#throne warden au

[less-lost-than-you-realize]

That is so true! It's not thinking less of himself, it's thinking of himself less... which in turn helps him not to think less of himself! Oh, I need to keep this in mind for writing Wirt Arcs In Fanfiction.

ABSOLUTELY YES

This makes me think of that idea I never wrote out where the boys come to the Unknown as unsuspecting Prophesied Royals... but it's the same concept as Wingfeather, where the younger brother is the king, and the older brother is the throne warden.

I wish I could've figured out a way to write it, because I think that is actually so fitting for both Wirt and Greg, somehow. The potential is insane.

YES TO ALL OF THESE THEMES, brotherly motifs in stories are my absolute jam

-and I love how the lesson isn't Wirt overcoming his self-doubt, it's on becoming more focused on other people's (Greg's) needs. He needs to take responsibility here, he can't just be the Self-Pitying Poet.

It DOES help him with confidence, because self-pity is a form of self-obsession. Shifting your focus to other people is a solid way to combat it.

[mozart-the-meerkitten]

Hmmm it's been a while since I posted one of my weird crossover ideas on tumblr. Let's fix that.

For the past few days I've been enjoying daydreaming about a Avatar the Last Airbender/Wingfeather Saga crossover. But it's. probably not what you would expect, haha. I'll probably never write it as more than ideas though, so I may was well post the concept here.

So this takes place in the Wingfeather world of Aerwiar, several years before the Fall of Anniera that jumpstarts the war/plot happening in the book series. One day, Artham Wingfeather is in one of Anniera's port towns and is called over by a concerned citizen, who leads him to a crowd watching a rowboat slowly drift to shore. The rowboat contains two small children, who Artham brings ashore and takes back to Castle Rysen.

The small children in question are Zuko (age 4) and Azula (age 2). In this version of events, the Fire Nation royal family is a bit darker than in canon and, after Ozai flies into a rage and burns Zuko (yes he still has his scar I know I'm mean, but there's a POINT I swear) Ursa decides she needs to get her kids the heck out of the Fire Nation. But Ozai is suspicious and possessive of her in general and has her under guard so she can't escape the palace, so she entrusts her kiddos to a few trusted servants, who pack them up in a rowboat with food and water and send them off, hoping they'll make it to a coastal village and be taken in by a kindly family.

Most of this is explained/implied in a note that Ursa sent along with the kids, that Artham reads and passes on to Esben (and Nia and Arundelle). They are properly horrified.

However, what no one realizes is that these kiddos have come through a portal between the two worlds. So Artham and Esben ASSUME that SOMEWHERE these kid's mom is being held captive by their cruel father and so they send out search parties/reconnaissance teams to try and rescue her, and because any father so cruel as to hurt his son the way Ozai hurt Zuko needs to be stopped. The brothers also wonder if, perhaps, this is somehow connected to the Tragic Accident that befell their parents and aunt Illiya a year before when their ship was lost and they were killed. And they start to wonder if, perhaps, that wasn't an accident, but that they stumbled upon whatever This was and tried to stop it and got in the way. (They don't suspect Bonifer... at first...)

Anyway, Artham finds himself caretaker for these two small children and develops a bond with them, especially Zuko (what, you thought I WASN'T going to use this as an excuse to make a connection between two of my favorite characters of all time?). Arundelle also becomes close with them, and- besides the cooks in the castle- she's the first person Artham tells about the kids. Because I thought it'd be fun to make Arundelle a healer (hey, why shouldn't she be good with healing plants and herbs? heh) and have her be the main person who treats Zuko's burn.

Azula recovers from the trauma of being separated from her mom and home pretty quickly since the new place she's in has kind, caring people, nice food, is still a palace, and she's two. She loves playing with Arundelle and listening to Artham's stories. She's very bright and friendly and talkative. She IS very attached to her brother tho, sleeping in the same bed as him the first few nights in this new place, even defending him/trying to explain his actions the way she's heard adults do. (when Artham finds the siblings they're clinging to each other in their little boat, terrified)

Zuko is more complicated. He's had the physical trauma of being burned paired with the emotional trauma of being hurt and abused by his father (the burning wasn't the first time, just the most severe). He understands a little more of what's going on than his sister. He love, love, loves being held, especially by Artham, because since Azula was born he's not been allowed to act like a "baby" and hasn't gotten much physical affection. He's very shy and has periods of mutism when meeting new people or encountering distressing/unfamiliar situations. Little guy has also had his senses severely rattled by losing both half his vision and half his hearing in one fell swoop. In short, he's a mess. The first time he's alone with Artham he has a panic attack because he thinks Artham will hurt him, but Artham being so kind and understanding and gentle with him helps him unlearn that. Zuko becomes very attached to Artham very quickly and... Artham becomes attached to him pretty fast too.

