#those trees are tall folks

[lowquality-buffet]

This ain't no picnic

Somewhere in Western Washington 1/24

[nanamiscocksleeve]

When The Snow Melts

Warnings: MDNI, soft sex, virginity loss, angst, and some spoilers for those who aren't familiar with Zayne's lore. A/n: Curiosity got the best of me. I wasn't playing LaDS when the Master of Fate card came out so I went to YouTube and immediately regretted it. Like can this man not catch a break? He sacrifices himself again? I couldn't leave it, so this me, correcting the wrong. A fix-it fic if you will. Because I need Zayne to win, at least once. Also, since Zayne appears according to how MC perceives him, I do believe he will have aged exactly as she has.

The night is bright, and the small cobbled lane you walk on is lit with lamps. The streets are bustling with life. The feeling of excitement, togetherness, and aromatic food graces the air as you wander closer to the town square. Another festival, similar, yet not similar, to the countless ones you’ve seen with your keen eyes. 

You’d wanted to be in company, maybe see the world when you were young, and the curse that was also a blessing was granted. Your body, now wispy and weathered from the years spent wandering cannot move as quickly as you used to, the ever-reminding aches in your joints, the beginning of arthritis weighing down in your bones. Yet you still had a zest for life. Because what else could you do but seek, and take in everything that life had to offer? How could you not? Because it was the grace of the god that allowed it and the terrible price that was paid for you to experience it.

It had been decades since you had last seen the god. You had traversed as far as you could, carrying your umbrella with the everlasting snow coating it like wool on a freshly birthed lamb. The things you had witnessed! Ships with sails as tall as oak trees, strangely flavored meats and delectable sweets, festivals where people had danced, music from instruments brought in from faraway strange lands. You had eaten, traveled, danced, and sung, picking up small jobs to afford simple pleasures. You were a quick learner. Once you were a seamstress helping a small garment shop, another time a jewel polisher. You had even worked as an errand maid for an elderly couple who were profuse with their thanks and offered you a roof over your head for a short while. But staying in one place wasn’t an option. You had to keep looking after all. How else would you find him again?

As your feet carried you into the square, a burst of light and color filled your vision. It’s so lively, as the people flock to the different food carts, admiring the small handicraft booths, and singing folk songs well known to all those who grew up in this region. Children joyfully chased each other, dressed warmly in bright clothes. A hint of winter was already in the air. Based on what you had observed, this festival was celebrating the end of the harvest season, probably one of the last for this year until the harsh snowfall of winter faded. The breeze, not quite chilly enough to make you shiver, felt comforting on your face. 

You supposed you could work as a midwife again. Midwifery was good work, reliable since winter did not stop the delivery of children into the world. It could also guarantee a place to stay if you played your cards right, though you hated staying in one place. The nomadic lifestyle you had adopted suited you. And the winters made you nostalgic. 

It made you long for those days before you had picked up this umbrella and set off to see the world. Of amber eyes flecked with green, like the jars of whiskey at the inns when the early morning sunlight brushes against them, bringing forth colors hidden in the dark glass. Or of soft hands, covered in scars, and whispers in your ear of sleep, of priestesses calling gods down to earth to make love to them. Sometimes the memories consume you to the point of anger.  How dare he leave you? With no explanation as to what his blessing was. 

You vaguely recall those days, back when your fingers weren’t gnarled and wrinkled, your face unblemished by the years in the sun. All spells have limitations, he had said. But he also said he had taken care to make the spell extra strong since you were particularly clumsy. The snow had to melt sometime…didn’t it?

A drum begins to pound in the distance, and the crowd gathers around the stage that had been set up at the far end of the square. You halt at one of the carts to buy some fried chicken skewers. The vendor looks curiously at your umbrella, something you have grown accustomed to over the years. After all, snow that doesn’t melt was bound to bring questions. You had woven a different story for each city you had passed through, sometimes recycling them when you didn’t have the creativity to spin a new one. Initially hesitant to reveal how the umbrella with the everlasting snow had come into your possession, you had tried to pass it off as a novelty accessory, crafting tales of snowy mountains and how it was all the rage in those areas.

As the years passed by, your tongue had loosened. Or perhaps the indignation of him disappearing had made you reckless. Although you still hadn’t said the full story, you’d managed to finally say it was a blessing from a god, shocking the non-believers by letting them touch the snow, their gasps of awe as the cold, wet, powder clung to their fingers falling satisfyingly on your ears. Tonight, however, you were in no mood to entertain strangers. You smile politely as you hand over your coins to the vendor, take the food, and walk away towards the stage. 

The sounds of a flute and an erhu accompany the drum. Elaborately dressed dancers are swirling in coordinated grace on the stage, enacting a scene from an old tale; the common man sending off the goddess of harvest, thanking her for her blessings that year, and praying to the god of winter, that he be merciful to them and allow them to live to see another spring.

You were skeptical if these rituals really worked. The first autumn after you had been gifted the umbrella when the air started to show signs of change, you had danced, danced amongst the trees that were close to shedding their vividly colored leaves of red, mustard, and yellow. You had prayed your heart out, prayed so hard, danced so long that the soles of your shoes had almost worn out. You had danced till you had collapsed with exhaustion, falling asleep on the leafy floor. You had been so sure that it would work, that he would show himself, and when you awoke, it was with a heartrending pang that you realized you were alone. It hadn’t worked. Wherever he was, the god of the snow wasn’t visible to your eyes. It was the first time you had allowed yourself to cry in all those months. Had he really believed this was the better choice? That to leave you behind without telling you what was going to happen to him would make you happier? That was the worst part; not knowing if he was alive, existing somewhere you couldn’t journey to, or if he had given all his power into making the snow that had fueled your existence, and lost himself with it. 

The music becomes faster and the dancers move until the stage is a blur of color. The audience claps as their movements become sharp, with an artistic precision that only years of practice could hone. The last note quavers from the flute and rises into the night air. Cheers and whistles erupt all around you. It was a beautiful performance no doubt, but despite finding it captivating, it also left you feeling hollow. Finishing the last of your fried chicken, you begin to wander amongst the townspeople, enquiring about work that could be had for the winter.

By the time the square had cleared up, and the last of the festival-goers had returned home, you had secured a job; a bakery was in desperate need of an extra set of hands. The pay wasn’t much but the woman had offered food and board and you had accepted graciously. As you sit on the stone steps of your latest lodgings, you gaze at the moon. 

You want to not blame him, to not feel this heavy weight that you’ve carried inside your chest. You know you should be grateful for his sacrifice which enabled you to see so much of the world, and at the least, you weren’t alone. The incident with the people in your village was a distant memory, replaced with so many more pleasant rememberings. Plucking apples from an orchard with trees growing as far as the eyes could see. The feeling of a newborn baby, screaming with the rage of life and the mother wiping tears of joy while offering you her thanks. The herbalist with his toothless smile as he showed you which plants were medicinal and which were poison as you plucked various flowers and leaves and dug the earth for rhizomes of turmeric and ginger. 

You were a well-traveled woman, knowledgeable in all aspects, a rare luxury during this time, you knew. Yet for each memory that stayed clearly in your mind, there was a sense of loss. Everything tied back to him, and you couldn’t bring yourself to forget him, even in your old age, and even with the passage of time. 

The spicy bun the baker had offered you was good. You savored its flavor on your tongue, naming the constellations visible in the sky as you did so, the short astronomy lesson from a young scholar in some past time proving useful. It must be close to midnight based on how still the night is, the whispering rustle of dead leaves as they skitter across the ground audible in the background. With a sigh, you carefully get to your feet, your joints creaking as you rise. As you reach for your umbrella, you pause, fingertips hovering over the handle.

Surely you were imagining it? It must be a trick of the moonlight. The last of the lamps were dying, the faint light casting shadows across the walls of the dwellings. Yet your aged eyes couldn’t shake off the feeling. You stare intently at the umbrella, more so, at the snow perched on its upper slope. A fine sheen of condensation coated the umbrella, surrounding the powdery snow. Had you somehow gotten the umbrella wet? You kneel, observing with fascination as some of the condensation gathers, becoming fat droplets of precipitation, and rolling off the sides.

You’re awestruck. In all your years, the snow had never melted. It had never lessened nor increased but always stayed the same. But now you can see how the powder was turning watery, steadily dripping down into the cold ground. You trace a fingertip on the trails of moisture along the sides of the umbrella, and that’s when you hear it; the unmistakable twang of a guqin. 

You had never encountered a guqin again, not since the night he had played one while you danced for him. The unmistakable notes now begin to form a melody. You look out into the empty street and see nothing. But the song was filling your body like the warmth of a fireplace. Your limbs involuntarily stretch out as your eyes close, remembering the movements you had learned so long ago and sworn to never repeat after the failed attempt to call down the god. Your legs feel unsteady, your hands clumsy, a far cry from the controlled accuracy of the stage dancers. Your joints begin to sear as you move, unable to stop the actions. Oh how sweetly the instrument sang to you!

There’s a sharp pain in your heart, not from the ache of moving your tired extremities, but from the grief bottled up, adding on year after year. There’s resentment, but underneath it all, there’s a strong yearning you’re unable to put into words. How do you describe it? The loss of the only person who seemed to understand you, who helped you control your power?

You knew he did something when he placed his spell because, since that day, you hadn’t been able to harness your powers ever again. He had ensured you could live your life as a normal human being. Before knowing him you would have done anything to not have the power. But the cost that came with it was too much to bear. You weren’t alone, yet you were alone. So of all the days, why was the guqin playing now?

Tears roll down your cheeks as you dance, letting loose your sorrow to the crisp night breeze. You feel like each nerve in your body is frayed, all consumed with the bits of memories you had of him. It takes you a moment to realize you’re not dancing anymore. The guqin has stopped playing. You’re standing in a pose, your head lowered, facing the steps you had been sitting on, and the umbrella leaning against them. Shock passes through you. 

The umbrella was completely devoid of snow. The only evidence it was there was the puddle of water that had gathered beneath it, muddying the grass. 

“Why are you so surprised?”

Your heart skips a beat, then begins to hammer in your chest like a frantic bird trapped in a cage. The deep baritone voice tinged with a hint of sarcasm calls out to you gently. You can’t seem to be able to move. 

“It can’t be.” You murmur, gripping your elbows, trying to calm yourself. “It can’t be. I’m dreaming.”

“What are dreams if not another reality?”

It takes all the effort in your body to not collapse to the ground as a sobbing mess. You turn slowly, as though giving the voice a chance to admit it was a figment of your imagination but it doesn’t happen. Your breath catches in your throat as you see him, at last.

His dark hair has tinges of gray in it, and crow’s feet are visible near the corners of his eyes, but the gentle upwards curve of his lips, the broad shoulders, and his pointed chin are all recognizably familiar. 

“Zayne?” You let his name fall from your lips, sounding like a strange word, lost to your vocabulary from the years of disuse. 

He nods, then stretches out a hand to you. At first, you’re at a loss about what you should do, then, with as much speed as your wizened knees allow, you run to him. He’s solid and grounding, his arms wrapping around you tightly. A brief lick of rage crosses through you, but when you open your mouth to let loose your diatribe, all that comes out is a sob. Your tears flow freely, staining his robes, and you feel his gloved hands gently combing through your hair.

“I’m so sorry,” he murmurs, his chin resting on top of your head.

“Why not tell me?” Your words are choked, your body shivering as you cry. 

Zayne leads you to the steps and helps you sit before occupying the space next to you. He leans you against him, your head resting comfortably on his shoulder as he takes one of your hands between both of his. He sighs deeply and his voice, though calm, is filled with regret as he speaks. 

“How could I tell you? What would I have said? How do you tell someone special to you that their life was in danger?”

You blink back tears. “Danger?”

“There was a powerful entity after you. I did what I needed to do to protect you.”

“Why was it after me?”

Zayne pauses, as though considering how to word his response. “It was convinced you would bring about a cataclysm, and the only way to prevent it was to take your life.”

“But… I don’t understand. How did your spell prevent this? Now that it’s worn off, won’t it come after me again?”

“No.” Zayne wraps his arms around you, his body bringing warmth into yours. “Even cataclysms go away if given enough time. But the harder part was figuring out how to suppress your abilities until that time passed.” He sighs deeply, gathering you close. “The spell on the umbrella was the only solution I could think of, without restricting your freedom. Regrettably, sealing your power meant taking away your ability to perceive me. I never intended to make it permanent.”

“Why not tell me?” You repeat the question. Zayne raises an eyebrow.

“If I had told you the spell would wear off, would you have left the mountain?” He brushes your cheek with his thumb as he takes in your face, his eyes softening as he looks at you. “I know you. You would have spent all these years in isolation, waiting for me. I didn’t want you to miss the opportunity to live. A normal life seemed like the best option I could give you until enough time had passed.”

You’re silent as you let his words sink into you. After a gap, you whisper, “I missed you.”

“I missed you too.” His thumb caresses each of your fingertips in turn. “But know that I watched over you every day. I saw the world through your eyes and felt your sense of wonderment in my heart. The day you danced so hard for me that you almost fainted from exhaustion-” Zayne draws in a breath and his voice quivers as he continues. “I was in tears. I wanted nothing more than to reach out and comfort you. I was there, separated by a veil, but I felt your pain.”

“That was the year the frost came early.” You recall the memory. 

“Indeed. I couldn’t control my grief. I didn’t know how else to let you know I was there, except to cover the world with snow.”

You glance over at the umbrella. “Will you disappear again?”

“Not unless you want me to.” One of his large hands rests on your knee. “I understand I’ve angered you by acting without telling you everything. Is it enough that you don’t want me around?”

You shake your head no. Your momentary anger with him had faded, like the night giving way to the sunrise. “There’s nothing that could keep me from wanting you. I made many acquaintances throughout my life, but the one person’s companionship I yearned for was yours.”

“My beloved snowflake.” Zayne embraces you tenderly. “It was fate that led you to me on the mountain that day. And It was fate that finally broke the spell. We’re all bound by it, even me.”

“Are you?”

“Yes. Otherwise, do you think I would have kept you sealed for so long? Even gods must play by fate’s rules.”

Silence falls between you both,  the breeze ruffling your clothes. You become acutely aware that he’s gazing at you, and when you turn to look at him, there’s such tenderness in his eyes that it makes you blush, even at this age. 

“You’re beautiful,” he utters, tucking strands of stray hair behind your ears. The amber in his eyes glows as you stare back, captivated by how handsome he is. Your memory didn’t do him justice. You cup his cheek. 

“Is this our happily ever after?”

“It can be if we choose it to be.”

“I do. Wholeheartedly.”

Sparks fly between you and almost as if the both of you are following a rhythm, your lips find each other in the darkness. It’s odd because, in the passing years, you hadn’t imagined what his lips would feel like against yours. You had fantasized about lying next to him, listening to his heartbeat, about taking long, leisurely strolls while holding hands, and about the possibility of letting him rest on your lap while you played with his thick locks of hair.

Now you’re glad you hadn’t tried to imagine it because the reality was sweeter than any dream you could have conjured, the warmth and softness of his mouth, the taste of his tongue as it slips past your lips, the possessiveness in his grip as he molds your body against his, as though silently claiming you. There wasn’t an inch of you that didn’t ache for him. When he pulls away, there’s desire flickering in the depths of his eyes.

Wordlessly, you take his hands and get to your feet, quietly pulling him inside your new quarters. You’re careful to not wake the baker; it was quite improper to invite a man into your room, but you didn’t care. You lock the door and allow Zayne to sweep you away.

Clothes slide to the floor, a whisper lost to the dark. There’s no shame as you reach for each other, hands relishing the feeling of skin, enjoying the contact between your bodies as he gently pulls you onto the bed. His lips leave trailing kisses on your skin, no longer supple like the young woman you once were, but worthy of being worshipped irrespective. You wonder if this moment would have felt different if you had consummated this relationship when you were younger but realized you had little choice in it. If the Master of Fate couldn’t control when things happened, then what good was it to think about what could have been?

Instead, you focus on him, on his skin flushed with vitality as you nibble his ear, shyly running your tongue down his neck. He suckles at your nipple, and pleasure, unlike anything you’ve ever experienced radiates into every part of your being. You feel his erection graze your belly as he patiently kisses you, moaning into his mouth as his fingers stroke your sex, finding the little knot of nerves that makes you close your eyes in ecstasy.

It’s all slow and unhurried, and when you finally gasp out your climax, he eases his body into yours. There’s pain, but only for the briefest moment, then as your body stretches around him, you feel a powerful sense of intimacy as he thrusts, his movements passionate and loving. He gathers you tightly against him whispering the same thing over and over as he empties himself. 

“I love you. I love you I love you I love you.”

A weak ray of sunlight peeks through the window when you wake up, and you panic for a moment when you see the bed is empty. 

“I’m here my love.” Zayne’s voice immediately reassures you and you see him stoking the fireplace. The small flames crackle merrily as he makes his way back to bed, pulling you against him and stroking your skin. It had snowed overnight, and the landscape was now unrecognizable, covered in a fresh coat of it. 

“It appears grief isn’t the only thing that can cause the god of winter to make it snow,” you tease and Zayne good-naturedly smirks at you. 

“Indeed. All thanks to you.” 

You giggle, a soft sound that fills him with joy. 

“I suppose we’re stuck in this village until winter ends. Makes no sense to wander for now.”

“Agreed. I suppose I can set up shop as a fortune-teller, or maybe as a herbalist.”

“We’ll decide what to do when spring comes.” You settle against his chest, finding comfort in the scent of his skin. 

“The snow has to melt sometime. But we’ll survive. Together.”

“Together.” You agree, and lay your lips over his. 

© nanamiscocksleeve original work | no copying, plagiarizing or translating support banner by @/ cafekitsune

@theimmortalbuns @otomegamesforlife @sweets-kozume @supernaturalbaesduh @ladyparamount

[headspace-hotel]

There, in the sunlit forest on a high ridgeline, was a tree I had never seen before.

I spend a lot of time looking at trees. I know my beech, sourwood, tulip poplar, sassafras and shagbark hickory. Appalachian forests have such a diverse tree community that for those who grew up in or around the ancient mountains, forests in other places feel curiously simple and flat.

Oaks: red, white, black, bur, scarlet, post, overcup, pin, chestnut, willow, chinkapin, and likely a few others I forgot. Shellbark, shagbark and pignut hickories. Sweetgum, serviceberry, hackberry, sycamore, holly, black walnut, white walnut, persimmon, Eastern redcedar, sugar maple, red maple, silver maple, striped maple, boxelder maple, black locust, stewartia, silverbell, Kentucky yellowwood, blackgum, black cherry, cucumber magnolia, umbrella magnolia, big-leaf magnolia, white pine, scrub pine, Eastern hemlock, redbud, flowering dogwood, yellow buckeye, white ash, witch hazel, pawpaw, linden, hornbeam, and I could continue, but y'all would never get free!

And yet, this tree is different.

We gather around the tree as though surrounding the feet of a prophet. Among the couple dozen of us, only a few are much younger than forty. Even one of the younger men, who smiles approvingly and compliments my sharp eye when I identify herbs along the trail, has gray streaking his beard. One older gentleman scales the steep ridge slowly, relying on a cane for support.

The older folks talk to us young folks with enthusiasm. They brighten when we can call plants and trees by name and list their virtues and importance. "You're right! That's Smilax." "Good eye!" "Do you know what this is?—Yes, Eupatorium, that's a pollinator's paradise." "Are you planning to study botany?"

