#the firefly with broken wings

[snailienz]

I'm the best thing you'll see all week The first taste you take is always free Cause I'm a better dancer when you are of your feet on top of me

Cute portrait art of my favorite lil blorb Phos. He requested to be made as pretty and suggestive as possible.

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

[talesofesther]

𝔈𝔠𝔥𝔬𝔢𝔰 𝔬𝔣 𝔞 𝔉𝔩𝔞𝔪𝔢

↳ 𝐂𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐞: 𝐕𝐨𝐰𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐛𝐫𝐨𝐤𝐞𝐧 𝐛𝐨𝐧𝐝𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐬

Aemond Targaryen x Reader/fem!OC

Series Summary: You made a promise to Aemond once, when you were young and naive, and the only friend he'd ever known; yet you abandoned him before you could fulfill it. Between broken bonds, a betrothal, and flames that still burn deep within you; this is the story of how you fell apart and found each other again.

A/N: Some big revelations coming on this one, buckle up. Daemon and Alicent are good parents in my book, okay? Okay. ;)

Word count: 4,6k

Masterlist | Previous chapter

The perfume of wildflowers overwhelmed your senses, they bloomed in several colors around you; white, pink, blue, yellow—a field of untouched beauty, tucked away on the outskirts of the forests that surrounded King's Landing.

You sat in the middle of the field, soaking up the late afternoon sunlight as you gently plucked a few of the flowers to form a unique bouquet. It was only your third day in the capital and you already felt the need to sneak away and breathe some fresh air.

A loud huff of air came from beside you then, and a chuckle escaped you when you looked at your dragon. She lay peacefully just a few feet away from you, her ash blue scales being caressed by flower petals as the wind made them flow; one, in particular, tickling her nose and making her huff without opening her eyes. Her massive frame dwarfed the trees of the forest behind you and her tail disrupted the few bugs hidden between the grass as it swished from time to time.

The small smile you had slowly vanished, however, once your mind drifted back to thoughts of Aemond, for the umpteenth time today. Your talk with him from last night replayed in your mind over and over, while you were trying to sleep and first thing in the morning. It had felt wrong and unfair, and it left a cold feeling inside your chest. And yet a feeling that you thought—hoped—you saw mirrored in Aemond's own expression last night.

It was a fragile thing, but maybe, just maybe, what you once had could still be repaired.

Even from this far away, the Red Keep could still be easily spotted in the distance. You watched as a flock of birds flew by, as nothing but dark silhouettes against the golden sunlight.

You eventually pushed yourself up from the grass, brushing away any remaining dirt from your clothes. You walked up to your dragon, laying a hand on the warm scales of her muzzle.

Her fiery blue eyes lazily blinked open at your touch, and she leaned the slightest bit into your hand. "Istiti kostilus bartos arlī, riña." ('We should probably head back, girl.')

A low and deep groan came from the back of her throat, her large mouth prying open just enough to reveal a glimpse of her sharp teeth in complaint. Yet she slowly raised her head from the ground, the motion of her tall and heavy frame sending hidden fireflies flying away from between the flowers.

"Nyke gīmigon, ziry iksos lyks kesīr, yn se jēda kessa aderī mazverdagon zōbrie. Kosti māzigon arlī hemtubis," you promised with a smile as you looked up at her, walking beside so you could mount up. ('I know, it's peaceful here, but the hour will soon grow late. We can return tomorrow.')

She lay her chest and left wing down to allow you to mount easily, only raising to full height once you were settled in the saddle. Her steps on the ground were almost booming in the quiet field, with a small roar coming from her as she awaited your command.

You gripped tightly onto the saddle, heart tuning in with the powerful beat of the one belonging to the dragon carrying you. With a grin, you spoke; "Sōvēs, Khamira."

─── ⋄✧⋄ ───

Aemond's sword cut through the air, on unsteady feet he narrowly avoided Ser Criston's attack. His boots skid over the gravel of the training yard, panting heavily as he rolled his shoulders to keep up appearances and not attract a crowd of onlookers.

Sweat ran down Aemond's temple, getting caught on the leather of his eyepatch. Today was not a good day for him.

Cole seemed to catch on, dropping his shield to the ground and suggesting a break in their sparring session.

Aemond huffed, walking to the side to lay down his sword while he tugged at the collar of his vest that felt like it had been cutting his intake of air by half. His muscles ached from the exertion, yet as he let go of the hilt of his sword, his mind was already elsewhere. Trapped back in a moonlight haze that outlined the features of the one who'd taken residence in his mind and heart.

"You seem distracted today, my Prince," Cole spoke, slowly walking closer to Aemond as he caught his own breath. "Is something troubling you?"

A pair of young squires sparred to his left, two ladies and a guard stood together by his right, and Aegon made his way down the stairs that led to the grounds of the training yard—Aemond was acutely aware of every single person around him, and each one, he knew, was salivating for some royal gossip. He kept his back turned to Ser Criston, fidgeting slightly with the cuff of his sleeve; "No trouble. Simply not a good day for me, it seems."

"Oh, brother."

Both Aemond and Cole turned towards Aegon's obnoxious voice as he wandered towards them, both hands stretched before him as the first Prince gestured between his brother and Ser Criston, "Could this finally be the day that this poor man has bested you in combat?" He sported a wide and amused smile on his lips.

Aemond hummed, holding onto his composure. "We aren't finished yet."

"Well, by what I've just watched, the result seems pretty obvious," Aegon chuckled, leaning back against the weapon's table, "You were nearly getting your ass kicked."

"Watch your tongue," Aemond warned dryly, fists closed tight.

"Were you daydreaming about your childhood sweetheart, then?" Aegon ignored him, teasing further in a quieter tone, his smirk provocative. "Don't think I didn't notice you two eye-fucking each other at supper last night." He laughed at his own words.

Aemond clenched his jaw, nostrils flaring. "I mean it, you drunk, mind your tongue." He leaned closer, only for his brother to hear; "Lest I pick up a sword and do it for you."

Aegon raised his hands in mock surrender, fighting a smile and losing. "Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning, eh?" The older brother picked up a small dagger from the table, twirling it between his fingers, the sharp tip slightly digging into his skin. "And here I thought you would be overjoyed with the news."

A small, barely there frown made itself known in Aemond's features. He took half a step back, "What do you mean?" Coming from Aegon, it could hardly be anything good.

"Oh you know, brother," Aegon shrugged, hesitating only for a moment as he took a glance at Cole who stood behind Aemond with the same confused expression, "Mother's agreement with Daemon, the one... involving his dear eldest daughter."

Aemond's blood pumped faster at the mention of you, his breath stumbled and he grew more impatient, "What do you speak of?"

A beat of awkward silence passed as they held each other's gazes.

"Oh seven hells, you do not know yet," Aegon deadpanned, before a small, surprised giggle escaped him.

"Aegon..." The Prince's name out of Aemond's lips came as a warning and he narrowed his one good eye.

"Oh no, no." Aegon shook his head, dropping the dagger in his hands to take slow steps back to the same path he came from. "I'm sure mother will be the one wanting to break the news for you then, beats me wanting to be on the receiving end of her ire if I do it." He reached the stairs, one foot already on the first step when he looked at Aemond with one final grin; "But I'll say, you need not worry about your darling leaving your side ever again." Aegon winked and skipped up the stairs.

The feeling of being left in the dark was all-consuming as Aemond's eye skimmed over the training yard, the sound of steel against steel becoming muffled to his ears as he tried to find a sense of direction for his running thoughts.

He left Ser Criston without another word, quick steps taking him inside the Keep in search of his mother.

─── ⋄✧⋄ ───

You flew over the cloudy sky with no hurry, your dragon's wings stretched and steady while she danced in between clouds. You'd taken the scenic route, as you liked to call it, the longer path to the dragonpit so you could linger a few minutes more on dragonback.

The flap of her wings was slow, yet not less powerful for it, her size creating shadows over the capital. Without you needing to say a word, your loyal dragon knew not to hurry today.

You kept on for a while longer, and just as you were close to reaching your destiny, you heard a familiar sharp screeching coming from behind you.

A roar came from your own dragon as she felt the presence before even seeing it. You turned your head around, looking over your shoulder. Caraxes' slithering frame suddenly emerged from between the clouds, his long and red body a stark contrast to the pale sky.

He flew beside and then overhead from you, and you could barely make out the grinning face of your father as he passed you.

"Aderī," you spoke the command and leaned forward on your saddle, holding tight. With a single movement of her wings, your dragon propelled herself forward, her lean body shooting through the skies as she caught up with Caraxes with an excited roar.

You came from under the Blood Wyrm, rising in flight just short of hitting them as a giggle went past your lips and heavy wind kissed your cheeks.

Khamira flew ahead, her ash-blue scales shining under the fading sunlight. You had yet to meet a dragon that could match her in speed. Caraxes' screeching could be heard from afar as he tried to keep up.

You were undeniably the first one to reach the dragonpit, your dragon raising dust as her large body landed on the ground. The keepers tried to approach her slowly to guide her inside the caves, but as instant as a wild lioness she was quick to greet them with a deafening roar and a show of her sharp teeth, taking a single haste step forward as a warning.

"It's alright," you called from above her, gesturing to the keepers, "I'll see her inside."

Khamira had been a temperamental wild beast ever since you claimed her; she disliked most people and had a tendency for ferocity if anyone dared to cross her boundaries, or worse yet, dared to threaten you. The dragoness bowed her head to you, and you only.

You jumped down from the saddle, feet hitting the ground as you bit back a smile. Your hand traced the warm scales along her neck as you walked, "Emi ȳdragotan nūmāzma bisa, ao jorrāelagon naejot gaomagon aōha vēdros, riña." You reached her face, caressing the shape of her muzzle while she cooed quietly at your words. ('We've spoken about this, you need to mind your temper, girl.')

Soon after, Caraxes also reached the ground, grumbling loudly as if annoyed for losing the race. "Sȳrkta biarves hembar jēda, rōva vala." You approached your father and the red dragon, watching as he climbed down from his saddle as well. ('Better luck next time, big guy.')

"Kesi iēdrosa pyghagon ao lanta." Daemon walked up to you, steps lazy as he pointed a finger at you with an amused smile. ('We will still beat you two.')

You laughed, meeting him in the middle of the otherwise empty grounds of the dragonpit. "Gaomagon ao jaelagon." ('Keep dreaming.')

A few feet away from you, Khamira and Caraxes met up as well, circling each other and exchanging low grunts, roars, and harmless bites. Two formidable beasts who had become friends over time.

You watched the two dragons with fondness for a beat, before turning your attention back to your father; who, you noticed, looked at you with a strange and unreadable gaze.

Daemon had both hands resting on the hilt of his sword, there was a small frown on his features, as if hesitating with the words he was about to say.

He sighed, glancing down. "I've been looking for you."

"Oh, we just went out for a flight." You explained easily, gesturing to your dragon, "I took her outside King's Landing for a few hours, you know how she gets if she's cooped up for too long."

Daemon chuckled, no stranger to the deep bond between you and the once-wild dragon. "Of course." Yet his small smile seemed strained, almost uncomfortable.

You frowned, shifting on your feet for a moment, "Is… something wrong, father?"

"We need to talk, about a rather urgent matter," Daemon spoke slowly, minding his words. And you don't think you've ever seen him this hesitant; this is not a conversation he's overly happy to be having.

You hesitated, his nervousness seeping into you. "Okay... what is it?"

What looked like a grimace passed over his features, as if searching for other ways to say what he needed to say. Eventually, he simply cleared his throat, "After last night's supper, Rhaenyra and I have talked." Daemon held your gaze for a beat, before quickly adding; "It was mainly her idea, so don't come for my neck." He tried jesting.

It did nothing to help the growing confusion inside your stomach, and you leaned your head to the side with a deeper frown on your brows.

"We all know our family has been drifting apart more and more as the years go by." He further explained, taking half a step closer to you so as to better hold your gaze, "And with the King solidifying Rhaenyra's claim to the throne, the greens won't be happy to… be left out. So we've decided, that it would be in everyone's best interest," His words seemed to get caught in his tongue, "To unite our families again, once and for all."

You kept quiet, yet distantly you could feel your heart pick up its pace. Your fingers tingled and you grasped at your overcoat with a bruising grip. "And what… does this have to do with me?"

Daemon chose to ignore the question. "Rhaenyra has already spoken to Alicent and my brother, the King; and after some reasoning, both have, surprisingly, dare I say eagerly, agreed to it… as well."

You blinked once, twice, shaking your head; "Father, what in the seven hells are you on about?"

He breathed in deeply, holding the silence as he regarded you with something akin to sympathy. "We've decided to unite this family again, by offering a betrothal."

Your blood ran cold. You held onto the air in your lungs until he spoke again.

"Between you, and Alicent's second son, Aemond."

It felt as if your heart ceased its beating entirely. His words left you disarmed, and you were suddenly drowning in the waters of the Narrow Sea; sinking deeper, deeper, deeper into cold and dark waters that suffocated you from the inside out.

"What?" It fell as nothing but a breath past your lips.

Daemon could clearly see the sudden panic in your wide eyes, he reached both hands up, taking hold of your arms and rubbing his thumbs on the thick fabric of your overcoat. "I know it came suddenly, daughter. I… tried speaking against it, but believe me, even I know this is the right choice."

You tried finding your voice again, all choked up and tight; "I- No, I can't- Father, there must be something, anything else that can be done to repair this-" You stammered, "This rift between our families. Anything other than trading my life for it."

"I've been in your shoes before, I know how you feel, but it's not the end of the world-"

"Not the end-" You gulped back a sob, groaning in frustration, "How can you say that? It is to me. And then what? What would be expected of me? To bring gods know how many children to this world?"

Daemon huffed out a small laugh, avoiding your eyes, "No, worry not, we don't expect you to have children, you're not in direct line to the throne so there's no need for heirs. We only need a powerful alliance, a direct connection between both our families strong enough to keep our squabbles at bay, and that," He shook your shoulders, gaze intent, "You can provide."

Slowly, drop by drop, reality downed on you. The time had finally come for your betrothal, a day you had wished would never come at all. "You're asking me to be a means to an end," you whispered, "Why me?"

"I have… noticed how close you seem to be with The One-Eyed Prince," Daemon spoke with poorly concealed disdain, "We believe it would be in your best interest-"

Tears welled up in your eyes. Aemond. Of all people, his was the hand you'd be taking in marriage, being forced together for the sake of uniting your families.

How tragically ironic, for you to be promised to one another with broken bonds and stained hearts. Just as you had found each other again, just as you hoped to make up for all the lost years. Soon, the overly fragile bond you had only started to get the hang of again, will become public knowledge. It won’t be your secret anymore but rather an over-discussed gossip.

Aemond would resent you for it, surely. You knew he would, and you wouldn't blame him. Because right now, you feel something similar, angry and bitter, as it took away your choice of falling for him all over again on your own terms, in your own time. Instead, you were being forced into a closeness none of you were ready for.

Staggerly, your watery eyes rose up again, "It is in my best interest not to be married off against my own will, father." You pleaded, taking hold of Daemon's wrist from his hand on your shoulder, "Please."

"You are also closer to being Rhaenyra's child than Baela or Rhaena could ever be." Daemon continued his reasoning, "Besides, they are already betrothed, as is Alicent's firstborn. You and the second Prince will be the final piece, so to speak."

You shook your head weakly, "I love Rhaenyra but she's not my mother, not by blood, we both know it."

Daemon raised his brows, placating you. "You're not her blood but you are mine. And Rhaenyra took you as her ward, raised you as her own since she first met you. Our… differences with Queen Alicent lay heavier on her shoulders, as you know."

His words left you lost and uneasy. You bit into the inside of your cheek until nearly tasting blood, avoiding your father's stare. He made a good point, deep down you knew he did. Tensions were high between your family, and a strong union was necessary for a chance of peace. And heavens know Aemond is most dear to you, oh he is; but no girl wants her freedom taken away like this. "Please father, don't. Don't take away my choice on this." You tried one last time.

There was a beat of silence, and then Daemon's hands came to your cheeks, thumbs smoothing the skin of your cheekbones; just a little rough yet holding nothing but affection. "My first daughter, my zaldrītsos." He spoke low and soft, a voice he most used to you during the nights you were young and afraid of storms. "Ever since I took you from the hands of your drunk of a mother, what do I tell you? Do you remember?"

A sob climbed to your throat and you failed to bite it back. There were tears in your eyes one blink away from spilling. "That as long as you lived... I'd- I'd be alright."

A small, proud smile came to your father's features. He nodded once. "That's right. I would never do wrong by you, I wouldn't ask this of you if it wasn't our only playing card. Marriages are political agreements. It's a contract for a chance of peace between our families. Once it is done you can pursue happiness wherever you'd like."

And yet you didn't know how to tell him, that this political agreement might destroy your last hope of rebuilding what you once had with your now betrothed. You knew what would be expected of you and Aemond now, at every court and royal gathering you'd have to be side by side, it would be your duty to hold the appearances of a united Prince and Princess of the realm.

How will you do it? How will you hold his hand knowing it was neither yours nor his choice to do it?

How will you pretend to be in love, knowing nothing will be real, when deep down in your heart you wished it was?

"I wish it could be different," Daemon spoke again when you kept quiet, gaze miles away, "But a war is brewing." He dropped his hands from you, glancing up at the darkening sky. "And this union may help us avoid it, the one between our families, at least."

You closed your eyes and emptied your lungs. All your fight left your body, and a feeling of numbness settled in. You opened your eyes. "Does- does Aemond already know about this?"

─── ⋄✧⋄ ───

There were two knocks on the doors that led to Queen Alicent's chambers, a moment later, the doors were pushed open.

"Prince Aemond, Your Grace." The guard stationed outside the doors announced. Aemond slowly walked in, and the doors were closed behind him again.

Alicent sat on the couch in the middle of her room, a cup of tea in hand as she looked out the open windows. Her attention shifted once the doors opened.

"Mother," Aemond called, halting his steps by the edge of the couch. His hair partially disheveled from the speed with which he traversed the long hallways of the Keep until reaching his mother's chambers, anxiety and apprehension spurring him on.

"Aemond," Alicent placed her cup of tea on the small table, getting up to take a few steps closer to her son, "I was just about to send for you."

Aemond gulped back, striving to keep his voice from sounding as nervous as he felt, "I've just met with Aegon in the training yard." He frowned, recalling the confusing words of his brother. "He speaks of… some news regarding me, I believe, that I do not yet know."

His words made Alicent groan, closing her eyes momentarily, "He must have overheard my conversation with Rhaenyra and her husband." She sighed, regarding Aemond with a look he couldn't decipher. "I am glad he held his tongue, I wished to tell you this myself."

Aemond took a step closer, his voice softening in the slightest. "What is it, mother? Did something happen?"

"No," Alicent spoke even softer, extending her hands and taking hold of Aemond's forearms who promptly held her the same. Her thumbs moved up and down on the fabric of his sleeves. "But, my son, your father and I have made a decision, one which I hope you can understand."

A frown then came to Aemond's features. He held onto his breath until his lungs ached, tightening the hold he had on his mother's arms; fearing the worst, even if he had no idea of what 'the worst' could be. And in the midst of it all, the headache came back. It always began with a heaviness in the back of his skull, but it would soon spread to his temples, forehead, and down the harsh scar.

Aemond blinked a few times, trying to chase the pain away even if he knew it was to no avail.

Alicent inhaled deeply, giving Aemond what looked to be a bittersweet smile. "Rhaenyra and Daemon have made an offer," she hesitated, "A betrothal between you… and Daemon's eldest daughter."

Many times in his life Aemond has felt lost, helpless, unable to move his body while his heart thundered inside his chest. Yet he wondered if any at all could compare to how he's feeling now.

The One-Eyed Prince tried to keep his face impassive, almost painfully so; but he knew his wide eye reflected his surprise, he knew his tight grip on his mother's arms reflected his desperation, he knew the wobbling of his lower lip reflected his fears.

You. He was to be betrothed. To you.

The one person he wished to have back for so many years. The one person who he has missed for so many years. The one person who he'd convinced himself that, for better or worse, did not care about him anymore. The pounding pain in his head grew stronger, following suit with his spiking emotions, and he gritted his teeth.

"My son," Alicent reached one hand up to Aemond's cheek when the helpless look in his eye tugged at her heart. "I believe it can be a good idea. Your father wishes for peace between our houses, between our families, and… perhaps we should honor his wish." She held a pause, minding her next words. "He's not doing well, your father, as you know. And Rhaenyra is to take the throne, maybe sooner than we thought."

Aemond took in her words one by one, trying to find his voice but with no luck. All he did was look at his mother. He knew, of course, that she was right. If anything he'd made tensions even higher between their family after what happened at supper last night, and part of him didn't want to bring more sorrow to his mother's life by going against this betrothal.

"With this marriage, our families would be united once again." Alicent squeezed Aemond's arms, willing him to understand, "I refused an offer such as this in the past… and I don't think I should make the same mistake now." She gulped down any pride, yet still raised her chin, "For the sake of our lives. Yours, your brother's. A union with the hope of peace during Rhaenyra's rule."

Aemond averted his eye, his hand still sore from holding his sword during the sparring session with Cole, his scarred eye socket stinging persistently. He dropped his arms to his side, flexing his fingers. "I am- I am to marry…" He hesitated on your name and closed his eye in frustration.

Alicent understood anyway, and her son's hesitation brought sympathy to her. Features softening, one of her hands rubbed Aemond's arm in an attempt to comfort him, "Yes. But I remember how the two of you used to be the best of friends, always together. I am sure your marriage will be a happy one, my son." She spoke with a note of empathy, gently; "It is a privilege, to marry someone you like."

Aemond exhaled shakily. Few and far in between as they were, the moments when he could lean into a mother's embrace were always cherished by the One-Eyed Prince. Yet there was a poorly concealed lump in his throat, a restlessness making his fingers tap his thigh.

Aemond refrained from telling his mother how he feared you didn't like him as you once used to anymore. He refrained from telling his mother how he would never wish for a woman like you to be stuck with a man like him.

