing. 

Minato watched her over his shoulder as he stepped out onto the water, waiting for her look of wonder as she realized what he was doing. Instead, she just sort of smiled blithely at him and squatted next to the rock tower. Minato felt bizarrely disappointed. 

What are you expecting, Namikaze? Minato chided himself as he plodded out across the river. What had he become, that his ego needed him to be able to impress this random civilian woman? She’s just the village weirdo. Who cares if she doesn’t think you’re charming?

He spotted the “ninja paper” soon after. It was a standard tag tied to a kunai wedged in the rocks below, waving gently in the current. Minato squatted, squinting down at it. He couldn’t make out the actual seal on the tag, but it was the wrong shape for an exploding tag. 

“Well?” Reina called. “Aren’t you going to go get it?”

He turned his face to look at her. One of her hands was absentmindedly tracing a pattern over the top rock of the tower. She was watching him eagerly, more eager than she’d been all day. 

“Go on,” she said, a nearly flirtatious tease in her voice. “Dive down and get it, Konoha.”

“No,” Minato said slowly. Something was wrong. “It could be a trap. Reina, how did you see it all the way out here?”

“Hm?”

He stood fully. His hand twitched at his side, itching for a kunai. But— no— she was a civilian. He didn’t want to scare her until he was certain. He could still get info out of her village, and he’d make that job a lot harder for himself if he freaked out their weirdo. 

“The ninja tag,” he said. “How did you find it?”

“Oh,” Reina said, blinking at him in what seemed like full understanding. 

Then her little smirk was back, sure of herself in a way that almost looked dangerous. The setting sun glinted in her hair, caught in her curls and turning them almost red. She pushed the rock tower over, the stones plopping into the water. 

Minato did not react immediately, because she was just a civilian tossing some rocks in the river. But then, suddenly, he was underwater, and the water was boiling. 

The pain kept him from reacting immediately. Every inch of his skin lit up in pain. There was a force sucking him down, preventing him from moving his limbs and escaping the way his brain was demanding. He squeezed his eyes shut to protect them and grabbed mentally for any Hiraishin marker. He had no idea where the one he picked was— his brain was confused and screaming at him about the pain and he couldn’t tell which way was up or down. 

Then he was on land, cold air on his blistering skin. He took a deep, calming breath. Everything hurt, but now it hurt in a way he was more accustomed to. He could focus. He was in an empty field. The civilian woman had tricked him— had— had— he had no idea what she’d done. He didn’t know anything that could make that happen, except maybe a very creative and pissed off Kiri-nin. 

He teleported to the Konoha hospital next. Leaving a marker there had seemed like a convenient idea to him when he’d done it, but he’d left the marker in the room he’d been staying in when he’d made the decision. The nurse currently in there screamed. 

He got immediate medical treatment, though. 

Kushina came to visit him on the second day of his hospitalization, and he succeeded in not crying in front of her. She succeeded in holding back on making fun of him for being a light shade of pink. 

“Stupid,” Kushina told him from her seat by his bed. “You’re lucky you didn’t boil your eyes out of your head.”

He’d gotten out quick enough he’d done no permanent damage to himself, at least not with Konoha’s medical intervention, his medic-nin had said. He hadn’t corrected her that any damage done to his person would have been inflicted by a random civilian woman. The report he was going to have to write on this would be embarrassing enough. 

If he’d been in the water much longer, he'd have been at risk for boiling his organs, including his brain, which not even Tsunade-hime could undo. He was certain this would have happened if he’d listened to Reina and dived for the tag. If he’d floundered for a minute more, he’d be literally coked. 

“I think it was the fuinjutsu user,” Minato explained to Kushina, after he’d filled her in on the whole story. Talking hurt, because he’d damaged almost all of his skin. “The village weirdo must have… figured out how to use the seal, or they taught her how, or something.”

“All that in one little seal, though?” Kushina asked. Her brow was furrowed, like she was trying to figure out a puzzle. 

“It’s not impossible,” Minato said, but Kushina looked doubtful. 

He was inclined to believe her doubt. Jiraiya liked to brag that Minato was a fuinjutsu master, but the only thing he had on Kushina was more experience in space-time fuinjutsu. If she disagreed with him on anything else, well, she was probably right. 

“How have you been?” Minato asked. Kushina puffed up her cheeks and exhaled. 

“I spent ten hours yesterday decoding a report,” she said. “I swear to every god there is, training genin was better than this—”

Minato relaxed back into the lumpy hospital pillow to listen to her rant. Kushina had recently switched to a purely office role for a pay bump, and because she wanted a break from training “brats” up to be battlefield ready. She’d thought she’d be spending all her time on fuinjutsu development, but she was frequently being saddled with administrative odd jobs. This was, to Minato’s understanding, just something that happened now due to the war. More and more able bodied shinobi were being sent out, and so there were fewer people to do the gruntwork at home. 

“If you're bored,” Kushina said, suddenly brightening up. “You can decode reports, and I can go back to trying to figure out a water purification seal that also fits in a canteen.”

She came back later in the evening with a convenience store bento (which was vastly superior to Minato’s hospital dinner) and a stack of coded reports. 

“Have fun!” she cooed. 

Minato thought about just not doing the work, with the excuse that he had burns on over 90% of his body. But… he was bored. 

Needless to say, when he was finally released a week later, he was itching to do something, even if he’d been warned off anything but “light” exercise. Interrogating a civilian would be light, wouldn’t it?

At least one of his markers was still in the village in Grass Country, left on one of the kunai he’d used in his initial attack. He dressed in his uniform, double checked his weapons, and went in. 

He landed on a table, which groaned and shifted under his weight. A man with a Kumo hitai-ate was two feet away from him, and he let out a sad muted scream of surprise. Minato slit his throat before he could properly finish his yell. 

There were two other shinobi in the room, but they were both dead a second later. 

Minato took a moment to assess the situation. The room matched the same style of single-room home as the village, so he probably was actually there. The rickety table held all three kunai he’d left behind: one of his Hiraishin ones, and two standard issue ones. There was also a scroll unraveled, where someone had evidently taken notes on the incident where he’d killed seven Kumo-nin.

Annoying, he thought, lips thinning. If Kumo was using their brains, they’d have sent more than these shinobi. Minato spun a kunai in his fingers a couple times, preparing for a fight. This still counted as light exercise, right?

In the next ten or so minutes, he combed the village and hunted down and killed a grand total of fourteen more Kumo-nin. His heart rate was barely elevated by the end of it. No way his medic would be mad at him. 

When none of the villages came out to speak to him, he went to the house of the village leader and knocked on the door. 

“I need to speak to Reina, please,” he said. As an afterthought, he smiled. 

“She’s gone,” the leader said, clearly nervous. 

Minato raised his eyebrows. “You really don’t want to be lying to me,” he said. 

“N-no,” the leader said, putting his hands up defensively. “She really is gone. We thought she left with you.”

Minato narrowed his eyes. “A young woman just disappeared with a ninja, and you didn’t follow up?”

“I…�� The leader was fidgeting now. “I apologize if she offended you. She’s not one of us. None of us know who she is or where she came from. If she did anything, it doesn’t have anything to do with us.”

Minato stared. What the fuck?

“P-please,” the leader said. “Kumo is already fining us for the other shinobi you killed. We can’t afford—”

“Tell me more about Reina,” Minato pressed. 

He didn’t care about the leader’s cowering or begging that he just leave them alone. He was done trying to charm and play nice; he’d already killed too many ninja in this village. No amount of smiling and happy words would redeem him, and he was feeling too impatient for that today anyway. 

Reina, apparently, had shown up only a few days before the Kumo-nin, claiming to be a distant relative of a recently deceased elderly man, sent to clear out his things. She’d presented his death certificate as proof. She’d been living in the man’s home and hadn’t spoken much to anyone. Everything she’d said about her life in the village to him had been a bald-faced lie. 

“Anyone can get a death certificate,” Minato said. “That’s not proof. Why did you trust her?”

The village leader was clearly upset. His voice shook as he spoke. 

“We didn’t… we didn’t think like that…” 

Oh good, so the whole town had just believed her story with zero follow up questions. 

The village leader seemed to realize how little MInato thought of him. He tried, “She was useful. She wasn’t afraid to speak to the ninja for us. We never questioned her.”

Minato asked some more questions, but the leader had nothing else to share. Minato made him show him the old man’s home. When he told the leader he no longer needed him, the man ran from him. 

Minato searched the house. For a place she was supposedly cleaning out for several weeks, there were still a lot of things left behind, to the point that it was unclear if Reina had taken anything at all. Minato found no valuables, so either she’d taken them, or the man had none to begin with. She had… eaten all of his nonperishable food?

There were a couple of items of women’s clothing tossed into a laundry basket, and a mug decorated with cutesy cartoon crabs on the table that Minato doubted had belonged to the old man. There were still a few sips of coffee in the mug. Minato poured out the coffee and stored the mug and the clothes in a scroll. 

He went down to the river next. It only took a few minutes at ninja speed, but with the stone tower now gone, it took him a while to relocate the site where she’d attempted to boil him alive. He spotted the kunai eventually, still wedged into the bed of the river and sporting a tag. 

Minato was hesitant to stick his hand back in the water, even if it was now a completely normal temperature. He’d taken a fire poker from the old man’s home, and he used it to hook the kunai and pull it up. The water wasn’t deep; he probably could have stood up if he hadn’t been busy being boiled. 

The seal on the kunai’s tag was nonsense. It literally did nothing but move chakra around inside of it. That was, it would do nothing but move chakra around if it had any chakra in it at all. 

Minato walked back to shore and sat on the stone embankment, feeling completely flummoxed. The tag was completely nonfunctional. 

So, Reina was some sort of run-of-the-mill conartist, but he didn’t understand what her goal had been, or how it connected to the mystery fuinjutsu user. Maybe the Kumo-nin occupying the town had disrupted her plan? But who had made the boiling trap, and how had she known how to activate it? The mystery fuinjutsu user had a history of helping civilians. Had they told Reina she could use it on the Kumo-nin, and instead she’d decided to use it on Minato?

He turned that last idea around in his brain for a while. Setting a death trap for ninja was pretty consistent with the mystery fuinjutsu user’s MO. But seven ninja was more than they usually went after. They did not seem to care about confronting high-ranking ninja, but they usually isolated ninja before acting; for whatever reason, they were opposed to facing multiple opponents. Besides, Minato could not see how this trap would even work on seven people. 

And how had the trap worked at all?

Minato sat cross legged on the embankment and closed his eyes, focusing on replaying the moment in his mind. 

He thought of Reina, in her out of place dress that was out of place because she was. He remembered her coaxing him to dive, and then her face when he’d asked her how she’d found it. 

She hadn’t been afraid. He thought about her eyes, wide with understanding, her lips slightly parted. That wasn’t the face of a woman realizing she’d been caught in her own trap. That was her realizing she’d won. 

She won, Minato realized. She’d won the second he hadn’t drawn a weapon, and she’d known it. She’d known exactly how the trap worked, and exactly how ninja worked. She couldn’t be as fast a ninja, but she knew how to take advantage of a moment of hesitation. 

No, she won before that, Minato decided. She’d won when she’d gotten him on the water and told him to dive. If he’d not found her suspicious, he might have dived, or he’d be distracted getting the kunai, and she would have activated the trap and maybe killed him. If he’d found her suspicious, she could choose not to activate the trap, and he would have pulled up a useless kunai and left her alone. The worst that would have happened is that he’d found out she’d made up a brother for some reason, but he’d have no reason to be personally offended over that.

But instead of any of those options, he’d found her suspicious and then hesitated like a damn fool, and she’d recognized her opening. 

He thought about her triumphant smirk, about how her curls had framed her face, how the sun had lit her eyes up a warm brown. 

Then she’d dumped her rocks in the river. 

Minato pushed down his nervousness over the water and stepped in, picking up rock after rock along the riverside. 

An hour later, he had four rocks with half-faded seals painted on them. 

This was a really creative but nasty trap, he had to say. This would have killed most ninja. 

It was... almost exciting. He hadn't lost to anyone in forever.

He got out his storage scroll to add the rocks to the things from the house. It was dangerous to seal a seal into another seal, but the chakra on the rocks was long faded. They wouldn’t be boiling anyone alive. 

He frowned at the rocks as he put them away one by one, mentally cataloging his first impressions of them. 

Even if Reina was given the trap by the mystery fuinjutsu user, why had she been so confident about how it worked? It was clear now that she was comfortable around ninja and had probably worked with them before, but… 

On a hunch, he unsealed the mug. He turned it over in his hands. Cartoon crabs marched around it in rings, and every few crabs was a heart. 

Village weirdo, Minato thought, almost affectionately. Then he flipped the mug over. 

On the bottom, drawn in a practiced hand, was a seal to keep the mug warm. 

Ah, he thought.

Reina was the mystery fuinjutsu user. 

[mrs-elsie-barnes]

An Invisible Thread | Illyrian Warrior!Bucky x Fae!Reader | Oneshot - 5k

After the war with Hybern your village is left defenceless. Despite only having picked up a sword to play with your brothers, you’re sent into the wilds of your island to track down the monster that has been stealing from the farms. 

But the monster is also on the move, and it won’t just be your limited skills as a hunter that are required to tame it or just your village that's pushing you to find it.

Warnings: the biggest warning here is Illyrian!Bucky, 18+ for language maybe, nothing scary here. Injuries, whump, hurt/comfort, some fluff, ACOTAR themes including fated mates/mating bonds. Rated W for whump and F for fluffy

Created for @buckybarnesevents Alternate Juniverse with all four prompts - fae, hunter, nurse and monster.

A/N: No ACOTAR knowledge required apart from Illyrian’s have big bat like wings and are hot as fuck. 

Dividers by @firefly-graphics and @reveriesources

Masterlist | Bucky Barnes

You stood at the edge of the village, one hand on the pommel of your father’s sword and the other tucked into the fur lined pocket of your cape. 

After the war with Hybern the village’s protector’s had been depleted and, though you’d never shied away from practising with the bow and sword alongside your brothers, you had never imagined that you would become your communities only hope of protection. More suited to healing wounds than causing them, you shied away from the responsibility as much as you could. Spending your time replenishing your stocks of herbs and ointments and checking on the older residents of the village. 

Honestly, you hadn’t imagined there’d be any need for you to protect anyone. But then, isolated as you were on the Western Isles, you’d never thought that war could touch you either in your community of lesser fae. You’d never been bothered before, content to live quietly and ask for nothing. Yet here you were, back to the decimated houses and cottages of your villages, poised to leave them to hunt a monster. 

If the rumours were true, though, rumours of a beast running amok in the wild forest along the coast, then you had no choice. 

With a final look back at the squat white washed cottage where you’d left your mother, you set out towards your destiny. 

Across the island, by the shore, a towering figure bent to drink from the ice meltwater trickling into the sea beyond. 

Blood dripped from their open mouth and they howled as the salt water mixed with the fresh. They raised themselves again and slunk back into the shadows of the forest, following the waterline. 

—

As you trudged you recounted the tale the farmers had told at the inn the night before. A huge beast, black as night, had been spotted raiding their barn. The island was small enough that everyone knew each other, every sheep and cow and ploughed furrow was accounted for by name and the farmers shared the large barn that stood guard over the far end of the open fields. No stranger could have arrived without them knowing, no stranger could have tied their boat without the fishermen being alert. 

But this thing was no man, it was a beast, a fury, sent to torment them and the assembled village had turned to you. 

If it truly was a beast, something that could fly and steal cattle and destroy crops as the farmers claimed then you had no clue how you would slay such a thing. Your sword was heavy and sharp, but your skills were still basic no matter how you tried, this was not your calling. Your bow was taught and your arrows true, but practising with your brothers was a jest. 

