#subtle flexing the golden moonlight

[toastydumpster]

go and serve cunt, my knight

[13rurururi]

Late Night Sex with Suguru Geto (NSFW Drabble)

Pairing: Geto Suguru x Female! Reader

Content Warning/s: 18+, vanilla sex, edging, riding, cockwarming, unprotected sex, etc.

Suguru Geto is the type to indulge you in slow, drawn-out sex from midnight 'til sunrise. It begins with harmless cuddling in his bed, snuggling under a thin duvet that isn't enough to shield either of you from the chilly evening air.

Your legs are intertwined, his feet teasingly grazing your calves up and down. You give him a questioning look as a subtle, suggestive smirk etches onto his sharp features, beckoning you for a — supposedly innocent — peck on the lips.

However, one soft kiss turns into two, and it inevitably involves his tongue roughly exploring your salivating, moaning mouth. He praises you every time you part, heaving and drooling a translucent sheen of spit.

You look so damn gorgeous under the moonlight — with your tousled hair, lust-filled eyes, and lighty parted, plump lips that can fit his cock perfectly.

Suguru, on the other hand, is akin to a well-sculpted, gorgeous Greek statue. His shiny, dark hair falls in thin strands around his angular face; his impressively toned figure flexes with each slight movement; and his cock — you can't help but unconsciously bring your legs together at the sight of his thick mushroom head decorated with glistening precum.

He gently spreads your legs and hauls you onto him, calloused hands wide enough to easily grasp onto the skin of your midriff.

You are rendered sleep-deprived and high on pleasure when he mercilessly bounces you on his fully erect cock, and Suguru can't help but marvel at your pussy coating layers of cum on his throbbing member.

Your pleas for release are met with deep, mocking chuckles and a glint of mischief in his dark eyes. He'll continue to edge you until you fall limp into an exhausted slumber, smeared in your shared fluids and layers of sweat.

The soft rays of golden sunlight peek through the blinds, and you end up reaching your climax right before you tiredly faint onto his chiseled chest, softly releasing satisfied, breathy whimpers.

"That's my good girl,"

He finishes inside you and doesn't bother to pull out his cock, carefully laying you down on your side. Your cunt is still pleasantly stretched by his half-hard cock, and he has no plan of parting with you just yet.

Suguru kisses you — gently, softly, lovingly — and wraps one muscled arm around your waist while placing the other under your head. He plays with your hair until he himself joins you in a comfortable, quiet sleep.

You're definitely sleeping in for the entirety of the morning, and you wouldn't want it any other way.

A/N: Suguru has been on my mind these past few days; of course, I had to write a quick (smut) drabble about him. He could have grown into a healthy adult, but no — damn the monkeys.

This is my first Jujutsu Kaisen work, so I hope it's to your liking. I'll definitely write more about our traumatized beauties soon.

[hostilecityshowdown]

i swear on my life, this wasn't supposed to happen this way. taker/goldust

𓉸 read on archiveofourown 𓉸

With a gasp, Goldust shot upright. The cut quartz slab beneath him was painfully cold, the only light provided by the moonbeams streaming in through the ornate, stained glass windows.

On all sides were crypts, each adorned with an assortment of roses and baby’s breath. Most were companion crypts, their arrangements painstakingly composed and placed to compliment each other. On a small, standing altar near the door sat an unlit incense and a wig stand, Goldust’s wig washed, brushed, and styled. His gloves laid beside his right hip and, as he snatched them up, he realised his hands had been lotioned and manicured. The honeyed gold nail lacquer glimmered in the pale moonlight, nails neatly filed and rounded. What he initially thought were visual floaters were the glints of delicate glitter brushed onto his eyelashes with clear mascara. He growled and yanked his gloves on, flexing his fingers into the fresh satin as he stormed across the vestibule mausoleum’s interior, only allowing himself a moment to admire the sprig of pale goldenrod woven into the single braid of crown behind the bangs. Before he could tear it off the wig stand, his legs buckled under him.

The door beside him opened with a groan, the view of the blue moon eclipsed by a long coated silhouette in a wide-brimmed hat. The man placed one hand atop the hat and ducked, taking one slow, laborious step through the door, murmuring words Goldust couldn’t distinguish to someone he couldn’t see. Complaining again, the door swung shut and clicked quietly. Removing his hat and staring down at Goldust through a curtain of dark hair, the Undertaker reached a hand out. Goldust could’ve counted the stitches in the dark grey leather as it passed over his head to lift his wig off the stand.