With a tightness in his chest, deep down Aemond knew you deserved better. Better than he could ever be.

But alas, he opened his eye, looking down at the hopeful look on his mother's face even if his headache almost got her blending with the faded sunlight seeping through the windows.

Aemond managed a small, pained smile, and nodded.

⋆* ☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ

Next chapter

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Thank you for reading this chapter. Feedback and reblogs are literally what keeps me motivated to continue posting here, so I’d appreciate it if you could take some time to reblog and comment. <3

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[jen-with-a-pen]

Two's Company

pairings: Older!Coworker!Logan x Younger!Coworker!Reader

warnings: obligatory MDNI, written on my phone, everyone's an adult and 21+, no smut, open ended, use your imagination, secret relationship/crush vibes, alcohol (wine), sexual tension, again use your imagination

credit: images from Pinterest | divider by @firefly-graphics

a/n: wrote this while thinking about my own work DILF crush instead of finishing the three other WIPs I have. Thank the writer's block. Don't know word count. I need put down. Enjoy💕

Just thinking about him makes your heart race. The butterflies start kicking up a storm in your stomach with their beating wings, twisting and tying you in knots that feel impossible to pick apart.

The mere mention– the mere thought– of his name is enough to send you spiraling, chest thrumming with palpitations. He's not even in the goddamn room with you and you're already sweating. Hands clammy, knees weak, face filling with a red-hot heat that you can't fan away.

You bite back a grin thinking of the way his lips spread into a smile when you make him laugh, the crooked tilt of a knowing smirk when you impress him with something he didn't think you had up your sleeve.

It's been years, but that one song you had on repeat as a teen plays like a broken record in the back of your mind; the lyrics, reminiscent of how the gray in his hair shines like silver, the blue in the pills he probably takes, the gray clouds of smoke from his cigars.

You didn't understand then, but it's crystal fucking clear now.

And when you think you're over it– over him– you're at home, alone on the couch, nursing on a glass of wine while watching the trashiest of all TV shows a streaming service can offer, when an image of his face pops into your head. Unprompted. Unasked for. Like some crude joke.

But you... you don't mind. Not entirely, if you're honest.

You saw the way he looked at you on Tuesday as you walked out of the meeting, his eyes burning into your swaying hips underneath that tight pencil skirt. Or how, on Thursday, when you took your lunch break, he took the time to stop and compliment you on the sweets you brought in the entire time it took for you to reheat Wednesday night's leftovers. Even followed you back to your office asking what makes you– under the more appropriate guise of your baking– so, so sweet?

A stolen glance, a brush of fingers, subtle praise and the million-watt smile of his makes way to the forefront of your mind. The faded tanline of a wedding band on his ring finger sits on the sidelines, a sore but needed reminder, nonetheless. Teeth to your lip, eyes scrunching shut while your eardrums echo with the phantom sound of his voice. The honeyed timbre. His inflections and musings. What was it he said to you a couple of weeks ago after the project meeting? In that sinfully low octave meant for you and you alone?

"If you're ever lonely, I'm just a phonecall away, sweetheart."

The guilt and shame can take a backseat. You'll deal with them some other time.

You set down the wine glass– not even half-empty– and pick up the phone.

thanks for the patience while I get around to finish my other WIPs 💕 reblogs and comments are always welcome

[frostironfudge]

I Need You To Listen - Steve Rogers

Summary: For @the-slumberparty 's Week 3 Something New Challenge, I went with the medium mode - sex pollen but with exes to lovers. This took alot of work I ended up rewriting it entirely, I hope you enjoy!

Word Count: 7.4k || Dividers: @firefly-graphics

Pairing: Nomad!Steve Rogers x Fem!Reader

Warnings: 18+ minors dni, smut, angst, smut, fluff, sex pollen, p in v, fingering, dirty talk, love bites, steve rogers dirty talking (this man), swearing, nipple play, past is in italics, sort of a post civil war rewrite so we're going completely off canon

Main Masterlist || AO3

Fate works in the most hilarious of ways, a stubbed toe over here and a broken heart still being nursed over there. 

Tony Stark stands in front of your cell, staring at you through the glass. You don’t hold back your tears from him. Disappointment colours his features. 

Broken pieces of trust lay scattered on the floor. The damage by him was done. Leaving you to bear the brunt. Leaving you to walk on the jagged edges of the broken family. 

A family that shared jokes, laughed, drank and protected each other. 

Won together. 

Lost together. 

In the past few days died together. 

“How are you holding up?” His arc reactor gleams as he takes a seat on the stool. Unzipping the jacket he wears his arm in a sling. You close your eyes, more tears fall at the memory of the fight. An involuntary shiver as the chiling bite of the cold manifests itself from your memory. 

The cell isn’t uncomfortable. There is a cot in the corner, the bathroom has a door. The sterile scent of the cleaning agent stopped giving you a headache hours ago. 

“Why are you asking me?” You look at him, he should be mad, he should yell, call you a traitor. 

“Contrary to what you all think and did to me, I trust you.” He shrugs, left eye twitching, he rolls his shoulder. 

“How is the arm?” Your gaze falls to it. 

“Seen better days. You know, heart troubles.” He looks at Wanda’s cell, “Kid, Vis is asking about you.” 

She looks up at him, “Is Rhodes alright?” 

Tony presses his lips into a thin line, shaking his head. 

Wanda looks down at her hands. 

“He tore us apart. That Baron Zemo. I know you have a lot to learn, alot to grieve. The accords may be dissolved. I’m working on it. At SI we’re  preparing the bail documents.” He informs you all. 

Sam scoffs, “What about Cap and Barnes?” 

“James is in recovery as per my last conversation with T’Challa. Where Cap and Nat are I do not know nor does he.” Tony gazes back at you. 

“I trusted him.” Is all you can say to him. You stare at your palms, you couldn’t get the blood off. 

“I know, I did too.” 

“Tony.” Your lips quiver another sob at the heartbreak Steve left you with to deal. All alone. 

Bucky fights Tony, you don’t want to see your best friend hurt. The man who took you under his wing when you joined in, your steps halted by the blonde haired man who harbours your heart. 

“Sign the accords.” Steve orders, you gape at him. 

“Steve, do you fucking realise? We’re here because I didn’t sign them because I am siding with you?” You almost yell. The tempreture drops as the snow cascades into the facility from the now broken windows. 

Bucky lands on the floor, a pained groan, his arm blasted off. He kneels, eyes widened at the implication. At the man he hurt irreparablely being the one to take away one of the curses HYDRA bestowed upon him. 

“Shit!” Your eyes move to Tony, slowly he rises from the floor. The suit broken in several places. 

“Y/N, you need to listen. You cannot go rogue with me.” 

“Steve,” You push his arm away you had to intervene. 

“It was good while it lasted.” He says and everything turns to static. 

“Wh-what?” 

“Look, I, we had a good run but I know your stance on the accords you’re just with me for the sole reason we’re together.” Steve says to you. 

“Are you serious right now?” Anger courses through you, your grip on your pistol tightens. 

“It's not even the accords. I, I didn’t think we would make it beyond this month. Look, I have to think about Bucky. Its all of this, it doesn’t, priorities.” He lunges over to defend Bucky leaving you defenceless. Your ears ringing, you watch as they fight, you can’t hear any of the clangs the groans. 

You stand there dumbfounded. 

As Steve throws Tony down the beam reflects off of his shield and hits you on the shoulder you’re thrown against the wall. Bucky meets your eyes, at least he seems apologetic.  

Tony tries to get up to help you, “Rogers, she’s hurt—,” The shield slams against the arc reactor. 

“I don’t care.” He says so easily.

You pant as the pain increases, both the burn and sting of his words as well as the physical injuries manifesting across you. 

Steve helps Bucky up, you try to push yourself to your knees, crawling to Tony while keeping your arm close to your body. 

Bucky looks back at you, his eyes convey his remorse. Tony breathes hard, you blink back tears at the glance Steve doesn’t spare towards you. 

Eight months down the drain.

The morning kisses, cuddles, the random sketches of you he left as gifts all lose their importance. Remembrance only causes pain. 

“Mr. Stark, you need to leave.” 

Tony sighs, “I’ll visit, or I’ll have you guys out before that. Work some arrangement.” 

“I’m so sorry, Tony.” You look at his arm and back at his face. 

He gives you one of those sad smiles of his, the one where he pretends it's just another day, another common thing. 

“Aren’t you foolish to trust us again?” Sam questions him as Tony passes by his cell. 

“I just have to do my job. It’s the people who have to trust us.” Tony turns to face Sam. 

“So the people trust the missile maker millionaire Stark?” Sam knows the jab is stinging, Tony hated 

that about the company’s past. 

The rift was ever present, your friend looks towards you. 

“Y/N, let him know not to insult me, I’m a billionaire.” He grabs his glasses and moves away. 

You resist the urge to laugh, everyone would resort to their coping mechanisms. You’d have to bide your time here. Usually getting black out drunk was how you solved your own problems. 

True to his word Tony has you all released on various conditions. You, Scott and Wanda are released together. 

When you reach the tower it isn’t surprising that there was a break in, you’d scoff that Steve didn’t come to break you out but he made his decision in Siberia. 

The faint scent of his cologne lingers in your room. Hints of Patchouli and Bergamot. You stare at the box on your bed. 

Opening it reveals a burner phone. 

“I got a burner too, one number loaded upon it.” Tony stands at the door holding a glass of scotch for himself and your favourite Vodka in a bottle. 

“Surprised he bothered.” You open the phone and it chimes an unread text upon it. 

“I didn’t get that.” He observes, you take the bottle from him. 

Opening the text. 

SGR: I want to talk to you. Please let me explain. 

You laugh bitterly, unscrewing the cap and taking a long sip. At least you can blame these tears on the alcohol. 

“Are you going to? Call him I mean.” Tony settles on your desk chair. 

“Nope.” You set your bottle down after three more sips, grabbing the edges of the opened flip phone you press. The phone snaps from its hinges and you place it back down in the box, “Did you track it?” 

“Fake return address.” He twirls the ice in his drink. 

The two of you bask in the silence. Drinking in tandem and out of sync. 

“Were you going to sign the Accords?” You ask after a while staring at the setting sun. 

“Nope,” He reaches for your bottle, pouring himself a peg, “I was having them redrafted. Steve only had to agree for them to shut up. My draft would have gotten approved.” 

“So confident.” You raise your brows. 

“Comes with the job title.” He rolls his eyes. 

“Do you think anyone will trust anyone?” You tap the bottle neck. 

Steve’s laughter reverberates against your chest. He reaches up to cup your face. 

“Why is it so amusing?” You ask, not meeting his eyes. 

“Because it is, Poppet. I wouldn’t break your heart.” He assures yet again. 

You gnaw at your bottom lip trust was difficult to come by for you. 

“You want to know why?” He whispers, making you meet his gaze. His nose brushing against your own. 

“Because I have your heart and it's what is keeping me alive.” 

You lean closer, pressing your lips to his, Steve kisses you back. Hands pulling you closer. You feel his smile between the kisses and you begin to retract knowing what he was upto but it’s too late. 

Steve tickles your sides and laughter blubbers from your chest. He grins, cheeks flushed as you press against him. The thin sheet hides nothing from the way you feel. 

“I love you.” He says, you stroke his cheek with your thumb.

“I loved him with everything in me.” You blubber out, tears falling down. 

Tony sits next to you, your head rests on his good shoulder, “I know you did. It's a hard road ahead, kid. Not an undoable one.” 

“I hate him.” You declare, “I hate him, he just, how could he be so selfish?” 

“Sometimes we all are, he is in the wrong. He didn’t exactly reciprocate the trust.” Tony sighs, you look up at him. 

“I’m sorry about your parents.” You watch him give you those sad smiles, he flexes and extends the fingers of his left hand. 

“He could have told me, I trusted him enough that he could.” He whispers then shakes his head. 

“Steve Rogers is an asshole.” You declare raising your bottle to his assholery. Then you giggle. 

“You just thought of the word assholery didn’t you?” Tony giggles as well. 

Both of you burst out laughing. 

“Hey Tone?” You ask mid laughter. 

“Yeah?”

“Thank you for being here, also can I get a box?”

“Sure.” He stands, FRIDAY has the box led by one of his tinkered bots to the room. 

“I need to check on Rhodey.” He says, “I’m a call away okay?” 

You nod, he leaves. The box stays on your bed and then you stare at the sketches hung around your room. With a delicateness that Steve didn’t spare towards you, you pack up the papers. Sealing the box with plastic wrap and head down to the safety deposit lockers. 

Your steps are misjudged and you drop your box of trinkets several times. The stupid ceramic mug from that couples pottery class probably shattered. 

You giggle thinking how it resembles your heart. 

Locking the box leaves you in silence. Your room is void of all things Steve except the one shirt he gave you on your first mission together where the two of you fell into the muddled waters that left the two of you in need to change out of clothes. 

The shirt smells like him, you curl up with it on your pillow. 

“This is the last time you gave your heart away.” You tell yourself. 

“This is the last time you cry over him.” You promise yourself. 

Eight months pass and you all sit in the conference room. The accords are abolished. They reinstate Natasha, Sharon, James, Sam and him. Tony holds his flip phone. Resorting to texting rather than speaking to him. 

A reply comes when you all are back at the tower. They’d be there tomorrow. Rooms are prepared with favourite foods stocked up. You had requested your room be shifted away to another level. 

Heart ache didn’t manifest beyond those few nights. 

Your walls that Steve Rogers broke down were built back stronger. Impenetrable. His shirt was placed in his room by you a month into getting over him. 

You don’t pass by the floor, you’re a level above. Thankfully the elevators divide the levels they service and you won’t ever be on the same floor as him. 

The night is restless despite your indifference to all of them. They were the family you chose and yet you were abandoned by them. 

Dreams are but a loop of memories you have buried. 

After your morning laps you head to Tony’s lab. 

“They will be dropping in at SHIELD first. Fury wants to discuss some things and then they come back here.” He stifles a yawn. 

“You need caffeine my friend.” You hold up the coffees, “Luckily I come bearing gifts.”

“I love you.” He whispers gingerly while taking the cup. 

“Are you talking to the coffee or me?” You ask, taking a sip of your own. 

“I can love both.” He defends, whispering to the coffee he loves it more. 

You throw one of his discarded paper balls on him. It doesn’t phase him. 

“Are you sure you want to come along?” He asks for the umpteenth time on the drive to SHIELD. 

“Tony, I will leave you behind if you ask me again.” You glare at him. 

“I think you will be fine.” Vision assures a gentle smile on his face and he laces his fingers with Wanda. She smiles at him, her own mind filled with thoughts. 

“See we’ll be okay.” You declare. 

Minutes later you’re seated on one side of the conference room. Tony on the first seat, you on the second. Vision opts to stand behind Wanda as she sits. 

Fury sits at the head of the table. The door opens and Natasha, Sam and Steve step into the room. A thick silence settles over. You look at each of them and then back at Fury. 

Natasha’s hair is shorter and blond, Sam seems to have gotten leaner. Steve was sporting a beard and longer hair. 

You wondered if the post break up look was something you should have gone for, maybe dyed your hair blue.

“Well, as you know you all have been reinstated. The Avengers operate without any Accords binding them but they must be mindful of their poweress and the possible damage they may cause. A country has full discretion to forbid the Avengers from subduing threats that may lead them there and you must honour that no matter the cost.” Fury gazes at you all. 

“What if they need help?” Steve questions, you scoff. 

Cold blues flash to you. You roll your eyes. 

“The dissolution of the Accords was done keeping this one rule in mind. I suggest you make peace with it. You will not be able to save everyone from damage and hurt, it is better than causing it.” Tony adds. 

Steve’s jaw tightens. He nods. 

“Now since this is done and dusted. Official missions may resume.” Fury places down a manila folder. 

“Official?” Sam questions, raising a brow. 

“Agent Y/L/N here was liasoning with us for recon purposes. Kept under wraps. We have identified HYRA bases. Once the plans are sanctioned you all will be back on duty.” Nick sighs, “I suggest you all train together to get a sense of your skill sets and moves again.” 

No one nods. 

Nick shakes his head leaving the room. 

“Your old rooms have been cleaned at the tower. Access is via FRIDAY, food is stocked. Layout’s almost the same. Few changes here and there. Oh and there are new succulents in the living room.” Tony fiddles with the folder. 

“We can conduct a meeting about these missions tonight or tomorrow. You all settle in, there is a car outside and your vehicles are in pristine condition at the garage.” He informs them further. 

“No welcome back party?” Nat muses, you laugh. 

“I drank all the liquor so unfortunately no parties.” You deadpan. 

Nat and Sam stare at you. 

“It has been a difficult few months. I understand everyone will take time to return to a semblance of previous normalcy.” Vision’s words are both reassuring but also farfetched. 

Wanda grasps his hand and gives it a squeeze. 

Steve’s brows furrow in worry. He observes you trying to find any hints but you give him none. You learned to school yourself. An agent well versed in hiding her intent, emotions and aim. Your skillset is what brought you to the team and it is what you have. It's what you could trust. 

Sam nods, “Well best we head back.” 

“Yes we could use some sleep.” Natasha says, you flash her a smile. 

“Yep, well I have a few things to discuss with Fury.” You push away from the table first. Tony follows your lead. 

“Should you not include us in the conversation?” Steve says in his authoritative baritone. 

“Unfortunately, Captain, it isn’t an Avengers matter but a personal one. Which you aren’t entitled to know.” You spit back. 

His mouth opens again to speak. 

Tony beats him to it, “Where’s our Manchurian candidate?” 

“Bucky’s in the UK for a bit, after Wakanda we were there for a while. He stayed back for personal reasons.” Steve explains and you slip out. 

Steve stares at your room door, knocking on it yet again. Two weeks since his return and you had avoided him in every capacity.

He had worked up the courage to knock on your door today. But there was no response as it was over the past fifteen minutes. He requests FRIDAY to check in and all the AI says is that you’re fine.

You had gotten back from a mission yesterday morning. You had to have been resting. 

“Why won’t she open her door then?” He mutters, pressing his forehead to your door, “Poppet, I just want to speak to you. Please.”

“Captain.” Vision greets floating out of Wanda’s room.

“Vision.” He acknowledges.

“Why are you knocking on an empty room’s door?” Vision tilts his head. 

Steve blinks at him, “This is Y/N’s room.” he states as if obvious.

“It isn’t, she switched rooms about three months ago.” Vision says

Before Steve can ask anything further, Wanda opens her door, “Vis.” She gestures with her hand for him to return.

“Wanda.” He walks to her this time.

“FRIDAY, where is Y/N’s new room?” Steve questions walking to the elevators. 

“She’s on the twenty-fifth floor.” The AI responds, he switches to the other elevator. 

“Captain, you will have to go to the ground floor to switch elevators.” FRIDAY informs him. 

Steve sighs moving back in front of the original elevator. It stops at every single floor; he almost misses the elevator as you’re getting on, luckily a Stark Industries employee holds the door for him. 

You bite the inside of your cheek. Looking away. 

“I want to talk.” He says over the all too silent but crowded elevator. 

Everyone looks at him except you. They follow his gaze to you. 

“I don’t.” You answer while staring at the numbers. 

“Poppet.” He says and you shoot him a glare before looking away again. 

People trickle in and out. 

Steve’s gaze is trained upon you. He nods politely at those greeting him but his gaze nerver strays from you. 

You look into your phone pulling up a forgotten game loaded into the device. Anything. Any stupid thing to avoid him. 

Finally it's just the two of you. 

The automated air freshener hisses filling the space with the scent of lavender. 

“Poppet I just want to explain—,” Steve steps closer, his hand outstretched. 

“No. I don’t fucking want to hear a word.” You seethe, you move forward pressing the button to your floor if it makes you reach quicker. 

“Poppet.” He grabs your hand, turning you towards him. 

“Y/N. Use my damn name.” You spit out, finally meeting his eyes. 

There is a tick in his jaw, he nods, “Y/N. Just five minutes. I know I don’t deserve it—,”

“You don’t deserve to even ask for a minute of my time. You never saw us work beyond that month correct? Well guess what? We don’t.” You push at his chest, he doesn’t budge. 

“I lied. I said those things so you wouldn’t follow. I could not have you living rogue with me.” Steve admits, you stare at him. 

“You lied?” You repeat. 

“I didn’t want to break things off but that was the only way I could ensure you wouldn’t follow behind me. It was dangerous. Poppet—Y/N,” he corrects, “I told you your heart kept me alive, I love you—,” 

Steve’s head snaps to the side, cheek turning red at the impact of your slap. You breathe hard, eyes tearing up. 

“That was not for you to fucking decide, you do not get to come back here and make your sorry excuses for being a horrible human being. Betraying my trust. Leaving me and your friend injured. You picked Bucky over us. You picked Bucky over me and I understand I would pick him too if I were you. But I would not fucking lie or leave my girlfriend and best friend behind injured horribly. You’re welcome back to the compound Steve. Even back to your glorious Captain America title. However,” 

The doors open to your floor, you step out. 

“I don’t know how you say you’re alive because I took my fucking heart back from your undeserving self. I don’t care if you lied, I don’t care if it was all fun and games. I don't care about you. I don’t want to care about you. You are a teammate because I am forced to consider you one. I don’t need to listen to you to provide you closure or a second chance. You fucking liar!” 

“Poppet,” Steve reaches for you again, you take off running to your door. 

“FRIDAY, deny access. Override only with Tony.” You order, the locks on your doors bolt and Steve keeps knocking and pleading. 

He sinks to his knees outside your door apologising over and over. 

Natasha is pinned to the floor by Wanda as the latter grins triumphantly. Natasha praises her and they break apart. You take Wanda’s place and Sam takes Natasha’s place. 

Mixed training was now mandatory. 

You had almost burned Nick Fury with your glare. Steve hadn’t shown up to any, in fact he hardly was in the same room as you. 

Sam goes full offence, you block the blows. Defending yourself you had worked hard over the time away from official duties. 

Minutes pass by, neither of you yields. Panting you stare at Sam waiting for an opening to take him down. 