The tree we have come to see is not like the tall and pillar-like oaks that surround us. It is still young, barely the diameter of a fence post. Its bark is gray and forms broad stripes like rivulets of water down smooth rock. Its smooth leaves are long, with thin pointed teeth along their edges. Some of the group carefully examine the bark down to the ground, but the tree is healthy and flourishing, for now.

This tree is among the last of its kind.

The wood of the American Chestnut was once used to craft both cradles and coffins, and thus it was known as the "cradle-to-grave tree." The tree that would hold you in entering this world and in leaving it would also sustain your body throughout your life: each tree produced a hundred pounds of edible nuts every winter, feeding humans and all the other creatures of the mountains. In the Appalachian Mountains, massive chestnut trees formed a third of the overstory of the forest, sometimes growing larger than six feet in diameter.

They are a keystone species, and this is my first time seeing one alive in the wild.

It's a sad story. But I have to tell you so you will understand.

At the turn of the 20th century, the chestnut trees of Appalachia were fundamental to life in this ecosystem, but something sinister had taken hold, accidentally imported from Asia. Cryphonectria parasitica is a pathogenic fungus that infects chestnut trees. It co-evolved with the Chinese chestnut, and therefore the Chinese chestnut is not bothered much by the fungus.

The American chestnut, unlike its Chinese sister, had no resistance whatsoever.

They showed us slides with photos of trees infected with the chestnut blight earlier. It looks like sickly orange insulation foam oozing through the bark of the trees. It looks like that orange powder that comes in boxes of Kraft mac and cheese. It looks wrong. It means death.

The chestnut plague was one of the worst ecological disasters ever to occur in this place—which is saying something. And almost no one is alive who remembers it. By the end of the 1940's, by the time my grandparents were born, approximately three to four billion American chestnut trees were dead.

The Queen of the Forest was functionally extinct. With her, at least seven moth species dependent on her as a host plant were lost forever, and no one knows how much else. She is a keystone species, and when the keystone that holds a structure in place is removed, everything falls.

Appalachia is still falling.

Now, in some places, mostly-dead trees tried to put up new sprouts. It was only a matter of time for those lingering sprouts of life.

But life, however weak, means hope.

I learned that once in a rare while, one of the surviving sprouts got lucky enough to successfully flower and produce a chestnut. And from that seed, a new tree could be grown. People searched for the still-living sprouts and gathered what few chestnuts could be produced, and began growing and breeding the trees.

Some people tried hybridizing American and Chinese chestnuts and then crossing the hybrids to produce purer American strains that might have some resistance to the disease. They did this for decades.

And yet, it wasn't enough. The hybrid trees were stronger, but not strong enough.

Extinction is inevitable. It's natural. There have been at least five mass extinctions in Earth's history, and the sixth is coming fast. Many people accepted that the American chestnut was gone forever. There had been an intensive breeding program, summoning all the natural forces of evolution to produce a tree that could survive the plague, and it wasn't enough.

This has happened to more species than can possibly be counted or mourned. And every species is forced to accept this reality.

Except one.

We are a difficult motherfucker of a species, aren't we? If every letter of the genome's book of life spelled doom for the Queen of the Forest, then we would write a new ending ourselves. Research teams worked to extract a gene from wheat and implant it in the American chestnut, in hopes of creating an American chestnut tree that could survive.

This project led to the Darling 58, the world's first genetically modified organism to be created for the purpose of release into the wild.

The Darling 58 chestnut is not immune, the presenters warned us. It does become infected with the blight. And some trees die. But some live.

And life means hope.

In isolated areas, some surviving American Chestnut trees have been discovered, most of them still very young. The researchers hope it is possible that some of these trees may have been spared not because of pure luck, but because they carry something in their genes that slows the blight in doing its deadly work, and that possibly this small bit of innate resistance can be shaped and combined with other efforts to create a tree that can live to grow old.

This long, desperate, multi-decade quest is what has brought us here. The tree before me is one such tree: a rare survivor. In this clearing, a number of other baby chestnut trees have been planted by human hands. They are hybrids of the Darling 58 and the best of the best Chinese/American hybrids. The little trees are as prepared for the blight as we can possibly make them at this time. It is still very possible that I will watch them die. Almost certainly, I will watch this tree die, the one that shades us with her young, stately limbs.

Some of the people standing around me are in their 70's or 80's, and yet, they have no memory of a world where the Queen of the Forest was at her full majesty. The oldest remember the haunting shapes of the colossal dead trees looming as if in silent judgment.

I am shaken by this realization. They will not live to see the baby trees grow old. The people who began the effort to save the American chestnut devoted decades of their lives to these little trees, knowing all the while they likely never would see them grow tall. Knowing they would not see the work finished. Knowing they wouldn't be able to be there to finish it. Knowing they wouldn't be certain if it could be finished.

When the work began, the technology to complete it did not exist. In the first decades after the great old trees were dead, genetic engineering was a fantasy.

But those that came before me had to imagine that there was some hope of a future. Hope set the foundation. Now that little spark of hope is a fragile flame, and the torch is being passed to the next generation.

When a keystone is removed, everything suffers. What happens when a keystone is put back into place? The caretakers of the American chestnut hope that when the Queen is restored, all of Appalachia will become more resilient and able to adapt to climate change.

Not only that, but this experiment in changing the course of evolution is teaching us lessons and skills that may be able to help us save other species.

It's just one tree—but it's never just one tree. It's a bear successfully raising cubs, chestnut bread being served at a Cherokee festival, carbon being removed from the atmosphere and returned to the Earth, a wealth of nectar being produced for pollinators, scientific insights into how to save a species from a deadly pathogen, a baby cradle being shaped in the skilled hands of an Appalachian crafter. It's everything.

Despair is individual; hope is an ecosystem. Despair is a wall that shuts out everything; hope is seeing through a crack in that wall and catching a glimpse of a single tree, and devoting your life to chiseling through the wall towards that tree, even if you know you will never reach it yourself.

An old man points to a shaft of light through the darkness we are both in, toward a crack in the wall. "Do you see it too?" he says. I look, and on the other side I see a young forest full of sunlight, with limber, pole-size chestnut trees growing toward the canopy among the old oaks and hickories. The chestnut trees are in bloom with fuzzy spikes of creamy white, and bumblebees heavy with pollen move among them. I tell the man what I see, and he smiles.

"When I was your age, that crack was so narrow, all I could see was a single little sapling on the forest floor," he says. "I've been chipping away at it all my life. Maybe your generation will be the one to finally reach the other side."

Hope is a great work that takes a lifetime. It is the hardest thing we are asked to do, and the most essential.

I am trying to show you a glimpse of the other side. Do you see it too?

[yikes-aemond]

I love you. It's ruining my life. (Part III)

pairing: Benjicot Blackwood x Bracken!fem!reader (no descriptions of reader except that she wears dresses and has long hair)

warnings: 18+, smut, canon typical violence, cursing, drinking  

summary: You and Benjicot Blackwood face the consequences of Benjicot’s decision. 

word count: 4.7k 

author note: I’m having so much fun writing this little series. I’ve decided that there will be four or five parts in total, so look out for the next part soon. Happy reading!

part I can be found here. part II can be found here. part iv can be found here.

You were going to kill Benjicot Blackwood. 

That was the first thought you had after waking in an unfamiliar room with a splitting headache. You could forgive him for knocking you unconscious the first time. But for a second? Absolutely not.

The room you had been left in was uncomfortably warm. The dying fire in the hearth indicated that you had likely been here for hours. Groaning, you pushed yourself up from the bed you had been tucked into. Your dress clung to you like a second skin, and a quick brush of your fingers through your hair revealed knots and tangles. 

Oh yes, you were going to kill that Blackwood heir as soon as you got your hands on him. 

Making your way to the wall of windows on the right side of the room, your stomach sank. Dusk was settling in. You had been gone from Stone Hedge all day, and there no chance your absence had gone unnoticed. Your father would be furious.  

Glancing around the courtyard beneath the windows, you were not entirely shocked to find yourself at Raventree Hall. You had never visited the keep in person, but you had heard tales of the ancient stone walls adorned with climbing moss. From your vantage point, you could just make out the top of the colossal, dead weirwood tree in the godswood. Already ravens were gathering to roost for the night. 

You had to find Benjicot. Had to find him and ask him what in the Seven Hells possessed him to bring you here of all places. A Bracken behind enemy lines. 

You heard the lock at the door unlatch. Unsure if friend or foe approached, you glanced to your left and right but found no weapon. The best you could find was a candleholder. Grabbing it, you pressed yourself against the wall furthest from the door. Raising the makeshift weapon, you readied yourself to throw. 

A tall woman with long, dark hair and an archer’s bow attached to her back entered. When she spotted you, candleholder raised to strike, she lifted her eyebrows and huffed out a laugh.

“Put that thing down before you hurt yourself.” 

There was no doubt in who she could be. 

Alysanne Blackwood. Sister to Lord Samwell Blackwood. Aunt to Benjicot Blackwood. And Black Aly to all those who would dare cross her bow. 

With shaking hands, you returned the candleholder to its proper place. Dipping into a small curtsy, you said, “Lady Blackwood, I am—”

“I know who you are.” Alysanne said, cutting you off. She paused to look at you, eyes glancing up and down, taking in your soiled dress and tangled hair. You tried desperately not to fidget under her scrutiny. 

But then her face broke into a smile. You could see the family resemblance easily enough. Although not nearly as feral, Alysanne’s smile had the same vicious edge as Benjicot’s. “So, you are the Bracken who has stolen my dear nephew’s heart.”

You did not know how to respond. Any thought you might have had left your head under Alysanne’s gaze and her accusation. Seeing the panicked look on your face, she laughed again and gestured to the seats before the fire. “Come now, little Bracken. Sit with me. We women folk have much to discuss.”

You left the comfort of the wall and did as she bid. You had no idea what Alysanne wanted to discuss. Her mood seemed relatively pleasant, all things considered. But the Blackwoods were notorious for their quick tempers and could switch at a moment’s notice. 

Alysanne took the bow off her back, leaning it against the hearth but still within her reach. You tried to calm your racing heart, but your palms were starting to sweat. You did not believe that Alysanne would harm you, at least not physically. But Benjicot’s absence, even if only temporary, set you on high alert. 

You could not help but ask,“Where is Benji—I mean, where is Lord Blackwood?”

Alysanne seemed amused by your question. Leaning back in her chair, she regarded you before answering, “My nephew has been otherwise detained.”

Her tone and mocking smile struck a nerve. You could feel your own temper begin to flare. And you could tell that Alysanne was taking pleasure in your apparent discomfort, watching you try to get a grip on your emotions. You should not have been surprised. Nothing brought a Blackwood more joy than torturing a Bracken. 

You tried for diplomacy. “Lady Blackwood, please—”

“Call me Aly, little Bracken.” She said, waving her hand at your formalities. “I think we need wine for this conversation.” 

What conversation? You were not sure your stomach could handle alcohol, but you were not stupid enough to refuse. 

With a full glass in hand, you watched Alysanne—Aly—take a deep drink. Setting the goblet down, she turned to you, a serious look in her eyes, and asked, “So, tell me, has my nephew fucked you yet?”

You choked on your wine.

Laughing, Aly gave you a thump on the back to help clear your airway. “You know, I’ve never met a Bracken with such delightful expressions.”

Finding your voice, you managed, “I’m happy I could be such a source of entertainment for you.” 

Aly picked up her wine again and smiled. Her gaze softening as she said, “I can see why he likes you.”

You felt your cheeks warm at the praise. You were desperate to know what Benjicot said about you to his family, but you had a feeling that Aly would not betray his confidence. The two might be aunt and nephew, but they were only a handful of years apart in age. Closer to a sister and brother. 

Taking another sip of wine, Aly’s face grew serious once again.“My question may have been crude, but I did not ask it to embarrass you. I need to know before I can advise my brother on how to proceed.” 

You swallowed down the wine that threatened to return back up. “How to proceed?”

Running a hand through her dark curls, Aly took a beat before responding. “Earlier today, a host of Bracken men showed up to Raventree Hall under a white flag and claimed that the Blackwoods had taken Lord Amos Bracken’s only daughter. My brother laughed in their faces and sent them away.” 

Aly took another deep drink of wine before continuing. “Not two hours later, Benjicot turns up with you in his arms, spinning a tale about finding you in the woods out cold, and seeing as how Raventree Hall was closer, decided to bring you here to see our maester.”

Wine forgotten, Aly leveled a hard look at you. “Of course, the maester did not find anything to explain your condition, except for a peculiar bump on the back of your head. If I didn’t know better, the bump looked like it came from the hilt of a sword or dagger. Most curious.”

You could not look at Aly, for you knew that your face would reveal too much. Would reveal that Benjicot lied. 

“And then there are, of course, the injuries on your neck.”

Your hand lifted to touch your neck, almost as if it was detached from the rest of your body. Your throat felt parched as you asked, “Other injuries?”

Aly smirked and leaned closer to you. “Oh yes. You seem to have some bruising on the sides of your neck. Almost looks like bite marks.” 

You felt yourself pale, the wine definitely threatening to make a reappearance. You wanted to sink into your chair, make yourself as small as possible. 

Aly knew that she had you. “So, I ask again, did my nephew fuck you? Did he take advantage—”

“No!” The denial was out of your mouth before you could think. No matter how angry you were with him, you refused to let anyone believe the worst about Benjicot. You would suffer any consequences, go to any lengths, to protect him and his honor. 

Stealing yourself as best you could to hold Aly’s eyes, you vowed, “I remain a maiden.” 

Aly held your gaze for a long moment, searching your eyes for any hint of deception. Waiting to see if you would crack under pressure. Finally, she nodded and let loose a deep sigh. “I did not think Benjicot capable of forcing a woman, but I had to ask. As to whether your maidenhead remains intact, I shall believe you, little Bracken. For now.”

You slumped back into the chair, suddenly exhausted. You felt as if you had just survived a great battle. And maybe you had. Black Aly was almost as notorious as her nephew. To do battle against them, whether by wit or sword, was to take your fate into your own hands.

But the war was not yet won. 

You hesitated to ask but you had to know, “How will you advise Lord Samwell?” 

Aly’s attention had turned to the dying fire, sipping her wine in thought. “Because you remain a maiden, the easy solution is to return you to Stone Hedge at first light before wind gets back to Bracken that you’re here.”

Your heart sank at her words. The moment you returned to Stone Hedge would be the moment you lost what little freedom your father had granted you. No longer would you be allowed to wander the grounds unaccompanied. No longer would you be able to steal away onto Blackwood lands in the hopes of seeing Benjicot. 

Worse still, you were of marriageable age and had been for some time. You were fortunate that your father had not betrothed you as soon as your courses started. But with war on the horizon, you knew your father would not hesitate to betroth you now should the right opportunity present itself.

Sighing again, Aly leaned back in her chair to match your relaxed posture. “But I have a strong feeling that my nephew, in all of his infinite wisdom, will oppose such a plan.” Glancing at you, she said, “He can be quite stubborn when he wants to be.”

You smiled to yourself, picturing the look on Benjicot’s face when he did not immediately get his way. “Yes, he is.”

Without warning, Aly stood up from her chair, causing you to scramble to your feet in response. “I’ll have dinner brought to you soon.” 

Straightening to your full height, spine locked, you asked, “Am I to be a prisoner, Aly?”

You watched Aly quickly mask the look of surprise on her face at your boldness. If you did not know any better, you would say she almost looked impressed. 

Turning her back to you and walking toward the door, she called out, “Not a prisoner yet, little Bracken. But best stay here for your own protection. Not all Blackwoods will treat you as kindly as my nephew.” 

With that, Black Aly opened the door and left. You sank back into your chair when you heard the lock latch close. 

Despite Aly’s assurances, you had never felt more trapped in your life. Dinner had come and gone, and there was still no word from Benjicot. You could feel your frustration and fear rise with each passing hour. 

You wanted to know what was happening. Were the Blackwoods sending word to your father? Were you going to be returned home? Were the Blackwoods going to forbid Benjicot from ever seeing you again? Would a war be fought over this? The Blackwoods and Brackens had fought each other over much less. 

All you could do was sit and think and dwell on the unknowns. You had explored every inch of the chambers, finding no books or papers to keep your mind occupied. Every second you spent in this godsdamn room drove you closer to a breaking point. 

When you heard the lock at the door begin to unlatch again, you sprung into action. You could not be alone in this room for a moment longer. Hiding on the other side of the door, you waited until the person entered your chambers, determined to fight your way out if necessary. 

You did not pause to consider whether this was a wise choice. You had no weapons nor training, but you did not care. You were a Bracken with your back against the wall. And your instinct was telling you to fight. 

So, when the door finally opened and a man entered your chambers, you acted. Leaping onto his back, you let out a scream, punching and kicking and clawing at anything you could get your hands on. The man cursed and tried to get a grip on you, but you squirmed out of his reach. 

Only when you broke skin and felt blood beneath your fingernails did you pause long enough to notice whom you had attacked. Dark, messy hair. A strong, powerful build. A familiar scent. 

Grasping your arms and removing them from his neck, Benjicot Blackwood turned to face you. And even though his face and hands were decorated with blood from your scratches, he looked at you like you were the most wonderful creature in all of Westeros. 

“Have you had your fill yet, my lady?” 

You did not know whether to kiss him or kill him. Perhaps both. And maybe in that order. 

Launching yourself into his arms, you kissed Benjicot with everything you had. His lips were full and warm, molding against yours instantly. With one hand splayed on your back and the other gripping your waist, he pulled you against him, flushing your bodies together until you could not tell where one of you began and the other ended. 

And when you tugged at his hair, he moaned into your mouth, biting your lip in retaliation. His bite was not hard enough to draw blood, but you felt your core tighten in response. You whimpered, deepening the kiss as you slid your tongue against his. But when he moved his hand to your breast, gliding his touch over your pebbled nipple, you pulled back. 

Panting heavily, you detached yourself from his arms and put space in between you. Benjicot’s cheeks were flushed and his breathing was as uneven as yours. You could see a question begin to form in his gaze, but he does not ask it, waiting instead for you to proceed. 

As soon as you got your breathing under control, you said, “We need to talk."

Benjicot nodded in agreement, moving to the chairs that you and Aly had occupied earlier. “I had a feeling you were going to say that.” 

When you settled across from him, you could feel the tension returning to your body. You did not know where the two of you stood, not really. You had shared kisses and pleasure, spoken words of love and devotion, but Benjicot had left you alone and in the dark—literally and metaphorically. You did not know what conversations had taken place or decisions made while you were confined to these chambers. And that thought—that he had not cared enough to even leave note—was enough to have your anger returning in full force. 

“What in the Seven Hells were you thinking bringing me here?” You snapped. 

Benjicot raised a brow at your harsh words, but responded evenly, “I recognized the voices we heard in the woods as Blackwood men. There was no explanation we could provide to them that would make sense and preserve your honor. Better for them to believe that I happened upon an unconscious, injured Bracken.” 

“Did you have to knock me unconscious? I could have pretended to have sprained my ankle!”

Shooting you a look of disbelief, Benjicot said, not unkindly, “My lady, you are many things. But a good liar is not one of them.”

You were going to strangle him. 

Benjicot smirked at your expression. “I love when you get that violent look on your face.” 