(Additionally, Zuko is terrified of Bonifer. The only explanation he can give for that is, "He looks at me like father did." which does plant a little seed of suspicion in Artham's mind specifically)

So, long term, this severely messes up Gnag/Bonifer's plans, since suddenly the Annierans are combing the Hollows/The Killridge Mts/even the Doonlands trying to find Zuko and Azula's family. This either forces the baddies to speed up their plans... or derails them altogether. I haven't decided yet, haha. The Annierans do find out something of what Gnag is doing (they don't connect Bonifer to it right away tho) and end up with some preparation for the attack that eventually comes. I think the attack on Anniera is still somewhat successful, but a lot less so than in canon. Like, I don't think the entire populace is captured/scattered and I haven't decided if I want Artham and Esben to still get captured or not. (if they do I have this great mental image of 7-year-old Zuko and 5-year-old Azula trying to rescue them from Throg. Just. just imagine the CHAOS even a pair of BABY firebenders could do in Aerwiar. Imagine.)

Oh yeah, to give you a better idea of WHEN this happens, Nia is pregnant with Janner when Artham finds Zuko and Azula. I just thought it'd be fun for Zuko to have the same age gap with Janner he has with Aang and it makes it close enough for things to come together plot wise.

So yeah, that's my thoughts on how Zuko and Azula could potentially have prevented the Fall of Anniera. xD

Other random things they cause:

Artham adopting them

Artham and Arundelle getting married a few years before Anniera falls after the closeness and bonding that comes from caring for a pair of traumatized children.

Absolute chaos with their firebending (the Annierans chalk this up to the old stories of Annieran/Anyaran kids having special powers to defend their home with and decide not to question it further)

So yeah, there's my late night thoughts on a WFS/ATLA AU. where Artham adopts Zuko and Azula. because why not. I hope it was a fun read. :D

[flashhwing]

if warden hawke still becomes champion of kirkwall. then on the one hand he's got the Very Public Duel with Loghain Wherein He Killed That Old Man. and then like five years later there's another Very Public Duel With The Arishok Wherein He Killed That Old Man. and at a certain point one has to wonder why one keeps getting put in these Situations

[peppermintgrim]

*blows a kiss to my computer* this one's for you, Aldith Sereda Wilhelmine Aeducan, kinslayer & kingmaker

[sl-ut]

princess of the north

in case i dont end up posting again over the holidays, i just wanna say i hope everyone has a great holiday season and a very very happy new year!!!!

pairing: cregan stark x fem!targtower!pregnant!reader

description: cregan has grown older and happier throughout his years as warden of the north with his beautiful new wife at his side. however, when he married into the royal family, he had not considered how frequently he would need to interact with his in-laws. 

warnings: NO DANCE AU!!! (rhaenyra ascends the throne peacefully), weird blend of book and show timeline, slight description of character (silver hair, purple eyes, that’s it!!!), smut, reader gets pregnant like halfway through, pregnancy sex, oral, piv, SEX IN FRONT OF A FIREPLACE ON A BEARSKIN RUGGGG oml

words: 9.7K

date posted: 10/12/24

The winter had been very forgiving, thank the gods. It had been remarkably short, just under eight years in total, meaning that it had come to a close with plenty of food still in storage and northerners who were more than willing and able to transition into the oncoming summer with ease. 

Winterfell was left in a generally stable state, aside from the fact that there was a greater need for livestock now that they not only had an additional mouth to feed, but also a fully grown dragon who resided in a make-shift dragonpit only a few minutes ride beyond the walls of the castle–a wedding gift that the Lord of Winterfell had prepared in anticipation of his new wife’s arrival. Otherwise, the North seemed to be in greater shape upon the dawn of this new summer than it had in all of Cregan’s years. 

The greatest of Cregan’s accomplishments, of course, was his new wife. At the beginning of the winter, he had not expected that he would be married by the end of it, but with the arrival of Prince Jaeaerys on his official tour of the realm also came his proposal of marriage between Lord Cregan and his own aunt, the youngest daughter of the late King Viserys I and his second wife, Dowager Queen Alicent Hightower. He had been hesitant to consider this offer–he’d never met the woman, which was not uncommon for marriages of such high status, but he’d been fortunate enough to have been able to form some sort of friendship with his late wife prior to their union. Jace had brought along with him the terms offered by his mother, in her own hand, of course, as well as a portrait of the woman in question. 

Cregan was not above admitting how taken he’d been with the sight of the princess, even if it were only a recreation of her beauty on canvas. He’d heard of her beauty before, it was rumoured around the realm, but seeing it was entirely different, a sort of beauty he could not have imagined on his own.

“Tell me, my prince,” Cregan asked him, hardly drawing his crystal blue gaze away from the portrait, “you are her blood and have grown up with the princess, is this painting to her likeness?”

Jacaerys smirked, “Of course, Lord Stark. My aunt is known to be one of the most beautiful women ever to live.”

Cregan pursed his lips. He was aware of the strange customs of the Targaryens, having married brother to sister and uncle to niece for generations. Jacaerys could be speaking the truth, for he himself could hold some sort of affection for his aunt, but Cregan did not suspect as such. Intead, his greater question was whether Jacaerys could be lying to him out of political gain; as his mother’s envoy, it would do him no good to suggest that the artist had not accurately painted her. Her looks were of no concern to him, but he valued honour and truth over all else. If they were attempting to attract him to the deal by portraying the princess as such a beauty over anything else, he would be personally insulted to discover that he’d been lied to, a snub from the royal family would not be taken kindly by House Stark. 

“What say you?” Cregan turned to the group of men standing just to the left of the prince, all who seemed alarmed at Lord Stark’s attention being turned to them, “How do each of you vouch for the princess?”