The Undertaker knelt, swung the wig behind Goldusts’s head, and slipped the cap under the curve of his skull, leather gliding across his skin. Goldust’s vision swam and he lurched forward, grabbing the Undertaker’s arm to steady himself as the mortician slid his fingers forward under the wig band, pulling it into position across Goldust’s hairline. He finger brushed the hair to settle it in place, ignoring Goldust’s grip tightening until his joints audibly popped, undoubtedly applying bruising force. His mouth was so dry, something like sand grinding between his teeth. He coughed, upper lip twitching as he raised his eyes to meet the dead man’s.

“What did you do,” he whispered, tone accusatory, voice a gravel pit. The Undertaker lowered his hands from Goldust’s head, one arm swinging out to point at the low structure the other man awoke on. Vision blurred, he could see the engravings on the side but not read them, and he crawled towards it. Fingers sliding over the gold-flecked quartz, the inscription swam into focus. Marlena’s name was all he needed to parse to understand; the artist turned, back falling against the sarcophagus, face twisted in a snarl. There was a crystal chandelier above him and, as the moon began to fall, light struck it and scattered. Goldust, haloed in blue light, repeated himself: “What. Did you do.”

“Cindy had a golden vision,” the Undertaker intoned, “she had danced but just a season... Now she dances with the angels… For they killed her without reason.”

Goldust lunged, seizing the Undertaker by the lapels, chest heaving. His antagonist smelled of wet dirt, smoke, and nauseating chemicals - Embalming fluid, surely. When he leaned close enough to catch the dark purple ringing the Undertaker’s pupils, he could smell wood and fresh cut flowers. The mixture was sickening; Goldust inhaled deeply, ignoring the voice in his head pointing out this scent had been pervasive, but subtle, in the mausoleum even prior to the Undertaker’s arrival.

“Bandidos, 1967. I didn’t take you for a cinephile,” Goldust ground out, scattered lights disrupting his vision like flash photography. “But you fancy yourself a lone ranger, don’t you, boy?”

“I like Westerns.” The reply was blunt, quiet, his deep voice nearly drowned out by Goldust’s breathing. “Now their fate has been decided… Hand in hand they'll ride forever.”

“Shut up,” Goldust shook him. “Why do you try my patience? It has its limits,” he inhaled, “An-”

“Anna Karenina, 1997.”

“Look at you,” he bared his teeth beneath dark-painted lips, “a real, modern connoisseur. Distracting me won’t work.”

The Undertaker stood, sliding out of Goldust’s white-knuckled grasp like mist. It was as if he’d never grabbed ahold of him in the first place. He flexed his fingers before curling them into fists, gaze burning into Goldust’s very soul. “They like the picture shows.”

Dumbfounded, Goldust remained on his knees. He didn’t know who he was talking about and, frankly, didn’t care. The mortician rested his hat atop the wig stand on the altar, mumbling so quietly Goldust only saw his lips move. He didn’t catch how he lit the incense silently, seemingly without ever coming near it, but the smoke coiled towards the ceiling languidly.

“You… Will have to learn to like them,” he stated. The Undertaker’s voice was strained.

“And I…” He inhaled sharply through his nose, exhaled through his teeth. “You.”

“What are you on about?”

“Your obsession with death… Has proven… Problematic. You, Goldust…” Another deep inhale. He could’ve sworn the Undertaker’s eyes would have reflected light like an animal’s, had it not been for a milky film over them - A dead man’s eyes, if only for a moment, before the darkness grew deeper, shrouding him. His voice softened. “Have made a grave… Mistake.”

Goldust lunged upwards off his knees, striking the Undertaker on the jaw and using the momentum to stumble to his feet. The cold of the marble floor sent pins and needles up his legs, pale yellow, silken socks sliding on the damp stone. Sparing a glance in search of his boots, he found them shined, re-stitched, standing beside the altar. His assault merely snapped the Undertaker’s head backwards, curtain of hair arching above him while the rest of his body remained stock still as he stared towards the ceiling.