Rolling your eyes, you scoffed at his declaration. And when you did not otherwise respond, Benjicot relented, expression growing serious. “I did not mean to leave you alone all day. When we returned, and I found out that your father was looking for you, I had to explain everything to my father and aunt.”

You shot him a look of horror. “Everything?”

Now it was Benjicot’s turn to roll his eyes. “Yes, my lady, I told them everything. Told them how warm and wet your cunt felt against my—”

“Benjicot Blackwood!” You shrieked, shoving into his chest. “Have you lost your mind?”

He could not help but laugh. “If I have lost my mind, it is only because you occupy all my thoughts.” 

You felt a sliver of your anger melt away at his sweet words. “Fine, I am a terrible liar. That still does not explain why you decided to bring me here. You could have returned me to Stone Hedge.”

Benjicot’s expression, which had been light and open, shuddered closed. You watched him get a far off look on his face. You tried to catch his eyes, but he avoided your gaze. “Do you wish for that? To return to Stone Hedge?”

Your heart squeezed at his questions. For you knew that if you said yes, he would return you to your home. He may be Bloody Ben to the world, ruthless fighter who took no prisoners, but to you, he was kind and loving and protective. He would respect your wishes, even if that meant being away from him. 

Grabbing his hand, you traced his fingers, lingering your touch over the marks you had left behind. “I wish to be wherever you are.”

Benjicot took your hand in his, pulled you up from your chair, and settled you on his lap. Your face warmed at the intimacy, but you relaxed in his arms. Leaning your head against his chest, you let a feeling of peace wash over you, even if only for the moment.

You did not know how long the two of you sat in silence, content to just hold one another. But you knew that you could not stay like this forever. There were too many words left unspoken. Too many decisions to be made. 

Benjicot broke the silence first. “I brought you to Stone Hedge because I never wish to part from you. The thought of leaving you on Bracken land again gutted me.” He paused, throat working as he tried to gather his thoughts. Closing his eyes, Benjicot looked like he was bracing himself. “I knew that if I brought you here, brought you to my father and Aly, we could force the issue of us being together.”

Pulling away from his chest, you adjusted your legs to straddle his thighs. Benjicot’s hands gripped your waist to steady you. You clasped his face in your hands, demanding his gaze on yours. “We should have made that decision together. This is my life too, my future. I refuse to be under your thumb, Blackwood.” 

Lowering your face to his, you whispered against his mouth, “If you ever do something like that again, I will end you.” 

You did not know who kissed whom. But it did not matter. Benjicot’s mouth was on yours, devouring and claiming. Lifting you into his arms, and without breaking the kiss, he moved the two of you from the chairs to the bed. 

Your back hit the pillows. When you did not feel Benjicot’s weight on you, you opened your eyes to see him at the foot of the bed. Watching you. The look in eyes was pure hunger. His entire being seemed focused on you. On your body. The rise and fall of your breasts. The clenching of your thighs. 

“Benjicot.” There was a note of pleading in your voice.

His name on your lips broke whatever spell he was under. His lips returned to yours as if he were starving for your kiss. 

You spread your legs for him, letting his body fall into the cradle of your thighs. You flushed at the hardness you felt against your core. And when he drove his hips into yours, pressing that hardness against you, you moaned, legs trembling as you felt yourself grow wetter and wetter. 

Benjicot moved his kiss from your mouth down to your neck, biting and licking and marking for all the world to see. He wanted to brand you. Wanted everyone to know that you belonged to him. That you were his and he was yours.

He slid one hand up your leg, bringing your dress with him until it pooled at your waist, revealing your lower half to him, with only your small clothes in between.

You could not stop your hips from bucking when he dragged his hand over your covered cunt. You had never felt anything like this before. Your attempts at pleasuring yourself were nothing compared to what Benjicot did to you. You felt warm and achy and empty and completely out of control.  

“Will you let me see more of you, my lady?” Benjicot asked, not taking his eyes away from where his hand touched your heat. 

You were on a precipice. There was no turning back from this. No turning back from whatever ruin lay ahead of you. 

Letting out a breath, you whispered, “Yes.” 

No sooner had the word left your mouth were your small clothes ripped from your body. You did not have even a moment to protest, for the second your cunt was exposed to the air, Benjicot was bringing his hand between your folds. 

“Fuck.” Benjicot groaned. Slipping one finger into you, he pressed the heel of his hand against your clit. “You’re so wet, my lady.”

You whined at his words and the feeling of his hand working you. With every touch and circle of his fingers, you felt yourself growing closer and closer to that release you craved. 

But release evaded you. You rocked yourself against Benjicot’s hand, trying to force his movements to switch from slow and careful to forceful and demanding. 

“Benjicot, please—” 

“Please what, my lady?” His voice teasing, as he began to slow his movements. 

You groaned in frustration. You did not have the words. Did not know what to ask for. “I need something.” 

Benjicot stopped moving his hand entirely, and you could have cried. And when he removed his hand completely, you considered killing him all over again. 

“I swear on the old gods and the new—”

The look Benjicot shot you silenced the curse on your tongue. “No gods will hear you here, my lady.”

Glaring at him, you asked, “Do you wish for me to beg, Blackwood?” 

Benjicot hummed at the question. “A Bracken begging for a Blackwood to bring her pleasure? That does hold some appeal.” 

Before you could respond, Benjicot slid down your body, bracing both hands on your thighs to keep you open and spread wide. Your stomach clenched, as he brought his face to hover over your slick cunt. 

Benjicot glanced back up at you, waiting for a signal that you understood what he intended. Your breaths were uneven and rapid. The thought of his mouth on the most intimate part of you was beyond your comprehension. 

And when you nodded, Benjicot gave you that feral, wicked smile. The one that never failed to make your heart thud against your chest. He lowered his head, until all you could see was his dark, messy hair between your thighs. 

The first drag of his tongue against your center fractured your world. You felt undone and made whole again. You thought your heard Benjicot curse against your wetness, but you were too far lost in pleasure to be sure. 

He licked and licked and licked. Each swipe of his tongue brought a moan to your lips. He lingered on your clit, sucking and nipping until it was almost too much. You arched against him, unable to stop yourself from moving your hips against his face.  

Benjicot pressed a hand to your stomach, stilling you, as he slid his tongue straight into your cunt. You could not think, could not do anything except submit to the feelings he brought out in you. 

“You taste,” Benjicot moaned against you, “even better than I imagined, my lady.” 

You were sure you were crying. At the sight of your tears, Benjicot laughed and sunk two fingers into you, dragging another moan from the depths of your throat. 

Release was almost in your reach, just beyond your grasp. “Please, please, please.” You chanted, shaking your head back and forth against the pillow. 

Benjicot drove his fingers deeper and deeper, working his teeth and tongue against you, and with one final flick of his tongue to your clit, your back bowed off the bed, your release crashing into you. 

Even when you clenched down on his fingers and pulled at his hair, Benjicot did not stop moving against you. Fingers pumping. Tongue and lips feasting. He devoured whatever pleasure you gifted him. Only when you collapsed back onto the bed, gasping for air and reeling at the aftershocks, did he finally stop.

Your mind and body existed on different planes. You were not even sure you remembered your own name, so thoroughly had Benjicot upended your world. 

As you tried to put yourself back together, you noticed Benjicot adjusting himself in his breaches. You had never seen a cock before. But suddenly you found yourself desperate to see his. 

Sitting up, you placed your hand atop his, staying his movements. Benjicot glanced at you sharply, his breath catching in his throat. 

You met his stare. You did not know what you were doing. All you knew was that you wanted to give him even a fracture of the pleasure he had given you. 

Swallowing your insecurities, you asked, “Will you show me what to do?”

For once, Benjicot seemed to be at a loss for words. But he helped you undo the laces and unfasten his breaches. The muscles in his thighs shifted as he pulled himself free. 

Benjicot’s cock was enormous. Although you had nothing to compare it to, you were sure he had to be on the larger side. Enormous and hard and leaking from the slit at the top. Your mouth felt parched at the sight. 

You looked up at Benjicot, only to find his eyes focused wholly on you and your reaction. You did not want to disappoint him. 

“How do I please you, my lord?” Benjicot groaned at your words, taking himself in hand. Up and down, he stroked his length with a force that surprised you. 

Benjicot watched as your eyes widened at his actions. Watched the way you licked your lips. Watched the way you rubbed your thighs together. You enjoyed seeing him this way. 

“Have you ever touched a cock, my lady?” He knew the answer but wanted your confirmation. 

Shaking your head, you reached out to run your finger over the leaking slit. Benjicot grabbed your and placed it on his cock, trembling when you wrapped your hand around his length. 

And what a feeling that was. The ruthless, cruel Bloody Ben trembling from the pleasure you gave him. The idea of him being wholly at your mercy was intoxicating. 

Your own hand shook a little as you stroked him. The skin was softer than you had imagined, but he felt hard as steel beneath. You felt him shudder against you as you worked your hand up and down. 

“That’s it, my lady.” Benjicot murmured, lost in the feeling of your hand against him. “Just a little harder. You won’t break me.” You followed Benjicot’s direction, squeezing his cock and pumping as fast as you had seen him do before. 

And when he felt your nails graze the sensitive underside of his cock, he arched off the bed, chest heaving.

“You handle my cock so well.” You flushed at the praise, your own breaths coming out quicker and quicker the more you touched and explored. 

With one final hard twist, Benjicot exploded in your hand, moaning your name as he came. 

How many times had he imagined this? How many times had he thought of you while touching himself? And now you were here, in his home, and he never wanted you to leave. 

Benjicot surged forward, kissing you with all of his pent up feelings. He refused to live without you. Refused to give you up because of an ancient feud and a looming war. 

So, even though you were both half dressed, slick with sweat and spit and gods know what else, Benjicot asked, “My lady, would you do me the honor of marrying me? Tonight?” 

final author note: I hope you liked it! I think I updated my taglist to reflect everyone who asked to be added, but please let me know if I missed you or if you would like to be added for future updates.

taglist:

@painted-flag @majoso12

@strollthroughstars29 @a-whiterose

@rebeccawinters @alifeinspiredd

@klutzylaena @poppyflower-22

@iliterallyhavenoideawhattowrite @justannadahfanfictor

@aaaaslaaaan @hobis-hope95

@username199945 @daddyslittlevillain

@flusteredmoonn @nixtape-foryou @prettykinkysoul

[ladythornofrivia]

Lady with Teal Eyes || Aemond x Aunt!Hightower Reader (Part One)

word count: 2,733

author’s note: i’m sorry that i didn’t post much stories, as I’ve been reblogging and changing themes in my profile. i’m trying my best, but I’ll make up for it.

warnings: incest, cockwarming, teasing, sucking, p in v, rough play, flirting, wholesome moment, jealous aemond, possessive, roughness, mild manhandling, mild degradation, unprotected vaginal sex, oral sex, second hand embarrassment, dark content, mentions of su*cide, Aemond being too touchy with his aunt, degradation, humiliation.

summary: Aemond meets his aunt for the first time, and there’s more than meets the eye. (there will be three parts).

There hasn’t been a day that you never left your homeland. All in prosperity. All in solitude, all in mindful thoughts that even the castle walls were unable to perceive. Oldtown is known for the oldest kingdom within Westeros.

We light the way, those are the words from House Hightower, a tall, silver tower with a green light of flames atop. Members of the Hightower court are known to be proud and resilience. Perhaps too greedy to your taste. Less fickle to their needs, their desires, their secrets, their ambition.

All minds think alike, as they said. But your mind is unalike from theirs.

There hasn’t been a single day where your life change—steady as it goes. But when your older sister, Alicent, sent a letter to you from a raven fled from miles, you instantly ripped the seal and unveiled her letters, written in neat cursive. In the days where you can recall that Alicent taught you to read and write, before accompanying your father, Otto Hightower, to aid the ailing king and his throne.

In King’s Landing, where Aegon has set and had trees felled after his conquest in Westeros. The stories of dragonlords and ladies has caught you into a slighted dot of peculiarity. But with your father, you knew that your father wanted more than being as the Hand of the King. Like any folk in Oldtown, he’s all in the same cloak of mind and heart as the rest. The only difference is he has resided in King’s Landing with the Targaryens, warming the throne with Alicent’s political stead.

With you, as Alicent’s half-sister, one thing you adored about her is her resilience, no matter how the power struggle may have been, Alicent held her head high, it inspired you to do the same cause, not for the greater good, but for you to steady your heart. With Alicent’s brown eyes, anyone would be easily swayed at her beauty. With your eyes like glowing water, the subjects were to assume that you’re either a sea creature in the ocean, or have been reincarnated as a woman. Common folks assumed that you’re a goddess sent by Maiden herself. But others theorized you’re born in the sacred pond within the forest.

Despite the nonsensical rumors, you carried out your duties dulled within life, but with your brother, Gwayne Hightower, entered in your chambers without a warning.

“Sister!”

“Good heavens, you gave me a fright,” you screeched, hand clutching over your chest.

“A word from the raven,” he resumed, pulling out the letter. “It’s from our dear sister.”

She hasn’t written you a letter for months. Understanding of her high authoritative position, thankfully enough you aren’t the queen. You couldn’t bear to think about gifting children into the world from your maidenhood.

“Alicent!” Departing from the chair, you snatched the letter from Gwayne’s hand and ripped the letter open, straightening the scrolled paper.

My dearest sister,

I regret to inform you that I cannot visit in the Oldtown due to personal circumstances that our father has been trifled with the matters in King’s Landing. As queen, I must fully prioritize my duties and smite the inconsiderate undutiful thought of others. My dear husband, King Viserys, has been unwell as of late, growing slower day by day, but still the same man who loves his histories and shed upon endless favoritism on his daughter and her plain-featured sons, as well his miniatures he rarely finished. As of this moment, we are preparing the feast for the upcoming celebration. Misery and dread and politics has been my company, and I’d be happy if you come to King’s Landing and stay here for more than a month. I also send Gwayne and his men to escort you back. I hope you still have the new dresses and jewels the seamstress sorted to your taste; I always know that you hated attire that itched your flesh or suffocating. Words cannot expressed about how I miss the sweetness of your smile and laughter. We shall meet soon.

Signed,

Alicent Hightower

Jumping with joy, your body lunged at Gwayne, locking him into a tight hug, slightly hopping in place with a big grin stretched onto your lips.

“Have my things ready, brother,” you said, hasting, forgetting about the silks and fabrics in your hands.

“But you need more time. You’ll stay in King’s Landing as our queenly sister instructed.”

“Send the maids, then. I can’t do this alone.”

“You mustn’t make haste!” Gwayne shouted as you ran off, never minding the silks on the ground only for him to pick up.

“The sooner the better,” you shouted back.

~~~

The trailed ship took no more than three days to reach King’s Landing. Alicent hasn’t mentioned anything particular to the celebration. But you have come to acknowledge that Alicent lessened the details.

By the time the ships rested at the shore, you rushed down to the clear path and greeted your father, who was rather cold and emotionless. Nevertheless, you gave the courtesy of shallow inclination of your neck bent down. Though your heart shattered at the motionless greeting; a chilled wind spiraled on your thickened sleeves.

“Father,” you said, grinning ear to ear.

“Queen Alicent awaits,” is all he said, then left without abiding on you.

“But—”

“Ser Gwayne, escort this lady in the Red Keep,” he wasn’t saying it with care.

This lady.

Months without communication and souvenirs, you’d ought it’ll soften your father’s resolve regarding onto the estrangement.

Another clash of heartbreak has struck again. But it comes as no surprise.

Both of you hadn’t spoke since of his second wife—your mother’s—passing.

As numb as it may be, the small pang in your heart resolved again as Gwayne Hightower escorted you to the high steeps close, reaching the royal grounds of Red Keep.

~~~

Infiltrating from climbing the steps until reaching the indoors, the green queen appeared.

Your sister.

“Alicent,” you rushed and clung her to embrace.

“Sister, how good of you to come,” Alicent replied.

The halls greeted you in cold and dreaded air clinging onto your sleeves, goosebumps flooded over your skin, the thick air of candles and torches has impaled your stomach. You didn’t like this feeling. These halls, darkened in heralds of statues and stars that your pupils recognizant.

Faith of the Seven.

Hightowers held their religion in the highest regard, while you, don’t cherish the ideologies of the religion, filled with fanaticism and hypocrisy. Even Targaryens have the queerest customs, of marrying brother to sister, relative to relative since Aegon I. It dire consequences of genetics and birth, and the fruition of a child birth into an unshakable world of politics and desires. According to the Citadel, in secret debate, those who are born of incest are nothing but sort of monsters lurking, a defect to a bloodline.

The Targaryens disagree—couldn’t care less, of course. As you often heard of keeping the bloodline pure.

Bloodline pure. People speculated that the Targaryens are closer to gods than men. Thus their words ‘Fire and Blood’ is in order. In Valyria, their source is magic and dragons, long before volcanic eruptions swept the lands and dragons into ashes. The last Targaryens resided in Westeros, and thus, their last kind is dwindling, hence creating pure bloodline. As theatrically hysterical as it is, you trudged along the halls.

“It has been so long since I saw you last,” Alicent began.

“It has, but we rarely sent letters as of late.”

“Being a queen is no simple task. Our father’s ambition has gotten stronger.”

“Your father,” you said bitterly.

“My dear sister,” Alicent resumed, her voice soothed. “Father is doing his best to stabilize the realm.”

“Cold, cruel and calculated,” you answered. “Your strength and dutiful as queen is one of the things I admire about you. But, sister, it feels as if my existence is no longer needed. I feel as if I’m useless. My mother received no love from your father.”

The doe-eyed look in Alicent’s eyes protruding. “Sister, I—“”

“Half-sisters,” you reminded. “Everyone thought I was some sort of creature that shouldn’t belong in the realm. I’m no fool; I could hear everyone whisper, even closed doors.”

“Creature or not, you’re still a Hightower. We share the same blood. Nothing will ever change between you and I.”

“But your father will never accept me,” you replied.

Alicent clasped her hands onto yours. “The next time we see each other, I’ll be visiting the Oldtown.”

“You said that the last time on our previous letters,” you chimed. “Let him stabilize the realm alone.”

“That is why you’re here. I needed time apart from the council and subjects,” Alicent reasoned. “Men are often ambitious with their politics and trifling over gold than their wives.”

“It appears so,” you agreed, huffing.

Ironically, Alicent served men, and still is. First Jahaerys, then Otto, then Viserys. Though you wouldn’t so recklessly give your personal opinion away to Alicent.

“We have yet to explore the grounds. We must rest at the gardens. I know how much you love staying in the gardens.”

Your cheeky smile was showing. “I do.”

Alicent squeezed your hand. “Let us be off. It’s considered bad luck if we let our food grow cold.”

“Never knew that it involves bad luck.”

“I’ve been told.”

“By who?”

