#there's just so many ways to do a paladin

[sharkgirldick]

A knight and a squire

Duty and loyalty are everything to a knight. I am sworn to no lord, no kingdom, only the people. Where the evil prey upon those who cannot defend themselves, I arrive with sword in hand. I am no legend, nor even a local hero. I would prefer if the lands never learn my name, no stories or songs written of my battles. I do what must be done, because it must be done.

Yet, still, I find myself with a squire. She is like I am, resolute in her desire to fulfil her duty. She is much like I was as well, unsure of her place in the world and just what justice and honor mean to her. She had come of age only the year before I came to her village to kill a beast that was plaguing their livestock. In the months since then, she had become a welcome companion on the lonely roads of the kingdom.

The night was cold, a perfect chill, our breath steaming away from us as we sparred. Her form had improved immensely in the last few weeks, though her footwork was still stiff. To punctuate that, I went in for a simple overhead swing, stepping slightly to the side to indicate what I planned to do. She brought her blade up to block, but stood in place. I weaved to the side, twisting my blade past her simple guard, baring the tip against her throat.

"Pay attention to more than just an enemy's blade. Watch where they move, and move with them." She looked at me for a moment, then I pulled my sword away from her. Cold steel no longer near her flushed skin, she nodded.

Later, our daily drills and sparring complete, we stat by the fire, a simply stew cooking over a pot.

"Sir?"

"We aren't strangers any longer, Grace. Just call me Valeria."

"M-Miss Valeria?" It would have to do. She was much too formal, even when we spoke in private like this.

"Yes?"

"Were you a knight of the Order?"

"No. I trained under a paladin for a time, but I was to be sworn to the realm when my training was complete."

"But you have told me you did not take an oath."

"In a way. On the day I was to be sworn, I instead made my own vow, and became an Errant. That has been my life for the past six years."

"So…" She hesitated, and I watched her from the corner of my eyes as I stirred the stew. "So you are allowed to take a spouse?"

I had to stifle a laugh. "Afraid you will never lay with someone, is that it?"

"No! I, just… I was curious if you had ever thought of marrying and starting a family."

"I have had my share of bed companions, especially on cold nights like we find ourselves in. I don't think I'll ever settle down anywhere, and a spouse… Maybe if they were also a knight and took to traveling with me. But many knights also dream of retirement." She lingered on that for a moment. "Allow me to respond in kind with my own question." She looked a bit startled, but nodded. "When you dream of someone in bed with you, do you think of a man or a woman? Or perhaps someone who is neither?"

Her cheeks, already red from the cold, turned even more crimson.

Looking away into the dark of the woods, she said "A woman."

"How many young ladies did you get the chance to romance before you left your village? I believe the innkeeper's girl seemed somewhat keen on you. At least, she was rather disappointed when you left with me."

She worked her mouth a bit, face still incredibly flushed, then, in a small voice. "No one. You are the only woman I have spent any time alone with." She looked up at me, and I turned my attention from the pot to her. In the moment that our eyes locked, I understood.

A little mischief crept into me, alongside a sly grin creeping onto my face. I moved the pot from the fire, satisfied with it. It wouldn't take too long to cool in this weather.

I moved closer to Grace, watching her intently now. "You are my student." I said, plainly. A nod from her. "Then… Would you like me to instruct you in love as well?"

"I…"

I pushed on before she could protest. "It wouldn't sit well with me if you didn't have the skills to woo a woman who catches your eye, even more so if you were completely in the dark once you could lay with her. In a way I've taken the opportunity for you to learn that on your own." I leaned in closer to her, the pale fog of our breath mingling together now.

"Sir, I wouldn't be-"

"Valeria."

"V-Valeria…" The little bit of confidence she had to properly argue withered away as she said my name. "Miss Valeria, I couldn't. You are… We are… I."

Slowly, gently, I cupped her face with my hand, and her words completely petered out. "Grace. The food will get too cold, soon. We only have a few moments. Would you like to kiss me?"

Her eyes went wide, her cheek as warm as the fire beside us against my hand. Taking a steadying breath, she nodded.

I leaned in, eyes closing, and I stole away my squire's first kiss. She was awkward, both from lack of experience and nerves, but she was warm, and I can't deny that I could feel my body react from almost a full year without this kind of intimacy.

I broke the kiss and leaned back, my hand sliding away from her face. She simply sat there, swaying, with her eyes closed. Unceremoniously, I stood and gathered our bowls and spoons, giving both of us a generous portion of our dinner, then set the pot aside to clean. I handed her our meal, then sat. We ate in a comfortable silence.

I promised her I would add romance and intimacy to her lessons, much to her embarrassment. I would have to cultivate her even more, my burden to my squire only growing.

Of course, all I could do was fulfil that obligation. After all, duty and loyalty are everything to a knight.

[hitlikehammers]

the light behind your eyes (steddie timeloop; pre-bat attack🦇)

feat. Eddie falling hard and fast when Steve's had innumerable loops to have already fallen ✨🖤✨

“Not that I am not, hmmmm,” and he can barely bite back a moan; “not that’s I’m not fucking ecstatic, Harrington,” Eddie mouths against the lips on his, and he means it, too, he is in fucking heaven right now because not only is the hottest guy Eddie’s ever seen in real life and probably also in, like, magazines and stuff too: that guy is kissing him, touching him, running hands up under his shit and teasing his waistband, rutting a little against his thigh but…he’s doing it almost like it’s routine, like it’s not quite desperate, or not just desperate, expect for the touch of it and so no, Eddie doesn’t have to understand it at all for him to not be fucking complaining in the slightest—

Save that pointing out that he isn’t complaining stops Harrington’s hands on his body cold, freezes the lips pressed against him mid-suck and then they pull back, and Eddie’s panting so hard it burns, and he wants to whine, he’s only just learned the taste of this man but he wants more, it’s like he’s addicted already but then kinda like he always has been, like the deepest cells of him, the mitochondria from the textbooks he didn’t fucking read: it’s like it all knows the shape of this body, the flavor, and—

And that’s fucking ridiculous, but when Harrington pulls away?

Eddie kinda feels like the world’s ending.

And it is ending, in a way. Interdimensional madmen serial killers and all that, but.

This is different.

“Steve.”

Eddie frowns and can’t help but reach, frame Steve’s face even as Steve tries to shy away but still leans into the touch, and Eddie doesn’t understand; not least how Steve sounds so fucking shattered around his own goddamn name—

“Can you,” and Steve’s breathing heaves, shudders: the kind that lives between sobs but Steve’s cheeks are dry under Eddie’s palms and that almost feels all the more heartbreaking:

“I know it feels like you barely know me but,” and Steve blinks so fast, then he’s scrunching his eyes so tight and that, that might be why his cheeks are dry and oh: this is it. He thought before but:

This is the heartbreaking thing.

“Could you call me Steve? Please?”

And god, good fucking god but he asks it so small. It’s pleading and kinda edged in something desperate but here, from this titan of a man Eddie’s seen anew just these past days, this warrior barbarian his sheepies sand the praises of, this paladin out of the shadows come to save them all: he’s so small.

Eddie’s hands don’t move from Steve’s face, just draw him closer, upward on instinct until their brows touch, until Eddie can breathe in every shaky exhale that spills forth.

“Steve,” and maybe Eddie doesn’t quite understand the why, here, but he sure as shit savors the shape of that name on his tongue anyway, fucking sue him; “not that every single fucking version of my gay little fantasies aren’t dancing like they’re at queer fucking prom,” and he pauses, because he expects Steve to snort, maybe, expects to lighten the moment so charged, and not just with the kind of tension that tightens Eddie’s jeans—and Steve does make a sound for Eddie’s stupid little not-quite-joke, but it’s not a chuckle.

It’s a moan—but not the good kind. The kind that means pain.

And it’s almost worrisome, how when Eddie pulls Steve closer, he doesn’t fight it one bit; leans in almost…not even greedy. Almost fucking anguished.

“But this is just because it’s the end of the world, right?” Eddie makes himself ask, because too many things don’t add up, not least how Steve doesn’t even try to pull away, barely moves at all save just to breathe, and just to press closer into the crook of Eddie’s neck to do it.

“It’s just because I’m a wanted man whether it’s the cops, or the feds, or that fucker with the clock and the music,” Eddie rambles; doesn’t move his hand where it’s slipped to the side of Steve’s neck like an intimacy, though, doesn’t even consider shifting a fucking centimeter away from the heavy pulse of life surging under his palm. “Like, I mean, whether it’s 20-to-life or an electric chair or the bats—“

It’s the way the chest against him shudders that trips him up; not least to realize how close they are, that they’ve gotten, that Steve’s heartbeat’s something he can tease out without effort at all there, too, and…

Eddie glances up a little further to see Steve staring at the ceiling of the trailer, eyes glistening, the effort not to fucking cry evident as anything and, just, like…

What the fuck?

“Steve?” Eddie hedges a little, gentles his voice further because even though he doesn’t let a single tear fall, just seeing this man so close to it, while staying so close to Eddie, it’s, he just…

He can’t even try to lighten the moment, can’t even push didn’t realize I was that bad of a kisser, fuck past his lips.

“Give me a minute,” Steve doesn’t even rasp, just says even but so so quiet, and again, just so so small. It’s…

It’s not even heartbreaking anymore. Eddie’s whole chest just fucking hurts.

“You okay?” Eddie ventures after what has to be more than a literal minute; when Steve stops staring at the ceiling but screws his eyes close tight again to pull creases at their corners, between his brows; and Eddie whispers the question when he even dares to speak at all because something in this moment feels…fragile. Sacred in some way, even if he can’t name how or why. He waits, and Steve doesn’t move, barely breathes for the longest time so much it starts to kindle real fear in Eddie’s chest, so it’s only once Steve half-gasps and gets back to his lungs working like Eddie wants them to, once that holds for a while and Eddie understands that the closest to an answer that he’s going to get—he lets Steve breathe, and lets the feeling of it calm Eddie down, too, before he does the stupidest, most selfish fucking thing and asks, again:

“What is this, though?”

The way Steve sucks in his breath at the words cuts Eddie sharp; he shouldn’t have said anything. He should have let this lie and just…enjoyed a little bit of impossibility at the end of the world that wasn’t a bad thing.

He thinks maybe that’s what pushed him over, though, and made his tongue move, to shape the question at all: it’s so fucking far from a bad thing that it’s…it makes too much lightness in Eddie that he’s never felt before. Even in the absolute shit of this entire situation, Eddie’s basically nonexistent future on the horizon if he manages somehow to make it out of the next 48 hours alive: this is something that makes him feel like he could hope.

Hope even for the most absolutely absurd fucking things.

And hope like that has to make anyone fucking selfish.

“This?” Steve glances indicatively between them, with a quirked brow that he pulls off perfectly but it can’t land like it should, not for Eddie who’s just watched this gorgeous human swallow the stages of grief whole where he’s…he’s pulled back, Eddie realizes, Eddie can’t feel him chest-to-chest anymore and the idea of it’s a crushing thing, but it’s got nothing on the reality—either way, though, he’s hovering over Eddie now, still close, likely has been for a while and…and shit: his arms hadn’t even given out.

What the fuck kind of…superhuman stuff is this man made of?

“Thought it was obvious,” Steve chuckles, and that part, that sound rings hollow: Eddie’s had enough of a latent-forever crush on this boy for enough years to maybe have never heard this kind of chuckle but, it’s off. Eddie knows it’s not…what it should be.

Steve laughing is some kind of sunshine, nearly always, like a rule. Eddie knows that much.

“Must have lost my charm,” Steve grimaces while he looks down, down, hides from...Eddie doesn’t know what from, exactly. Save that whatever it is, he wants to hide a little, too.

But hiding, now, means that he’ll turn from Steve. And Eddie…Eddie wants to hide from the nameless horrible thing that’s swelling up in the space around them.

But Eddie doesn’t want to miss a second of Steve. He’s kind of afraid of the very concept of it, missing any…part of Steve. He knows they’re on borrowed time. He’s also not entirely sure this isn’t all of fever dream, maybe he got scraped by one of the nasty-ass rusted nails in the boathouse and all of this is just tetanus or some shit. Maybe it’s the X-Men-knockoff wizard fucking with Eddie’s head by giving him the unthinkable sort of thing he’s always wanted.

Whatever it is: Eddie cannot miss a second of it.

“This, yeah,” Eddie reaches to brush Steve’s chest where his heart’s still pounding, even when it’s not presses flush to Eddie’s anymore, even when they’e stopped kissing too many minutes ago for an excuse; “you more that live up to the hype, big boy,” Eddie chuckles a little, tries to make it warm, fucking grateful; “exceed it even,” Eddie adds, can’t help but splay his fingers and stroke up and down a little over the street of Steve’s shirt.

“But,” because Eddie’s selfish. Because touching Steve slow like this, even as he’s so stiff and his pulse is so fucking scared: take out the frantic pace of what it means to feel him, and Eddie…the hope’s all the stronger, now. The wanting.

The selfishness.

“This,” and Eddie lets his hand move to the notch in Steve throat, like his body knew he’s feel the pulse there as much as the shiver, and the hard swallow after he asks, one more time:

“What is this.”