Quietly, a long, errant lock of hair slid off the nape of his neck, drawing Goldust’s eyes to his exposed throat, the red stubble shadowing his jaw. There were bruises there - Fingerprints. Mankind’s, surely. Exhaling, the Undertaker slowly dropped his head, face exposed. His right cheekbone bore a visible thumbprint, yellow and green blooming around blue and purple.

Goldust wheezed out a laugh. The Undertaker glowered. He almost looked like he was pouting.

“Why so stiff?” Coughing, Goldust reached for his boots, leaning back against a wall of crypts as he struggled into them. The platform heels had been reduced by a visually imperceivable amount, but Goldust could feel it. “You wily bastard.”

“Goldust.” A warning. “You tried to harness forces mortals cannot wield. There are… Consequences. You have a debt to settle with me. And… You have been… Changed.”

“The vampire, Mr. Harker, is a thing that lives after its death by drinking the blood of the living - It must have blood, or it dies. Its power lasts only from sunset to sunr-”

“I did not make you a vampire.”

Goldust huffed at the interruption, absentmindedly adjusting the bouquet he’d disturbed by leaning on the crypts. “... Dracula, 1931.”

“You are not a vampire.”

“My life and my death are here. My place is here in these vaults,” Goldust rubbed his sore throat, skipping lines. “Death would have quietly taken me back; you wanted to entice me back to the world of the living.”

Goldust looked at the Undertaker expectantly, eyebrows raising as he slid one finger over a crypt’s seal. He was visibly shaken, still angry, but he was determined to make the man in black crack first.

The Undertaker sighed. “Please, be quiet.”

“Look- I'm surrounded by corpses,” Goldust responded, left leg crumpling beneath him when he tried to take an unaided step away from the wall. Teeth squeaking as they ground together, he pushed himself to his feet again. “I made this into a charnel house. I emptied these bodies of blood so that it may flow in mine - To turn me into a living dead girl.”

“You’re not a vampire.”

Glaring, Goldust took a more confident step forward, hand wrapping around the Undertaker’s tie. His eyes were burning and watering, but the makeup the Undertaker applied didn’t run. “To turn me. Into. A living. Dead. Girl.”

Another sigh, followed by a pained, disingenuous line delivery. “That's enough. Enough. You were never dead.”

Pausing, the Undertaker frowned, his tone once more serious. “The dead don't come back to life. La Morte Vivante, 1982. You think you’re undead.”

“Like you,” Goldust hissed, his free hand sliding up the outside of the Undertaker’s thigh and settling on his hip. The hand wrapped around his tie yanked on it. “Where’s my urn? My leash? I’ll make you choke on it.”

“You have a sarcophagus.”

“In your mausoleum. Lonely?” His hand journeyed further up the Undertaker’s side, beneath his long, heavy coat. He was colder than the marble surrounding them, and as unmoving as it. “Did Mankind make you feel so ashamed, so dominated, you had to take me as your thrall?”

“You,” the Undertaker grumbled, head bowing just enough to encourage hair to fall back over his face, “endangered your own life.”

“It's not fair, it's too late. It wasn't supposed to happen this way. It shouldn't have happened.” Amused by his own act of ignoring him, Goldust leaned in, nose wrinkling. This man smelled intolerably repulsive. “Vertigo, 1958. I loathe your cologne. If I’m to be your indentured servant ad nauseum, you have to wear something more palatable.”

“I’m not wearing any.”

“I find that hard to believe,” he whispered, leaning ever closer, face further contorting from the smell. His hand slid behind the Undertaker’s back, following his floating ribs. “What are you wearing?”

“Rose water,” he murmured, head bowing further, muscles so tense Goldust was impressed he wasn’t shaking. “Rose oil, formaldehyde… No different than you.”

“Pardon?”

The Undertaker remained silent, stock still, cold and bloodless beneath Goldust’s touch. His glittering face contorted into a mask of rage and disgust, nails digging in and splitting the fibers of the mortician’s linen shirt even through his glove, seeking purchase in his skin. Another yank on his tie earned him nothing more than a gutteral snarl, the dark purple of Undertaker’s eyes all but glowing between the rivulets of his hair.

“Listen here, deadman,” Goldust bellowed, deep voice echoing in the small mausoleum. “You’ve got approximately thirty seconds to explain yourself before I rip your fuc-”

The heavy wrought iron gate swung on its hinges, the crypt’s stone slid aside along the well-worn divets in the foundation slab, the moon filling up the entire sky visible above the swirling mists of the cemetery. The spotlight illuminated Goldust in shards of silver.

