#stolen tides

[violetsiren90]

Stolen Tides

(A What the Moon Saw Drabble)

Pairing: Yoongi x f!Reader (What the Moon Saw universe)

Genre: Drabble; non-idol AU; friends to lovers; childhood friends; old flames rekindled, angst and fluff

Summary: Time is the great force - it changes everything. The ebb and flow of the tide. The fullness of the moon. It carves mountains, and quiets storms...but it stands powerless in the face of love.

Content Warnings: PG-13, but ALL my content is off-limits to minors; nudity, implied sex, cooking and eating food, mention of minor character death, kissing, cuddling, working through feelings, tears are shed (it's them, so, of course, lol)

Author's note: I literally just posted a poll asking which drabble I should write first, and their first meeting won (which I was stoked about), but then this popped into my head and I just wrote it. I wrote it while I was supposed to be submitting a project with a deadline, because, in the words of MYG, I'm bad boi. But...I had to. I gave them their ending because they deserved it. 💕 (If you've never read the one-shot this universe takes place in, I recommend starting there!)

And as always, if no one has told you yet today, you are loved and worthy of love! 🧜‍♀���💜

*Stolen tide: Occurs when weather and wind conditions suppress the ebb of a flood tide and then the next high tide washes in bringing even higher levels.

    Your lids raised and dipped and raised again, like linens in a summer breeze, as your eyes came into focus. Soft late-morning light spilled through the window onto the golden-brown planks of the oaken floor. The western-facing window was open, and the thin curtains billowed inward with each puff of salty air cresting over the hill off the distant waves. Your eyes tracked a spider plant swaying from where its macrame harness was secured to a hook in the spackled ceiling. You shifted in the white sheets of the queen-size bed to glance around you. The room was small and minimally furnished, but everything within it seemed significant to its tenant. There was a little bookshelf propping up a guitar, and a roll-top desk bearing an open journal and coffee mug. On the other side was a nightstand with an antique lamp perched beside a book splayed open on its face and a pair of black-rimmed glasses. On the far end was a dresser with pretty little mother-of-pearl knobs topped with two potted succulents and an abstract of an albatross in flight, and the accordion door of a closet cracked open to reveal neatly stored clothes and shoes.

    You tossed yourself back against the pillows with a sigh, a smile spreading slowly across your face as images from the previous night developed in the morning light like Polaroid pictures. You reached out to brush a hand over the sheets where he had slept beside you, as naked as you were now. You'd awakened in the middle of the night to find that you'd taken all the covers and to see him, laying there on his stomach - his sweet little ass pale and perfectly bare in the moonlight. You chuckled and bit your lip, slipping out of bed to pull on panties and snatch a flannel from the closet and drape it over your body, pushing up the sleeves to bunch around your elbows. He had always worn his shirts too big, and it dipped down to your mid thighs as your legs carried you toward the scents of garlic and gochujang wafting down the hall. 

    The kitchen was as simple in its loveliness as the rest of the little house, pale yellow light pouring through the large windows over a vase of poppies on a table flanked by two chairs. And a man who used to be a boy was standing at the other end of the room, rubbing sleep from his eyes in a way that made you question if a single day had passed. Yoongi stood at the little stove in a white tee and grey sweats, his dark hair sticking up every which way and his face puffy from sleep. You had to press a hand to your lips to keep from giggling at his appearance, and when he glanced up you found yourself unable to conceal an amused and extremely endeared grin.

    “What?” he asked in sleepy suspicion, his brows up and knitted together as his lips dropped into a pout.

Thirty-two and as cute as he had ever been. You chuckled as you circled around his left, where you turned towards him and slipped your body between his and the stove. Wrapping your arms around his back as he looked down, you regarded him. The same. He looked just the same. His features were a bit more defined, the soft cheeks having sharpened at his cheekbones and jawline, and he was broader and thicker with longer hair that curled at the base of his neck. But his eyes with the dark lashes, his petal pink lips...the way they felt on you...he was the same. You lifted your face to place the gentlest kisses on every feature - the ones that had changed and the ones that hadn't. 

He let out a soft hum, his left arm slipping around your waist as he shifted you slightly to the side, prodding at the contents of the pan with the wooden spoon in his right hand.

“The food will burn,” he chided lightly.

But his eyes creased at the corners and his mouth seemed to hover on the verge of a smile. You twisted to glance at the pork belly fried rice before nestling yourself back into him, your head on his chest.

“Smells good,” you murmured into his shirt.

“Mm. It’s just leftovers,” he replied, in the warm, even tone that pierced your heart like a forgotten melody. 

You pressed back the tears that threatened to come. The moon had seen enough of those last night.

"You were always good at cooking, like your mom,” you sighed into his tee. 

He didn't reply, but he tucked his cheek against your head, his thumb dragging his shirt up and down your back in tiny tender motions. You held him and he held you, and the pork fat sizzled on the stove, and a wind chime tinkled outside the kitchen window, and far off and down the ocean broke against the rocks.

And then he slowly drew you away from his chest so that he could see your face, his eyes meeting yours with the soft wet glimmer of joy and sadness at once, like the soil after a rainfall - that damp warmth from which beautiful things grow - and you buried yourself there, like a seed dropped from the sky by a bird. Dropped on the side of a cliff by the sea.

    Between mouthfuls of fried rice and kimchi eggs, you told him about college. About your passion for your chosen career. About meeting a boy who wasn't him, who had asked you to be his wife. About how you had chosen a dress and sent out invitations and then said no. Yoongi nodded quietly, but didn't ask why. Then he told you about how his father had succumbed to pneumonia a few years ago, and his mother had moved back to Korea and remarried. You nodded and asked him why he stayed. He shrugged as he pushed his rice around his plate.

    "Want to see something?" he asked with a shy smile, as he dried his hands from washing a final dish.

You nodded, smiling when he took your hand to lead you out of the kitchen door and into the yard at the side of the little house. Ice plant and poppies sprang up among the rocks and sandy dirt, disrupted by a cobbled path leading to a periwinkle blue shed only half as large as the house behind you. Yoongi opened the door.

Inside was warm and the air aglow with little floating specks that caught the light, which you quickly realized, as you glanced around, were flecks of saw dust. It was a workshop. In reverent awe you took in the beautiful pieces crafted from oak, walnut, pine, and redwood. There was a bench, a coffee table, a mirror frame, cutting boards, a spice rack. In and amongst the tools and work surfaces, there were handmade treasures against the walls and stacked on shelves. You took a seat in a sanded-down rocking chair.

    "You made all this?" You asked in disbelief.

Yoongi shoved his hands into the pockets of his sweats, casting proud but bashful eyes over the room.

    "I make them to order. Although, you did find the one thing in here that I started for myself."

You felt warmth fill your chest because you thought he looked a little proud. You swayed in the chair, tucking your legs up under you.

    "It's beautiful, Yoongi. All of it. You're incredibly talented."

    "You started it, you know," he said with a smile, still not meeting your eyes. You cocked your head to the side in question. "You gave me that whittling kit for my birthday."

He shuffled over to a workbench and took a small object in his hand. He approached you, holding it out, and you took it. You turned the little curved knife over in your hands, brushing your thumb over the faded little heart inscribed in pink paint. 

    "You wanted me to have something to do with my hands, so I would stop biting my nails," he replied, taking the knife back from you and regarding it with warm eyes as he set it aside.

    "You remember that?" You let out a laugh.

    "I remember everything," he said.

He said it like an oath...one you had once sworn. He was looking down at you, and suddenly you were on a little ledge under the stars, and he was pulling you into a kiss, and making love to you, and telling you to run and not look back. Yoongi, your Yoongi. You breathed his name, and he reached for your hands, pulling you up and against him as his lips found yours. He kissed you tenderly and fiercely. He kissed you all the way back to his bedroom where he laid you down in the soft white cotton and made up for lost time. 

    The sun made its way over hill and down into the western waters, and all the while you stayed wrapped in the sanctuary of each others' bodies, only leaving his bed twice - once to shower together and another time to share a bowl of bibim guksu and some tangerines from the tree in the yard. Now the moon's waning crescent peeped through the curtains to see you laying tangled in Yoongi's arms, his forehead pressed to yours, as he asked a question to which he didn't want the answer.

    "When are you leaving?" His voice was low and soft and deep, so resonant...but you could hear what it lacked, what he was holding back.

    "Why do I have to leave?" You murmured, tracing a place over his chest where your lips had once left a bruise.

The skin had healed long since, but not what laid beneath. Yoongi sighed through his nose, his breath tickling your chin and chest.

    "What does this place hold for you?" he asked, his voice strained, his hand coming up to cradle your jaw as his thumb brushed over your chin. "Just pain and sadness. You got out of here, you're free."

A tear slipped over the bridge of your nose and onto the pillow.

    "I might have left, but my heart never did," you whispered, your voice shaking as years of never forgetting filled the expanse of your chest. "And it never will," you murmured through a little sob.

You pushed yourself back so that you could see his beautiful watery brown eyes and wet cheeks as you asked him a question to which you already knew the answer.

    "Why didn't you leave?" Another tear slipped down his face as he looked at you. "Why, Yoongi? Why didn't you leave? Tell me, Yoongi. Say it. Why didn't you l-"

    His mouth was on yours, and he kissed you back into the sheets as your tears mingled. He kissed you and he kissed you and when his lips finally left yours by a centimeter he whispered his answer against them.

    The moon had seen him find you, and lose you. Now it saw you tell him you would never leave his side. 

    Some weeks later it sent you both off in a packed-up car (with a rocking chair strapped to the top), as it faded in the light of the rising sun, to start a new part - the best part - of the story of the boy and the girl on the cliffside...

...The part where they lived together, and in happiness, until the end of their days.

-Fin-

[elemental-plane]

god i love candela obscura tide & bone because it can go from three people inflitrating a sanatorium with one of them acting rabid and another fainting to a struggle and grappling with trust after witnessing one of the circle members die at the hands of another and i think that is so cool and dandy and i Need episode 2 immediately

[oldtvandcomics]

Happy Queer Media Monday!

Today: On Stolen Tides by Kay Lalock

Idk, there were a bunch that would have logically made more sense tow rite about, but this was the only one that felt right today. Pirates!

(The book cover, showing the black silhouette of a ship, surrounded by green and yellow plants of a jungle.)

On Stolen Tides is a self-published lesbian pirate novel by author Kay Lalock. It takes place in a fantasy world that mirrors closely Great Britain’s colonization of the Pacific, and the anticolonial message is at the very core of this book. It is clear that the author has put a lot of effort into getting that part of the story right, to the point that one might argue that the pirate part of the story falls short.