And Eddie forces his gaze from Steve’s skin to Steve’s face, where his eyes are blown and his color’s off, too pale even in the dark.

Where he’s fucking beautiful, even as he steels himself and takes a deep breath, less like a diver to the depths and more like a man facing an executioner. Jesus.

But his gaze is still so tender, like whatever hurt he comes to know for what he’s about to do is acceptable, so long as it doesn’t touch Eddie, doesn’t spill over. Like he’s…shielding Eddie from something worse than everything that’s already come, somehow, and that’s fucking terrifying in and of itself but—

But Steve—Steve who he barely knows but feels like he knows somewhere deep in his chest that feels knew and known somehow before these moments, like it was made only for the feelings and the certainties he holds in regard to Steve, Steve, Steve, like maybe that space inside of him was only made on some cosmic level not just for the person who made him feel this way against all odds, but maybe made only and specifically just for Steve—but Steve protecting Eddie, and hurting all the more for taking the hit?

It’s unacceptable. It’s sour in Eddie’s veins.

“If I fuck it up again, it won’t matter, I guess,” Steve seems to speak to himself, mutters low even for the soft quiet they’re holding between them. He doesn’t even know if he’s seeing Eddie for how far away he looks, sounds, like he’s reasoning with the universe.

That tips the sour feeling straight into full on sick.

But before Eddie can say anything, do anything, Steve’s sitting up, drawing back: Eddie can’t help the way he whimpers in the back of his throat for the loss; if the loss feels like more than just the closeness, the promise of it—if it feels like the moments to come are poised to change the world.

“Don’t say anything until I’m done, okay?” Steve asks, implores. Eddie’s powerless against it.

His throat’s already too dry to do anything but nod.

Steve looks, nearly studies him, wide-eyed and needy and…Eddie just wants to hold him.

He just wants to hold him, and keep him.

“‘Kay,” Steve exhales heavy, shaky, like his heartbeat’s knocking around his lungs so there’s no possible world where he could have breathed out steady, where no one could, no matter how strong.

“I’m in love with you.”

Eddie—for wholly other reasons he suspects—gets his own dose of his lungs getting knocked around for how his heart trips and stumbles around those wholly fucking impossible and insane and desperately wanted words echo through his head, his ribs.

“And it might not make and fuckin’ sense to you, but,” and Steve’s breath hitches as he reaches, as he pauses like he’s not sure he’s allowed; “Eds,” and that’s not a thing he’s called so often, and certainly not in that tone, gutted but so steeped in…he said it and it’s true, because that name, hisname on Steve’s lips is fucking saturated in love and how, sure, but the fact of its undeniable enough that the semantics, the mechanics of it: irrelevant.

Would have mattered in the face of something lesser, but.

This isn’t that other-lesser thing.

So Eddie grabs those questioning hands and brings them to his cheeks where they’d been looking to land, to frame his face: to let them both feelthis, however it came to be, whatever else it holds inside.

He looks Steve in the eyes as he holds Steve’s hands to frame his own face like he’s something dear: because it is love. Unmistakably. Steve isn’t lying, or exaggerating.

And Eddie’s halfway fucking there with him, just to look at it.

Save for the way it also looks devastated. Also looks…in the kind of pain that doesn’t end, but somehow doesn’t fade. The scab you rip off to start the process over and over, to hurt all over again.

“I’ve been trying to save you so many times,” and Steve’s voice hitches some more around it, and it should probably cause more question, those words; should definitely cause more questions for Eddie himself, given how he accepts it so fast—the fairly clear implication.

“I’ve held your body in my hands so many times,” and Steve sounds broken for it in ways that even he, Edward Munson, who has seen what he’s seen these past few days, didn’t know a body, or a soul, could withstand and survive.

Also: okay. Okay.

More than an implication, before. Yep. Okay. But—

“Times?” Eddie finds himself croaking because…he’d jumped straight to saving his life but, but: times?

How many fucking times has Steve scratched the scar off and started again? How hard, how deep is the scar tissue?

“I’ve broken your ribs trying to convince this,” and Steve’s hand’s sliding down from one side of Eddie’s face to settle over Eddie’s still fumbling heart, hand stretched wide like it wants to hold the thing whole and true and safe: “to come back, back to me—”

And Steve’s voice cleaves down the center then, just flat out fucking gives out. And Eddie…

Eddie’s an impulsive person. Eddie’s not what you’d call…circumspect, doesn’t pull his punches once he feel inclined to run, to or from or alongside anything in his life.

And even he has never felt so strongly about anything than then thing that spills form him in absolute earnest, with the whole of his mess of a chest and the entire weight of his wild frantic heart:

“Sweetheart,” Eddie takes the one hand that’s not holding Steve’s to his face anymore and reaches, strokes his thumb so gently over Steve bottom lip, and yeah he takes in the way Steve’s eyes widen for it, the way he shifts from shattered to shocked in a second: but it’s all peripheral.

But the whole of Eddie is invested in the one thing he needs to know. More than he needs air to fucking breathe:

“How can I stay with you?”

And he watches Steve’s jaw drop as he moves his hand from those lips to cover Steve’s own hand one more time, still on toppings chest and he doesn’t think twice before damn near close-on begging:

“What do I need to do?”

Steve stills. Blinks.

“What?”

“I might not have had the pleasure just yet,” Eddie tries to sort the words out as he goes because his heart hurts so hard but at the same time it’s so full: “but I’m looking at you,” and he is, he’s looking at Steve and seeing so much, so many things, things that are there and things that could be there in the foreseeable future and things that Eddie can fantasize and dream of being his whole-ass future and just, just, just—

“You love me?”

Steve nods, lips still parted. No hesitation. Not a question.

Jesus.

And Eddie’s heart’s still racing, faster now, even but for…

Not just for fear, or shock, or lust, or…any of it.

Not for anything so simple as all that, now.

“And I die?” Eddie chides himself when Steve flinches ever so slightly, tries to find a gentler way to pitch the words when he speaks again because the point itself is thorny, he can’t make it soft:

“I’ve,” Eddie licks his lips; “I’ve died a lot of times?”

And he waits, and Steve’s blinks a lot of time really fucking fast, but then, again: he nods.

And Eddie’s heart hurts harder at the confirmation, and Steve’s clear bid not to shed a single fucking year—his heart hurts harder, but poundsharder for bigger reasons because fuck, fuck—

“And you’ve loved me enough to somehow bend time and space to try and undo it, to try and stop it?”

And if Steve’s got the trick to that magic, it stills the moment, stops time around them both as Eddie sees the words as they sink in for Steve, as they register and shift the shade of his gaze ever so slightly, brighter and deeper and magnetic and Eddie…

Eddie doesn’t need him to nod. Just looking him, just feeling everything that gaze is giving, solely for him, is all the answer he needs.

“So how do I get even the chance to stick around enough to deserve it?” Eddie asks, because he needs to know so that he can make sure he does it to the letter, and then fifty million times over to be sure. “To get to feel it full on,” because for as much as he’s already feeling, he can’t only imagine what it would be to feel it for an hour, a day, a week, a…a lifetime. He can only image.

And he fucking wants.

“What do I have to do to be able to feel this for more than a couple minutes,” and Steve’s eyes shift again, because he hears what Eddie’s saying, not hiding so much as trying to cram in: he feels this already, and at the same time knows it’s sample sized when what he craves, what he needs is something too big to measure; “to feel this, and return it twenty-fold and for the long haul,” and Steve’s still staring, still kinda gaping, so Eddie forces himself to pause, to ask even if everything points to a singular answer—he forces himself to wait and make super fucking sure:

“If you’ll have me?”

Steve blinks, frowns, then asks, voice hoarse:

“You believe me?” and he says it so slow, disbelieving himself. “Like, you get what I’m saying, and you, you,” he flounders, looks cast adrift and closer to tears now than he’s been yet and Eddie…

Eddie can’t let that just be.

“Of course I do.”

And maybe it’s not of course exactly, in the sense that Eddie doesn’t have questions, like a fuckton of questions but: he doesn’t have doubt, not in Steve. Somehow of all that he doesn’t know and that makes no sense, he does know that Steve is where his faith—if he was ever going to have any in anything—is meant to sit, whatever that means, whatever that demands accepting.

“Of course, sweetheart,” Eddie says with so much of himself he never knew was actually inside him to speak, to beg such truth. He didn’t know.

“So please, please tell me,” he fucking please it; “what do I do?”

Because he knows now. The breadth of what can, could, does, will live in his chest. And once he knows it?

He’s gonna fight like hell to have the whole of it. For always.

“To get to have this,” Eddie reaches, can’t help but brush some of Steve’s hair behind his ear and just…consider him. Marvel a little at the fact that the world is changing, Eddie can feel it, and it’s because this man loves him.

Him.

“This thing I’ve never even considered getting to know,” Eddie strokes Steve’s jaw and asks the only question left:

“What do I have to do to have the chance fall in love with you?”

Because Eddie doesn’t care if he has to lob off a fucking arm. He’ll do it. He’ll learn to play his guitar with his goddamn feet before he lets this chance go.

“Don’t be a hero.”

Eddie’s face must do something at the sorta sudden kind of outburst from Steve, because Steve ducks his head down a little and smiles almost apologetic, and still so fucking sad.

“I tell you not to be cute about it, and not to try to be a hero, but you are, you do, every time,” Steve tells him, explains, and that part at least tracks: he’s a contrarian to his detriment but…he doesn’t want to believe he’d do it when the stakes are this high. Not without a good reason and he can’t…imagine a good enough reason to leave this man so broken, and still fighting nonetheless.

He can’t imagine any reason in the whole fucking world good enough for that.

“Then I won’t,” Eddie says, because: well. It’s an easy fix in general, but like, he’s no fucking hero, so then it’s even easier.

“You will,” Steve smiles the saddest goddamn smile Eddie’s ever seen in his whole entire life., I too of the string of sad smiles he’s been treated to so far. “You always do,” and the resignation in stage a tone is only outweighed by the…pride, almost, for what he’s declaring against all odds to be true.

“Just, just,” Steve seems to debate with himself for a second, maybe whether he wants to fight the weight of established precedent one more time, wants to scratch off that scab in a whole knew way, because it felt like Steve was watching this play out different when Eddie believed him, and asked to work with him to make the wrongs right instead of aiding the process of his own ruin, and what looked like Steve’s own process of self-immolation in slow motion, over and again. Eddie gets why he pauses.

But it’s not even long enough to be called hesitation, really, before he’s diving in and giving Eddie the playbook, with no guarantee or even a whole lot of hope based on existing evidence to trust.

Eddie feels the magnitude of the living in a whole new way, on a whole new level, for that, as Steve speaks:

“When you do, when you’re a hero again because you always are, I need you to run when you’re done. We will be okay, I know what I’m dealing with now, I know how,” Steve says with. Steel creeping into his tone and Eddie wants more than anything to know what he’s planning to deal with, how Steve plans to stay safe because now Eddie’s heart’s tied up on the opposite end of the equation and he…he can’t survive and have it only flip the tables, have there still be a loss because Eddie’s not made of what Steve’s made of, and sure he’s only had a taste of this, but he…

He won’t survive losing it. Even just the taste.

“Don’t buy us more time,” Steve cuts back into Eddie’s headspace, the more important voice; the most important; “you do more than enough, I need you to trust me and I know you don’t have a reason to—“

“I trust you.”

And that’s unequivocal. Eddie trusts Steve. The end.

“How will I know when I’m done?” Because if Steve’s willing to go through this for him, he’s going to fucking take notes to make sure he does his part in turns, makes sure this is the last fucking time.

“Play the puppet master song,” which Steve doesn’t know, no way he’d fucking know on his own and Eddie didn’t doubt, but, like…

Jesus.

It takes a fucking second, just digesting what it means to be right for no doubting. It’s heady. Terrifying.

But also like stars in his stomach. He feels reborn in the simple reality of believing in this person who loves him this hard.

“Block the vents, don’t ignore the vents. When Dustin goes up the rope, you follow. Pull it up after you and block it off, hold them off in case any stragglers stick around,” Steve tells him, doesn’t sound skeptical, exactly, but just…maybe wary. Rightly so, given the…previous rounds of things. “We’ll need you to throw it back to us when we’re done.”

Eddie feels his face screw up a little because he wasn’t paying the most attention but he really thinks, like:

“Aren’t there closer gates—“

“I’ll need to,” Steve swallows hard, the bob in his throat almost painful to watch because Eddie can almost imagine the weight of it, the way the same motion’s been repeated so many times and yet he’s still at it, he’s still trying—

For Eddie. Jesus fuck.

“I’ll need to see.”

And if the hard-swallow wasn’t heartbreaking—again, every time Eddie thinks he’s been gutted entirely Steve goes and ups the fucking ante, good god, and he keeps doing this? He continues to say yes to this, these feelings, this, this…this, because if, for, for…

But regardless how you slice it: the way Steve’s voice cracks, on just those four words?

Holy fucking Christ—this has to be what’ll kill Eddie harder, deeper down than anything Steve’s trying to save him from.