After the weeks and months without them, perhaps it would be a blessing to sacrifice yourself for the village as they had. To be relieved of the torment of their passing. 

Sighing you pulled a hard biscuit from your pack and continued on into the dense trees that occupied one side of the island. You could remember far enough back to when the forest took over almost the whole island, your brothers and father clearing a space for the now well tilled farmland that insulated the village from the wildness beyond. The forest and the farm lived together side by side, each animal and plant having its own sacred place within the system. Each farmer conscious of keeping the wheel moving each season. 

No one had ever feared the forest as they did now. 

Your first night amid the trees past uneventfully, used to spending most of your time outside the creatures of the night didn’t scare you, neither did they fear you, choosing to approach your fireside. You weren’t entirely convinced of their being a beast within the forest either, no beast liked to cross the salt sea from the mainland, even if they could escape the Prison, there would be little for a monster here. You told yourself over and over, as sleep took you, that any monster would head to the middle, and not to the Isles. 

It seemed more likely that there was something trapped in the trees. Nevertheless you made sure to set traps around the clearing before finally laying down to sleep. 

There was a light in the forest, smoke pluming briefly before dying down into soft trails of grey that mixed with the iron sky, fading into the stars as the moon rose. Tempted by the smell it approached, its gait unsteady in the soft ground, weighed down by its own body, blood still spilling into the dry leaves. 

Closer, closer,  heaving its mighty body along the ridge of rocks that crawled across the middle of the island. It had been this way before, it had taken vegetables and savoured the earthy taste of them, raw and unwashed against its tongue. It had slipped into the barn and stolen a pail of fresh milk, still warm and buttery. 

Perhaps the smoke meant more food. But its body was tired, it groaned and slumped against a tree, wrapping into itself, a darkness thicker and colder than the world around. 

In the morning you kicked dirt over the small fire, putting out the flame. The forest was still yours to protect, even if it did harbour a threat. 

You’d sharpened your sword before sleeping, leaving it unsheathed by your side. Every arrow in your quiver had new fletching, the ash carefully crafted from the few small trees the village grew at its centre, a protection against any further cruelty coming to your shores. 

The forest was alive in the brisk early morning air, the sky pink and lilac through the canopy, rising with the mist like a slumbering dragon, stretching and yawning into a bright spring day. 

As you ventured deeper you found the ground already disturbed. When you were younger you may have doubted yourself, wondering if the tracks were your own. But you could navigate well enough now, the sun high above you leaning into the west of the island, its heat peaking. 

Whatever it was that had stumbled through here had done so some days ago, dragging itself if the scars in the soft soil were true. It was larger than you as well, larger by at least a foot. You trained your eyes up into the trees and sure enough there were broken branches there too. 

At a trot you ran between the trees, following the path of broken twigs and scored earth. There was something else, something in the air by each tree, metallic, like iron. Blood, you could almost taste it it was so strong. But it wasn’t until the seventh tree that you saw it, marked high on the bark, as if this tall beast had propped themself against it, a red smear. And underneath there were a few bones, feathers and leftover vegetables.

If this was a beast, it was a beast that didn’t like carrot tops.

It grew tired again. Sooner than last time. It looked into the sky, its eyesight blurring, as it made its way back to the cave it had begun to call home. Inside its howls were louder, but at least the rain couldn’t find a way in, at least the air was warm and the ground soft. 

It lay down and closed its eyes. 

The sky turned darker, thick clouds billowing overhead, the muggy heat of an oncoming storm weighing you down. It was too far to return to your village, you’d never make it before the rain started and you knew what could happen if the lightning struck the trees, so a camp in the forest was out of the question. 

At this rate you could make the other coast before the sunset and you knew there would be shelter there in the rocky outcrops before the dunes crept into the island. With a sigh you hefted your pack higher and began the uneasy walk through the rougher terrain. 

The rain began to fall just as you crested over the cliff top. A fisherman had advised you of the safest ways across this portion of the island but your feet still slipped on the shale as you made your way down the rocky face. You’d spotted the cave while the sun was still high. With a view down the banks of rock and sand it gave you a good look out, close enough to the woods for shelter but open enough to watch the weather change. On closer inspection there was a significant plateau in front of the cave, perhaps enough to start a small fire to heat the stone inside and cook something hot if you were lucky. 

Slowly you inched closer, sword drawn in case something wild was also sleeping inside. You hadn’t seen the blood trail for some time but you had a lingering sense of something that had you tightening your grip on the handle. It tugged at you, tempting you closer and making your heart beat wildly. 

Once inside the lip of the cave you dropped your pack and pulled out a box of tinder and some twigs you’d collected along the way, stacking up the kindling into a small fire. But without the light from the sun it was hard to even find a spark. With a sigh you abandoned your plans for heat and decided to set out your blanket and try to sleep instead, hopefully that strange feeling would pass while you dreamt and you could wake up refreshed and ready to search anew. 

The raindrops were heavier now, fat and cold and insistent, driving you deeper into the cave in search of a dry space where the wind couldn’t blow the weather inside.

As your eyes adjusted to the dusky darkness you began to pick out details of the cave, the jagged rocks on the other side, the low rock just right for resting your sword and bow on and, at the back, something large. The darkness seemed to move differently there, a different shade of black that sucked the light from the rest of the cave. Whatever it was, it was huge but still. 

Slowly you reached for your dagger, too frightened to lunge for your sword in case it made the darkness move too. But it stayed still. Carefully, you moved your feet over the rocky ground, your toes light and body ready to fight. 

The darkness didn’t move, but it did make a noise, a deep grumble and for a moment you wondered whether it was the darkness inside or the darkness outside that had startled you. 

Then it moved, slow and deliberate, the darkness expanded and flared outwards, turning towards you and despite everything your brother’s had taught you, despite your own mind begging you to stay silent - you screamed. 

It hurt, it hurt everywhere and all of the time. Its body ached, its stomach felt concave from lack of food and its head pounded from dehydration. The storm was close, the wind spoke to it through the rustle of the trees and the feel of the salt air, it spoke to it and told it to sleep, that the storm would pass but it should sleep. It shifted, stretching its aching body -

And then there was a scream. 

You lurched back, scrambling for your sword as you fell, grasping for anything that would protect you from the monster that continued to grow before your eyes. Up and up it stood filling the entire back of the cave, its body unfurling and its wings spreading into the rock above. The tip of one unholy claw scratched at the cave roof and you screamed again, turning to run from it, to take your chances in the rain rather than stay a moment with this beast. But it had other ideas, reaching for you with one huge arm it grabbed you and held you, the other came up to cover your mouth, its hand so large its thumb pressed against your nose. 

Not a monster. A male. With hands and arms, tanned and windburnt from days in the forest. 

“Please, stop screaming.” It growled again and you went silent but you didn’t still, wriggling and writhing in an attempt to free yourself. “Please,” it said again, and it was almost sad, pleading. So you stopped. 

He held you tight against his chest, his heart hammering, his muscles burning with the effort of his movement. Steadily he lowered you to the floor, careful to avoid the rocks that might trip or scratch you, and then let himself slide down the cave wall until he was once more huddled on the floor. 

“Please, don’t scream - my head.” He bent to lay his forehead against his knees, “the storm, lightning in the trees, don’t.”

He was so weak, so worried, so tired, he allowed his eyes to close, focusing on the sound of you moving. 

“Don’t.” He repeated and your footsteps moved again, closer, little rocks skudding under your boots, and then a small palm on the back of his neck. 

“You have a fever.” Your voice was gentle, now that the screaming had stopped, and your touch a relief, so cold, so soothing. “Rest.” 

Now that he wasn’t towering over you, there was something vulnerable and sad about the so-called monster. His voice stuttered as he begged you for quiet and, against your better judgement, you allowed the sound of rain rushing over the lip of the rock and into the sea to fill the space, echoing into the cavern like a heartbeat. 

Lightning flashed, lighting up half of his face in clammy, pale light. You took a step towards him, still wary, still conscious of the stories told to you by your brothers, and you touched his neck where his hair had fallen away in long strands about his face. His skin was clammy too and cold to the touch, but he shivered nevertheless. 

“You have a fever.” You said, matter of fact, “rest.” 

He nodded and all but fell sideways into the blanket roll tucked against one side of the cave. 

“You too.” He grunted, and for the first time you assessed your own damp clothes and the way you’d begun to shiver. Quickly you stripped out of your waxed cape and boots, placing them carefully in a dry spot. Your shirt and vest were dry, protected by the cape, but the long trousers you’d worn were soaked through. 

Peering at the male you made sure his breathing was steady and even before you removed your trousers and slipped between your folded blanket in just your shirt and cotton bloomers.

Sleep did not come easily for the male. He kept to his side of the cave but his fever made him grunt and shout in his sleep, his arms and hands lashing out along with his thrashing body. So you didn’t sleep, you observed him instead. Waiting for dawn to break the storm. 

Even in the moonlight he was still big, tall and broad, his muscles showing even through the dark leather and ripped linen of his clothes. And he was winged. The source of the fear and confusion for your neighbours, as well as yourself. Airborne he must have looked as majestic as he was terrifying. An Illyrian warrior, so far from home, circling the village. No wonder those who had glimpsed him had been afraid. 

Now those enormous wings were tucked around him, glowing a deep red every time the lightning crashed across the sky, tiny veins picked out around the edges as well as a large gash in his left wing. It lay almost limp on the ground while the right was tucked in tight to his side. It looked painful and blood oozed slowly from the delicate membrane but only slowly. The cut to his side looked much worse. 

The sun was almost back now, a wan light filtering into the cave and allowing you to survey the Illyrian more closely, especially the cuts and bruises that littered his body. 

At some point, he had removed part of his leather armour, discarding it to one side where the dark blue siphon blinked with light whenever he groaned. Without the protection of the armour and siphon, his side was entirely revealed through the matching cut in his shirt. It was deep and already looked swollen at the edges - infected, you were sure, probably the cause of the clammy fever. 

Despite yourself you allowed your tired eyes to rove over his body, the gaps in his shirt revealing the details of his toned chest, the swirling black ink running from his left arm, up over his shoulders and then down between his pecs and towards the v of his abdomen where the ink disappeared among a smattering of hair. 

Heat flooded your cheeks. He was an injured male, an Illyrian warrior, a revered race bound to protect your people. You were certainly not supposed to be drooling after him while he slept. 

You swallowed heavily and tried to concentrate on his needs, rather than your own. 

Daring to look again you followed the tattoos back up towards his face, long dark hair still tangled at his shoulders, a stubbled beard covered his chin, his lips tilting into a smile because - oh -  his eyes were open, bright summer sky blue, and tracking your every move. 

“Hello,” he croaked and watched as you shuffled back against the wall. 

He closed his eyes again, as if even having them open was painful. 

“Hello,” you whispered, keeping a keen eye trained on him. 

“I’m Bucky,” he said, his head still pounded. “Can you pass me the canteen from my pack?” Without looking he gestured behind him. 

“Yes.” 

He listened to the sound of you moving and then the cool metal of the canteen touched his fingers. You introduced yourself but as soon as he started to move you hurried back to your side of the cave.

Slowly, so as not to frighten you, he sat up and took a long swig before offering it to you. 

You looked tired, wrecked, but not injured. You were back under your own blanket and he noticed the too-big trousers you’d been wearing were now carefully arranged on a rock to dry. Bucky hummed to himself, that was why you’d scurried back when he’d opened his eyes. 

Your eyes flicked to the trousers too, and then back to him. “They were wet, I didn’t want to catch a chill.”

“Sensible,” he agreed, putting a hand to his side. 

“You’re hurt, and sick, you were feverish.” 

“I was, I probably still am.” He agreed looking you over with the same interest that he’d found in your eyes. 

You were a very pleasant sight after so many nights alone, a wildness to your bonny face and full body. Even hidden under the folds of your shirt he could tell that you would be soft and warm to hold. With a groan he closed his eyes again. To be held and cared for by a female, to smell the spring breeze in your hair, to taste the salt of the sea on your skin. Maybe he was halfway to the afterlife and an angel had been sent to rescue him. 

“Thank the cauldron and the mother.” He sighed happily, swaying sideways and passing out. 

The Illyrian had watched you with eyes that toed the line between hungry and hopeful. His bold gaze made you feel warm again, heat sitting heavy in your stomach, and then he mumbled something and slid to the side. 

Thankfully his arm stopped him from bumping his head, but looking at his now glazed eyes he had definitely fainted. 

Without thinking you sprang into action, rolling him carefully so that if he was sick he wouldn’t choke or swallow his tongue. His skin was cold again, but sweaty, sticking the strands of his hair to his forehead in curls. 

He needed help, quickly, but you had nothing of any great use in your bag. There was the canteen of water and some food in his own pack and a flask with what smelt like whisky in the side pocket. You withdrew the mess tin from your own pack and tried to make a fire again, hoping to boil enough clean water to be able to clean and dress his wounds. But the damp air and howling wind blew wet dirt over your kindling. 

Instead you tugged a strip of linen from the end of your shirt, trying to find the cleanest corner first and ripping higher until the long tails no longer brushed over your thighs but sat as high has your belly button, revealing your midriff to the chill air. Goosebumps raised over your arms, but you didn’t hesitate, tipping some of the whisky onto the cloth and gently dabbing at the gash to his side. There were splinters still protruding from the edges, which you pulled out as quickly as you could. 

Ash, an arrow, perhaps, or a long lance fired into the sky, judging by the way the gash lined up with the tear in Bucky’s wing. Bruises bloomed under his tattoos like flowers, colouring in the gaps of the patterns. He’d fallen, then, after the hit. Probably outside of the village. 

“Why didn’t you ask for help.” You muttered under your breath, placing a square of whisky soaked cloth over the wound and pressing down. 

“Because I was already ashamed.” Came the pained whisper. 

“Why would you be ashamed?” With a tug on his arm you helped him sit, passing a long length of cloth around his back, bandaging the makeshift plaster into place. 

With your arms around him you had no choice but to lean in close, your face below his, his breath fanning over your cheek. He held one end in place, leaning drowsily into you while you tied a tight knot on his right, well away from the injury. His left hand, clearly weakened by his fall, sat lightly on your hip, keeping you steady. 

“I let my battalion down, my friends down,I couldn’t fight.” His eyes closed again but his hands didn’t move, their hold surprisingly delicate until he began to slump to the side again, dragging you with him. “I was injured and, I’m not really sure why, but I flew here. It felt like the right thing to do, like the Mother was guiding me, so I let her.”

With a huff you tried to wiggle away, but his hand tightened. 

“I’m so cold, please stay.” His breath tickled your neck where he’d pressed his face into your collar bone and you couldn’t deny him. The tugging sensation in your chest was back and the thought of staying with him made you want to release it in a long contented purr.

Curling beside him you let his hand settle on your now bare waist, his broad palm on your back a relief from the cold air gusting through the entrance of the cave. 

Bucky’s breathing slowed to an even beat, his body relaxing into his dreams and you fell with him, pulled tighter against his chest, the smell of the whisky washed over you and his wing curled in, cocooning you in his embrace. 

You woke to find yourself surprisingly well rested. The storm, having blown itself out battering the beach and forest, had made way for a bright morning. Bucky’s hand was still at your waist, but you’d moved in your sleep you were now facing away from him, his fingers sneaking under the hem of your shirt and tickling your ribs. From his steady breaths you assumed he was still asleep and allowed yourself a moment to enjoy the closeness of his body, the way his wing curved over you both, filtering the light into a pink glow and blocking the boisterous breeze now coming in off the sea. 