The plot revolves around Lydia, the daughter of the general in charge of the navy positioned o the colonized island. Lydia doesn’t want to be there, but has little choice as she is considered her father’s property. She is quietly miserable and longing to go back home to the main country, until she discovers that her father has arranged a marriage for her. So Lydia runs away, and sneaks on a ship that is supposed to head for her home, only to discover that said ship has been taken over by pirates. She strikes a deal with them: She’ll help them steal culturally significant objects from various generals, in exchange for them arranging a way for her home. While working with them, she learns more about the harm done by the colonization of the island, and falls in love with the second-in-command of the pirates, Laufitu.

Here is a link to it on Goodreads.

Queer Media Monday is an action I started to talk about some important and/or interesting parts of our queer heritage, that people, especially young people who are only just beginning to discover the wealth of stories out there, should be aware of. Please feel free to join in on the fun and make your own posts about things you personally find important!

[mycological-mariner]

Everyone here is posting poetical about September, reblogging art and quotes about how it’s finally September. Yeah it may be like for you lot, for me it’s September by the way the streets are unwalkable and the public transport is flooded with university students moving in

[resentful-reads]

Once Stolen by D.N. Bryn

[dollgxtz]

When Pleasure Calls

Word Count: 1.8k

Summary: In the middle of sex, Sylus gets a business call...only he decides he doesn't want to stop ⸜(｡˃ ᵕ ˂ )⸝♡

Tags: sylus x fem!reader, penetration, unprotected sex, creampie, teasing, humiliation, use of evol, use of petnames like kitten, oneshot

AN: Okay so this is loosely based on a tweet I saw and it literally wouldn't leave my brain until I wrote it....so here we are. I figured the best way to end my break and start being more active again was to start writing all the fics that won't leave my head. Enjoy!

Sylus was balls deep inside you, each thrust a raw, primal connection that left you both breathless. The room was filled with the sound of skin against skin, your moans mixing with his low groans, creating a rhythm that was all your own. His hands gripped your hips, guiding your movements, keeping you both locked in the moment, lost to everything but each other.

It had been an entire week since you’d spent any real time together—a week that felt more like a year. Sylus didn’t waste a second making up for the lost time. What started as an innocent cuddle on his bed, his arm lazily slung over your waist, quickly shifted into something else entirely. One minute, he was tracing slow circles on your back, murmuring something about how much he’d missed you, and the next, the air between you thickened, charged with unspoken need.

Somehow, without either of you meaning to, that easy closeness morphed into a full-blown, heated mess of tangled limbs and stolen breaths. His lips found yours, first soft and teasing, then hungry and demanding, as if he needed to make up for every second you’d been apart. Before long, the room was filled with the sound of muffled laughter, whispered names, and the quiet creak of the mattress as you lost yourselves in each other.

His hands roamed over you with a possessive tenderness, fingers tracing the curves of your body, memorizing the lines anew with every pass. The weight of him above you was a comforting pressure, a grounding force as you surrendered to the tide of sensation, every thrust a wave that built the pleasure higher and higher, threatening to crash over you.

"Nghn, right there! Don't stop, please..." you pleaded, your voice hoarse with desire, your fingers digging into his muscular frame as if your life depended on it. Sylus, attuned to your every need, knew he had found that sweet spot within you, that spongy, pleasure-laden tissue that sent sparks of delight through your body.

Just as he increased the pace, his thrusts becoming faster and harder, driving you closer to the edge of ecstasy, the sharp ring of his phone cut through the air like a knife, slicing through the intimate atmosphere. You froze, your eyes widening as you glanced at the illuminated screen, the unfamiliar contact name confirming your suspicion—one of Sylus's business associates.

Sylus sighed, his brow furrowing as he eyed the screen with a mix of annoyance and detachment. "I can call them back later. I’m busy right now."

That’s when it hit you—the mission. The Hunters Association’s urgent directive to recover the stolen protocore, traded away through shady backchannels. You had completely forgotten about it until now. The urgency surged through you like a jolt of electricity. Without thinking, you grabbed his arm. "Didn’t you say you were expecting a call about the protocore? This could be it. I need that lead for the Association. Answer it," you urged, your voice firm despite the sharp look Sylus threw your way.

He blinked, then smirked, the kind that was equal parts amused and incredulous. "I don’t think I’ll ever get used to my kitten barking orders at me," he said, his tone dripping with lazy charm. But to your relief, he reached for the phone anyway. "Alright, boss. Consider it a favor."

He pressed the screen and lifted it to his ear. His voice dropped into that cool, no-nonsense register you’d heard a dozen times before.

"Speak."

The man on the other end began to speak and you realized Sylus was still halfway inside you. Thinking the fun was over for now, you started to move out from under him, ready to let the moment pass. But Sylus wasn't done. His hand pressed you back down against the bed, and before you knew it, he was thrusting into you again, impossibly deeper this time, his cock filling you completely.

You struggled, caught between surprise and arousal, your body pinned beneath his, his cock completely filling you with each powerful thrust. You tried to silently plead for him to stop, embarrassed by the situation, but your words were lost in the quiet moans that escaped your lips as he pounded into you, his pace relentless. You quickly covered your mouth with your hands, trying to will yourself to quiet down.

"I'll only meet tomorrow. That's firm" he said into the phone, his voice steady despite fiercely pounding and stretching your pussy. As if this took zero amount of effort from him. You tried to keep quiet, biting your lip and keeping your hands pressed to your mouth to stop the sounds from escaping, but it was hard. Each thrust sent ripples of pleasure through you, making it nearly impossible to maintain your composure.

You attempted to scoot back against the bed, seeking respite from the pleasure Sylus was delivering, but your efforts were in vain. With a swift and possessive motion, he wrapped his powerful Evol around your waist, pulling you back onto his cock, sealing your body to his, ensuring you couldn't escape the sensations he was about to unleash.

"Ah...ah..." you panted, your breath coming in short gasps as he thrust deeper, his cock seeking out that sensitive spot within you once more, very determined to bring you right to the edge.

Sylus kept talking, his voice smooth and calm, even as he moved inside you with a fierce rhythm. The phone call was just background noise to you, but you caught snippets of his conversation, the professional tone at odds with what was happening.

"Yes, I understand," he murmured between thrusts, his voice a soothing contrast to the pounding of his cock against your sensitive walls. "No tricks, or foul play. You should know how this goes by now."

You were struggling, trying to focus on anything but the way he was driving you closer to the edge. Each thrust felt like it was pushing you further into a world where nothing else mattered but the heat and friction between you.

Minutes ticked by as this humiliation continued. How much longer could you hold on? How much longer would he torture you like this? The question echoed in your mind, a desperate plea for relief as your body teetered on the brink of finishing.

Sylus's eyes gleamed with a mix of amusement and desire as he looked down at you, fully aware of the power he held over your pleasure. He knew exactly how close you were, how your body trembled on the precipice of release, and he relished the control he had, maintaining a casual conversation while pushing you to the brink.

A knowing smirk played on his lips, a silent acknowledgment of the game he was playing—testing your limits, seeing how far he could take you while keeping up the pretense of a casual chat. His eyes held a challenge, daring you to surrender, to let go of your control, even as he kept his voice calm and composed, a stark contrast to the raw passion he was eliciting from your body.

He continued his steady thrusts, his movements purposeful, each one designed to drive you further into a world of pleasure, where resistance was futile, and surrender was the only option. Sylus took pleasure in watching you struggle, your body betraying your attempts to hold on, even as he maintained his casual conversation, a master of this sensual game.

"Yes, that will do," Sylus confirmed, his voice steady, his pace merciless as he continued to thrust into you. "I'll have my men prepare the meeting."

Your response was a muffled moan, your body arching against his, unable to form words as the pleasure overwhelmed you. "Mghn... Ah!" you cried out into your hand, your voice a mixture of surrender and ecstasy, your body trembling on the edge of release, the sensations too powerful to hold back.

Sylus, his body slightly glistening with sweat, paused for a moment, his thrusts slowing as he looked down at you with an intense gaze. His eyes, red and smoldering, held a silent command, a silent invitation for you to surrender completely. A slight smirk played on his lips as he watched you, his expression conveying a clear message:

"Go ahead, cum for me."

The tension inside you coiled tighter, every nerve screaming for release as he begun to pick up the pace once more. You bit down on your hand, trying to keep the sounds from escaping, but it was a losing battle. Sylus's thrusts were unrelenting, each one bringing you closer, until finally, with one last, deep push, he let go, pumping his hot and sticky seed deep into your belly just as he wrapped up his call.

The sensation was too much, too intense to resist. Your body tensed around him, shaking with the force of your orgasm, your muffled moans filling the room as you rode the waves of pleasure crashing through you.

"Alright. See you then," Sylus said, finally hanging up the call. He pulled out slowly, leaving you both breathless and spent, the hum of the conversation now just a memory drowned out by the echo of your shared climax.

You lay there, catching your breath, the remnants of your climax still thrumming through your veins. But as the haze of pleasure began to clear, irritation started to bubble up inside you. You propped yourself up on your elbows, shooting Sylus a look that could melt steel.

"Seriously?!"

He caught your gaze and simply chuckled, a low, rumbling sound that only fueled your annoyance. "Oh, don't act like you didn't like it," he said with a grin, clearly amused by your reaction. "How could I ignore a needy kitten in heat for a phone call instead?"

Your glare could have sliced through stone, but he just shrugged, unfazed by your anger. "Besides," he continued, a mischievous glint in his eyes as he chuckled, "I'm great at multitasking. I just secured you that protocore and made you cum while doing so. Shouldn't you be overjoyed right now?"

Despite your best efforts to hold onto your anger, the corners of your mouth betrayed you, tugging upwards into a reluctant smile. The heat rising to your cheeks was undeniable, a flush that had nothing to do with anger. His laughter was infectious, and before you knew it, you were chuckling too, shaking your head at the absurdity of it all.

"Alright, alright," you conceded with a playful roll of your eyes. "I'll forgive you this one time, but don't think this is going to be a regular thing."

Sylus grinned, clearly pleased with your surrender. "Deal," he said, his tone warm and teasing. He moved with that easy confidence of his, leaning down to scoop you up effortlessly, cradling you against his chest.

"Let's get you cleaned up," he murmured, carrying you towards the bathroom with a tenderness that were a stark contrast to the intensity of moments before. His touch was gentle now, a soothing balm to the fire that had raged between you, and you found yourself relaxing into his hold, the last remnants of your irritation melting away as you settled into the comfort of his embrace.