“I won’t fail you this time, Steve.”

And Eddie means it, even if the words themselves spill from him automatic: they’re there to spill at all because Eddie means it, because Eddie’s heart’s never felt swollen like this before and he wants to give whatever it’s all fat and tender with to this man he barely knows but…maybe he knows more important things about him than he knows about most people in his life. Nearly all people in his life.

And that’s fucking has to count for something. For more than something.

“Eddie,” Steve starts, like he wants to argue some point but Eddie isn’t gonna have that, not now.

Not ever again, if he has anything to fucking say about it.

“No,” Eddie cuts him off and this time, this time, it’s Eddie who reaches and cradles Steve’s face, holds him like he’s precious, as much as he can because this man is precious beyond reason, but human hands are only capable of so much care: he gives what he can.

He knows it’s not enough, and hopes his heart in his words will make up the difference.

“No, this,” and he runs the pads of his thumbs beneath Steve’s eyes, because as gorgeous as they are, as he is: those eyes used to be bright. They were bright…before. When did they change, when did Steve from now like Eddie become Steve who’s tried to start Eddie’s heart with his own hands, and couldn’t?

Doesn’t matter.

Steve’s eyes aren’t supposed to be hollow behind the color; there’s only supposed to be the sunshine.

Not the endless dark.

“I’ve been taking it away, haven’t I?” Eddie breathes out in a level of horror at the realization that’s settling in the more he looks at Steve, and reads the toll he’s been paying, for Eddie. “I hate that, I hate that I—“

“Eddie,” Steve breathes, and the only shine in his eyes is tears and it’s wrong, it’s just wrong.

“It gets taken away because yours isn’t there anymore,” Steve reaches back, now, and holds Eddie’s face in his broad hands: “the light in you,” and his voice cracks and he blinks and one tear.

One tear falls.

Eddie’s sternum splits in two.

“I want to know what it is to fall in love with you,” Eddie says in a rush, demands on the whole fucking cosmos: “the whole way, because I think I’m already halfway there,” and it’s true, it’s true because he’d give his life for Steve already so he understands, of Steve’s in longer and deeper, why he’s fighting despite the hurt, but, but…

No more.

“And I want to earn it,” Eddie tells him. “I want you to fall for me not just because of, because of life and death stuff, or tied up in losing,” Eddie tries to fit the avalanche of feelings in him to words, prays it’s enough:

“I want it to be a,” he chokes, shakes his head and bites his tongue: “a good thing,” because he wants to be a good thing for this man. He wants to be only a good thing, as best he knows how.

“You are a good thing,” Steve counters, and fierce with it; “you’re the best thing.”

Eddie’s not strong enough to hold himself to just one tear when the floodgates break.

“I run when Henderson runs,” he breathes shakily. It’s a vow more than anything he knows how to give.

“You don’t run,” Steve tells him, so soothing, still so protective of Eddie, always protective of Eddie; “you’re so fucking brave, and you save our asses,” and he brings their foreheads to lean against each other as Eddie’s inhales trembles: “you’re just gonna fall back this time, so you don’t break my heart, too, okay?”

“Okay,” Eddie would agree to anything, at this point; this is easy. This he can do, no problem.

This he will do, no question.

“I’m sorry,” he finds himself whispering, because…because he has to.

He is so fucking sorry.

“You’re…” Steve starts, uncomprehending as Eddie just shakes his head, almost like a compulsion.

“I’m sorry I’ve disappointed you so many times,” Eddie hissed through clenched teeth, tries not to descend into blubbering, tries to maintain something like, if not composure, the capacity to be heard and known when he promises with his whole heart:

“I won’t do it again, I swear.”

And Steve watches him, eyes red rimmed and still brimming but carefully, assessing.

Eddie can help, though. He can put him a little bit at ease, or damn well fucking try.

“I already feel something,” and he brings Steve’s hand to his chest again, reminds them both his heart’s still beating in this world, in this time. “And I’m too selfish Steve.”

Steve cocks his head in question; Eddie wants to watch this man’s quirks, learn the minutiae of his every expression.

Forever.

“I need the whole shebang.”

Steve smiles, watery and still strained but less sad, and that’s something.

It’s all they have time for, because he can hear everybody coming back with supplies, remembers they’d been prepping for war.

It’s all the have time for—for now.

“I’m holding you to that,” Steve says, a little watery, a little shaky, a little unconvinced but wholly filled with love, still, and all together isn’t only serves to harden Eddie’s resolve that much more.

“You flake on me again?” Steve flips his fingers backward against Eddie’s shoulder in a poor excuse for a smack: “I’m gonna tie you to the driver’s seat next time, and leave Nance with Dustin.”

“There won’t be a next time,” Eddie answers, dead serious; “except for one thing.”

There’s something molten, a glint that isn’t tears when Steve lifts a brow in askance; when Eddie leans in and kisses Steve hard, deep, quick because they have to but it doesn’t have to be anything else because he leaves his heart and soul in the exchange, willingly and willfully and all fucking in.

“There’s gonna be a next time for that. I swear to god,” Eddie murmurs against Steve slips when he pulls back; “we’re gonna have so many next times.”

And when the door to the RV bursts open and everyone else spills in, Steve’s lips are a little swollen if you’re looking.

And Steve’s eyes still have that light.

For @klausinamarink, who requested 'The Light Behind Your Eyes—My Chemical Romance' at my HOBBIT-STYLE BIRTHDAY MONTH PROMPT FEST

✨permanent tag list: OPEN (lmk if you want to be added/removed): @pearynice @hbyrde36 @slashify @finntheehumaneater @wxrmland @dreamwatch @perseus-notjackson @estrellami-1 @bookworm0690 @imhereforthelolzdontyellatme @nerdyglassescheeseychick @swimmingbirdrunningrock @goodolefashionedloverboi @sanctumdemunson @theheadlessphilosopher @sadisticaltarts

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💫 ao3 link here

[tiredspirals]

The truth and light being so deeply tied to christian imagery is a very western thing and I think we're not as immune to it as we'd like to be

Even I do it. My scholar-paladin dragon is from light flight, inspired by fantasy tropes that again take the concept from christianity. But FR never really advertised light that way, imo, so I'm taken back by how many people think it should be flowing feather wings and elegant twisty beasts at all times.

That might just be the nature of having a site with very basic lore, purposefully done so so we can make whatever we want. But that means the devs can too, y'know.

I love that my flight and my sister flight have bug dragons.

[mareastrorum]

UNHINGED LIVESHOW SPECULATION

If Sam is a paladin/bard, he has healing capabilities, but that look does not give the impression that he has a healing build. I bet he's gonna do a whole "oh, i'm the healer?" bit just to jab at Laura for Jester's early campaign attitude about healing.

[dykedvonte]

Danse and Hancock work only after blind betrayal because it’s the equivalent of the one closeted person you kinda pity getting kicked out after being outted and you and your like 7 other faggot friends take them in and help them do a 180 on their outlook on life and personal style and get them to weed (possibly grape mentats in this case).

[scattered-winter]

every day i kick a rock and bash my head into the wall because i'll never get to go on a big space adventure and become tightly close-knit with my new found family up there <//3

[criticalrolo]

every day i am out here consuming JGY meta from his fans because I want to see what you see. i am working so hard to try to understand things from his perspective bc he's my favorite version of the "villain becomes the thing they hated" arc of all time and the only time I've seen this trope done in an actually compelling way

[foolinafable]

It's for the best .ೃ࿐

Keith Kogane x Fem!Reader Synopsis: locked in a cell, the white paladin remembers her happier times and hopes that she can make it back to a certain black paladin. Word count: 3.7K Tags: slight angst, flashbacks, mentions of torture but not graphic, set tentatively around season 4 Notes: Apparently, vld is having a resurgence so send in some requests!

You knew it was for the best. Sat cross-legged in the confines of your cell with a small smile on your lips, contented, knowing that you have done everything you could, that this wasn't in vain- rather it was what was supposed to happen. For the betterment of the entire universe, sometimes sacrifices need to be made. You remember telling Keith something similar during one of his many brooding moments. Now wishing that you could remember which conversation it was or maybe just that you had paid more attention to your time together, especially now you didn’t think you would ever see the boy with the mullet again. 

You were sat next to Hunk, the pair of you looking up giddily at Takashi Shirogane, the famed astro explorer. He was speaking to the class about his recent accomplishment as he had just broken the record for the fastest orbital velocity. Everyone had tried the flight simulator and despite not being able to get passed level 3- like the rest of the class you were still excited by the prospect of meeting the youngest pilot to ever lead a mission in space. Even more happy that you had done better than James Griffin in the simulator- as he never stopped going on about his good grades and how much better he is. So to wipe that smirk off his face made it all worth it. As you and Hunk were fangirling in the corner you heard Griffins whining causing your attention to go back to the simulator, where apparently one more person was having a go. The pair of you walked towards the commotion as the annoyed brunette sounded out “No way! Keith made it past level five?! Thing's got to be broken.” That was the first moment you saw him, well properly at least. The young boy with a mullet and a ‘disciplinary issue’ if you were to listen to what your teachers told you. He walked away from the training simulator with a grin on his face and you couldn’t help but smile too. Especially when he looked your way as he walked off. 

‘He doesn't even know you're gone’ you muse to yourself, and it’s true. The last you had heard from him was on the other side of a screen during a planning meeting with the Blade surrounded by your teammates, who similarly had yet to know the fate of the white paladin of Voltron. They would soon realise when you don't return through the wormhole and when they find your lion broken and alone. But then it will already be too late, as the galaran ship that held you prisoner was already galaxies away taking you towards inevitable doom. You think you're pathetic, as you are already giving up but what else can you do, your weapon is gone, lion missing,  and you are locked in a cell with only your body inside of it with nobody even knowing where you are- not even you. Worry roots deeply inside of yourself as you think of your friends, a lump in your throat growing at the thought of them discovering that you're gone- they have all lost enough already. You’re sure Lance would try to be enthusiastic, claiming that they found Shiro so they could find you. Still, even he would know the saddening truth that the galarans won’t make the same mistake twice as he tries to hide his tears from Pidge who would be clinging to Hunk, begging him to tell her it’s not true- she only just got her brother back and now she has lost her sister- blood related or not. You knew it would destroy the team if you couldn’t get back to them and what worries you is that you're struggling to see a way that you can.

It was nerve-wracking, waiting to find out who Iverson and the rest of the teachers decided to team you up with for the simulators. It was a big deal, as this was going to be your team for the rest of your time in the Garrison. Last year you couldn’t wait for this moment, but maybe that was because you were certain that the boy with the mullet would be by your side as you were as Shiro put it “the only person that can put up with him” but he left, dropped out without so much of a goodbye, and you could understand, the loss of Shiro, Matt and Sam was difficult for everyone but nobody took it worse than Keith and you suppose it made sense as Shiro was all the boy had. You shook the thoughts of him out of your mind when Iverson finally came into the room, twiddling the rings on your rings on your fingers as you stood near Hunk who looked ghostly pale and going on queasy as you both prayed that the older man would do you both a solid and put you two together. You listened as he called names into groups, feeling somewhat better when Griffin was put in a group that didn't include you. Then your name was called and you were told to stand next to a tall Cuban boy wearing blue, you smiled as you walked up to him and he smiled back seemingly just as nervous as you were, then a smaller boy with round glass and a green jumper joined the group, your eyes squinting when looking at him, almost as if you had seen him before but you couldn’t place where. But before you could question it Hunk's name fell out of Iverson’s lips, you looked up in alarm as you saw Hunk coming towards your group, shocked that your prayers had been answered. The fear that was eating away at you was dulled slightly as he came to stand next to you. Sure it wasn’t the team that you wanted but maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all.

Being in space has always made your internal clock question how long has passed, but it seems to be worse when alone in this cell. You believe it has been a few days based on the number of trays of food delivered to your cell, the only interaction with another you’ve had this whole time. At least you think, as you find yourself waking up exhausted with pains and aches all over your body, but you have no memory of doing anything or even anyone coming into your cell in the first place. You thought you would've been face to face with Zarkon or his witch by now, but as time passes, you struggle to believe that would happen at all, which causes a pit to develop in your stomach as the unknown of your future begins to dawn on you.

You can still hear the conforming hum of your lion in the back of your head, trying to reassure you that all is well but as the days pass by you begin to believe it less and less simply repeating to yourself that it was for the best.