“Come on, that's all you got, little spy?” Sam teases, you laugh. 

“You wish birdy.” You stick your tongue out childishly. Wanda and Nat laugh. 

“Come on Wilson.” Nat prompts, “We’re bored here.” 

“Alright,” Sam moves, pulling a fake. You catch it a moment too late, as he’s about to tackle you to the ground you turn. Tugging on his arm as Sam’s eyes widen. 

The momentum thrown off both of you land on your sides, recovering swiftly he’s pinned to the ground by you. 

You grin at him. 

“How's that birdy?” You laugh at his irritation. Sam rolls his eyes. 

“Y/N.” 

Everyone’s heads snap to the door, Steve and Tony stand there. 

You help Sam up. Sam keeps an arm around your shoulder. Steve’s eyes linger and his fists clench. 

Sam takes his arm away. 

You roll your eyes, they land on Tony as he bites his cheek, oh this can’t be good you deem. 

“Wheels up in an hour for Rogers and you.” He delivers the news. 

“Sam, Nat, Vis and Wanda are needed to take on a bigger base with Tony.” Steve looks at you, “Fury’s orders before you try to whine your way out if it.” 

You glare at him, “Alright.” 

An hour later you’re on the jet with Steve. He doesn’t talk. The last conversation between the two of you was enough. 

“We won’t be splitting up.” Steve informs you. You nod, studying the layout. 

You frown in recognition. 

“I was here on recon. This is supposed to be a dead base.” You look up at him. 

“Fury said they detected activity.” He looks back ahead. 

“Hopefully it's just random people looking for shelter.” You look back at the plans. 

Steve hums, observing you again. Wishing it would be like before where the two of you would be holding hands. 

Cobwebs litter the walls, plaster cracked. The scent of something decaying permeates through the space. 

Walking into the HYDRA base is carefully crafted, Steve leads with his shield. You keep a double check on the back trail. Something was not sitting right with you. 

The hallway diverges, you stand next to Steve, “Left side first then we can go right.” You whisper. 

He nods, “Stay close, I don’t know why something feels wrong.”

You don’t verbalise your own feelings, following in his footsteps. 

The hallway leads to an abandoned lab, the computers torn down and broken apart. Steve relaxes his defensive stance looking around the area. 

You move carefully through the edge of the room, “Something should be of value here.” 

“I don’t think there is anything.” Steve declares, “Let's clear the other pathway.”

You give another once over and then follow him back down the path. 

Your boot catches on the uneven flooring, “Shit!” You whisper yell as you fall forward. 

Steve turns, breaking your fall. You land against his chest and his arm encircles your waist. For a moment that echoes a broken promise of eternity he holds you close to him. 

Steve sneaks a moment he lost over a stupid decision. He takes what crumbs he’s given by fate. 

Your palm is against his chest, your head tucked against the crook of his neck. 

Why can't you move away?

Why do you want more of him? 

Why do you miss him? 

He hurt you. 

He lied. 

He hurt you. 

You break the eternity Steve was living as you pull away, silence stretches between the two of you as you head down the other hallway. 

It's empty yet again, you shake your head at the waste of time. Steve steps closer to the vials on the shelf. The liquid in them gleams a certain way. 

You hear a pneumatic hiss from your left. You turn quietly making your way to the wall. 

Steve studies the shelf again. There was no dust on it. No pattern on it. These were fresh vials. Then his eyes widened, “Y/N don’t!” 

You turn to face him when the hiss is louder and the slits of the vent open. A dust like substance pours over floating around you. 

A coughing fit grips you, you place your hand against the wall to steady yourself the gun falls as you clutch your chest wheezing. 

Steve pads over to you, trying to rub your back to ease the coughing fit. He asks FRIDAY to scan the micro dust to see if it is anything dangerous. 

The coughing fit subsides over a few minutes, your breathing shallow. You look up at Steve blinking away the tears. He cups your cheek.

“Are you okay? Do you feel anything?” He questions, gaze running over every aspect of you. Glove clad large palms moving over your form. You nod, but then your stomach cramps. 

“What is it?” Steve takes not of your discomfort. 

“I, it's my stomach—,” Your words are cut off by a whimper as the cramp gains severity. You lean more against the wall as the cramp travels across. 

Steve rummages through his mind to know what this substance could be, he had been to HYDRA bases before. He spoke to Bucky all about them, their experiments which he knew. 

He watches as your skin flushes, you squirm in his grasp. He steps closer to support you. 

“Poppet?” Steve makes you look up at him, your eyes have a dazed look almost glazed over. You feel his warmth through your tactical suit. His thigh between your legs and the ache the needy ache is all you know and you need to get rid of it. 

“Please,” You plead to him gazing at his slightly blurred blue eyes, your hips moving out of their own accord against his thigh you moan as your core makes contact with him. 

Steve pushes your hips away, “Poppet what—,” 

“Steve, it hurts so badly. Please,” You cry out wiggling against his hold. His fingers dig into your hips to keep you in place. 

Your palms cover his, you look up at him. 

You lean up, he shifts back. You use the distraction to guide his palm to grind down on it. Your choked moan has his cock harden further. He can’t help but watch as you use him. 

Logic hits him then when he feels just how wet you’ve gotten, before he can pull away there is a prick in the side of his neck. You begin to blur from his view. 

“Poppet, something is wrong.” 

You look up at him, why did his words sound garbled? 

Why was he falling to his knees? 

You look behind him, people standing and watching. 

The need clouding your mind clears in the slightest, “Steve,” you kneel next to him. 

“It’s okay,” he assures you, reaching for the shield. 

The cramp hits you again harder; you cry out in pain, doubling over and sinking against the wall to curl up. 

“FRIDAY, dis-distress signal.” Steve orders as his vision begins to blacken, he reaches for you with the last of his strength covering your curled up form with his body. 

Steve keeps his eyes closed. 

Enhanced hearing picking up the dripping pipes from the left. To his right he hears your pained whimpers. 

How long was he out?

Chains bind his arms above him, the uneven concrete digs into his knees and shins. He would search for the shield in the aftermath. 

He counts four people by their rhythmic footfall. They were in the same facility. It couldn’t have been easy to move them. 

Lolling his head to right he watches you through hooded eyes, chained like him kept on your knees but you’re struggling. Squirming on the ground trying to find respite and crying out of frustration. 

“Sex pollen.” Bucky spoke, with a shake of his head in disgust.

“Sex pollen?” Steve repeated as if to confirm. 

Bucky gives him a look, Steve’s eyebrows shot up higher. 

“What does that do? Did they use it on you?” Steve questioned his best friend. 

Bucky shook his head, “It basically sets the libido up to the maximum, forces the person in contact to orgasm but basically they need to have sex, self pleasure seldom works. The intensity is higher to combat the inevitable effect.” 

A dark expression crossed Bucky’s features, he sighed sadly. Looking out at the view from his home in Wakanda. The house, though borrowed, was Bucky’s own. 

Steve had placed a few sketches of Brooklyn around. The place he used to consider home now changed. Steve stares at the more recent sketch of his home city. 

Two men out of time in a place decades ahead of the world outside. 

“How long?” Steve clutches his charcoal tighter as he forms the curve of soft lips on the paper. A stray tendril of hair. 

Bucky looks down at the half done sketch of your face. His heart aches for Steve and you. 

“Two hours, it gets progressively maddening. At first one can try to speak or answer what is asked. After that it is variable how long it takes for the need to become the sole focus. If nothing is done in two hours then its too far gone and well...” 

He had limited time, he could not gamble any further. Steve opens his eyes, tugging at the restraints to catch the attention of the captors. 

You hear the rattling, you look up at Steve another pang through your core. 

“Steve—,” 

“Ah, Captain. Welcome to the land of the waking, you were out for just under an hour. Now who is this sweet little needy thing with you?” The man asks, stepping closer to you. 

Steve growls, “Stay away from her.” he warns. 

The man raises his hands in defence, “She’s a little needy Captain,” he walks back toward Steve away from you, “Why so possessive?” 

Steve bites his tongue, “She’s mine.” he grits out. 

“I see and why is she yours?” 

He can’t tell them, they would exploit you but his will is crumbling swiftly and his mind is compelling him to speak, “I love her.” 

“Hm, it seems she needs you, Captain.” The man grins, walking back to you. His palm touches your scalp as he pulls your hair back. You want to recoil but the touch is soothing some of the ache. You look at Steve, pleading.  

“I could fill in.” He says suggestively.

You try to shuffle away but the grip on your hair tightens. 

“Don’t you fucking dare touch her!” Steve bellows as his thumb approaches your lips, “What the fuck do you want?” He pulls against the restraints, almost snarling. 

“I want to know where my Soldat is, tell me.” The man demands, leaving you. The words register as does the scent of cigarettes you recoil. You feel your mind working again, clearing the need to be fucked. 

“Steve don’t,” you warn him, he couldn’t sell out Bucky whatever this was, it wasn't worth ruining his life again, “I’ll deal with this…” you bite back the pained whimper. 

Steve stares at you, eyes wide and with an emotion you can’t place. 

“Oh but you know what is wrong with her don’t you Captain?” The man demands and you look to Steve, “Tell her the truth that burns your veins, Captain.” 

Steve wants to lie, wants to cushion you, “Truth serum?” He looks at the man who nods.

“Brilliant isn’t it? You’re compelled to tell me whether or not she chooses to be saved. You’re on a time limit.” The man taps his watch. 

“It’s a sex pollen.” Steve informs you, you stare at him. 

“That, that's why I need?” Your insides churn and your clit pulses as you watch Steve lick his dry lips before he continues to speak. The small insignificant action has your body wanting to be devoured. 

“Yes, and if you don’t get release, it’s fatal.” 

Silence stretches on the footfall of the three others has stopped, they watch the show play out. The consequences and the outcomes weighed. 

“Fight it, don’t tell them. It's not worth it.” You whisper. 

“Poppet you cannot say that. I am not risking your life!” Steve yells, pulling at the restraints again. 

“You can’t have him at risk again!” 

“I won’t let you die!” 

“You already left me for the dead once! You chose him once. Just fucking do it again!” You seethe, your skin clammy and you just want this suit gone. The material irritates you. 

Steve gapes at you, “I, I didn’t—,”

“Save it.” 

“As much as I enjoy a lover’s quarrel. Where is Soldat?” The man interrupts. 

“Gone.” Steve answers, “Poppet, please,” 

“Don’t fucking tell them!” You demand, “Consider it my last wish! Fight the damn truth serum.” 

“You are not dying.” Steve grits out. 

“Where is he, where is Bucky Barnes?” The man lands a punch to Steve’s face. His hair falls forward, slowly Steve looks up at the man. Rage colouring all his features. 

“I will let you help her. Just tell me where Bucky is, Captain.” The man promises. Steve considers, you begin to yell no at him. 

“He’s in the United Kingdom.” 

“Are you insane?!” You slump to the ground, “Do you have any fucking idea what have you done?” 

The man walks over and slaps you, “Shut the fuck up! You want a cock so fucking bad you fucking bitch in heat, I’ll give you one!” 

Steve snarls, wrapping the chain around his own palm and tugging hard until it breaks away from the wall. The man turns, gun cocked and ready, it's grabbed out of his hand by Steve. He looks at the man dead in his eyes before delivering the fatal shot.

You look up at Steve, as the man drops to the floor between the two of you. 

Steve watches the other three scramble about, he quickly fires the shots, he keeps one person alive. 

He grabs the other chain, yanking it with all his strength. It gives way. 

“Where is the shield?” He walks over to the man on the ground, pleading in pain. 

A shaking hand rises, pointing to the vault. 

“Access code?” Steve picks him up and takes him to the keypad. 

The man enters it crying when Steve presses on the open wound, “Don’t fucking pull any stunts.” 

You watch as the doors part and the shield stays there as a momento. 

You blink when everything goes out of focus. You blink again. Heat spreads over your body goosebumps raise across. 

Your thighs clench and you squirm trying to get some friction to release the ache. Tugging at the restraints is maddening. They don’t relent when you try to manoeuvre but no position provides any respite and you sob out as the frustration grows. 

“Poppet.” A warm voice calls out, you whimper. The hold on your right arm loosens and your hand reaches for the tactical suit. You had to get it off. You needed to get it off. 

You blink and watch as Steve’s hand stops yours, you push at him. 

“Please,” you whimper as another cramp takes over. 

“You smell so sweet baby.” He groans, the sound urges you on, you guide his hand to where you need him. 

His warm palm cups you the fabric of your suit soaked Steve hears your sigh of relief. 

“Going to take care of you Poppet, but you need to hold on for me okay?” Steve assures, breaking out your left arm as well. 

“Steve please,” you beg again, your mind screaming at your body, your hips move making you grind onto his palm. Your smaller palm wrapped around his wrist not letting him pull away. 

“Fuck,” He groans, pushing you against the corner and undoing your suit’s zipper, you don’t face him palms braced against the wall. Steve’s warm calloused palm is as though cold respite to your heated skin. 

He doesn’t waste time, fingers running over your folds, palm pressing against your clit. Your head tilts back resting against his shoulder, mouth parted moans leaving you. 

Steve presses his fingers into you, two thick digits and your walls clench around him he almost wishes he’d fuck you right there. 

“Fuck this pussy remembers who she belongs to doesn’t she?” Fingers curve finding the spot he very well could have placed. Stars line your vision as he hits the spot over and over, fingers curving.

“Right there Steve!” You cry out your ass rocking against him, pressing onto his cock. He keeps his thrusts hard and fast, palm rubbing your clit in the most delicious of ways. His grunts fill your senses.

Pleasure thrums from his touch to your body, your back arching as his fingers drive deeper and deeper into you. Your walls are gripping them back in not wanting him to stop. 

“I know sweet Poppet. I know what makes her weep for me. I’m going to taste you. But first you’re going to make a mess on my hand alright?” He instructs filthy words offset by the sweet kisses placed against your forehead and cheek. 

His other hand cups your breast playing with your nipple. Your hands fall from the wall, gripping onto his nails leaving indents on his skin. Steve watches your chest constrict, your voice choke off, eyes rolling back as your orgasm crashes into you. 

His fingers keep moving, riding your orgasm out, your walls quivering around him the sensitivity of your clit as it pulses. Some of the haze clears but the need just returns tenfold.

“Steve, please, I can’t, can’t wait—,” 

His lips are on yours, cutting you off, your suit pushed down further without breaking away from the kiss.

The shield clatters to the floor, his suit haphazardly discarded. Steve’s hands explore your body, remembering the planes he explored before. The love he whispered across your skin. Marking you with his touch, his lips, his seed.

“Wanna see you,” You want to turn, he grabs your hands pinning them to the wall. 

“No one gets to see you this way but me.” He growls, you feel his hard cock move between your thighs. His larger body covers yours, shielding you, watching over you. 

When your thighs clench around him,  Steve hisses, “Going to fill you up, sweet girl.” he coos. 

Inch by inch Steve’s length stretches you, your back arches. The relief the stretch of his cock brings is unlike anything else you’ve felt before. 

“You can take it, made for my cock aren't you?” He stills inside you, throbbing as your walls clench around him. He moans biting down on your shoulder the feel of you decadent, unable to be given justice by his mind.

“Heaven. Pussy feels so good, baby. Missed you so much.” He grunts, you push back against him needing him to move, “hands around my neck.” He orders, leaving your hands.

You wrap them around him, holding onto his now longer hair, soft between your fingers. Your mind remains you of the soft moments when he laid in your lap and your fingers combed through these locks.

Steve pulls you out of your thoughts with the snap of his hips. His palms gripping your waist anchoring you to him. Skin slapping against skin, his cock feels so good you could sob, the need turns into embers, your thirst being quenched. 

Each delicious, deep stroke moves you towards sweet bliss. You hear your name in an echo of his name. Steve watches the wall you mould against him, as countless times before. Your heart may have put up walls but your body left no space.

The way he sees the telltale signs of your orgasm he brings his right hand towards your apex, timing his rough circles on your clit to his thrusts. The sensations blooming become too much, your body alit with flames of pleasure, Steve moans as your walls begin to milk him just as your orgasm shatters through you.

He keeps his thrusts going, pumping into you. The arousal that spills onto your thighs, the mix of you and him. 

“One more.” He demands, fingers coated with the mix of the two of you, his marked fingers brought back to your clit, you cry out in ecstasy. 

The blissful haze clears, everything returning to you. The mission, the power, you can’t, you can’t, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve–,

“Right here my sweet poppet, you will give me one more. You know I'm greedy.” He reasons, only increasing his pace, you thrash in his hold. Lips find the sweet spot of your neck.

It’s your undoing, you cum around him yet again. Crying out his name, tugging on his hair. Aftershocks moving through you. He holds you up, pressing kisses to your forehead, temple, cheek, jaw and shoulders. 

Grounding you, palms moving over you after he brings his coated fingers to taste them. Your head lols against his shoulder, you reach for his jaw, placing a soft kiss. Steve smiles at the familiar gesture. 

Helping you get dressed he follows as well. You’re lifted into his arms and carried to the quinjet.

As it had turned out Bucky wasn’t in UK it was a precautionary measure they came up with to secure Bucky from any life threatening attempts. The guilt you had harboured lessened.

Steve had stayed away from you, once Tony and Bruce cleared you of any remnant pollen he took his leave. Avoiding you as he had after the elevator confrontation. It left a bitter taste in your mouth. 

As much as you felt as if you were an emotional fool for considering the thought of wanting to approach him, you missed him. Terribly. 

You knew your walls were useless against the one man who you had given your jagged heart to, the blue eyes you had drowned yourself in multiple times. Whether it was when he found your gaze across the room or when you were pressed against him.

Your feet carried you after three days to his door. Your hand shook when you knocked. Thoughts swirling through your mind insecurities gaining fleet. 

The door opens, Steve’s eyes widen then his brows furrowed with worry, then fall to the still fading love bite that  he placed on your collarbone. You shift your weight to either side. Hands fiddling with the hem of your top.

You look down at your feet, Steve’s palm cups your cheek. 

Your eyes meet their old home of blue.

“I want to listen.” You manage to say, his pink lips stretch into a familiar smile.

He steps to the side inviting you further into his room.

-x-x-x-x-

[harmonysanreads]

I'm not sure if requests are still open since it's early in the morning where I'm from and idk how our timezones work, please delete this if it isn't orz. If it isn't too much trouble, a dainsleif fic mayhaps 🙏😔? I miss him so much and he didn't come home this patch, can be a short drabble ^^.

Not sure if it's leaning on your "things in consideration" list, but the prompt can be:

You've been under his radar for years but now that he's tracked you down, an unknown child who mirrors his blue Khaenriahn eyes guards you with his small and very fragile life. Those eyes... They're eerily familiar.

(side note: Dain isn't the type who thinks children automatically have a heart of gold lolol. He's kinda a hater when it comes to children cept for Yaoyao /jjjj, maybe that's some extra spice to add for the reason why reader is so terrified and left as soon as she had the opportunity?)

Reconteur

yandere!dainsleif x reader

cw(s) : yandere, implied female reader (the narrative is not gender specific but the word 'mother' has been used once)

wc : 1.7 k

this was an interesting challenge for me because this is one theme i've not done before, with a character i've also never written for! i'm extremely sorry for the wait as i got distracted by hsr :') and thank you so much for requesting<3

a delightful illustration by the loveliest person <3 (spoiler alert!)

Stories are truly spectacular.

They're capable of preserving bygone memories ; changing, adapting and sometimes, becoming far too distant from reality. Like saplings of the tree which extends its roots throughout Teyvat and, their seeds are welcomed by the flighty wind, soon to be cultivated by the torrents of time. The present will one day become history and that history will be archived for posterity to learn and criticize. One such story inspires much intrigue, dressed in charming rhetoric and is thus cataloged among fairy tales : a bittersweet tale of a Knight and an Angel.

And in classic format it goes — once upon a time, a defiled Knight cried out to the heavens, for he could not win against the temptation of seeing the forbidden pearl. This blatant defiance earned him but a curse of eternal agony and soon, he begged the skies for salvation. The clouds softened and sent him a little Angel, who quelled the fires of his pain bit by bit, until it became an infinitesimal dot in the Knight's soul. Brimming with gratitude, the Knight offered his very being to the Angel's service and of course, they lived happily ever after.

Now suppose, fundamentally speaking, if fairy tales are but stories and the retelling of history follows the same pattern — who are the storytellers?

The victors, of course.

The dull thud of pages colliding shut assuages Dainsleif, for the story which now finds itself beside children's bedside tables serves no other purpose than to instigate dulcet fantasies, losing credence before the trials of history. It brews a litany of feelings in his numbed heart until they intertwine and transform into a yarn of befuddling human emotions ; echoing in his ears that this is what his past has become.

Albeit, this hardly astonishes the Bough Keeper. When a war ends and the winners hoist their flags, they'd obviously be privy to recounting their glories — none of them would ever write that the Knight in the story had never begged the heavens for forgiveness and no such Angel was sent. Instead, he'd seen fit to snatch the Messenger that'd implored him to return to his right mind and one would think that Celestia had taken great offense in this act, but no one batted an eye.

That is because the Messenger, too, was forsaken by their home, a fallen angel with no wings and no divinity left. Whose existence became synonymous to that of a firefly and the Knight, became the darkness that allowed it to glow. When two broken individuals unite, they either complete their flaws or destroy one another and sadly, in his case, it was the latter.

But is it such a sin to wish for a normal life? Dainsleif muses as he passes by giggling groups of unassuming humans, desperate vendors trying to sell their wares and many more individuals who might carve their places in the next epics of Teyvat. Often is it said, you only learn to value things after they leave your grasp and while his memory does erode day by day, he'll forever remember that Angel's — your countenance, how the corners of your lips used to curve before they did no longer, how every word of yours bewitched his decaying mind and built it anew.