There was something right about the way he held you, comforting and close. Despite knowing you should rise, you simply couldn’t, as if that invisible rope that had led you in now kept you beside him. In his sleep he dragged you closer, his hand splaying higher on your stomach, his thumb pressing the underside of your breast. In response, your nipples pebbled and you promised yourself it was just the cold air, just the breeze and the morning chill and nothing to do with the wonderful pressure of the male’s body behind you. Nothing to do with his rich scent of whisky and peat and possibility. 

He hummed in his sleep again, nuzzling the back of your neck and then, suddenly, he was awake. His hand was gone and your chest felt cold without his touch. The sound of his wing claws catching on the jagged roof had you whipping your head around and staring into his eyes. 

“I’d say I’m sorry,” he whispered, “but that was the best sleep I’ve had in a long while.” A flirtatious smile played at the corner of his lips and you returned it. 

“Pretty warm under the wings,” you agreed, looking at the expanse of tense skin and complex structure that curled over you both, now flared out along the walls of the cave, and then, as quickly as the butterflies had taken flight in your stomach, they fell like lead weights.“Your wing, it’s not healing.” 

You reached out and ran a finger close to the gash. Bucky sucked in air and bit his bottom lip, his top lip curling over his teeth and eyes crinkling in pain. 

“Please - don’t touch me there.” 

“Does it hurt?” 

“No - yes - it’s - just don’t touch me there.” Bucky grit his teeth and shuffled uncomfortably, placing a large hand over his lap and using the other to guide your hand away gently. 

“I could try and heal it - if you let me touch. Like I did with your side.” 

Bucky looked down at the bandage around his middle as if it was a surprise, perhaps he really didn’t remember. Leaving his wing, you reached out and touched his forehead instead. He felt a little cold, you both did, but not clammy. The fever had broken. 

“Can I check your bandage?” 

He nodded, sitting up and pulling his ragged shirt up with one hand. Slowly you untied the knot and removed the linen, it was clean on the top layers at least and the bottom ones showed the blood slowing. His healing had kicked in, once the ash had been removed, and the previously angry and infected gash was now a pink cut, knitting together slowly. 

“It looks a lot better.” 

You sat back on your heels, unable to look away from the cut in his wing. It too had started healing, but it would be a while before it was closed. 

“Thank you,” Bucky said, sincerely. “I’ve been out here a while and - I should have sought help sooner.” 

“I’m sure it’s not easy, last night you said you didn’t want to let your battalion down.” 

Bucky flushed, his nose and cheeks going rosy and you watched as the colour disappeared down his neck and under his collar. 

“I understand, it’s hard to be brave sometimes, you want people to trust you and know that you’re doing your best.” 

He hummed in agreement again, “and is that why you’re out here?” He raised an eyebrow, lounging back against the cave wall. The movement made his stomach tighten and you watched the muscles flex under his shirt, trying to recall a time when you’d seen any other male like this, when anyone at all had made you feel so hot all over. 

“I was sent to hunt a monster.” 

“A monster?” 

“It’s been stealing vegetables and eggs, a pail of milk as well. Scaring the farmers.” You looked out towards the brightening sky and then back towards him with a grin. “He’s not so scary though.” 

Bucky returned your smile, his eyes softening as he reached out to guide your gaze back to his own, “I’m glad I didn’t scare you too much.” 

“Only a little.” You laughed. 

Despite the gash in Bucky’s side healing over the next few days, he still remained in the cave during the few warm hours the afternoon afforded. His wings lay heavily behind him, the muscles weak and aching from his time spent dragging them around the woods and his injured wing searing with pain when he tried to extend it. 

With some help he made it to the cave entrance and watched as you picked your way around the storm swept beach in the distance. You’d been kind and gentle, despite your initial fear, despite the clumsy way he’d tried to get closer to you. And his heart swelled, hoping he could hold you in his arms again when the sun got low. 

Each night he'd asked you to stay next to him, and each night you'd agreed. But he was no fool, you pitied him and that would only last for so long until you refused. So he treasured every moment like a precious gift. 

It’d been a long time since a female had looked his way, weeks spent dragging himself around the woodland, months spent fighting Hybern on their borders, years spent training in isolation at Windhaven. All to miss this, the feel of the salt wind in his hair and the sun on his healing wings, to miss the feel of a gentle, feminine touch and the way his body responded, singing with happiness at the warmth of your body and scent of your hair. He ached to have you near again, just to know you were safe and cared for. Something in his chest pulled, as if his heart had truly skipped a beat and he closed his eyes against the delicious pain only to open them and see you again, your eyes locked on his, the driftwood you’d collected scattered around your feet, shock on your features. 

In a heartbeat you were climbing back towards him, running over the sand and up the dunes, scaling the rocky cliff face with strong, knowing leaps, and then you were in his arms, knocking him backwards with the strength of your embrace. 

“Bucky?” His name was half question and half exaltation on your lips and that feeling tugged at him again until his arms closed around your back, a hand on the nape of your neck drawing you closer. 

“Kiss me-” it was neither question nor demand, simply a statement of what you both so clearly needed. 

His lips were chapped when they brushed against yours, but warm nevertheless, he tasted of the sweet berries you’d found this morning on the edge of the woods and this close, your nose brushing against his, he smelt divine, perfect, the whisky on the bandages and the deep, musky, scent that was all his own. 

His uninjured wing curled around your back, folding you in a bubble of warmth where there was only you and Bucky and whatever this new thing was between you. You felt that tug again, the same deep feeling that you’d felt so often, and you pulled back enough to rest your forehead against his own. Bucky didn’t let you remove yourself too far, nudging your nose with his and pressing featherlight kisses to your cheek and jaw. 

“Bucky -” you sighed again and this time he answered, as sure and confident as the strong arms that tugged you against his body. 

“Yes, my mate?” 

[insomniac-dot-ink]

Wolves at the Door

In a tidy well-built home on the outskirts of a village on the outskirts of the world, lives a doe in homespun skirts. MaryAnne lives in her ancestral home with antlers nailed to the mantle. Aged enough to be an old maid but not old enough for it to be charming, a howling comes for her. 

Oh, the Beast Folk of the north know better than to live alone. Lighting candles in the darkest months. Hanging Evil Eye charms in their windows to ward off wickedness. MaryAnne, all the same, cuts her own firewood and pickles her own vegetables. She survives the winter.

That is until that howling comes. Wolves are at her door. 

Claws scratch at the wood. A long snout snuffles at the windowsill. A voice croons, as they always do, in a plaintive song. In those long months, the villagers and MaryAnne bury their faces in their arms. Stuff their ears with wax. Cluster together if they can. That is how you made it through a winter in the north.

Yet, a howling comes.

That year, MaryAnne forgot to restock her wax. Too late to go out, she curls into a ball on the hard floor, buries her face, and refuses to look up. A voice floats through the cracks.

“Little doe.” A growl. “Why do you hide inside your nest?”

Mustn’t answer. A female wolf casts a long shadow through the window. Backlit by a yellow moon. She has a voice for turning wine to honey. MaryAnne squeezes her eyes shut tighter.

“You’ll turn to dust within these walls. Nothing left but bones.” The voice laughs, guttural and wind-rough. Heavy steps sound from outside, crunching in the snow. “The breeze is fresh. The snow is young. A night for running.”

Mustn't answer to the night.

“They have marked your door with Juniper. Tell me, what makes you so unlucky?”

A whine escapes from deep within MaryAnne’s chest. There is no escaping rumors it seems– even among wolves. A gentle sun-tanned face flashes through her mind’s eye. He is smiling there. The memory frays at the edges in an instant, like crumpling paper by the fire. He is frozen in that eternal melancholy look. Like he knew what was coming.

MaryAnne lets out a second hiccup of sound.

“There you are.” The voice laughs long and harrowed. A scratch drags down her door, rattling the hinges. “Why don’t you come out?”

“Leave me alone!” Her voice is hoarse from disuse. “Leave before I, before I. . . Leave!"

Oh no. She had answered. What a silly girl she was. The beast outside throws her head back and howls. And howls still.

—--------

Days pass in which MaryAnne doesn't hear the howling. She sweeps and mends and peels peas. Sometimes, the doe wakes in the predawn hours, half-frozen and shivering. She stokes the dead embers and looks out. Faded stars and quilted black look back at her. The night is quiet then, peeled to its barest layers and forgiving. An exhale. 

But those aren’t most days. A howling comes at her door. MaryAnne's ears begin to ring with it. She dreams of fangs and rust-colored waters. In the light of day, MaryAnne rubs at her eyes until she sees spots and some curling grin remains. I won’t survive the winter, she thinks. My time has come.

MaryAnne goes to the village Wise Woman. 

She trudges through the glittering snow and ducks behind trees when strangers pass. Mother Grace lived near the outskirts of town too. Though unlike MaryAnne, footprints ring her squat home– deep grooves of movement. MaryAnne follows the grooves and creeps forward like she might fade into her own shadow. 

The house is dark evergreen and churns enormous plumes of smoke. Charms for luck hang in the window and MaryAnne averts her gaze. Some of them look like pawed feet. She hunches her shoulders, tugs at her sleeves, and lifts a hand to the entrance. A door thick as slabs of good brown bread swings open at her touch. 

“Hello?” she calls into the gloom. “I am MaryAnne. Daughter of . . .” She doesn’t finish the thought. If there was one thing to know of Mother Grace, it is that she hates tedious things. “Mother Grace, I have come to ask you of the world. I’ve come to ask you what wolves fear.”

“Questions, questions.” A grumbling answers her. “For yourself, child? Or some grand cougar king. Conquering their enemies.”

“For me. Yes. Myself. I am, I’m a doe.” MaryAnne stumbles forward and eyes adjust to the dimness.

“I can smell that.”

An old woman sits before a stone shelf, wrapped in blankets and surrounded by books. An iron stove dominates the living space and the air shimmers with heat. Mother Grace rocks back and forth in her chair. She is entombed in pillows, waiting to remind the young that the winter is long. And bound to grow longer.

MaryAnne repeats her question. “Do you know how to rid yourself of wolves?” How to escape being hunted? She dare not speak those words into existence though. Hunted. Cursed anew.

The woman grumbles under her breath once more. Grey-haired and petite, her rabbit ears hang long and limp down her shoulders. Her milky eyes were unseeing and body bent forward. Yet, her bearing is steady and unflinching. MaryAnne wishes in some distant way she could embody the same self-assured air. A knowledge of herself, good or bad.

Unable to bear it any longer, she repeats herself. “Please. Wolves are at my door. You are the most learned Folk. What do they fear?”

Mother Grace doesn't look at MaryAnne as she speaks. Her voice creaks. “I cannot say. Fear is a shifting thing. Wolves, too, shifting creatures." The Wise Woman grunts a dry laugh. “Hard to separate the two.”

"Ah,” MaryAnne says like she understands, heart sinking to the bottom of her shoes. 

Mother Grace sets her jaw and looks past her. "Go to the mulberry tree at sunset and bow your head. Speak true and earnestly.” The Wise Woman gnashed her gums. “It will show you how to greet a wolf.”

MaryAnne swallows. “Will that save me?” 

The wisewoman does not answer.

—-------

The sun sets in in a purpling line, sending the towns folk scurrying behind their locked doors. The Beast Folk know better than to linger alone after dark. But MaryAnne is Juniper-marked and given a task. She approaches the Mulberry tree in the shadow of a hill. Red ribbons tied in its bare branches and framed by twilight.

MaryAnne bows her head and kneels on the snowy earth, her cheeks pinched with cold. The knees of her pants soaking through.

“How do you escape a wolf?”

The Mulberry bush sways in the wind. The ribbons turn a dull navy in the light and MaryAnne shivers.

Two knotted eyes blink and the nymph bows back. Her hair sticks straight in the air– naked branches reaching for sky. She considers MaryAnne for a long moment. 

“Your father came to me once. Asking questions.” A pause follows that could suck the marrow out of bones. “He could not deter his fate. You may not be able to either."

“Please.” MaryAnne swallows over and over, suppressing the stinging in her eyes. “There is a wolf at my door. She will not leave. She has my scent.”

“Ah,” the Nymph says, pity trapped in her wispy vowels. “A Stray perhaps of their terrible rituals. The Bone Cities are far and often cruel. Come closer, girl. I may teach you to greet a wolf and thus defer her task a while longer.”

—-------

The wind whips against MaryAnne’s walls, battering the sides of her home. The dark wood was tightly joined and held. A syrupy silver light bathed the snow outside and MaryAnne’s eyelids grew heavy. She had been watching her door since she returned from the Mulberry tree.

And it had not ceased since the moon arose. A long cry mixed with the violent gusts of wind. A howling. MaryAnne’s shoulders set in a hard line, back aching and mood even more dour. Let it be over, she prays to the Great Mother Doe. Though, who knew if the starry mother listened. Let the wolf go home empty-handed.

MaryAnne’s head nods to her chest, jerking upright at the first sound. A scratch peels down her front door. Claws against wood. 

“Little doe, why do you hide?” the wolf sings in that beseeching tone. 

MaryAnne does not bother to curl into a ball. She straightens to her full height, nubby horns facing the door as if she might charge. Fangs flash in her mind’s eye and she takes deep breaths. MaryAnne forces her legs to work.

"Good evening," she booms. An imitation of how she imagines governesses speak to future kings. MaryAnne bows before the door, taking her time falling to her knees. Her chest tightens-- a thrum of terrible life. “I am pleased to meet you."

“Pleased?” The wolf sounds amused. Perhaps wolves can always afford that.

“Yes.” In slow increments, MaryAnne brings her wrists near the crack under the door. Bile rises in her throat and she pushes closer. “I see you've come to call on me. Perhaps I may have you over for tea. Do you take it with cream or sugar?”

The laugh is thunderous. A long snuffling follows and MaryAnne thinks she imagines whiskers under the crack.

“You smell like fear. Are you afraid?”

“Always,” MaryAnne says bitterly. “Is that not our nature? You, at our doors. Me inside my home. But you could knock.”

“I have a home too, you know,” the voice purrs. “Many leagues away and by the sea. Perhaps you might enjoy running to it.”

“You may have me over for tea,” she keeps her tone even. “Come back in the morning to exchange invitations. I have stationary you might borrow.”

Hot air blows against her wrist. The wolf audibly inhales. “You think yourself clever. Juniper-marked and clever.”

“What else could I be?” Her voice trembled and she didn’t like the way it broke on the last words.

“I can make a few suggestions.” The crunch of heavy paws against the snow. “Open up the door and I will show you.”

“I am pleased to make your acquaintance,” MaryAnne grits out despite herself. Run, run, run. her mind says. Her feet say. But the Mother Doe isn’t there to light her way. “My name is MaryAnne. I would like to invite you to tea.”

The door gives a violent shake, a weight thrown against it. Dust rains from the rafters. The hinges shrieks and the wolf lets out a howl to match. The door holds– as it was meant to.

Life spikes in her chest this time and fills her belly with warmth. MaryAnne holds herself perfectly still, wrists shoved to the crack in the door. 

“I am Shier of the Northern Pack,” the wolf spit out the words. “You may keep your twice-damned tea.”

-----------------

Part 1 of 3

[it-was-funeral-grey]

Celestia-sent (Al Haitham x F!Reader)

Prequel Part 1 Part 2

Summary: There's a weird guy lying outside your house.

Warnings: Vulgarities, food (stew) , mentions of injuries , crying, reader mistakes al haitham as a old guy lmao, reader lives in vimara village, spoliers for al haitham's lore,

Word count: <1.7k words

Inspired by: -

Author's note: it was kinda therapeutic to write al haitham's part- the first half. not sure why. it just felt so easy. i miss my grandma. i should visit her once i feel better.

Please give criticism! Also, if i missed any warnings, do tell me so i can add them!

He's just lying there, faced down. His grey hair sticks out painfully against the brown dirt path, and you fight the urge to squat down to take a closer look. It's a shade of grey you have never seen before. It kinda looks like the moon.