“Things could’ve been a lot worse” you theorised. Sat with Pidge in this trash heap with your lions completely shut down. At least you were together and there were (up to now) no enemies trying to kill you both. To be honest, you wouldn’t want to be stuck here with anyone else. After Pidge finally revealed to everyone that she was in fact a girl, something you had figured out back in your garrison days, not long after you had become a team and saw the photo of her and Matt taken prior to the Kerberos mission, but you only knew because he had shown it to you first, during one of his many tutoring sessions with you. You liked to think that while Shiro was Keith’s mentor, Matt was yours. A sentiment he very much enjoyed, so much that Pidge later told you that she had already known who you were when she met you. A fact that made your heart swell. Your friendship with Matt was one of the many reasons that Pidge thought of you like a sister and the main reason you looked after her so much- you wanted to look after her for him while he couldn’t and while this mindset got you into many arguments with Keith over putting her safety over your own you wouldn’t change a thing because you knew it was the right thing to do (Also Keith couldn’t really say anything as he constantly put himself in harms way for everyone on the team.) You couldn’t help but feel protective over her as she was the youngest out of your ragtag bunch and was annoyingly the only one you could baby as you were the second youngest of the group as Lance loved to remind you. While being here with Pidge definitely made you feel a little better, you couldn’t help but be relentlessly worried for the rest of the group, as they always found some way to get into trouble- especially Lance and Keith. It was like trouble sought them out, always getting into some sort of issue whether it be with aliens or with each other. So you couldn’t help but double over in laughter when Pidge using her junk-made paladins started an argument between the fake Lance and Keith.  Eventually, you both decided that you had waited around for help long enough and decided to try and find your own way back to the castle. Pidge made you gather together materials to make a home beacon signal in hopes that it could reach the castles of lions to allow them to find you two. No surprise to you Pidge’s brilliance worked its magic as the castle of lions appeared in the sky from a wormhole, the pair of you hugged each other happy knowing that you weren’t going to grow old on a trash pile as you had both dramatically claimed. You two were more than ready to return to the fight against Zarkon to save the universe and hopefully, find Pidge’s family.      

You dream of him, black hair, violet eyes and his grumpy temperament clouding your thoughts as you try to rest. But, when you wake cold and alone in that dark cell you are reminded of the present and how you need to try and stop yourself from dreaming of the past.

Thought it was “just goodbye for now” you bitterly mumbled as you awoke from another dream of him. This time the memory sticks with you- of the goodbye you shared as he left to find himself with the blades, those were the words he uttered to you as you blanketed him in your embrace. That it was temporary, that you two would come back together again and you remember how you smiled through your sadness nodding at his words, believing him truthfully- as you always did. But you are now struggling to believe it anymore and you don't know if you are more mad at him for uttering those words or yourself for trusting them to be true. Up to now, all attempts to contact your lion have failed miserably but you can still hear your lion if you concentrate enough- as though you two are connected to the same string and you pray that it never snaps, clinging onto it like a lifeline.

You were buzzing, tapping your hands against your legs as you bounced on the balls of your feet, waiting for Pidges Lion in the cockpit while the rest of the team looked at you, amused. Lance, clearly feeding off your joyous attitude, ruffled the hair on your head, messing it up slightly. You turned to the boy, pouting as he withdrew his hands, using your own to try to flatten whatever mess he had made as he giggled at your reaction. A smile quickly returned to your face when Pidge stepped out of her lion with a familiar boy following behind her, you ran towards the pair, wrapping your arms around Matt’s shoulders in welcome, your smile only increasing when he hugged back with just as much gusto, you could hear Lance muttering something about someone being jealous if they were here to Hunk and Shiro but you weren’t paying close enough attention to anything he said, instead, you were very happy that the man who you would call a brother was really okay and just like Shiro had survived the Kerberos mission. When the family reunion had ended Pidge introduced Matt to the rest of the group, except for Keith as he was yet again away on some mission with the Blades. You watched amused as Matt’s eyes landed on Allura and something similar to what you see in a romcom played out as he screamed “You are so beautiful!” you struggled to keep the giggles to yourself as you saw Coran turn red in anger, clearly seeing this as an inappropriate way to talk to the princess and finding humour in Lance’s clear jealousy as Hunk made the boy walk away from the group. You decided to do something similar telling Pidge to give Matt a tour of the castle ship as you walked away with Coran and Allura, pulling both the alteans away with your hands.

Calming down an angry altean was albeit harder than you expected, especially when Allura was of no help at all as she was just laughing at how worked up the older man had become, but you understood it was because he felt so protective over her especially since there was no Alfor to help him and she was like Coran’s little girl so nobody would ever be good enough, you whispered just as much to him as Allura was talking to her mice and that seemed to make him less annoyed, knowing that somebody else understood him. It wasn’t until later when gossiping with Allura about your lives before all this, that she mentioned that it wasn’t just Matt’s interaction with her that annoyed Coran but also his interaction with you, claiming that he always got annoyed when others in his eyes tried to “flirt” with you, her or Pidge. However, she quickly noted that he never got annoyed or got Lance and Hunk to intimidate Keith like he did anyone else when it comes to you a comment made your cheeks burn.   

You startle awake to the sound of your cell door being opened, eyes darting towards the light, confused when the door continues to open, eyes squinting from the light now surrounding you for the first time in weeks as you try to identify the body in front of you when a voice gasped out and a familiar voice spoke your name. All worry evaporated from your body as Matt Holt wrapped you in a hug and you knew for the first time in weeks that everything would be okay and that maybe Keith was right- it was just goodbye for now.

You now sat in the control room of the ship you had been captured in surrounded by freedom fighters. After hearing over hacked intercoms about it carrying ‘precious cargo’ for the emperor, they had infiltrated and taken control of the ship.

“And that was me was it?” you mused looking towards the Holt boy to which he cracked a smile sending you a simple nod in response. You had changed into your white and silver spacesuit and your bayard had been retrieved for you. Now more than ready to return home to the castle of lions, to the paladins and to him. 

The first thing you saw, unsurprisingly, as the ship came out of the wormhole was your lion, growling in happiness, bounding towards her paladin only stopping when she was at the front of the ship, eyes locked onto you. You smiled gleefully at your lion feeling your connection stronger than ever, as though the string that attached the you two was unwavering, unbreakable. As soon as the ship reached the castle of lions you were enveloped in the paladin’s embrace, you would’ve fallen over when Pidge launched herself into your arms, legs wrapped around your middle like a koala,  if weren’t for Lance keeping you balanced by surrounding you in a hug from behind. Hunk joined the misfit group of cadets finishing off the group hug similar to how they used to in the Garrison when they, for once, completed the training simulator much to Iverson’s shock. Thoughts of worry could be seen swimming through Shiro’s eyes as you caught them when looking up, he nodded at you, the tension flinging off him like water down a hill as you turned back to your family holding Pidge and Lance by the backs of their heads, smiling and reassuring them that this was real, that you were real as tears dropped from the twos eyes. You could feel Hunk’s laboured breaths, clearly trying to stay strong for the group as the rest were blubbering messes. Walking away from your embrace and towards the freedom fighters with Shiro shaking hands and thanking them for getting you back to them as the trio dropped towards the floor, holding onto each other like it was the last time. 

It was only later when you had changed into your everyday wear, speaking with Allura and Coran holding both of their hands, stroking them gently that the paladins noticed the new scars decorating your arms and some scorch marks adjourned your neck along with bruising that you wouldn’t comment on. Or rather that you couldn’t as you claimed to not remember anything except for the dark room you were kept in and then Matt saving you. Another change was your hair, which had a white streak in it, you simply chuckled at the development turning to Shiro claiming "We match now" causing everyone to laugh and they supposed it fit you well - “As she is the white paladin” Lance claimed.

It was only when Coran transferred your memories temporarily into a crystal that they all saw what you endured on the ship, you were beaten and tortured for answers, electrocuted, burned for sport and tested on by some druids. At that point, they stopped watching as Shiro was looking rather green, probably from remembering his own time with those vile creatures. But you mused that you were lucky as you still had all your limbs and according to Coran who looked at your scan results from the healing pod whatever they were trying on you didn’t work as you were the same as you were before, “except for a few scars and a new hair colour that is” He pondered twiddling his moustache. And he was right of course you didn’t feel any different, maybe a bit more anxious at night and a few more nightmares but who could blame you after being trapped in a dark room for weeks. Of course, the memory loss was slightly concerning but they all believed it to be a coping mechanism to keep you sane and you were glad that you could only properly remember the dark room, that it was all that really haunted you at night and that those things you saw on the screen projected from your mind didn’t and you hoped it stayed that way.

The entire universe that was apart of the coalition let out a sigh of relief when it was revealed by Allura on comms to the members of the alliance that the white paladin of Voltron had been found and returned mostly unharmed.  However, nobody’s relief could be felt greater than that of Keith Kogane who had been fighting with Kolivan for weeks when they received the information of your disappearance and probable capture, he remembers the way his legs nearly gave out from under him when during a meeting with Allura the altean claimed that Voltron couldn’t come to the rescue this time as they were missing a paladin- missing you. He Surprisingly didn’t even need to sneak out on a blade ship to try and find the castle of lions to see if it was true, rather Kolivan who was probably fed up with his moping simply turned to the boy and gave him ship and co-ordinates simply asking him to back in time for the next meeting. The older Galaran didn’t think he'd see the boy move so fast, mumbling annoyed about how much more work would get done if he did. 

You didn’t hear him on comms asking for Coran to allow him into the cockpit, too busy in the training deck with Shiro and Allura showing them that despite being out of action for a few weeks you were ready to get back out there because as you told them “the galra don’t wait for anyone” and that “this revolution wasn’t going to fight itself.” You didn’t even hear your teammates asking for you to come to the control room over comms, far too busy fighting the training dummies and your comms device left on the side. What you did notice was when you were lifted from behind, a pair of pale arms grabbing you by the waist causing a gasp to erupt from your throat, You spun around ready to attack until your eyes met his, and then your sword dropped to the floor as Keith held you in his arms, staring intensely at you as if you would disappear if he dared to look away for even a second. You quickly returned the embrace, arms circling his back as you threw your head onto his chest, almost unbelieving that he was there, his arms moved, crowding around your head pulling you impossibly closer to his body as he noticed the white strand of hair, his fingers pressed against it confused as he rested his nose atop your head, breathing you in, reminding himself that this was in fact, real and not just one of his sick dreams he has been having since finding out you were gone. 

Being held in his arms made everything real, and you thought that if you had to through everything all over again just to have this moment, in his arms, you would. It was all be for the best if you ended up in his arms at the end of it all.

[iloveboysinred]

That zuko smut you wrote was SO good!! is it okay if i request some nsfw hc ??? but from keith kogane, idk how to be specific lol!! Thank you sm 💗💗

Thank you anon youre my second ask ever i’m super excited !!!!! I’m glad you enjoyed it! You are so kind🥰 & Ofc you can !! I love me some Keith Kogane. Top tier boy in red

Masterlist

cw; sexually explicit content, 18+ MDNI! Nsfw under the GIF kinda long!

GIF BY @/kin-of-the-sheep

- Okay so in my head i feel like after you and all the paladins get launched into space and learn about Zarkon and the war and everything, you and Keith definitely didnt have time to really “get it on” if you know what i mean. Things were moving so fast and you all needed time to adjust.

- But after a few days of training and getting used to the fact that you’re literally in space the switch is back on for sure.

- Keith isnt a patient man. So I feel like he definitely enjoys quickies here and there around the castle. They’re never planned. Sometimes the way you train in hand to hand combat gets a little too touchy, sometimes the way you looked at him made his stomach turn and his dick jump. Keith just needs you in that exact moment, and the way ya’ll be fucking its a miracle nobody has walked in on you yet

-or maybe they just stay away on purpose 😭

- he likes to be rough during these, slapping your ass, squeezing your hips, shit even tugging on your hair. Everything is moving so fast he wants to get a feel of everything.

- but when you guys have real sex, its like night and day.

- You guys would come home from a mission, tired and scared for each other, every time you guys go out there you run the risk of being captured or worse. So immediately you and Keith embrace each other, heading to the showers to clean off.

- It starts innocent, Keith washing your back, washing your hair. He was savoring every caress, just wanting to be in your skin.

- but then he starts getting touchy feely, ghosting his fingers over your nipples, leaving soft nibbles on your neck. You feel him starting to get hard, his body pressed to yours as close as he can be.

- knowing thats on his mind, you decide to take it to his room.

- it takes you a minute to get there, because Keith kept stopping mid walk to press you against the wall and kiss you and feel you up over your towel. He gets needy fast. Like i said, he’s not a patient man.

- So, when you finally reach the intended destination, his movements are in haste, wanting to get you bare and open for him as soon as he can.

- His kisses are slow as his hands wander, holding you close to him as if he’s never going to get the chance again.

- he’s greedy with your body, eating you out messily. He wants every last drop of you, whole time relishing in the fact that you’re all his.

- every sound you make, every reaction to his touch is reserved for him. In a world where everything was taken from him, Keith wanted something to himself. Something he could take.

- So, he took and took. Orgasm after Orgasm until he was satisfied with the mess he’s made of you.

- But even then he’s not finished with you yet. He likes to watch you closely when he enters you. Eyes half lidded as the tightness of your heat squeezes around him, its utter bliss for the two of you, and he doesnt hold back.

- I dont care what anybody says, Keith is vocal during sex. He grunts and moans right above you, thrusting into you with a passion that shocks you. He loves to ask you how he makes you feel, if you like what he’s doing, ect. Despite having been in the same predicament many and i mean maaany times and knowing just how to set you off.

- “like that, baby?” “Fuck…tell me you like this dick” “take it baby, fuck!”