The men, one at a time, attested to the princess’s beauty until he stood before the smallest and visibly youngest of the men.

“And you, lad?” 

“I’m afraid the portrait fails to depict the princess, milord,” The boy grew rosy in the cheeks as he imagined the princess in his mind, eyes drawing towards the portrait, “That is her, yes, but only as close as the Master Holbein could have made it, for I do not think it possible to recreate such beauty. She is gifted by the gods, surely, milord, both in beauty and manner. She is kind, brings food and toys to orphans in Flea Bottom and ev’rything, milord.”

Cregan, taken aback by the answer from the youngest boy, turned back to Prince Jacaerys, who seemed equally as surprised as he did pleased with the answers of his men.

“This is true, milord,” Jace said, “the princess is known among the people for her generosity, among her other talents and traits. It cannot be denied that her mother, the Queen Dowager, was not fond of my family, nor us of her, but the princess was raised better than any of us, I would say. Take the night to think on it, I would hope to send word to the queen before I leave Winterfell at noon.”

Cregan did as instructed, thinking on it long and hard. Her beauty had been their main selling point, something that could not be denied from the portrait sent of her. Lord Stark had half a mind to hang it upon the mantle in his bedchambers whether he takes her to wife or not, but it was not her beauty that had truly swayed his decision. Instead, he thought over the young lad’s words; a southern lady scarcely thrives in the North, a nation nearly as large on its own as all of the remaining six kingdoms put together. The weather was harsh, and the people were harsher, something he could not imagine a Targaryen princess handling well. However, he’d heard of Alicent Hightower’s assertiveness and ability to lead while her husband was incapable and Rhaenyra was in Dragonstone. If what Jacaerys had told him was true, the princess would be dutiful and loyal, and according to the prince’s men, kind beyond words. Beauty may have factored into his decision on a personal level, but he also met the prince the next morning with his acceptance mostly on the basis that he believed that the princess would be wholly capable of helping him rule the North.

He wrote to her a week after Jacaerys departed from Winterfell, certain that the news would have already arrived in the capitol and she would already be aware of their arrangement. He would have little time between her arrival in the north and their wedding to meet with her in private, so this was his best hope. He was pleased to receive a raven in return only three days later, neat handwriting befitting a princess scrawled across the parchment. It was not much, but Cregan was able to learn some things about her through the letters, making it seem like he was less-so marrying a stranger and more as if she were a distant friend. 

The month following, the princess would depart from King’s Landing in a procession he was told seemed a mile long. He waited with anticipation, Winterfell in a flurry of servants and guards to prepare the castle to house the royal family and their household, as well as for the wedding itself, and only one more month would pass before his bride had arrived within the walls of Winterfell.

Cregan had bowed respectfully to the Queen Dowager as she stepped out of her wheelhouse, then to the two silver-haired princes who arrived on their steeds. His eyes scanned the growing crowd for any sight of his betrothed, finally catching sight of her as she took the hand of a Dornish white cloak to balance herself as she exited the wheelhouse, a pretty white fur-lined cloak wrapped around her shoulders, almost blending into the pale blonde of her hair. She was, indeed, the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. She had traditional Valyrian looks, but also held an aura of softness. 

She was nervous as she curtsied before her, but seemed happy enough with his appearance and manners as he greeted her with a kiss to her leather-gloved knuckle. The moment was broken apart by her mother’s level tone, requesting to be brought to her chambers for some rest before supper. That evening Cregan found the portrait of the princess that he’d received months earlier and personally hung it above the mantle in his bedchambers. He thought it was safe to say he was smitten.

The princess appeared bashful in his presence, though he was partially certain that her discomfort was brought on by her ever-present family, each looming nearby as if waiting to intercept his attempts of conversation with his betrothed. He could not decide who he had grown to loathe the most; Aegon had already drank a generous portion of Winterfell’s wine cellars even before the wedding, and often joined the conversation with the goal to tease his sister and see her shrink in embarrassment; Aemond was constantly looking to best anyone in his path, and seemed almost possessive over his sister’s attention; her mother had hardly allowed them a moment alone, constantly insisting on supervising any time that he would invite her for any sort of activity, or set one of her brothers after them instead. Alicent had a habit of speaking for her daughter, meaning that Cregan had no opportunity to truly know her while her mother was present, while her brothers made it impossible to even speak to one another at all. 

He was finally glad on their wedding night, when he’d arranged the head table to be broken into three, leaving the happy couple to sit above the rest and finally receive some alone time. She had been radiant in her gown of white furs and fleeces, meeting him beneath the weirwood tree with her eldest brother at her side to give her away. He’d been glad to tear away the cloak of red and black, intricately interwoven into a field of green and gold at the bottom–it would be unlike Alicent Hightower to allow her children to wear the Rhaenyra’s colours without her own as well. It would be hard to tell whether she looked prettier in the harsh colours of her maiden cloak or in the dull ones of his own, but he couldn’t help but note how greys and blues suited her better than he could have imagined. 

He could tell her family was less than pleased with this arrangement, making an effort to step in for every miniscule matter that caught their attention. Cregan watched her from the corner of her eye as she shakily took a long drink from her cup. He finally found time to chat with his wife, slowly watching in awe as her walls slowly began to come down as she found herself giggling along with him and whispering into his ear. 