Another old drunkard, you think. There's been many of them recently in Vimara village. Ever since the scandal in the Akademiya three months ago, Port Ormos had crashed. The whole port is a mess- what once was Sumeru's most efficient had become disorganised and stagnant overnight. Now, it's akin to a ghost town- especially after the mass layoff of port employees.

Trading has halted completely, the Wikala Funduq citing 'awaiting instructions from Akademiya higher ups'. But so far, no one from the Akademiya has come down to remedy the situation and help revitalise Port Ormos.

As a result, private traders can't do business, and trading companies can't do business, so no one is making money anymore. Traders from Inazuma and Snezhnaya had stopped docking in Sumeru. In a couple more months, Port Ormos would lose its position as the central trading hub of Teyvat. Sumeru will lose a terrifying portion of its national income. It will only get worse from there.

Vimara village was outraged at the mass layoff. Most port employees lived there, after all. In an instant, families lost all sources of income. The village community had tried to help each other, sharing food and whatever they could with each other. But this was only a temporary solution. The stress of unemployment is beginning to weigh heavy on many, which is why many have taken to drinking recently.

Which is why you aren't surprised that a guy's passed out on the ground. What was surprising is that you had never seen this dude before.

He's wearing expensive clothes, you note. He's definitely not from the village. Clad in green, he'd almost look like a plant if not for his grey hair. There's a cape hanging off his back, and on a shoulder is what you think is a vision.

Damn, you wonder. What kind of guy is this?

Curiosity gets the better of you. Squatting down next to the old guy's side, you lay your groceries down. Strangely, you don't smell any alcohol on him. So, not a drunkard?

"Hey, uh… sir?" you shake his shoulder, brushing your fingers over his vision. It's cool to the touch, the green orb emitting a gentle glow amidst the fading daylight. "Wakey wakey, mister?"

The man doesn't wake. You sigh. What are you going to do? It's almost nighttime. You can't just leave him here. I mean, you could, but still…

There's a pleasant aroma in the air, accompanied by the sound of sizzling oil. Onions, Harra spice… stir-fried with snapdragon leaves?

It reminds Al Haitham of his grandmother's cooking. Maybe she's making dinner now. He's pretty hungry.

Huh. Now that he thinks of it, it has been a long time since he's had dinner with her. When was the last time he even spoke to her? Or visited her?

He has so much to tell her.

He has to tell her about his job as a Scribe. Well, for now, he's the ACTING Grand Sage. Not for long, though. He'll make sure of that.

He's got to tell her about the stunt he pulled to save Lesser Lord Kusanali. She'd enjoy that tale. Probably scold him for being so reckless as well, though.

Yeah, he'll do that. Maybe he'll ask for a second serving of rice too. He's really, really hungry.

Then, he'll ask for advice on how to handle the whole shitshow that he has been assigned to run. She'll know what to do. She always does. She'll teach him how to manage the infinite number of impossible tasks thrown his way.

She'll comfort him. She'll tell him that in no time, he'll be back to his usual job: stress-free and not responsible for saving the nation from a crisis that may result in future generations growing up in poverty and political instability.

She'll hear him out as he rants about the mess Azar and those fuckers ("Language, Al Haitham!") had left him. And how everyone was so reliant on the Akasha terminals and the sages' leadership that when all that disappeared, they were clueless. They can't function anymore. Systems fall apart. People stop working. And because of that, he has to do everything on his own, and he's so tired and-

The sizzling sound has stopped. Is it dinner time already?

But he doesn't want to get up. Not now. Just ten more minutes, please?

There's a faint scraping sound. A spatula against a wok. If he tries hard enough, he can hear a plopping sound. So, it's a stew. He hopes it's Sabz Meat stew. That's his favourite.

How long has it been since he had a homemade meal?

Footsteps. Ok, no ten minutes, then. He'll get up.

Wincing, he sits up. His whole body aches. His knees feel sore. That's weird. He hadn't fallen or hit anything, but he feels bruises forming all over his arms and legs.

Trying to adjust to the bright light, Al Haitham slowly opens his eyes. He's in a small living room. Huh, he doesn't remember his grandmother moving. She never had this couch he was resting on either. Or the wooden coffee table in front. Or that many Liyue magazines.

"Ah, you're awake!"

That's not his grandmother's voice. Wait, what did her voice sound like again?

Al Haitham whips his head towards the voice so fast he pulls a neck muscle. Groaning, he reaches for his neck, massaging it before attempting to turn around, slowly this time.

"Hey, relax!"

There's a soft click from behind, and then frantic footsteps. Someone runs around the couch.

It's a woman. Not his grandmother.

Oh.

Oh yeah. Of course, it isn't her.

"Are you feeling alright?"

Hah, what was he doing, dreaming? Someone like him? Dreaming?

"Uh…sir?"

Of course, it isn't her. The dead can't come back to life. He's alone now. He has been for the past decade.

"…sir?"

He'll always be alone. Now, and for the foreseeable future. If he can even ensure that Sumeru still has one.

There's a hot sensation on his face, snapping him out of his thoughts. It's the woman again. This time with a bowl in her hand, holding it right in front of him.

He'd recognise that aroma anywhere. It's Sabz Meat stew.

"Um, I'm not sure what's going on," she says, placing the bowl into his hands. "But why don't you eat first?"

She pulls the coffee table closer towards him and walks back behind the couch to retrieve cutlery from the kitchen and a plate of rice. Laying them on the coffee table, she then sits on the floor, watching him.

"I didn't add lemons, but I can get you some if you want?" she asks when he doesn't move.

A minute passes. Al Haitham can't move. He can't, and he honestly doesn't want to.

What's the point of moving? Everything moves too fast. He'll never catch up. There's too much. There will always be proposals he can't clear in time. A question he can't answers right now. A policy he needs time to understand. Time that he doesn't have. Time that Sumeru can't afford to lose. He'll always be behind. And because of that, Sumeru will fall behind. Because of him.

It's almost funny. Before all this, he had never worried about being behind. He barely worried about anything.

"Come on," she prompts, taking a spoonful of rice and handing it to him when he still doesn't move. "Eat. You'll feel better after you eat."

Al Haitham doesn't have the energy to resist or deny her. Taking the spoon, he dips it into the bowl, letting the rice soak up some of the stew before lifting it to his mouth.

And suddenly, he's 19 again. He's in the dining room, having dinner with his grandmother again. She's lecturing him about spending too much time alone at home. Again.

"You may not understand now, Al Haitham. But there are people out there- good people. People willing to listen, be patient with you, and shoulder burdens with you. Comfort you."

Al Haitham reaches over to scoop another spoonful of rice. His eyes feel funny. So does his nose.

"You are never alone, child. I just want you to know that. "

Am I really?

Then just send one person, please. I'm waiting.

I've been waiting for a long time now.

"And one day, you may find someone that you can bare your soul to-you do have a soul, child. Everyone has one- no, yours isn't as dark as that 'black coffee'."

His vision is blurry now. With hydro. How strange. He chomps down another spoonful of stew. It's delicious. He hasn't had comfort food like this in a long, long time.

Just one sign. Please. I can't do this anymore.

"But until then, grandma is here to stick by you, hm? Until you stop being stubborn and go make friends!" 

The woman shifts in her seat on the floor. In his peripheral, he sees her reach over to a box, pulling out tissues.

She moves closer to him, a little bit hesitantly. But when she realises that he isn't moving away, she gently dabs his eyes with the tissue.

"There, there?" she comforts awkwardly. She then reaches over to pat his back. "It's gonna be ok. Just let it out."

And that's all it takes. It's so weird. Hydro Tears begin to flow freely. He chokes back a sniffle.

She doesn't stop patting his back. The weight of her palm is comforting- almost grounding.

He cries. In the presence of an absolute stranger, he cries ten years worth of tears in a night.

Later on, as he drifts off back into the realm of sleep to the rhythmic pats on his back, Al Haitham wonders if this is what his grandmother meant.

Maybe there really are people that are willing to stand by someone like him.

Join the Taglist!

[accio-victuuri]

(12) fake stories. 📝

I found this here and i haven’t seen this compilation or post before. I might have read some on it’s own but it’s only now that I knew where it came from.

The proxies are not written by me, they were discovered by archaeologists, everyone can just read them as fakes. I am a proxy shooter, although I know that I have the same status as an illegitimate student in the fan circle, but I also want to support a family.

In the four years of working in the industry, I have photographed many celebrities, and because of this, I accounted for the first pot of gold in my life. Received from last December, It is a job similar to illegitimate life. It is very labor-intensive to follow two boys in my city, so I accepted it. I did, but I didn't expect to fall into the pit of these two people, which made me feel so lucky to meet them. Tell you what I know.

******************************************

Big / Older = XZ ; Small / Younger = WYB.

Before you start reading, based on the stories below, this was 2018 when they were still filming CQL. Probably some early 2019, the gist is, their popularity did not “explode” yet because of the Drama. So this is why, they were not as careful yet. This will never happen after their change in status as celebrities. They are very much guarded all the time now. Even if there are slip-ups in the years ahead like 2020.

Take this as fake. Fan fiction. This is not me “confirming” things or anything. I primarily wanted to post and share for archive purposes.

Some might be confusing, I tried hard to make sense of what was being said by OP.

******************************************

1. At the beginning of February, the younger one met the older one at a tea house near a high-end residential area in Beijing. This is CK Tea House. In fact, there is a private chef, with relatively high concealment, there are three people at the same time, eating normally, and the big one after eating drove away by himself, and the small one went with another person.

2. The two met in March and recorded a song. The older one arrived first and it was difficult to park. His driver was in Guangzhou. I wandered around the field for a long time. The big one waited until the small ones came and got off. It was normal to meet and say hello. ( OP might be talking about Wuji recording )

3. At the end of March, my colleagues told me not to go to the original community to squat anymore, saying that the older one moved out of the community, so it was I who came to the address of the new community he gave me, squatting for a whole day without seeing anyone, watching their fans. this time should be in Beijing. That's right, I think it might be that he really is a nerd. He is not out today.

Well, just getting ready to go. I found out, the little one after following up for a while, I found out that he is walking @ Qingliu in the village, without an assistant to accompany him, he entered the community with a lot of food in his hand. This community — If you are not a resident, you can't get in, unless you have to verify with a resident before you can go through the registration, which means that he has a verification on his body.

The door is locked, I guess he also lives here, sure enough, he has not been out all night, he lives in this community, Real hammer. I reported this matter to the girl who gave me money, because no photo of the same frame was taken. So the salary is very little.

4. The father of the gold master gave me three times the money and asked me to follow the itinerary. I didn't know that the drama they filmed was about to be broadcast. To follow, under the temptation of money, I still left my dear Beijing. mid june, the older one was in a white T-shirt and the small one appeared on the side of the parking lot of a certain gold square on a certain Jing Road, probably waiting for the car to come out, and it was him. The two of them, I did not see the assistant, both of them wore masks, I have to say that the big one is really tall, and the small one passed a bag of things to the big one, the big one takes it, shakes it, looks at the small one, and laughs under the mask.

5. It was still June, and I found that my Alipay in June was really contributed to them. The price of a certain place is really almost the same as Beijing. Let’s continue, the big one and the small one came out together after the publicity, and there is a certain tolerance in the same industry. A young boy, probably promoted together. I'm such a bad fan, I really haven't watched their drama, so I can't name the boy, but I do know, 4 people got into two cars, the big one and the small one didn't get into the same car, and the assistant followed them to a restaurant hall. A total of seven people went in, the big one went in last, the big one didn’t know what to say to the young one. Well, it's the kind of ear-whispering that the two assistants may be familiar with it, and didn't look up at them. They all held their mobile phones to look at their own, and when they finished talking, the older one touched the little one's head, and the little one looked at it.

You can’t tell if you’re smiling or not, and here’s the point, the point where I got into the pit! That’s the point,. I didn't give the photo to the donor's father, so now I can only take pictures of other small fresh meat to pay off the mortgage.

It was 11 o'clock after dinner, I was lying on the steering wheel like a dog, they came out, they went in. There were seven at the time, but for some reason, nine came out. Well, I don't know about the other two either,They seemed to be saying goodbye, they patted each other on the shoulders, the big and small saw off the others, and the big assistant handed over a black jacket, the big one placed it on the little one, and zip him up. The weather is really fine this time, there is no need to wear clothes, the little one stretched his big arms, the big one lowered his head. I don't know what they said, and we walked to the side together. I really can't see it from that angle, I can't see it

Yes, I don't make it up. The two assistants were still chatting about themselves without looking at them, and about five minutes passed.

When the milk tea in their hands was ready to drink, they came over and said something to the assistant, they gestured. Then the two took the same car and left, they took the other one, and the assistant gave the younger one a bag and a brown paper bag. I continued to follow them to the center of XX Wen Avenue, the gate of XX Community in Times

The small one and the big one got off the car, but the car didn't go into the basement, these two people really have big hearts, the big one took things from the bag. the small one holds the bag in one hand, and the other hand starts to walk on the back of the big one, and the big one takes out the things. He touched Xiao's head again and smiled. I'm sure both of them were smiling, although they were wearing masks, their eyes is curved, very sweet smile. I suddenly felt that maybe it wasn't really brotherhood, it was a beautiful danmei. The plot made me delete the picture of two beautiful people looking at each other. Two people showed things to the property manager to look in. I guess they belong to one of the houses, but they definitely don’t live there often. I’ve been in this business for four years, and I’ve met a lot. Many surface brothers stabbed in the back, this kind of pure feeling is very beautiful.

6. After sending a photo to Xiaoxianrou and expressing his satisfaction, will I rely on him for my future funding source?

After going in, I didn't go out all night, of course it was already a little bit faster when I went in. i didn't drink in the shop, just make do with one night in the car to save money. The little one came out at five o'clock, wearing a black mask. The hood and hat, the top of the clothes were changed, and a brown Buick went in, and the big one didn't come out. The older one came out by 7:00 with no change of clothes, carrying a paper bag, wearing a hat and a mask, his eyes were obviously tired, and got into a car

I was very hesitant about whom to separate from, I decided to go with the older one, but he got on the highway, I wondered if I had returned to Xiangshan, so I reported it to the benefactor, but I didn't dare to say that I saw it last night.

7. After returning to Beijing, I did the math and spent a total of more than 6,000 yuan. You may ask me why I spent so much? Let me tell you, the oil price is really high, I didn't fly because it's not easy to hide, but the Lord is very generous and reimbursed them all. When I got home, I seriously searched Baidu for the two boys I was following. The drama is a danmei drama, no wonder the gold master keeps asking me if I see any sparks, she is one their fans, I've seen a lot of girls like her, basically I don't have time, but I'm curious about what celebrities are doing

They will send us out, They asked me to go to Xiangshan with the big one, I said you don’t like small one? Why? Why do you have to talk to the big one? They told me that since he finished his class visit in Hengdian last June, he felt Of course I have accepted it now, but I still want to know if it is true, so I I went to Zhejiang with full expectations. The plane I took this time was too far away, and my friend over there was picking me up at the airport is also in this business. He told me that he is very familiar with the places where the big one were photographed, and even the place where he lived.

I also know that Xiangshan Film and Television City is very broken. When I saw the big one, I felt that he was with the young one.

It's different, it's very quiet, and when I'm not taking pictures, I hold my phone and make a voice call, and I don't know what to send.

8. In late June, it started to get hot on the Xiangshan side, and there were a lot of mosquitoes. The big filming was very serious, although it was far away, but from the lens, the expression is still in place. There is a shot of a girl, that's that the little girl of 101, she is very good-looking, in a dilapidated town, she gave him a hand.