- Very into eye contact during sex. You guys will lock gazes often. You love to drown in his purple iris while he fucks you, getting almost lost in each other, the only thing you can think of is the stuttering of his hips as he nears his end. He’s everywhere at once, his scent, his body, his voice. All you see is Keith.

- ngl Keith folds you up into so many different positions. He just wants to be as deep and as close to you as he can. He’ll have your legs on his shoulder while he basically folds you in half, beating down into you with his forehead pressed against yours, grunting out curses as his hips rock into yours. He loves the way your face contorts with every thrust. He’ll reach between your legs, playing with you just to watch you squirm.

- He loves when you scratch up his back. It lets him know that he’s hitting it just right, boosting his ego as well as adding to his pleasure.

- he doesn’t really do pet names during sex. He’ll call you “baby,” “hun”, “beautiful” maybe even “my love” if he’s feeling sappy & he loves when you call him “baby”, “honey” or even just his name sounds good coming from your lips. But as far as daddy, sir, master?? He will roll his eyes at you so fast and look at you so crazy, it actually makes me laugh thinking about it.

- When he reaches his peak, he smashes his lips onto yours, his hips jerking into yours as he spills into you.

- But when you reach your peak he takes his time to coax you through it, riding it out with you, whispering encouragement and littering your skin with kisses as you come undone.

- after care is a must. Once you guys are all cleaned up you lovebirds will lay next to each other and lock gazes. Kissing and giggling like lovestruck puppies.

- But all that lovey dovey shit aside Keith is a freaaaaak

- Its the little things you do that really gets Keith’s blood pumping.

- like when the team found out he was half galra and Allura was being cold and standoffish to him, you didnt hesitate to rip her a new one about your man! I know thats right

- while you were bickering with her, Keith was just smug as shit, getting turned on by your protectiveness.

- soon as he got you alone he was beating your walls loose, biting you, sucking marks into your neck.

- when you get angry like that he’ll happily bottom and let you ride him. He absolutely loves when you take control and throw him around a little bit. He reaches up to play with your nipples and leave hickeys all over you as you rock yourself down on him, letting you essentially get yourself off on him any way you wanted.

- Be rough with him. Grab his hair, bite him, mark him up. He’s yours and he wants you to prove it.

- teasing Keith is a dangerous game. If you’re in public doing it especially. You’re basically asking him to break you down as soon as he gets you alone.

- sometimes it gets competitive, Keith doesnt back down and he’ll make sure you’re nothing short of a wreck by the end of the night. But you’re his perfect match. The both of you essentially going tit for tat all night. When he thrusts into you, you throw that ass back on him. When he presses heated kisses to your lips, you suck his tongue into your mouth and turn it into a make out.

- When he came back from being gone for two years with his mom, you guys fucked like animals.

- Seeing him shed his angsty teenager phase into his angsty grown ass man phase was making you feral.

- his hair had gotten longer, he was taller, and his body had become more muscular, but still lean.

- when you got him all to yourself after everyone greeted him and he delivered his news and all that, you guys were just straight up nasty.

- you had two years of no sex to make up for, after all.

- He fucked you in just about every position in the book. Doggy, missionary, cow girl, full nelson, all of it. He missed your gasps, your hushed whispers of his name as he brought you to your high. It was sentimental almost, the way his thrusts showed how much he missed you.

- and it was when you reached your peak that it really dawned on him that he could never stray too far from you. Your boy in red was wrapped around your finger, bound to you. He gazed at you in new astonishment, almost childlike wonder as you fluttered around him. Forcing his own orgasm to rack his body. He moaned, low and drawn out. Pressing his lips to yours like he always did when you reached your climax, rocking his hips gently into yours to draw it out as much as he could.

- hushed “i love yous” between the two of you as you basked in the glow of having your Keith back.

Hope you like this Anon 💕 thank you for your request/ask :> notes and reblogs are appreciated, comments, asks and submissions are welcomed !

[genshingorlsrevengeance]

How would someone like Miko, Ei, and other high ranking officers react to an S/O with a long list of titles like Settra the Imperishable, King of Kings,-

(Genshin Impact) Yae, Ei, Sara, Kokomi, Furina, Jean, and Xianyun's S/O with an absurdly long list of titles

I've been building and painting a lot of Bretonnians lately, so dear readers, you will now become aggressively French.

By the Archons above, nothing was worse to Yae than having to be so serious during a ceremony,

Of all the things she could be doing, literally anything would be better than having to listen to some stuffy noble read their title.

So it was by chance S/O had to be present. She recognized their title was of Fontaine descent.

'The Red Hand of Brionne', 'The Red Duke', Something something Red.

...Wait, their titles were still being read off?!

(Yae) "My goodness, just how many titles with the color red can one have?"

Yae internally sighed as the list kept going. And going. And going.

All the while S/O stood perfectly still and respectful, not even batting an eye at the list of titles that probably would stretch from the top of the shrine all the way to the bottom.

Yae's head looks up to the sky momentarily, wondering how of all the people in the world she could have as a lover, it was the one who had to bore her to tears.

No doubt there were interesting stories of how the titles came to be, but this is not the way she wanted to find out.

And here Yae thought Ei had a lot of names to go by...

(Yae) "...Why is it still going?!"

Ei doesn't react too much at the titles being read off for S/O's form of address at first.

She had to deal with similar situations of people reading off her own titles, so it was only proper etiquette.

"Water-Knight," "The Holder of Secrets", "Keeper of the Way"

(Ei) "...Hm."

It was only now she noticed that the list actually exceeded her own titles.

Which surprised her more than anything.

As far as she knew, S/O was just a mortal. How many feats did they achieve in Fontaine during their short life?

She made a note to ask later, but now the list was starting to become a bit absurd.

...Maybe she should implement a law where only the most notable of titles are read off, because they would actually be here for eternity if this continued.

Sara gets jealous fast.

Not because S/O has more titles than her, she couldn't care less about that.

What really irked her, was they had the gall to own more titles than Her Excellency, the Almighty Narukami Ogosho!

Sara masks her annoyance well as she keeps reading off the list.

Line after line, name after name.

...Okay, who the hell even gave her this list, this was way too many!

(Sara) Leader of battles...? What kind of title even is that?!

She made that comment in her head as she droned on with the names.

With every single title read off, Kokomi's energy drained.

She loved her S/O dearly, but by the Archons, how the heck did they get that many titles while living in Fontaine?!

(Gorou) "Lionheart, The Lionhearted, High Paladin of the Breton Court-!"

As far as she was aware, there wasn't even any Knight Houses like this in Fontaine!

...Then again, this was Fontaine she was talking about. They did have their theatres.

Kokomi doesn't mention anything about their stupidly long list of names until after the formal ceremony.

She drops her head onto their shoulders, sighing loudly.

(Kokomi) "S/O...why did we need to have all your names read out...?"

The AUDACITY S/O had!

To have more titles than HER, FURINA?!

This transgression would never be forgotten!

...But they were some pretty cool names, she did have to admit.

'The Golden Paladin',' 'Lord of the Lance', 'Roi Breton'

(Furina) "Hmph, and where exactly did you acquire such names, S/O? More importantly, how does it nearly rival my own?! Hmph! Perhaps I should read all of mine so that we are on equal footing!"

Honestly, some of those were starting to sound like stage names, which wasn't fair at all!

If they could do that, then so could she!

Needless to say, the ceremony the two were attending dragged on for way too long.

By Barbatos, those were some extra titles.

'The Green Knight', 'Knight of the Glade', 'Heart of the Lion'

Though, she only had a few titles under her own belt, the sheer number S/O had was honestly staggering.

But it was also admirable.

It made her want to keep up, and wondered if she could ever live up to Vanessa, and apparently S/O.

Because at this point she was wandering in her mind, the list was still going, and probably outnumbered Vanessa herself.

(Jean) Well...I suppose we did say we were to refer to all forms of address...Maybe we should revise that.

Xianyun was no stranger to titles.

She did indeed go by many, but S/O seemed to go by even more.

Which both impressed, and honestly annoyed Xianyun.

How did a mortal go by more names than Rex Lapis?!

'The Sacremor', 'The Soul-Killer', 'Duke of Couronne'-

(Xianyun) "One has to wonder why you must have all your names read aloud? We could be doing something much better right now..."

Granted, she did recognize a few of these titles, but that was no reason for dinner to get cold now!

Xinayun pouts, adjusting her glasses as she tries to get comfortable as the reading continued.

One found this situation inane...

[oathkeeper-of-tarth]

I have all the time in the world. How about you?

There is a theme to Aylin's threats and vows of vengeance that I've noticed and that I want to share.

Do what you will. I cannot prevent you. But you know as well as I, I will come for you. One day.

That one, for example, is for Balthazar, while she is imprisoned.

I cannot prevent you. But I can advise you. Be careful to whom you yoke your fate. One day, when he is severed from me, Ketheric will die. I will not. And when I am freed, I will remember whose recompense to claim.

Did you expect me to beg? To cry? To plead? For what. I accept my fate - for now. But the life of a divine is longer than you can fathom, Sharran. And this cold chapter will close, one day.

And those are for you, when you've yet to harm her, when she's still only warning you off. But then, if you choose to try to kill her, like so many before you:

Was it everything you hoped for? Was it sweet, Sharran, to murder a paladin of Selûne - her daughter - her sword? Congratulations - your mistress Shar will write your name on her hand. And I? I will come for you. When the time is right.

The next bit depends on your character's gender:

When your sons are grown and your beard is long and wiry; when you cannot hold your nightly water and your nose grows as long as your weary, weary days… When your daughters are grown and your chin sprouts whiskers dark - when your teeth are yellow as corn and your sleep grows short and your days are long and weary, so weary… When your children are grown and your eyes are weak; when your nose grows as long as your weary, weary days…

Ultimately, your fate will be the same:

That is when this immortal will visit you, Sharran. That is when I will show you what it is to be afraid.

All these long-term promises of one day, coupled with inevitability.

I find it so striking that most of Aylin's threats include her flaunting and flexing her immortality (as well as her flawless, long memory) over whoever has wronged her.

Present your weapon, soldier. Plunge it into the Nightsong. I cannot stop you. But know this: I never forget a face. HAH! Are you afraid, Sharran? Do you rattle and jump at the realisation that an immortal has your face emblazoned in her mind forevermore?

Everything is but a passing inconvenience to her, she claims, even a century of imprisonment and torment. Outlasting, outliving - that is simply what she does and what she chooses to intimidate with. Promising to wait until you are old and decrepit, until after you've experienced all the vagaries of age that she never will, leaving her sword hanging over your head throughout the entire miserable lifespan that she has permitted you to have.

Then, if you wrong her in a very heinous way, there's the extreme one of outliving not only you, but killing and extinguishing your entire bloodline in order to obliterate every trace of you from existence:

WHEN I AM FREE, I WILL DESTROY YOU! I WILL MURDER YOU, AND YOUR CHILDREN, AND THEIR CHILDREN BESIDE! I will rip this world apart, plank and beam, until every iota of your being is scalded by my light. This is my promise. This is my vow.

Over and over, Aylin builds her oaths of vengeance on the foundations of an utter, even proud, certainty that she will see her foe end, one way or another, due to her nature and the simple fact of her own endlessness. This is the well she keeps coming back to.

And I find all of this, this consistent insistence on it, so striking and ironic, because one of her other main emotional threads is being thoroughly enraptured by and devoted to and just so completely in love with a mortal. One who will age and die and pass into memory just like all the targets of her rage - if I think of Isobel when I re-read all of that dialogue up there, it seems to cut both ways so deeply. But then there's the extra element that every single one of these is spoken when she either knows or is (incorrectly) convinced that Isobel is dead. Isobel, who didn't get to grow old, and who is both an anchor to humanity and a very painful reminder of the truth of Aylin's situation being twofold.

Aylin will outlast what she hates, yes, but she will outlast what she loves as well.

[nysscientia]

today I am thinking about how wonderful it is that Wyll Ravengard is unquestionably Good but he also has flawed judgment

like, there are several little moments throughout the game where you can earn his approval by doing things that have consequences he would NOT want

(minor Act I spoilers) he approves when you defend Auntie Ethel from Mayrina's brothers, even though evidence is starting to stack up that she's not what she appears to be. and if you do, it starts a fight with them—with innocents who are just trying to help their sister.