“What are you doing to my starlet?” The intruder asked, the tip of her cigar burning red hot as she puffed it. Fallen ash mingled with the remnants of incense, dirt, and crushed rose petals littering the floor. She was a specter of gold, even her blue eyeshadow flecked with it, cast half in utter darkness by the light.

“... What is necessary,” the Undertaker murmured, drained of all his irritation, gloved fingers painfully gentle as they coaxed Goldust’s off his person. His eyes were no longer visible, the shadows seemingly cloaking him from the newfound moonlight. Goldust, appalled, could only look between the two.

“I thought you could only pursue business,” Marlena drawled, her heels clicking as she took slow, languid steps to Goldust’s side. She didn’t spare the Undertaker a glance as she began finger brushing her star’s bangs back into place. “No pleasure.”

“All work and no play… Makes Jack a dull boy.” The Undertaker’s response was so quiet, Goldust missed words, too distracted wondering what the hell was going on. Smoke curled around Marlena’s lips when she smiled, free hand falling to his elbow and wrapping around it.

“I’ll remember you’re a Kubrick fan,” she responded, guiding Goldust around the shining sarcophagus he’d awoken atop and into the open air. Graves loomed above and below them, sprawling out into foggy infinity. Marlena was complaining before they even crossed the threshold. "I only requested makeup, not the theatrics."

The Undertaker did not follow and, when Goldust spun to face the towering structure again, feeling as if woken from a dream, his silhouette was nowhere to be found. Only an envelope sat on the book-shaped podium at its threshold, the inscribed family names obscured by the paper, sealed with lilac coloured wax. He lunged away from his producer, tore it open, a folded letter tumbling out with glittering ashes and dirt.

“What the fuck?”

Snatching the ruined letter and unfolding it, he heard Marlena take another drag of her cigar, holding the smoke in her mouth as she stepped up beside him. On the paper, in the same sharp script on every tombstone in this wretched place:

You look for Death in the clear night,

you tell her you still love her,

that you are her slave,

that she's still your queen.

...

I'd only do it for the fear -

And I'd come back just to experience the same fear again.

To be afraid,

always to be afraid.

-Dellamorte Dellamore, 1994

[yandere-daydreams]

Forest God Deku who seems a little to keen on keeping the cute little human adventurer who has wandered into his forest crawling with monsters and fairies

Somehow, I think Forest Deity Izuku might be less feral than our average, mess-of-a-hero Izuku. Or, he might just be a little more subtle about it. It’s hard to tell, at first.

TW: Threats of Harm, Mentions of Death and Torture, and Implied Imprisonment.

~

The world was spinning. Spinning, spinning, spinning.

The forest around you was darkening quickly, golden light shining through gaps in tree-tops and radiating a calming, pacifying aura you couldn’t seem to lull into. Creatures came and went, curious rabbits that came to inspect an immobilized human and scavenger birds looking for an easy meal, the latter usually discouraged by flailing movements and an onslaught of inappropriate language. The trees made lazy, meandering circles around you, in no particular rush to close their investigation, the carpet of dead leaves and decaying fauna rising to brush against the tips of your limp fingers. Like a friend, silently making sure you were alright.

It occurred to you, suddenly, that the world wasn’t spinning, nor was it upside-down. You were.

And you didn’t think you wanted to be, any longer.

“You’re awake,” An unfamiliar voice greeted, bringing your attention to the boy sitting in front of you, then behind you, then to your side, your lethargic rotations soon put to a stop as his hand latched onto your wrist, holding you still. He looked calm, too calm, sitting on the forest floor as he scanned over you, giving you time to do the same. Green hair blended perfectly with the lush flora that surrounded the two of you, and a splatter of freckles spread themselves across his pale features, painted from his cheeks to his shoulders. He was shirtless, but what wasn’t covered fazed you much less than what was, everything below his waist covered by a coat of hazel fur, more similar to a fawn than a man, backward-bent knees and cloven hooves going little to settle your unease. He chuckled when he noticed you staring, leaning forward slightly as he spoke. “You were out for quite a while,” He started, his voice soft. “Must’ve hit your head on the way up. It’s a miracle you woke up at all, really.”