[ellipsus-writes]

(Read on our blog)

Beginning in 1933, the Nazis burned books to erase the ideas they feared—works of literature, politics, philosophy, criticism; works by Jewish and leftist authors, and research from the Institute for Sexual Science, which documented and affirmed queer and trans identities.

(Nazis collect "anti-German" books to be destroyed at a Berlin book-burning on May 10, 1933 (Source)

Stories tell truths.

These weren’t just books; they were lifelines.

Writing by, for, and about marginalized people isn’t just about representation, but survival. Writing has always been an incredibly powerful tool—perhaps the most resilient form of resistance, as fascism seeks to disconnect people from knowledge, empathy, history, and finally each other. Empathy is one of the most valuable resources we have, and in the darkest times writers armed with nothing but words have exposed injustice, changed culture, and kept their communities connected.

(A Nazi student and a member of the SA raid the Institute for Sexual Science's library in Berlin, May 6, 1933. Source)

Less than two weeks after the US presidential inauguration, the nightmare of Project 2025 is starting to unfold. What these proposals will mean for creative freedom and freedom of expression is uncertain, but the intent is clear. A chilling effect on subjects that writers engage with every day—queer narratives, racial justice, and critiques of power—is already manifest. The places where these works are published and shared may soon face increased pressure, censorship, and legal jeopardy.

And with speed-run fascism comes a rising tide of misinformation and hostility. The tech giants that facilitate writing, sharing, publishing, and communication—Google, Microsoft, Amazon, the-hellscape-formerly-known-as-Twitter, Facebook, TikTok—have folded like paper in a light breeze. OpenAI, embroiled in lawsuits for training its models on stolen works, is now positioned as the AI of choice for the administration, bolstered by a $500 billion investment. And privacy-focused companies are showing a newfound willingness to align with a polarizing administration, chilling news for writers who rely on digital privacy to protect their work and sources; even their personal safety.

Where does that leave writers?

Writing communities have always been a creative refuge, but they’re more than that now—they are a means of continuity. The information landscape is shifting rapidly, so staying informed on legal and political developments will be essential for protecting creative freedom and pushing back against censorship wherever possible. Direct your energy to the communities that need it, stay connected, check in on each other—and keep backup spaces in case platforms become unsafe.

We can’t stress this enough—support tools and platforms that prioritize creative freedom. The systems we rely on are being rewritten in real time, and the future of writing spaces depends on what we build now. We at Ellipsus will continue working to provide space for our community—one that protects and facilitates creative expression, not undermines it.

Above all—keep writing.

Keep imagining, keep documenting, keep sharing—keep connecting. Suppression thrives on silence, but words have survived every attempt at erasure.

- The Ellipsus team

[maepolzine]

The Read-Cap: Week of March 9, 2024

Looking back on all the books I read/started this week and what I'm planning on reading next.

This week I finally finished reading The Scarlet Veil by Shelby Mahurin and the ARC of Across Torn Tides by Val E. Lane before starting The Prisoner’s Throne by Holly Black. I almost had all three completed too, and have a feeling I’ll technically have the third book finished before the week’s end but since this post goes live earlier I can’t exactly claim it as done just yet. If you are new to…

[noble-kale]

Article link

Please give your attention to Abed and Shahed. They are a lovely couple from Ghazzah who has 2 young children named Adam and Mohammed who is a newborn! Unfortunately, they are separated. Abed is all alone in the North while Shahed is in the South. And as you know, the North is experiencing catastrophic famine due to the blockade while the South is going through heavy flooding due to the rainfall and high tides. Prices for basic necessities has been sky rocketing, diseases have been spreading, and many families are starving.

So kindly give what you can give and share! Donations have been awfully slow, so let's pick up the pace! At the same time, Shahed has had her phone stolen, and she needs to purchase a new one!

Vetted by gaza-evacuation-funds

[pinkmoonastro]

Pluto Aspects

Sun/Pluto: Dark sense of humor, attracts jealousy through the ability to learn quickly and be talented at many things, seductive, private life/double life, prefers to be in relationships, controlling, self critical, importance on achieving success and public recognition, denial about how social you actually are, obsessive, bouncing back from hardship unscathed, masking true feelings, lover of luxury, worrier, carrying the burdens of many, leaders, strategic, good at balancing multiple careers/streams of income, can work long hours, wiling to sacrifice for future gratification, beliefs being questioned/questionable, operating best with routine, helping the exiled, quiet power, domineering, leading others to the promise land, rags to riches, sharing nature, being taken advantage of, learning self worth, noticing the subtleties, standing in your power, alchemizing, appreciation of scents, restoring the balance and bringing justice, protecter, connection to night creatures, reverence.

Moon/Pluto: emotional rollercoasting, rough tides, tsunamis, delusions, misunderstood, living in the past, victim mentality, feeling intruded upon, enticing, protective, human lie detector, causing shock value with your thoughts, okay with not being everyone’s cup of tea, attracting stalkers/stalking others, a lot of haters and obsessive ppl, determined, my way or the highway, always on the go, quick witted, forgiving, misguided anger, easily triggered or triggering to others, a safe space for authenticity, youthful looking but quickly matured, problem solvers, appreciates luxury, high expectations, stressing yourself out, very strong ppl, the rock of their family, liking drama, needing to be more careful with the words spoken, lucky breaks, nurturing, creating a home that feels beautiful and comfortable, beautiful smile, soft spoken mesmerizing with your cadence, taking care of the things you own, making the old look new, hard choices, a few more restarts than most, word is bond, direct communication, seductive aura ✨

Venus/Pluto: Insecurities being obvious to others but hidden from yourself, ppl pleasing, nurturing vibe, great reader of social cues, bully/bullied, learning to understand and love your body, freedom through movement, talk of the town, being projected on a lot, resilience, cup half full mentality, big mama energy, ungratefulness, ppl trying to manipulate you through financial means, getting things taken away from you as punishment or literally being stolen from, independence, personality that grows on you, attracting jealously based on being the opposite sex’s ideal, player/overly devoted, values the connection to family, the type to plan the family get togethers, prefers to be coupled, generous and great at gift giving, hair that attracts idolization, fierce eye contact, ppl wanting to experience you without worthiness, personal space being important, careful with the people you shake hands with, being exactly what you want to be, near death experiences, night owl, protecter of children and the poor, solo traveler, taking no shit, knowing that it’s okay some bridges need to be burnt 🤷🏽‍♀️, child like innocence, friendships that stand the test of time, health conscious, healing others through food/herbs, high society, rockstar lifestyle might not make it.

Mars/Pluto: Okay with being cut throat, intimidating, power hungry, holier than thou, superiority complex, triggering insecurity in others while just existing, putting in work that will stand the test of time, legacy is of importance, it ain’t nothing to cut bitch off, knowing how to wow ppl, the defuser of situations, protecters of the weak, chameleon, popularity, rememberable first impressions, quick thinkers, great lovers, career focused, pressure to succeed, feeling you have to always be on your p’s & q’s, controlling lovers, the person others vent to, attracting ppl that feel entitled to your body/possessions, love/hate relationships, social butterfly, observant, bound by nothing, living in the moment, making the best with what you have, animal lover, would benefit from slower living, ingenuity, fashionable, hard headed, ppl trying to silence you, sprinkle sprinkle no bread crumbing is tolerated, lucky items/totem poles, optimistic, teaches lessons on how to be discerning, secret exposer, substance abuse, attempts to hold you back through evil eye, tunnel vision, seeing what needs to be said and saying it, willpower matched with child like vigor, friends and lovers that are protective over you, respected in your community/field, interested in the benefits of all, easily multiplying what you already have, water to wine type of vibe, relaxing when the work is done, knowing when to take breaks, shining bright in dark places.

Mercury/Pluto: realism view point, harsh truth, so relatable, knows better but learns the hard way, passionate speaker, musically inclined, before their time, emotional highs and lows, forgetful/selective memory, dark humor, appreciates the shock value, curse words are like icing, different just to be, thinking outside the box, creating lingo other ppl use, over explaining, paranoia, defending the vulnerable, saying what everyone is thinking, whistle blower, lovers of knowledge, constantly reinventing yourself, conspiracy theories, quick witted, solitude, dating outside of your race, cult leaders, judgmental, biting your tongue, pathological liars, self righteous, polarizing, sweet talkers, accent, making complex subjects sound easy, self critical, creating a lot of opportunity for yourself, taking journeys without a destination in mind, getting to the root of the matter, hard to reach, wise beyond your years, very knowledgeable about niche things, big dick energy, viewing something from multiple perspectives, feeling short on time/waisting time, organized, thoughtful, pouring into others, lending a helping hand/attracting those that want to help you, having to be extremely patient, smoking cigars for enlightenment, stuck on ppls mind, noticing the underlining factors, honesty off the charts, sending warning shots attacking, feelings of overwhelm by choices, defending your stance, being victorious against all odds, just so rememberable.

Jupiter/Pluto: importance on self image, Beyoncé- upgrade you, relating to others though music, greed, great investors, a need to be in first place, critical of themselves and others, perfectionism, requiring patience, materialistic, condescending, over indulgent, substance abuse, bad mouthing others, attracting leeching personality types, look but don’t touch, a lot of ppl have witnessed your transformations, co dependent, persistent, preferring not to be around the bush, learning when to walk away, big personality, topic of conversation, having to rebuild yourself repeatedly, opposites attract, quick manifestations, repeating yourself a lot, sustainable living, being able to balance many things at once, bringing offerings, community leaders, hard earned respect, learning discernment in friendships, solo travels, mentorship, feeling isolated, knowing how to use what you have, tongue like a sword, guiding the youth, transforming the mundane, unique style, taking the road least traveled, freeing yourself from sorrow, seeing the good in anyone, comforted by your bed, the same thoughts on repeat, warrior spirit, connection to horses.

Asc/Pluto: having your items end up in the lost and found, escapist tendencies, prioritizing relaxation, messy room, starting a new project before finishing the last, ppl misjudging your power, manners, sob stories/lack of accountability, fashionable, stand out in crowds, unique style, noticing the little details, valuing peace keeping, don’t mind switching things up and experimenting, self employed, viewed as lucky, ppl keeps tabs on you, being at the crossroads, rumors about your body/hygiene, protecters of their family, collecting antiques, building from scratch, learning to stay the course, loves celebrations.

Chiron/Pluto: learning only when the pain has gotten so bad, feeling like your always falling short even when you have what you perceived to want, intense feelings and relationships, what’s done in the dark coming to light, dismissive, ppl indulging in your hardships, helping others through your struggle, leading by example, survivors, learning boundaries, developing antonymy, life starting one way and ending up much differently.