Not once, Alicent answered.

~~~

“Make yourself comfortable,” Alicent said, indicating the spare chair, and watched you sat with ease, eyeing the lavish outdoors where the Weirwood stood as main view.

“Quite nice out,” you complimented.

This was Alicent meant when she said gardens.

“I chose this spot for a reason,” Alicent said as the servants settled the meal over the table—bowed and left. And the last servant entered, placing a stacked candied almonds and candied plums on a gold platter, alongside of Dornish wine.

Alicent watched your eyes lit up.

“I took the liberty of having the kitchen staff ready for your sweet-tooth,” she clarified.

“You know me well, sister.” You grinned.

“My lady,” a soothing masculine voice said behind you.

“Ser Criston,” Alicent addressed, glancing. “I’m occupied as of this moment.”

“There has been urgent matters regarding to your son.”

Puzzled, Alicent spoke with, “Which son?”

Appalled, your eyes darted at her. On the other hand, you never retain information from Alicent.

“Aegon,” Criston answered, eyes turning away. “I’m afraid his excursions have rather been…” Then his dark brown eyes flicked to yours, his mouth opened, choosing his words carefully.

“We’ll speak no more of it,” Alicent pleaded. “I’m under the liberty of entertaining my sister at the moment. Do ignore Aegon’s excursions for now.”

Somewhere in between the lines, you knew Alicent’s calm demeanor struck hard when the excursions take place, wrath kept within, as you read between Alicent’s lines furrowed on her forehead. Ser Criston glimpsed at you and bowed before withdrawing from the outdoors.

“My apologies,” Alicent said to you in a dreaded voice. “The excursions in the daylight hour upon King’s Landing hasn’t ended.”

“I never knew you had a son,” you said, munching on the candied almonds.

Alicent swallowed the contents of the food. “I mentioned it once before in the letter. That I was having a babe in my belly.”

You pondered for a moment. It was back when Alicent married Viserys and carried a child in her.

“But you never mentioned that it’s a son,” you commented.

“But I’m sure you heard Aegon’s name the moment he arrived into the world.”

Your teeth clenched. “I can assure you I did.” The Oldtown spoke of Aegon in high regards, but as you grew older, you never hear much of Aegon’s doings, hoping to meet your nephew, you waited, but as usual, you sister never once sent letters to offer you an invite.

“Things have been hectic for the past years, and I doubt that’ll cease. With the Iron Throne empty and with all that it stands, we’re keeping the place intact with politics and debate,” Alicent reasoned.

You stayed in silence.

“If you would like,” Alicent continued, “I would be happy to take you to the gallery. The Red Keep has been nothing but a dread. I shall escort you and give you a tour to the Red Keep unless you want someone else to—”

“No, I’d be thrilled if you were to accompany me,” you paused, then said, “sister.”

Alicent gently beamed at that.

~~~

When you and Alicent both went inside the Red Keep, the royal subjects and guards bowed before the green queen as their eyes lingered onto yours, and an incoherent of whispers were passed to your ears.

The sister of the green queen.

And as you ascended the staircases, from there, you saw the shaded eyes of violet and curled hair—a young girl, a few years younger than you.

“Mother, have you seen my—” The girl’s youthful stare darted to yours, backing away gradually.

“This is my sister, (y/n), your aunt,” Alicent introduced. “This is Princess Helaena, my daughter,” Alicent said to you.

“A pleasure.” As you made an inclination to your neck, smiling to the princess as you hadn’t realized that the others accompanied none other by two young men behind Helaena, both with Targaryen features.

Your heart stopped—leapt with warmth—when you first glanced at the tall prince with gold, lithe hair as his other eye covered with eyepatch.

“These are my other sons…” Alicent said, searching for the third son with a slight frown on her features. “Where is Aegon?”

“Drunk as usual,” Daeron rolled his eyes, crossing his arms.

“That blasted fool…” Alicent hissed, then smiled merrily in a way to appease herself. “I hope you and Lady (y/n) would get along.”

“Yes, I remember now! You’re that boy—that cupbearer in the council!” you said to Daeron.

Daeron beamed. “I am proud to serve my mother’s family in Oldtown. Ashamed we never met circumstances in the Reach, yet here we are!” he chuckled. “For my dear father’s name day contained in private ceremony, I’m glad you came.”

You sensed the sarcasm in the word “father”, but shrugged it off.

The dread of unwanted unwelcome washed away with glee. “Indeed. I shall look forward to the festivities.”

Aemond lifted and placed his kiss upon the back of your hand. A kiss placed with gentle fire ignited your dulled soul, envision with flames of blush blaring your dewy cheeks. “A pleasure to meet you, my lady.”

Breath caught in your throat, eyeing on his hand still lingering his intertwine fingers to your skin. “Likewise, my prince…”

For the first time in your life, the gentleness of a dragon has captured your heart and soul.

As for Aemond, with the slighted news of your presence, there’s nothing more than mere maiden who needs to be soiled with his perversions trapped and coiled and enflamed in between his legs. When he first laid his gaze on you, he pictured your flushed skin wrapped with his own, his lips captured yours as his presence trapped into your mind for eternity. But alas, with a wandering thought just now, it wasn’t like him. He mustn’t be capricious and avarice on the spot.

With your grand arrival, Aemond had already decided you’ll become his.

One day at the time, he reminded himself.

“It’s unusual for you to be courteous to someone,” Alicent commented.

“I never wish to scare anyone with my presence, mother,” Aemond said. “It is my duty as a prince to make our special guest comfortable.”

A hot tingle between your legs stirred as you eyed on him—on his lips—how rolled off words with his tongue, finding yourself imagining at the thought of your nephew tasting your folds as you ride him, warming the bed—riding him whilst lace and corset of your precious dress torn apart by his own rugged and young hands.

“He’s only being courteous like Prince Daeron,” you noted, clearing your throat. “Everyone must fulfill their role to the realm. We mustn’t decay our customs to rudeness.”

Aemond’s eye gleamed at your flushing features whilst you looked at Alicent in the eye, you speak with assurance yet your body wavered, dying for your hungered coil in you—the scorch caged within your dress to be set free.

You cannot fool me, my princess, he thought.

In the end, nobody can fool a dragon like him.

Taglist: @daonenonlysandman @halsteadstyles @kittendoll05 @omgsuperstarg @xcharlottemikaelsonx @paninisstuff @danika1994 @angeljcca @marvelescvpe @kukulyarva @namelesslosers @heavenly1927 @snh96 @herathedreamer @fandom-maniac-anime @httpsmenace @velunis @nananeptune @domithebomi @moonseye @faesspace @rxixo31 @tm-starr @xinthia19 @popsycles @naiaaramena @aleemendoza2425-blog @letmehavemyfictionalmen @ammo23 @blackswxnn @buccini555 @watercolorskyy @taangie @qardasngan @justyelena @jolixtreesunn @runekisses @thought--bubble @remuslupinwife1 @evergreen9083 @foggypeacestarlight @dixie-elocin @galactict3a @momowhoo @saturnssrings @dani5216 @kimsubin05 @mylosz0 @blackgaladriel @valeskafics

[try-set-me-on-fire]

Tagged by @doeeyeseddie and @eddiebabygirldiaz for seven sentence Sunday! Since I haven’t been posting much for tag games lately, here’s significantly more sentences than that from bucktommy acquire a child au. Warning for mentions of past child abuse in Tommy’s family.

Tommy stares down at the dotted line, pen hovering, running the name through his head over and over again and feeling kind of stupid for it. There’s no meaningful difference, at this point, between this last signature and any other of the seemingly dozens of pieces of paper they’ve signed tonight. Nothing really counts until Buck hands it over to the lawyer on his way to work tomorrow. He could sign and then tear the thing up, toss it in the trash. Find someone better to take this on. Take his name out of it, at the very least, hand the kid over to Evan entirely.

Evan, sitting next to him close enough that their knees are pressed tougher, bony, under the table. “What are you thinking?”

Tommy sighs and sets the pen down, tilting his head back to look up at the ceiling. “Can’t we just use… I don’t know, Diaz? I don’t want to give the poor kid my name.”

Buck laughs, just a little, still mostly serious. “I mean, I’m sure Eddie’d say yes if we asked, but- You gave me your name, why’s it a problem now?”

Tommy slides his fingers between Buck’s, surprised as he always is at how well they fit together. “You’re an adult, you can- handle it, carry it. Kinard children have historically been miserable things.”

Evan tilts his head, probably thinking about what Tommy is thinking about: Tommy, beat by his dad who was beat by his dad who was beat by- etc, etc, going back the entire horrible line of them. He’s imagined it before, some medieval peasant kid somewhere, crying into a hay bale or whatever the fuck it is poor folk slept on back then. Evan’d probably know. Maybe farther back than that. A caveman all the other cavemen side-eyed ‘cause he threw his kid in the path of a sabertooth or something.

“Okay,” is what Evan says. “I could get all pop psychology about, like, breaking cycles or whatever, but actually-” he points down the hall. “When I put him to bed tonight he talked literally right up until he was unconscious about all the stuff we saw at the zoo today, that I was in fact there for. Passed out mid word about how we got ice cream and saw a bird. Just a regular bird, that pigeon that landed on the table next to us. I think he was as excited about that as he was about, like, actual lions.”

Tommy laughs, despite his mood. “He was excited about the pigeon.” Milo had been so fascinated by it his ice cream had mostly melted by the time they could successfully prompt him to eat it.

Buck grins. “That kid- our kid- is happy, Tommy. Another talking point? How you carried him everywhere. He got to be so tall, he said you showed him everything.”

“I always hated being too short to see past crowds of people,” Tommy says quietly. “All those legs, everybody strangers.”

“I think most kids hate that,” Buck nods. He leans in to kiss Tommy’s cheek. “You’re not having second thoughts about this?”

“No,” Tommy says, immediate, breathy like it got punched out of him. “No. More than sure.”

Evan nods again. “He’s happy, and safe, and loved because of you. Sign the paper. It’s just a name, and one that I like very much actually.”

“Just a name,” Tommy raises an eyebrow. “So you would’ve been fine with him becoming a Buckley if we had done this the other way?”

“Oh, fuck no,” Buck says, face twisting up lemon-sour as Tommy laughs.

“You hypocrite.”

“Hey, you should have come up with a new name when you married me,” Buck sticks his tongue out, leaning back in his chair like a pleased cat. “Combined them maybe? We could have been… the Binards?”

Tommy squints at him. “No.”

“The Kuckleys?”

“Evan,” Tommy snorts. “No- that’s terrible.”

Buck grins. “Yeah. We really should have just asked Eddie. All be Diazes, it’d fix everything.”

“Imagine the kid’s family tree project at school,” Tommy says, picking up the pen, signing his name as fast as he can before doubt creeps back in. “We’re gonna have to teach him the words ‘non-conventional family structure’.”

Buck laughs and laughs, leaning into Tommy’s side until he kisses up the sound.

Tagging @shitouttabuck @bigfootsmom @iinryer @chronicowboy @butchdiaz @homerforsure if ya got anything to share!

[torchship-rpg]

Dev Diary 18 - Zinovians

Right, let’s talk another major species! The Zinovians are the other really ‘big’ species in Torchship on the level of the Aquillians, the folks you’ll be dealing with often. They’re not as widespread or numerous as the Aquillians, but they’re a powerful and highly present political force in multiple astrostates, and the shared history they have with humanity have set us on a collision course.

The most important thing to know about the Zinovians is that they got exiled from their own homeworld by the Aquillian Empire about four hundred years prior to the events of the game and scattered across the stars. This has created several very distinct groups of Zinovians to encounter or play as, with sizable cultural, political, and even genetic differences between them. The majority settled in a single state which humanity allied with during their war against the Aquillians; the Zinovians are the reason we caught up to Local Space’s tech level so quickly. 

We promptly paid them back by making peace with the Empire instead of helping them take their homeworld back. They’re still not over it.

Oh, also; all the alien species names in Torchship are exonyms. The Zinovians weren’t originally called that by humans; it’s a (derogatory) descriptive name that emerged after the war to describe the structure of their government by unflatteringly comparing it to the guy whose bureaucratic decisions laid the groundwork for Stalin’s rise to power, and it stuck where the competing approximations of their endonyms failed. As is a general theme with the Zinovians, this is a mutual kind of awful; their name for us is, literally, “The Little Traitors”.

Biology

The Zinovians are another of the local humanoid species, though they’re a little more alien looking than the Aquillians, who could pass for human with a hat on. They’re one of the most diverse species in Local Space; like Humans, they have no taboo on genetic engineering and have used it to adapt themselves to a variety of physical and social environments. But there’s still some commonalities across groups.

Zinovians are cat-people, though this is less ‘cute kittycat girl’ and more ‘oh god, there’s a panther on the loose!’. Think the Puma Sisters from Dominion Tank Police. They have tall tufted ears, retractable claws on their hands and feet for both climbing and hunting, and a lot of subgroups have vestigial tails. They’re descended from apex ambush predators with a similar hunting strategy to leopards, complete with hauling kills up trees, which gradually developed complex social structures in response to changing environmental pressures. 

As the only major sapient species of obligate carnivores in Local Space, their transition to sapience was largely driven by the complex competitive politics of reproductive suppression to avoid overhunting, which gradually shifted toward tool use for reshaping the environment to increase hunting yields. Their version of the agricultural revolution was the invention of the fishing net and nomadic groups settling along coastlines.

That gives us our first trait, the aptly named Ambush Predator Evolutionary Outlier trait. This gives some pretty meaty bonuses to short bursts of physical activity, but means you take Fatigue more quickly in return.

Zinovians have distinct structures of long hair and short fur; their fur and skin share pigmentation, which can make it hard to tell which is which at a glance. The amount, lengths, and colouration of fur has a dizzying degree of variance (with colours mostly clustered in the red/yellow/green range) thanks to their ancestors having some pretty cool camo fur patterns; those largely became solid colours in the transition to sapience, but you get deliberate or accidental genetic throwbacks. 

The claws give you the Built-In Weapons Trait; these are serious business, about as dangerous as walking around with iron daggers on hand at all times. This is connected to the somewhat-muted Zinovian pain response; with sociability being a relatively recent evolutionary development, pain’s signalling function of ‘stop and get help’ is less neurologically developed, meaning that Stiff Upper Lip here represents quite literally feeling less pain.

Finally, Zinovian sexual dimorphism and gender politics are a fascinatingly complex subject. Their crash evolutionary development of sociability has left rather significant holdovers from when their ancestors were highly hierarchical matrilineal fission-fusion societies resembling something between spotted hyena clans and lion prides. The psychological developments are no more present than in humans, of course (though, like in humans, pop science evolutionary psychology does crop up socially), but some of the physiological aspects have stuck around.

So, first off, baseline Zinovian sexual dimorphism is a bit exaggerated compared to humans, with females being larger. This is a bit more than the relatively small differences between human sexes; their evolutionary adaptation trait suggests you can take Efficient Metabolism over Ambush Predator if you want to play the far end of baseliner male dimorphism, more optimised for wandering off to find groups with gaps in the hierarchy than challenging it. This dimorphism has been genetically reduced in some Zinovian groups and exaggerated in others.

The other big thing is that Zinovians have two sets of sex expression, termed ‘major’ and ‘minor’ sexes, which is a holdover from alternative reproductive strategies that developed around the strict hierarchies of their presapient ancestors. Essentially, about 3-5% of Zinovians naturally develop what we might term inverted secondary sexual characteristics, with no way to tell before they hit puberty. Like, naturally occurring transgender hormone balances, sorta kinda. And then you layer socially constructed gender on top of that, and it gets complicated, with different cultures having vastly different answers to the social status of sex expressions, transgender people, etc…

Yeah, it’s an excuse to roll up your sleeves and get on some next-level gender stuff with these cat people. Don’t let it be said we don’t know our audience.

In the Zinovian Sphere

Okay, first off, they don’t call it that. We call it that, because it makes them sound like an evil hegemony. They call themselves the Universal Republic, and call us the Human Star Empire. See? This is a whole thing.

The Zinovian Universal Sphere Republic is the largest political body the Zinovians have and are in many ways the ‘second power’ of Local Space, being the largest unified group after the Star Union in the aftermath of the Aquillian Empire shattering like a pane of glass. Unified is being kind of generous, though; the Zinovian Sphere is more like a loose federation of eight semi-independent ministries which once had specific duties in the unified government, but who have gradually developed into messy mini-states within the larger whole. 

The logos of the Ministries. Resources, Loyalty, Labour, Peace, Space, Life, Sanitation, and Security. Once specialized, all now form mini-governments in their own right, complete with their own militaries.

They symbolize a borehole mine, a watchful eye, a churning vat, an interstellar transmission, a rocket launch, cell division, water purification, and a watchtower.

The Universal Republic began with the ragged survivors of their homeworld’s uprising against the Aquillians being directed to a group of marginally-habitable high-gravity worlds in a star cluster near the Aquillian border with one of their distant rivals, to be used as a buffer state and early warning system. Their founding ideology of hopeful liberation was one of the many victims of starvation, decompression, dehydration, and radiation poisoning that characterised this exodus and the crash terraforming projects that followed.

As a direct result, the Universal Republic adheres to an apocalyptic socialism the Union calls Social Triage; resources must be held in common to be distributed to maximise return. In accordance with ability, disregarding need.  It’s the cold logic of a mass casualty event, applied to entire societies and lingering long after the emergency is over. It’s a relic of the days when a community leader had to stand up in the shelter and tell a thousand people they will only have calories for eight hundred, when neighbouring communities would exchange rosters of their population so unbiased choices could be made as to who gets to live. 

They’re past the days of anyone actually starving, but that, uh, is going to leave a bit of a psychological mark. It’s the reason why their government can be eight Ministries in a trenchcoat and yet survive; for all their squabbling, the Ministries are dedicated with absolute zeal to not rocking the boat too much, in case it means somebody somewhere doesn’t get fed, and are equally dedicated to the dream of one day getting Lost Homeworld back and making the fucking elves pay for it.

Republican Zinovians are divided into three Identities for gameplay purposes. The first two represent the civilian population of the Republic, and share a bunch of interesting Traits. You get Heavyworlder, because the 12 worlds the Zinovians were forced to settle on were largely hovering around 1g. You get Radiation Hardened (Lesser type, with Radiation Absorbing Structures) and/or Built-In Armour, which represents the subdermal steel plates which are affected by most of the population; these plates are largely cultural now, but at one time these were there to keep major bones from absorbing too much radiation on worlds with marginal magnetic fields. You’re encouraged to take Psychrophile/Thermophile, or any other trait which reflects the harsh nature of whichever world you ended up on.

You also lose some traits. In the Republic, genetic engineering efforts have at times been directed to reducing sexual dimorphism as part of various (largely unsuccessful) efforts to combat matriarchal social structures. Republican citizens also get their claws removed as a public health and safety measure at a young age; this is largely seen as a kind of sad-but-necessary reality of modernity, and a lot of defectors to the Star Union go get them regrown or have mechanical replacements installed.

The first of the identities is the Citizens; these are the regular people of the Republic, the politically disenfranchised common folk with no overt loyalties to any one Ministry. As with all the major powers in Local Space, the Republic is dealing with an overabundance of labour; in the Republic this manifests as waiting. You don’t want for anything vital, the local Ministries work together to ensure you have food, shelter, education, and distraction, but what you’re issued is what you get, and what you’re issued is decided by a bureaucrat somewhere. If you want more, you sign up for a waiting list for job openings in the Ministries, and you wait.

Which is why there’s a wild black market among the common citizens, hence a recommendation for the Entrepreneur trait. Polyglot represents how these colonies were haphazard multicultural endeavours which maintain enclaves carrying on the traditions of Lost Homeworld, and War Veteran represents how the only widespread employment available to common citizens was the recruitment drive during the war.