“Fuck off,” You mumbled, the words weighed down by your own exhaustion. You groaned lightly, attempting to pull yourself into an upright position, but as soon as you shifted, whatever was wrapped around your ankle dug into your skin, forcing you to realize just how rough the material was. A dried vine, you guessed, braided but not dethroned. Tight, and getting tighter anytime you moved. “Is this… are you magic?”

Another laugh. You cringed, a steady pain already starting to form in the back of your skull. “It’s just a snare. A normal one, not cursed or anything,” He explained, waving his free hand through the air nonchalantly. “Humans don’t tend to mix well with anything supernatural. I’ve tried before, but then you always start screaming and panicking, and if that doesn’t kill you, the way your bodies interact with it usually will.” He paused, stopping to think. “Am I magic? I never thought to ask, and now he’s gone… If I can use it, does that mean--”

“Who are you?” You cut him off before he could go on. You had a feeling he’d never be quiet, if you let him ramble. “Let’s start with that. Who are you, and when are you going to let me go?”

“I’m Deku!” He was back to smiling, grinning too widely as he pushed himself to his feet. The spinning continued, but Deku didn’t seem opposed to following in your unwanted tracks, walking in circles around you. Your body felt heavy, your head beginning to ache, his introduction barely audible over the blood rushing past your ears. “I guess you could call me a guardian spirit. That’s why I do, really, I guard things. See, this part of the forest is special.” He stopped walking, but you didn’t have to see him. You could feel his eyes burning into you, regardless of where he was. “Dirty little humans aren’t supposed to come here.”

You opened your mouth, something between a defensive insult and an apology playing on your tongue, but Deku didn’t give you the chance, catching your ankle and driving his nails, no, talons into your skin, so much sharper than they seemed to be, last time he made contact. Like those of a predator. A mountain cat. “You understand that this is bad, right? You did something very, very wrong. You wandered into someplace sacred, and you disgraced it.” His fist flexed, pointed tips prodding further, deeper. Blood began to drip from the wound, but your feet were so numb, you could barely feel it. You didn’t want to feel it. “I should kill you. I should torture you. Maybe an agonizing death would be enough to make up for the intrusion.”

You were silent, for a moment, but the true levity of your situation hit you abruptly, as forceful as an oncoming freight train. A God, a man, a satyr, something had strung you up, knocked you unconscious, and was spouting off threats he didn’t seem opposed to carrying out. You might’ve cried, if the pressure on your eye-sockets hadn’t been so crushing. “Please.” You weren’t thinking. You couldn’t think. Not when you’d been in such a compromising position for so long. “Please, I don’t want to die. It… it was a mistake, I didn’t mean to, I’m sorry--”

“’Please don’t kill me, Deku. I’m so sorry, Deku, I won’t do it ever again!’ That’s what they all say.” He sighed, shaking his head. His teasing was light-hearted, comically high-pitched, but his exasperation was genuine. Dark. “Want to know how many times I’ve heard that? Thousands. And how often do you think it works?”

He let you go, tearing his claws from your flesh. You whimpered, and his smile broadened. “N-never.”

“Never.” He reached down, tapping the end of your nose as a faux-reward. “Good mortal. But, that’s not going to happen to you.”

Hope bubbled up in your chest, boiling over before you could push it back down. “Thank you, thank you, I didn’t-”

“It won’t be what happened to you, if you do as I say.” He kneeled in front of you, taking hold of your jaw and forcing you to meet his eyes. You could’ve avoided it, if you tried, but it was all you could do to stay focused on anything. Those black, beady eyes made a good target. “Come back to my temple with me, and don’t struggle. I can’t let you leave, not once you’ve entered, and I won’t tolerate disobedience. I’d hate to have to flay you after I’ve promised not to.”

You blinked, your frown returning as quickly as it’d disappeared. You didn’t remember how you’d gotten here or why you were alone, but you knew you shouldn’t stay. The sun had gone down, by now, and the air was growing colder by the second. You didn’t want to see just how inhospitable the environment could get. “Your temple?” You asked, meekly. “I… But, my family, and my friends, they’ll be--”

“Or, I could leave you here. We’ve got a few unique animals here. They’re a little more confident than the bears and wolves you’re used to.” As soon as he finished, a howl echoed through the woods, loud and scratchy and primal. Several more followed, as if on cue, and Deku nodded in their direction. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say they enjoy having a meal that can struggle. It makes it more fun to tear apart, right?”