He was an ant chasing after the fragrance of sugar, a mindless bug blinded by a speck of light, an apophyte clinging desperately to the bough, a sinner. And sinners do not deserve luxuries called normalcy, love or a home. The aftereffects of the Cataclysm that befell his homeland drove uncountable masses to nihility, some embraced their hatred while others rotted in corners of this world. It is testament to Dainsleif's willpower that he'd not been conquered by insanity yet. Indeed, he's always practiced rationale and patience ; which have also aided him in his prolonged search for you.

He investigated till every rock of this wretched world became his acquaintance and he kept on hanging to the last traces of your existence. But, as every expedition led to a dead end, he was forced to accept a lamentable realization, that he missed you. He missed you so much. He'd vowed to never kneel before those who took everything from him, at this point in his life though, he found himself one breath away from begging that floating island — if only it'd bring you back to his side.

Rain. It'd rained before that catastrophic day and on the eve you trespassed in his life as well. Would you laugh if you saw him in this state? Or, would you coax him up from his knees and shield him from the rain? A hoarse chuckle leaves his lips, how shameless does one need to be to still expect comfort from the being they hurt repeatedly? He'd rather not hear the answer.

“Mister?”

The sky growled at his misery but he could not differentiate it from a mocking sneer. He blinked upon feeling the absence of raindrops falling on his person and raised his head to stare.

It is as though the stars gazed at him back, “Why are you kneeling on the ground on a rainy day, mister?”

Dainsleif stared owlishly, his mind momentarily ceased to comprehend the present. The boy that'd reach his knees at most if Dainsleif had been standing returned his gaze in equal interest. Though the man failed to decipher those familiar eyes, it seemed that the boy had reached a conclusion.

��Oh, you must be in pain! Here, take one of my apples.”

The Bough Keeper jolted at the fruit that was shoved to his hand, in the blur of his confusion he'd not taken note of the bag full of apples clutched by the boy's other hand.

“My mother said that an apple a day would keep the pain away—ah, or was it the doctor? Anyway, please take it and don't look so sad. I should really be returning now…!”

Dainsleif opened his mouth (To protest, to question or to thank? He didn't know.) as the boy dashed away, the pitter-patters of the rain lulled his footsteps and left the man a great deal dumbfounded. He looked at the apple, now glistening with rainwater and recalled the boy's words. On normal occasions, he'd be tempted to immediately evacuate the vicinity after that mildly embarrassing encounter but, the memory of the starry gaze that rendered him speechless implored him to follow the boy's tracks.

At this point, his mind was operating on instinct, tracing the footprints of an unknown child without purpose would be the farthest thing he'd put on his agenda in his current state. The dense forest swallowed his form until it finally gifted him with a clearing, a small source of light peeked past a half open window and enticed him closer.

“...re…were…y…?”

The man only came to his senses after hearing muffled voices, standing before what he assumed was the door to the thatched cottage. For a second, he debated whether to continue this rendezvous but resigning that he'd come too far, he decided to take a peek through the window.

The rain lulled just enough to not be an outright nuisance, succinct yet unforgettable — there you were, separated by but a weak wooden structure and Dainsleif's stupefied mind. You are there. Are you really there? Right before his eyes, emerging out of nowhere after he turned Teyvat upside down just to find some reassurance that you're still alive? Your eyes narrowed in that familiar frown and rubbing a towel through a boy's hair—

Wait, what?

Fine strands of blonde clung to Dainsleif's forehead, a few drops of water dripping down to join the small puddle under his feet. He gaped like a fish at the scene and at the boy who led him to this epiphany, completely forgetting vigilance.

“Did you talk to anyone, son?”

Flowers bloomed in his heart at the sound of that familiar lilt and his breath hitched as he processed the contents you uttered. Son. You called that boy son. In the light of your humble abode, he noticed the boy's golden locks of hair that he'd previously foregone and a conclusion crawled its way to his mind. He has a child. He has a child? Dainsleif knew you have a knack for unpredictability but this level of surprise was not what he was expecting upon your first appearance after all these years. He dwelled on the question of how it was even possible for a while, he recalled the boy's eyes ; those characteristic star-shaped pupils would never lie. Voices reached his ear again and he decided to cast aside these questions for a later time.

“I did, but the man looked so sad all alone in the rain! So, I gave him one of the apples because I didn't know what else to do. I promise I didn't talk too much!”

You paused for a while, a cautious query followed, “What did he look like?”

The boy copied your silence this time, finding great interest in your nails before exclaiming, “Pretty ordinary!”

Dainsleif didn't know why but that gave a sting to his heart, he looked back to you to see the unreadable expression on your face slowly shift to a soft smile. You affectionately ruffled the boy—his boy's hair, the action somehow softened the ache in his soul. Until he remembered that he was ignorant of his own son's name. He was one who preferred to form his opinion of everyone from a neutral point of view and while he's not one to excuse children's behavior just because of their age, seeing his own son speak half-truths at this stage raised many more concerns to be dropped in the pile.

You're not someone who'd preach dishonesty to a child but considering the situation you are currently in and the things this child must've seen, he found himself understanding. The skies rumbled and Dainsleif barely pushed back the urge to kick down the door and take his family to where they belonged. But seeing the smile that he'd yearned for so many years, he hesitated. You'd fought hard to earn this little happiness and acting on his impulses now, however justified they might be, would be dishonoring your efforts. And judging by your reactions, he can already sense that you won't just sit idly by for him to pounce on.

So, he'll be patient for bit longer and when the time is right, it'll seem as though his family returned to his arms out of their own volition.

[cressidagrey]

Something good and right and real - Chapter 8

Summary:

Azriel had spent centuries believing that he of all people didn't deserve a mate. And if anything, the last three years had just galvinised that particular belief. And then he meets her.

The first time Oriana met Azriel, she thought that he reminded her of a skittish cat. Shy and a little bit broken. Good for him that she absolutely excelled in fixing the things around her.

Warnings:

Rhys Bashing, Discussion of Murder, Discussion of Mental Illness

Notes:

I put a lot of world building into this. If you don't recognise it from canon, I probably invented. Or I forgot that canon existed.

(thanks to @firefly-graphics for the super pretty dividers!)

Of all the things that finally gave Oriana the spark that she needed to figure out the problem that she had with Azriel’s fighting leathers…well, nobody would have thought that would be a children’s bedtime story. 

But it was. 

She read about dragons and the power of love…and came out of it with her brain literally smoking with ideas. 

Chainmail. Human Knights wore chainmail. 

She didn’t for one moment think that that was going to work for Azriel. 

But the dragons made her think of scales and suddenly it was three days later, Azriel returning from a mission from the cauldron only knew and her forge was absolutely covered in bits of adamantium. 

And Oriana’s hair was standing in every which direction. 

“You look like you had a productive time,” Azriel quipped and she looked at him bright-eyed and excited. But she wasn’t going to tell him a single word. 

She had even sworn his shadows to secrecy. She thought they were more amused by her request than anything, but after she had explained what she was planning, they were happy to agree. 

She was going to finish this…and it was going to be perfect. 

“Oh, I was,” she agreed immediately. “But please, take me out for the rest of the day, because I think otherwise I may become one with the forge.”

She wasn’t even joking. She should really leave it one of these days. 

“We don’t want that,” Azriel agreed, a grin playing on his far too handsome features as he leaned down to press a kiss against her unresisting lips. 

She happily twirled her arms around his neck as she kissed him. 

“I came to kidnap you,” he said softly and she grinned at him. 

“Is it kidnapping if I come willingly?” she wondered. He shrugged. 

“I have no clue,” he admitted. 

“Knife work?” she asked him and he shook his head. 

“No, but we’ll be…near the clearing,” he said. “It’s getting warmer. So I thought…Picnic?” he asked her and her smile filled her whole face. 

She had learned early on that while Azriel didn’t often talk about his feelings…they were there in every single action in all the time he made sure to spend with her. He was the one who got her flowers just because and who brought her chocolate from her favourite shop, even when she had never mentioned it to him. She was the one who just left things in his path, waiting for him to find them, not wanting to overwhelm him. 

It worked for the two of them. But still, the thought that even when he had just come back home, he had come back straight to her, but still managed to bring along a beaten-up knapsack filled with food and drink…well that was adorable. 

They took the usual flight route, the wings beating behind his back rhythmically and Oriana yearned for a moment when the opportunity would arise and she could reach out to touch them. 

Still, as he touched down it wasn’t the usual clearing they used whenever he taught her how to try and stab somebody with that knife of hers. 

He hit the ground but didn’t put her down as he carried her forward. 

She felt the moment they passed the ward boundary. “Yours?” she asked and he nodded. 

“Mine,” he agreed. And then, suddenly, they left the forest behind them and she stared at the perfect mountain lake that stretched just feet away from them. 

Azriel let her down gently and her feet hit the floor as she felt the sunlight kiss her skin. It was getting warmer in Velaris, Spring having truly arrived, Sumer just coming around the corner. 

And for just a single moment, she couldn’t quite believe the beauty before herself. This was…gorgeous.

The water was nearly azure blue, the sun happily shining down onto their little slice of paradise. 

It was all there. Perfect.  

“I love it,” she breathed, turning around and catching Azriel watching her, a shy smile playing around his lips. 

“Good place?” Azriel asked her, quietly. 

“Are you kidding? It’s the best!” she exclaimed, already crouching down so that she could remove the shoes she wore. She stared across the lake as she fussed with her laces, finally getting rid of them. She was so going to put her feet in the water. 

Only then, she caught the cabin that had been built on the other side of the lake. Or maybe a cottage was more fitting. A fairy tale cottage. Built out of grey stone, overlooking the lake. Ivy growing along it, a bright blue door…

She froze. 

If there was a house there…then how had Azriel warded it against…

“That’s yours,” she said softly, realisation setting in.  “The house is yours, isn’t it?” she asked him. 

“Yes,” Azriel agreed, and she could hear the smile in his voice. “I should have known that you were going to figure it out,” he teased her softly.  

She rightened and then turned to watch him watch her, a near-bashful smile on her face. 

He was sharing that with her. Ever since he had told her how he had gotten the scars a week or so prior…ever since then he had started opening up to her about more of his past. Sometimes inconsequential things, but she still hoared all of them like precious gemstones. 

“Thank you for sharing that with me,” she finally said. She couldn’t even imagine how much that had taken from him, because he seemed to be so fiercely private and guarded about so many things. 

“It’s you,” he said like that made that all…easy. 

Oriana smiled. 

And then she turned back around and waded into the water without even waiting for anything else. 

“I wouldn’t… suggest that,” Azriel started to warn her, but she ignored it. 

The pebbles were comfortable under her feet, the water icy. “Why? Don’t you like the cold?” Oriana asked him with a laugh, tugging her skirts up higher so that they wouldn’t get wet. 

“This is icy,” Azriel said, sounding worried on her behalf, but she just grinned at him. 

“I was born in the mountain. You are aware that we bathe in the hot springs and with clear spring water, all the time, right?” she asked him, turning to look at him over her shoulder. “Communal bathing is even part of our culture,” she told him matter-of-factly. That didn’t stop Azriel from staring at her like she had just grown a second head. 

“What, don’t act like you have never done that before,” she teased him. “You seriously want to tell me that Illyirans have nothing similar?” she teased him. 

She was getting used to the water, still cool on her skin but no longer icy and she looked over the lake as she wondered if it was hot enough that she could get away with it… 

“We…Illyrians have Birchins,” Azriel finally admitted. She cocked her head to the side. “We go in there to…sweat.”

“Is that something like steam chambers?” she wondered. She knew that. They had that in the mountains.  

“Sounds similar,” Azriel agreed and she decided that she only lived once and as such she was going to take advantage of the beautiful water.  

That was all she needed as she made that decision, stepping back to the shore only to start opening the ties at her back that kept her dress closed and then pulled it over her head. 

“What…What are you doing?” Azriel asked, his voice sounding a mixture of hoarse and garbled. But that didn’t hide the sudden stab of arousal that she got through their bond as she pulled the dress over her head and dropped it to the ground next to her shoes. 

“What does it look like?” Oriana wondered as she stepped out of her undergarments. “Taking a swim in your lake.”

Azriel made another sound like he was hurt or possibly dying. Oriana was far too amused to stop now. “You are welcome to join me, of course. If you want…”

And maybe, just maybe, a part of her was far too curious. 

And then there was the fact that ever since she had taken off her necklace, he had been…hesitant with her. Not with talking with her, but with touching her, with pressing issues to her…they were always chaste and gentle, and a part of her was yearning for something more. 

He didn’t answer. She was wading in the cold water, taking a deep breath when it was deep enough that she could start properly swimming. 

 “Unless I am hurting your delicate sensibilities?” Oriana teased him, biting her lip. 

The growl that came from the shore in response made every hair on her body stand up in response. Her arousal was a sharp stab in her lower belly, the heat low and molten. 

“Maybe it’s too cold for me,” Azriel’s voice came from the shore, low and dark but she listened to the sound of clothing being removed and she bit back a smile. 

 “You aren’t mated for me for nothing,” Oriana gave back with a soft snort. 

She had fought for decades with her gifts until she knew that she had the kind of control over the fire within her that she wasn’t going to accidentally set anything on fire. 

However, that also meant that there wasn’t much that she hadn’t tested to figure out the extent of her power. And so it was the work of nothing to let the water around her grow hot until it was hot enough to be steaming and bubbling and then let go of her power until it cooled down enough that it was still hot, but no longer boiling. 

“They do say that Autumn Court Faes have fire in their blood,” she quipped. 

“And here I thought that that was only about males,” Azriel said with some amusement, suddenly behind her, a broad hand curled itself possessively around her hip and she grinned like the cat that got the fish and the cream for dinner both. 

“Oh, you know…We can’t have males have all the fun,” she teased him, even when warm lips suddenly pressed against her pulse point. 

Her breath hitched in her throat. 

“Oh, love, I think you are having plenty of fun. You enjoy teasing me, don’t you, you horrid mate,” he teased her. “Just starting to strip off all your clothing without nary a forewarning…”

“Don’t tell me you didn’t enjoy it. You are a male,” she gave back, but her voice was starting to sound surprisingly breathy and he pulled her against a broad chest, taking her weight. 

“Of course, I enjoyed it,” Azriel whispered into her ear, making her shiver. She craned her head so she could kiss him properly, his lips pressing to hers. 

She gasped against him, letting her hands slide over his shoulders, feeling the slick, damp skin underneath her hands, a spiderweb of scars covering them. 

She pulled back and came eyes to eyes to his naked chest for the first time, the bronze skin seemingly glowing in the afternoon sun, only interrupted by intricate lines of black tattoos. 

Oriana couldn’t help herself from reaching out to touch them, from sliding her fingertips over the skin that held them. 

“What are these?” she asked Azriel curiously. Not Bargain marks, were they? They looked different. 

“Illyrian warrior markings,” Azriel answered, his wings rustling behind him. “Luck and Glory in battle. We get them after the Blood Rite.”

He had mentioned that to Oriana in an offhand way a few days ago. 

“They are beautiful,” Oriana said softly, his wings shifting once again, as she pulled her hand back. “Not as beautiful as your wings though,” she said with a grin. 

They seemed to act without conscious thought of him, stretching out further, so that Oriana could see every inch of their massive expanse. 

She swallowed. 

Unwillingly, suddenly there were her sister’s words in her mind again. 

She watched as the blush stole over his cheeks and her toes curled into the pebbles in the ground beneath her. 

“Can I…May I touch them?” she breathed and he swallowed. 

“Yes.”

Somehow this was different than the night she had spent sleeping beneath one of his wings, feeling the weight of it on top of her body. Now was the first time that she actually got to feel the soft, leathery texture underneath her fingertips, the veins that shot through them, the scars that pebbled against her fingertips. 

She was so very gently as she touched him, not sure how…how much prefer to exert but she didn’t seem to…They trembled against her hands and she pulled back. 

“Don’t…” Azriel pressed out hoarsely. “They are just…sensitive.”

Sensitive?

She took another deep breath, the scent of forest and cedar that surrounded him having grown musky and she could pick out the undercuttren t of arousal. 

She was quite sure that she smelled no different. 

“Are they?” she asked instead, fingertips going back to gently tracing the lines of veins, and then up until she reached the talon on the edge of it. She wrapped her hand around it. 

Azriel reacted with a hiss. 

“Yes. And unless you want me to have my way with you right now, you should let them go,” he told her hoarsely. 

She let him go. 

And then leaned up to press a kiss against his mouth, pressing her chest against his, feeling her nipples grow hard by the sudden touch. 

He held still, even as his hands came up to cradle her face. 

“Promises promises,” she sing-songed breathlessly, looking into hazel eyes that were so dark they were nearly black.  

“I always keep my promises,” Azriel told her darkly, dipping down to kiss her again, hands slowly brushing down her back and now it was her turn to shiver. 

“Do you?” She asked him breathlessly, for a moment forgetting what they were even talking about. 

“I do,” he assured her. “I always do.”

And then he kissed her again, and all thoughts flew her brain because her whole world narrowed down to just Azriel. 

Just Azriel and the touch of his skin against hers, his mouth on hers…the cool water of the lake. 

It was his shudder that made her pull back, as she had realised that the water was too cold to stay there for much longer, even when she warmed it with nary a thought once again.

So out they went, with Azriel first, too much of a good male to sneak a peek…Oriana didn’t have that problem. She looked at her piece, taking in the broad shoulders, narrowing to a trim waist, the massive wings that were still flaring wide…the scars that dragged one right down his back and over his ass. It was quite a nice ass. 

Nice legs as well. She shouldn’t be staring. She still did it. 

She liked looking at him like that. 

And she would kind of like to see the other side too. 

She slipped back into her dress and sat primly down onto the picnic blanket Azriel had brought along, eating her fill of sandwiches and cookies and then promptly decided that other tactics were fine too, and laid her head on a strong thigh as she stared into the beautiful sky. 

She sighed softly, closing her eyes, for once in her life utterly and irrevocably happy. 

She couldn’t even remember the last time she had felt that way before Azriel. 

She picked up one of his hands, intertwining their fingers, one broad wing acting as her personal sun umbrella…

“I was thinking…” she started. 

“Always dangerous,” Azriel quipped and she snorted. 

“You are so right,” she agreed easily. “Still, I was thinking…if we properly accept this mating bond…do you want a ceremony?”

He was quiet for a moment and she opened his eyes to have him watch her, his eyes so soft, so wide…like he couldn’t possibly imagine that they were talking about this. 

“Whatever you want,” his voice was hoarse as he said these words, picking up their joint hands to press a kiss to the back of hers. 

“But I asked you,” she prodded gently.  

“I really don’t care. Anyway, I get you is good in my book,” Azriel said softly. “But if you want a proper ceremony then we’ll do that.”

She smiled softly. 

“I just want you,” Oriana assured him. “It’s about us. Not about anybody else.”

Besides, she had done the whole marriage thing once already. The proper way. With all the ceremonies. And look how that had ended. 

So maybe this tie, when it was just about them…just the two of them, the way the Mother had intended…Without anybody else’s opinion weighing on them, because they were both adults and could do whatever they wanted for cauldron’s sake…that seemed nice. 

“Though before we do that, I have some…requests,” Oriana finally said, fingers tightening around Azriel’s.

He hummed a question. 

“I want you to meet my family,” she said quietly.  “Eventually everybody, but we can start with Cyrus and Briony, and their younglings.”

At least then Azriel wouldn’t be a completely overwhelmed mess at the end of it. “You already met Cyrus so that should be easy. Just dinner, nothing fancy,” she assured him. “And a second thing:  I’ll take you dancing at least once.”

“That’s all?” he asked her, sounding incredulously, after waiting for a moment. 

“What did you expect I was gonna ask of you?” she asked with a snort. “That’s all. You’ll probably meet so,e friends of mine when we go dancing as well, but that’s all, I swear.”

“Alright,” he agreed with a shrug. 

“Don’t be too enthusiastic,” Oriana said with a laugh. “Now is the time to tell me any requests you have, by the way.” 

The last thing she expected was the words he blurted out next. “I want you to meet my mother.”

For a moment Oriana’s brain felt like it was freezing before it started working again. His mother?

“She’s still alive?” she blurted out, her eyes flying out and Azriel’s eyebrows furrowed. “I am sorry, it’s just…you never talk about her,” she hurried to add. “I just thought that…” She had died in some tragic way centuries ago and Azriel still grieved her and didn’t talk about her because of that? 

Yeah, Oriana had thought that. 

“No, she’s…alive,” Azriel said, but the way he said that last word made her…curious. He stared at everything but her. “She’s not… well ,” he finally said carefully. 

“She’s…her mind fractured. Rhys has tried to…help her, but every time we try, we just make it worse,” Azriel explained quietly. 

Oriana just swallowed. 

She had heard of that happening before, of the kind of sickness that no healer could help with because it wasn’t an illness of the body but the mind. 

And even mind-healers could not always save somebody once it had…gone down a road like that. If Azriel’s mother’s mind had truly fractured…then everything that made her herself…all of that was gone. 

“So…I try to make her as comfortable as I can. She had a house in the Illyrian Steppes…It’s called Rosehall.  I have a… friend that takes care of her. She’s half wraith and somehow that makes all the difference,” Azriel said softly. “She keeps her company. And tells me when she has a good day so I can go visit…”

Just imagining her own mother in such a state was making Oriana feel like somebody cleaved open her heart. And Azriel talked about this so softly, like this was just how it was and there was nothing he could do, to make it any better. 

“When my mom has a good day, she recognises me. She’s not scared of me. I get to talk to her…even when she doesn’t answer. But she’s…there,” Azriel said, one corner of his mouth lifting up as he recounts that. “But they are getting rarer every year. 

“If she has a bad day then…then she thinks I am my father,” he whispered, his voice dipping into self-loathing. “She’s terrified of me then.”

She didn’t know what she was supposed to do, other than sit up and embrace him as tightly as she could. 

“And you think that me meeting her…that would be good?” Oriana finally asked hesitantly. “I don’t want to make it worse, Sweetling.”

“You can’t make it worse,” Azriel said softly. “Maybe it’s stupid but she’s the only…blood family I have.”

She understood that. 

“Then I’ll be honoured to meet her.”