“What of the leftovers?” She’d asked, breaking their previous conversation topic.

“Leftovers?” Cregan repeated.

She nodded, staring at him with wide eyes expectantly, “The food. There will be plenty of leftovers–they should be brought to the nearest towns.”

“Is that a command, princess?” 

She appeared bashful at his response, walls slowly building back up around her, “I-I- My apologies, Lord Stark, I–”

He grinned at her playfully, his large palm cupping her cheek affectionately, “If you wish it, you shall have it. I intend to make you very happy, my love.”

She smiled, her beauty shining through even stronger as she became more and more comfortable around him, “Thank you, husband.”

Cregan pushed himself to stand, the sound of his chair pushing back cutting through the chatter and music and laughter filling his hall, all eyes turning to him expectantly. 

“My lady wife has made her first official command as Lady of Winterfell,” his voice carried through the hall with stern ease, and the attention of the crows quickly turned to her, “Lady Stark has decided that all leftovers from our wedding feast will be donated to the people of Winterstown.”

The crowd had been quick to applaud, deafening cheers throughout the great hall, northerners seemingly pleased with her decision or, at the very least, just excited to have another reason to be celebrating. He caught the glance she sent to her mother, and the happy grin that covered her face as the Dowager Queen sent her a sign of approval. His lady wife was kind, and sweet, and he was certain that, once she gained her footing in the North, would serve as a strong and dutiful Lady of Winterfell, all of which he muttered into her ear as he had her for the very first time that night. 

Three years would pass, he’d been right to assume such things of his wife. He’d quickly discovered that she was able to thrive without the looming shadow of her mother and brothers. She had been slow to find her footing in the beginning, some of his bannermen even questioning his choice in wife, but she was determined to prove them wrong, and in doing so, warmed Cregan’s heart even more. 

They’d discussed children in the past, and both had decided that they were happy enough with Cregan’s son from his previous marriage for the time being. They were not trying, but they were also not not trying, which is how she found herself swelling with her first child just as winter came to an end. Her husband had been insatiable in their first year of marriage, but once he knew that she carried his child in her belly, there was scarcely anything that could stop him from having her each and every night. 

Summer brought a homier feeling to Winterfell. People were not quite so afraid or negative as the desolate conditions faded away. Summer in the North was nothing compared to the many summers she had spent in King’s Landing, where she had once enjoyed the warmth of the sun on her skin, exposed beneath her more revealing gowns than those she was able to wear in the North; the lords of the North had criticised her choice in dresses early on in her marriage, and she had no doubt that their wives spoke harshly about her in her absence. She was by far the youngest of them, and was also the only one who could afford to wear such fine silks layered over her thick fleece and fur underdresses. Cregan knew better than to try and argue against his wife’s will–Lady Stark or not, she was a Targaryen princess through and through, and now that he had helped her build up her confidence, there was no way he was about to take that away from her (especially when she looked so so beautiful). She was thankful that she was able to cut down on the layers she needed now that the weather had transitioned from inhospitable to frigid, though she knew it was coming time to transition her wardrobe as well now that her breasts and belly were beginning to swell. 

The change in season also brought a wave of new duties. Winter was undoubtedly the most difficult and busy season for the lord and lady of Winterfell, but the transition to summer also brought the beginning of the agricultural season. Farmers and fishermen alike flocked to Winterfell to speak their needs and wants to their liege lord and lady, and Cregan found himself busy with attending to the replenishment of all of the North’s resources for Winterfell, all of his bannermen, the Wall, and all of the towns in the North. He’d made his wife agree to take a lesser load of duties now that she was expecting, dealing with issues within their own household so he could instead focus on bearing the burdens of the North all on his own, though this meant there was less and less time that they were able to spend together. 

Each morning, Lady Stark was awake and on the move early enough to meet with the maester and stewards and advisors, sharing no more than a few sweet words and touches with her husband as he watched her dress before she was out the door. They would see each other in passing throughout the day, sharing loving glances across the courtyard as they attended their duties and occasionally catching each other in the corridors, and she was normally in a deep slumber by the time he came to her chambers every night. Both of them were growing restless in their time apart, especially with her ladyship’s heightened emotions and hormones. 

She had just finished speaking with the mistress of the orphanage in Winterstown when the maester came to her, a neatly folded piece of parchment in hand that bore her mother’s seal. She smiled to herself as she brushed her thumb over the thick spot of green wax, glad to have a response for her most recent letter to her mother to deliver the news of her pregnancy, along with a request for some new silks to be sent in order to accommodate her changing body. Breaking the seal, she scanned over the letter with her eyes, a small gasp leaving her mouth as she read over her mother’s words.

“My lady?” Maester Elryn asked, concern evident on his wrinkled features, “Is everything alright?”

“Yes,” she smiled tightly at him, “My apologies for my reaction. Could you ask Lord Stark to come to me when he is free?”

“Of course, my lady. Anything else?”

“That is all, thank you, Maester Elryn.”