The second group are the Ministry Families. The Ministries operate as densely entangled networks of nepotistic family groups, with entire departments run by extended clans. The definition of ‘family’ is pretty loose; Zinovian norms about adoption are extremely flexible. Ministry families live marginally better lives than the regular Citizens in material terms, but do so under constant scrutiny and the intense expectations of their families, creating an intense political thunderdome of inter- and intra-family competition.

This gets so serious that it's reflected in the main Ministry trait, Augment. If you’re a ministry couple expecting a kid, it’s not uncommon for the clan matriarch to drop by and talk about the job they have lined up for them when they grow up, so wouldn’t it be a good idea to make sure they’re well-suited for the role? This dovetails well with just about any other trait; you’re encouraged to think about what you were destined for and how your family tried to achieve that.

The final recommended trait is Foreign Connections, a Trait which gives you both friends and enemies in another state. Maybe those friends are family who still have your back… or maybe they’re the department you betrayed your family to in order to smuggle yourself out of the Sphere.

A fun detail about the Republic is that they’re intensely maltheistic; organised religion was one of the main tools of the Aquillian occupation, and a lot of them were very devout people. Given the subsequent traumatic Everything, the natural cultural conclusion was that their gods had sold them out to the occupiers, and when Lost Homeworld is taken back they’re going to make a point to lock their deities inside the temples and light a match. In the meantime, they practise with effigies. Their kids make them out of paper mache. It’s great fun for the whole family.

There’s one last Identity within the Republic, and they’re very different from the other two. The Republican Marines are a cultural group inside the state descended from a seafaring culture who had been given a position as warrior nobility under the Aquillian hierarchy; the uprising largely kicked off because they got sick of getting increasingly sidelined for foreign mercenaries and defected to the rebels. The Marines are essentially a separate nation bound by treaty to the Republic to serve as an apolitical military arm; though in theory they’re all soldiers, in practice the majority of them work the logistics that allow a small handful of them to be the scariest power-armoured infantrymen in the history of the galaxy.

Seriously. The main narrative purpose of Zinovian Marines is to act as a thing the GM can put in a scene to say to the players “nope, you need to talk your way out of this one, because you aren’t winning this fight”. They have rotary chainguns with sufficient armour penetration to shoot up your reactor from the top deck of your spacecraft, and their armour has articulating ERA shields that double as deck-clearing fragmentation mines. Your redshirts going up against them is going to look like that sick Astartes animation on youtube. Just don’t.

Marines get to keep their claws, and obviously get recommended the War Veteran trait. It’s also noted that you are extremely visually distinct and it's impossible to hide it; Marines get elaborate facial tattoos and piercings specifically so they cannot shirk their duties to the Republic and try to become a civilian. 

In the CNFT

The Zinovian Marines are one offshoot of the seafaring warrior culture, one that ended up in the Republic. But a lot of them ended up elsewhere, either through surrendering to Aquillian forces during the war and being repurposed, or fleeing reprisals. Like most refugees in Local Space before the Star Union became a thing, those people ended up in the CNFT, alongside some other Zinovians who quickly became culturally integrated.

So what do a bunch of soldiers do when they arrive somewhere with combat experience but no money? They offered their services as mercenaries within the cutthroat anarcho-capitalist nightmare of the Territories, and they were good at it.

The modern SEA-WARRIORS OF ZINOVIA! are what happens when an entire culture’s financial security depends on being able to sell themselves as the best mercenaries in the entire galaxy, playing up their foreign heritage and biological quirks as an intergenerational advertising scheme. According to the marketing, the Sea-Warriors are a barely-civilised society of bloodthirsty warrior women whose rigid codes of honour demand they seek out war and conquest, and they can be yours for the low low price of $29.99! They wear the furs of exotic animals and get cool tattoos and carry four-foot long cultasses around in public and pick fights in bars with the hope of getting cool scars. Where the Republicans downplayed their sexual dimorphism with genetic engineering, the Sea-Warriors exaggerated it (mostly in that the ladies got even taller). They even gene-modded their tails back in and made them fuzzier to look more animalistic.

And it worked. Every politician has a Zinovian bodyguard, every criminal kingpin has Zinovian enforcers, and when you turn on the TV you’ll see Zinovian athletes playing full-contact sports, chasing perps in cop shows, and selling gene-therapy treatments at the commercial break. The CNFT’s image of physical prowess is a six-foot-five cat woman with tattooed abs and a massive machete leading a platoon in the conflict zone of the week.

The thing is… it’s not entirely an act. It started as one, sure, and the ones pushing the envelope will wink and nod and admit to exaggerating, but a culture can’t perform a persona this long without becoming true believers. Yes, they put the furs and swords away and fight in power armour under a swarm of autonomous drones like everyone else when it comes down to it, their mercenary corporations have slick PR operations and genetic modification programs and R&D departments, there’s Zinovians in suits negotiating with the government over protection contracts, but at the end of the day this still is a culture growing up with a self-image that the coolest thing they can possibly be is a barbarian warlord with a laser pistol in one hand and a sword in the other.

The first recommended Trait from all this is Augment, because you don’t keep your edge in a market like this without a bit of help. Imposing reflects the brand, obviously, and you still have your Built-In Weapons (getting declawed is seen as a fate worse than death). You have the fun Cultural Tool trait to represent the exaggerated cutlasses that your honour demands you carry in public, and War Veteran is an obvious pick for a culture where the Territorial Army and then subsequent mercenary work is the only real career path for most. 

Finally, you’re encouraged to take Redundant Vitals, because a lot of Sea Warriors opt into a series of genetic and surgical procedures to duplicate a few of their vital organs, just in case. It makes getting life insurance so much cheaper that it’s always worth it. 

The Greater Diaspora

The final set of identities is a bit of a catch-all for everyone else, and is more a high-level summary than the detailed Trait lists for other identities by its nature. There’s a ton of Zinovians living spread out in Local Space; descendents of refugees, migrant workers, and ancient settler projects. Like with the Aquillians (or the human wildcat colonies), it's an excuse to take the basic archetype and make it your own. One part of this characterisation is the fact that the Universal Republic wants very badly to use this diaspora as an arm of state power, and its various Ministries attempt to do so, with various levels of influence and success. There’s also a fair number integrated into the Star Union, many of them advisors who came over during the war and decided they liked it better.

Finally, there’s a note that the Zinovian Sphere is, well, not just a Universal Republic in name; they actually do have a number of alien species among their ranks as well, who will be culturally integrated at various levels using the above Identities. There’s a fair number of humans who have jumped ship to the Universal Republic in the same way, mostly people who think the Star Union is too pacifist or forgiving for its own good, or advisors horrified by the voters back home leaving their allies in the lurch. Said humans are largely integrating into Ministry families at this point.

[lifedeathtimespace]

A list of the Entities in TAD songs and their aesthetics:

(Except not the ones Madeleine or Joey say they are because there are way too many of those)

The King - crumbling walls, secrets lurking in cobwebbed corners, crashing waves in a storm. Being protected, forgotten, isolated, smothered.

The Creature - scratching, clawing, screaming. Torn curtains and bloodied nails, you have to get out, you have to get out, YOU HAVE TO GET OUT, YOU HAVE TO GE-

The Old Man - broken promises, hair so tangled it brings tears to your eyes when you brush it. A too-tight corset. Being sent to bed without supper. Wondering what you did wrong, why won't they love you?

The Fox - screaming at your own reflection in a cracked mirror, branches whipping at your face as you run through the forest. It doesn't matter how fast you run, the truth will always find you, always be waiting for you.

The Trees - tall branches and taller tales. Climbing through branches that could crack under your weight, but knowing they won't, that their support will lift you higher, ever higher. Watching the earth fall away beneath you. Wondering if you'll ever feel the ground beneath your feet again, and if you even want to.

The Hollow Folk - watching, whispering, waiting. Shadows flicking through the corners of your vision, devils and guardian angels and everything in between. They hold no secrets in their hearts because there is nothing there to hide, nothing even to see. Empty shells of former people, observing and oh-so-patient. They will get what they want, in the end.

The Saint - staring your mistakes in the face and knowing you'll never change. Burning your past and dancing in the ashes as you suffocate in the smoke that coils itself around you. You can never escape the flaws that reside deep in the furthest recesses of your soul. You will never get it right because you dont even know what right looks like anymore.

Good Man Grace - tough love that won't take no for an answer. Empty promises to be there for you that crumble to dust as soon as you ask for help. You could be better than you are if only someone would tell you how, but nobody will. You'll never be on your own, but you're always alone.

Old Witch Sleep - comforting, cajoling, calamitous decisions masked behind gentle persuasions. Burying your head in the sand, only to choke on the grains that fill your eyes and cling to your tongue. You can rest now. You don't need to worry about anything. You never will again.

[jujutsukgojo]

From The Tree

satoru gojo x reader

summary:

“Satoru?”    

He's taller and broader now. His eyes are covered, and his voice is deeper. He wears a crown on his head and wears luxurious clothes. The fae king's ears are still pointed as ever and his face is still, and probably always will be, perfection. 

He lowers the cover over his eyes. If you were crazy, you’d swear you see longing in those bright eyes of his. 

a/n: quick write and loosely based on the folk of the air series by holly black!

tw: bullying, toxic, prejudice because reader is human, violence, idk what else

Sew the heart onto that, tie it off, and let it be. If it falls, then-    

Your thoughts are interrupted by the ever-so-wonderful trio of idiots. One pulls your hair, making you look up. Shoko looks down at you with a curious gleam in her eye as she inspects your mortal hair with disgust. Her piercing gaze then goes to the blanket you decided to make.  

“Is this work worth anything?” she drops her interest in your hair and picks up your project with two of her fingers. It is a blanket with a heart sewn on it. Admittedly, it isn’t much to look at. However, you worked hard on it, so you are of course proud.   

“It’s worth something to me.”  You snatch it back and frown when you see the stain from her rolled cigarette, she left on it. She may be popular and influential in this mystical hell, but damn her hands are dirty. No one would expect people that are so beautiful to be that way.     

On your right, is Geto. A tall, handsome, intelligent faerie with a slick silver tongue. Although he comes off to you at times kind, you never forget to look deeper and see the slight smile on his face whenever he sees something entertaining; it usually is a wicked thing too. The longer you are here for, the more you understand that he has a face of a liar, even if he can't lie.

  Like now, he looks so concerned and soft. But you see how he likes how this is unfolding. As you both look into each other’s eyes, you know what is about to happen next. The third idiot to complete the trio. 

The strongest faerie of them all and future king, and a total pain in your ass, Satoru Gojo, appears. He crouches down to your sitting level. With a scowl, he picks up your blanket again and tears it. “I knew mortals were sloppy but God, that was extreme.”    

“Why did you do that?” You yell as you pick up the shredded fabric. He tore it to pieces that you don’t think can be salvaged. You’ve worked hard on this. Just for an asshole to ruin it for no reason.    

“You should be glad I helped you. It is much more lavish now compared to whatever you were doing.”    

  Those around you laughed. He squatted to your level again. Before you could say anything, he cups your cheeks with one large hand. “Thank me, human.”   

  Human. Mortal. Things they never fail to rub in your face. Well, you know what? You are proud of being human. Living a long time that will inevitably turn boring is worse than a short life of fun. Having new adventures, love no matter how or why, living fast, or maybe just taking it slow. Either way, a thousand or so years of seeing the same old things time and time again must suck.   

  And dealing with him and his minions sucks, too. No matter how beautiful they are.    

Satoru Gojo, and his magical eyes that see all. Topped with white, fluffy hair, a perfect nose, and the longest lashes you’ve ever seen. Full, pink, perfectly smooth lips and a chiseled chin to match. Not to forget the pointed ears that declare him a faerie.     

  They are all so beautiful. And they always make sure that you know that you pale in comparison. You're tired of their perfection. Of his. It is only right for you to dirty it.    

You spit in his face, much to his surprise. Everyone around you is shocked and waits for their future king to kill you. Although you don’t fully regret it right now, you’re starting to wonder if that was the best call.   

Instead of lashing out, he wipes his face and caresses your cheek gently. No one is breathing. No one moves, either.    

He says nothing as he holds your chin and smiles with closed eyes. Satoru walks away. That's it. He just walks away.    

Utahime, someone who doesn’t hang out with Satoru and Geto a lot, and never treated you unnecessarily unkind, whispers, “What the hell did you just do?”    

 You try to hide your shaking with a nonchalant look. You tuck your hands underneath some of the tattered fabric to cover how sweaty they are. His friends walk away in his direction. Whatever happens next, is probably going to be extremely painful.   

--

Since then, you’ve been on high alert. You’re probably the only one that would ever spit in his face. You are the only idiot in the entire kingdom. Finally, after a week of hiding, you go out of your house which is in a large tree trunk surrounded by flowers and a garden of mortal fruit and vegetables.

 It has been days since the incident, you think. Surely, he has calmed down some. Yes, you spit in his face in front of everyone. Yep, you’re going to die.    

  “Okay, I'll just go and get a few things then I’ll go back home.” Right, right. Although he is a vicious and cruel bastard, he still has an image to keep. He can’t get away with killing or maiming. At least not yet.   

   Right as your foot touches the ground, you hear a disturbing laugh. Gasping, you spot Satoru right in front of you. “I have been meaning to talk to you.”    

  You don’t have a weapon. Not a single scrap of silver on you. “Satoru-”   

“You dare call me so informally?” He cocks his head to the side.    

“It’s hard not to. I have known you my whole life.” Ever since you accidentally wandered off in the seemingly small forest when you were young.     

There was a tree that had red lines on the trunk and strange roots above the ground. They were such a pretty color that you had to touch them. When you did, you must have unlocked it because the tree opened up and swallowed you in.   

   How were you supposed to know that it was a gate to a world that hides in plain sight? Like a door, it opened and shut. It reminds you so much of that book about a wardrobe you used to read as a child.

  That’s when you met him. You landed right in front of Satoru. He was wide-eyed and curious about the girl with round ears and clothes that couldn’t be made by someone like him. They were much too drab. Ever since then, he has been relentless towards you.     

   And you do not know why. The saving grace is that he hasn’t really done anything major.    

“I am a prince. The sole heir to the throne of this kingdom. You may not be anything but dirt, however, you are on my land. You will abide by my rules and glory.”   

“You’re just a prince. This land isn’t yours.” You snap. Satoru looks appalled. 

  He growls and clenches his fists. He then raises his hand and points his finger. A swirl of red gathers around the tip of it. Unfortunately, as a royal, he is given extremely special abilities. He is the strongest fae. Maybe, the strongest that there has ever been.    

Never has he attacked you with it. “Gojo!”    

You try to snap him out of it. If he launches that, you won’t be able to dodge. “Satoru, stop!”   

Brilliant, and angry red runs toward you with devastating speed. The prince of the fae stands tall. His blue eyes that see all are terrifying now. No longer are they annoying and full of arrogance. Now, they are monstrous and evil. Beads that have given a creature too much power.   

   Somehow, it misses you. Not all of it, but enough that it grazes you. Still, your side is hit, and the force pushes you back. You feel your body bounce from the ground and every stick that is in your way. Once you’ve stopped rolling from the impact, you shake from pain.   

  “Ha! You actually dodged! Maybe humans are-” You hear him stop talking. He stands next to your battered form. Tears prick your eyes as you try to push yourself up. It hurts too bad! There is a brutal fight between your pride to stand and the agonizing pain you're experiencing that makes it too hard to even lift yourself up like that.    

  All this, and it didn’t even hit you fully. Can anyone imagine what would happen if you did touch the void?   

   You sob as you try to move some more.     

“Ant? I-I knew you’d dodge but you're hurt-” He sounds confused and shocked. His hand is gentle on your back. Upon contact you try to swipe him away, crying. “Get away from me, you monster!”    

  Possibly minutes later, you are slowly, and carefully, lifted into his arms. Compared to you, he is okay. Gojo does not a scratch on him. Not a white hair out of place or a hint of exhaustion. As he carries you with ease, you finally begin to notice the difference between you and him. For years he has rubbed your mortality in your face. How powerless you are, how weak and weird you look. While the fae are exceptionally beautiful, you are just you.   

   You remember how it was when you first arrived. How they looked at you, how he teased you and tugged on your hair and ears. Back then, you just wanted to go home. His father ‘invited’ you to the castle to figure out how to get you home so something like you wouldn’t have to remain in the realm. In the meantime, you were with the prince and subjected to his ridicule and curiosity.   

  And now, you’re here in the arms of someone who you reluctantly grew up with. He almost killed you. Never had he even threatened this. It was always pulling, tugging, and teasing you for being human.   

You really are an ant compared to him. He was right about that.    

 You finally open your eyes and see that the two of you are deeper in the woods. It is a blurry sight from watery eyes, but it is undeniable. The sweet smell that is unique to this realm gives it away anyway.    

  The fae says something in a low tone. Still, you can’t look at him. You can’t bear to. With one hard blink, you see a familiar tree with red and weird roots. You gasp at the sight. When you arrived here, that was the last you saw of the tree. No one could find it. Has he known where it was this whole time? Ah, right. The Six Eyes. The power to see all. Of course, he could find it. How long has he known where it was?

 Wait, what is he doing?    

 “I am so sorry for hurting you. I knew you could dodge it. I just didn’t expect you to get hurt...or to be so scared. I thought you’d be humbled, not broken. You’re just so strong, I wanted to prove I was stronger. But not like this.” He apologizes again.   

  “What are you doing?” He touches the root. “W-wait! I can’t go back! I don’t know anything about it anymore!”   

“You’re safer there.”   

 “This is my home!”   

 He lays you down in time for the tree to open. You cling onto his arm.  Before you are pulled away, he leans down and tells you his true name. The prince, the future king, told you his most sacred secret. “My only. It remains with you.”   

  You scream as you are taken away. You get to look at him for what may be the last time. He's on his knees, with a bright and shiny tear in his legendary eye. He watches you as you leave.    

--

  Ten years have passed since you arrived at the place you should call home, and not give that title to the land of magic, power, and mystery. Ten years of you being with your own kind and unhappy. There are beautiful people here, inside and out, but it’s not home. You have been with the fae since you were a little kid and have gotten used to the wonders of them and their land. The tricks and riddles, enchanted trees, parties, abundant stars, two moons that on certain days would form into one big moon that is said to be a blessed day.   

 Everything here is bland compared to that.   

 Sighing, you try to push the land of wonder and its inhabitants out of your mind. It has been a decade since you healed. Years have passed for you to try to understand. Yes, you spit on him. But for so long you and the prince had argued, yet he never used his infamous power. And as you were sucked away, he cried. The future king told you his true name. Something that the fae never reveal. You don't know what is going on in Satoru Gojo's head, no one does, and probably never will.

   Even though you are separated from your old home, some of your habits have not been lost. You find yourself in a forest that is just off of your house, foraging. The smell is different here. Back there, back at home, it has a distinct sweet scent. 

  You feel the leaves on the ground. The bright green leaf feels silky against your fingertips. Too silky and smooth. You turn it over and see that there are no ridges or stems. The leaf has an iridescent quality to it when you move it around. Curious of the pretty leaf, you smell it.     

“Sweet...?” As you do, the air turns dense. You feel something tug on you. Finally, you land on your back. Almost as if you had just innocently tripped and nothing pulled you.   

Sweet.    

You get up and see the beautiful tree with red lines and weird roots in front of you. “Wait,”    

You look around and notice the difference. The sky is bluer, and the weather is perfect, the small forest animals' coats are different and look a lot more groomed. They look perfect.