The drama may be a fairy tale drama, why do you wear such clothes. The hostess handed him iced water, he took it and smiled. He might have said thank you but I can’t see the shape of the mouth clearly. The heroine left. The older one put down the water and picked up a cup on the ground. After drinking water, I took out my mobile phone and continued to make a voice call. The voice was very obvious, because I used my ears to hear it after I finished speaking.

Listen, I laughed sweetly throughout the whole process, I was wondering if he sent it to the little one, but there is no evidence, so let’s not talk about it.

9. The filming is over at 8:00 p.m., there is no big night filming today, and it takes 30 minutes to drive back to a certain hotel. The fast one, the big one signed autographs and took photos with three or four fans at the entrance of the hotel, very gentle, without losing his temper,

After he entered, the fans left. When I was considering whether to leave, the older one came out again. He was already driving.Wearing a black jacket with shorts underneath, a hat and a mask, the assistant drove a black car. The SUV went out, took the Yongguan Expressway (belonging to Taizhou City, Zhejiang Province), and finally got off in Shanghai, I followed. It took three hours. I have to say that the big car has very good driving skills. I was driving a friend's car and almost lost track.

Closer to home, the older one stopped and drove in the green city community of a certain village. Even though the star is not very popular, he is a public figure after all. If he is so laborious, how should he meet. About an hour later, that is, around 12:40, because my mobile phone is almost out of battery,I took a look, and a small car appeared, got off the car, but the car did not enter the community. With a Shoulder bag, carrying things, I can’t tell what I’m carrying, there’s a lot of them in the bag, I carried them in.

The next day at 6:00 a car came out and parked on the parking lot outside the community, a small car came, and a small car got off. In the car, the clothes were not changed. The older one got out of the car and said something to the younger assistant, and patted the younger one on the back.

After watching the video, the assistant got into the car and took breakfast for the older one. After the older one got on the bus, the younger one also got on.

10. The older one returned to the set at almost 11 o'clock, and the assistant waited for him while walking and talking, walking very quickly, at night. It was a big night filming, and the howling sound from the heavy rain was heard far away. After returning to the hotel, he didn't come out again. End of june, I have been in Xiangshan for almost half a month, and I only saw the two of them once. I wonder if I am overthinking it, but I think it's the best way to give money back to the sponsor. After six o'clock in the evening, the crew puts out the meal, and the older ones enter the house to eat. I couldn’t get a picture of the meal, so I asked my friend, and he said that it would be finished in half a month, and asked me to wait another two weeks

God, I said yes, that night a black business car came to the crew and parked at the south corner of the film and television city, near the big car, the big one. After a while, I quickly walked out of the crew and got into a black business car. I didn’t look like it. The small car followed, they drove to the beach of the fishing village, the big one got off, the headgear was not taken off, and the clothes were changed into Simple T-shirts and shorts, and small ones, long sleeves and black slacks, two people on the beach. Walking up is very weird, because the seaside is very cold at this time and there is no one there. The small car parked in my car about 15 minutes.

I was really worried that I would be discovered, so I drove the car calmly to the east side of the beach in the fishing village, getting closer to these two people, I can only see that the older one took off the smaller hat and put it on his own head, and the hair was covered

From my point of view, he really looks like a woman with a good figure, with his small hands wrapped around his waist. Two people are talking, I don't understand lip language, and I can't see clearly, so I see the big one leaning back, and the small one may be afraid that he might fall, the stairs should be tighter. After about five minutes, the little one sat on the beach with his hands loose, and the big one sat down.

Looking at him, the little one looked up, and the two looked at each other. The older one sat down and definitely held the younger one's hand. I can see that the big one took the small hand and put it on his lap, and then he kept his head down and talked,

Maybe the big one rubbed his arms when it was cold, and the small one rubbed his hands back and forth on the big arm, and then pointed to the car, after a while, two people got into the car, the big one went back to the set, the young one continued in the car, early morning. It was three o'clock when the filming was over, and after taking off my make-up, I got into the small car, and the two of them went to a villa in a certain town, but I couldn't get in,

I really couldn't bear it anymore, so I went to find a place to sleep. When I woke up, it was past ten o'clock. I don't know if I should go or not.

I went back to the film and television city. My benefactor no longer needs me to follow, I have already witnessed this beautiful relationship. The love is young, but pure, don't destroy this relationship, so everyone just wait silently. Many people ask me if I am the king of the mountain, I don't know how can two people be so absolute when they are together, I believe it more —- Bo Jun Yi Xiao, that's all

11. When I arrived at the film and television city, my friend brought me fruit and told me that these two dramas were about to be broadcast, and they were not bad. It was the first time in my life that I became a member to watch a TV series, and it was because of their good drama. I don’t know when it was filmed.

At that time, whether the relationship between the two people was so good, but now I feel the contact like a family member, which is what I like.

I went back to the set, and it was like this again. I didn't go out after nine days, and everything was normal. At the beginning of July, the itinerary says to go to Changsha and recorded an entertainment program, and both of them went, so I bought a ticket, but I didn't get the program list. On-site tickets at production time. I left one day earlier than the older one, because I had to find a place to live and I had to pack a car. Bare feet can't keep up with the speed of the two of them. Two days ago, I squatted at the door of a certain electric station, the first time I recognized. Realizing that they are really popular, many fans are already outside, it is not the same as half a month ago, The small one who came first, the bodyguards and assistants were all there after getting off the car, and went in after getting off the car, and then the older one came. It's the second time I saw the big one with bodyguards. I followed it so many times, except for attending the endorsement, There are bodyguards, I have never seen his bodyguards, the big one also went in. I'm bored waiting, I'll just turn around at the door

Turn around, I heard a little girl say that Bo Jun and Yi Xiao must be real, that's when I knew they still have CP fans name the little girl is very cute, ask me brother, you also kowtow cp, I said my girlfriend likes them, so I will come and see

At a glance, the little girl gave me a popular science about the interaction between the two of them, saying that the brotherhood is very strong, I laughed.

The recording lasted around nine o'clock. I thought it was very fast to watch the show, but I didn't expect it to be recorded for so long. The older one and the other two men come out together, the big one wears a white t-shirt, the small one wears a black t-shirt, the other man wears a black hat and a green t-shirt, they come out. Then I drove to a fast food restaurant. There were not many people in the restaurant, so it was not easy to find an angle to take pictures. There was no shelter around, the big one sat with another man, and the small one sat opposite, one of the scenes was impressive, the small one

The one who didn’t know what he ate had a tangled expression on his face, the older one gave his own water to the younger one, and the younger one took it and went straight to drink it immediately, and the buddy next to me didn't say anything.

maybe it's not surprising, except for me, I really don't use other people's cups, even my parents. After dinner, the three of us went to the Rongguo Hotel, I feel that artists are really rich, the security is very good, I can't get in.

12. I went back to Xiangshan to continue filming at 6 o'clock on the second day. In fact, it was a reshoot. It’s green, the crew was too dark when it was finished, and the lights were yellow, which made the big one look very lonely, I don’t know — is it because I have seen him happy, I always feel that he is very distant from people and things in the crew, and the fireworks rise.

From now on, the trip to Xiangshan is over.

-END.

[vore-scientist]

thief idea: a thief feels VERY guilty about stealing food, so he writes out something like “I’m sorry for stealing. I had no other choice” on a platform that’s HUGE to the thief, notecard size to Yonah. Maybe the thief even puts some flowers in apology

Would Yonah think the pre-established apology is sweet/nice?

[HEY ANON I WROTE YOU A FICLET]

I think yonah would convince Ben to let him hunt this person down to deliver them a lot of food

[note the story is kinda in second person but it’s not meant to be a self insert it’s just me rambling]

—- FICLET BEGIN—-

Imagine you’re this person down on their luck and maybe providing for your family or friends and risked stealing from a giant. Surely a giant wouldn’t mind since the amount taken barely makes a dent but you leave a note to say your sorry for not asking permission.

Then one day the slab of wood you made the note out of falls in front of you, imbedding itself like a foot into the ground. Oh and it’s on fire.

You hear screaming. An evil, angry, flaming giant is approaching the village! The giant you STOLE FROM is going to attack the village, the village you grew up in, it’s not a big one, it’s not rich, most folks are just barely getting by just like you… but now… it’s going to be destroyed. and it’s all your fault

It’s steps Thunder down the streets. People are running. A few brave souls try to attack it, it’s a half giant so it’s not as large… but it has magic. Powerful magic.

It stops in front of your house. You are too frozen in fear to run but you yell at everyone else to flee!

The giant squats down to glare at you “you are the one who left this?” He growls. “Smells like you”

And you can’t lie! Lying would make it worse for sure so you nod and squeak out a yes.

The giant laughs and pick you up “well, don’t you think it is fair trade for me to do the same?”

You explain there ain’t enough food for a half giant in this town!

“Oh, there are some horses, or the cows”

But the little livestock your town has can’t just be given away.

“I suppose not… guess there’s only one choice then” the giant says and brings you to its mouth.

Someone screams in the distance as they watch you get swallowed alive.

And then… you wake up. In the middle of the village.

A village with people in it. No one else was eaten with you. And they’ve got… cooking pits set up? There’s huge bags of grain and dried fruit next to a few buildings.

someone runs up to you and hugs you. It’s not hysterical enough for them to have thought you dead. The people around are nervous but not scared of the giant. A few are Thanking the giant for not lying.

The giant is preparing a fairly large pot of stew and notices that you woke up. It has a few arrows still in its face it hasn’t bothered to remove.

You ask the giant why. The giant says it sounded like you could use some help, that note you left was pretty pathetic.

You ask why he acted like he did! He ATE YOU! He scared the town half to death! He even broke a building and burned a few things! He just chuckles “yes, I do like to have my fun.”

In the next few days more aid appears from the king which includes repairs to the town.

Yonah gets fucking chewed out by Ben for the damages which cost a lot more than him just delivering food to the needy.

[buff-muffin]

Travelling Luffy modern AU:

A modern AU where when Luffy met Shanks as a kid he and his mates were living in a van travelling the country probably as some form of criminal but no one in the sleepy village of Foosha knew him. And it inspired Luffy to travel when he grew up. So after high school Luffy picks up random jobs saving money for himself and others to travel going on these grand trips over seas and when he gets back squats at a new friends place and finds a new shitty job to save money and does it all again. He tries to get all his friends to travel with him though it doesn’t always work out so it’s usually two or three of them.

And even in completely different countries Luffy just has a way of befriending the locals finding the best restaurants and activities and even making genuine friends who he is still pen pals with years later. So many times the craziest things have happened to him but Luffy never takes photos on his journey so Nami and the other Strawhats had made it their mission to document every bullshit lucky occasion because no one will believe him otherwise.

His car broke down? Yeah turns out the mayor of the city found them and helped them out. Now they regularly share animal pics. The random old man he befriended in a big city? Yeah turns out he’s actually one of shank’s dads and a criminal and while though retired is still conning a casino for their money and running from the government. The tall rando he fought at a restaurant before both of them decided to just eat and chill? Turns out his mother is one of the biggest gang leaders in the country and he is her right hand man.

Ace also travels but never as frequently as Luffy does now. He’s seen the big places and heard plenty of stories from his friends (the white beards) but is pretty happy in the city. So it’s always a pleasant surprise when the random stranger Luffy befriended happens to know is big brother.

It’s even funnier if you imagine that’s how Luffy meets the grandline strawhats. Like Robin was an exchange student staying overseas, he befriended and greeted her when she returned home. Chopper was graduating high school in a sleepy snow town and because of Luffy decided to head to the university local to him to become a doctor. Franky was actually a professional mechanic and after talking and a lot of pushing decided to make a better name for himself in Luffy’s town for a fresh start. Brook was an old professional singer who was stuck over seas they randomly found and decided to help out, renewing his passport finding his birth certificate ect. He now performs at bars and is working on a solo career. Jimbe was travelling for his own kind of work though after a few encounters with Ace and then Luffy, he found himself so charmed and in need to settle a little, chose to become a teacher at the local university.

The one time Luffy flew by himself because none of his friends could make time he ended up having to stay over seas for two years due to issues with his visa. By some fucking miracle Rayleigh was there and ended up looking after the kid helping him with his piss poor education, inability to hold a stable job and his own house. Luffy came home to the biggest party ever and while most of his friends graduated he started taking online courses while travelling got a share apartment with Zoro and started really cleaning up his resume and not quitting his fucking job every time he traveled.

Luffy just has the travel bug and a need for adventure and has taken all of the east blue gang with him multiple times on these adventures. Something always goes wrong but works out in the best ways.

[senka-mesecine]

Would you be willing to write something about Barnes being in love/really having a thing for Elias’ girlfriend? And maybe incorporate some of Elias’ reaction? Thank you, I love your writing style!

Living Inside of Someone's Locket

― An AU where Barnes survives the war and decides to rotate back into the world and take what doesn't belong to him...yet.

Barnes x Reader x Elias

―

Elias always had this damn picture he carried with him.

Three years in and he never once stopped bragging about it.

Not bragging outright, mind you, but in that subdued, honor-filled way typical of the man. Like he was showing off a holy relic instead of a person. A protective charm or whatever nonsense that pothead believed in.

Now Barnes, he hated that. Resented it, really. He supposed the private should be kept fucking private out in the bush so the men could focus on what really mattered and took top priority over everything; actually waging this war to goddamn fruition and doing the job they all came here to do, but no, there Grodin was, occasionally leaning over the fresh meat and rookies during long patrols, squatting on the ground, trying to befriend them and get all social, rifles by their sides, chatting away quietly into the night and Elias would always do this thing — pull a picture out from inside of a locket hanging around his neck on a long chain in the company of the cross he tended to wear, tucked into the slit of his unbuttoned camo-vest and show it to them, that stupid, inane, blissed-out smile always present on his face. Where would this whole campaign out in the country end up if everyone started flipping open their wallets to flaunt their squeezes back home around? In the shits, that’s where it would end up and although Barnes was privy to the contents of the locket himself, he couldn’t quite remember when or how he saw it but he did, in a time that frequently bypassed memory, it seemed.

He’s been here that long.

 Then again, so was Elias.

-"I’m telling you, Bob —"- Red’s glued to his shoulder like a mosquito, as usual, ranting away, feverishly immersed into his story as they mutually watch Elias pass them, arm slung over one of the newbies like they were invested into a talk all of their own. Probably on the topic of that broad starry-eyed pothead boy was salivating over. -"The bazongas are this big,"- Red takes to demonstrating in a hushed tone, recounting a description of the picture that elicited so much collective interest, his hands painting an image right before puckering his lips. -"And her mouth’s like this!"- Barnes has to roll his eyes wordlessly, disgusted, cigarette in his mouth, taking a huff of smoke, letting it exhale through his flaring nostrils, not having anything of note to say to all that hoo-ha. This was, at the end of the day, another Sergeant's woman. Truth was, O’Neill had the habit of wildly exaggerating things with the nerviest edge possible; perhaps it was the looming threat of them possibly getting court martialed over that gook village what got him so high strung and maybe Barnes himself was pondering the issue of a broad to distract himself momentarily, but something about hearing you being talked about that way itches him, like a sore that couldn’t be scratched, causing him to simply nod Red’s way mid-sentence and leisurely leave, not intending to let the man finish. Red didn’t even sound surprised by it. Barnes had a habit of his own. Leaving when he felt the conversation was done.

That night, in the bunk, after three rounds of poker won and the taste of whiskey still burning on his mouth, for someone who seldom dreamed or even slept, he dreams of shooting Elias and taking a folded flag to your doorstep once he rotates back into the world. You cry your pretty tears into his shoulder and he passes the threshold of your house and never comes out again.