[lokischocolatefountain]

at last, my love has come along

Fandom: Gladiator II Pairing: General Acacius x Wife!Reader Rating: PG13 Word count: 2.9k words Summary: After the end of a loveless marriage, your father finds a match for you in General Acacius. Warnings: age gap, arranged marriage, mentions of maternal and infant mortality, widowed reader, widowed Acacius, past neglect, virgin!reader. A/N: Marcus Acacius has me in a chokehold and he knows I like it. This is a second look at the characters from home in three days, do not wash but happens earlier. You can read them in whatever order you wish. Title stolen from Etta James' At Last.

“What is he like? The Dominus?” 

“He is very kind,” said one of the girls who worked on your toga. You nodded, the pearls in your earrings brushing against your skin and making the hairs on your body stand upright. 

“What of my hair?” 

“What of it, Domina?” 

“The sun has already set. You said the Dominus will be home soon,” you said, fidgeting with the silk fabric that your sisters had presented you with before you began your travel from your village to the city. Something that would help you fit in better with the fashionable ladies and not make your husband, the General, look bad in society’s eyes. 

It was not for lack of wealth that you did not own many luxurious fabrics. Only that such things did not reach your village easily and your father, despite his place in the Senate, never brought the right things home. Not for a lack of love for you and your siblings but a lack of taste in women’s clothing and jewelry. 

You thought as a young girl of only fourteen that your husband, the first one, would bring you the soft silks and lustrous gold unlike your father. But he did not even bring himself home. You had been married off through letters exchanged between him and your father. It took two of living in his mansion and raising his two children from his last marriage before he finally came home. And when he did, he did not act as a husband should. Not how your older sisters told you he ought to be. 

When Consus passed, you mourned not as a wife but as a friend. 

“The dominus prefers unbraided hair,” the girl standing behind you said. You nodded, registering the information in your heart. You wanted to know all that there was to know about him before he even arrived. Perhaps then you would be pleasing enough to have a fate different from your last marriage. 

It had been all but a year since you were widowed that your father brought you news that you would be wed to a General who lived in the capital. There was no wedding for you even this once. A repeat of your last fate. You had resigned to never knowing your husband when you reached his grand home and spent your night with servants rather than his bed. 

How foolish you were to hope. 

But the situation changed for the better quite suddenly when you received word that General Acacius was returning from his travel soon. You expected that the news would calm your nerves but it somehow achieved the opposite. Fear. 

When the girls were happy with how they had decorated you for your husband’s eyes, they led you to his chambers. They left you there alone to stew in your anxieties about how the night would fare. The quiet of the night did not help matters. All that filled the space was the tides of the sea and the occasional clinking of your bangles as you fidgeted with your dress. 

It was all you yearned for in your last marriage, a night of intimacy as a husband and wife should. But now that you were at the precipice of getting what you wanted, dread filled your chest. You’d heard from your older sisters and servants what it was like to lay with a man. From their stories, it did not seem enjoyable. Not for women. It was only something to bear for the sake of having children. And all you wanted was to have children. 

You loved Consus’ children of course. They were all you had in the lonely life you led with him. But they were taken from you soon, married off or sent to battle in many campaigns. And you wanted your own children. Have what your brothers and sisters had. Hold your newborns in your arms and raise them from their first breaths rather than from the middle of their childhood. 

In your fantasizing of motherhood, you had completely forgotten that you had to be bed by your husband to become a mother. You had forgotten your sisters describe how painful it would be the first time a man took you. If one’s husband was a barbarian with a big cock, it would hurt each time although not as much as the first. A servant girl told you that she had the luxury of a kind husband who would not touch her if she said she was feeling unwell. But there were also husbands who would beat their women for refusing to perform their marital duties when asked. 

Your thoughts grew louder and louder in your head until you couldn’t hear the ocean anymore. And you most certainly did not hear when the doors opened and your husband entered. When you perceived his presence, he was already sat by you. When he spoke your name, your heart nearly jolted out of your chest. 

He laughed softly and looked you over with a smile on his plush lips. The candle lights illuminated his golden skin and the strands of gray that interspersed his dark hair. The candle on his other side shone bright to highlight his silhouette, his aquiline nose standing bold, characteristic of a valorous man. The sight had you transfixed and you wondered if his godlike visage aided him in battle. If it distracted his enemies long enough for him to slay them. 

He reached his hand out to yours, brought it up from your lap and placed a kiss on your fingers. He looked up at you from your fingers, his brown eyes drawing you in like Cupido himself was pulling your strings like a marionette. 

“I have kept you waiting for long.” 

Not as long as Consus did. But you kept the comment to yourself. You’d never come close to a marital bed but something told you that men did not want to hear about a woman’s previous husband. 

You spoke for the first time in his presence. “You are an important man. I understand.” 

He smiled, dropping your hand to the space between you but not leaving it. His hand was rough from battle yet gentle in touch. It enveloped yours, exuding a soft dominance like the rest of him did. He was quite large and you winced internally, hoping that it did not translate to his size elsewhere. Did your sisters ever tell you about the relationship between the size of his man and his manhood? You couldn’t quite remember. 

��Have the servants made the home comfortable for you? It has been quite a while since this home had a domina.” 

You nodded and licked your lips, wishing you could run out to fetch some water for your drying mouth. “It is comfortable. And very beautiful. I have never seen the ocean before.” 

“There is nothing like the peace the sound of the waves brings. Nothing like the cool breeze at night and relaxing on the balcony to indulge in the stunning blue expanse.” 

“The sight of the ocean when the sun sets is truly incomparable. I spent many evenings mesmerized by it.” 

Like magic, the pressure in your lower belly disappeared. You spoke about the beauty of Rome and indulging in it. He put you at ease, drawing smiles out of you, each one wider than the last. But you had a way of finding something to torture yourself over. As you exchanged details about your past, you blurted the question out. 

“Am I to your liking?” 

“You are beautiful. Worthy of the praises your father sings of his younger daughter in the senate. And at banquets. The bathhouses and libraries and markets. Rome does not know your name but she knows you.” 

“I…” you swallowed, relieved that he found you beautiful but afraid for everything else to come. You were inexperienced but even you knew that beautiful faces were not enough to be an adequate wife. It was not adequate for Consus and you did not want a repetition of that with the General. “I do not know what you require in a wife. But I will learn. I have kept my hair out of braids. I learned that you prefer it that way. I will learn everything else too.” 

Please allow me to learn. Do not discard me for my inadequacies before I have the opportunity to prove myself. 

“Your father also described you as dutiful. I see he was right.” 

“Stand up,” he said and took your hand once again, guiding you to stand in front of him. “Undress. Let me see you.” 

He leaned towards the headboard of the bed, relaxing with his arm draped over it as he looked at you. You felt your heart thud like a galloping horse on the battlefield. Like a good soldier would, you persisted into your own battle and undid the ties and clasps that kept your clothes in place. He sat back, exuding power with his broad shoulders, wide chests and thick thighs spread apart. 

Something about the situation made you feel like cattle in the market being evaluated by customers. Did the cows feel the way you did? Did they wonder as they were purchased if they would be slaughtered for meat or kept to be bred and milked? At least they had the peace of mind knowing that the man who bought them was satisfied with his purchase. 

The General hadn’t seen you before he took you for a wife. 

Silk pooled around your legs and the cold breeze he’d waxed poetic about caressed your skin. The cold and the shame of being bare in front of a man persuaded you to cross your arms over your chest. You kept your eyes on the ground, focusing on his feet and yours being so close together. 

You jumped when his hand grazed your elbow but refused to look at him for fear of what you would find. Disappointment? Disgust? Anger? You could not fathom which would be the worse outcome. 

“Do not hide from your husband,” he said, gently prying your arms apart. Arms by your side, you dug your fingernails into your palm to keep from covering yourself again. Consus never laid a hand on you— never bedded you, never hit you. The General had been sweet so far, but you did not know who he was and what he did when angered. 

He held your hip and caressed your soft skin with his calloused hand. You inhaled sharply, overwhelmed by the proximity of his hand to your core. You pressed your thighs together, your feminine demureness anxious to keep your most intimate parts hidden from men’s eyes. 

“Turn around. Slowly,” he said, guiding you by your hips. As soon as you faced away from him, you brought your hands back up to cover your breasts. He did not seem to notice as his hand trailed down to your rear and grabbed your flesh in both hands. You whimpered, feeling somehow more exposed though you had not become more naked.

“Beautiful…” he hummed as he rotated you to face him once again. You dropped your arms to your sides as though you had touched a hot pot, his instruction ringing in your ear. 

“And obedient… I could not have chosen better. Now show me what you can do, girl.” It was enough for you to finally look up at him. There were none of the expressions you feared you would see. He looked quite relaxed and you were afraid you would ruin that with your ignorance of what you were to show him. 

“I will do anything you ask,” you answer meekly, hoping he would tell you exactly what he wanted you to do. Hoping he would instruct you every step of the way. 

“Show me how you will serve me.” 

You swallowed, thinking through every bit of information your sisters and servants had given on pleasing a man. It all came down to obedience, to lying down and taking what your husband gave you. Were you supposed to do something else? 

“P-please,” you whispered, the world distorted as it spilled from your trembling lips. “Show me what I should do.” 

He stood up, startling you and forcing you to take a step back. He placed a hand on your lower back and caressed gently like you did a litter of feral kittens when you were a girl. 

He placed a finger under your chin and nudged you to look up at him. “Nothing you should do, beautiful girl. I only want what you want to do.” 

“I have never…” you trailed, shaking your head in denial. “I am still chaste,” you blurted out. He froze in place, deep brown eyes boring into you.

“Your father said you were a devoted mother.” 

“To Consus’ children. Borne by his first and second wives. After his second wife died in childbirth, he— I raised the children.” 

“You do not want children of your own?” 

“I do!” You exclaimed quickly, afraid this life would be taken from you once again. You kept silent throughout your marriage and you couldn’t do that again. Not if it meant your womb staying barren. “I do. Consus, he— both his wives before me died in childbirth and the children— he did not want them to lose another mother. So he never touched me. I am chaste.” 

“Your father did not tell me.” 

“I did not tell him. Consus wrote to my family that I lost pregnancies. Had my father known that he was— that we did not live as a married man and woman— he would have had me divorce him. Consus did not want that for the children and I could not tell my family the truth until he passed. Please… If my father believed I could not bear children, he would not have arranged for our marriage.” 

You naively believed your father would have informed the General of your predicament. Giving one’s daughter to a man when you believed her barren was no small slight. Your felt as though a stone had lodged itself in your throat. You had just doomed yourself and your father. He could march up to the senate come sunrise. Humiliate your father. Take his sword to his neck. All because you were too foolish to know how to please a man. 

“What of you?”