You didn’t respond, falling silent and thinking it over. Deku shifted, moonlight catching on fangs you swore hadn’t been there a moment ago, and you nodded before you could decide against it.

You didn’t want to be here. You didn’t want to be trapped. You didn’t want to be anywhere near Deku.

But, the pulse beating violently inside your head and black spots eagerly invading your vision reminded you of something more important. Something you needed.

They made you remember how much you desperately wanted to stop spinning.

[sabraeal]

Hi Jen :))) <3 - you know, I LOVE when you rewrite certain scenes of the manga/anime, so here's one I'd love to read very much: - Obi's POV - the balcony scene in Tambarun :)))

He never thought the mortal world could be so draining.

Not that it decreases his power, oh no; his geasa still shift and bite at him like he is the runt of the litter, the weak dog in the pack. The shadows comes to him as easy here as ever, though Miss has requested he resist the temptation to use them. He’d silently balked at the request – as if he didn’t know when and where his magicks were safe to practice – but seeing those two children nearly get the upper hand on him had put him in place.

Obi may be sly and cunning, but oh, could that princess give him a few pointers.

No, his weariness has nothing to do with his magicks, but instead something to do with – with himself. He is less…distinct here, less himself. Obi plays the role of fey knight well, always at his miss’s left hand, always ready to place himself between her and danger –

And perhaps that is the problem. What is making the dark veil over his memories warp and wrinkle, what is making it disappear.

There was a time where he would have welcomed this. Not anymore, not now.

Not when he is uncertain how close danger lurks.

His room here is finer than the one Master gave him; Obi notices that first when he arrives, shortly before the adjoining door. He grins now when he sees the bed fit for three, the golden filigree across the high ceilings, the fancy doors leading out onto the private balcony. It is only to be expected; in His Majesty’s court he is a servant, a changeling and a thief, but here – oh here, in this mortal realm, he is something to be feared.

He once was in the otherworld too. It’s so easy to forget, now.

His hand flexes.

He needs – air. Space. Something that is not this.

The balcony door open easily in his hands. He used it once that first night, not wanting to be seen leaving his chambers, cloaking himself in shadows and exploring the grounds. He’s tempted to do so again, to let himself escape in the burn of his own magic –

Only to be reminded, so sharply, that his balcony is only private so long as his miss is not using it.

“Obi!” she seems as surprise as he is, eyes wide and dark in the moonlight. “You were awake?��

“Was I?” The evasion is rote now; he barely feels a sting. “So hard to recall…”

She walks with her dreamy lope towards him, and the distinct smell of her magic hits him, making his fingers burn with memory. “You were too, Miss?”

“Yeah.” She stops, hand on the rail between their balconies. She’s not looking at him, however, nor even at the grounds; she’s looking far into the distance, to a horizon only she can see. “I was thinking about what Zen and the others are doing right now.”

“I was thinking the same thing.” The words fall out easily, and he wonders if it would sting him were he not as human as he was. Master was never far from his thoughts, these days, but –

But those only seemed to come after ones of Miss.

“You know,” he sighs, drawing close to where their balconies kiss, “when I’m alone, I start missing the master.”

Her mouth curls at one corner; a sly look he’s starting to realize is hers more than her sweet ones. Perhaps they all play roles for their Master.

“He hasn’t scolded me recently, and it’s throwing me off.” She smiles at that, looking on the edge of laughter, and he can play this to the hilt if that’s what she wants, this loyal dog.

“Zen’s probably lonely, too,” she says, and the words are strangely comforting. He would like to believe –

Well, that doesn’t matter.

“Miss.” He puts a hand on his hip, feigning disappointment. “This is where you say, ‘I’m missing Zen, too.’“

“Oh!” Her cheeks pink in the moonlight. “Really? I…ah…”

“What else would you do?” He sweeps out a hand, gesturing to the horizon that both their eyes can seen. “You say it as you gaze at the stars.”

“The stars.” He sees her take them in, this endless expanse of night. “You know,” she says, so low it’s almost a whisper, “before Raj’s people came here, the elders were known for their astronomy.”

He hums, interested. “I didn’t. I don’t know much about this place.”