-"Elias."- 

The next day, Barnes singles him out, addressing him personally once they’re all gathered, drawing out strategy, supposing it irked him to see the locket hanging from Grodin’s collar bone as they all squatted in the fox hole, it was there, ever-present like an unspoken thought. He points his nose at it like he would at all accusatory material, not feeling the need to address things outright. These men knew him well enough to know what he meant just off of a look alone and that’s how he liked it. -"If you’re done raising the collective morale of the men, you take your boys up the hill for some scoutin’ and don’t come back ‘til the area’s secure."- The golden chain dangles from the edges of Elias’ neckline tangled with his dog tags and for a second, that’s all Barnes can see. The venom of sarcasm pools in Barnes’ mouth and the words that drawl forth from their precipice sound sour, even to his own ears. -"Don’t want an ambush of gooks up our tail because ya’ll too busy playin’ with your dicks out here in broad daylight."- He remarks and albeit doing it with all the calmness in the world, Elias’ expression seems to still as his eyes travel back and forth for a moment, between Barnes and the exact point he was staring at. It’s as if then that he catches on. His locket was being glared at. Barnes almost expected the man to snap, but the ire never comes. Instead, Grodin simply chuckles into his own chin, fingers caressing the smooth surface of the carved gold right before slinging the belt of his rifle over his shoulders and standing up, looking down at the company still squatting in the foxhole around him.

-"Hey, don’t have to hate on happiness, Barnes."-

Elias shrugs, always so above it all, taking his leave and all Barnes can think about is that if was his woman being talked of, he’d be wrestling the other man down in the dust by now.

He ponders that notion weeks later.

Ponders it while separating from the platoon to find Elias alone in the jungle.

Hunting him.

Hating on happiness.

Yeah, maybe he was. Maybe a loudmouth ratting out what goes on out on the field of combat to the higher ups needed to be silenced because if everyone ratted on everyone in the middle of a goddamn war, penalizing every single thing they did out here, they'd be all in Long Binh by now and there would be nobody left to fight this damn thing --- if Elias was so hellbent on morality, he should've joined the Peace Corps, not the army. Shouldn't have left you behind either; that's the prevailing thought as he holds his position and aims the barrel of his rifle faced with Elias' smile as the sounds of gunfire and combat fade in the background, obscured by jungle foliage. Barnes shoots once he finds the other man's expression changed, the realization striking Grodin he's about to die and with three gunshots to the chest, he does. Once he's down on the ground, head slumped against the mud, Barnes tentatively approaches him, taking him in for a moment, saint-like and dead and without pondering it any longer, he reaches for the locket from around the man's neck, tugs at the loosened chain, holding it for a moment, cracking open the lid to observe your picture hidden inside, smoothing the protective glass cover over your face with his thumb, right before turning around towards the booming sound of skirmish still going on, disappearing back into the woods. Once Elias emerges from the jungle, wounded and alive, pursued by armed gook brigade shooting him down and all the accusatory glances in the evac helicopter fall upon Barnes who's throat was sore from how definitely he barked Grodin was dead, dead, dead, goddamnit, encouraging everyone to retreat back, squeezing the locket in his pocket, he almost envisions that Elias wasn't running for his life down there. He was running because he realized you weren't around his neck anymore. That someone took you from him and if he was going to die today, he'd die without you.

Barnes squeezes the chain of the locket around his fist at the idea.

Trophies.

Yes, it was a trophy.

He had the habit of collecting those --- and not unlike the red star belt buckle fastened around his waist picked off the corpse of a dead NVA, toes, finger charms and live human ears, this could be counted into one such trophy. After all, Elias lost for having such a big mouth, but you didn't have to know that. All you had to know that he was here now, in solidarity towards a fallen compatriot.

Knocking on your front door having rotated back into the world, discovering your address an easier feat than one would ever anticipate, you nearly collapse on the porch at the sight of him to the degree you don't even have time to react to the scar across his face. You knew what this was going to be about. Of course you did. He was alone, with no Grodin in sight. It was already considered in good faith that someone representing the platoon would emerge to offer their condolences. You were no widow as such, which is why he knew nobody else but him would bother coming with tremendous urgency; worked like a charm for the way he imagined this playing out. So many grieving families, mothers and wives military attachés with folded flags had to visit that this wasn't the time for girlfriends. He understood that. He was here in their place, though. Last man standing. -"Ma'am."- He nods his head, grimly, observing your face twisted in grief. Your own picture hardly did you justice. After a moment on the front threshold, watching you sob, he decides to lie as you shakily hold the door of your home ajar, letting him inside, barely being able to speak in your state. It wasn't a case of stolen valor. He didn't need to talk another man's valor like he didn't have to usurp his kill count; he had plenty of his own. But you? You were another subject altogether. He wanted you. Earned you. Two dogs fight, one wins and takes the bone.

-"He was a good friend of mine."-

Barnes says as the knob turns behind him, choosing to be deceitful.

He steps through the door and decides to never leave that house again.

[writingamongther0ses]

Bite Me, Chapter 12: Father

Summary: Melody meets a priest.

-_-

Three weeks before this shit went down…

“Oh, my dear! Are you alright?”

Melody nearly jumped at the question, turning around in time to see the horse-drawn buggy come to a stop next to where the car had been stopped. The driver was an older man dressed in long dark robes and a rosary, his eyes full of concern. She couldn’t blame him- she probably looked like a mess, with a dent in the front of her car. “Hi!” She waved, trying not to sound too concerned. “Sorry, I just swerved to miss a deer. I’m fine, but my car won’t start now, and I’m not sure why.”

“Oh, well, that’s a problem!” The priest hopped down. “Do you mind if I take a look? My village hasn’t gotten to cars yet, but I have picked up a few things.”

“Uh, sure.” Melody moved aside so the man could lean over. “I meant to get it checked out by a mechanic, but I just moved here, and I haven’t gotten the chance.” She wasn’t sure why that had come out. Still, the priest laughed as he straightened, the sound warm against the chill in the air.

“Welcome then, miss,” He held out his hand. “I am Father.”

Just Father?

“Uh, I’m Melody.” She shook his hand. His hand was warm.

“Now, do you or your husband happen to have a spare toolbox?”

Oh. He must’ve seen her ring. Melody couldn’t bring herself to pull it off yet. She found herself raising a hand to it to fiddle with. “Um, no, sorry. It’s just my sister and I, and neither of us thought about it. My husband…”

The priest’s eyes went wide and then crumpled with sympathy. “Oh, my dear, I am so sorry.”

Melody blinked, suddenly caught off guard by tears pricking at her eyes. “It…it’s fine.” She reached up and wiped her face. She had never been able to give Clayton a funeral, so maybe she was caught off guard by what she should’ve been hearing. “It was three years ago, I should be over it by now.”

The priest shook his head. “I…my wife and I divorced several years ago, when we lost our child,” Melody felt a gasp rise up, and she reached out. Ivy was there, gripping her hand, invisible to the priest. “We had a disagreement about our faith regarding the situation. She’s not dead, but I still mourn the woman she was.” He took in a deep breath. “Love lingers, doesn’t it.”

Melody nodded. “It does.”

“Now, I do have some tools.”

“Do you need any help?”

“Oh, you are a dear! Yes, that would be helpful!”

Of course, Ivy whispered to her “The horse is dead,” barely a minute afterward.

-_-

Now…

The area surrounding the church was thankfully empty of werewolves.

In fact, it was empty of anyone. Melody had a sneaky suspicion of what happened to the villagers, but there should’ve been survivors, hopefully. She took in a deep breath, tried to ignore the pain in her feet, and looked around. Alexi was getting heavy on her back and her neck itched now that she was aware of the bitemark there.

Hopefully, she could just squat in one of these houses until the pain went away, maybe grab some supplies from what was left, and then go after Cecily-

"Oh, hello my dear!"

Melody spun around at the familiar voice, blinking. There was no way that could be him. Definitely not out here.

But, no. Standing outside of a small cottage, smoke merrily coming from the chimney was Father, waving. He was dressed in the same black robes and cross that Melody had met him in, excluding his hat. That revealed snow-white hair that was braided back, making his beard. His smile was wide like he wasn't standing in the middle of a destroyed village. His carriage and horse were even there. Melody couldn't help but walk over then. "What are you doing here?" she said when she was close enough.

"Oh, well, I live here, my dear. Would you like to come inside?" He moved aside before she could ask more questions, beckoning her to walk in. Her first instinct was to draw her shotgun, but she was tired, and he had been kind to her during their brief encounter. Kindness was something that she needed at the moment.

The inside of the cottage was surprisingly cozy, with a roaring fire in the fireplace with a pot hanging over it. Something smelled delicious, and a copper kettle began to whistle as she reached the table. "Sit down, sit down," he bade, grabbing the kettle. "Would you like some tea?"

"...yes please?"

He poured her a cup of tea and set it next to her. In between Melody picking it up and taking a sip, he had arranged slices of thick-cut bread with butter waiting, cooked bacon that gleamed with fat, cut fruit and veggies, and a full cheese platter. To top it all off, he took the pot out of the fire and poured out some kind of stew in a bowl. Even as her stomach grumbled at the delicious smells, Melody rose to her feet. "Sir, you don't have to do all this-"

"Oh, please, I want to!" He set the bowl down and set a hand on her shoulder. With a surprisingly firm push, she sat back down in her chair and in front of the steaming bowl. "When I heard you were in the village, I figured that you must be starved!" He sat down next to her. "Please, eat your fill."

Well, since he was offering, Melody figured she should.

The stew was delicious, made with tender meat that melted in her mouth. The bread tasted great on its own, but slathered in butter and dipped in the stew, it was delicious. Melody ate, remembering how meager her last meal had been- a small salad she had picked up at the store, wanting to waste time before she had to head home and the awkward silence that formed after her and Summer's fight.

"Now, what happened to your neck?" Of course, this could be just as awkward. "That looks rather nasty, my dear," Father said, concern back in his grey eyes. "I have some healing salve that should help."

"Not unless you can reverse becoming a werewolf," Melody mumbled, suddenly angry at Volkov again. She was always angry at him, she realized, but now it was a special type of anger.

Father's eyes widened, just a tad. "Excuse me?"

"Well, uh...Volkov kinda grabbed me and was threatening me and I kinda panicked and..." Melody's teeth ached. "I bit him. Then he got pissed, chased me down, and bit me back. And just now, he was telling me that there was a chance I could become a werewolf because he bit me-" The spoon dropped out of her fingers to allow her to fig her fingers in her hair, almost to the point of pain. "And I can't waste time, I need to get Cecily before I turn-"

"You bit Lord Volkov?"

"I was panicking!"

"I...well, I'm surprised he let you," Father said, voice a tad strained. Still, he wasn’t making any movements to scream and kick her out. "He is quite dangerous. But, maybe..." He didn't say whatever he was thinking, instead taking a deep breath. "You may be one of the lucky ones," Father said, giving a comforting pat on her hand. "In a rare case, there is no effect at all. The pack was developed quite recently, so they are still learning."

"...how recent is 'quite recently'?"

"Oh, about a century ago."

"Ah." Melody couldn't argue with that. Back when she actually worked at a lab, she and the other scientists understood that they didn't know how much they didn't know. But, she was still mad. "I still don't get why he was weird about it."

"That may be due to the link between bonded."

The link? Wait... "Is that why, whenever I hurt him, I hurt?"

"Yes." Father nodded. "The bond is a strange thing, allowing those connected to feel each other's pain. I can understand why he was so flustered. Receiving a Gift, from what I've heard, is a nasty process." His hand rose up to rub his cross, eyes distant. "I cannot imagine having to relieve that pain twice."

Melody took in a deep breath. "...would I be a bad person for saying that I don't really care?"

"Based on your story, no." He rose to his feet. “Now, let me get that salve, and I can explain how best to save your niece.”

"Wait, you can-"

"Tilt your head back." Melody did on the spot, realizing Father had plucked up a small white pot and cloth. "Now," he said as he sat down and pulled out a small wooden knife. "First, let me explain the four lords of our village. They were born from the four founding lords, who created a kingdom together and promised to rule justly and wisely. Over time," He shrugged as he shoved the knife into the pot. "They didn't. Now, it is the four lords and Mother."

"What is Mother?" There was something strange about her, and Ivy's fury didn't help.

"I do not know. She was once a simple pastor, but she grew in power. Now, the four lords obey her. The eldest is Herminia Orion. She's the most reasonable one," The knife slathered the salve against her flesh. "Her family was born in Italy as dollmakers. Herminia continues the trade in her home, deep in the woods. The second eldest is Richard Givre, the finest lord, despite his..." He paused, as if searching for the right word. "Appearance. He lives in the castle. Rowe is the most devoted to Mother and lives in what remains of the monastery."

"And Volkov?"

"Well," Father sighed. "If you're his enemy, he's the most dangerous one. If he has a vested interest in you surviving," The bitemark ached. "He'll make sure you survive."

"And all of them have a part of Cecily." Melody pulled out the necklace she had stolen from Volkov. "I already have his piece."

"Yes," Father said, wrapping the bandage around her neck. "You do. That should make this easier."

The next few minutes were full of Father rushing back and forth, pulling weapons out of nowhere and packing food into a satchel. Melody finished her food as she waited for the salve to “set”. Finally, she was up.

"Please, feel free to come by whenever you need something," Father said, passing her the satchel. "I love this village, and I would hope to see it restored."

Melody doubted it, but she nodded anyway. "Thank you, Father."

And, with that, she headed back out. The castle was clear to see and, with the path he pointed out, she was on her way. It was surprisingly easy going, with no werewolves or Volkovs to bother her. Finally, she reached the gate to find it already down and over the moat.

The doors swung open before her.

Melody took in a deep breath. "For Cecily," she reminded herself. Taking in a deep breath, she marched in. The doors swung shut behind her and click went the lock.

Guess there was no running out that way…

Melody's concerns disappeared for a brief moment as she looked around. The room was the epitome of old money luxury, with fine wood floors and areas tastefully gilded. Han and Ching dynasty vases were decorated here and there, and they were full of fresh flowers. If this wasn't the house of a mad lord, Melody would've been delighted.

She stepped forward to a set of doors. One door had a painting of a pretty young man in lavender, while the other had a painting of a handsome young woman in lavender. "I feel someone on the other side, Mommy," Ivy warned. Melody nodded, took a breath, and pushed open the door.

The next room was an even bigger entry room, decorated in marble with gold veins. Two sets of stairs curved around the hall and there was a door in the center, heading deeper in.

However, she was too busy staring at the teenagers.

There were two of them, blonde with violet eyes and deathly pale. They matched the image of the paintings on the door swinging shut behind her. "Lady Melody Johnson," the boy said, bowing. "What a pleasure to meet you."

The girl wasted no time with bows, instead choosing to skip up and grab Melody's hand, giving it an almost painful squeeze. "When Father said that we were going to get a new aunt, we knew we had to receive you! We already have an aunt, but..." She looked around and leaned forward, revealing her eyes were bloodshot. "Aunt Herminia tends to be dreadfully dull."

The boy walked forward. "Don't be rude, Catherine. But," He grabbed her hand. "Come along, auntie. Father is waiting."

Before Melody could protest, they dragged her to the door, deeper into the house.

[mitsuki91]

It's that time again!

Snowbaird Valentine Event!

The prompt for today is birds u.ù

As usual, thanks to @snowbaird-events ( @burntblueberrywaffles ) for this event 💖

3. Birds

During the summer break, after he has been forced to work hand in hand with Dr Gaul on the new edition of the Hunger Games, Coriolanus has asked and been granted to spend the summer at Twelve. President Ravinstill has made the first house built in the Victory’s village available to him also because, in fact, he is taking Lucy Gray home to see her family.

Lucy Gray shakes his hand throughout the train journey, without saying anything.

She too knows that the Hunger Games are an evil he is forced to endure, but there is a limit even to his acting ability.