“What of me?” You asked, confused. He took your hands in his and guided you to sit on the bed. He joined beside you.

“Why did you remain loyal to such a loathsome man? One who besmirched you to your family rather than admit to his deficiencies as a man?” 

“I was young and foolish. When I realized that he would never give me children, I… he had already lied enough to my family about my—” you stopped and shook your head. There was no need to speak ill of the dead man. No need to remind yourself how your barrenness made you the laughing stock of the village. “I resigned myself to the fate the gods had chosen for me. And I grew to love his children as my own.”

“I want more children. I ha— all my sons are dead, a few daughters too.” 

You nodded, your chest clenching from the pained look in his eyes. It was universal. Almost everyone who’d had children had lost children. But the pain never subsided. You’d seen it in your sisters, noble women of the highest ranking, in servants and slaves. The first time in a General.

“I want to have children.” 

He smiled and nodded before picking up your linen stola from the ground and wrapping it around you. He cupped your cheek, his hand engulfing the entirety of your face. He tilted his head, a soft sigh escaping his lips as his eyes bore into yours.

You leaned closer to him, praying you remembered how to kiss from the few times with a servant girl when you were only thirteen. Anticipation and anxiety had your heart racing together. When he finally touched his lips to yours, he quietened every anxiety, leaving only excitement behind. You placed a hand on his armor, the hardness of the metal underneath the leather contrasting the softness of his lips. Your other hand moved of its own accord, finding the nape of his neck. His soft curls tickled your fingers and he sighed into the kiss. 

He traced your lips with the tip of his tongue and you opened up, welcoming him. A sense of calm settled in you as you explored each other. In his arms, you found safety for the first time since your arrival. His lips coaxed you to the gates of heaven and you followed as you imagined soldiers followed your General into war. With some fear of the uncharted territory yet brave because they trusted his leadership.

When you pulled away from each other, something felt changed. He no longer felt like a stranger. Something in his eyes, an openness inviting you into his life. 

The ravages of war and time were evident in his features. A scar on the bridge of his nose perhaps from a time he came too close to his own end. His skin was spotted with marks from the sun. His eyes were soft not from the naïveté of youth but from seeing the harsh world. His golden skin peeked from under his beard decorated with a few grey flecks. You caressed a patch of skin where his beard did not grow. 

Not an hour had passed since you met him but in his embrace, glancing into his eyes, you knew life would be peaceful.

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[mephisto-reporting]

Hidden in Plain Sight: Xavier

Premise: You were a Lemurian, hidden in plain sight. It was never a probelm.. until you started dating Xavier. With Ebb Day approaching, would you be able to hide it from him? Based on this request. Pairing: Lemurian! Reader x Xavier Note: Reader and Xavier are dating. Let me know if you want to be a part of my taglist.

The first time you met Xavier, he was asleep. Just lying there, tucked into himself like the world had nothing to do with him, breathing slow and deep as if he had all the time in the universe. You had nearly walked past him, assuming he was just some drifter seeking rest. But when his eyes fluttered open—serene, unreadable, and just a little too knowing and then you felt something shift.

You hadn’t realized then how much those moments would mean to you.

Xavier, with his quiet presence, had slipped into your life like water filling the cracks between stones. He wasn't expressive in the way most humans were, but you learned to read him in other ways. The way his fingers would tap against his knee when he was thinking. The slight tilt of his head when you said something that amused him, the way his lips would quirk up when he teased you.

He could be so endearing in ways that left you breathless, and then frustrating in ways that made you want to shove him. Like when he let himself doze off during Kitty Cards, giving you the perfect opportunity to cheat—not that you ever would. Or when he gave you the choice to go first at the claw machine, watching you struggle with an intensity that was almost unnerving before effortlessly plucking out a prize with an ease that made you groan.

"You looked like you were having fun." he’d say with the barest flicker of mischief in his eyes.

You loved these things about him.

And yet, for all the time you had spent together, for all the things he had come to know about you—he didn't know everything.

Not about the tail you kept hidden. Not about the faint, iridescent scales that shimmered beneath your skin. Not about your eyes that burned too brightly if you let loose.

Because you weren’t human.

You had lived among them long enough that it was easy to forget. You had learned their mannerisms, spoken their language, adapted. But some things never truly went away. The memories of what had happened to your kind—the stories whispered in hushed voices about Lemurians who had been taken, kept as pets, their freedom stolen the moment the seas had begun to recede.

You had no idea how Xavier would react.

Moreover, you were scared that these distinct Lemurian features would be less than appealing to him. You had been insecure about them all your life. Why could you not just be human? Why be ‘blessed’ with these features? You had asked these questions ever since you learned of your heritage.

The fever came in waves, each one worse than the last.

Your body ached, limbs trembling as cold sweat clung to your skin. The sheets beneath you were damp, tangled around your restless form as you tossed and turned. Your head felt like it was underwater—sounds were distant and muffled, light blurred at the edges of your vision. The glowing patterns along your arms flickered weakly, no longer hidden beneath your usual disguise. You were slipping.

You knew this would happen.

It was Ebb Day.

The day the tides receded so far they exposed the ocean’s hidden skeleton, when the land remembered the sea and the sea remembered its people. A day of human celebration—festivals, fireworks, lanterns drifting in the dusk sky. And for Lemurians like you, it was the weakest, most vulnerable time of the year.

You had lived among humans for so long, buried your Lemurian blood so deep, that you almost believed you belonged among them. Almost.

But here, now, in the sweltering heat of your fever, reality crashed over you like a wave. The truth of what you were—of what you had hidden, burned through you with every aching breath.

The soft fins along your arms trembled as chills wracked your body. Your eyes, usually dulled for the sake of blending in, pulsed faintly with their unnatural glow.

It was Ebb Day. And Xavier had wanted to spend it with you.

The way he had asked—softly, earnestly, looking at you like you were the only thing that mattered—made your chest ache with guilt. You had said yes before you could stop yourself.

Lemurians were at their weakest during Ebb Day. When the tides pulled away, so did the strength in your limbs. Fever. Chills. A gnawing, unbearable exhaustion. You had known it was coming, and yet the moment you felt the first waves of heat rolling through your body, you cursed your own weakness.

When you called Xavier to tell him you were sick, his reaction was everything you expected—calm, understanding, not even a hint of disappointment in his voice.

You didn’t know how he would react if he found out. You didn’t know if his care for you would falter if he saw you like this—if he knew what you were.

You had heard the stories. When the sea dried up, when the Lemurians lost their sanctuary, they were no longer seen as people. They were pets, slaves, exotic things to be admired and owned. And even now, even after centuries, whispers of those days remained.

Would Xavier see you that way, too?

A fresh wave of fever rolled over you, and you whimpered, curling in on yourself. The room was too hot. No—too cold. You couldn’t tell anymore. The world swayed around you, everything tilting in and out of focus. Your fingers trembled as you ran them over your arms, feeling the faint ridges of scales pushing through too-sensitive skin. You were changing, slipping, losing control—

A noise.

Soft. Barely there. But enough.

Footsteps. The faintest creak of your door.

"You're burning up, aren’t you?."

Xavier’s voice.

It should have been comforting. Instead, it sent ice through your veins.

You forced your eyes open. Your vision swam, a hazy blur of heat and dizziness, but you could see him. Standing there, his brows slightly furrowed, the usual neutrality in his face edged with something sharper. Concern.

Your body went rigid.

No.

No, no, no.

Xavier was here.

A surge of panic cut through the weakness in your limbs. You tried to move, tried to pull the blankets higher, to hide yourself, but your body refused to cooperate. Your strength had long since abandoned you.

And then there was warmth.

A hand against your forehead, cool against the burning of your skin. You flinched, but Xavier didn’t pull away. His touch was steady, grounding.

"Why didn’t you tell me you were this sick?"

Your throat felt raw. Your head spun. You wanted to answer, to explain, but the words tangled in your mouth, too heavy to speak.

His gaze flickered downward, and instinctively, you followed his line of sight—

You clenched your eyes shut. Maybe if you didn’t look at him, if you pretended hard enough, he wouldn’t see.

But then…

“You’re glowing.”

Your stomach dropped.

His fingers brushed over your cheek, slow, unhurried. Not startled. Not repulsed. Just tracing the faint luminescence that had broken free from your control. You didn’t dare open your eyes.

“I—” Your voice cracked. You swallowed against the tightness in your throat, but the words wouldn’t come.

Xavier exhaled softly. The bed dipped as he sat beside you.

“You should have told me,” he said, voice even but quiet. "You're a Lemurian." It wasn't a question but more of an observation.

Shame coiled deep in your chest.

“I couldn’t.”

A pause. The warmth of his hand never left your skin.

“…Why?”

Because you were afraid. Because you didn’t want to see the shift in his expression, the hesitation, the unease. Because you wanted to keep this—this strange, wonderful thing between you, the way he let you see the softer edges of himself, the way he looked at you like you were something worth protecting.

Because you didn’t want to lose him.

Your fingers clenched weakly in the sheets. “Lemurians… aren’t safe among humans. I was… scared.”

A moment of silence. Then—

“You don’t think you’re safe with me?”

Your breath hitched.

You opened your eyes then, just barely. The dim light of your room flickered, casting soft shadows over Xavier’s face. His gaze met yours—steady, unreadable, but impossibly gentle.

And there it was.

No fear. No disgust. No cold detachment.

Just Xavier. Just the boy who fell asleep in ridiculous places, the boy who let you win at Kitty Cards, the boy who would throw himself between you and danger without hesitation.

And maybe it was the fever, maybe it was the exhaustion, but something inside you cracked.

A choked sound left you—half a laugh, half a sob.

“Xavier,” you whispered. “You… you’re ridiculous.”

His hand moved before you could react. Slow, deliberate, pressing against the space just above your wrist, where the scales were faintest. His thumb brushed over them, testing, as if he were memorizing the texture.

"You could have told me," he said, voice as steady as ever. But there was something else there now, something you couldn’t place.

"I was scared." you admitted, barely a whisper.

He didn't answer immediately. Instead, his fingers curled around your wrist, his touch firm, grounding.

"You don't have to be," he murmured. Then, softer, almost teasing, "And here I thought I was the one keeping secrets."

You blinked at him, your thoughts fuzzy as the fever swirled inside your head. "Secrets?" you managed to rasp, your voice barely a whisper. The words felt heavy, like you were trying to carry something too much for you in this state. "What secrets, Xavier?"

He looked at you, his expression still unreadable, but there was an odd tenderness in his gaze. His fingers curled around your wrist, as if grounding both you and himself in this shared moment. He hesitated, his lips pressing together in a thin line, before he spoke again, quieter this time.