“I’m h-”   

“What are you doing here?” A voice asks from behind you. You scramble to stand and face the owner. “I fell-”    

You stop and stare at the tall man. “Satoru?”    

He's taller and broader now. His eyes are covered, and his voice is deeper. He wears a crown on his head and wears luxurious clothes. The fae king's ears are still pointed as ever and his face is still, and probably always will be, the epitome of perfection. 

He lowers the cover over his eyes. If you were crazy, you’d swear you see longing in those bright eyes of his. 

[rosiesdisneydrama]

Witch Way Next? CH1: Stanley's No Good, Very Bad Night

Ao3 Link

Stanley and Stanford haven’t seen each other in over a decade. No letters, no postcards, no (direct) phone calls, nothing had connected them over those ten years. Stanford had become a scientist studying the strange and unusual in a tiny town in Oregon with the aid of his assistant and college roommate, Fiddleford. He was dedicated to making a scientific discovery that would change the world and often forgot to pull himself out long enough to talk to his own family. (He didn’t even know where his twin was, never mind how to contact him.) Stanley… Stanley became a witch. A “Handyman for Hire” who traveled all over the country for his work. It wasn’t a glamorous lifestyle, but it was a comfortable one. Neither of them expected to run into each other again. And certainly not because of Stan having the worst stroke of luck possible.

AN : Hey all! I've been playing with an au where Stan became a witch during his vagabond days and everything went off the rails because of it. And, at first, it's not even intentional on Stan's part. XD

Originally, the twins were supposed to run into each other by chance due to Stan being hired to do something in Gravity Falls but when I decided to start writing the story, it decided that wasn't the way things were going to play out. So now this AU is starting with Stanley having the worst night ever and ending up in a hospital! (Sorry Stan.)

Enjoy! Also, heads up, there's some swearing in here.

.

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Stanley clutched his lighter like it was a lifeline. And, right then, it was.

The flames he was conjuring from it were the only thing between him and the two Rippers who were itching to live up to their names by ripping him apart. His chest was heaving from the amount of magic and running he'd been using to get away from them.

But they were fucking Rippers. Creatures of dust and darkness! They didn't get tired, so the only thing the chase had done was wear him out. This was not what he signed up for when he was asked to come to New Mexico to take a look at something weird going on. Some “strange animal attacks” by the woods that didn't look right.

The magic folks thought it might have been some loose beast or a mystic guard animal that wasn't leashed right. At least, that was what his client had thought it was.

“Nothing too worrying,” the guy insisted when he’d hired Stan over the phone the previous week to come take a look around. “The humans think it's a couple of coyotes. I’m pretty sure they’re wrong, though. I just want a clearer picture so I can call in a professional to handle it.”

“Animal Attacks” his ass.

Ripper attacks were nothing to make jokes about. He’d never seen one firsthand, but Pops had made sure to cover them so Stanley would know when it would be smarter to get the hell out of dodge instead of sticking around.

Honestly, Pop's descriptions hadn't held a candle to the real things, now that he’d finally had the chance to see them himself.

They were tall and human-shaped, but there was something wrong with them. And the pitch-dark forest and light from the half-moon above certainly wasn’t making them look any better.

Their limbs were too long and thin, their skin stretched taut over their bones with hands and feet a sickening black and tipped in claws like wild animals. Their snarling mouths were rimmed in the same black as their hands and feet and opened just enough to show jagged-looking fangs. Fangs that looked like someone tried to make teeth out of a bunch of obsidian daggers and stuffed them into a human-sized mouth that couldn’t quite fit them. He could barely see their sunken, hollow eyes glowing a faint sickly yellow in the dark from between the trees. Tattered clothing hung off of their too-thin frames and matted hair draped around their faces, they looked like corpses that were somewhere between the stages of “newly dead” and “risen zombie”.

And they were up and moving in the dark forest, where it would have been near impossible to see them until it was too late. Or if, like Stanley, they had gone there specifically looking for something strange and unusual in the forest.

He’d gone out to gather some evidence during the night since some beasts would only come out at night and he’d been trying to figure out what it may have been.

The client had said it wasn’t a big deal and he’d believed them and hadn’t been ready for anything big. He’d expected something small, something relatively easy for him to handle. Or at least identify for someone else to take care of.

But no it had to be fucking Rippers!

A lone handyman like him wasn’t enough for a single Ripper, never mind two of the damn things! That was a six-man job at the very least! But he’d made the mistake of going off on his own. Admittedly because he hadn’t had enough information at the start but still. (Of all the nights to forget his knife in his duffle instead of strapping it to his belt.)

Clearing them out was beyond his skill range. It just wasn’t possible for him to pull it off alone.

Stan gritted his teeth through his exhaustion, the flames at his fingertips flickering weaker for just a moment. He was running out of steam and he knew it. The damn things had been running him ragged, and the pitch-dark forest wasn’t helping either. He had no idea how close or far he was from town, or if he could find some miraculous way to lose them while he tried to figure it out.

(Damn it, he was already running on fumes thanks to Rico’s bullshit about Stan “owing” him. He’d barely managed to ditch the bastard’s lackeys before he’d gotten this call. Stan didn’t owe him shit, he just wanted a witch under his thumb.)

He didn't know how long it was until sunrise would show up and save his sorry ass. It was probably the only way he’d be getting out of this alive. He just had to hold on until then. Just until the sun came up.

A bitter part of him whispered that he probably wasn't going to make it out of this one.

But, if by some miracle he did survive, he was demanding double- no triple pay from the guy. And extra for the medicine he’d be using to patch himself up. Most of the shots he’d taken so far were minor (or he hoped they were minor) but he doubted his luck would hold for much longer.

If he didn't make it then, at the very least, he was going to take one of these bastards down with him. He wasn’t planning on going down without putting up one hell of a fight.

There was a rattling hiss and one of the Rippers vanished.

Shit.

Stanley wasn't able to get the makeshift barrier of flames up fast enough to stop the attack from hitting home.

In the span of a blink, the creature was in his face, snarling and hissing.

He screamed as a warped hand of blackened claws raked down the side of his face and neck, blood splattering on the ground. He stumbled back from the sudden, blinding pain radiating from the wounds.

(Was it deep? He didn't know and there was no time to figure it out.)

The second Ripper surged after the first, successfully sinking its teeth and claws into his arm, ripping a hole through his clothes and ripping out a chunk of skin and muscle when he wrenched free on reflex. 

Fire roared from the lighter clutched in his hand, roiling around him in a wicked tornado of light and heat. Scorching the two horrid things and driving them back enough for Stanley to gasp out a spell to strengthen the blaze and push them further away. But with the dangerous side effect of near-blinding him after his mad dash through the black forest around him.

His heart hammered in his ears and he squinted desperately through the flames to keep watch on the rippers. The two vile things screeched and charged again and Stanley threw himself blindly from their path, once again desperately trying to lose them.

(Distance. Distance. He needed to get some distance between them and him. And find someplace where he could properly see to fight back.)

He’d nearly slammed into a tree in the effort, stumbling over a tree root. By some miracle, trying to keep from breaking his nose on the trunk also managed to let him evade the claws of one of the rippers.

His hair still stood on end at how close they came.

Adrenaline turned the fight into a blurry haze, after that.

A whirlwind of claws and fire and increasingly desperate blasts of magic. Stanley threw everything he had in his (too small) inventory at them, but it was far from enough to keep himself safe from harm.

Even if, by some stroke of good fortune, he’d found his way to the far, abandoned edges of town. But now he was being backed against empty buildings where no one would hear him if he screamed for help.

No, he was still on his own. With the promise of help being dangled in front of him, just out of his reach.

Claws and fangs ripped at his arms, his legs, and his back. He could barely stand from the damage he was taking. There was a serious new slice over his stomach that was agony but he forced himself to ignore it. The only things keeping him upright and moving were the potent mixture of stubbornness, spite, and adrenaline. (And some terror.) All he could do was power through the pain he was in to survive.

(But he was still losing. He wouldn't make it to sunrise. He would never see the people who'd changed his life again. He’d never see his family, his brothers, his Ma, ever again.)

Sunken, glowing eyes glared into Stanley's as one of the Rippers got past his guard again, seizing his face in a painfully tight grip. He didn’t have a chance to do more than gasp in pain from the sudden pressure on the gashes that had been carved in his face before the thing smashed his head against the brick wall behind him.

His world went dark and he never felt himself hit the ground.

(He didn't know that, at that moment, a group of Hunters arrived on the scene after hearing his initial scream, following the blind flames like they were flares. They saved him from the Rippers that had been terrorizing the area and the reason he’d been hired in the first place, though he hadn’t known it when he’d first come.)

(He didn't know that one of them had called an ambulance for him. Claiming that they'd found another “Animal Attack” victim and saved his life in the process. Thanks to them, he survived the attack. And that had been more than he’d thought he’d manage that night.)

(He was on the fence about everything that unfolded afterward.)

[thedawnwitch]

To Hell And Back: My Experience with Hekate

I was a Hekate devotee for 6 months. Those 6 months changed my life.

The Dark Mother was in my life from June 1st, 2023 to December 31st, 2023. She led me through enormous transitions, major life decisions, and the darkest night of the soul I've experienced yet. She was my guiding light through it all.

When She Calls

She came to me very directly. I had 3 dreams 3 nights in a row along with many signs in my waking life. In the first dream, I was looking at a drawing of a black cloaked figure with someone else. They were talking about Hekate, and I could feel immense power coming from the drawing.

I found a stick shaped like a key in the second dream. Later that day in waking life, I went to the mall and saw a store surrounded by torches with black dog statues. She had my attention.

That night before I fell asleep, I asked Hecate what type of relationship She wanted to have with me. She answered. In the third dream, I was given a magical wishing well. I was tasked with the mission to go into the wishing well. I jumped down and was overwhelmed. There was an entire other world! I saw tall, huge trees lit by the full moon. I was afraid, but I overcame my fear and found courage to continue. I heard “You are here to spread love and light. Just by being you. That is why you’re here. That is your purpose.”

When I woke up, I knew there was work to be done with this goddess.

Devotion Through Transitions

Our work began quickly. Hekate Lampadios lighted my way from being a travel nurse to moving to Colorado and finding stability. I took a staff nurse position at a great hospital that I was already working as a travel nurse at. My husband and I packed our things and moved across the country.

One day when I was doing a mundane task, the idea fell into my mind to go back to school to become a Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner. I was shocked at the idea and felt fear. What if I'm not good enough? Don't I have enough problems of my own that I need to work through? She answered those questions in due time.

She reignited my love for my practice. I explored all kinds of folk magic -- English, Welsh, Celtic, Appalachian. I also investigated my ancestry searching for any fulfilling connections. I worked with herbs, picked up scrying, and overall honed my craft.

The Dark Mother's Initiation

After I moved to Colorado and began adjusting to my staff job, She asked me to dig deeper. The deeper I researched into witchcraft, the deeper I committed to my practice and to Her. I was all in. She led me to a witchcraft initiation from the deep South where my roots are. For 10 days, I arose at sunrise and recommitted myself to my practice and Her at a local park. I completed the initiation. I was about to be taught extremely important lessons that will affect me for the rest of my life.

Journey Through The Underworld

Hekate challenged my deeply embedded subconscious fear-based Christian worldview in a way that had never been done before. She led me to demonolatry. I came face to face with remnants of the brainwashing I faced from being raised a fundamentalist Christian. The tendrils of these beliefs dug into my psyche and told me all kinds of nasty lies. I faced my fear, trusted Hekate, and ventured forth into uncharted territory.

After a month of dancing with "devils," all communication dwindled until it eventually ceased. Even from Hekate.

I was distraught. The logical part of my mind reasoned that if the presences I was feeling and the voices I were hearing were real, they wouldn't just vanish. So, I came to the conclusion that it must be spiritual psychosis. I made it all up. All of it. My entire spirituality was a stress response. As if that wasn't hard enough, I was hit with a mysterious illness two weeks later. I had COVID-like symptoms but never tested positive for it. I had difficulty breathing, was bed ridden, and spent a lot of time in doctor's offices trying to figure out what was wrong. I took 3 months of medical leave from work.

This led me to have a nervous breakdown and seek out a psychiatric evaluation.

Hekate Deichteira (Teacher)

As my body began to recover from the mysterious illness that no test detected, I found answers for a different piece of my life. The psychiatric eval showed no signs of schizophrenia. The conclusion was psychosis induced by extreme stress and PTSD. I was referred to a psychiatrist for medication management.

After finding a combination of medications to control my anxiety, I began to realize just how much anxiety I was living with on a daily basis. I stabilized and put my spiritual practice out of my mind for the time being. I regained function that I hadn't experienced ever in my life. I can now be social, have energy for daily chores, and feel positive and confident. Getting this medication has changed my life completely for the better, and I feel like I can be the best version of myself.

As I was going to my psych appointments, I got to know my provider -- a Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner. We've had several conversations about spirituality and how she believes that everything I experienced was real. She helped me restore faith in my spiritual practice and pick up the pieces to build something new. I told her about how I was interested in being a Psych NP, and she's helping me find clinical placements while I'm in school. I'm also on the waiting list for EMDR therapy.

Final Thoughts

If Hekate comes into your life, be prepared for your life to change.

I still have no idea what I got sick with after my initiation, but I've read about other people getting unknown illnesses after initiations, awakenings, or other spiritually significant events.

After all of this, I am a new person. I have more gratitude for each day and rebuilding my strength. I have new definitions for what a "bad" day is. The spirits I worked with in the past are slowly making a new, stronger connection with me. It's as if I'm being taken more seriously after this time period.

I love Hekate and all She has taught me during my time with Her. My spiritual practice is now wholly mine, and I fear no demon, hell, or spirit. I am more stable than I have ever been. She will always be here to guide me to a better future no matter the cost. What she has given me is priceless. I am reborn. She has returned me to Aphrodite who has watched over me since birth. I am home now.

Always respect the Dark Mother.

Hail Hekate.

[viviseawrites]

wishing the happiest of (slightly belated) birthdays to @paradimeshifts7!

each evening's darkening

rated E | 11k words | stevie harrington enters the forest to barter with a witch for a cure. she comes out with much more. wlw steddie.

excerpt:

Stevie Harrington knows better than to enter the woods. She’s lived in town all her life, after all, and the people of Hawkins have long claimed that something ominous haunts the land beyond the tree line. It used to be that young men dared each other to spend a night beneath those boughs to prove their courage, but too many never returned, and now folks respect the wishes of the forest.

If it weren’t her last resort, Stevie would not be here. She should be tucked away in bed at home, settling in for the night. Instead, she’s standing at the spot where prairie grasses give way to tall trunks, peering into the shadows. She shifts her weight between her feet, eyes searching for any sign of danger, before she swallows and steels herself. Her shoulders roll back under the straps of her rucksack as she nods firmly, just once, and makes the stupidest decision of her life so far.

The temperature drops beneath the trees. Her feet, clad in thick wool socks and worn boots, sink into the damp mulch of leaf litter and decay, kicking up a musty scent that tickles the back of her throat. “This better fucking be worth it,” she huffs, pointedly keeping her gaze directed straight ahead.

Robin told her not to do this. She begged and pleaded and threatened and promised to help find another solution. After all that, Stevie barely believes she managed to convince Robin that she would wait for her. Stevie half-expected to find her sleeping on the doorstep just in case Stevie tried it anyway.

But it’s better this way. Either Stevie succeeds or she fails, but no one else suffers, whatever the outcome.

After a few minutes, she’s learned not to look when she thinks she sees movement out of the corner of her eye. She chalks it up to normal animals—squirrels, foxes, rabbits, and the like—because there’s no point in considering anything more dangerous, not if she intends to see this through. Instead, she preoccupies herself by repeating what Dustin had told her at the start of all this, again and again, intent on remembering every detail.

“Not all witches are evil, Stevie! I swear on my mother,” Dustin had insisted. “I read something about witches that used to help people instead, and it said the witch of Mirkwood was one of them until something really bad happened.”

“So what happened?”

Dustin had folded under Stevie’s unimpressed raised eyebrow. “Well, no one is really sure.”

“Even if that were true, Dustin, how would I find her?”

“The book says only those in need may find the path,” Dustin had said. Despite further prodding and bickering, he recalled no other details. Honestly, Stevie nearly gave up on the idea right then and there. It was far-fetched and unlikely to yield results; it still is. But at least she exhausted every other option before resigning herself to this.

Only those in need may find the path. Stevie figures the desperation bubbling under her sternum lends credence to the necessity of this cursed trip.

She just hopes that Dustin and Robin forgive her if everything goes wrong.

A low, grumbling kind of snarl splits the muffled night air. Stevie flinches, whipping her head up to look for the threat, and immediately pitches forward over a raised root. Displaced air ruffles her hair and her ankle rolls under her until a yelp breaks from her lips, but she manages to catch herself against the rough bark of a thick oak. The silence that follows weighs heavy on her trembling shoulders. Gone are the weird shuffling noises and hair-raising growls; instead, silence descends around her. Even the owls have gone quiet.

Stevie presses her back up against the oak and stares out into the dark. Despite the glowing moon she spotted before entering Mirkwood, no light pierces the canopy here. She does manage to spot a branch on the ground a few feet away, though, amongst a patch of clover, and she scrambles to pick it up, wielding it like a club as she waits for an attack that never comes.

Her heartbeat drums loudly in her ears. Her fingers cramp around the makeshift weapon, held at the ready even as the normal sounds of the forest filter back in. Whatever she encountered, it appears to have moved on, but her nerves refuse to calm.

When the voice comes, Stevie acts in a way she’s not proud of. “You know,” someone says behind her—the words cut off as Stevie screams and whirls around, sweeping her branch through the air only to find nothing waiting. A shudder wracks her arms and spills down her spine.

Witch, her mind hisses.

“Well, that was rude,” the voice says blandly, coming from overhead this time. Stevie looks up searchingly to no avail. “I was just going to compliment you on dodging the demodog. It almost looked purposeful when you tripped. Very graceful.”

read the rest on ao3

[lordgrimwing]

How Elrond Saw Celebrian

(and fell madly in love)

Elrond sat securely on the bough of a great tree, nestled comfortably in its leaves. He held a fresh raspberry in his hands, juice spread across his sticky face. Yes, he held a single raspberry and it took both his hands to do it, for he was very small. So small, in fact, that on particularly unfortunate days, a strong gust of wind could pick him up and carry him away, leaving him stranded far from the lovely trees and mushrooms he and the other tiny fae critters called home. Blown far away, he spent hours—days even!—bumbling his way through the forest, up and down all the little swells and falls in the rich loam, stopping to bounce on the new mushrooms, until he eventually found his way home. It was a lot of work, being tiny.

Elrond, of course, did not see himself as small. The fae were perfectly sized; the rest of the world, particularly the speaking races that made such hubbub and noise, was just very large. Those big folk weren’t considerate when they came traipsing through the forest with their horses and wagons and pounding feet, so the fae kept their distance and hid at the first sound of them, ducking under mushrooms or inside trees, and muttering and grumbling about how ‘didn’t that just ruin a perfectly wonderful afternoon’ and ‘now all the berries will be gone’.

Most of them did, anyway. He wasn’t quite sure why everyone insisted on griping. He only hid because that’s what everyone else did—and wouldn’t it be so strange if he was the only one out and about? He’d never met one of the big folk himself, but he figured they couldn’t be much worse than that one mouse who climbed into his freshly made mushroom home and insisted on raising a whole litter of babies there with him. The baby mice were quite cute and he’d hold one on his lap until they got too big and ate the mushroom. Even if they were just like those mice, he fancied he’d like to meet one someday, maybe talk to them if he felt very brave.