***

In the Twelve everything is better. They are no longer at the Seam - although coal dust still gets everywhere - and the Coveys have huddled together, happy and excited to have Lucy Gray back for a month and a half all to themselves. They have moved into the Victory’s house with them - although they take turns not to leave their house empty - and spend their days together, as happy and carefree as they have ever been.

The schools are closed and none of them have to work. Coriolanus personally makes sure that plenty of money arrives every month to support the whole family, because the idea of CC or Tam Amber going down the mine gives him the creeps.

They spend wonderful days amidst music, singing and games, and then the time also comes for a trip to the lake.

They talked about it briefly, him and Lucy Gray. Coriolanus told her that it would be no problem and, then, following her glare, confessed that he would do his best to overwrite the bad memories.

So they set off early in the morning, taking advantage of the still cool breeze of the night before the sun burns them. They walk briskly; Coriolanus grasps Lucy Grey's hand tightly and tries to concentrate on Maude Ivory's voice and the songs she sings.

Unfortunately, so do the damn birds.

Coriolanus is forced to listen to their echoes in his ears for as long as it takes for them to arrive. There are times when he thinks he'll go mad, when he just wants to squat on the ground and plug his ears - echoes and reverberations of that terrible day, of the song of the hanging tree smashing his head and shattering it into tiny pieces.

When it happens Lucy Gray understands him, and always distracts him with a kiss.

Her smile and her love are the most valuable weapon he has to fight every crisis.

***

They finally arrive.

At last they can undress and dive into the lake and make noise, and the birds above their heads, apart from a few neutral melodies, no longer sing like in his nightmares.

It's shaping up to be a perfect day.

They soak for the whole morning and then engage in various other activities and games - Coriolanus has brought a real ball and a pack of cards, and everyone enjoys themselves.

Then, after lunching on fish - caught by Tam Amber and CC - and bread and cheese - brought from home - they all lie down in the shade of the trees, praying that it will be enough to combat the heat.

Lucy Gray has laid her head on his chest and has one leg entwined with his. It seems that not even the mugginess is enough to keep them physically apart , and Coriolanus is perfectly fine with that. He caresses her hair and she begins to murmur a quiet melody.

Immediately the Mockingjay stop singing, and then imitate her. Coriolanus' hand stops and so does Lucy Gray, raising her face to his, worried.

“Sorry,” she murmurs.

Coriolanus smiles.

"It's not your fault" he replies to her "Nor theirs" he adds, under his breath.

Holding her still helps him keep his mind clear of terrible memories. The tiredness and peace that pervaded him that morning also help to keep him calm.

Lucy Gray smiles and leans in to leave a small kiss on his cheek.

"They are the true example of freedom, you know?"

"The Mockingjay?"

"No, birds in general. I'd like to be like them" Lucy Gray pauses "That's what they call me at the capital, isn't it? Songbird. I wish I had a pair of wings, and I could live and sing in the sky for the rest of my life."

Away from me.

Coriolanus turns to her and grabs her, sinking his face into her hair.

"I'm sorry," he tells her, as his heart breaks for the umpteenth time, "If you feel trapped at home.

If I'm not enough.

Lucy Gray bursts out laughing and returns his squeeze.

"I didn't say that, silly."

Coriolanus knows that he cannot afford to make demands on her. He knows that Lucy Gray is a free spirit, and that trying to force her into a trap would lead to her dying little by little, day by day. At the capital, she expresses her need for freedom by singing all over the place; she enjoys her fame as the Victor to have the doors open in any club that tickles her fancy. And Coriolanus has learnt to let her go and hush the terrible, insistent voice that tells him she will find someone else.

But here it is more difficult.

Here, in the Twelve, it is established that Lucy Gray belongs to no one.

Least of all to him.

Coriolanus hopes that it will be enough to keep showing her love day by day, to make her stay.

***

University has been going on for a fortnight when one afternoon Coriolanus comes home and Tigris announces that Lucy Gray is waiting for him in the roof garden.

Curious, after hurriedly changing his clothes, Coriolanus goes up and is stunned when he sees, in the middle of the rose garden, a huge aviary.

It is a wonderful cage, gilded and decorated with wrought-iron roses. It has inside it a lot of small bowls with grains at different heights, others with water, and various bird handles as well as hanging cuttlefish bones.

And the birds are there. Some are hopping on sticks, some have decided to take a bath, some are eating. They hum, but the wonderful melody he hears is that of Lucy Gray, standing in front of the aviary enchanting the birds.

Coriolanus, past the first moment of surprise, approaches and embraces her from behind, interrupting her song.

That is the moment when he realizes that the aviary has no little door, that the birds can come and go as they please.

Lucy Gray raises her head, staring up at him from below with a huge smile.

"There are no Mockingjay here," she tells him, "No bad memories. But, you see? Even in the city the little birds live ".

At that moment two of them come out of their cage with a shake of their wings and disappear into the sky.

"This is a safe place. With food, water, fun and fragrant flowers," Lucy Gray continues, "A home to come back to again and again. A safe choice."

You are my safe choice , Lucy Gray is telling him, the place I want to return to.

Coriolanus smiles and spins her around in his arms until they are facing each other. He leans towards her and kisses her passionately, and she reciprocates by sinking her hands into his blond curls.

Her. Lucy Gray.

His wonderful songbird.

Who chooses him day after day, never leaving him alone again.

💖💖💖

Link on ao3:

[missmungoe]

You said a while back that you were picking up Mnemosyne again and I don't want to be pushy but do you? maybe have an estimate on when you might update it? I love that fic so much!!

I did! And I DID!! I'm so excited but after over a year of opening and closing this doc and only writing a few sentences, I now have a nearly finished draft of chapter 25!! I still need to edit it, but in the meantime, have a snippet, on the house:

She’d called it the War Room.

Lifting his hood back from his face, Ace looked around the chamber, lit generously by the braziers burning in each of its four corners, the rings of light dancing across the black and red marble, and the giant table in the centre of the room, the obsidian surface carved with the map of their island.

His gaze travelled from the table to the murals on the walls, each one depicting a different woman. From the way they were portrayed, he guessed they must be former Kuja, commemorated for some kind of great deed.

The soft click of her staff against the marble floor announced her, as Gloriosa said, “Our former empresses.”

Looking up from her squat figure to the women in the murals, “Are you on here?” Ace asked. None of them looked like her, but then to be fair, she was pretty old, although her soft cackle took no offence.

“Nyo,” she said, before adding, wry, “But then I was exiled.” But even saying it, there was no envy in her voice, only a gentle reverence, as looking over the faces in the murals, she said, “There have been many more throughout the centuries, but only the greatest among us are honoured here.”

Ace absorbed the words, his eyes moving over their painted features, immortalised in stone. Three of them looked like the fabled amazons from the legends, depicted alongside their weapons of choice; maidens of battle and warfare, but then it was probably fitting, given where they were remembered.

Only one didn’t carry a weapon, although having seen the Kuja fight, Ace knew the snake wrapped around her slender shoulders wasn’t there for decoration.

Looking down at Gloriosa, “What was it you wanted to show me?” he asked. Given that she’d smuggled him inside the palace, he figured it had to be important, although couldn’t even begin to guess what it might be. He wasn’t like Red-Hair, sneaking in and out of their village as it pleased him. Ace didn’t have a death wish, although wondered if it would make a difference to Boa Hancock if he was caught.

For her part, Gloriosa appeared unconcerned by the laws she was breaking, and lifting her gnarled staff to point at one of the murals, she said, “Her.”

It was the Kuja who stood out from the rest, but then she wore no armour or regalia, and no jewels or war-paint, pictured instead in a simple linen dress, and Ace realised then that he reconised the snake depicted with her. Ophion; Kikyo’s late companion.

But even without the embellishments of her peers, she was striking, beautiful with a high, regal brow and a prominent nose, the bridge brushed thickly with freckles. Her long hair was free and wild, the fair colour touched with a hint of red, coaxed out by the flames in the braziers. The eyes looking down from the mural were dark, and shrewd.

Then Gloriosa said, “Your mother.”

Ace went still, before turning towards her, his voice scraping from his throat, “What?”

She was still looking at the woman in the mural. “We knew her as Hibiscus, though I heard she changed her name after she left. Rouge, I think it was.”

Ace stared at her, as her eyes turned to him. “I knew the moment I saw you,” Gloriosa said. “That you were hers.”

The words registered, even as he struggled to make sense of what she was actually saying. But her expression was level, not a hint of deception in her dark eyes, only the remnants of an old grief, and something gentler, taking him in where he stood before the mural.

His wide eyes lifted to the Kuja on the wall, watching him calmly. And even if he’d been compared to his father by those who’d known him, searching the face in the mural, it was here that Ace found his own features, the lines of her face a little gentler, but the same he found when he looked in the mirror. The regal brow, and the long nose, and the brushstrokes of freckles across her high cheekbones.

His mother.

He was dimly aware that he hadn’t spoken, but then he was still reeling from the truth. Other than her name, he’d known so little about his mother, hadn’t even known where she’d come from, or anything of her life before his father, and so to find her here, a Kuja Empress…

But if his mother was a former Kuja Empress, that would make him―

“There are no men in the Kuja tribe,” Ace said, looking down at Gloriosa, who nodded.

“So our ancient law decrees.”

Looking up at his mother’s face, he was still struggling to wrap his head around it, his thoughts stumbling over each other, his past colliding with his present as he tried to make the new pieces fit.

Gloriosa was watching him, her dark eyes fixed on his tattoos now where he’d pushed his cloak back, and the hibiscus flower taking up most of his bicep.

Hibiscus, he thought, the name leaping out at him from his memory. Kikyo had mentioned a Kuja named Hibiscus, who’d left one day and who hadn’t come back.

His mind was reeling, and grasping for the first thing he could catch, “Does anyone here know about me?” Ace asked her.

Gloriosa shook her head, her eyes lifting back to the mural, and his mother. “We’d heard the rumours, that she bore Gold Roger a child, but we did nyot know it had survived her. For all our searching, we nyever found you. Then again, we were looking for a girl, not a boy.”

Ace was still looking at the mural, searching the ageless face for the answers he’d been looking for his whole life, although didn’t know if he was any closer to finding them. His mother was gone, no matter what he did. She had chosen his father, had given up her family and her whole tribe to do it, and rather than answer his questions, it only left him with more.

But how would he even go about finding the answers when he wasn’t even allowed to set foot within their village? Would they even accept him as her son if they knew? Would they even believe it?

His whole life, he’d been running from his father’s legacy, hoping to shake off his name, and now he might not even be allowed to claim his mother's.

From the look in her eyes, Gloriosa had found his thoughts on his face, but where he thought she’d tell him there’d be no changing their ancient laws, “Perhaps,” Gloriosa said, a gleam in her dark eyes, “it is time our tribe did nyot look to the past but to the future.”

Ace looked at her. “I don’t know if Boa Hancock would agree with you.” He thought she was more likely to invite Red-Hair for a drink, although didn’t tell Gloriosa that.

She made a humming laugh. “Nyo,” she said, smiling. “But if you are anything like your mother, you will nyot let that stop you.”

His grin was startled, but then this was the first time he’d met anyone who’d actually known her, and he hadn’t been prepared for how hard it hit him, not just to hear about her, but to have someone compare them.

His jaw trembled from holding back his tears, but then ever since he’d first learned about her, he’d reconciled himself to the fact that he’d never get to see her, even in a photograph. While his father’s grinning face had gone down in history, the Pirate King atop his execution platform, heralding the Great Age of Piracy, his mother had been forgotten. And yet here she was, her likeness captured not on canvas or paper but in stone, remembered forever by the island where she’d been born.

“She was beautiful,” Ace said.

Gloriosa nodded, her smile soft, although her voice was fierce when she said, gently, “She was one of a kind.”

Ace hadn’t taken his eyes off the mural, his heart aching, a feeling he wasn’t sure whether to call joy or grief.

His tears spilled over, but Gloriosa only smiled.

His mother’s face looked back, her striking features unchanged, even as he kept discovering new details, the gentle jut of her mouth, betraying a hidden humour, and the depth of her eyes, hinting at a knowledge only shared with the artist. Whoever had captured her had known her, Ace thought, and deeply.

“It was Gold Roger,” Gloriosa said then, and when his eyes shot down to her, found hers gleaming. “The one who completed her mural.”

His mouth worked, but unsure of what he even wanted to ask, he settled for a spluttering, “How?”

She shrugged, as though stranger things had happened. “I do nyot know when he did it. One day it was simply finished. Nyo one questioned who or why. Some claimed it was the work of the gods.” She cackled softly. “Although I suppose many have called him that.”

“But if you don’t know how he did it, how do you even know it was him?” Ace asked.

Gloriosa smiled. “Aster,” she said simply. “But then I suspect that yone had a hand in it.”

Ace stared at her, at a loss for words, and grasping for them yielded only one, the single syllable holding a whole life of questions, as looking up at the mural, “Why?” he asked. His mother had died after his father, which meant he must have done it well before his execution, but it must have been after she’d left the island. Had his mother even known about it?

And it might have been another thing to blame him for, when his father was the reason she’d left Amazon Lily in the first place, or at least that’s what Kikyo had told him. But looking up at the mural, it wasn’t anger he felt.

“Perhaps he wanted her remembered,” Gloriosa said. “The sea forgets. Centuries pass, and the currents change. Few names are remembered past their own lifetimes.”

“His is,” Ace said, with familiar bitterness, but Gloriosa only hummed.

“Indeed. So perhaps it is nyot so strange,” she said, with a look, “that he wished for history to remember the woman he loved.”

Ace firmed his lips, but had no comment to that, even to say that loving his father had been what had decided her fate, in the end.

But if his father had not been able to love her openly, as Ace knew he hadn’t, he could understand why he’d done it.

He was still a bastard, just a bastard who could paint.

“How did he even do it without getting caught?” Ace asked, studying the mural, the firelight dancing off her freckles, and Ophion’s scales. It must have taken days to finish, if not weeks.

“It is a mystery,” Gloriosa agreed, before she added, with a quick grin, “But then I do nyot know how Red-Hair does it, either.”

Ace silently agreed, although Red-Hair’s skills in subterfuge aside, he suspected part of the reason was that many of the Kuja turned a blind eye. Perhaps the same had been the case with his father. Had Roger had allies here? Kikyo would have mentioned him if she’d known about him, but then she’d also told him she’d been young when she’d left. But Gloriosa had mentioned Aster. Ace remembered her from the battle; the one with the white braids. If she’d helped his father…

He looked up at the mural, and his mother’s ageless face. And years ago, he might have wondered what might make someone leave a place like this for a man like his father, but he knew better now, but then he knew now what it meant, to choose someone.

“She won’t stay here,” he said, his eyes on his mother’s, withholding her secrets. “Makino.”

Gloriosa made a soft cackle. “You seem awfully certain about that, nyo.”

Ace just smiled.

Dark eyes considered his profile. “And what will you do?” she asked.

He considered the question, but the hadn’t thought much about what he would do once Makino woke up. But now that she had, and Rowan was safe, and the Isle of Women, there was no reason for him to linger, and while he hadn’t added his money to any official pool, he knew what he would bet on, in terms of what she’d choose. But regardless of what her choice was, as long as she was happy, that was all that mattered to Ace.

But as for Amazon Lily, he’d assumed they’d be asked to leave soon. And there was still Blackbeard to deal with, who’d yet to pay for Thatch, and who’d only become a bigger threat, the longer he was allowed to roam free. And there was Sabo, who still couldn’t remember, even if it didn’t change anything if he never did. He was still his brother, returned from the dead.

But observing his mother’s mural, and the face he’d been too young to remember, leaving was the last thing he wanted to do.