"I’ll tell you everything when you're feeling better," he murmured. "But for now... you just need to rest. Listen to your body."

You nodded weakly, your exhaustion making your eyelids heavy. Yet, there was a flutter of anxiety in your chest—something tight, something uncertain. You swallowed hard, the words escaping before you could stop them.

"I was... worried. About my fins... my scales... my eyes." You stammered, the fear bubbling to the surface despite your best efforts to keep it hidden. "I thought it would... freak you out."

Xavier’s hand paused. He didn’t pull away. Instead, his thumb stroked gently over the skin of your wrist, the sensation grounding in a way that calmed the storm of your thoughts. His gaze softened, and he leaned closer to you, the coolness of his breath a slight contrast to the burning fever that gripped you.

“Shhh…" he murmured, a comforting sound. "None of that. None of it would ever freak me out." His voice was soft but firm, a reassurance in the midst of your fear.

He pressed a finger to your lips before you could protest further. "You’re beautiful. Ethereal, even. A person like you," he hesitated for a moment, searching your face as if trying to hold you in a gaze that would keep the words safe, "would never, ever be something to be afraid of. You are perfect as you are."

You inhaled sharply, the words too gentle, too much for you to process in your state. Your heart fluttered—faint and weak, like the softest ripple of water—but it was there, beating, and somehow calming.

Xavier continued, his voice a low murmur as he reached out again. His touch was soft, as if he were afraid to break you, his fingers moving gently along the soft curve of your wrist before moving to tuck a strand of hair behind your ear.

"Whenever you feel comfortable... I’d like to see the real you," he said, a playful note creeping into his voice despite the situation. "Maybe... maybe I could see your tail, too?" He paused, his lips quirking slightly. "I have no doubt it would take my breath away."

The words left you breathless, but in a way that made you feel lighter. The tension that had wound itself tightly in your chest began to ease, your breath coming in slower, steadier gasps. You let out a shuddered breath, unable to stop the faint, tired smile that tugged at the corners of your lips. Your head sank deeper into the pillow, the heat of the fever still present but suddenly more bearable.

"Thank you," you whispered, the words barely audible, but you meant them more than anything. "For... not being afraid."

Then, to your utter disbelief, he shifted, moving carefully until he was lying beside you, propped on one arm. His fingers brushed through your damp hair, slow and deliberate. The warmth of him, the steadiness, sent a shiver through you.

“Sleep,” he murmured. “I’ll stay.”

Your chest ached. “You don’t have to—”

He flicked your forehead lightly, the gesture so normal, so achingly fond, that your throat tightened.

Xavier smiled—small, barely there, but real.

“I’ll stay,” he said, settling more comfortably beside you. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily.”

You blinked sluggishly up at him, fevered and drained but impossibly, inexplicably safe.

His fingers ghosted over your hand before he spoke again, voice softer now, fond.

“Rest now, seashell.”

The steady thrum of his presence was everything, and you closed your eyes with a sense of peace you hadn’t realized you’d been yearning for. For now, you didn’t have to hide. And that, more than anything, was what gave you the strength to close your eyes and let yourself finally rest.

AN: reblogs, feedback and opinions are appreciated!

Taglist: @cordidy, @natimiles @leighsartworks216 @notisekais @raining4food @fallthelong @pomegranatepip @juliuscaesarsstabbedback @krystallevine @lemurianmaster @nenggie @loverindeepspace @sinsodom @m00nchildwrites

[eternalguk]

Checked Out | jjk. (M) — teaser

Your touch blurred my vision, it’s your world and I’m just in it

�� Pairing : Jungkook x Reader

↠ Summary : When your best friend asks you to cover her shift at the campus library, you reluctantly agree, figuring it’ll be a quiet night of reshelving books and dodging overdue fees. What you don’t expect is Jeon Jungkook, the star of your shared lectures and the subject of your most distracted daydreams, walking in with a cocky smile and a book to return. Flirty banter turns into suggestive glances, and when Jungkook offers to help you “restock” in the back storeroom, the air grows thick with more than just dust. Alone, pressed between shelves of forgotten novels, you realise some things are worth being overdue for. After all, who needs silence in the library when the tension is this loud?

↠ Genre : pwp, university au, fluff, smut, mutuals (?) to lovers

↠ Word count : tbc.

↠ Warnings : explicit sexual content (more detail will be provided when the fic is released!)

↠ A/n : Hi there ; as promised, here’s a little oneshot featuring the man who drives me absolutely insane (and I know I’m not alone in that)! I promised an anon I’d share this before dropping chapter two of my new series, so here’s a teaser to tide you over! Expect plenty of tension, stolen glances, and maybe a little trouble in the backroom. The full story will be out next weekend, so let me know if you’d like to be tagged - I’d love to hear what you think 🦢!

“I was just thinking…” Jungkook leans against the counter again, his eyes never leaving yours. “You might need some help after all.” His voice is a low, but the hint of amusement cannot be hidden. “Can’t leave you stuck here all night, can I?”

You open your mouth to protest, but the words die in your throat when he steps closer, the heat of Jungkook’s body radiating through the air between you.

“I-”you begin, but your voice falters as he reached across the counter, brushing a stray lock of hair from your face. Jungkook’s touch is featherlight, but it is strong enough t send a ripple of warmth down your spine. “What are you doing here?”

“Helping,” he says simply, his voice dropping yet another octave. There was no mistaking the intention in his eyes now, the way they darkened with something more primal, more intense. “I’m good at helping. You should know that by now.”

Your heart pounds as Jungkook’s fingers slide along the edge of the desk, closer to where you are standing. His body is a mere inch away, and you can feel the pulse of his presence, his scent mixing with the dusty air.

You are acutely aware of the space between you shrinking, the tension building with each step the handsome man takes.

“You should really get back to work,” you mutter, but it is more out of instinct than actual desire to stop him.

Jungkook’s proximity is suffocating in the best way, and all the rational thoughts in your mind are crumbling under the weight of how badly you want him.

How badly you need him.

Jungkook chuckles, a soft sound that makes something in your chest tighten. “You’re still pretending this is about work?”

His hand finds its way to the back of your neck, his thumb stroking gently over the sensitive skin there.

You inhale sharply, your pulse racing.

“No, I’m-” The words are lost as Jungkook leans in, lips brushing against your ear.

“Good,” he whispers, his breath hot against your skin. “Because I’ve been thinking about you ever since I saw you across the lecture theatre.”

Your breath hitches, and you turned your head just enough for your lips to brush his jaw.

The heat between you is electric, palpable. It is more than just words or flirty exchanges now - it is the space you’d been unwilling to acknowledge. The space that is now pulling you in with irresistible force.

Here it is! Do let me know if you want to be tagged :)

[dreamdragonkadia]

I like naps with Percy, that might be my one personality trait now. p.jackson x reader

It happened again.

You weren’t even surprised at this point.

No matter how many times you told yourself you’d sleep in your own cabin, maybe curl up under a tree, or even find a spot by the lake, you always, always ended up right back here—buried in soft sheets that still carried his warmth, wrapped in the scent of sea salt and summer storms.

Poseidon hadn’t banned you from Cabin Three yet, which was nothing short of divine intervention. You were convinced the god had to know by now, had to have looked down at least once to find you curled up in his son’s bed like you belonged there. Maybe he was entertained. Maybe he didn’t care. Or maybe he had bigger problems to deal with than his son’s significant other making themselves at home in his temple of a cabin.

It was so easy to drift here. The sound of waves just outside, the distant echo of water lapping against the shore, the rhythmic push and pull of the tide—it all wrapped around you, lulling you into that perfect state of almost-asleep, where reality blurred at the edges and you felt like you could float away.

You’d already woken up twice.

Both times, you had every intention of actually getting out of bed. You’d even made it as far as pushing the blankets down, wiggling your toes, thinking about what you were going to do next. But then the pull of sleep had dragged you back under, his scent wrapping around you like a tide dragging you out to sea.

Maybe just five more minutes.

You weren’t asleep—not really. But you weren’t awake either. You hovered in that in-between, listening to the distant chatter of camp outside, the occasional singing of birds, the calls of demigods training. You wondered, vaguely, if you should be doing something right now.

Then came the softest chuckle.

You stirred, blinking blearily, and those damn sea-green eyes were the first thing you saw.

Percy was perched on the edge of the bed, elbows resting on his knees, watching you with that lopsided grin that made your heart do annoying things inside your chest. His hair was slightly damp, the ends curling slightly, like he’d just finished sparring or maybe finished up with a shower.

"Hi, Handsome," you murmured, your voice still thick with sleep.

"Hi, Beautiful," he said, voice soft as the tide rolling in.

He leaned over and pressed a kiss against your lips—once, then again, then a third time, slow and unhurried, like he had all the time in the world. You could’ve stayed here forever, tangled up in him, the rest of the camp forgotten.

Your arms found their way around his neck without thinking, fingers threading through his hair, and he melted against you, his body warm and solid against yours. Not in the urgent, breathless way of stolen moments, but in something soft, something constant. His body pressed against you in a way that made you feel grounded, like an anchor.

He sighed against your skin, his head resting against your shoulder, the tips of his hair tickling your collarbone. "I swear," he muttered, "I’m just gonna start checking my cabin first whenever I’m looking for you."

You laughed, eyes fluttering shut again. "Smart choice, Seaweed Brain."

He huffed against your neck. "I knew you were gonna say that."

"You always know what I’m gonna say," you murmured, fingers lazily tracing the shape of his shoulder. "It’s, like, your one personality trait."

"Excuse me," he scoffed, pulling back just enough to look at you, feigning offense. "I have plenty of personality traits, thank you very much."

"Uh-huh," you teased, eyes twinkling. "Like sleeping, eating, and almost dying every other week?"

"Wow. Okay. Rude."

His fingers found your sides, pressing in just enough to make you squirm, and you yelped, trying to twist away as laughter bubbled up in your throat. "Percy—no, don’t you dare—"

"Shouldn’t have insulted my personality," he teased, grinning as he easily pinned you down, trapping you beneath him.

You pouted up at him, breathless from laughter. "I like your personality."

"Yeah?" He arched a brow.

You hummed, brushing your nose against his. "Mhm. Even when you’re being an absolute menace."

His grin softened into something more affectionate, something quieter. He dipped his head down, capturing your lips in another kiss—slower this time, lingering, like he was memorizing the feeling of you beneath him. When he finally pulled away, his lips barely ghosting over yours, he murmured, "Guess I can live with that."

You sighed dramatically, stretching beneath him, making no attempt to actually move. "Good, ‘cause I’m not going anywhere."