Cregan came to her two hours later, finding her seated at the small desk in the corner of her chambers. He paused to drink in the way she looked, having scarcely seen his wife for more than a moment all day. Her body was changing in the most glorious ways possible, and the bodices of her gowns were growing even tighter than before, her breasts threatening to spill over the neckline with every breath, and her belly growing firmer and rounder to accommodate his child. His smile widened as she turned to glance over her shoulder, her eyes softening as she finally took note of her husband’s figure in the doorway.

“You called, wife?”

“My love,” she greeted, pushing herself to stand with a gentle hand cradling her barely-there bump, “It seems it has been forever.”

His heart thumped against his ribcage at her action, chest growing warm at the sight of her maternal instincts already kicking in before she had even passed through her first few months 

He closed the door behind him, crossing the room to meet her before she was able to move too far. His palm cupped her cheek, the other finding its place over her own against her belly, “Longer than forever to me.”

She grinned, leaning up to press a sweet, lingering kiss to his lips, giggling to herself as he chased after her and grunted as she pulled away. He pressed small kisses to her cheeks, across the curve of her jaw, and down the column of her neck, leaving small nips in his wake. His wife pushed at his chest helplessly as she continued to laugh, the soft growth of hair along his own jaw tickling her with every brush of his lips on her skin. 

“I called you up here because I needed to speak with you,” she whispered to him, body slowly relaxing against him as she sank into his embrace.

“Speak, then,” he ordered, thick fingers tugging at the laces of her dress.

She shook her head, rolling her eyes at his antics, “I wrote to my mother a few nights ago, I need silk for new dresses. I’m sure you’ve noticed that my own are growing rather…tight.”

His mouth dropped to nip at the bulging flesh of her breast peeking over the neckline of her gown, “I certainly have.”

Her head tilted back, letting both a laugh and a breathy moan at her husband’s attack on her chest as he quickly laid her back on the bed, “She has written back to me. She says I shall have as much silk in as many colours as I wish.”

Cregan hummed in response, quickly peeling the layers of her gown away until she was left in only her thin white shift, her words going ignored as he tugged and pulled at her clothing until she was bare before him. He stared down at her, running his hand over his jaw as his eyes trailed over her breasts, heaving and swelling with milk, then down over her small bump, and finally to the place where her thighs clenched together. 

She pushed herself up to sit before him, her own hands reaching out to tug at his clothing. He was quick to help her, shucking off his layers and boots until he stood before her in only his heavy leather breeches. His wife grinned up at him, pressing a gentle kiss against his own belly, a layer of soft flesh over his firm, almost inconspicuous muscle. 

He pushed at her shoulder, chuckling as the mattress bounced beneath her as she was laid back again. He crawled over her, returning to mouthing over her neck, over her shoulders, and finally coming across her breasts.

“She says she will deliver them personally,” she uttered, whining in protest as he paused, pulling back to focus directly at her face. 

“Personally,” He repeated, more for his own sake than a question of clarification, “your mother intends to come to Winterfell.”

She pouted at him, fingers carding through his long hair as she attempted to soften him to the news, “She wishes to be here for the birth. I know she can be…difficult, but it would bring me comfort to have her with me as I bring our firstborn into the world.”

He sighed, his head falling into her shoulder, “If this is what you wish, then this is what you shall have. 

She smiled, remembering when he spoke the same words to her on their wedding night. She pressed a kiss to his forehead, winding her legs around his hips and hugging her tightly to her chest. 

“Thank you,” she smiled at him as he finally pushed himself up to gaze down at her once again, “my mother can be difficult, as I said, but I wish for her to know her grandchildren, as she does my niece and nephews. I promise you, she will be on her best behaviour.”

“I believe you,” He pressed a kiss to her lips, mumbling against her, “but I must ask that we do not speak any more of your mother at the present. I do not think she would appreciate what I plan to do to you.”

Cregan did not allow her another moment of peace before his kisses grew in intensity, tongue intertwining with her own while his meaty palms pulled her legs further apart and began to rock his hips into hers. He smirked at the whine that escaped her throat, pressing himself further into her.

“Cregan–” 

“I have missed you, my love,” he moaned against her lips, “you cannot possibly believe how much I have been longing for you.”

She chuckled, “I think I can. The maester told me pregnancy can bring on many side effects; discomfort, fatigue, desire…”

Cregan pulled back for a moment, “Should I be concerned about these conversations you have been having with Maester Elryn?”

She scoffed, “You are far too jealous for your own good, my love.”

“You might be too, if you were married to the most beautiful woman in the Seven Kingdoms–nay, the world.”

“Flatterer.”

“Can it be called flattery if it is the truth?” Cregan pushed himself to kneel between her legs, palms continuing to push her thighs upward to bare her completely to him. He let out a desperate groan as his eyes settled on her core, barely hidden beneath a neat patch of silver hair, “gods, have you ever been this wet?”

She snorted, raising her leg to press her foot flat to his chest, “It is the pregnancy, as I said.”

His long fingers wrapped around her foot, tugging it up to press his lips against the slope of her ankle, “Then perhaps I should keep you like this, eh? Would you like for your lord husband to fill you with his child, again and again?”

“I am already with child, my love,” she smiled at him, drawing a deep breath from his throat, “I’m afraid you will have to wait a few moons longer.”

“And I will spend every second I have with you perfecting the craft then.”

She sighed in relief as he finally reached between her thighs, fingers catching against her slick hole.