OR (slightly bigger Act I spoilers) he approves if you take revenge on Kagha over Arabella's death, even if you haven't uncovered the Shadow Druid plot. and challenging her openly like that, without first calling into question her authority, causes violence to break out in the Grove—hurting many of the tieflings he's trying to protect.

this is not at all to suggest that he has "bad" judgment, because I don't think he does. it takes precious little for him to realize that Karlach isn't the monster he expected, even with lots of voices telling him that she is (Mizora, the 'Paladins of Tyr') and a perfectly reasonable justification for dismissing her own self-advocacy (devils lie). I actually think he's very discerning in a lot of situations—like his insights into Raphael and Mol. or an even more direct example (Act III spoilers): the hero's tests with Ansur, where he can just tell you the answer to all but the lanceboard puzzle. he knows what he's about! he's been making these calls on his own, in the frontiers, for seven years!

so part of why I love those moments of imperfect judgment is because I think they're an incredible window into his interiority. they come up in moments where his sense of justice has been activated—where he feels a need to protect; to face down a threat. he's a little more hasty, a lot more willing to gamble, when he feels like the safety and wellbeing of someone innocent is on the line.

and I have no reason to believe this is on Wyll's mind in those moments, but it's certainly on mine: how would his life have been different, if 7 years ago there had been someone around willing to make a foolish mistake for the chance to protect someone who might be innocent?

because when Wyll looked at Ulder, no cultists or battlefield in his wake, wrapped up in a devil and offering no explanations—

Ulder used exacting judgment to protect his city, and banish an infernal threat. he made a call that Wyll himself considers utterly reasonable.

but what if he had done something a little stupid, and gambled on his son?

... so. this post is a love letter to Wyll being the hero that he himself needed, and all the complicated ways that both hinders and helps him

[healpimp]

#FixTF2 Masterpost: Important Information Regarding the Movement

As promised, here is a comprehensive post about the #FixTF2 movement, the issues it tries to bring up and where to find more information and follow developments.

It is now day 7 of the protest with no response form Valve. Either this is them trying to wait for this to blow over or waiting for the signatures of the petition to be printed out and brought to their office, or they are still preparing a proper response to the movement. Regardless, this protest is still ongoing.

❓What's going on with TF2?❓

I'm sure everyone and their grandma knows by now, but TF2's most popular game mode, Casual, has been plagued by bots for several years by now. This is in fact not the first attempted protest and you may have heard of the one conducted two years ago named #SaveTF2. The movement wrested a response from Valve, which since the first protest has earned infamy and a status as a blatant lie among the game's players.

However, this task has seemingly been abandoned entirely. The last time in recent memory with no bots was when the game upgraded from 32-bit to 64-bit, which seemed to break the bots for a while. This was something the bothosters remedied a few days later, and no steps to remove them from the game has been made ever since.

It is worth mentioning that TF2 has had updates to battle the bot issue many times after #SaveTF2. They did indeed move to make TF2 a bot-free game for a while.

❓Why is this even bad?❓

Now, this might seem like a non-problem; TF2 is a video game and no more than that. People could simply move on and play similar games, like Overwatch, Paladins, Splatoon, etc. This would certainly be an easy solution but this has roots much deeper than simply playing a game.

For one, this game has been around for about 17 years by now. Ancient by FPS standards, but that the game is still played and talked about to this day stands as a testament to the love and passion the playerbase and general fandom has for it. The playerbase is loyal, the potential for content is seemingly endless and many are willing to pay money for the game. And therein lies some issues.

TF2 has millions of dollars invested in it by the playerbase. Loot boxes, MvM tickets and any sale made in the community market all gives Valve a steady and reliable revenue stream. This is significant, because you will have to make the assumption that this money will come back to sustain the game from imploding in on itself and remain functional. In the case with MvM, the PvE mode (that has not been updated in QUITE a while), the chances of receiving valuable loot from the missions is actually so small that there is no way to feasibly make any of your money back.

Additionally, any content updates added to the game every event (Summer Update, Scream Fortress and Smissmass) is community made. This means Valve picks and chooses cosmetics, emotes, unusual effects, warpaints and maps made by fans in the workshop.

While the creators of these items are compensated for their work, Valve naturally profits from these content updates.

In shorter terms: Valve profits off a game that has been in a near-unplayable state for more than 5 years by doing next to nothing.

And that isn't even the end of it. This is just the general negligence of Valve. It gets a lot uglier when delving into the punishable crimes conducted by the bothosters.

This video by TheWhat Show talks about this in depth, focusing on a particularly important case that involves MegaScatterBomb, who was harassed, doxxed, impersonated and swatted for trying to develop a working anti-cheat for casual.

This video is also in a document form for those who would rather read.

A more recent development with the bots has been their blatant advertising and promotion of CSAM, which you may better know as CP.

After #FixTF2 started, bots have been found spamming links in text chat that they claim is CSAM, while micspamming disturbing audio into the voice chat that is either edited to sound like or is legitimately CSAM. Valve has yet to respond to these reports, but good amount of players on Twitter/X have already started notifying FBI about this situation.

Another thing worth noting is that the bothosters have actively attempted to take down the petition website by DDoSing it and by filing a fake DMCA claim, both which are punishable crimes.

So to summarize:

It is wholly unsafe to play the game due to the bothosters and their willingness to commit crimes in the name of ruining the game experience.

Valve is profiting from keeping this broken product running, yet refuses to put any meaningful effort into fixing the bot problem.

The community actively contributes to the game by designing cosmetics and maps, and while they are compensated for their work, Valve are the ones who profit the most from their contributions.

Real people have been and are being harmed by the bot problem, and as far as we are aware, no one has been held accountable.

This is wholly unacceptable, both from a professional and unprofessional standpoint. If Valve fancies themselves a corporation worth using money on, their choice to simply ignore the problem speaks volumes of their priorities.

As Valve is releasing their new game Deadlock, there are serious concerns about the security of this game. TF2 is far from the only game that has bot/cheater problems. CS2 has had a similar problem for a long while as well and there is a clip of a Chinese bot farm that has been going around and which has even breached into the #FixTF2 movement.

❓What should we do?❓

Sign the petition while it is still up. At the time of this post, the petition has reached 270k+ signatures. The website has more general information as well.

Add to the #FixTF2 tag on mainly Twitter/X. Tag your posts with it, retweet and like posts in the tag and put the focus on the bots and ONLY the bots. One of the issues of the last movement, #SaveTF2, was that it wasn't focused enough on any particular problem and Valve could get away with making no promises. So, post clips, fanart and rants to your heart's content, so long it is specifically about the bots.

Watch youtube videos with #FixTF2 as the subject. Here are some good places to start:

4. Boycott any transactions in TF2. While Weezy was against this method in his video above, he has since changed his opinion. It has been established that Valve is very unlikely to shut down TF2, since the TF2 community market has millions of dollars invested in it and shutting down TF2 would render all items useless, thereby fully taking away any and all investments any players have put into the game. This would not just be devastating to the general economy of Valve's marketplaces, but a huge blow to their reputation if they want to remain reliable in the eyes of consumers.

5. Don't interact directly with bothosters. This includes harassment and any attempts at doxxing/swatting. These individuals are bigoted and some are even criminals. They have no remorse for their actions and talking to them would be a fruitless endeavor. Refrain from mentioning their names/aliases, as they are fond of attention and are getting just about enough of it since #FixTF2 started.

6. Don't give up.

❓Where can I keep up with any news?❓

Here are accounts to start with if you want to follow any important proceedings regarding #FixTF2:

Weezy (One of the biggest voices for #FixTF2 and spearhead of the protest):

Weezy's Youtube Channel

Weezy's Twitter

TheWhat Show (Similar to Weezy, outspoken supporter and spearhead):

TheWhat's Youtube Channel

TheWhat's Twitter

Shork (Outspoken supporter and generally active in the fandom)

Shork's Twitter

MegaScatterBomb (Creator of the TF2 cheater database and attempting to make a working anti-cheat for casual)

Mega's Youtube

If you discover new information, inconsistencies, broken/repeated/wrong links, etc., please speak up! Use the comments section, reblog with a comment or DM me!

[calmariah]

Using Canto VII to Predict Dante's Identity

This theory now has a second part! Please read it HERE!

(major spoilers for the games 'Library of Ruina' and 'Limbus Company' up to Canto VII Part 2 under the cut! you have been warned!)

(EXTREMELY long post ahead!)

SECTION 0: PROLOGUE

Dante. The tenth sinner of LCB. Our Executive Manager Esquire.

Despite being our story's protagonist, Dante's identity and past is a gaping void.

It's very interesting when a story has a character with amnesia, because we all get to make wild guesses at their true secret identity.

I've seen a few predictions. Ayin, Roland, that one random Seven Association Fixer from Library of Ruina of the same name.

The Vermillion Cross, even. The colours line up, as does the Cross carrying their weapon on their back. Biblical imagery makes a lot of sense here.

The character I'm about to accuse of being Clockhead however, is a candidate I have seen no person put forth.

Indulge me for a moment and assume that Dante's identity is possible to reasonably guess at all. That they are a character we have become acquainted with in prior Project Moon works, or indeed the content of Limbus Company itself.

As of writing, the most recent update to Limbus Company is Canto VII Part 2. This theory will assume that you have played or otherwise experienced its story content to completion.

This is because I believe VII-2 has finally delivered us the information we need to make that reasonable guess.

For now though, let's cast our minds much, much further back.

SECTION 1: LIBRARIAN OF DEATH

Curtain call for the Reception of the Black Silence.

Roland lies defeated, and the player is given a choice.

Choosing forgiveness leads to the true, canonical ending of the game. According to Steam achievement statistics, only 10.1% of the player base chose to take Roland's head instead.

If Roland is slain, Angela uses the light of the Library to complete her dream of becoming human.

The Patron Librarians are killed, turned back into books. Angela stands alone atop her ivory nest.

No longer an Impurity, the Library is free to violently expand as a Star of the City.

It would remain that way for thirteen years.

After a fade to black, we meet a new character. One who, at the time, had no name.

???: That was one grand job you did with all these dangerous monsters you've gathered, Miss Librarian of Death.

ANGELA: …Good work.

???: “A monster should behave as one…”

???: I trusted and followed you, knowing nothing.

ANGELA: How many colleagues of yours… the so-called ‘Bookhunters’ have you killed?

???: I’ve lost count.

ANGELA: And countless more people will die in the future.

ANGELA: I know humans. I learned the secrets of mankind that the City had been hiding from them.

???: I’m sure you do… And I know you.

???: Thank you for all your hard work. Please die once and for all.

ANGELA: Thank you for putting me to rest, o child who had no name.

???: Even the brightest star fades someday.

???: It will eventually be felled by man, just like any other star.

???: As tonight, again, the stars

are brushed by the wind.

"The Bookhunter" was the only name we had for this character for a very long time. But you may know them by another name.

Perhaps that name is Bari, the Knight of the White Moon.

Or perhaps that name is Dante.

SECTION 2: PRINCESS BARI

It's extremely common for important characters in Project Moon's universe to share their names with figures in stories, mythology or religion.

Roland of the 12 Paladins of Charlemagne. Emil Sinclair from Demian. Moses, after a prophet in Judaism, Christianity, and a smattering of Abrahamic religions.

I have reason to believe Bari is no exception. I'm not particularly well read on the following subject, so I encourage you to do your own research. Apologies if I make any mistakes, and please correct them if you can.

However, I will lay out the basics here that support my theory.

Princess Bari is an incredibly important figure in Korean mythology and spirituality. Born as the seventh daughter to royals who wanted a son, Bari is banished to fend for herself outside of the walls of her family's kingdom.

There are many different versions and tellings of the story, but most share the central story structure. When Bari's parents fall ill, they learn (through dream, premonition, or any number of reasons) that the cure to what ails them is a water or elixir in a far away divine or spiritual realm.

Learning of her parents' illness, Bari sets off on a journey to cross the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead to find the cure.

When she reaches this divine realm, Bari collects water of life and flowers of resurrection, and returns home.

She learns that she is much too late however, as her parents have passed away and their bodies will soon be buried.

Bari attempts to heal them anyway-- and the flowers she found restore her parents back to their mortal coil, and the water of life cures their ails.

In some versions of the myth, Bari ascends and becomes a goddess after her death. Typically, she is a goddess of the divine realm, and/or a goddess who leads the deceased to the afterlife.

Back to Limbus Company for a moment, Bari tells Sancho the following when they finally introduce themself at the bank of the River of Oblivion.

(I understand that this is Sansón's telling of events. Since he seems to be attempting to accurately restore Sancho's memories, we can assume at least this much is accurate.)

Searching for a flower grown in water.

I believe there is enough evidence to believe that Bari is based on the mythological princess.

SECTION 3: INTRO WRAP UP

There are four figures to consider from here on out; two versions of each character.

Dante Limbus Company, bumbling executive manager.

Dante Alighieri, legendary Italian poet who features in his Divine Comedy.

Bari Project Moon, Knight of the White Moon and in another time, Bookhunter.

Princess Bari, mythological shaman who crossed between the worlds of life and death to save her family from death.

It's important to keep the distinction between these figures in mind. Adaptation does not need to be 100% faithful. Just because something happened to Princess Bari does not mean it happened or will happen to our Bari.

That said, looking to the original stories can be helpful to understand themes that appear in Bari and Dante's stories, and the ways they might overlap.

Following so far? I really hope so.

That should be all the setup we need now.

We have our two characters, Dante and Bari. Let us now consider the themes they share, to see if they may be the same character.

Each of these examples, considered alone, may appear unconvincing or coincidental. But I think the sheer amount of common links you can draw between Dante and Bari make it impossible to say them being the same character is baseless.

So, allow me. I believe the primary themes we must look at are:

KATABASIS

TIME

RESURRECTION

LITERATURE

THE SAPLING OF LIGHT

Let's tackle these one at a time.