Percy chuckled, shaking his head as he shifted, settling against you like it was the easiest thing in the world. His arm draped lazily over your waist, pulling you closer as he nestled his head against your chest.

"Yeah, me neither," he mumbled.

He pressed a soft kiss to the side of your neck, warm breath fanning over your skin, and just like that, he stilled. No more teasing, no more witty remarks—just the two of you wrapped up in each other, breathing in sync with the distant lull of the waves outside.

And so you stayed, the rest of the world forgotten.

[resentful-reads]

“Is there a limit to how much good one should do?”

~ Once Stolen by D.N. Bryn

[drgnflyteabox]

red ochre [4]

series masterlist previous || part four -> orchil || part five -> kermes

> summary: double-edged swords, field trips, and wolf figurines > tags/warnings: religious & sexual guilt / shame, stockholm syndrome, inner turmoil, suicidal thoughts (minor), violent thoughts, oral (f), dubcon/noncon, stockholm syndrome, reader says "stop" / "no" but johnny continues, reader has some puritanical ideas about sex (virtue, virginity) but shes a nun so give her a break, power imbalance, thoughts of death/afterlife, self hatred, "little" used affectionately not as a size indicator lol

You wake up to the sound of a childs’ babbles the next morning, disoriented and confused - had sister Margery taken in another orphan girl to raise up in the convent? The softness of the bed beneath you betrays your confusion, rocking you slowly into reality as you blearily open your eyes.

Johnny sits at the table, cooing to a baby on his knee. He bounces them as they make sounds, soft happy ones that contrast with his muscles and scars and hair. In your observation of him you think about how a man so coarse-looking could be so soft to lay against, how he could go from sweet to firmer than stone in a moment. How his hands held you down not two days past, and soothed the skin that still ached as you shifted in bed now.

A conflicted series of emotions had risen in you since, and though something had calmed inside you, the primary tide was a pervasive sense of shame and it tended to overpower everything else.

“Who's that?” Johnny says, his voice high-pitched. “Is that my wife?”

He's cooing to the child, but still you burn and twist with too many things to dwell on lest you go mad.

Simon is nowhere to be found, but that's not been unusual in these winter mornings.

“Who's this?” You murmur, sitting up. Your woolen shift is warm, a soft red colour dyed by one of the village women that Johnny told you he'd traded for specially. Red ochre, he’d said, fingering the cloth. A beautiful muted red kind of colour.

A little like dried blood.

“Gaz's bairn,” Johnny says. “His house is gettin’ invaded by some rowdy boys, and the lasses’ are at the river.” 

He must see the confusion on your face, because he adds, “boys are gettin’ ready for a hunting party.”

The baby shrieks, clapping clumsily as Johnny lifts a carved wooden toy up to them. He crinkles his eyes, looking between you and the baby. You want to discourage whatever thoughts he's having, so you stand and move to the fire, away from his wandering blues.

“Should I make something?” You don't dare look at him.

“So sweet of ye,” Johnny hums. “The baby eats eggs.”

You nod.

As you steadily become more awake, thoughts begin to cloud your mind.

Guilt is strange; it spreads like a plague, tainting anything you've decided to take some control of. Cooking, chores, talking cautiously with the men or allowing your heart to soften. The poison has grown from your first peak, spreading outward from your core and into your mind, leaving you worse off.

Simon hadn't done anything else, nor had Johnny. You'd cooked them lunch and breakfast, asked for sewing equipment for mending and receiving it promptly after. From Gaz's woman, Johnny had said. She says hello. Any contact outside of Johnny or Simon hadn't once crossed your mind, especially not since having sat on Simon's lap at the feast like a prize.

But you were a prize, a stolen woman, taken to wife. However you spun the narrative it was hard to get past that fact and harder still to get past that it might fulfill something inside you that nothing else could or could've. That perhaps you were tainted, and the taking had been because they saw it in you somehow. Sniffed the false servant of God as you worked, not anything by coincidence but guided by some instinct that told them you were just as bad.

Your little book, the one you missed dearly, the one piece of physical evidence that damned you. 

Though God had never spoken to you back, you'd imagined in the convent that when you passed he'd simply show you the blasphemous, lustful evidence of your filthy mind and send you to burn.

Now you knew that He wouldn't have to do that. You'd simply burn without any chance, damned worse now by your treacherous cunt.

“-nun? Where's my little nun gone?” You turn, startled. The eggs are crisp, and darkening by the second.

You hurry to pull them out of the hot fat as Johnny watches you, still cooing and bouncing. 

“Sorry,” you slide him a nearly burnt egg. “Can the baby still eat them?”

 “Should be fine,” he tears the egg with his fingers, offering tiny pieces.

It's hard, but not too tough or burnt. Just browned, fried and crispy. You wonder if this could count as a sin, how nearly wasting food would weigh against coming on the fingers of a viking heathen.

The hopelessness gets you sometimes, gets you as you try to sleep and in moments like these. What option do you have? Adapt, or what? Sure, it's probably better to take advantage of their lack of extreme violence and make your predicament as best as possible, especially without an escape route and without the strength to fight them. 

You feel watched, judged, observed on all sides. Giving in and navigating how to be a viking wife might be better than resisting forever, but the unseen eye of divine judgement and its gaze rests heavily on you. In fact, it's like it seeps into you through your skin and connects with the shame to compound both feelings.

“There she goes again,” Johnny says, but you hear him this time.

“I'm here,” you say. The baby smacks their lips, enjoying the egg despite its texture.

“No ye aren't,” his blue eyes are piercing, cutting through the fog of unease. “Ye getting all worked up again? I better not catch ye out back again.”

You shake your head, though he's right to think that way. Cleansing yourself has been on the back of your mind, not only the holy kind but what they can bring you with a different kind of force. 

There's the sprout of desire that's grown bigger and bigger, as if some dry seed had always resided inside you and they had watered it back to life.

“I'm not,” you finally say, though too much time has passed and it's clear Johnny doesn't believe you.

The door opens and you're saved by the interruption. A new anxiety forms as multiple people enter, curling suddenly like a hook. Simon, Gaz, Gaz's wife and Price step in.

“Tyra,” Gaz says. “Where's my little Tyra?”

The baby shrieks again, reaching her hands out. You see the resemblance to both Gaz and her mother now, seeing them up close again. She claps for Gaz, her mother behind him and smiling at you gently.

“How are ye, Kari?” 

“I'm well, thank you,” Kari says. She's always so soft, so glowy every time you see her. No wonder Gaz has scooped her up, you think you'd have also planted a baby in her belly if you were both able and a viking. Such thoughts sometimes arrested you at random in the convent, admiring the other women and dismissing them as silly. 

You try not to put more weight into them now, as it doesn't serve your predicament. 

But still, you admire Kari. 

“And you?” her eyes soften.

“Well,” you parrot. There’s no way to explain how unwell you really are - or how your well-ness is causing that unwellness. It's confusing enough for you.

“She's settling in,” Simon says. He's trading looks like Price, whose beard is becoming a little overgrown.

Gaz takes Tyra, who babbles happily. For a moment it's like this place isn't all evil and temptation, but also love and care. It's easy to get lost in the image of Gaz and Kari making kissy faces to Tyra, who is unknowing of the world and happy to be in it.

They don't linger long. There are words exchanged that you don't pay attention to, hands clapped and Tyra kissed goodbye. You learn that she's nearly two, still a baby but getting bigger. Price teases the couple about their next as they leave, making Kari laugh a hearty laugh that fills you with warmth.

It evaporates a little when you're left with Simon and Johnny and silence, the atmosphere changing to something unfamiliar. This boundary you'd crossed with them has left you someplace awkward, with you mostly lost in your head.

Simon is good at getting you out of that space, but he's been gone often since the incident and Johnny's intensity tends to push you further inward.

He comes up behind you, now, and sets his heavy hands on your shoulders.

“She been like this all day?” He asks Johnny, who hums affirmatively.

Simon leans down, lips brushing the top of your head, hands squeezing your shoulders, before he pulls you backwards into his torso.

“Your god speaking to ya?” He asks. 

“No,” you say honestly. “He's silent.”

“Silent, eh?” There's a chuckle, then two. They're heathens, you remind yourself. Heathens.

“Lamb, why don't ye spend some time with the wee lady Tyra?” Johnny scoots forward on the bench, touches your knee, smiles.

“Might do you some good,” Simon agrees. “‘specially since we're goin’ on a hunt.”

You pause.

“A hunt?”

Johnny nods. 

“I'll be stayin’ behind,” he says. “Watch our little nun.”

Simon finally sits behind you, hands sliding from your shoulders to the softness of your upper arms, still squeezing.

“It's past time,” Simon says quietly behind you. He explains the yearly hunt, the walrus in the right location, the ivory they will sell and the oil they will gain for use. There's a whisper of something there, maybe longing, maybe not. You can't tell, not with his aloofness. He's closed off as a default, but he rubs your arms like he's comforting you and you decide to take it as such.

There's nothing left for you to say, so you just nod. You're still trying to resist taking on an intimate role, a wifely role, something that will make them think you've given up. You haven't yet, you might not. You have options, even if they're unpleasant or permanent. 

A shiver passes through you. That isn't what you want. You're stuck, but you have to rationalize: it isn't what you thought it would be.

You've felt good. You feel good now. The remaining pain comes from the twisting, growing shame that slowly turns in a circle and ensnares your insides.

That, and the taking. It still feels unfair, feels wrong. If you think on it too hard you start to feel like a thing, not a person.

Johnny seems regretful that night, a mix of pride and love for Simon warring with his need to stay home with you. He sleeps in the middle, leaving you near the wall and opting to join hands with Simon through the night. These moments humanize them to you as well – to your distress, and to your softening. 

They love each other in the way you've seen some of the villagers love each other, in the way that love is universal; it's a little different, because they're different, but it's tender nonetheless. 

Love is luck, you think. Luck enough to find someone to be tender with in a world that is hard to live in, that is so utilitarian, so survival dependent. 

Simon leaves the next morning with a group of hunters. Price leads the pack of them, slapping the backs of some of the younger ones who for them it'll be their first or second winter hunt, encouraging them. It's a mixed group with both men and women, younger and older, seasoned and green. 

You stand beside Johnny at the door, watching the group move through the village until they are gone. Johnny tells you that they’ll ride horses, but they’re further out. Lest we smell the horse shite, he laughs. Got enough on our plate with Si. The joke has a thread of longing in it.

You’ve never been truly alone with either of them, you realize. Sure, a few hours here and there, but never for the days that Simon plans to be gone. Never slept alone with either of them.

Simon has been somewhat of a buffer, even if he’s the one who initiated the incident and carried it out. He balances the infinite well of restlessness Johnny has.