“Cregan, please,” she whimpered, “do something, anything.”

“Anything?” He asked, breathlessly, his own chest heaving in anticipation as she nodded excitedly. 

A loud gasp tore from her lips as he finally sunk his fingers into her, her wetness audible to them both as he began moving with slow but purposeful thrusts. His thumb settled on her sensitive bud, making slow, tight circles over the swollen bud, his free hand gliding up from her thigh to tug at her breasts. Her hips rocked in sync with his every movement of his thick fingers, stilling as another one easily slipped inside.

“My love,” she panted, “e-enough, I need you.”

He quirked one of his thick brows at her words, “Should I not prepare you, my heart?”

“I am pregnant with your child, and as we can both tell, I am more than prepared.”

Cregan snorted out a laugh, withdrawing his fingers with a small whine from his wife, “How should you have me then, wife?”

Lady Stark smirked to herself, legs wrapping around his back and forcing him to fold over her, “Take me as you did on our wedding night, only you do not need to be so gentle with me.”

He slipped inside of her easily, a strained hiss sliding between his teeth while her own teeth sunk into his shoulder. Cregan did indeed take her like he had on their wedding night, but against her wishes, was almost as gentle as he had been, out of respect for his child’s personal space, as he had muttered to her. In truth, he simply wanted to take his time with her as he pulled her apart bit by bit, not wanting to rush their first time lying together in the few weeks since summer had come. 

When they were finished, he remained inside of her for as long as he could, but the warmth of her and the air around them was far too much. His wife, despite the progress she’d made in the years of their marriage, was a southern woman and despised how frigid the castle could be, earning herself the warmest room in Winterfell and a required constant upkeep of her hearth. Cregan did not mind coming to his wife’s chamber when she needed him throughout the day or early evening, but there was a reason that they’d made a habit of sleeping in his personal chambers each night, where the air was cooler but he was able to keep her warm at night. He carefully pulled away, meeting her for a final kiss before he peeled himself off of the bed, slowly strutting across the room to haul the window open and feel the cool summer air against his burning flesh. 

She watched him through hooded eyes, gaze raking down his muscular back, over his plump ass, and down his thick legs. She pursed her lips, pulling one of the heavy furs around her shoulders as she padded across the stone floor to wrap herself around him from behind, fingers hooking together around his belly as her bare chest pressed to his back. After a moment, one of his hands came over to cover her own as she pressed her lips to his shoulder blade. 

“My mother wrote that she expects to be here in two moons,” she murmured against his warm skin, “I should begin preparations for them on the morrow.”

Cregan hummed, eyes scanning over the horizon for a moment before he comprehended her words, “Them. How many attendants does she plan to bring with her?”

He felt his wife tense behind him, “About that…”

Two moons later Cregan found himself standing tall in his own courtyard, jaw set as a procession of horses and wheelhouses began to file through the front gate of his ancestral home. He’d been a touch angry with his wife when she had finally revealed to him that it was not only her mother coming, but rather the entire royal family; the queen, her king consort, and all of their children; the dowager queen, the remaining four of her children, as well as Prince Aegon and Princess Helaena’s three children. Winterfell was about to be overrun with heads of silver hair, something Cregan had hoped would only happen as a result of his wife’s genes overcoming his own among their children. 

At his side, his wife nervously chewed her bottom lip–a nasty habit he’d grown to detest after she’d drawn blood one night. He knew exactly how her family could be from their short stay during their wedding festivities, and the way that her mother and two older brothers alone were able to affect her, let alone the entire living Targaryen dynasty. 

On her other side stood young Rickon, gripping her hand tightly as he struggled to compose himself. The boy was only six years old, but he already seemed to understand the importance of his role as the heir to Winterfell. He’d taken to his stepmother rather quickly, having been an infant when the fever took his own mother. He’d been in need of a maternal figure in his life, and her presence in Winterfell had done nothing but draw father and son closer together with every family supper and breakfast she had insisted on over the years. Seeing her welcome his son into her heart so openly only further pressed Cregan’s instincts to bring their own children into the world, wishing for nothing more than to give his boy dozens of siblings for him to play with. 

The procession finally came to a halt just as two large, intricately carved wheelhouses entered the gates, flanked by the king consort and all of the elder princes on their horses. Lady Stark’s nerves only heightened at the sight of the silver-haired men, particularly her elder brothers who almost immediately turned their gaze her way. The queen soon climbed out of her wheelhouse, followed by her own litter of children, Aegon, Viserys, and Visenya. The second wheelhouse opened, producing Dowager Queen Alicent and Princess Helaena and her own children Jahaera, Jahaerys, and Maegor. 

The queen came before them, regal as ever in her red cloak lined with black fur. She watched stoically as the three bowed before her. 

“The North is yours, Your Grace,” Cregan spoke loud and true, “my family and I are honoured to host you and your family in Winterfell.”

“Many thanks, Lord Stark. I commend you on leading the North through yet another winter,” a smirk tugged at her lips as her eyes turned to his wife, who lowered into another curtsy under her stare, “I hear that Lady Stark has taken to her role quite well. I believe motherhood suits you, sister.”

“Thank you, Your Grace,” Lady Stark nodded in thanks. 