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

“So when should we do it?” Oriana asked him, practical like always, still draped over his lap. He would gladly spend weeks just like that, breathing in the warm scent of fire and home. 

“I’ll need a few weeks. I need to arrange for leave,” he said softly. He didn’t want to wait. Not when he still was terrified that she was going to change her mind. 

But he needed to somehow figure out an explanation for Rhysand that was going to be accepted without too much fuss… and wasn’t the truth but also wasn’t a lie.

Something that made sense. 

Azriel wondered if he could get away with simply asking for a break. 

Would that be accepted? Or would that then be a whole other thing? He didn’t know.  

“Ah, yes, the Mating Frenzy ,” Oriana commented, waggling her eyebrows. 

He opened his mouth to respond to that and then closed it again with a resounding click. 

Yes. 

The Mating Frenzy . 

Something he was suddenly realising he was utterly terrified of. 

And Azriel also realised that he had no idea how to deal with that fear. He hadn’t even thought about it before. 

Being with Oriana, being her mate… of course, he had thought about a time when maybe they would officially accept the bond. 

But it had been somewhere in the depth of his heart, where he didn’t allow himself to go too often, in fear of being disappointed again. 

He was still waiting for something to go wrong. He always would. 

Would always be waiting for Oriana to wake up one morning and realise that she was mated to a monster. 

But still, he had…longed for a moment when she would offer him something to eat and all he needed to do was to accept it. To accept that she loved him and that she wanted him and…

He had hoped for that moment. 

He had kissed her, he had put his hands on soft skin and held her, he had thought about how it would be to do so many other things with her…dark at night when he was along with his thoughts…but the idea of…Everything was stripped away until only the base instincts were still there…that terrified him. 

What if he hurt her? What if he was so rough with her that…that he did something that he would regret for the rest of his existence? What if he harmed her in a way that even the quick healing of faes could do nothing against? 

Oriana’s sudden touch against his face startled him. 

He could just stare at her as she cupped his cheek, somehow having moved so that she was straddling him and he hadn’t even noticed. 

Whenever he was with her, his situational awareness suffered and he felt like a youngling again.  

“You aren’t going to hurt me.” 

Oriana said this like it wasn’t even something that she was worried about. Like it was crystal clear that this wasn’t going to happen. 

She said it with all the trust in the world. 

He wished he had only a tiny bit of her trust in him in himself. 

“That’s what you are worried about, isn’t it?” She asked and he just about managed to nod. Oriana’s eyes were warm, the flames flickering comfortingly. He still couldn’t always put a finger on it, when she pulled the glamour up or when it decided to go away on its own. It was always surprising him. Though he loved the flames so much more than he ever had loved the flat blackness.

 “It’s gonna be fine, sweetling,” Oriana promised him soothingly. 

“You don’t know that,” he forced out. She didn’t. He could do something horrible. He had done horrible things in his past and he would do horrible things in his future. He always would. 

“I could…” he could do that. So easily. He may have taught her how to use a dagger, but if he really wanted to…she didn’t have any chance against him. 

“Yeah, and I could set you on fire with a thought. Won't do that either,” she quipped. 

He froze. 

Right. 

Sometimes he forgot how fucking magical Oriana was.

“I don’t doubt that you are physically stronger than me, Azriel, but I do think that I could probably shock you enough to stop you for at least a moment,” Oriana said quietly. “That’s all I would need.”

“And then there is also the fact that hurting me would go against every one of your instincts. I am your mate . You aren’t going to hurt me,” she pointed out reasonably. “We could…if it’s going to calm you, we could have sex before we even think about triggering the Mating Frenzy,” she suggested. 

“No!” He blurted out. “Maybe it’s stupid but…” but he wanted…he wanted their first time to be when they were really mated when the Mating Bond needed to be consummated. 

“It’s not stupid,” Oriana assured him fiercely. “This is about us . We do what we want. What anybody else wants doesn’t matter in this particular instance, Azriel.”

She was right. Oriana was right, as always. It didn’t matter. 

But for Azriel who had spent a whole life doing what other people told him to do…that was… freedom . 

It was their mating bond. 

And if there was anything in his life, that was just his…then it would be that , wouldn’t it?

It would be the bond that Oriana and him would forge together. It would be just for the. 

And so they should also…have it exactly like they wanted. In every way. 

“I’ll offer you food and we accept the bond and then we’ll stay holed up for a week or so,” Oriana said with a smile. “And I look forward to that. Very, very much.”

He did too. 

Not the sex. 

Well, also the sex. Making her his in every way that he could get away with…that was appealing in so many different ways. But he was also looking forward to just having that much uninterrupted time with her, to do nothing but kiss that flawless, soft skin and touch her everywhere. 

“Though I would suggest that we do not do that at my apartment. My neighbours are busybodies,” Oriana said with a grimace. “But you seem to have a perfectly fine house right here. Far away from anybody that could want to check on us,” she teased him. 

He did. 

He looked at the house that he had bought over a year ago. 

Then it had just been to get away from Cassian and Nesta and the whole Elain thing. 

He had never even thought that he would get to bring his mate there. 

But now he did. 

The house that he had bought for himself suddenly seemed like it could be a place for both of them. 

A sanctuary. 

Removed from their day-to-day lives. He would still work for Rhys. Oriana would still have her shop and tinker away in the forge. 

But then, when it was the evening, they could both come home. They could cook in the kitchen or go swimming in the lake…or go to their bedroom and ignore everything that happened out of their little slice of peace. 

They could make it a home. They could fill it with warmth and happiness and nobody could tell them differently. 

“I…I want to show it to you,” Azriel finally said. “I want you to see it.” He wanted Oriana to www the house and think about their future there. 

“I thought you would never ask,” Oriana said with a grin. He couldn’t help but grin as well, as he pulled her to her feet, as she pressed a peck onto his cheek. 

He held her hand as they ambled along the shore, around the lake, towards the house. 

“I bought it nearly a year ago,” Azriel explained softly. “I was staying with my brother but he was freshly mated and…I didn’t really get much sleep,” he said with a sigh.

That was an understatement. 

Cassian and Nesta’s enthusiastic couplings had given him more than one sleepless night. 

And if they were quiet then his head had been swirling with thought of Elain and Lucien. And then…well, he had his usual nightmares that he always tended to have, one way or another and all of it had just been horrible. 

“They were loud?” Oriana wondered, sounding like she was biting back some amusement.

“Oh yes, they were,” Azriel said darkly, making her giggle. She had no idea how loud. 

“You could just enchant your doors, you know,” she teased him. 

Great. 

“Thanks for that suggestion, oh mighty Enchantress,” he gave back sarcastically, making her laugh even louder. 

“But them being loud was only half the problem,” he admitted. “I was happy for them. I really was but I also…I wanted what…I wanted what Cassian had. Both my brother found their mate just months apart. And there I was…I was…I told you about me being in love for 500 years? and then…the female that…”

“Chose her mate over you?” Oriana ended his sentence. “You did tell me about that.”

Yeah, he had. It was better to be honest with her about all of that. Better for her to hear all the bad parts. 

“All of that happened and…I wasn’t in a good place,” he admitted, as they reached the house. He helped her up the stairs to the front door, painted a bright cobalt blue. “This was…This was the only place I had where it was just me. Nobody else. Nobody that wanted anything from me, nobody that expected me to be anything…it was just me.”

Just him and his shadows. But even they had left him in peace if he requested that. Like right now. They didn’t like the rays of sunshine that much. 

Azriel had spent so much time sitting outside on the Veranda and watching the starry night sky. It had been…peaceful. 

Just him, in his house, with only the sounds of the lake and the forest surrounding him. 

“It was your safe space,” Oriana said softly and he nodded. It was. 

He opened the door. 

Oriran walked in and he wanted nothing more than to tattoo that view into his brain and never forget it. 

She was here. His mate was there, right there with him. 

He wanted to remember everything about that moment. From the damp hair that curled down her temples, to the way her eyes widened, how her braid swished behind her as she walked into the living room, the big windows at the back showing the lake in all its beauty. 

Somehow, she just completed it. 

“It’s beautiful,” Oriana breathed as she took in the light wood floors, the exposed beams at the ceiling, the view .

He saw it through her eyes now. He had fallen in love with the privacy and the place, where it was built. Near enough the center of Velaris but far enough outside that he had some peace and quiet.  

“Where is the furniture?” Oriana suddenly wondered and he grimaced. 

“There isn’t really any?”

She turned around, staring at him. 

“…Azriel, where did you sleep?” she asked him. 

“Mostly on the floor,” he admitted. The look of an utter nightmare on her face made him hurry to add: “I grew up in a cell, at least this has windows!” 

Suddenly he just knew that was the wrong thing to say. 

She opened her mouth to respond and then closed it again. “You know I have a lot of things to say about this but I somehow doubt that any of that is gonna change your opinion of why you shouldn’t sleep on the floor. So I am just going to say, that I am not going to sleep on the floor. I am a delicate princess and need my beauty sleep. In a proper bed. With at least 2 blankets and no less than 3 pillows.”

He blinked at that. It was true, her bed had absolutely been covered in pillows. He had just thought they were all decorative.  

“What, do you think I don’t?” Oriana questioned him, raising one sharp eyebrow and he couldn’t help but grin. 

“You are beautiful with or without your beauty sleep,” he promised her. “But if you want to absolutely cover our bed with blankets and pillows, you can do that too.”

“I’ll move in with you. If you get some furniture,” she told him pointedly, making him laugh and move so that he could hug her. 

“I thought maybe you were just going to bring yours with you,” he told her, pressing a kiss against her hair as he tucked her against his side. They could just rebuild her apartment in the house. That would be fine. The house was bigger so they absolutely would have the space for it. 

Even for all the weird metallic wall art she seemingly insisted on. 

Though now he wondered if that had some meaning that he wasn’t aware of. 

Oh well, he was sure that Oriana would educate him about all of it if he asked her. And he wanted to know. He wanted to know everything he could away with. 

She poked him in the ribs. “Be honest, you just want the ugly blanket,” Oriana told him sagely, making him laugh out loud. 

That absolutely horrible and ugly blanket that he adored, because she had made it and always wrapped him up in it after he came back from a mission. It was nearly as good as a hug from her. 

Yeah, he loved that stupid blanket. 

“It’s such a good blanket,” he agreed with her. The best. 

“Still if this is gonna be our home…we’ll need stuff that we picked out together ,” Oriana said seriously. “Like a new couch or something.”

That sounded nice. Making that place theirs. 

“I want table linens,” he mumbled in her hair, breathing in the scent of Jasmine that clung to her and she sounded utterly aghast.  

“You want table linens ,” she repeated. 

He just shrugged. He did. He really did. He wanted the stupidest, most domestic things that he could buy. Table Linens. In white. For their home, for their table, where they would eat dinner.  

“Alright, you can pick out table linens,” Oriana told him graciously. 

“I thought we should pick out stuff together,“ he complained half-heartedly. She rolled her eyes. 

“Apparently you have opinions about table lines that I don’t even know about. You are on your own with that, Sweetling.” 

[idontknowmyownmind]

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[writerslittlelibrary]

Well, fuck

masterlist apocalypse au masterlist

part 1 part 2 part 3

summary: infected had been roaming the earth for years, and you, being born after the outbreak, just had to be special. what happens when a certain redhead finds out about your secret? (based on tlou part 2)

pairing: Natasha x teen reader, Abby Anderson x reader

warnings: angst, guns, fighting, injuries

genre: angst

words: 2710

a/n: finally a part two! I’m sorry for the long wait, and I hope you enjoy :)  

You do not have my permission to repost, copy or translate my work

 |——————————— ⴵ ———————————|

Abby had been moving around Seattle for a long while now. She had left the wolves after realising they were just a bad as the fireflies had once been. She had discovered that Isaac had been knowingly kidnapping Scar children in the hopes of making the parents turn themselves in. None of them ever did, and Isaac had ended up killing the Scar children each time. 

Abby strongly disagreed with Isaac’s method, even though Scars were a pain in the ass, and she had left the WLF. 

After leaving the WLF, it didn’t take long for her to be captured by a group of scars. They had jumped her out of nowhere, and they had tried to kill her by hanging her and cutting her guts out. Before that could happen, however, one Scar child was brought in by the other Scars. 

Apparently they had betrayed their own people, just like Abby had done. 

When the elder Scar gave the order to ‘cut the wings’ of the Scar child, the other Scars managed to break one of the girls arms before an arrow pierced their neck, killing them. 

The eldest Scar reached for the hammer in an attempt to kill the Scar girl, yet before she managed to do so, Abby was able to reach herself forward, holding the elder Scar in a chokehold with her thighs, successfully killing her.

A little boy ran from a hiding spot, helping the Scar girl up. After, he had cut Abby loose, allowing her to breath once more. 

Abby and the two Scar children moved on together, helping the other as they were trying to get away from the remaining Scars in the area still hunting them. The oldest Scar girl introduced herself as Yara, and the younger Scar boy introduced himself as Lev. 

After a day or two Yara had become violently ill. 

The arm that she had broken was red and swollen, and it was hurting Yara more than she could handle. It didn’t take long before Abby realised that the bone was shattered, and if the arm didn’t come off, Yara would die. 

Unfortunately, Abby was not a doctor, nor was Lev. She had no idea as to how to save Yara. 

Abby went over all the options in her head, mentally beating herself up over the fact that she did not pay attention when her father tried to teach her medical stuff. 

After a long debate, and talking with Yara and Lev, they decided that Abby should try and take the arm off, even though the risk was high. If the arm was not soon amputated, Yara would die. 

And so, Abby had gone to the hospital, gathering all the supplies she needed before heading back to Yara and Lev. 

The surgery was surprisingly successful, and Yara was thriving after her arm had been taken off. The three of them were now living in Seattle, trying to find a way out of the city without being spotted by either Wolves or Scars. 

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

You groaned slightly as you woke up, squinting your eyes to adjust to the light that was coming in through the upper windows. 

“You’re a deep sleeper…” you heard someone say from beside you. 

You groaned once more as you sat up, looking to your right to find Natasha sitting there, cleaning her gun. 

“How long have you been awake?” you asked as you got up from the couch, reaching for your jacket and putting it on. You shivered slightly at the coldness of the Seattle winter. Even though the winter was nearly over, and spring was soon to start, the cold breeze was undeniable. 

“A few hours. I’m a pretty light sleeper, and patrols moved along this theatre multiple times already,” Natasha explained as she finished cleaning her gun, putting it back in the holster on her thigh. 

You frowned at that, glancing towards the door, seeing a chair had been put against it in a way that made it impossible to enter from the outside. 

“Don’t worry, it’s nothing new,” Natasha explained as she stood up. 

“Do they move past here often? And are they Scars or Wolves?” You asked.

“Usually Scars. They patrol this area quite often, but they always leave the theatre alone for some reason. Too much old world stuff, probably,” Natasha explained, reaching into her bag and handing you something to eat.

“Here you go. You should eat something, we had quite the day yesterday.” 

You nodded as you reached for the energy bar, thanking Natasha and eating it quickly. 

“So, I know you’re totally not looking for someone, but if you are, I was thinking of maybe moving towards the tv station. I heard some chatter over the radio saying trespassers had been spotted, and I figured it might be my sister, or you mystery person,” Natasha teased as she reached towards her bag, picking it up and putting it on her shoulders. 

“You’re subtle,” you remarked as you followed her actions, picking up your own bag. 

“How far from here is the tv station?” you asked Natasha as you followed her towards the door, waiting for her to remove the chair so you could leave. 

“It’s about a day’s walk from here, but I’m sure we’ll be fine. We can find some place to haul up there if we have to,” Natasha explained as she carefully opened the door, checking the surroundings thoroughly before stepping aside, motioning you to go first. 

You carefully left the building, watching as Natasha pulled the door close, grabbing a key ring from her pocket that held a bunch of keys. 

After Natasha used one of the keys to lock the door, she put the keys back in her pocket, starting to move towards the other buildings before stopping, pointing to the tall buildings in the distance. 

“That’s where we’re headed. The tv station should be around those other tall buildings,” Natasha pointed out. 

“It’s not close…” you stated as you grabbed your gun, counting your bullets before putting it back into your belt. “I’m very low on ammo. Once encounter with either Scars, Wolves or infected and I’m out,” you explained.

Natasha nodded. “Me too. We should find some place to stock up on our supplies,” Natasha stated. 

You two started moving, heading towards an old street full of shops. While moving through a few, finding multiple bullets and other sorts of useful supplies, you met Natasha outside the other shops. You both decided to check different shops, wanting to move towards the tv station as quick as possible before you lost too much daylight. 

When you and Natasha we done in the shops, you decided to start moving again. It was a long and difficult walk to get to the tv station. 

You two had to get around a ridiculous amount of water, and with the increased amount of Scar and Wolves patrols, most likely because of the spotted trespasser, it wasn’t easy avoiding the water and the people, not to mention the fact that the roads towards the tv station were very rough and messy. Many cars blocked your way, hindering you from moving on the same road for longer than a mile or so.

After walking for about half the day, and manoeuvring through multiple building due to the roughed up roads, you were finally starting to see the buildings increasing. 

The tv station was towards the heart of the city, and so the building increasing signalled that you were getting closer. However, when you were finally starting to get more hopeful, you heard gunshots coming from the distance, 

You turned towards Natasha, seeing her grabbing her gun and being more alert of your surroundings. 

You reached for your gun as well, making sure it was loaded as you followed Natasha, staying close behind her and you two moved forward. Unfortunately, the gun shots were coming from the direction you were going in, and as you didn’t have many choices but to either move forward or go back, you were pretty much forced to move towards the gun shot noises. 

After walking for about half an hour, you started hearing Clicker noises, and not just a few. 

A lot of Clicker noises could be heard, indicating that there was most likely a hoard moving towards your location. 

Natasha grabbed your hand as she dragged you towards one of the stores in the street, using her body weight to slam the door open, helping you inside before entering herself. 

It would be the best to try and wait there until the hoard would pass. 

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

Abby reached towards Lev as she pulled him down towards her hiding spot, wanting to stay hidden from the multiple Scars that were attacking them. 

Abby, Lev, and Yara had been moving through this particular area of the city for almost two days. It was fairly quiet and there didn’t seem to be many things to go wrong. However, as everyone knows, nothing can ever be easy in a world such as this one.

The group of three was jumped by multiple Scars, hitting Abby in her arm as they were moving through a certain street. 

Yara had fired multiple bullets to try and distract the multiple Scars attacking them, giving Lev enough time to bandage Abby’s arm in a messy way, hoping to stop the bleeding enough for them to finish the fight. 

After bandaging the wound quickly, Lev reached towards his bow, taking out several Scars before he was being fired at. 

Yara was in a hiding spot a little further from them, shooting with her gun as she did her best to stay hidden. Abby now reached for her own gun, using it to kill multiple Scars before the familiar sound of infected could be heard. 

When she turned to her left to see how badly they were screwed, she was able to spot multiple Clickers and Runners heading towards them. All the shooting must have drawn them out, Abby figured as she looked towards her own gun, soon realising the amount of bullets she had left would not be enough for the Scars and the infected. 

Abby whistled towards Yara, letting her know she was planning on running. 

Yara fired multiple shots, enough to make the Scars retreat to their hiding spots so that Yara could quickly run towards Lev and Abby, getting ready to run away from the infected with them.

The Scars quickly started shooting again, the fact that Infected were heading their way seemingly not bothering them much. 

However, when the Clickers started getting a little too close for comfort, even the Scars retreated towards higher ground, using the multiple buildings as coverage while Abby, Yara and Lev were left out on the street. 

“What are we gonna do?” Lev asked, looking up at Abby. 

“I don’t know. We have to try and run, go back the way we came,” Abby stated as she motioned towards the road they came from. 

“Aren’t we heading towards the tv station anymore?” Lev asked. 

“We have to get away from the Seraphites first, Lev. After that, we will find a different route to the tv station,” Yara explained, pulling Lev’s arm so he was standing in an upright position. 

“Let’s go,” Abby stated as she moved past Lev and Yara, leading the way as she ran towards the passage that they originally used to get onto the street. After helping Yara and Lev through, she stepped through herself, lifting the iron woven fence as she moved past it. 

However, when she went to move through the hole, her arm got caught on the iron fence, the bandage ripping off and the wound starting to bleed heavily once more. 

“Abby!” Lev yelled as he noticed the blood starting to pour.

“Leave it!” Abby ordered as she grabbed Lev’s hand, running through the street as she infected started increasing on the other side of the fence. They were with too many and their weight was starting to become too much for the fence to hold.

“Through here!” Yara yelled as she managed to get the door to a store open, pushing it open all the way to allow Lev and Abby to enter before entering herself, grabbing a led pipe that was laying on the ground, using it to barricade the door. 

However, once they were inside they did not have any time to take a breath, nor have any time to take care of Abby’s wound as they heard a gun load behind them.

They were not alone in the store. 

“Turn around,” a stern voice spoke, a gun being raised towards the group. 

Slowly, Abby, Yara and Lev turned around, Abby using her body to try and shield Lev and Yara a bit, pushing Lev behind her a bit more as she fully turned around.

“Well, fuck,”

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

“Abby?!” you spoke in surprise when the three figures had turned around. 

Abby fucking Anderson was standing in front of you, joined by two fucking Scars. She sure had changed. She had always been stronger than the average girl, but damn did she build some muscle since the last time you had seen her. 

“Y/n…?” Abby questioned is confusion. 

“What the fuck are you doing with Scars? You’re not a Scar, are you?” you asked hesitantly, scared it might be true.

“Seraphites.”

You heard a quiet voice speak from behind Abby.

“What?” 

“That’s… Lev…” Abby started. “Listen, we’re not with the Scars. They are actually the ones that are hunting us,” Abby explained. 

“Y/n, who are these people?” Natasha asked, slowly lowering her gun as she glanced towards you. 

“This is the person I was looking for…” you explained, al though you did not take your eyes off of Abby. “You changed… You look good…” you said, unsure of what to say. You wanted to find Abby. You wanted to help her. However, you didn’t really account for actually finding her, let alone knowing what to say. 