SECTION 4: KATABASIS

Katabasis is a word referring to a journey into the underworld, a reoccurring motif seen in countless mythologies or works of literature.

Katabasis is a very interesting theme here, because it can actually be seen in ALL FOUR versions of the characters we have.

Dante (Divine Comedy) is obvious and simple. Dante and Virgil's descent into Inferno is one of the most famous examples of a katabasis.

Dante (Limbus Company) is similar. They are aboard a hell bus driven by someone named Charon, and the chapter of their story we're currently in is called Inferno.

While not a literal journey into the underworld, it is undeniably, thematically, a quest into Hell. Counts!

Princess Bari journeys across the boundaries of life and death to get the water and flowers of resurrection. Entering the divine realm of death? That's a katabasis!

And the knight Bari is the one that maybe seems the most out of place. But I think this line from Sansón's play might help us understand where they fit in.

Bari's search for the river that grows the flower they seek is leading them deep into the abyss under the Ruins.

They're already a wanderer, someone who travels far across the City and the Ruins. It could be said that they were already on a journey very similar to Dante's.

It's another case where the journey is symbolic-- looking for an object far beneath the crust of the earth, travelling across a hellscape to find it.

Oh dear, that reminds me of someone already.

SECTION 5: TIME

Dante's associations with time are obvious. They have a clock for a head, slowed down time in Canto 6, and are somehow able to 'rewind' the sinners back to life.

They have also been having strange visions where they glimpse the past of the sinners.

That last part is what interests me. Because these quick, unclear glimpses through time remind me of a certain river.

The Mirae-mirae River, which Bari encourages their companion to look into.

And Sancho does.

For Bari to understand how the Mirae-mirae River works, they would need to have looked into it themself.

Potentially, they even sipped from it, though I have no evidence. I simply find it strange that Bari would know the risks of drinking the river water, yet not the river's name.

If they had some other source of information to learn this, wouldn't it have included a name? Who can say? It doesn't actually matter.

What matters is the fact that Bari could see the future. If not by drinking, by looking into the water surface.

This goes a long way to explain this bizarre part of Sansón's stageplay earlier.

Bari arrives to entertain the lonely king with stories, and seemingly two of the stories they tell are the events of Canto V and Canto VI.

Assuming that the Mirae-mirae River shows you visions in YOUR future, not just any random person's, then for this vision to make sense, Bari needs to witness Canto V and Canto VI in the future.

It's my understanding that they might've seen their own participation in those stories as Dante.

"A hero's perilous encounter with an unyielding monster" could potentially be describing Canto III, with Sinclair vs. Peccatula Kromer, but that one's a bit too vague to be helpful.

It's not hard and fast evidence, and might just be an innocent bit of narrative rhyming. "Golly gee, isn't it fun that the stories Bari told were coincidentally similar to the adventure we are on?" Maybe.

Regardless, we have a character who is seeing glimpses of the past in Dante, and a character who can see glimpses of the future in Bari. I find that an interesting thematic connection.

SECTION 6: RESURRECTION

Now this one's a bit more promising. Being able to bring the sinners back from death and mortal injury is arguably the most notable of Dante's abilities.

Princess Bari's katabasis led her to claiming the flowers that allowed her to perform a miracle of resurrection, and she herself became a goddess of life after death following her own passing.

Both are figures capable of resurrection.

Though, that's the obvious part. I'd like to instead speak of Dante's personal death and resurrection. Because it could be said that Dante has died before.

Standing over the bank of the Lethe, Bari shared their concerns with their confidant.

To lose your memories of the life you have lived is much like death.

When the clock replaced Dante's head, their memories quickly washed away into oblivion.

Assume for me they were Bari. Bari died here, and "Dante" woke up in their place.

As Executive Manager, Dante leads the sinners through Inferno, as seen below.

(Thank you Limbus Company .gg wiki for sourcing the text here! I did not want to have to refight GasHarpoon just for a tiny part of this post...)

ISHMAEL: Before I saw that recruitment post... after I boarded the Pequod… even after I joined Limbus Company… I've never taken the helm of my own ship.

ISHMAEL: But… I think I've finally found my compass.

AHAB: Does a mere deckhand dare speak of her own compass now?

ISHMAEL: Yeah. An incredibly annoying compass that keeps getting in my way. But… they're also a compass that, even as they waver, points to where I want to go…

ISHMAEL: So I want to go on an adventure with that compass. A real adventure. To explore and learn this world we live in.

And it's not just Ishmael, either. After Heathcliff's distortion ended, he said the following.

HEATHCLIFF: Oi, Clockhead.

HEATHCLIFF: You wouldn't know this, but... Well, everyone but you would know.

HEATHCLIFF: When I'm starting to lose my mind, when I'm completely blinded and deafened…

HEATHCLIFF: When I feel my sense of self, my very being, slowly fading away into the dark…

HEATHCLIFF: … I hear that faint noise.

HEATHCLIFF: That damned noise of a clock.

HEATHCLIFF: It opens my eyes. Drags me back to reality.

DANTE: Well, that's…

DANTE: Because I'm your manager. Bringing you back to your paths is what I do.

Despite being lost in oblivion-- again, akin to death-- Dante guides their sinners along their correct paths.

Please recall what became of Princess Bari after her death.

A goddess of the divine realm who guided wayward souls through the afterlife.

From Inferno to Paradiso, perhaps.

(Huh. Maybe 'guidance' would've been a better name for this section. By this logic, maybe Bari is Vergilius.....!!.)

SECTION 7: LITERATURE

This one's quite interesting to me.

Other than being named for a poet, Dante has very little association with actual literature. They write notes on their little PDA device, but that's about it as far as I understand.

Bari however has incredible association with literature!

Most obviously with how they regaled (a person who I am comfortable assuming is) the original Don Quixote with tales of adventure and excitement.

Assuming I'm correct about some of their stories coming from the Mirae-mirae River, they would've had to pen some of those tales themself, drawing from what they saw.

In another time they were a person known as a Bookhunter, and personally responsible for executing a library's director.

When they do so, Bari says the following to the dead air.

BARI: As tonight, again, the stars

are brushed by the wind.

The line break is unusual for how Library of Ruina formats narration or dialogue, and it brings to mind poetry. One last short stanza for a dead woman, perhaps.

Literature is a motif associated with extremely important or powerful characters in Project Moon media, such as Angela. The second game took place in a god damn library!

Dante is named after a poet. Bari was a storyteller. I think this can't NOT be important.

Bari = Vergilius theory gains merit...

SECTION 8: THE SAPLING OF LIGHT

As part of Sansón's stageplay, Bari says the following.

BARI (SINCLAIR): It is said that when an efflorescent tree comes to blossom, steeped and nurtured in the waters of many rivers since its saplinghood, it becomes imbued with a special power.

BARI (SINCLAIR): I can't even begin to imagine what powers a tree born from that particular river may hold.

I think it's possible that the river Bari seeks is the river of human consciousness that Lobotomy Corporation Facility X-394 was built over-- and thus the river that the Library was built over as well.

Dante's Sapling of Light abilities correspond with the Sephirot of the Seed of Light project, meaning it's extremely likely they share an origin.

This is hardly breaking news, but the arrangement of the Sephirot and their departments in Lobotomy Corporation form the inverted version of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life, forming instead the Tree of Death.

Dante's Sapling of Light ability menu shows Hokma at the top of the diagram, where as Malkuth was at the top in Lobotomy Corporation.

As Dante unlocks more abilities, we should see the Tree of Life form from each of these connections, this time healthy and upright.

It's possible that Bari's goal was to create that Tree of Life. Find the river that the Tree of Death-- the Library-- grew from, and nurture a healthy sapling in its waters again. One untainted by Angela's ambition.

(It's possible that Bari seeking the river predates the Seed of Light project. I don't think this changes much-- Bari would still be seeking to create what would end up being Dante's Sapling of Light.)

At the very least, this would establish a connection between Bari and the sapling inside of Dante's clock. I don't think it should be ignored.

SECTION 9: LIGHTNING ROUND

Phew. That's a lot of talking! I've established the main points that I feel tie a deep thematic link between Bari and our esteemed manager, even if I haven't proven necessarily that they are the same character.

However, I believe that if we're intended to guess Dante's identity before the reveal, Bari is pretty much the only coherent option.

It wouldn't be much of a twist if I could figure out all the who what when wheres and whys before it happens, I suppose!

One last section for the road. Here's a bunch of stuff that I noticed that probably doesn't matter, but might serve as tertiary evidence for this theory.

STARS:

Stars are a motif that came up a lot for Dante towards the start of the game, in the prologue and Canto 1. Here's some examples.

PANTHER: It's a shame-- I wanted to have a look at your face. I reckon you won't tell us where your star is, right?

DANTE: Like hell I am. I'm taking ■■■'s location to the grave with...

FAUST: You've lost your way in a dark forest.

DANTE: I'm... sorry, what?

FAUST: Yet you were not overcome with fear. Why was that?

DANTE: That's...

DANTE: I could simply... lift my head to find the star.

FAUST: That's right.

FAUST: Now, repeat with the heart what I tell you aloud as you remind yourself of that image.

FAUST: Follow your star.

DANTE: Follow... your star.

It's currently unclear what Dante's star is, and I will make no attempt to figure out what it could be here. Stars are undeniably a motif of theirs, is my point here.

Bari is the one to behead the Library as it exists as a Star of the City in the Librarian of Death ending, and muses on the nature of stars going out in that vaguely poetic nature as the game fades to black.

JUST KIND OF THE WAY THEY HOLD THEMSELVES:

That title's pretty flippant, but this is, in my opinion, one of the BETTER pieces of evidence!

Take a look at these two sprites for me.

The Knight of the White Moon! Hardly raring for battle. Their left hand tucked into their coat pocket, their right arm resting lazily on the scabbard of their sword.

Let's look at Dante's conversation sprite from some of the earlier cantos...

Oh my.

Well, that's not the only position we see Bari standing in. Let's look at that blurry CG from the end of Part 2. Unblurred, of course.

You have to admit, it feels at least a LITTLE bit deliberate!

They also both wear long, coloured coats with full black clothing underneath-- but I will readily admit that "long coat/suit with monocoloured shirt under it" describes 90% of the characters in this game.

PRONOUNS:

Both Dante and Bari have been consistently referred to with they/them pronouns, contrary to what some select few Limbus fans on Reddit would rather you believe.

I personally don't subscribe to the whole "the reason why Dante uses they/them pronouns is because they're intended to be a self-insert character for you, the player!"

I think Dante is a HELPFUL player insert-- for those who have not played Lobotomy Corporation or Library of Ruina. Their unfamiliarity with the City, its people and its customs is an excellent way to ease a new player into the world of Project Moon.

That does NOT mean that Dante IS the player, however. Dante has many characteristics of their own and is no more a reflection of the player than any other character.

It is entirely possible that Dante and Bari both using neutral pronouns is currently just an obfuscation to hide Dante's identity and Bari's general entire thing from the player for the time being.

If that is the case, and we find out they're both men or something... Egg on my face, I suppose.

Either way, it's a characteristic both of them share. Add it to the pile.

(Though if they both turn out to be non-binary or women, I will derive a little bit of O-05-76 from all the he/him Dante defaulters...)

(Thank you the-spoonicorn for the correction! In 7-35, Sancho says the following to Don Quixote.)

SANCHO: Will she be coming today? Again?

(Bari, at the very least, is confirmed to be a woman. This does not disprove that she could be Dante, though it does kneecap the shared motif of having a neutral or obscured gender identity.)

(Thank you again!)

BARI-DEGI:

It's my understanding that the mythological Princess Bari's name derives from Bari-degi, which can mean 'abandoned child' or 'thrown away thing' in Korean.

This is because she was abandoned by her family for being the seventh daughter born to them.

With Bari cautioning Sancho about drinking from the River of Oblivion, it feels strange to suggest they would've willingly cooperated with a plan that would've resulted in the erasure of their own self and memories. It disquieted them enough before.

This isn't me saying it hurts the theory-- I actually think it IMPROVES it.

It would be dramatic and also fulfils part of the original myth regarding Princess Bari, and makes Bari's name a fun self-fulfilling prophecy.

If they craved the power of resurrection so much that they would take their own memories, despite cautioning Sancho against it. That they would throw their old name away, as Princess Bari was thrown away by her family.

It symbolizes both Princess Bari dying after a natural life, and her crossing into the realm of the dead in the first place.

In that dark forest, Bari would've taken a katabasis-- died and crossed into the realm of the dead. And they immediately began an adventure through that Inferno as Dante.

(Side note, perhaps if the Sapling inside of Dante's head was also watered by the River of Oblivion... could that be why Dante's memories are missing?)

Well, I'm not here to prove that.

I'm also not here to prove Bari is Dante. I just want you to think about it!

SECTION 10: IN CONCLUSION, IT WOULD BE PRETTY COOL:

And wouldn't it!? Dante's true identity is a mystery that's been hanging over us for such a long time. If we find out that we've had canonical pre-amnesia Dante dialogue since Canto 7-- hell, since LIBRARY OF RUINA, that'd be incredible!