The next line of Targaryens filtered through the short lineup of Starks, first Daemon, who scarcely offered any of them a second glance (aside from his niece, who he stared at for a moment too long in Cregan’s opinion). Prince Jacaerys greeted Cregan like an old friend, clapping him on the shoulder heartily while he offered his aunt a polite hug, his younger brothers following, though with less familiarity. 

Then came her mother, who hardly offered Lord Stark a moment of her time before she began fawning over her daughter, hugging her tightly before pulling away and pawing at her swollen belly through her layers of fur. A tear escaped the red-haired woman’s eye as she pressed a sweet kiss to Lady Stark’s cheek, then offered a greeting to sweet Rickon, who had shuffled closer to his stepmother in his nervousness. Aegon skipped over Lord Stark altogether, though he certainly was not complaining as he could smell the stench of wine radiating from the eldest prince even before noon, throwing himself onto his sister. She’d stumbled in her attempt to catch him, sending her husband a warning glance as he moved to rip him away from her. Aemond, at least, was more courteous, offering Cregan a polite greeting and kissing his sister gently on the forehead. Helaena was soon to follow, her greeting to Cregan leaving him with a puzzled look as she moved on to place her palm to her sister’s cheek.

“I am so happy to see you, sister,” Lady Stark’s eyes welled with tears. Cregan had been aware of how disappointed his wife had been when her sister had not been able to travel with her for their wedding, but she had not blamed her for choosing to stay behind while she was in her sixth moon of pregnancy, not to mention the poor state of her mind.

Daeron was the most reserved of his good-siblings, showing both Lord and Lady Stark his respect, though he had no personal relation with either. He’d spent most of his childhood in Oldtown under the care of his grandsire’s brother, the Lord of Oldtown, and his own uncle Gwayne. He’d been rather hesitant to even return to King’s Landing after being away for so long; his own mother was a mere stranger, and his siblings had gone on to marry and produce their own children without even a second thought of their youngest brother. 

Winterfell’s hall was overflowing with Targaryens and those who served them. Cregan could hardly recognize any of the faces at the tables nearest to his own, his men being pushed farther back into the hall to accommodate the royal family. He, himself, had even been pushed one seat to the right to offer the queen the highest seat in the hall. He was not pleased to be doing this, far too used to southerners coming to the North with such entitlement, but he would take the treatment silently for the sake of his dear wife, who had been so excited for the arrival of her family and had been overtaken by anxiety of ensuring the visit went well. 

She sat next to him, dressed in a fine silk gown (new, a design brought by her mother), a deep emerald with golden stitching across the bodice and around the cuffs. Cregan hissed through his teeth when his wife entered the hall, a happy grin on her lips as she cradled her round belly over the dress of her mother’s house rather than her own, though he was eager to greet her and accept her gleeful kiss on the cheek, and he was glad enough to see that her hair had been braided among the stems of various flowers, all of which being indigenous only to the North. Her mother could try with all of her might to try and hold tight to her daughter’s familial tether to the South, but Cregan knew his wife had transformed into a woman of the North–she was no longer simply a Targaryen princess, a dragonrider, she was also his wife, Lady of Winterfell, and mother of his children. 

It never escaped Cregan’s watchful stare everytime the Dowager Queen gripped her daughter’s arm when her attention was not focused solely on her, or how she forced a smile each time he joined their conversation at all. If the woman had not been his wife’s mother, he would have gladly warded her away from his wife’s personal space. He understood well enough that his wife was bound to miss her family, especially her mother and sister, but he was afraid to see her begin to slip back into her shell, which had taken him a considerable amount of effort and care to bring her out from in the first place. 

He was quickly tiring from the responsibility of hosting an entire flock of Targaryen princes, all of whom considered themselves above the northerners and their laws, customs, and expectations. They most often gathered in the training yards, each more eager to prove themselves over the northerners and each other than the last, except for Aegon, of course, who would rather spend the mornings in his chambers before he would disappear into Wintertown, most likely gone to spend the rest of the afternoon in the only brothel within twenty miles of Winterfell. 

Throughout the two weeks to follow, they had barely found a moment to themselves that was not in the early hours of the morn or when the castle is alight with only the light emitted from torches and the moon itself, where Lady Stark was usually so worn out that she had barely enough energy to cuddle into her husband’s side and share a handful of words before her snoring would reach his ears. He made an effort to seek her out when he was granted a brief moment away from his duties, but there was hardly a moment when she could be found without at least one member of her kin at her side; in the nursery with her mother and sister, discussing her duties with the queen, reading with Aemond in the library, or comforting Aegon amidst another bout of alcohol-induced sickness. 

The one moment he did find her alone in her personal study, not wasting a single moment before he was hoisting her into his arms and kissing her breathless. He’d been pleased to find that she had no fight in her, easily melting into his embrace and winding her arms around his neck, smiling into the kiss as small mewls of pleasure vibrated against his mouth. He’d almost forgotten that the door to the study had been left ajar, making his good-mother’s entrance even more silent, though he likely wouldn’t have noticed even if she had knocked, fully taken with his wife’s affection. 

“Ehem.”

“Mother,” Lady Stark pushed away from her husband, face still with shock and, quite evidently, embarrassment, “I, we did not hear you come in.”