“What are you doing here?” Abby asked, looking at you a little sceptically. 

“I heard people were looking for you. I wanted to come and help,” you explained, now realising it sounded a little awkward. You truly did want to help Abby, yet you hadn’t seen her in so long. Why would anyone simply risk their life to follow a lead about someone you might have known who might have been in danger. 

“Is this your pretty friend you told us about? The special one?” you heard the boy behind Abby ask. 

Abby’s cheeks flushed a little when she nodded. 

You smiled. 

“As much as I’m enjoying this awkward reunion, we should try and move higher up. We should get away from the street,” Natasha spoke, breaking the silence. 

“I agree. It’s not safe to stay here,” Yara agreed.

“Maybe we should take care of that first,” you spoke as you motioned your head towards Abby’s arm, the blood still violently pouring out.

“Here,” Natasha said as she opened her backpack, reaching in it to grab a first aid kit. She then moved towards Abby, helping her sit down as she carefully unwrapped what was left of the make shift bandage. 

You moved towards Abby as well, kneeling on the ground next to her and opening the first aid kit. You grabbed some needle and thread before grabbing some rubbing alcohol, sterilising your equipment before pouring some of it on a cloth. 

“This will sting,” you told Abby as you gently grabbed her arm.

Her skin was warm, a big difference from your cold arm. Abby hissed as you moved the cloth over the wound, cleaning the blood away and sterilising it. 

After finishing, you carefully stitched her wound close, letting Natasha wrap it with a clean bandage after you were finished.

“Now we should move,” Yara said the moment you two were done, already walking towards the back of the building to see if there were any accessible stairs. Lev followed her, wanting to stay close to his big sister. 

Natasha stuffed the supplies back in her bag, standing up and going after Yara and Lev. You and Abby stayed behind, Abby getting up first before extending you her hand.

“So you think I’m pretty, huh?” 

Series tags: @echostinn @survivingthissh1t @wandanatlov3r @may-z3

Permanent tags: @marvelnatasha12346 @lesbionion @nova-kyle @darkstar225 @saraaahsstuff @marvelwomenarehot0 @screechcat @iheartjohansson @tia-thesimp @swaqcenix @karmasgxrl @marvel-lous3000 @mxximoffswifey @lorsstar1st

(If you'd like to be added or removed from a tag list, let me know <3)

[best-overplayed-song]

fun facts

About "Running Up That Hill", Kate Bush explained: "I was trying to say that, really, a man and a woman can’t understand each other because we are a man and a woman. And if we could actually swap each other’s roles, if we could actually be in each other’s place for a while, I think we’d both be very surprised! And I think it would lead to a greater understanding. And really the only way I could think it could be done was with the devil. And I thought, ‘well, no, why not a deal with God!’ You know, because in a way it’s so much more powerful, the whole idea of asking God to make a deal with you. You see, for me it is still called “Deal With God”, that was its title. But we were told that if we kept this title that it would not be played in any of the religious countries, Italy wouldn’t play it, France wouldn’t play it, and Australia wouldn’t play it! Ireland wouldn’t play it, and that generally we might get it blacked purely because it had God in the title"

thanks to Stranger Things, Kate Bush has broken 3 records: the longest-ever gap between #1 singles, the longest time for a single to reach #1, and the oldest female artist ever to score a #1.

when asked what he meant by "a thousand hugs from ten thousand lightning bugs", Adam Young said: "I was the recipient of 1,000 hugs from 10,000 lightning bugs for a grand total of 10,000,000 hugs. As the lyrics of the song clearly state, the average layperson would not believe their eyes if 10,000,000 fireflies were to illuminate planet Earth, nor would the average person conclude by natural instinct that 10,000 lightning bugs acting as a collective group, are capable of embracing a human being 1,000 times without difficulty. By the same token, a gathering of lightning bugs in such vast numbers form a sort of “swarm,” and a swarm can collectively surround a human and deliver a “hug” that a single firefly, acting according to the dictates of his own conscience, simply cannot. Consequently, I was embraced 1,000 times by 10,000 luminescent insects. This may seem inconceivable due to the firefly’s soft-shelled body, which is common among all winged beetles within the Lampyridae insect family. Members of the scientific community may be tempted to cast doubt upon the possibility of this exchange due to the immobility of the prothorax and pterothorax, in addition to the elytra protruding outward while a firefly is engaged in mid-flight. However, I can testify to the accuracy of this exchange. I can furthermore add that while each individual hug took place, each firefly participated in the chemical reaction commonly known as bioluminescence in which the enzymes within the firefly, in the presence of oxygen, magnesium ions and ATP, emitted a chemically produced light or “glow” because they were happy to be hugging me"

[barblaz-arts]

Your answer to the person that asked about Regine being the wing(wo)man made me think.

Based on your character introduction, in my head, she can be one of this 2 things.

1. Completely oblivious to everything related to her and people crushing on her, but being really good when it comes to Vega since they are childhood friends.

2. She is completely oblivious in general when it comes to romantic relationships, but one day in one of her few participations in Vega and Sora shenanigans, Vega will "protect" Sora from something it wasn't dangerous at all and her fireflies will form a light bulb over he head when she notice (Ouran High School Club style when they each of them realize Haruhi is a girl). But it will be like really late in the game, like by that point Sora is already questioning her feelings for Vega.

Yup this is totally how I imagine it.

@brenshor has a pretty good idea here. I didn't even think about her bugs being aware of pheromones lol

So how about we combine these ideas?

I'm leaning more towards the 2nd suggestion by @just-a-broken-fangirl. Both Vega and Regine were never the kind of kids that had a lot of interest or knowledge with romance, so Regine didn't have a lot of reason to assume Vega had a crush. She just thought it was weird that Vega was a lot more clingy with Sora than she ever was with her. It was easier for Regine to realize Sora must like Vega tho, so eventually she had her bugs confirm for her.

The whole point of Regine's powers is that she's only able to control super tiny creatures because they have very simple minds. She wouldn't have found out from the bugs first because they wouldn't be initiating gossiping with Regine for any kind of information. Regine always has to command her bugs to look for what she wants to find, whether it's to help with Vega's new case, or to confirm oh wow hey her friends are gay for each other.

Even after confirming this tho, I see Regine as a very passive, go with the flow person, unlike Vega who dives headfirst and proactively participates (as long as it interests her), or Sora who tries to avoid much trouble as she could, tho in the end just begrudgingly goes along. So when Regine finds out, she just goes "Oh, ok. Cool. Not my business tho" and watches things play out. She's rooting for the best outcome, whatever it may be.

[sunfudge]

Evidence that points towards Sunday potentially joining the Stellaron Hunters

Since this theory has been tormenting my mind for a few weeks now, I've decided to compile all of the information we have so far that could maybe point towards Sunday joining the Stellaron Hunters.

Now that we know he can't return to Penacony, he can't return to Robin, and he has to keep on moving towards his goal, the likelihood of him being picked up by the Stellaron Hunters is stronger than ever.

He has a complicated past and has been left adrift and alone without a path to follow or a future for himself. He's alone and he still aims for an impossible goal - in my opinion, he is a prime candidate to join this faction now that his plan on Penacony has fallen apart with no possibility of ever coming true.

He continues to strive for a seemingly unachievable perfect paradise for all, a place where the weak can be protected and kept happy for all of their lives like birds in safe cages. He still strives for this, the only difference now is that be knows that this is no longer possible to create on Penacony.

This is made clear in the description of his new light cone 'After the Charmony fall'

'He carries the past, turns his back on his homeland, and continues towards a paradise that does not yet exist'

His old life has burned to cinders behind him in his wake. He can never return to how things were before. That life before this has ended, and he has no choice but to leave it and walk another path.

The Family won't even mention Sunday by name anymore and have attempted to delete all of the memories of what happened in 2.2 from the minds of those living inside the dreamscape.

Even Robin avoids mentioning him by name which is upsetting as she's likely been told to do so, instead calling him 'the former head of the Oak family'.

There has already been an attempt by the family to bury Sunday. He could not be more cut off from his past now and there is no future for him on Penacony.

He has no choice but to leave and spread his wings. Whatever path he may take now it doesn't change the fact that he has to either join a faction or travel alone, and I personally severely doubt he'd travel alone. For his plan to work, which he still aims for, he needs more than just himself, and he needs the help of someone who can promise ridiculous things.

First off, I really want to quickly detour into some of the misconceptions I've seen recently surrounding Stellaron Hunters, one of these being that people seem to believe the Scripts are some sort of demon contracts that cannot be broken, leaving those who follow them devoid of their own free will, even when with everything we know this is so very far from the truth. Elio's scripts are a guide and are not a forceful contract that his Hunters are totally bound to and it doesn't make much sense to assume that they are with all of the information we know about them.

The comparisons I've seen between Elio's script and Gopher Wood's grooming baffled me. They can't be compared, in my opinion. They are entirely different.

One of the reasons why many people believe Sunday will deny the invitation to the Stellaron Hunters (as I believe the invitation has already been sent, which I'll go on to talk about) is because Elio's script contains Sunday and Robin's eternal separation.

I've seen some people believing this is something Elio himself has decided will happen, however that isn't how this works.

Firefly often defies the script, she even talks about it throughout the 2.X patches in Penacony, however the script always ends up coming true regardless of this. Even Blade tells her this, he says she has a bad habit of defying what the script asks her to do.

I believe It's not that Elio has decided that this is their fate, but rather fate itself has decided this is Robin and Sunday's fate, and I believe Sunday will try to defy this fate and go in opposition of destiny.

Whether this separation is the result of the siblings treading on different paths, or it is the price Robin had to pay for Sunday's freedom, the script may still say this for the same reason that our eventually fight against Nanook is inevitable - it is going to happen no matter what.

That's not to say Sunday can't try to defy it, though.

That also does not mean that every single future path leads to a definite eternal separation, what I'm saying is that either this IS definite, it is set in stone and will happen regardless of wether Sunday joins the Hunters or not and no matter which path Elio goes down - OR it is a changeable future, likely from Sunday accepting the invitation to join the Stellaron Hunters, so that he can actively walk backwards from this fate that awaits them both otherwise.

Elio's script is a possible future he foresaw, one that he wants to lead his Hunters down as it leads to the most desired future for us.

Elio has already expressed that we should reach the end of the story in our own way and Kafka even tells us at the very beginning of the game to not make a choice that we may regret.

So, Elio's scripts are not binding contracts that force the Hunters to follow a predetermined path, but rather they are guides that lead to a desired future.

Sunday has been clear that he intends to still find another place to create his perfect paradise where the weak are protected, and who better to provide him a solution to his problem than Elio - the guy who's been making seemingly impossible promises for a long time now. It's kind of his whole thing.

I'm going to start off with the most obvious example that I feel is less of a hint and more of a slap in the face. I've been thinking about this readable ever since it became a major point of attention after it was first discovered. To me it's pretty cut and dry about what it is; it is a poem from Elio to Sunday, predicting his fall from grace before it has even happened - which is proof of Elio's ability to foresee the future - and at the end an invitation to join them in order to still make his dream come true.

Death of the Crow is a readable that can be found in Dreamflux Reef immediately after accessing it at the beginning of the 2.2 quest. It is a poem written in the style of The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe.

The first interesting piece of information before even reading the contents is its description:

Obviously, what stands out most for me is the line

'Or perhaps, some kind of mysterious invitation'.

This poem goes through Sunday's life and then it delves into Sunday's future.

The second stanza at the beginning of the poem refers to Sunday and the Charmony dove, a story he draws back to often in 2.2 as it had a major effect on him and his current view point, particularly in the way that Gopher Wood framed that situation to Sunday when he was a child. It is a huge basis for the majority of the beliefs he holds to this day.

Gopher Wood praised Sunday's apprehension and fear, whilst he patronized Robin and called her ideas 'idealistic' and 'romantic'. He identified Sunday as the more fearful and anxious of the two and he decided he would be the focus of his grooming.

As far as Gopher Wood was concerned, Sunday and Robin are twins of the order, but only one would follow this path to the very end. He took Sunday's desire to protect the weak and ensure that no matter what they stay alive and weaponized it against him creating a situation in which Sunday was willing to sacrifice himself in order to maintain a beautiful and safe dream that everyone would live in apart from himself. His story parallels Jesus, and the plot of 2.2 is especially obvious about that.

The poem goes on to discuss other aspects of Sunday's life that lead him to this point that we've currently reached in the story, and then goes beyond this to talk about things that, at the time of being able to find this readable, have not happened yet.

The only person really who could have sent this poem to Sunday is Elio. He can see into the future, as well as this he is heavily involved in the script of Penacony in a way that he hasn't been on any other planet thus far. His input in Penacony is immense especially when this is compared to his other scripts.

I think what's most important about this poem is:

That you can find this prior to when Sunday 'ascends the stage' and 'stole the authority'

The last verse

The name of the sender.

Going through the list let's draw attention to each one and pick the information apart.

'You ascended the stage, you stole the authority, you strived for divinity You raised the dim curtain, your self-directed farce skillfully honed. Your heart overflew with pureness, while the shadows of the puppets cast grim shadows in their play. Your soul embraced compassion, daring to forge a scale that will never sway. "Behold," you proclaimed, "the utopia of absolute bliss," Yet the dream shattered, "Nevermore."'

This is a clear prediction of future events that the sender of the poem should not know of, as they have not yet happened. I can presume this was likely written and then sent to Sunday by this 'mysterious author' to prove that the future sight that they will later claim to have upon their meeting is, in fact, real, and that he can promise him whatever it is that Sunday would possibly want.

'Your old dreams are as dead soil, barren of hope and bereft, Yet how can a noble soul wither and fade, left adrift? I shall await your arrival, with open arms and boundless hope, Here lie the truest dreams, where infinite possibilities lope. Here, all your ambitions shall be fulfilled and set aflame, The past forever transformed, and nevermore'

To me, this section is the invitation. This isn't about Sunday's past or where their plan in Penacony will lead them - this is an invitation.

Particularly the lines 'yet how can a noble soul wither and fade, left adrift?' it's clear Elio holds Sunday in high regard and would think it a pity if he were to wander aimlessly from here on forward, and 'I shall await your arrival, with open arms and boundless hope' sounds so very incredibly Elio.

'Yours, Most Sincerely Cecil Simmes'

This one is interesting to me, however I haven't played the game that this name references.

Spoiler warnings for Ghost Trick for this section. I'll leave the information pertaining to the plot of Ghost Trick between two blue bars so you can skip past this section if it's a game you plan on playing.

I first became aware of this piece of evidence via the thread by @/hxg_diluc who I believe was one of the first people to post about the Stellaron Hunter Sunday theory waaaaay back when you could first find this readable.

GHOST TRICK SPOILERS

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

Ghost Trick is a game with an MC called Sissel (who I hear has the same spelling as the sender of Death of the Crow in the Chinese version, according to the aforementioned thread), who is a black cat with yellow eyes and a red scarf.

This character changes the fate of others by reversing time, much like Elio changing the fate of others via the scripts. With all we know about Elio this feels like a really deliberate reference.

Elio is pretty commonly known as being shown as a black cat, you see him as such in Kafka's splash art, in SAM's light cone, and in the art during the Jepella rebellion.

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

To continue on from Ghost Trick, SAM's boss theme is called Nevermore, which is repeated often in the poem The Raven and Death of the Crow.

The description of the disk is 'Quoth the Raven, Nevermore!', which is a direct reference to Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven and Elio's version of the same poem reworked to refer to Sunday's life and future.

The next section is about Sunday's new light cone, the description of which I've already spoken about earlier when talking about how he still aims for that paradise even though he was defeated in Penacony.

This light cone contains a similar gramophone to Kafka's. This is something that as far as I'm aware is unique to these two light cones.

This light cone was voiced! The lines it was voiced with really caught my attention when paired with the lore drop about Finality we were given recently.

'May all wishes come true,

The end is also the beginning'

The second line intrugued me most.

On its own, it just brings forth the idea that Sunday is going to be treading a new path in life, which is - like, yeah we already know that lol he kind of doesn't have a choice about that, but with the context of everything to do with the path of Finality that was released this patch, the same patch that this light cone was dropped, it can be read in a new light.

The line itself sounds very in tune with the path of Finality, in fact it sounds like something Elegy could have said herself when we're asking about Finality.

'Finality isn't the end of everything. All things will originate from there and move on to the next Finality.'

I just think that's worth some attention now that this patch confirmed that the Stellaron Hunters travel on the path of Finality.

We also get to see into Firefly's notebook! (which is super cute and tells us about all the gifts she bought for everyone) but what I noticed was that Elio asked for the 'Odes of Harmony' which is a readable that can be found in Dewlight Pavilion.

Sunday has been compared to the Odes of Harmony by Gallagher, so my mind immediately went here.

This very well may mean nothing, this one is another piece of info where I could be stretching, but again I feel like this is worth pointing out because it's there along with all the other stuff. It's one of many things that when you put them together I feel it just piles higher and higher.

There's also this...

Sparkle talking about a chicken with black cat sunglasses. Which, standalone it's silly, but...

That's such a specific thing to say. A chicken that's wearing black cat sunglasses? Come on lol

We know that this relates to Sunday, because she also mentions a peacock (Aventurine) and a swan (Black Swan). The animals she talks about are meant to represent characters from the story and aren't random animals that have popped into her mind.

Since she calls Sunday chicken wing boy the chicken in question is most definitely Sunday - but giving it a white suit and black cat sunglasses? That's just so extremely specific. Especially when we know Elio is portrayed as a black cat throughout the story.

We know Sparkle has inside information because she was able to take a peek at a script, so knowing that, then what the hell did she mean by this?

There's also this image of all of the Stellaron Hunters after the Jepella rebellion and in the corner there are some crows in the air.

Sunday is portrayed as a crow in the Harmony Trailblazer splash art, but even going beyond that Sunday has crow and raven imagery surrounding him anyways. That is what Sunday is represented by.

So this could be some foreshadowing.

I also think if this is true and Sunday is recruited, he won't be our only recruited Stellaron Hunter in the story. It makes sense to me, why would Elio stop recruiting Hunters? Why should he when he sees someone of promise who could join their faction?

I'm unsure how many there could be, but I definitely see it as a possibility that two, or three, or even more Stellaron Hunters could be recruited during the duration of the game. Furthermore, I think that's a good thing. I think if that's true it's a big positive.

I feel like it would be a great addition to the story. It could even open up the oppertunity for characters to join the Astral Express too. Characters joining groups, leaving groups, changing paths - it would be a really interesting route for the game to go down.

The Stellaron Hunters have almost entirely been released as playable now apart from Elio himself, so recruiting some more as the story continues will keep them fresh and potentially throw in some really interesting interactions and character development. Plus, they are extremely marketable characters.

[april-is]

April 12, 2024: A Small Psalm, Catherine Wing

A Small Psalm Catherine Wing

Sorrow be gone, be a goner, be forsooth un-sooth, make like a suit and beat it, vamoose from the heavy heavy, be out from under the night's crawlspace, call not for another stone, more weight more weight, be extinguished, extinguish, the dark, that which is deep and hollow, that which presses from all sides, that which squeezes your heart into an artichoke-heart jar and forbids it breathe, that which is measured by an unbalanced scale, banish the broken, the unfixable, the shattered, the cried-over, the cursed, the cursers, the curses— curse them, the stone from the stone fruit, let it be fruit, the pit from the pitted, the pock from the pocked, the rot from the rotten, tarry not at the door, jam not the door's jamb, don't look back, throw nothing over your shoulder, not a word, not a word's edge, vowel, consonant, but run out, run out like the end of a cold wind, end of season, and in me be replaced with a breath of light, a jack-o'-lantern, a flood lamp or fuse box, a simple match or I would even take a turn signal, traffic light, if it would beat beat and flash flood like the moon at high tide, let it, let it, let it flare like the firefly, let it spark and flash, kindle and smoke, let it twilight and sunlight, and sunlight and moonlight, and when it is done with its lighting let it fly, will'-o-the-wisp, to heaven.

--

Also: + you can’t be a star in the sky without holy fire, Frank X. Gaspar + Untitled [I closed the book and changed my life], Bruce Smith

Today in:

2023: How to Do Absolutely Nothing, Barbara Kingsolver 2022: Miss you. Would like to take a walk with you., Gabrielle Calvocoressi 2021: I saw Emmett Till this week at the grocery store, Eve L. Ewing 2020: Day Beginning with Seeing the International Space Station And a Full Moon Over the Gulf of Mexico and All its Invisible Fishes, Jane Hirshfield 2019: Flores Woman, Tracy K. Smith 2018: The Universe as Primal Scream, Tracy K. Smith 2017: Soul, David Ferry 2016: Turkeys, Galway Kinnell 2015: He Said Turn Here, Dean Young 2014: I Don’t Miss It, Tracy K. Smith 2013: Hotel Orpheus, Jason Myers 2012: Emily Dickinson’s To-Do List, Andrea Carlisle 2011: Now That I Am in Madrid and Can Think, Frank O’Hara 2010: The Impossible Marriage, Donald Hall 2009: The Rider, Naomi Shihab Nye 2008: from Homage to Mistress Bradstreet, John Berryman 2007: This Heavy Craft, P.K. Page 2006: Late Ripeness, Czeslaw Milosz 2005: A Martian Sends A Postcard Home, Craig Raine

[take-everything-you-can]

This is a little something I wanted to write for @lesservillain and her Strange and Spooky Prompt event!

Prompt: Glow - You and your muse see a strange glow by Lovers Lake and decide to investigate.

What happens when you and Eddie encounter a fairy ???

TW: Literally all Fluff but all my works are 18+ so minors gtfo please and thank you !!!

There is an a/N at the end but just so y'all know this is not edited all that much I'm honestly too lazy to do it right now so I apologize if anthing is spelled wrong or anything!

Pairing: Eddie Munson x fem reader

WC: 3K

Broken Wings

The Summer heat had been dropping a few degrees closer to fall weather every few days that had passed. So when Eddie wanted to come out to the lake for a bit of a smoking sesh, you had not thought to bring a sweater. It grew colder, far faster than you thought it would have, and Eddie noticed the goosebumps that began to trail their way down your arms. He takes off his hoodie and hands it over to you and you catch how his hair falls a bit out of the bun he had pulled to the top of his head. 