But there was always time later for ‘someday’, so when the cry came up that big folk were approaching, he joined the mad dash for the closest shelter. Stuffing the raspberry into his mouth, he tumbled from the bough. He bounced off two of the orange mushrooms growing in a spiral around the tree before landing on the ground. 

He landed a little harder than he expected. He still hadn’t quite figured out how to estimate things like that and everyone else made it look so easy. Juice dribbled from between his lips, his mouth too full to close and the impact causing most of the fruit’s drupelets to burst. Shaking off the fall, he ran for the nearest unoccupied bell-shaped mushroom cap. His arms pumped furiously as he crossed the distance and he giggled a little with excitement.

He dove under cover. He had just enough time to twist around and peek under the frilly cap, the spore gills tickling his hair, before the big folk came into view. He caught his breath, choking down the berry so he wouldn’t be distracted by the sweet juice as he watched.

Huge horses came first, their hooves thudding into the ground so hard it made his teeth chatter and his head shake as they cleared hundreds of his own steps in just a single, elegant stride. Elves accompanied the horses, some riding and most walking by them, easily keeping pace. 

He gasped quietly in excitement, gripping the mushroom with his sticky hands. They stood so unbelievably tall, always graceful despite their height, with long hair pale like artemisia or dark as the inside of a rabbit’s den or bright as solidago in summer. Their voices rang clear and deep, though not nearly so deep as the men or dwarves he’d seen. He thought, if he were brave enough, he might like to sit out on a log or a sun-warmed stone and listen to such voices for hours on end. Of all the big folk, he loved seeing elves the most.

He watched them draw near, the ground vibrating as they came nearer and nearer, closer than they’d ever come before. This was too exciting, and he gave a little dance where he hid. 

Two horses passed and on them rode two elf-ladies. One had light hair held back from her face by a band of woven metal. Her eyes twinkled with light, like sunlight in the thousand droplets of dew on the spider’s web in the morning. She rode with a straight back, her head high, and she had an air of awe and might to her, unlike any creature he’d ever seen. A green stone glittered on her chest. When her gaze moved slightly in his direction, he trembled with fear, clutching the mushroom cap tighter and wishing he’d tucked himself away somewhere stronger, like the old woodpecker nest he’d found the other day.

Elrond might have looked away then, thinking tiny and invisible thoughts in hopes that she would not notice him, had he not seen her companion.

She did not ride so tall upon her horse, her back and shoulders loose and relaxed as though sitting atop the massive animal was as natural to her as breathing. Her hair tumbled down her back like running water, yet pale as ice crystals on the sides of the streams in winter. Her face reflected the soft light filtering down through the green leaves of the trees, and her smile glowed brightest of all. The sight of her made him forget his terror of the first.

“My mind is made up, mother. You shall not change it,” she said, and oh how her voice made the birds’ calls and the insects’ songs hollow and tuneless in comparison. Her voice alone might command his heart to beat and his lungs to fill with air. He flopped to the ground, falling out from under the mushroom’s cover, careless of if any elves took note of him, wishing only to see her more clearly, to be slightly closer to her as she passed.

“Your father is awaiting our arrival in Lórien. He will be deeply grieved at your absence after so many years apart,” the Great Lady murmured, her voice deep and rich like heavy loam at the start of a thunderstorm. “He misses you greatly.”

His Lady’s face fell, her mouth curving down and her eyes hooding. It made him ache, filled him with such grief that he desired to cry out for her but still dared not bring open attention upon himself. She breathed deeply and looked up again. “I know, and he will be welcomed in Imladris whenever he wishes to see me—all will be welcomed in Imladris,” she said with conviction that could make the very earth bow to her will and reshape itself to her need.

Her mother’s lips thinned and she said more to her, but he could not hear for they passed on and other elves took their place, murmuring in conversation loud enough to block the only voice he wanted to hear again. His Lady had gone away from his sight and the twisting of life was such that he might never hear her again.

Elrond collapsed against the ground, his face falling into the moist soil. He cared not now what the others might think of him revealing himself when he ought to have stayed safely hidden. He cared not if the elves took note of him and carried him away as a treasure like the storytellers said they might, nor even if some other of the big folk came along and spied him and trod on him or poked at him with pointy sticks. His entire life felt now shaded as by a malicious tree. Whither he went and whence he came, all he did now would be dampened and dulled by Her absence. Even the residue of the berry on his tongue tasted of decay and felt of stream silt. He lay there for some unknown time—what meant time now but the eternity stretching on without Her? 

“Elrond,” someone said as they poked at his side, exasperated. “They’re gone. You can stop playing dead.”

He lifted his tear-streaked face to look at the speaker, soil sticking to his wet skin. “Are you sure?” He asked, lower lip trembling and brows wrinkled together. Perhaps the elves would turn and come back. Perhaps the Great Lady forgot something she needed and she would turn the whole company around to retrieve it and he would see his Lady again.

The other crouched, reaching forward to wipe the dirt off his face. “Yes, Elrond,” she sighed. “It’s safe.”

He sat up slowly, sniffling and wiping his nose across his forearm, succeeding only in adding more soil to his face and smearing the snot from his weeping. “Okay.”

She shook her head, her poofy hair possessing the gall to bounce happily. She looked at him, eye-to-eye—how he desired now only to gaze up, up, up at the eyes of his Lady—then looked down at her hands and said, “If you get this scared about the big folk, you can always hide with me.”

He sniffled again and murmured a listless ‘okay’ before crawling back under the mushroom to hide from the static meaninglessness of the muted world around him.   

[thebomb-thebird-andtheburntbitch]

<<happy birthday to my beautiful beautiful man <3 / 1.3k words>>

just because it was kaeya's birthday didn't mean he got out of his duties. if it hadn't been for the hip tall force that was klee running into his legs when he walked into the knights headquarters, he wouldn't even have remembered.

kaeya hardly ever remembered his birthday on a good year, and this year was no different. waking up to go to work, deciding on skipping paperwork or taking a patrol, or playing a game of hooky to lounge on the walls of mondstadt for the familiar, cool breeze of the lake- that was kaeya's norm. days would blur together in his off and on game of life- so, only when the air turns cooler and breeze pricks his exposed chest does he realize the year is about to restart.

still, among those small earthly reminders, his birthday never springs to mind. it was only from those around him that bring the memory of the day of his birth to mind- although it's always a bittersweet moment of realization for him.

one good thing that came about his birthday is that even if he can't get out of work, it always seems to be easier. the paperwork lessens a bit. his patrols are longer and more peaceful routes than the usual hilicurl infested paths. his getaway path to the nearest wall where he always climbs up to the top was less guarded (suspicious since he swore he was always careful when he snuck out of his office). in fact- unless it was to come back and give him a quick congratulations for aging yet another year- folks would mostly leave him alone while he sat at his desk.

sure when he went out, the folks would flock him occasionally- since it seemed all of mondstadt kept better track of his birthday than him.

now, he sits behind his desk scribbling away with a pen that feels like its about to run out of ink. checking away on documents and making appropriate marks when needed and signing off in kind. the color of the sun was deep in a hue of orange kaeya loves- taking a moment to gaze out his window to the sinking sun below the walls of the city.

his pen drops gently to his desk while one of his elbows comes up to rest on the wooden top of it as his curled fingers rest under his chin to prop it up. he's tempted to open the window seeing the trees sway in the breeze he basks in.

his mind wandering was interruped by soft knocking on his office door. lifting his chin from his curled fist, he drops his arm so it joins the other to rest on any documentation yet to be finished. the knob twists down before he can even say 'come in' and a smile stretches his face since only a few people could do that without earning themselves a slight scolding.

"my, my," he chuckles when you pop your head in the small crack you make in his door. seeing your cheeky expression makes his own mimic it.

"you busy?" you ask and the tone of your voice seems excited. kaeya fully sets his pen away from his papers so no ink would smear out of it's tip before leaning comfortably back in his chair.

"never too much for you." your eye roll does nothing to diminish the smile on your face. sauntering into the room through the crack you made in the doorway, you push the door shut with your heel behind you with your hands hidden at your back. "hiding something i see."

"i might have a little something." shuffling up to his desk, you start to move your arms, but stop. "shut your eyes," you said.

"you're not going to put a handful of bugs on my desk i hope."

"of course i'm not. just do it."

rolling his eyes playfully with an over dramatic huff, kaeya folds his hands over his stomach, leans his head back, and shuts his eyes. silently humming to himself, he hears rustling in front of him before the smell of floral hits his nostrils. his face relaxing at one of his favorite scents.

"no peeking until i say so."

"i would never."

"yes you would," you tease back. you were right of course, but he'd never nod along with it if it would keep you cheeky. a soft clank of something hard sets itself on his desk and he almost feels impatient. "okay," you speak gently, "you can look now."

lifting his eyelids, the first thing kaeya sees in the ever-familiar ceiling he mourns to in boredom almost daily. then, he slowly tilts his head back down and his face softens at the delicate bouquet sitting among his documents and stationery. you had moved his papers around to set an elegant vase of cala lilies in front of him. unconsciously one of his hands comes up to caress one of the pale buds.

"i would've gotten you something else, but im really bad at gifts," you tell him embarrassingly. "but at least i know your favorite flower."

you would've been nervous from his silence, but from the look in his eyes you knew better. he was finding his words, figuring out how to say the words he knows individually but not sure how to string them together to show how appreciative he is.

instead of the words he still can't articulate just yet, the arm that still rested on his lap lifts in a silent invitation for you to round his desk and come to his side. so, you do.

you slip your hand into his and his grip is firm as he tugs you closer to the arm of his chair so he can feel your body heat. with one hand gently lifting one flower before lowering it and going to another bud, the other begins tinkering with your fingers. his head leans on your arm as you stand next to him.

"thank you," are the words he can bring himself to say right at this moment.

"you're very welcome," you humor him. leaving him hanging would feel too cruel for such a tender moment. the golden light of the sun bouncing off the deep wood of his office only made the pale blue flowers in the crystal-clear vase shine brighter. "happy birthday, kaeya."

kaeya nods against your arm and you feel the heat on his face as he leans against it. you hold back a light felt giggle at him- it would also feel too cruel to tease him.

you stand next to him- at some point leaning to lounge on his desk chair instead- and gaze at the flowers and bask in the comfortable silence until the golden rays of sun had dipped below the walls. soon, the night would fully cover the sky.

the deep sigh kaeya lets out lets you know he's ready to finally move. ready to speak. ready to spend the rest of this day- or rather night- with you.

standing from his chair, and pulling you up in tow from where you lounged on the arm, he brushed his fingernails across the side of your neck until they skimmed over your shoulder and down your arms. basking in the way the light ticklish touch made you shift in small chuckles and had goosebumping following in his wake.

"i think they'd look even lovelier on my table at home, don't you?"

"then we better get them there safely."

by the time you both leave the headquarters and take to the stone streets of the city to find your way back to kaeya's home, the moon had begun its ascension to the sky in lieu of the sun. soon, that very moon would bring a very bittersweet end to another one of kaeya's birthdays.

the scent of flowers keeping all the bitterness at bay.

[slaymitchabernathy]

Don’t Delay Darling

The wind howls against the building walls of the apartment while Soarynn gazes out the window at the soaked Capitol streets.

"...and this is said to be one of the biggest storms in Capitol history folks! Not only is this affecting the Capitol, but also the Districts. Namely One, Three, Four and Seven. Stay inside and stay dry!"

"Thanks, Lucky," she mumbles, turning away from the window to look at the television screen. The Capitol's favorite weatherman is pointing at various points on the map of Panem where the storm will hit the most. She hadn't planned for rain, to be cooped up in the penthouse for possibly days on end.

And she certainly hadn't planned on her husband being gone on a business trip.

More thunder shakes the penthouse and the television screen flickers causing Soarynn to frown, could they lose power?

The sound of little footsteps runnign down the hall causes her to momentarily forget about the storm and Coriolanus who's hundreds of miles away right now and she looks over towards the hallway to find Ceraphina and Celeste in their pajamas with wide blue eyes full of fear and worry.

"Mommy, is the building gonna fall down?" Celeste asks, running over to grab Soarynn's hand, squeezing it so tight. Soarynn shakes her head, "No darling, we're perfectly safe inside. The building won't fall down because of the storm, you don't need to worry."

Ceraphina watches the television screen for a moment where a list is now being shown of supplies Capitol citizens should have ready in case they do experience a power outage. "Mommy, why do we need candles?"

Soarynn sighs, placing a hand on top of Celeste's head, "Because we might lose power from the storm. Let's go find some candles shall we?" They have a few decorative candles for when they have friends over for dinner, but Soarynn knows Coriolanus has some tucked away in case of an emergency.

Like another war.

Her husband is a good man, a loving father, and a devoted husband. He always thinks ahead, always thinks of the worst thing that could happen and for once, she's thankful for his doomsday planning. They haven't had a war in nearly a decade but Coriolanus remembers all too well the nights all Capitol citizens spent in the dark after bombings caused the power to go out.

"Is Daddy coming home tonight?"

Soarynn shakes her head at Ceraphina's question, "I don't think so darling. The weather is probably causing all sorts of delays with the train schedules. We'll have to call the resort to talk to him about it."

Soarynn and the girls make their way towards the back of the penthouse where they have several rooms for storage. It's mostly things for the holidays and extra linens but today she's in search of candles. "Is it time for Christmas?" Celeste asks when they step into the room and Soarynn turns on the light, putting the famous green tree on display.

Soarynn chuckles, "Not yet darling, we're looking for candles. Why don't you girls help me look, the box should be labeled I just don't know where your father put them." Giving the girls something to do proves to be rather useful in most cases and this is one of those cases because Ceraphina finds the box within. few minutes.

"I found it Mommy! It's up there!"

Soarnyn looks up to where she's pointing and frowns, of course, he'd put it on the highest shelf. Marrying a tall broad man has many, many perks, but Coriolanus doesn't always think about how most normal people can't reach as high as he can. "Figures," Soarynn mumbles, looking around for something to stand on, "I might need to get a chair so I can reach."

A few minutes later they have a chair, and a few seconds later, a box full of candles.

"Why do we need candles again, Mommy?"

Soarynn pulls out a few of the larger ones, deciding to put them in the children's bedrooms, "In case the power goes out," she explains, "none of the lights will work if the storm takes out the power."

Celeste and Ceraphina exchange nervous looks with one another, "Will they be able to fix the power?" Ceraphina asks hopefully, rocking back and forth on her heels. Soarynn bites her lip, wishing she could give a definite answer, "I don't know," she admits, "but let's hope it doesn't come to that."

They spend the next half hour running around the apartment setting up candles, the girls fussing over who gets to put what candle where but that's nothing new. "We should put one in your brother's room," Soarynn suggests, "although he can sleep through about anything."

Her statement is proven to be true when they find Caspian sound asleep in his little bed, not a care in the world about the raging storm outside his window. Petunia is curled up next to him, her tail flicking back and forth when she sees the rest of the family, "We have to be quiet," Soarynn whispers to the girls, quietly padding over to his bedside table.

The girls mimic her quiet steps and stop to give Petunia a few pets which she happily allows, purring from the attention. Soarynn glances at the clock on Caspian's bedside table, it's nearly eight o'clock and she still hasn't heard anything from Coriolanus. She should try and call one last time tonight before the storm really takes over.

"Do you girls want to have a sleepover?" She whispers, deciding it'll be for the best if they're all in the same room should they lose power. The girls gasp at such an exciting invitation, "Yes, yes," Celeste whispers, bouncing up and down on her toes, "can we bring our stuffed animals?"

Soarynn ushers them out of Caspian's room and closes the doors behind her before answering, "You certainly may. Go get your stuffed animals and meet me in my bedroom okay?" The girls take off towards their bedrooms and Soarynn goes to her husband's study to make a phone call.

The phone rings a few times before someone picks up, "District Four Ocean Resort, how may I help you?"

"Hello, my name is Soarynn Snow, I'm calling about my husband Coriolanus Snow. He's staying there on business and I was wondering if you could put me through to his room please?"

"Certainly ma'am. Do you know his room number?"

"Yes, he's staying in room 613."

"I'll put you through to him, please hold."

Soarynn sits back in his chair and twirls the phone cord around her finger, it's strange to be in his study without him also being in here, nursing a glass of whiskey while she sits on his lap in hopes of distracting him from work. She doesn't mind him going away on business, but she prefers him to be here, close to her at all times keeping her safe.

She often wonders if he thinks the same thing about her.

"Soarynn?"

She lets out a breath of relief when hearing the deep voice of her husband, "Darling, I was worried when you didn't call this morning."

Coriolanus sighs and she just knows that he's pinching the bridge of his nose, something he always does when a situation if out of his control. "I know, I kept trying to call but nothing was going through, apparently some of the phone lines were down and they just got them back up. I was just about to send a damn pigeon with a note tied to it's foot."

Soarynn cracks a smile at his persistence, Coriolanus Snow never backs down from a challenge, always finding a solution. "Well, I'm glad it hasn't come to that," she says, looking out the window to see it's raining sideways now, "how's the weather over there?"

"The rain isn't too bad, it's the ocean that worries me, the waves are so high. But we're far enough from the water, no need to worry."

Oh, but she does worry. Morning, noon, and night Soarynn worries for her husband when he's gone away on business.

"How are the children? Has the power gone out yet? Do you have enough food and water? Do I need to send someone over to check on you?"

Soarynn shakes her head even though he can't see her, "We're fine darling. The children are fine and so am I. We have candles and enough food and water to last us weeks. And you forgot to ask about Petunia by the way."

Coriolanus clears his throat, clearly caught, "Oh, well, yes, of course Petunia is my main concern darling. Anyway, if you need anything I can always have Festus come and check on you. Goodness knows he's not busy working."

"He's not working because his wife just had a baby," Soarynn reminds him, coming to her good friend's defense, "I recall you taking off time from work when I gave birth. Every. Single. Time."

"I was being a good husband darling," he defends, some teasing in his tone, "I didn't want you to lift a finger during or after your pregnancy." To his credit, she really didn't lift a finger when she was pregnant with any of their children, nor after giving birth to them.

Coriolanus might be stern but he's always had a soft spot for her and now, for their children. "Mhm. Well, the girls and I are having a sleepover tonight in our room, so your side of the bed will be taken over by their small army of stuffed animals."

Coriolanus chuckles and Soarynn smiles, "A sleepover hmm? I'm surprised Caspian isn't getting in on the action but I'll bet he's sleeping through all of this isn't he?"

"He is," she confirms, jumping when a loud clap of thunder shakes the windows, "I don't know how though, the storm is picking back up. Will you be able to come home soon?"

"I've been trying but everything is delayed," he groans, "I should be able to catch a train by tomorrow if everything works out. I can always call in a favor or two if needed."

Before Soarynn can answer, the door to his study is pushed all the way open and she's met with their girls clutching onto their stuffed animals, teary-eyed, "We...we thought you were gone," Celeste sniffles.

Soarynn immediately sets down the phone and opens her arms, gladly holding her sweet girls, "I'm right here my angels," she promises, placing kisses on their heads, "I'm sorry, I should've told you where I went. I'm on the phone with someone very special right now."