It’s frightening and comforting all at once. For one, you don’t feel like a bug pinned by its wings, even if that means you’re even more anchor-less than before. Simon is solid despite his surliness, and without him to steady the dynamic you worry.

“Ah dinnae know what to make,” Johnny bemoans. He wants to prepare some kind of gift as a surprise. “Already got too many statues.”

“Statues?” you ask, tilting your head towards him.

“Aye,” he nods, moving to a far corner of the house. He produces a little leather pouch, then little carved wooden figurines. One of them is a wolf, the other a bird.

“You made this?” you take one delicately in your hand, as if it would break. Statues, he said. They’re cute, clearly having been made with care.

Turning the wolf in your hand, you admire the polished shine of the wood.

“Aye,” he says again. “Si’s got too many.”

He spends a portion of the day puttering about, stoking the fire, sharpening various tools. You can’t tell if he’s restless because Simon is gone, or if you hadn’t noticed his restless nature as much because Simon was his outlet.

An urge rises in you, that screaming urge you know more intimately than anything else, awakened and restless like a hungry beast – it stirs as Johnny stokes the fire, crouched and with his back to you.

The only way to go if not out is in and you won’t. Push him in, you think. If you want out, push him in. 

But you won't. There’s darkness at the core of you to be sure, but not that kind of darkness. Not the kind both he and Simon are steeped in. Violence, sadism maybe.

That would make you the other side of the coin. 

The same swirling pattern of thoughts plague you even as Johnny serves you fish and more turnip for dinner, even as he pulls you into bed for that night and wraps himself around you.

You want to kick. To scream. To have a fit. Some insane, perverse fit; something that would have earned you an exorcism or an execution in the village. These thoughts come unbidden to you as you try not to feel the grasp of Johnny’s hand to your waist, nor the scruff of his beard on your throat. 

Your identity has shifted, already. You aren't dead inside, not anymore. Not hoping for some outer force to take you away.

An outer force has taken you, and now you wrestle with the ramifications on your spirit.

It's unclean now, surely. But hadn't it always been?

Hadn't you willed this?

Happy faces appear in your mind. Kari. Tyra. Gaz. Price. Johnny. Simon is too hard to read, but the way he treats Johnny is enough to convey some kind of contentment.

And then the look at breakfast. The baby. Johnny’s gentle cooing, his attention. Simon’s hands squeezing you, reassuring you.

They contribute to the degradation of your spirit, to each rend of the glue that has held you together since first consciousness.

You try to hold onto the fear from before. Their words from before – behave and we won’t kill you. Does that still apply? Are you still under an ever present, looming threat? Were they only trying to get you moving? 

Some part of you shudders to realize that it doesn’t feel that way. Even when they had sprung it on you to marry you, you hadn’t felt the same mortal fear as when they had absconded with you. 

No, it had been hurt. Disappointment. The fear had shifted with your identity, staying present but becoming unfamiliar.

The you that they had taken was unfamiliar too. She’d have never built snowmen, nor ground her pussy into the hand of a viking and relaxed into another’s hold as you are now.

You wanted to live, you think. Even then.

A couple days pass. Johnny finally finds a suitable enough gift for Simon, a double edged blade he’s carving and sharpening.

The sight of it makes something tighten in your chest, so you avoid looking at it.

Between you both, it’s less awkward than you worried about. You come to a different understanding of him, one that comes from watching his independence without Simon. They truly do fit together, you think. Complement each other.

What about you? Are you here for them to have other options? A cunt, you think crudely. Something that gets wet without extra effort, something easy. You’ve certainly not made it hard. The thought puts you in another stink, frowning down at the pair of linen summer pants you’d found and started to mend.

“What’s this face ye got on?” Johnny steps up to you, setting the heavy blade on the table, and sitting.

You don’t speak, you just sew. Are you just a womb? Is that it?

“Awe, lamb,” he leans forward, hands finding the tops of your thighs and leaning on them. “So sour.”

When you still don’t respond, he reaches to take your sewing. You lose some bearing and prick him with the needle, frissy that he’s trying to take you out of your ruminations.

Provocative.

“Och,” he waves his hand, then laughs. “Prickly, are we?”

He forces the fabric from your hands, squeezing your hand until it opens with the needle and thread. You make some kind of irritated sound, like a growling cat, still half in reality and half in your mind.

“Ye’ve been stuck,” he pokes your forehead. “Stuck here, eh? Let me fix that.”

And then you’re pulled up to your feet, steered to the bed, and pushed before you can adapt.

“Simon’ll have’tae forgive me,” he murmurs. You’re sat on the edge, looking down at him with a frown.

“What-” you make a strange, caught off guard squeaking sound as he pushes you by the shoulders, lifting the edge of your dress.

“Sh,” he says sharply. “Should’a done this days ago.”

“Wait- don’t-” you slam your knees shut, trying to sit back up. Something sharp you can’t name explodes outwards from your chest, sharp spikes pricking your lungs and your heart, twisting.

Your struggle is mostly futile, though it’s easier that Simon isn’t here. Your arms flail, your legs scoot you away up the bed.

“Noo-” you try again. Your fear stems mostly from the uncertainty of what he’ll do, of the fear that he’ll steal the last true thing you have; your virtue. 

“Relax,” he strong-arms you into lying down, arms crossed at your chest and his huge hand keeping them pushed down.

He positions himself parallel to you, replacing his hand with his bigger knee, his face right where he wants it.

“Ye should’ve asked me, lamb,” he murmurs, then kisses the hair above your pussy. Your stomach tightens, breath coming out in strained gasps from the combined weight of his knee and your shame.

You’re wet.

“I won’t smack ye if I don’t have tae,” he says. His hands rub up your hips, then your thighs, before coming up to your pussy and spreading your lips open.

Your clit strains in the open air, a cool breeze from the gaps in the door making it jump. He watches for a moment, cruelly, listening to the sound of your laboured breathing.

Then he dives in, tongue first. Because of the angle, his tongue dips down towards your hole while his lower lip catches your clit, making you gasp.

“Let me,” he hums, pauses. “Let me take care of ye, lamb.”

And God, he does. Johnny licks over you like a starved man, sucking your labia before flicking the tip of his tongue over your clit again as sounds come out of you like someone is pounding a fist into your chest.

He slurps your wetness obscenely, using his fingers to scoop whatever leaks from your hole as best he can and bringing them to his mouth to suck clean. He murmurs fervently about how good you taste, how he can smell the desperation from you.

“So neglected,” he sucks the wetness from your hair, even. “Forgive me.”

He’s talking to your cunt again, leaving you trembling against the bed and tightening, tightening, rising, rising–

He stops. 

You damn near scream, but the sound gets trapped where he’s still putting his weight on you.

“I’m gonnae move, and yer gonnae stay right there all sweet for me, aren’t ye?” he turns to look at you, and though you can hardly see him you nod.

He lifts off, making you grunt involuntarily, then switches positions so he’s on his hands and knees nearly on top of you.

“Open those legs,” he says. Leans down to kiss your sternum over the fabric of your dress. “Let me ease yer mind.”

You can feel yourself falling further from grace, but God help you – you open your legs.

Johnny keeps eye contact as he slides down, getting on his stomach with those piercing blue eyes cutting through you.

When his mouth touches your cunt again, you feel yourself start to shake, growing more insane by the second. His tongue touches your hot, swollen flesh, dragging wetly against everything sensitive. He’s like an animal, you think. A heathen. No wonder these people have not seen God’s light. No wonder it does not reach here.

Something so sinful, so good, couldn’t possibly exist in the puritanical world you’d been taken from.

God, you think again, body twisting against the sheets, is this really what they kept from us?

“Please,” you cry out. Please stop? Please continue? It’s a plea for more than just Johnny, more than God. It’s a question that burrows deep in your mind and begs you to understand yourself, to untangle, to feel and release.

And oh, you’re breathing, breathing in, breathing in perhaps for the first time in your life. You wrench his hair in your fists, uncaring, screaming into the cold winter afternoon without a care. Your back arches, tilting your cunt further into his face, legs straining, gushing. Blood rushes in your ears, deafening you, once again turning the world into a small point where you can neither hear nor see.

All you can do is feel, ride, undulate. This is that fit you’d wanted earlier, it’s some insane hysteria, some sin that feels like ecstasy. 

Your nipples tighten, stimulated by the chill of the air and the scratch of your woolen dress. Your peak is maddening, drawn-out and pushed further by Johnny’s lips suctioned around your clit and sucking in hard.

The moment you truly finish, when the stimulation turns to discomfort, you release his hair and push at his head.

“Stop,” you gasp. “Stop it.”

He doesn’t. His hands find your thighs, holding you open, running his tongue from your clit and then piercing it into your hole. His nose rubs on you, and though tears spill from your eyes you grind into it, crying for him to end it.

“One more,” he grunts.

“No,” you moan. Then you peak again, mouth open in a silent scream and eyes screwing shut, the fusion of sharp, near-painful pleasure and actual, overstimulated pain brings you a climax you could have never imagined of on your own.

You weep again as he pulls away, feeling raw and tender. 

Boneless.

You wake in the middle of the night bundled and in both furs and arms. You’re pleasantly sore, pulsing a little still between your legs where Johnny’s thigh keeps you company. He’s so warm, so comfortable, that it’s easy for you to fall back asleep.

You wake again in the early morning, so early that the light of dawn hasn't yet breached the cabin.

Johnny snuffles behind you. Nose on your shoulder, hands migrating to rest just below your breasts.

“Mmmlamb,” he murmurs.

Your muscles are heavy, still. Weighed down with relaxation. It's true that you had gotten worked up, and that his actions had helped. You don't find any shame, not now. You've found a rare pocket of respite.

Simon is due back in a day or two unless there are extenuating circumstances. A winter storm, maybe. Or an errant predator. 

What would life look like if he never returned? It’s an uncomfortable thought. You’re still on the edge of how you feel, teetering between extremes, but you rely on them both for survival.

Where could you go? Even when you’d ran, the plan had been borne of heart, not mind. Without Simon or Johnny, you’d be in a terrible precarious situation.

Without Simon permanently? You weren’t sure.

You very slowly extricate yourself from Johnny’s arms, sliding out of bed and into the cold air. The fire is just coals, so you add a few pieces of wood and stoke it for the day. In the dark, you can see the reflection of the fire in the sword Johnny had left on the table.

You pad to it, staring, curious and afraid. It looked orange from the fire, only darker. It looked like your beautiful red ochre dress, your blood dress.

You reach your fingers out and stroke along the blade, breathing shallowly in the dark.

Dawn breaks.