“Take this.” 

“No Eddie. If I take your hoodie then you’ll be the cold one.” He lifts the joint he rolled in his hand, bringing it to his lips, and takes a deep hit. He let the smoke roll across his tongue and out before pulling it back in to hold as it made its way to his lungs a small smile to his lips as he said “Nope, I’ll be just fine baby. You know how this stuff makes me.” 

You did know. You knew all too well what smoking did to him. He would have times when he would strip down to his boxers, a far too tempting state, as he would get overheated, and there would be times when he would bundle himself in a cocoon of blankets and still hear the chatter of his teeth.

“You feeling warm?” as you bring the back of your hand to rest against his forehead pushing the hair that had fallen from the bun behind his ear. 

“A little bit.” but he was staring out of the open doors of his van. A sudden silence from him was rare, so you followed his gaze and saw the rippling water hitting the shore as the day was coming to an end. 

  A Sweeping declaration was made as the sun started to fall behind the horizon and Eddie's eyes sought out the tiny flickering light at the edge of Lovers Lake. So faint you had to question whether the weed was making his eyes play tricks on him until you too saw that small dim glow.

He had declared that he was going to catch that firefly.

It was kind of odd that you had spent many days out by the water with Eddie and had never before seen any fireflies. He started walking fast toward the glow, it faded in and out as it flew through the air. A beacon of light calling you both forward with each second that passed.

You tiptoed behind him making sure to keep the sound of your approach as quiet as possible, you didn't want to scare the poor thing off and Eddie had made it his mission to catch the bug.

Could you even scare an insect like a firefly? You weren't entirely sure but you did not want to contribute to the massive crush you knew Eddie would feel if he wasn't able to catch this thing.

A sudden lunge forward and Eddie cheered a small victory but it was very short-lived. 

“Ouch! What the fuck?” 

“What happened?”

“It bit me?” You let out a small laugh as you look up at your tough boyfriend. 

“It bit you? Eds Fireflies can’t bite you, their mouths are too small.”  He kept seeing the light flicker at his feet in the direction of where he had thrown the insect out of his hand. 

“I’m telling you right now that thing just bit the fuck out of me.” He shoves his hand towards you and you see an extremely small crescent shape cut to the palm of his hand, a small bead of blood forming at its edges. It did bite him.

“It’s got to be something other than a firefly then cause I did a whole project on them in like middle school. They can not bite you.” 

You crouch down at Eddie's feet and try to get a better look at the bug that bit him, hoping that it isn't something that will cause him to have a rash or worse. You see the small glow beneath the grass beside his shoe. Eddie does the same just trying to figure out what kind of insect he should be angry at specifically. You carefully move the grass aside letting the small light shine and you can’t believe your eyes. 

“Eddie, was there anything in that weed?” 

“No, It’s from the stash we had last week. Why?” 

“Are You sure?” He huffs out in annoyance.

 “Yes, I'm absolutely fucking positive.”  

There is no way that the small thing on the ground is real. It has to be a hallucination… Right? It has to be. 

“Eddie look at it!” He leans in closer, looking at the small glow beside his white Reebok. You stare at him until he lifts his eyes, wide and in awe. 

“That's not real, is it?” 

“Can’t be. Can it? “ You both lean in heads almost knocking together as you get closer to the small thing. 

Sitting in a small ball, knees to her chest, was a Fairy. A Fucking Fairy! 

“Are you okay ?” your voice sounds unsure, wondering if she can even understand you. Another huff from Eddie as you look up just in time to see the small roll of his eyes. “ What? She might know how to speak our language.“ You look back to the little woman sitting and see that her head is buried in her lap, something you also often do as you feel overwhelmed.  You take one of your fingers and tap the ground softly beside her in hopes that it will get her to look up at you. She brings her head up slowly, she’s scared. 

“It’s okay, you’re okay. We thought you were a firefly is all. We’re so sorry.” Pleading, you hope that she understands. 

“You’ve got some sharp teeth girly.” You laugh at Eddie's attempt to not freak out and scare her further.

She is standing now, you see that the small glow she is emitting is coming from the wings perched upon her back. Yet only from one of them, a closer look and you see that one of her wings has been torn almost in two. A wave of sadness hits you for this small creature, one an hour ago you had no idea existed.

How long has she been struggling?

How long had she been in pain?

How far from home was she? 

“Do you live here?”  You almost shriek at the small shake of her head. She can understand you. You look to find Eddie just as elated as you. “ Is It far from here?”  She nods as she folds her arms around herself in a hugging manner. 

“How long have you been hurt?“ Eddie’s voice much deeper makes her jump a bit at the sound. He feels awful thinking he could have made her suffering any worse. A small shrug to her shoulders. She had no idea how long it had been since she had torn her wing. It was just something that had happened to her and she had grown accustomed to it.

She knew how it happened, She was Flying one night letting the moon rays lead her home and a bat flew past her thinking she was a bug, Kind of like Eddie did. Just Instead of doing the biting herself she was the one being bitten. She had just barely escaped its path before it was able to catch her for its second, crushing chomp to her precious wings. Since that day her glimmer didn’t work well, the one that she could find with the shine from her wings. A small instinctual path her wings would carry her through. Without it, she had been unable to reach the heights necessary, forced to live out her days alone and far from home. 

A hand was laid out before her. A big hand with a small crescent etched into its flesh. 

“Hope on little one, we are gonna take you home with us, see if we can fix up that wing for ya.” 

Unsure he was telling the truth she looks to you to gauge your reaction.

“I promise we are going to do everything we can to get you back to your own home as soon as possible.” A small smile to your lips as she takes in what you’ve said. Slowly but surely she finds her way into the middle of Eddie's hand and sits. 

Carefully Eddie places the small Fairy into the cup holder so she won’t go sliding around as the van takes turns or comes to a stop. Eddie makes sure he has turned the volume down completely before he turns the key bringing the engine to life. A small trip across town to the apartment you and Eddie share together and as the van comes to a stop you place your hand out for the Fairy to climb into. 

Bright lights are blinding to the small being as she rushes to cover her eyes with her hands. 

“Eddie I think that's too bright for her. Can you turn on the little lamp next to your desk?” You turn the large light off as the amber shift becomes bearable enough for the fairy to uncover her eyes. “ A night owl huh?” A small nod and you feel the wings she adorns tickle your hand. A giggle escapes you as you stare in fascination. “ Your Wings are fuzzy?” The fairy gives a small shrug not quite understanding the word fuzzy. 

“Don’t they feel like Moth or Butterfly wings?” Eddie comes into the bedroom you've wandered into as you place her gently on the desk, across the room from your bed.  

“They do feel like that!”  Eddie sits down an old placemat that Wayne used to make him use back in elementary school to learn how to write in cursive. Something he never thought he’d use again until he had kids of his own. But he places it down on the desk and the fairy looks over the big letter next to their smaller counterparts. 

“Do you know letters? Like is there any way you could tell us your name? Do you have a name?” The small woman rolls her eyes at Eddie’s question. Of course, she has a name. She walks toward the middle of the mat and comes to a stop by the L and points to it. She then turns in search of the U and points down at it as she stands next to it. She continues in the same row of letters just stopping at the N at the opposite end of the mat. And taking a few small steps up to the A she then points to the letter and walks off of the mat. 

“Luna! Your name is Luna?” You and Eddie laugh at just how crazy the concept in front of you is. There is a fairy who has a broken wing sitting on top of a desk in your home and she is communicating with you, actually talking to you and you are still unsure if this is all a vivid dream you have yet to wake from.  

“That's a pretty name Luna but it just now proves my point that your wings are more moth-like than Butterfly.” 

“Eddie!” 

“What it’s true.” 

“What if it’s offensive?” You ask him in a whisper.

“She Bit Me! I’m speaking my truth.” You and Luna both roll your eyes at Eddie almost in unison at how mature he is being about getting bit. Luna starts walking across the mat again and she ends up coming off the side of the mat after spelling out ‘ I’m Sorry’. 

“See she even apologized, suck it up buttercup.” 

Eddie starts to look around the fairy and notices that the small dress of cloth she is wearing is a lilac shade that complements her dark raven locks that flow just over her shoulders almost reaching to where the tear in her wing is.  

“Can you turn for me little one? I need to see what I'm working with.”  She obliges and turns to let Eddie examine the tear a bit more. Opening the top drawer of his desk, he grabs a magnifying glass and one of the paintbrushes he uses for fine detail in his D&D figures. He sees that the tear just needs to be set since the small glow would appear as he pushes the small segment back into its rightful places, like when he would tear a paper into pieces only to find he actually needed them for another campaign or a part number for the shop, and have to tape them all back together. 

Eddie knew exactly what he needed to do, something Wayne would do for him countless times throughout high school when he would come in with a busted eyebrow and it was almost stitch-worthy but not quite. He needed gauze, a band-aid, and a bit of Neasporin.  Luna sat patiently waiting for his return in hopes he knew what he was doing. She so desperately wanted to get home. Every day away was one day closer to the autumnal equinox, a giant celebration held only four times a year for her people to receive gifts of the season to flourish into the next.

Eddie returned to his desk with a small pile of supplies. 

“I’m going to go hop in the shower while you do your thing babe.” A chaste kiss to his lips and you turned to grab a towel before walking into the bathroom attached to your bedroom. 

“Ok, Little one here we go. Are you ready?” With a small nod, Eddie went to work. He rolled out the gauze and cut the squares into small strips almost as if he were going to place decoupage to the wing. he slid them through the Neosporin to keep hold of the wing, wrapping the strips around the edges to make sure the segments would attach at the right places they needed to be in to set properly.  

Relief flooded Luna almost instantly as Eddie placed the last small dry gauze with a small tie around Luna’s waist to hold it properly. He had made it wide enough that she could still flap her wings and tight enough that she didn't have to worry if it would come out of place. Tears sprang to her eyes as she saw her faint purple glow emit from the bottom of both of her wings not just one. Eternally grateful she flew around Eddie's head and he let out a relieved laugh. He had done it, He had fixed a fairy’s wing. An unimaginable task. 

   Luna spelled out a tearful ‘Thank you and then the word ‘Gift’. Eddie looked confused for a second but assured her that there was no gift Necessary. Luna insisted as she spelled out another word. ‘Wish’ 

“You can grant wishes?” She nodded to his question as he looked towards the bathroom door still hearing the water fall as it hit the shower floor. “ Really? “ Luna rolled her eyes at him and nodded her head once more. “I need a specific thing.” She put one hand on her hip and waved the other as if to say ‘Okay go on’. “ I need a Ring with an onyx stone, a size 8.” She smiled brightly, extremely happy to grant a wish as wholesome as this. 

She gathered some of her light and formed the thoughts in her mind as she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Wishes were granted from within and could only be given by Elder fairies. You get only one wish to grant and you must choose the recipient wisely.  She held the solid band in her hand as she shed her light from the ball and unwrapped it as if it were the petals of a flower. A ring, one Eddie had dreamed of made its way to the palm of his hand and Luna closed his fingers around it to show its importance.  

The bathroom door opens and you walk out in some pj pants and a tank-top to get comfortable in before bed and you see the faint glow of her purple light. 

“You did it! You can fly !! You can go home !” the last sentence is bittersweet for you and Eddie sees it as he wraps you in his arms. 

“You going to come visit us little one?”  Luna nods her head as she comes to land on your shoulder hugging the gauge in your ear as if it were your whole being, but you understand what she’s trying to say.  

You and Eddie walk to the door together as Luna flies behind you and as you step out into the cold you feel a slight shiver from the cold but it's far more worth it to be slightly cold than to not say goodbye to your newfound friend.

She bows to you both as a thank you one more time before she is off into the sky as you walk out a bit watching her glow fade into a stream almost like a comet, like a shooting star. A vast flow of colors beyond the stars is where she would find her path, one of greens, pinks, and blues. A Sense of belonging she held in learning she could finally follow wherever the rays of the moon wanted to guide her. 

Turning to walk back inside you are stuck in your tracks as Eddie is down on one knee. 

“ So I didn’t plan this, hell that's pretty obvious, but um.. Well fuck this is hard. I mean what is more magical than a ring from Fairy Light right?” you are stunned, tears are close to breaking over the edge but his next words send that final blow. “It’s only Forever.”  You run to reach him as you crash your lips into his pulling away only to give him his answer. 

“ Not long at all.”  He’s never seen anything as beautiful then the smile on your face as you admire the ring he was granted by something no one would ever believe but you. That was all he needed though. Just you. 

A/N : Thank you all so much for reading! Let me know what you guys think and please please please always remember to like and reblog your favorite writers please it keeps the fandom alive!

[violettduchess]

A/N: Cyran and Gilbert tied for second place in my poll. I was originally going to put them together in one headcanon but the styles were too different and it felt very disjointed, so they each get their own little fic.

Suitor: Gilbert, prompt: strawberry

An entry for Aqua and my Summer Days Sultry Nights CCC

WC: 854

Oh how excited you are, running through the dark stone halls of Obsidian, your treasure cupped in your hands. An angel on a mission, flying on invisible wings. Up the winding staircase you go, heart hammering, breathless with anticipation at showing him your miracle.

You burst through the dark Mahogany doors of his study. He’s at his desk, black quill in hand. You can tell by his posture he’s been here for hours: the tired roundness of his shoulders, the lax lay of his left hand beside the parchment he's perusing. The sound of your entrance turns his head and the sight of you is like the warmth of a sunbeam through glass on a cold winter’s day. He sets his quill aside without a second glance, holding out his arms in invitation.

“My Häschen comes bearing gifts,” he murmurs as you slide onto his lap, hands still cupped protectively. He anchors you against his body with one arm, bowing his upper body to rest his forehead against your shoulder, breathing in your scent like it’s as essential to him as oxygen. 

“Look, Gil.” Although he could stay curled against you for eternity, he raises his head to look down at what you have brought him. Slowly you open your hands to reveal the riches you’re holding: A single, large, perfect strawberry. It still glistens from the water you washed it with, its size and ruby red color speaking volumes about the abundance of flavor it carries. He also knows the other reason you are smiling so brightly.

“It…..is from here?” You nod eagerly. You have been experimenting with gardening, working hard to try and find a way to get crops to grow in the arid Obsidian climate. How many nights has he come to bed to find you asleep, surrounded by botanical treatises and guides and lexica. Determination drove you and now you have managed to unlock the soil’s secret to provision. At least for strawberries.

“For you.” You hold it up in offering but he tilts his head. “Have you tried any yet?” Your silence confirms his suspicion. He reaches for the precious fruit, plucking it from your palm with deft fingers. “Seeing as how this is the first one, I believe the one who devoted so much time to its care should be the first to taste, oder?” 

His eye is an even richer red than the strawberry and all you can do is smile in sweet defeat, knowing he won’t take no as an answer. Your gaze never leaves him, as if you were nothing but a speck of iron drawn by magnetic force. Not even when he raises the strawberry to your lips. “Open,” he commands, although his voice is practically a purr, soft and near the edge of rough. Your lips part and he holds the fruit to them. He watches, a man hypnotized by the white of your teeth as they sink into the flushed, succulent fruit, pale red juice immediately running from the broken flesh, over the curvature of your lips, across your tongue. 

“Mmmm,” you sigh as you’re hit with the full-bodied taste of the strawberry. It’s  the sweetness of summer, of sunshine, of long days and warm nights. It’s cool wind and cooler water. Shoeless feet tickled by green grass. It's fireflies and full moons. It's bare skin and sweat. Your eyes close as you savor the sensation. Gilbert watches your face, the euphoria that has your body going lax in his arms, the way your eyelids drop, stealing your gaze away from him. Your soft exhale of pleasure. Something hot and jagged suddenly bolts through him. He doesn’t want you looking like that, sounding like that, for any reason other than him.

He takes the half-eaten strawberry and sets it on his desk, rising suddenly, with you lifted into his arms. Startled, you cling to his neck as he carries you over to the large black velvet couch. “Gil?” Ever so slowly, he lays you down on your back, his expression alight with sharp intent as he leans over you. “I will have my taste now.” 

You’re about to tell him that he left the strawberry on his desk when his body drops to press you into the softness of the sofa, his hands sliding up to hold your face as he lowers his head, his mouth capturing yours with all the swift resolve of a triumphal conqueror. He licks the leftover juice from your lips languidly, leaving not even a millimeter of them untasted. You gasp as he guides you, tilting your head so he can plunder your mouth, devouring you until he has lapped up every single essence of strawberry that lingered there. He is merciless, chasing that ghost of summer flavor until you are left breathless beneath him. 

He breaks contact for a moment to look down into your face, now painted in shades of want and yearning and red-hot desire. And he smiles, satisfaction riding the blistering current of pleasure that rushes through his body. 

Much better, he thinks. And then your hungry hands are in his hair, pulling him back to you and all thought is abandoned, much like the poor, half-eaten strawberry.

Tagging: @aquagirl1978 @alexxavicry @queengiuliettafirstlady @rhodolitesrose @ikemen-writer @bellerose-arcana @thewitchofbooks @aria-chikage @redheadkittys @tele86 @dear-mrs-otome @firestar-otomeobsessed @curious-skybunny @rhodoliteschaos @kpop-and-otome @writingwhimsey @mxrmaid-poet @silver-dahlia @wendolrea @otomefoxystar @nightfoxqueen @myonlyjknight @queen-dahlia @aceuuuuu @scorchieart @bubblexly @joiedecombat

[cressidagrey]

Something good and right and real - Chapter 4

Summary:

Azriel had spent centuries believing that he of all people didn't deserve a mate. And if anything, the last three years had just galvinised that particular belief. And then he meets her.

The first time Oriana met Azriel, she thought that he reminded her of a skittish cat. Shy and a little bit broken. Good for him that she absolutely excelled in fixing the things around her.

Warnings:

Rhys Bashing, Discussion of Murder

Notes:

I put a lot of world building into this. If you don't recognise it from canon, I probably invented. Or I forgot that canon existed.

(thanks to @firefly-graphics for the super pretty dividers!)

He actually did buy flowers to hand to Cassian, only to have a shadow whisk them away as soon as his brother started sneezing uncontrollably. 

Cassian‘s scowl was a beauty to behold after all. 

The same evening, he came to see Oriana again. It was a daily thing these days unless he wasn’t in Velaris. And if he wasn’t in Velaris, his shadows kept tabs on her for him. never telling him any more than Mistress seems happy, Master. She went out dancing with friends this evening. Or Mistress is working on Master’s armour, again. 

Oriana knew they did so and still wore one tendril unapologetically wrapped around her wrist or heck, depending on what she was doing at the time. 

And in return, Azriel was quite certain that if he weren’t already in love with Oriana his shadows would try to start a love affair all on their own. 

They tried to get as close to her as possible, always some of them staying with her and Azriel waited on the day that some of the tendrils would start a fight about who got to stay with Oriana for the day. 

The shadow travelled right inside her living room as soon as the shadows gave the all-clear. No need to use the front door like everybody else. 

Azriel found her on her couch, the low table in front of it covered with books and documents filled with loopy handwriting. 

Her own, he realised. He had never seen her write before but this was clearly her handwriting as she was diligently taking notes in the same handwriting right now. 

“Thank you for the flowers, they were gorgeous, sweetling,” she told him, looking up from her work, that bright smile that he adored on her face,  and he couldn’t help himself but to sit down right next to her, even when the couch was gonna be uncomfortable for his wings. He sat down next to her and he pulled her against her side. 

She was fresh out of her shower when the towel that was keeping her hair contained was anything to go by, dressed in a bright yellow silk robe that tied closed, and was maybe modest with long sleeves and just the hint of a v-neckline but also draped over her curves like liquid. 

He couldn’t help it when he pulled her against him, pressing a soft kiss against her lips as she turned her head into him, tasting something sweet and smelling warmth and something spicy that by now he knew was the soap she used. 

This was as close to paradise as he had ever come before. 

Whatever shit he had dealt with during the day, as soon as he got to hold Oriana during the evening…it all was fine as far as he was concerned. 

Especially when he got to kiss her like that, soft and lazy and exploratory, a warm hand curling into the back of his neck and her lush curves pressed against him. 

It made him feel warm in the best way. 

“I bought them to fuck with my brother,” he admitted as he pulled back slightly. “He’s allergic.”

“You know, there are lots of things I want to talk to you about right now, but your brother is quite low on that list,” Oriana whispered hoarsely and he couldn’t help but laugh and then groan in the next kiss as she moved so that she could straddle them. He caught her knee, carefully making sure that she wasn’t going to jam Truth-Teller into the soft flesh of her thigh and then settled his hands on her hips. 

He wanted to touch her. Everywhere he could get away with. He started with her hips, allowing himself to feel how solid she was in his grasp. 

The lightest touches because he never wanted to put a single bruise on her skin, even when he didn’t think they would even be visible on the skin the colour of the pitch black night. 

His hands slid higher up, over the dip of her waist and up her ribcage, feeling every inch, the silk soft underneath his fingertips. 

And then finally they slid even higher, up to the soft swell of her breasts, and he waited for her to call a stop to it, but she didn’t. 

Oriana didn’t even hesitate as she pressed into his hands, arching her back, her skin warm and soft and…

And then his shadows flinched violently and the smell of burning hair assaulted his nose and Oriana scrambled off his lap, the collar of her dressing gown in flames. 

He could just stare at her wide-eyed as he watched her stare at the flames, seemingly willing them into submission with not even a touch. 

It took longer than he had ever seen her need before until they went out, only leaving slight smoking fabric behind.

The marigold yellow of her gown, tinted with black, was ruined. 

“Are you alright?” he finally dared to ask her, because he had never seen her lose control of her powers in such a way. “ Oriana .”

“I really need to work on this fucking necklace,” she cursed. 

Only now, he saw that the gown was singed in the places where it touched the gold, thumb-thick necklace encircling her throat. 

This hadn’t been her losing control of her powers, he realised suddenly. It was something else entirely . 