Ceraphina peeks up at her, a few tears rolling down her face, "Who're you talking to Mommy?"

Soarynn smiles and hands her the phone, "See for yourself."

Ceraphina hesitantly brings the phone up to her ear, "Hello? Daddy? Daddy! Oh, it's Daddy! Daddy, we miss you! We're having a sleepover with Mommy tonight!"

Soarynn can hear his muffled voice on the other end of the line and watches Ceraphina's face light up at her father's words, "Mhm, we helped Mommy with the candles. Did you go swimming in the ocean?"

Celeste carefully climbs onto Soarynn's lap, resting her head below Soarynn's chin, "Is Daddy coming home tonight?" She whispers, leaning into Soarynn's touch when she gently cups her face, "Not tonight darling," Soarynn whispers back, "but hopefully tomorrow. You can talk to him when your sister is done."

They both listen to Cerpaphina answer a few more questions from Coriolanus before she hands the phone over to Celeste, "Daddy are you gonna bring me another stuffed animal?" Is the first question from Celeste which means she has her priorities straight.

Soarynn chuckles and does her best to listen to the conversation but it's hard with the rain and the sound of Ceraphina running around her father's study, wanting to touch absolutely everything because she's never really been in here before without him. Soarynn hasn't either.

"Yes Daddy," Celeste eyes Soarynn, "we're being very good for Mommy. Ceraphina and I haven't fought once!" Soarynn rolls her eyes at this claim but it's truly a miracle that the girls haven't clashed yet.

But there's still time.

"Okay Daddy, I'll tell her," Celeste says before pulling the phone away, "he said he wants to talk to you Mommy," she whispers, her piercing blue eyes wide, "are you in trouble?"

Soarynn chuckles and shakes her head, "No darling, I'm not in trouble."

Celeste sighs and relaxes in her hold, "Okay good, here you go."

Soarynn brings the phone back up to her ear, "Darling? Can you hear me?"

"Yes, I just wanted to let you know that the trains should hopefully be back on schedule by tomorrow. I don't know what time I'll get in though," he admits. Soarynn bites her lip, "If you can call from the station before you leave then that would be wonderful, if not, you know where to find us."

Coriolanus chuckles, "Yes, I know where you live. Give the girls my love, Caspian as well. I'll hopefully see you by tomorrow evening, my darling girl." Soarynn sighs at his words, she misses him so much.

"Yes, let's hope this dreadful weather doesn't keep us apart any longer. I love you very much, sleep well, darling."

"I love you too."

Soarynn feels her heart sink a little when he hangs up like a part of her is missing again now that she can't hear his voice. "Mommy, can we have a snack?" Soarynn raises her eyebrows at Ceraphina's question, "A snack? It's bedtime darling, we had dinner a while ago."

Ceraphina shrugs, "Just a little snack, a tiny snack," she holds up her fingers to show Soarynn just how little this snack will be, "it'll be like dessert." Well, she can't say no to that logic.

"Alright," Soarynn agrees, "and then we're off to bed hmm? It's been a long day." It's been a long week without Coriolanus but this weather doesn't seem to care at all about her plans.

She's just got to hope that there are no more delays.

꧁ ꧂

"When's the power coming back on?"

Soarynn looks up from her book, hoping maybe the lights will click back on right now. They don't.

"I don't know darling," she sighs, "soon hopefully."

The power stayed on throughout the night, but two hours ago it went out and the whole family has been in the penthouse library ever since. The penthouse didn't always have a library, not until Coriolanus realized how much Soarynn loved to read that he had custom-made bookshelves brought into one of the many rooms to create a library for her.

Now it's one of her favorite places in the entire apartment.

He's a man of grand gestures her husband.

The children have been occupying themselves fairly well without any electricity. The girls have been quietly playing with their dolls while Caspian has taken to drawing in one of his coloring books. But it's only a matter of time until the boredom creeps in and then they're doomed.

A sudden knock at the front doors jolts them all out of their rainy daze, "It might be someone from the city," Soarynn says, giving the children a reassuring smile, "I'll be right back."

She pads down the hallway, wrapping her robe around her a little tighter, she's glad they have so many fireplaces in the penthouse to keep warm but she's starting to wish she brushed her hair this morning. She hopes whoever is behind the doors is prepared for her messy hair.

Soarynn turns the lock and slowly opens the doors, gasping when she sees who's on the other side. A rain-soaked Coriolanus Snow.

"You're home!" She cries, throwing her arms around him, not caring about getting wet. Coriolanus wraps his strong arms around her, picking her up off the ground, "I'm home," he says with a content sigh. Soarynn only slightly pulls away from the embrace to press a kiss to his lips, once to which he eagerly returns with passion.

"How'd you get home?" She asks, her lips never leaving his. Coriolanus groans into the kiss, deepening it and tugging at her bottom lip with his teeth, "Called in a favor," he mumbles, "just wanted to get home to you."

Soarynn sighs, how did she get so lucky? Marrying a man who will do anything to get back to his family is a rare thing but she seems to have won the lottery.

"I'm so glad you did, we've missed you terribly darling."

They both stay like that for a moment before they hear shouts from their children, "Daddy! Daddy's home!"

Coriolanus smiles against her lips before carefully setting her back down, "There are my girls," he says, crouching down to hug Celeste and Ceraphina, "oh, I missed you so much my darlings."

The girls giggle, both wrapping their arms around him, "Did you bring us anything?" Celeste asks, peering over at his suitcase in hopes of getting a new stuffed animal. Coriolanus does his best to bring them back a souvenir of some sorts if he sees any, "Your father battled terrible weather conditions and you're worried about a stuffed animal?" Soarynn teases, drawing more giggles from the girls, "I brought you back a seal," Coriolanus tells her, "the resort had a small gift shop, they must be used to spoiled Capitol children paying them a visit."

Soarynn grins at his very true statement, their children are spoiled rotten but they wouldn't have it any other way. "Momma," the sound of Caspian's small voice brings her attention back into the penthouse where Caspian is slowly making his way towards the rest of the family, Petunia walking right next to him.

"Come look Caspian," she says, walking inside to pick him up, "your father is back home."

Petunia strolls out alongside Soarynn, looking around the dark hallway before taking a leisurely stretch right in front of Coriolanus who scoffs, "I see I wasn't missed by everyone," he notes.

Soarynn holds back a chuckle, Coriolanus and Petunia have been at each other's necks since the day he brought her home, and some things never change.

Coriolanus rises back to his full height, giving Caspian a gentle squeeze, "Looks like you held down the fort for me Cas."

Caspian nods, placing a hand on his father's arm, "Fort," he repeats before adding, "Lenny." Soarynn adjusts him on her hip before responding, "We can go get Lenny from your room darling, don't you worry."

Coriolanus grunts and grabs his suitcase, "Yes, why don't we all go inside so I can unpack?"

The girls run ahead of them, calling Petunia to follow them, "C'mon Petunia!" Soarynn smiles and watches Petunia trot after them, her tail swishing from side to side.

Coriolanus places a hand on her lower back as they walk inside and Soarynn feels her spirits immediately lift now that her husband is home, safe and sound. Without Coriolanus, it's like a piece of her is missing. Now that he's home, nothing can hurt her.

"When did the power go out?" He asks, leading them to their bedroom. Soarynn sighs, glancing up at the ceiling lights in hopes that they might turn back on, "It went out this morning, it hasn't been too long though."

Coriolanus hums, placing his suitcase on their bed, "The worst of the storm has already passed through, so they should be able to at least get our section of the city back up and running."

Soarynn scrunches her eyebrows while setting Caspian back down on the floor, watching him toddle over to the fireplace in their bedroom, "What do you mean by that? Shouldn't everyone in the Capitol get power at the same time?"

Coriolanus shakes his head and pulls out two seal stuffed animals from the suitcase, setting them on the bed for the girls, "The President will get power back first since he's the first priority. Then the diplomats and generals, anyone government-related. Then we'll get power since we are at the top of the Capitol elite. All of the Corso will get power before the other streets."

Soarynn tilts her head at her husband's explanation, she didn't know it worked like that but it makes sense she supposes. "Well then I suppose you're pleased that we're so important," she says, sitting on the edge of the bed, "Snow lands on top once again it seems."

Coriolanus grins down at her, "Precisely my love."

Soarynn grabs one of the seals, inspecting the stuffed animal, "Did you bring anything for Caspian?"

They both look over at Caspian who's made himself comfortable on the floor, watching the flames from the fireplace. He's so easily entertained at this age, unlike his sisters who require new things to do every five seconds.

"I brought him some stickers," Coriolanus says, handing her several sheets of ocean-themed stickers, "figured he'd get sick of any stuffed animal that wasn't Lenny."

Caspian perks up at the name of his precious stuffed animal, "Momma, want Lenny."

Soarynn pushes herself from the bed and reaches her hand out to him, "Alright darling, we can go get Lenny." His small hand latches onto her big one and she helps him off the ground, the two of them slowly making their way out of the room and down the hall.

Lenny is right where they left him this morning, sitting on the rocking chair by the window, "There he is," Soarynn points out, watching Caspian's face light up. She never knew what she was missing until Caspian came into their lives, his sweet personality mixing perfectly with the girls and their outgoing ones.

He's become the light of her life.

Once Lenny is secured, they follow the sound of the family to the living room where everyone seems to have gathered, even Petunia. The girls are running around with their new stuffed animals while Coriolanus sits in his favorite armchair, nursing a glass of whiskey while reading the newspaper. Caspian runs over to join his sisters, introducing Lenny to the new stuffed animals.

Soarynn smiles at the sight of her children playing so well together and comes up behind Coriolanus, resting a hand on his shoulder, "Do you want anything to eat? We have some leftovers from this morning."

Coriolanus looks up at her shaking his head, "No thank you darling, I ate on the train." Ceraphina's head whips in their direction when he mentions the train, "When can we go on a train Daddy?"

Coriolanus grins at her question while grabbing Soarynn's hand, leading her around to the front of the chair so he can pull her into his lap, his arm instantly wrapping around her waist, "You want to go on a vacation, is that it?" He asks, earning nods from all three children who have only heard of traveling to the Districts.

Soarynn hasn't traveled as extensively as Coriolanus has, but she's been to a few resorts for holidays and for their honeymoon as well. "Maybe for Christmas," Celeste suggests sweetly, batting her lashes up at him, a trick she learned from Soarynn. Coriolanus chuckles and takes another sip of his whiskey, "I'll think about it my darlings, a trip like that can be expensive."

Soarynn snorts at his weak defense, acting as if they can't afford the trip. She knows that Coriolanus simply dreads the thought of being stuck on a train for hours with the children, all of them cooped up with nothing to do. "It is," he insists, squeezing her side, "especially during the holidays, they have special rates you know."

Soarynn shakes her head, "We'll talk about it some more," she tells the children, "when the power comes back on," she mumbles the last part.

The children go back to playing and Soarynn rests her head on his shoulder, her eyes growing heavy while listening to the sound of his steady breathing. Since the day she met Coriolanus, he's always been a steady beacon of strength and safety for her, always knowing what to do.

"I'm glad you're home," she whispers so only he can hear, "it's not the same without you. I'm not the same without you. These business trips always seem to remind me of that."

Coriolanus takes her hand and presses a gentle kiss to the back of it, "I hope you know that there's truly no place I'd rather be than with you Soarynn," he tells her, "not having you by my side is the equivalent of being without my heart."

Soarynn sighs at his romantic words, fully relaxing in his hold as she drifts off to sleep. The power will come on soon, and then they'll have something to eat, maybe even watch a show with the children before putting them to bed.

As long as they're together, she is complete.

She is loved.

| tumblr oneshot/drabble |

[lorkai]

.⁠｡⁠*⁠♡ A/N: I wrote this a while back and recently was thinking "hey maybe tumblr folks would like this", I'm not used to write character x character, but these two are adorable and have my whole heart. I loved Venti at first sight when I started playing genshin and wrote tons of fics for him that I probably gonna post later. You can also read this fic on AO3.

Warm gusts of wind blew across her face, sending beads of sweat down her forehead as she ran up the hill, the smell of sunflowers dancing over her messy bangs as she forced her weak legs to keep running.

Normally Lumine would fight the monsters chasing her with the greatest pleasure. Fighting was what she had been doing since she woke up, but today her whole body was screaming for mercy and rest and she wasn't going to deny herself that, after having spent the day fighting hilichurls and abyss sorcerers, doing guild missions and entering multiple domains. All she could do now was run, run and hope her glider worked, any other time she would laugh at the way the stiff wings over her back made her feel. Now she just wanted those same wings to carry her to the safety of solid ground and away from these creatures.

Her heart beat quickly inside her chest as she spared one last look back. Everything was a mess, but she hoped Kaeya's ingenious plan would work - she was the bait everyone was chasing up the hill, but what the monsters didn't know was that a huge siege had been set up to defeat them.

"Don't worry." Paimon muttered.

The fairy pointed to Amber and her bow ready under one of the branches, to Kaeya and Jean hidden in the shadows of the leafy trees. The little fairy knew that Lumine's soft and empathetic heart wanted to continue fighting alongside her friends, but she would stop her this time. Her little hands gently pushing her friend's shoulders to encourage her to keep going.

"They'll be fine, come on, you promised Paimon we'd eat sticky honey roast." Paimon let out a small scream, making Lumine let out a long sigh and massaging her sore ears.

But she couldn't disagree with the fairy; her friends were strong. From all sides, Favonius' knights were attacking without mercy. Lumine's eyes followed every blow of cryo, pyro and anemo that flew everywhere. The ingenuity of the hilichurls and metachurls had cost them a lot and, if by chance, one of them survived the attack, they would certainly think and plan better next time.

Tired, the girl approached the cliff with slow steps, the tall grass brushing her ankles in a way that made her laugh softly. She would meet them down there anyway according to plan. Her job was done and she could leave without worrying about one of her friends getting hurt.

Lumine observed the way the terrain spread out in cobblestones, mud puddles still present due to the recurring rain that had ravaged Mondstadt these last few days. For a second she almost wanted to stand and admire the view, but finally she jumped. Paimon following closely behind her.

The wind enveloped her completely, as if it hugged her and invited her to glide without ever touching the ground again. The feeling of being in the air was freeing, freeing from the pressure of continually having to look for her brother without ever finding him, from the pressure of helping everyone just because she could and was strong. Lumine was a warrior, one who had been fighting forever, traveling world after world, one who had seen and defeated many monsters with her brother. And a warrior only stops fighting when no one needs them anymore; people still needed her - but now, the girl would rest.

When she reached a safe distance, Lumine activated her glider. Its long, white wings spread like those of an eagle, but instead of gliding they do nothing to stop its free fall. It's desperate; Her eyes widen, filling with tears as the wind whistles loudly in her ears and slaps her face repeatedly. As she sees herself quickly falling towards the abyss, Paimon screams and tries to grab her arms.

But it is flawed. The little fairy is unable to stop her friend from falling. And there is no one who can help now.

As she fall, shaking, Lumine thinks about her brother and how alone he will be. She think about the little fairy at her side, about all the Genius Invokation TCG rounds she won, about all of Venti's bad performances, about the archery lessons she took with Amber, about looking for Diona's cats, about the games with Klee and the incredible drinks that Diluc offered her after a tiring day. She remembers Jean's smile and Kaeya's silly comments.

Lumine opens her teary eyes, puts her hands together and uses her Anemo energy in order to stop her fall. She is moving too fast, falling as fast as the tears that soak her amber eyes, the wind that invited her was now the wind that carried her to her death, somewhere above she hears loud noises. Maybe, screams.

The ground is close now. Nothing and no one can stop it; or better said, the only person who can command the wind to his will would be Venti. The young woman's heart sank knowing that he was far away and that again he would lose someone he loved; her eyes close, the breath is lost in her lungs and she waits. She waits to fall and hit the ground, waits for a second of pain before disappearing from this world. But nothing happens.

"Come on, open your eyes!" A familiar voice whispers in her ears. And she feels herself shaking from head to toe.

Despite his small and graceful figure, Barbatos holds her in a gentle grip, hands entwining the young woman's waist as he looks at her with great care.

Lumine looks at Venti in surprise, grateful for his quick intervention. In his arms the girl trembles slightly, fear and apprehension, and gratitude flooding her chest as she realizes the gravity of the latest events. Beside her, Paimon flies over them both, unable to chant any words or make any sound, which only makes everything even more serious.

"Thanks." Lumine whispers with a shaky voice. Death is something that naturally surrounds her, but even for someone like her, death is scary. "Thank you, Venti. You saved me." She repeats, wiping her eyes as she hugs him tighter to herself.

There are things they share through their complicit looks, fear was the main emotion. The hug becomes stronger, suffocating, but neither of them moves away from the other for even a second as Venti uses his powers to slowly bring them to the ground. The bard looks at her tenderly, caressing her cheek with one of his hands and he speaks, his tone full of affectionate mockery. "I would be more than happy to reciprocate your feelings, Lumine. You didn't need to fall for me."

The girl smiles and rolls her eyes.

"How did you get here?"

It was a silly question. But for more than two hours he had been playing his harp and drinking as he always did, Diluc had sent her a bloody look when she left the tavern in the company of Kaeya and Amber. It didn't make sense for the bard to be there at that moment, he would have to travel for at least forty minutes to get there. Either way, she was happy he was there.

"I'm here, I'm there, I'm everywhere," Venti smiled for a brief moment. "I am like the wind and the wind told me that someone I care about was in danger."

The traveler nodded, seeming satisfied with the answer. Her feet finally touched the ground after a few seconds, but Lumine was still clinging to his green cape and refusing to leave his personal space. She was like a little leech invited to stay and Venti didn't mind that at all, letting her rest her face on his shoulder, breathe the fresh air again and, most importantly, feel alive, free from fear.

For someone who always made so many jokes and always had a smile on his face, Venti was quiet now, slowly taking Lumine with him to sit on the soft grass and lean against an old oak tree. The whole time he was holding her. The anemo archon deep inside was also afraid. He was afraid of losing Dvalin, of losing Mondstadt and losing her, the girl who slowly made him lose his barriers and saw him like no one in a long time had been able to.

"Everything will be fine." He assured her gently. One of his hands found its way to her blonde hair, playing with it as she looked at him completely exhausted. "I'm here now, nothing could hurt you."

Lumine forced a smile, her eyelids slowly closing. If exhaustion was consuming her before, after seeing her entire life flash before her eyes and imagining a future in which she would not be present, Lumine would need to hibernate for another five hundred years in order to recover from such past emotion. Sweat stuck to her complexion, mud stained her dress, but she could only feel a comfortable warmth as she continued to spoon the bard.

Beside her, Paimon hugged her arms, half trembling, half trying to appear stronger than she really was, and Lumine pulled the fairy closer until she was in the middle of the two. Like a child. Like their child.

"I know." She whispered.

Lumine knew that she would always be safe and sound if Venti was by her side. She knew that he would take care of herself, her injuries, that he would listen to her anxieties and fears, and that he would then motivate her to get up another day and try again. She knew she had a home in him just as he had one in her, she knew she could wake up after a nightmare and seek comfort in his arms, in his lyre and his singing, she knew that his husky voice after waking up would make her smile as much as the his messy hair. It was the little things that showed her that no matter what happened, Venti would be there for her.

For now, however, they could enjoy the rest and the silence, and the fact that they were still together and would be together for many years to come.