I think it makes perfect sense that if Bari is pre-amnesia Dante, they appeared in one of Library of Ruina's bad endings. It's an obscure ending to a long and difficult game, and we know that Project Moon plan these projects far in advance.

Why not tease the protagonist of your third game, but hide it under everyone's noses!?

Why not make the protagonist of your universe where everyone's named after stories or folklore a poet and storyteller!?

And why not base that character in an important spiritual Korean myth!?

Gaaagh. At the end of the day, we can't know for sure, and I haven't proven anything. But thank you for coming on this journey with me.

It's a shame that the most we can see of Bari's capabilities and attitude is in the paper fight where they're wearing a helmet and they're so stylised.

If only we could just take that helmet off and

holy SHIT

[arc-misadventures]

MFK Jaune but instead of Kill its Enslave: High Elf Winter, Dark Elf Cinder & Wood Elf Pyrrha

Jaune: MFE

Nora: Hey, Jaune?

Jaune: Yes?

Nora: Wanna play a game?

Jaune: No... The last time I played one of your dwarf games I broke three ribs.

Nora: Nononono! We won't be playing such games! The others said they would punish me again of I did...

Jaune: Oh, that's good. Okay, what is this game?

Nora: MFE! It's like, MFK, but instead of killing someone you enslave them!

Jaune: Enslave?! Nora, I am a holy paladin of the, Rusted Knight Order1 You know how I feel about slavery! We have gone out of our way many times to kill slavers! Do you think I would allow such a thing, let along play a game with such a thing?!

Nora: Relax, relax, relax! You're not actually going to do such a thing! You're just saying of the three woman I give you, which one would you do it to.

Jaune: The hell is the difference?!

Nora: Okay, just think about it as kinky roleplay, no slave markings, and things like that, okay?

Jaune: Grrrrr! Fine! We'll play your stupid little game, if only to get you to shut up.

Nora: Awesome! Okay, your choices are! Our wood elf friend, Pyrrha Nikos!

Pyrrha: M-M-Me?!

Nora: Our lofty queen, the high elf, Winter Schnee!

Winter: I am considered a form of royalty among the elves, Nora.

Nora: And, our mysterious dark elf of the party, Cinder Fall.

Cinder: MFE? Hmmm... This should be fun~!

Jaune: Elf's? You want me to play a game where I have to 'enslave' one of the players, and they happen to be an elf?!

Nora: Ya!

Jaune: Nora?! Do you have any idea how many slave rings I've broken up that didn't have at least one elf slave in it! I immediately assume that an elf is a slave of some sort if she has any brandings, and chains on her!

Cinder: Ohhh! So that's why he was so worried about me when we first met. I thought it was because I was a dark elf.

Winter: It is nice to see that he cares so much about us. In his own strange way,

Pyrrha: I think it's nice that he cares about us so much even if it's a little strange.

Nora: Yeah, so?

Jaune: WE are going to have some serious words after this, Nora...

Nora: Okay...

Jaune: I'm gonna do the 'enslave' part first to get it out of the way. So I will 'enslave...'

Jaune: Cinder...

Cinder: Oh? Can I ask why?

Jaune: Do I have to...?

Cinder: Please?

Jaune: ...

Jaune: Haa... Considering you're a dark elf, and you have a habit of tying people up in various ways, and quite quickly at that! I thought you would be the least upset at being... enslaved.

Cinder: Upset about being enslaved? Well, if I was enslaved by someone like that Cardin, or Mercury fellow's we arrested the other day. I would have been quite... furious. But, if it was you, Jaune~? If it was you who enslaved me... Well, I think I would quite enjoy it, Master~!

Jaune: Y-You would?!

Cinder: You, binding my hands, wrapping a collar around my neck, dragging me through the streets for all to see that you own me. And, to see that all I was wearing was some rags that barely covered my body. You taking your searing hot rode, and reshaping my body to perfectly fit around you? Oh, I would quite enjoy that, Master~!

Pyrrha: I would like that too!

Jaune: You would?!

Pyrrha: I would worship the ground you walk on, Master! I would be your foot stool to rest your feet upon! I would allow you to take your frustrations of dealing with, Nora's antics upon my body as a badge of honour! I will beg to receive your disciplinary touch, and allow me to use my body as your personal toy to relive your bodies stress! I am yours to us as you please, Master!

Jaune: W-W-What?! Winter! Help me!

Winter: Help you? You think I would dare help you enslave my country men! You think I would help you hold them down, to strip their bodies bare, to hold them in place as you forcefully penetrate their cores, and desecrate their chastity! To help you prepare their bodies as your brand them with your mark. Only for you to take me, bed me, fill me with your declivous, heavenly seed, to raise you child~!

Winter: Ahhh~!

Winter: No! I wouldn't like that at all!

Jaune: What the fuck?!

Nora: Ladies, ladies! Come down, you're scaring our darling paladin.

Pyrrha: I'm sorry!

Cinder: I'm sorry, I just wanted you to understand I was okay with you enslaving me.

Winter: My apologies, I let my... bodily desires get the better of me.

Jaune: What the hell?

Nora: You see here, Jaune. These find elven ladies each are in love with you, and all have a slave kink that the will only have with you, Jaune as their master~!

Jaune: She's kidding, right guys?

Cinder: Oh, I am completely head over heals for you, Jaune. And, the thought of being your slave sounds... oh so intoxicating~!

Pyrrha: I've loved you since I first met you, Jaune! It doesn't matter where, or what we do, so long as we do it together.

Winter: Your reaction to dealing with my father's behaviors. Made me understand what actual affection, and love was like. And, I want to continue experiencing that love with you.

Jaune: You, you guys really feel that way..?

Pyrrha: Yes!

Winter: Of course!

Cinder: Always~!

Jaune: Guys...

Nora: So that's how you're going to do things fearless leader?

Jaune: What am I going to do, Nora?

Nora: You're going to marry all three of these beautiful elven woman, and you're going to enact their enslavement fantasies when you fuck them! That's how it's going to happen, right ladies?

Jaune: I should do all of that?!

Pyrrha: Marrying, Jaune~?!

Cinder: Mrs Cinder Fall Arc~? Oh now that sounds lovely~!

Winter: Marrying the man I love, and pissing off my father in the process; What better gift could I ask for? What do you say, Jaune~?

Jaune: ...

Jaune: Well... I wouldn't really mind it... if it was you three.

Pyrrha: YES!

Winter: That's wonderful!

Cinder: Then let's consummate the marriage at once then!

WP: Yes!

Jaune: What?

Cinder: Let's go ladies!

Jaune: Whoa hey?! Nora?! Nora help me!

Nora: Wait!

Jaune: Ahh! I'm saved!

Nora: My payment?

Jaune: Payment?

Winter: Here you go, as we agreed upon: One bottle of sacred elven tree syrup for your help.

Nora: I thank you for you business. Have a nice day.

Winter: Oh, we will~!

Jaune: What?! You sold me out for a bottle of syrup?! You traitor!

Jaune:

Traitor!!!

[mintharabaenrelore]

Minthara & the High Priestess of House Vandree

A breathtaking- literally- portrayal of this relationship and its sad ending by @faun-draws.

I asked @lunastrophe about this at one point; her answer was a huge help for this!

We know about Minthara's first lover from Act 3 banter, if the player character is romancing her.

Karlach: It's funny seeing you so smitten, Minthara. Didn't think you were able.

Minthara: I took my first lover before you were a spark in your father's eye, child.

Karlach: Go on.

Minthara: She was a high priestess of House Vandree. Beautiful, elegant, ruthless.

Minthara: I adored her, and had been sharing her bed for some time when the order came that she must die.

Minthara: I stayed with her while the poison did its work, and whispered words of comfort as she slipped away.

Karlach: Oh no.

So, there's the information, but what can we infer?

As this was Minthara's first lover, it was before any of her many suitors ("I had a thousand suitors. Some were only attracted by my status, many wanted my body, and a rare few wanted all of me") and before she graduated Arach-Tinilith, part of Tier Breche.

Minthara likely joined Arach-Tinilith at age 40, being born around 1280 DR and likely adhering to that custom rather than the one of 1361 that had students enter by 25 years old. (Reminder that, either way, Minthara was very young for a drow at this time!)

Priestesses are expected to study there for 50 years.

I'm not sure when Minthara's romance with the high priestess occurred. I have two theories:

When Minthara was beginning her education there.

The Ceremony of Graduation.

We'll discuss the Ceremony of Graduation later.

Minthara states she was sharing her bed, so we can infer she was going to her bedroom, not the other way around. Only older priestesses and instructors have single rooms, while novices have to share with one or two others for the first several years. Considering the relationship lasted for "some time", I think this confirms that the high priestess was a fellow student, and quite a bit older- although the fact that she was a high priestess in the first place (which takes some time to do) makes that obvious.

I don't think it was one of Minthara's instructors at the school because I can't think of any who match the description- House Vandree, high priestess, etc.

There is a power imbalance in this relationship, as @lunastrophe pointed out to me. House Vandree is by no means unimportant, but House Baenre is the most powerful family in Menzoberranzan, by far- by 1480 DR, House Vandree was at their most powerful as a member of the Ruling Council, but still several spots below House Baenre. Then again, Minthara's lover was older and a high priestess.

If they were sleeping together for "some time", if Minthara "adored" her, and if House Baenre and House Vandree were allies, why was Minthara ordered to kill her?

Perhaps Minthara got too attached. Perhaps the high priestess was deemed a threat. Perhaps it was just the sadistic whim of someone in power. Maybe it was just a test- to see if Minthara had what it took to be a "soldier in Lolth's service", a paladin. A Baenre princess. Perhaps it was a test from Lolth herself.

Knowing how close Minthara was to her mother, I assume- if it was an order from the Ruling Council- it would have come directly from her.

How did Minthara kill her, is the question? I like to speculate that, since Minthara was clearly keen on granting her mercy- why bother with words of comfort if you wanted to make the death unpleasant?- the poison was in Ulaver wine, a delicacy in Menzoberranzan. Most likely, the poison was something obscure and expensive, as 1. a Baenre could afford such a thing and 2. Minthara is not the only drow to dose herself with toxins to build up immunity. I imagine it was Belbol d'Elghinn ("Gift of Death"), as it is a powerful poison drow nobles prize for assassinations, one that works remarkably swiftly.

Of course, it's possible that it was her famous poisoned kiss, but as darkly romantic as that would be, it's unlikely considering that if Minthara used such powerful poison, she could have died in the process.

The aftermath was probably... minimal. Approval from Lolth and her mother, fear and respect from her peers. The drow philosophy is basically "If we can't prove it, it never happened" and considering that Minthara says she "slipped away", not "loudly screamed and flailed and summoned all of Menzoberranzan to her aid", I think that's about it. I'm not sure how the high priestess would have been dealt with after death- most likely used as a food source for spiders, as she died in subtlety and disgrace.

A very unlikely theory that I have- wishful thinking, really- is that the High Priestess betrayed Lolth by turning to Eilistraee, and Lolth punished her by having her lover, Minthara, end her, and in those dying moments, Minthara learned the word "Alurlssrin" from her.

Remember, Minthara is praying to Lolth in the prisons of Moonrise Towers up until the PC rescues her, and then she turns her back on her goddess- abruptly, it seems, but is it really? Did this test, if it was a test, if it originated from Lolth, sow the seeds of rebellion in a young Minthara? Perhaps the abandonment in her hour of need was just the final push.

It's unusual that Minthara stayed with her lover as she died, offering comfort- risking Lolth's wrath, and defying drow culture in general. This proves she wasn't exaggerating things when she said she'd "adored" her- she did, and does, if her praise is anything to go by. In Minthara's world, it wasn't an act of cruelty to kill her; a betrayal, yes, but it was mercy for it to have been Minthara rather than someone who would have done it far more brutally and with far less remorse. If Minthara had tried to reject this order, things would have gone worse for them both.

About the Ceremony of Graduation: This high priestess having been Minthara's first lover aligns with the theory that their laison began at the infamous ceremony. Minthara's only dialogue about that is this: "Straj. This reminds me of my ceremony of graduation. *laugh* What a day that was" which I found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vYBaYJgz_c. @mogruith discovered that line triggers in Philgraves Mansion.

Anyways, the Ceremony of Graduation is a drow rite of passage for the graduates of Tier Breche as of early 14th century DR (which aligns with Minthara's timeline, if I'm not mistaken). I won't go into details about the Ceremony of Graduation, as I'm going to make a separate post about Minthara's role in said Ceremony, but it's worth noting.

Minthara appears to remember this fleeting romance vividly, which is telling. This relationship evidently, left a lasting mark on the young Minthara- from her anxieties about poison and her paranoia when it comes to lovers and people in general.

Remember, Minthara- if romanced- doses the PC with poison, to help them build an immunity. She says it's in case they visit Menzoberranzan, but I'm not so sure that's her only motive. I think she's trying to protect them from her first lover's tragic fate.

For a beautiful- and sad- portrayal of this story, I suggest "Her Priestess" by @faun-draws on AO3.