“I want to know her,” Ace said. Even if it was his father who’d captured her likeness, she had been loved here, and he felt suddenly short of breath at the prospect of learning about her, and who she’d been, before his father.

But before Gloriosa could tell him the odds of Boa Hancock even acknowledging his parentage, let alone allowing him to stay to learn about her, the sound of running footsteps reached them from further into the mountain, and Ace had just pulled on his hood and retreated into the shadows as a group of Hancock’s guards appeared. “Elder Nyon!”

“Nyo?” Gloriosa asked, turning to face them. “What’s happening?”

Peering around the pillar where he was hiding, Ace saw one of the guards come forward, and felt a stab of worry that something had happened to break their hard-earned peace, Blackbeard returning, or the navy, when the guard exclaimed, “It’s Red-Hair!”

Her eyes were wide, although it was with shock, he saw, not fear.

“He’s being put on trial in the battle ring!”

[trans-duckling]

For Them to Have Your Eyes: Exposed

Kakashi was feeling bad for being so relaxed now that Gai was out of the village on a mission. It had taken some time to convince him to go —his partner arguing that he should stay in Konoha to take care of him—, but after some threats he had finally given up.

It was not that the Hatake didn’t want him around —in fact, hormones had made him more needy—, but Gai could be… overwhelming about his pregnancy. And, honestly, he thought a couple of days apart would be good for both of them.

He was now two months pregnant and everything was perfectly fine according to Sakura. She had welcomed the news of them keeping the baby with a big smile and a congratulation, also promising to keep the secret until they were ready to share it. As expected, Kakashi had had to make some changes in his routine and diet, but he was still perfectly capable of functioning and working without a babysitter, against what Gai seemed to think. Thankfully, a long discussion about the topic had helped them to solve most of their insecurities about the whole thing, and now the Hatake could relax for two whole days.

Well, he was pretty sure he would be missing Gai the moment he hit their bed and found himself alone, but he would blame the hormones for that.

At first, he was uncertain of what to do once he was back at home after a morning full of paperwork and meetings. He had a free afternoon —the first in weeks— and wasn’t very sure of what to do with the time. In fact, what did he usually do when he could relax? One obvious idea popped up in his mind the next second.

A drop of blood and a few seals after, his eight hounds appeared in the middle of the living room.

“Hello, boss!” they all greeted with a happy bark.

“Hi, guys” he answered, squatting down to start petting them. “How are you doing?”

“Hungry” Biscuit said, making him roll his eyes.

“Of course you are, but dinner is not until later.”

The ninken whined a bit at that, but tails kept wagging as his hands pet the soft furs. Soon enough, he was completely seated on the floor with eight dogs surrounding him.

“Gai is not here today?” Pakkun wondered after a bit.

“He’s out on a mission for the next couple of days” he explained with a shrug.

“Ah, so you called us just to keep your company because you miss him” the pug huffed.

“Of course not!” Kakashi protested with an offended tone. “I summoned you because it has been a while since we were together without anyone else. What do you think about having some fun in the forest?”

The ninken seemed happy at the suggestion, pushing him to stand up and go out. Pakkun, however, stopped half on the way to the back porch.

“Hey, boss, are you sure you’re alone?” he asked. “There is this smell… It’s different from Gai’s.”

Ah.

He hadn’t even thought about the fantastic nose of the hounds when summoning them.

“Yeah, no, I’m sure” the Hatake quickly said. “It’s probably something about the house, Gai was doing some cleaning and making space before leaving for the mission.”

“Space for what?” Uhei questioned, turning his head to one side.

For the baby, even if it would be months before they arrived. But of course his partner couldn’t stay put for so long.

“I’m not sure” he lied. “But you know Gai, it’s better not to question his actions sometimes.”

That answer seemed to satisfy the dogs, who almost shrugged and continued their way out to the back garden. They let go of the topic without any fuss, instead focusing on the games Kakashi suggested. Chasing, finding objects, running around… Hours passed quickly like that and sunset came upon them before the Hatake could realize. He should’ve gone inside to prepare dinner before the ninken finished the hard treats he had gotten them for cleaning their teeth, but a sudden movement coming from Pakkun stopped him on his feet.

The dog had stood up with a jump, looking at him with big eyes.

“I know what the smell is!” he barked, coming at him with a reprimand in his expression. “Again? Seriously? I thought you humans had methods to avoid these things from happening!”

The rest of the pack just looked at them a little bit confused, although some of them seemed to be picking up what the conversation was about.

“Well, we do have those methods, but they fail sometimes” Kakashi complained, crossing his arms over the chest.

Pakkun just rolled his eyes and the Hatake’s hormones made him want to strangle the pug a bit. He loved that dog. Probably more than any other alive thing in the world.

“So, did you tell Gai this time?” he continued asking. “And when are you getting it out?”

His words would’ve sounded aggressive if not because Pakkun had been with him through the other times he found himself in that position. Kakashi’s reaction to the discovery had not been good back then, his brain only able to focus on getting himself out of the situation as soon as possible and without anybody else knowing. Obviously, there was no reason for the ninken to suspect that time would be different.

Which made him wonder how they would react to the news.

“Gai knows about it” he said, putting his hands inside the pants’ pockets to rub the sweat away without them noticing. “And, uh, they’ll come out in about seven months, more or less.”

At that, the rest of the ninken stood up as well, exchanging looks with each other while their tails stayed incredibly high, almost brushing their backs. For a few moments, the garden was in complete silence.

“Wait, pup” Pakkun finally said, taking a few steps towards him. “You’re… keeping it?”

“Um, yeah.”

There was too much tension in the air, more than what the Hatake was comfortable with at the moment. He hadn’t stopped to think about how his pack would take the news, and he was starting to worry about it.

“Why?” Uhei added. “You always hated the idea of giving birth.”

Of course, he had talked about the topic with his hounds in several occasions, especially after the first time he got pregnant. They knew where he stood about everything, so they didn’t need to ask if he wanted to be a father, but rather if this way of becoming one was really what he wanted. They were worried about him.

“I still do, I think” he admitted, bringing one hand over his flat belly. “But the outcome compensates that, I want to believe. This will be Gai’s and mine baby, so even if the process is horrible it’ll be worth it at the end.”

“So” Pakkun said, “you’re happy about it?”

“Yeah, guys, I am.”

The tension was released next second, tails going down and starting to wail happily as the ninken left their bitters behind and came to meet him.

“That’s great, boss!” Shiba barked. “A new pup for the pack!”

“Yeah!” Guruko added, standing up on his two back legs to try and sniff him better. “We’ll teach them everything they need to know to be a good dog!”

“Pretty sure they’ll be human, but yeah, why not” Kakashi laughed. “So, you’re all ok with this?”

“As long as you’re happy with it, boss” Pakkun nodded, also coming closer and sniffing the air carefully. “I’m sure we’ll raise this one better than we did with you.”

“Hey! You did a great job with me!” he protested. “And besides, Gai and me will be the ones doing the raising, that’s the reason why we’re having it.”

“Sure, boss, keep telling yourself that.”

The words of the pug almost sounded as a threat, and for a second Kakashi thought about how plausible was having his pack kidnapping his newborn child. Knowing them, probabilities were high…

“But seven months is still too long” Uhei commented. “Why do you need so much time to grow just one pup? Ninken litters take way less time to be born and they have more puppies.”

“You’re welcome to ask that to Sakura, because if there is a way to make this shorter, I’m all in for it.”

“Wait” Biscuit added the next second. “Why is Gai out of the village if he knows?! He should be here, providing!”

Kakashi squinted straight ahead. Sometimes he forgot that his best friends were dogs and their… culture was different from the human one.

“I can provide for myself just fine” he pointed out. “And he’s out because he was eating my nerves with all the attention and feelings and…”

“You miss him” Akino accused.

“Yeah, I do.”

No point in denying the evident. But it had been his idea to send him away and now he would’ve to deal with the consequences. And the hormones. And the morning sickness. All by himself. For one whole more day. Awesome.

“Come on, pup, let’s go inside so you can prepare us dinner and keep yourself busy” Pakkun said.

Thanks Kami for having such considerate ninken.

Sometime later, while food boiled up in the kitchen and Kakashi was relaxing on the sofa with a book, Uhei came from the garden with his paws barely making any noise against the wooden floor. The rest of the ninken were still outside, biting their treats while waiting for dinner.

“Done with your biter?” he asked to the hound.

With a side-eye, Kakashi saw Uhei nodding and then approaching slowly to the sofa, his head resting shyly next to his leg. After a few seconds, it moved to the top of his lap, his nose bumping against the Hatake’s belly. The gesture surprised him, and when moving the book away he saw a silent question reflecting in Uhei’s expression. Not wanting to break the moment, he patted the spot on the sofa next to him and the ninken came up with a jump. The next second, his head was resting once again over his lap, face resting against Kakashi’s belly.

“I’ll protect this pup with my life, boss” he promised in a murmur.

Smiling, the Hatake rested one hand in between Uhei’s ears and started petting him.

“I know you will” he said. “You’re a good dog.”

-----------------------------------------------

Hi! Sorry for the long wait, but I almost died a few times this past week (holidays are dangerous, people) xD

This chapter is short, but you have a little heads up on the next one in AO3 as compensation for the time I took to post the chapter and also bc the next one may have to wait until next week ^^

Have a nice day! :)

[adoracora-elizabeth]

But Papa! Why? Chapter 29

Cora looked at the bed, Robert was still sleeping. She decided to let him sleep for a while. Her anger had faded away, he looked so adorable while he was sleeping. And she cared too much for him to let this one instance ruin everything. Yes, he had been very unkind yesterday, but had it been that bad? No, it had not, she decided.

She could see the sun coming through the windows, it was still a bit chilly. Spring was on its way, but winter was not budging yet. She wrapped her cardigan a bit tighter around her body and walked downstairs.

Voices were coming from the backroom. Cora walked towards the sound and saw Baxter and Molesey standing in front of the window, that looked over the garden.

"If we finish early, we could go on a walk this afternoon," Baxter said to Molesley. "I think we are mostly ready to hit the deadline early today."

"That would be nice," Molesley answered. "Too bad the temperature is a bit too low, still, to have a picnic."

"We could walk towards the village and eat something there?"

Cora was not sure if she should make herself known or not. She decided to leave them alone. When she turned around, her phone rang loudly.

"Good morning, Mrs Levinson, I did not see you there, I am sorry. How can I help you?" Molesley said.

"No, no. I did not need you. I was just curious when I heard voices." She felt her cheeks colour. She could not get used to the fact that she now had a servant. "Please pretend I was not here." Quickly she turned around and walked back into the hallway. "Yes?" she answered her phone, she had not looked at the screen when she accepted the call.

"Are you still home?" It was Robert’s voice.

"I am only downstairs. What is it?"

"It seems I am stuck upstairs for now."

"What? What do you mean?" Cora felt she was getting irritated, was he trying to play a game?

"I tried walking downstairs, but the pain was too much for me to do it on my own."

Cora's irritation grew, why did he not directly ask her, if she could help? She hated that he wanted her to offer her help. "I will ask Molesley to bring your breakfast upstairs."

"Oh," Cora heard the disappointment in his voice. She almost apologised, she stopped herself, just in time.

"I will be going for a short walk later this morning." Cora continued, ignoring his unvoiced question.

"Can you help me downstairs? I could go with you on that walk?" Robert sounded insecure.

Cora sighed. Finally, he voiced what he needed. "Is that why you called me? Why did you not just ask that directly."

"Cora, I do not know. Can you please come upstairs, so we can talk, facing each other?"

Cora opened the bedroom door; she had already walked upstairs the second he asked if she could help him. Robert was sitting on a chair, next to the phone. She laughed softly; he had known her phone number from memory. She had already wondered why he would bring his mobile last night, but he had not. He used the landline to reach her, she was touched.

"I am sorry Cora. I understand when you would go back to London. I am behaving badly." Robert started.

"Robert." Cora sighed, she stepped closer and squatted in front of him, resting her hands on his knees. "What is bothering you, why are you doing this. If you are tired of me and want me to go, you should say so."

Robert did not look at Cora, his eyes were looking at the floor.

Cora took Robert's hands in hers. "We should go somewhere together, today. Away from this village, away from the house. Just somewhere, you and me."

"Would you still want that?" Robert now looked at their hands. Cora's thumb brushed over the back of his hand. His hands were big compared to hers. Her small hands did fit perfectly in his larger palm.

Cora pulled one hand back and laid it against his face. "You are fed up with being held back, I understand. As I said last night, I had hoped you would not direct your irritations at me. But I do understand why you do that. Baxter and Molesley are planning on doing something together this afternoon, that gives us the perfect opportunity to sneak out ourselves and hide for a couple of hours.

Robert suddenly wrapped his arms around Cora and pulled her close to his chest. Cora got up on her knees, so she was resting with her head against his chest. She felt his fingers dig into her shoulders. Her own hands moved slowly up and down over his back. The shudders of his body told her he was crying. She held him in her arms until he pushed her back.

"I have no excuse for my behaviour. It is just, that." He paused. "I had hoped that our weekend together at Downton, had turned out differently."

"It turned into weeks." Cora joked.

Robert looked at her, what made Cora stop. "We could have been at a different place in our relationship, if I had not been so foolish. Cora, I love you and I want to spend my life with you. But I do not understand why you would want to be with me. I am foolish and stubborn."

Cora placed her index finger against Robert's mouth. 'Ssstt. That is enough darling." She came close with her face to Robert's. "I love you too. Although I also do not understand why you would love me. I do not offer you much. But."

"You do not offer much? Are you joking?" Robert interrupted her.

"But." Cora continued. "We will have to accept that the other sees things differently. And I like your stubbornness. It is kind of cute."

"Cute?" Robert raised his eyebrows.

"Yes, cute." Cora pressed her lips against Robert's. She felt him relax and when his lips parted, she pushed her tongue in.

Robert was caught by surprise by the intensity of her kiss, but he did not resist. He eagerly kissed her back, his hands moved over her back, down to her curves. His hand fitted as perfect around her bottom as it did around her hand. He chuckled, how would he fit in her? He thought.

"What is funny?" Cora pulled back when she felt Robert chuckle.

Robert's cheeks were now bright red and he started to stutter. "Well, I, uhm, I, my hand, well, uhm, I thought............. Your body has the perfect size, and my hand formed perfectly around your bottom, and I thought. Uhm, I thought. How would it, uhm, fit, uhm..........."

Cora got up a bit more on her knees again and pressed herself against Robert. "You will need to make sure you are feeling well soon, so you can try it out." Her cheeks got the same colour as Robert's. The passion she saw in Robert's eyes made heat shoot through her body. She did not know if she could wait any longer, she wanted to feel him so bad. Her hand moved to his leg and then inwards. She felt how he reacted, what encouraged her to move closer. "I think my hand will fit perfectly too." Her eyes staring into his. Robert crashed his mouth on Cora's.

The doorbell rang, what made Cora jump. "We should not do this." She said. "Especially not during the day, while your employees are also home."

"I love to take risks." Robert said with a deep and low voice.

Cora had trouble not falling into his arms again, the way she felt his voice travel through her body was something she had never experienced. "Let’s get up and go downstairs, we should think of where we could go this afternoon."

Robert took Cora's hand and got up, her arm wrapped around his waist, and they walked towards the staircase. "I think I know a place, it is a bit of drive, but worth it."

From downstairs voices were coming up, Cora recognised Molesley and Baxter’s voice, the other she could not place directly. It was a very familiar female voice. Cora looked at Robert when she noticed he stopped walking. "What is it? Does it hurt too much? We can stay upstairs if needed?" Her eyebrows drew together from her worrying.

"We better go downstairs, she will not like to be kept waiting on us."

"Who?" Cora asked. She still did not get a face with the voice in her mind.

"My mother." Robert answered.