“Oh!” She ducks her head, suddenly shy. “Of course not, I didn’t mean –”

“Don’t stop,” he tells her, voice so much lower than he means it. Her cheeks flush. “I mean…I would like to know more.”

“Oh, yes.” Her gaze strays out to the stars once again. “There’s not much to tell. So much of the knowledge was lost when this land was conquered. What survived had been passed among the cunning folk, master to apprentice, for generations.”

There’s a subtle devastation to her features, like a woman who has watched her own house burn with all her earthy treasures inside. Only it is not just her house, but her people’s, ransacked and taken from them before they even knew what they had lost.

It is the face of someone who knows not everything can be replaced.

“You know, the stars are different in the otherworld,”  He leans his arms on the balustrade, letting her sweet scent curl around him. A dangerous game, but he’s never known how to play safe.

She blinks. “Really? I hadn’t thought to check.”

“Oh yes.” He slants a look toward her. “Here these are…balls of gas, burning bright but distant in the void, but in the otherworld – they are heroes. Gods. Its is all – what are they called? – frescoes. Paintings on the firmament of the world.”

“Not really.”

“Of course it is.” He smiles. “They are all stories writ large.”

Her smile is soft, but her eyes sharp. “They say they are here too. The stars are those who passed into the west, who have traveled through the mists to Mag Mell. The constellations are those the old gods wanted remembered.”

He grins. “But you know that isn’t true. You’ve gone through the veil.”

“I do. I could take a ship to Mag Mell if I never cared about returning.”

His heart should not ache so much when she says such things. Plants wither. Seasons pass. Mortals die. He knows this best of all.

“You know what lies beyond the veil,” he tells her, “here it is just stories. There the tales are true.”

“Tell me one,” she says, and he does not miss the challenge in it. “Tell me about one of the people in the night sky.”

“It’s already late, Miss. You should –”

She lifts one curved brow. He shouldn’t.

But she is so close, heat and magic seeping into him from where he stands, and he –

He does not know how to say no, not to her.

“If that is what my mistress desires.” He makes a great show of casting about for a story, but it lives right on the tip of his tongue, eager to be told. “There was a woman once, who stole from the hunt.”

“A mortal woman?”

“What other kind?” He licked his lips. “A mortal woman. Her lover was made a hound in the Hunt –”

“So she was stolen from first.”

He hesitates. “That’s not how it’s told beneath the mounds.”

She hums, amused. “Of course not.”

“In any case, he belonged to the Hunt.” He swallows, tongue growing heavy in his mouth. The tang of copper is fresh on the air; he can tell she smells it from how her nose crinkled. “A geas that lasts a lifetime. Once a year a hound may become a man, if only to remember what he has lost.”

“What did her lover do to be turned into a hound?”

He shrugs away the sting. “Did he have to do something?”

“Oh!” She’s far too close to be looking at him like this. “I’m sorry. I keep forgetting.”

“It’s my geas,” he tells her simply. “It’s not yours to remember.”

Her mouth pulls down at the corners. “But I should. I don’t want to cause you pain.”

“It’s not so –”

“It’s not about the magnitude,” she tells him, eyes so serious on his. “I don’t want to do it at all.”

His heart flutters strangely in his chest.

“As I was saying,” he says, clearing his throat, turning his eyes to the safety of the stars. “He would turn into a man and lay with his woman on this single night. Only once, she took a knife to him, and took a corner of his ear.”

His miss balks, and he grins. “It was clever. She went through the veil when the Hunt finished its ride, and in their great camp beneath the mounds, she found the notched-eared dog and carried him back.”

“Bringing him back broke his –?” She catches herself, and tries, “She brought him through to break his geas.”

“Perhaps. It’s rarely that simple.” He tilted his head back, taking in the mighty hunter in the mortal sky. “The woman with her hound lover is in our sky, though how she broke the geas of the Hunt is…lost.”

“I can’t imagine why.”

He grins. “Miss, such sarcasm. Careful,” he warns, dropping his voice low, “you might charm me, if you show such a sense of humor.”

She flushes, ducking her head. “I doubt that’s very likely.”

His teeth flash in a grin. “Ah, Miss,” he sighs around his ache, “you never know.”

[purple-proxy]

This is canon lore to me and no, don't talk to me, I'm not listening.

go and serve cunt, my knight