It was that necklace with the enchantment on it that she had agreed was a chastity device. 

And he had triggered it. Not with his anger. It hadn’t lashed out at him . 

It had lashed out at her . 

“Why?” he finally breathed. This didn’t…was this the prize that she needed to pay for the protection it offered? Or was it…

“Because I was stupid when I made it, Azriel,” Oriana admitted, her voice dark. “I ignored every safety precaution I was taught to use. I didn’t use a blank necklace that never held an enchantment. I layered it over an already existing fidelity enchantment. I thought it wouldn’t do anything because the person the fidelity enchantment was locked onto was dead. But clearly, I am wrong,” she muttered. 

And suddenly the pieces came together. 

“…That’s your wedding necklace,” he brought out weakly and she just nodded. 

This was the necklace her husband had given her on their wedding day. The one that she would have only taken off after he died. 

And she hadn’t. 

“You are still wearing it.”

It was like somebody stabbed him. 

He wasn’t even sure why. He had known that she had been married.

It hadn’t bothered him. She was two centuries old, of course, she had a history. A long history, that he didn’t know about and it would be ridiculous for him to expect that there never had been anybody that she had loved. 

And he had believed her when she had told him that she was over her late husband. 

And now he found out that Oriana still wore her wedding necklace. 

“Yes,” Oriana agreed softly. “And no, it’s not because I am still hung up over Wynstan. Get that idea out of your head, please.” She sighed. “I put the enchantment on literal days after he died. Traditionally I would be expected to wear the necklace for at least a year after his death during my mourning period. I just am still wearing a century later,” she explained. “I need to take it off, but to do that, I need to break my enchantment. Which is what I was working on,” she said, a hand waving to all the pieces of paper spread over her couch table. 

She went to sit next to him again and he couldn’t…he couldn’t reach out for her. Not when…

“Well, that and some research for your armour,” Oriana explained, the flames in her eyes openly there, not hidden beneath the pitch black she pulled over it to make other people more comfortable. She sat there quietly, perusing him. 

“Please don’t look at me like you think I still love him and would pick him over you,” she whispered and he couldn’t help but flinch, because she put it into words. 

Every self-conscious thought that had been swirling through his head. All there. 

“I… You spent a hundred years with the necklace he put around your throat,” he said softly. 

That meant something, didn’t it? 

Oriana cocked her head to the side. 

“You spent 500 years in love with another woman. You have only known me for weeks,” she gave back, her voice even. 

It hit the intended spot. 

He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. 

Master, she is saying the truth, his shadows whispered nearly hesitantly. 

“We both have a past, Azriel,” Oriana said quietly. “There are going to be times when that shows up again. And it will get messy. But I promise you, that I am going to be honest with you about my feelings. And I swear to you, that I am all in on this.” He could hear the truth in that. “ I swear. ”

He was too. Somewhere along the line, he had already fallen in love with her. Somewhere along the way, she had become…important to him. 

Too important to fuck this up, over this. 

“I am too,” he promised her.  “I…I want this to work between us.”

“So you aren’t going to be jealous over a dead male?” she asked him flatly and he swallowed. Oriana sighed. “You have something that he never had, Azriel.”

The way that she said that made him stare at her. 

Wynstan had had Oriana as his wife. He had married her, clearly with the agreement of her family, because otherwise, it wouldn’t have been an arranged marriage. It had been prosperous for them for some reason. They had wanted them to be married. 

And then there was him. 

An Illyrian bastard with nothing to his name, but the hundreds of people he had killed and tortured. 

Oriana mustered him, holding out a hand and he slipped his own into her. 

“Sweetling…you have me,” Oriana said with a soft smile. “You have all of me.” 

Somehow that was exactly what he needed to hear. 

Still, he concentrated on the half-burned collar of her dressing gown. 

“I liked that one,” he managed to bring out, reaching out for the still-smoking fabric. 

“I’ll get another one like it,” Oriana said easily. “Maybe in blue this time,” she said, a teasing lilt in her voice.

He swallowed, but still reached out to tip her head back and take another look at that damn necklace. Thumb-thick, round, diamonds scattered throughout.

“Did you make this?” he asked her. “Not the enchantment, the actual necklace.”

“No, traditionally, the husband makes it,” Oriana said easily. “Wynstan did. It wasn’t what I would have picked,” she admitted with a shrug. 

No, it seemed to be too….big for her tastes. Most of the jewellery he had seen her wear was gold with few stones. None of them were that massive…most of it was intricate, more like a spider web than a blunt object. 

This was the latter. 

He reached out to touch it, but she caught his wrist. “Careful, it’s hot. I don't want you to hurt your hands,” she warned him softly.

Azriel just looked at her. “They got through worse.”

She gave in with a sigh. 

The metal was hot to the touch but not painful and as he lifted it up, he couldn’t help but hiss in sympathy as he saw the skin underneath it. 

“Nothing that won’t heal,” Oriana said quietly. “Magical fire can still hurt me, but I’ll heal quickly from it.” 

Yes, but he knew burns and how much they hurt. 

And they could at least do something against the pain. 

“Where do you keep your apothecary stuff?” he asked her instead.

“Under the sink,” Oriana answered, sounding rather bemused. 

That’s all he needed to know, as he went to retrieve it and then very carefully put the salve on the burns surrounding her neck. 

It was his turn to fuss for once, he reflected with a grimace. 

Still, as he slid his fingertips over her soft skin and he watched her dark eyes slide closed, Azriel realised that he wasn’t going to just stand by and not say a single thing. 

“I really like you,” he finally said softly. He couldn’t say I love you. Not now. Not right now. Maybe never. He had never even thought of these words before but it was there. 

There was like that small kernel of fire that lit within him these days, the remnants of that fledgling mating bond, when he could feel Oriana’s happiness and how content she was, nearly every day. Especially when he got to see her. 

He liked to keep tabs on her like that, a part of him absentmindedly monitoring her moods throughout the day. She was very comfortable to have close like that, mostly because Oriana’s emotions were very…even most of the time. It was rare that he got anything but really nice feelings from her at all. 

Still, as he said these words, the soft happiness that he could normally feel from her whenever he was with her, turned into the sun, bright and shining and irrevocably ecstatic.

“I really like you too,” Oriana responded, her smile so bright that it looked like it must have hurt.

He cupped her face in his hands, so violently scarred as he held his very happiness in his hands and pressed one single chaste kiss to the corner of her mouth. All he was willing to risk. At least until they got rid of that necklace of hers. 

He was not going to risk her getting hurt again. 

He was not. 

Regardless of how much he wanted to touch her satiny skin and press kisses to…everywhere she would let him touch her. 

“My grandmother’s birthday is in a few days. I am going to go back into the mountain…I am going to get rid of the necklace,” she told him and his fingers froze. 

“Can you do that? Is it safe?” he asked her carefully. 

“I created it. I can unmake it,” Oriana said softly. “I was researching it when you came in.”

“You were?” 

“That and a way to make the metal malleable but still have it keep the strength to save somebody from getting stabbed,” she explained. “I’ll get some metal in these fighting leathers of yours, even when it’s the last thing I do,” she told him fiercely and a soft smile appeared on his face at that. 

“Is it possible for metal to behave like that?” Azriel asked her and she shrugged. 

“Well, I haven’t found a way yet…but that doesn’t mean that it’s impossible. I’ll figure it out,” she said thoughtfully. Somehow he didn’t doubt for one moment that if there was a way to figure it out, Oriana would do it. He finally pulled his hands back, looking at the stacks of papers on her table. 

“Anything I can do to help?” Azriel offered. He was quite certain that he wouldn’t understand a word on these pages but Oriana just shook her head, grimacing.  

“Unless you have a huge research library, not really,” Oriana quipped. 

Azriel didn’t. But he knew somebody that did. 

“Well…if you tell me what you need, I’ll get it for you,” Azriel finally said  

The smile that she gave him was definitely worth it. 

So, when Oriana produced a list of books she wanted, on the topics she needed, he took that list and brought it with him to the House of Wind the very next day. 

Finding Gwyn was easy, thanks to her bright red hair that flowed behind her, busy putting some books back on the shelves. He made sure to make noise as he approached, not wanting to spook her. 

She turned before he even said a word. 

“Azriel!” she greeted him brightly. “What brings you here?”

“I…I need your help, please,” he said and her ocean-blue eyes widened. 

“My help? Of course,” she agreed. “What do you need?” He wanted to make a quip about her being careful what she promised, but he didn’t.

“I am working together with a blacksmith for…some weapon redesigns. I have a list of research material I am supposed to procure,” he explained. It wasn’t a lie. Not an outright one. Hopefully, nothing anybody would even think twice about if Gwyn mentioned to them. 

He had managed to keep Oriana a secret from Rhys but…well, it was always there in the back of his mind. 

He still didn’t want anybody to know, still wanted to protect the fledgling thing between them. 

It was his private life. 

He had never known happiness like he got right now and he would do anything in his power to keep it. 

And if that meant that he wasn’t going to tell any member of his family about Oriana, then he wasn’t. 

It was his secret to keep after all. 

“Well, the library is at your disposal,” Gwyn said, giving him a soft smile. “Do you have a list? Let me see.” 

So he handed over a piece of paper covered in Oriana’s handwriting and trailed after Gwyn as she led him through the labyrinth that was the library, helping him pull everything Oriana had requested…and a few books that Gwyn thought would also fit the bill. 

“Thank you. This has been…very helpful, Gwyn,” he said when he had a whole stack of them to check out and she grinned at him. 

“Of course! Can I see what you come up with when it’s finished?” she asked. 

“I’ll let you know,” he promised her. “But it will probably take a little while.” 

He wasn’t going to put any time pressure on Oriana. Not when she did all of this for him, just because. 

Every time he looked at his Siphons, he couldn’t help but smile slightly at them after all. 

“That’s fine.” Gwyn agreed, looking like she wanted to say something else, nervously tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. “I…Azriel…” 

“Yes?” he asked. What was this about now? Why was she looking nervous? Was something going on?

“Would you like to have dinner sometime?” Gwyn blurted out and he wasn’t the only one that froze in place. His shadows did too. None of them had expected these words. “I…Like a date,” Gwyn continued.

Oh. 

Oh. 

He opened his mouth but no words managed to come out. This really wasn’t what…he had expected. 

And he didn’t really know how to react to it, because…

Females didn’t want to date him. He had realised that a very long time ago. What he wanted never mattered either, because nobody wanted that from him. 

He wasn’t good enough to have that. 

His shadows squeezed him in warning, not liking how he thought about himself, but it was the truth. 

Gwyn deserved so much better than him.  He didn’t want to hurt Gwyn’s feelings because she was a friend…and he also didn’t want Nesta to try and kill him. Or Gwyn herself. 

He was with Oriana. Who for some reason didn’t seem to care that she definitely also deserved better than him. But nobody knew that. 

And he would like to keep it that way. 

Still, he knew how much bravery this must have taken from Gwyn and… 

“I just thought that…” Gwyn started and Azriel interrupted her. 

“Gwyn,” he said quietly. “I am…very flattered but I am… very much spoken for.” Was…was this…letting her down gently? Without hurting her feelings? 

If she even had feelings for him. He couldn’t imagine why she would have, but he still didn’t want her to be…

Gwyn’s bright blue eyes widened. “You are?” she asked, sounding surprised. “Oh. I am so sorry, I didn’t know that you…”

“No, you couldn’t have known, Gwyn,” he hurried to add. “It’s...” It was new. It was so perfect, making him so happy and…none of the words in his brain seemed to be enough. “It’s...new,” he finally settled on, the word lacking. 

He just hoped that Cassian was not going to find out about this, because if he was…then any hope of Rhys not finding out about Oriana was gone. 

The whole of Velaris would probably know.

“Thank you. Truly,” he added and then he was out there like a bat out of hell. 

Now he just needed to figure out how to explain this to Oriana. 

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

The fact that Azriel came to her, his ears blushing beet red and nearly stuttering as he told her about being asked out on a date by a pretty female, was surprisingly charming. 

“Well, you are a very attractive male, Azriel. Being asked out shouldn’t surprise you,” she told him, halfway between teasing and being serious. 

“Nobody wants to date me,” he gave back, his voice matter of fact. “And if I want to fuck someone, I should go to a pleasure hall and pay for it,” he muttered under his breath. The crude words were in such a sharp contrast to how he normally talked that she could just stare at him, her eyebrows raised. 

These weren’t his words. 

Somebody had said that to him. 

“Who said that to you?” she asked him, the anger rising in the back of her throat, so bitter that she could taste it. “Azriel, who said that to you?”

“What?” he asked her, staring at her, hazel eyes wide. 

“Who said that to you, Azriel?” she repeated. “These aren’t your words. Who said that to you?”

She would like to have words with whoever said that to him. 

She didn’t know the context didn’t know when that was said, but she knew, she just knew how Azriel had understood them. 

“I…” his voice was so quiet and she reached out a shaky hand for his face, cupping his cheek as he closed his eyes and she could see see the disgust for himself etched on every one of his features. 

“Somebody said that to you,” she repeated, her voice shaky. “Somebody said that to you and you took it to mean that you don’t deserve to be loved or to be taken care of because the only way anybody would ever want to sleep with you would be if you paid for it.” He seemed to slump together at her words, even the wings shuddering as she hit on what must have been every single insecurity he had in one fell swoop. 

She hated herself for voicing it. She hated it, to see how he shuddered, his jaw so tight and she was sure that he was holding back a sob or something else, and all he could do was to stand in front of him and cradle his head in her hands. 

She hesitantly slid a hand up his back, careful not to jostle his wings. He slumped into her, a shaky breath escaping her, as she took his weight without a single complaint, holding him as tightly as she dared. 

“Oh, sweetling,” she whispered, pressing a kiss against his temple. “It’s alright. It’s all going to be fine.” 

She felt more than she heard him break, right there in her arms. 

She swallowed. She didn’t think she was ever going to see this. Not like this. But Azriel broke apart, his back shuddering and the first tears hit her skin, scalding hot. She ignored it. She said nothing as he cried, did nothing but rub her hands along the side of his back and pressed kisses against his hair. 

“I want to date you,” she finally said quietly. “I am dating you.”

“We don’t even leave your house,” he protested his voice shaky, head still buried against the side of her neck and she huffed. 

“That doesn’t matter,” she gave back sharply. “We got to the woods and you let me try to stab you and utterly fail. We don’t leave the house because I didn’t think you wanted to. I don’t care what we do if I get to spend time with you. We can do nothing but hang around in the forge. I am completely happy to do anything you want,” she said softly. “Maybe one day I am going to show you how we used to dance in the mountains. Maybe we’ll go flying about Velaris and you can make fun of my weak stomach and I’ll stare at your wings and want to touch them because they are so beautiful. You are so beautiful, Azriel.” 

“And one day in the future I want to sleep with you and you won’t pay me for that in any way, other than your love for me,” she said, her voice fierce. “And you deserve all of that and more.” 

She didn’t think that she was ever going to get that in his thick head. Not completely. 

“And whoever said that to you, give me a name and I’ll burn them to a bloody crisp,” she promised him and his shoulders shuddered again into something akin to a laugh.  

“I wouldn’t suggest that. He can be quite fierce,” Azriel whispered, his voice hoarse and Oriana just hummed. 

“I can be fierce too,” she said drily. 

She could be. 

And she was really pissed off right now. 

“Alright, come on,” she finally said quietly. “We’ll do my favourite thing if I feel like everything sucks,” she told him drily and Azriel finally pulled his head back. His eyes were red and he still looked…upset, but she could work with that. 

She led him to her couch, the books that he had brought back for her long forgotten as she pulled the ugliest throw blanket that she had ever seen off the back of it and pulled it over his shoulders. 

She watched him taken in the crochet squares, all of them different, the yarn a myriad of different colours. 

“Where did you get that from?” he asked her, and she sighed. 

“A few years ago, I had a phase where I tried to learn how to crochet. This was the single result,” she explained. “I suck at it.” It still pissed her off that it had been the one craft she had ever tried that she hadn’t been able to get the hand out of. 

She went to the kitchen,  leaving him on the couch, though she kept a weather eyes on Azriel as he stared at her throw blanket with more than one hole. 

A few minutes later, she came back, tugging at one corner of the blanket so that she could sit next to him and have it cover her as well. 

She handed him an absolutely massive mug. 

“Hot chocolate?” he asked her, one corner of his mouth twitching up. She nodded. 

“I have a horrible sweet tooth,” she admitted with a sigh. Oriana figured as far as vices went that one was quite benign, but still.

“You want to know a secret? Me too,” Azriel told her softly and she grinned at him, intertwining their hands. 

Crisis averted. At least for the moment. 

Still, she didn’t forget that he hadn’t actually admitted to her who had told him that. Or in what context.

“The female that asked you out. She’s a friend?” she asked and Azriel nodded, his voice still hoarse. “Yes. I…It’s a long story,” he said quietly. “She works in that library where I got your books from. We met a few years ago, I…I got her to safety after…something happened to her. She was…traumatised. But she’s doing much better now. I have worked together with her for a few years. I thought we were friends.”

“You still are friends. I imagine you let her down gently,” Oriana said, gently jostling him with her shoulder and Azriel shrugged.  

“I told her that I was spoken for,” he said, his voice sounding unsure. 

“You are,” she agreed. “I am too. And that was very gentle, Azriel. She’ll get over you,” she promised him. At least she hoped so, for the other female’s sake. Oriana wasn’t going to let Azriel go if she had another choice on that matter, after all. 

“She’s nice,” Azriel said softly. “I like her. I just…feel bad. I don’t even know why. She could find somebody better than me in a heartbeat,” he said and once again she heard the things that he didn’t say. How he deserved seemingly every bit of pain anybody threw at him and was just expected to take it all. 

“I don’t think so. I don’t think many males are better than you,” Oriana said, her voice even and he looked at her startled. “Don’t talk about yourself like that. Like you are worth nothing,” she told him tightly. She wasn’t going to stand for that. 

But that wasn’t why she had asked that question. “What does she like? She’s helping with my research. I think I owe her a thank-you gift,” she asked him and Azriel stared at her. 

“I have no clue,” he admitted finally 

She hummed. “Alright. I’ll think of something,” she promised easily. 

One enchanted teapot later, Oriana figured that it was probably the best thing she could come up with. She didn’t want to make jewellery, because even if Azriel gave it to her and told her that it was from Oriana it still had a…romantic taste to it. So a teapot it was. Oriana just hoped that the other female drink tea. 

Still, it was fun to make something like that for once. Completely not needed, and still fun to make. 

Even with that…it didn’t stop her from stewing in her own anger about what that mysterious person had told Azriel. 

It was there in the back of his head even when she finished packing up her things to take to the mountain for her grandmother’s birthday a few days later. She had said her goodbye to Azriel that morning and he had left her with one tendril of shadow wrapped around her hand. 

Cyrus showed up, his bag in hand, ready for their hour or so of travelling... to their childhood home.  

 “No Briony and the younglings?” she asked him and he shrugged. 

“You know how much she hates the mountain,” he said with a grin. Yeah, she could understand that. “What are you giving grandma for her birthday?”

“Necklace and earrings,” Oriana said, opening the box she had placed them in for Cyrus’ perusal and his eyebrows raised. 

“Very pretty,” he commented. She agreed. Opal and yellow gold. Oriana herself had a love affair with blue opals that day, squirrelling away the prettiest stones whenever she got a new shipment of them. 

“Yeah, I thought so too,” she agreed. She closed her bag, hesitating for a moment. 

“What are you thinking about?” Cyrus asked her. She turned to meet her brother’s gaze. 

“I am ready to take it off.” She didn’t need to say anything more. He understood. No need to spell it out. 

Cyrus stared at her, eyebrows raising. “Is it because of Azriel?” he asked her quietly. 

Yes, but no.  He had just been the last drop in a bucket that was already close to overflowing. 

It was…

“He deserves me being able to give him all of me,” she responded. “He’s my mate.”

They were made for each other. She knew that it didn’t promise a happily ever after…but it did give her something that she had never had before and she wanted it to work out. She really wanted it to work out. She wanted to be with him, really be with him, without even needing to spend one-second thinking about…him. 

“Has he given you all of him?” Cyrus gave back, crossing his arms. She stared at him. “I just mean, that he seems to be very…quiet,” Cyrus defended himself. “Secretive even. How much do you really know about him?” he challenged her. 

“I know enough,” she snapped. 

She did. And yes, maybe Azriel didn’t talk about his past often, and didn’t like to open up to her, but she didn’t think that he did it for any other reason than being terrified of another person hurting him. 

“I don’t disagree with that. I am just worried that you are throwing yourself headfirst into something that…he can’t give you, Oriana,” Cyrus said with a sigh.  

“He’s my mate. I trust him. He has never lied to me,” Oriana responded. “You have been on me for decades to finally take off the necklace. And suddenly you don’t want me to do it anymore?”

Cyrus rubbed the bridge of his nose.

“I am not going to keep holding onto something that has only ever brought me pain because I am too afraid to take the next step,” she said quietly.  

“That’s not…” Cyrus started and she finally had enough. 

“He tried to kill me, Cyrus!”

Her brother flinched. “It was an accident,” Cyrus said quietly. 

She snorted. It wasn’t. It hadn't been an accident. None of it had been. “No, it wasn’t. It wasn’t a bloody accident, and everybody knows that. He knew exactly what he was doing. Wynstan knew, Cyrus,” she forced out these words. She had never said them, before, even when she knew that they were the truth. 

What had happened that day in that forge hadn’t been an accident. And it had ended with him dead and her on the brink of it. But she knew. She knew. 

It had been a freak accident in a sense. It should have killed her, not him. 

Ruby red blood trickling down her body, as the inferno raged around her. The pain, the agony…the spearing pain…

If the wound hadn’t killed her, the magical fire should have. 

Instead, it had turned onto him.  

It should have turned on her, magical fire should have burned her to a crisp. Instead…Instead, it had hurt her. But it had killed him. 

“He knew what he was doing. He knew exactly what he wanted to achieve. And he nearly managed it.”