“Yes, as I could see.”

“My apologies, Your Grace,” Cregan nodded to the woman, though his tone was laced with his annoyance, “I’m afraid you’ve been subjected to a moment of weakness.”

“Nonsense,” Alicent’s lips tightened into a strained smile, a touch of tenderness on her face, “it comforts me to know that my daughter is cherished and loved, even so far away. We are not all so lucky to find love in these circumstances.”

His wife rounded the desk, meeting her mother with a tight embrace. For a moment, he felt a pang of sympathy for the red haired woman–it was true, most marriages of such caliber did not afford the couple any form of affection, and he was more than aware of the fortune that had fallen into his lap that day that Prince Jacaerys landed at his gate. The moment came to a crashing end all-too-soon as his good-mother once again dragged his wife away from him, not to be seen again until she was deep asleep in their shared bed.

He’d arranged for a hunt during the visit of the royal family, where he was forced to play the peacekeeper between the queen’s sons and their uncles, all while keeping his eyes peeled for the prize he’d been hoping for; his wife had mentioned more than once that she wanted to find the perfect blanket to gift to their first child, one that can be used again and again with each babe they brought into the world, so it seemed only fitting to him that he be the one to bring her the pelt. 

It would be weeks before the warmth in his chest subsided after witnessing her grin and laughter as he presented it to her, two rabbits of a similar white and brown pattern, drawing her away from the large elk that had been brought in for their supper that night. It was a brief moment of privacy amongst the crowd, where she curled her fingers beneath the neckline of his leather doublet and dragged him down to her height, pushing a soft kiss to his wind-bitten cheek, though he was thankful for every moment of it. Her mother stepped in a moment later, grasping her daughter’s hand and willing her to join her in the nursery, where she could continue to preach her wisdom and advice for the soon-to-be mother, though Cregan hoped his wife was smart enough to take it with a grain of salt. 

He’d spent the rest of the day both tending to his duties, which have seemingly doubled since the arrival of his wife’s kin, and also offering a hand in preparing the elk when he had a chance; his cooks could do wonders with elk meat, but the kitchen maids often made a fuss when such large animals were brought to whole or at least without being skinned first. He had barely even spared a moment to clean himself and change clothes before supper.

When he arrived in the dining hall, a smaller yet more formal area where he hoped he, his wife, and their many children would all dine together whenever they could. He was, however, miffed to discover the dining hall filled with princes and princesses and queens alike, only two seats left empty–his own, and his wife’s. 

His immediate thought was that perhaps she was still readying herself, perhaps she had gotten carried away in the nursery with her mother, and she would be there soon enough. Then, his eyes fell upon the red-haired woman a few seats from his own. 

He cleared his throat, drawing silence across his hall, “My apologies, I expect Lady Stark in only a moment.”

Alicent furrowed her brow, directing her words to the rest of the royal family rather than to Lord Stark, “I’m afraid she will not be joining us tonight.”

Cregan raised his own brow, “Why not?”

Alicent’s gaze flickered to his own, “She was unwell this evening–a pain many women know while carrying their children, all she needs is rest.”

“And why was I not made aware of this at once?” Lord Stark felt his blood beginning to boil.

She looked somewhat taken aback, “These pains are normal, they are expected for how far along she is. My daughter–”

Cregan’s heavy palm landed flat on the wooden tabletop, “My wife is my main concern. Any news concerning her or my children should and will be brought to me at once.” 

Alicent pursed her lips, appearing to have a few words of choice for her daughter’s husband, though he turned his attention to the queen opposite him on the other end of the long table and looked equally as surprised and amused at the altercation as she sipped her wine.

“Excuse me, Your Grace,” he pushed himself up to his full height, “forgive my absence this evening, but if my wife is unwell I would prefer to be at her side.”

Rhaenyra smirked at him, nodding her head at him, “But of course, Lord Stark. I am honoured that you take such care of my sister. After all, family is everything, is it not?”

He ignored the way that her words seemed to have been aimed at the red-haired woman, who had slouched back into her own seat as a soft pink tinged at the apples of her cheeks, instead nodding at the queen and fleeing the room at once, his hurried and heavy footfalls carrying him through the castle and up to his wife’s personal chambers. He was disgruntled to find that they were empty, save for a servant girl who had been tending to the hearth and directed him to his own chambers.

The hinges creaked as he pushed his way inside, finding two handmaidens hovering worriedly over his wife as she hunched over on her hands and knees atop the plush bear-skin rug, back arched upwards like he’d only seen done by a cat. The two servants froze at the sight of the broad figure crossing the threshold.

“Lord Stark,” one of them rushed to him, “Lady Stark, she is alright, but–”

“Alright?” He scoffed, “She is on the floor in pain, she does not look alright.”

“Cregan,” Lady Stark glared up at him, voice strained with discomfort, “do not speak to my ladies like that.”

He let out a deep sigh, offering the servant a quiet but genuine apology, “Now please, just tell me what is wrong with her, and what I can do to help. Should I call a maester?”

The servant fought a soft smile, touched at the lord’s concern for his wife and child, “Lady Stark is experiencing little more than body aches. Normal for women carrying a child, especially their first. I’m afraid all the maester could do is offer milk of the poppy for discomfort, which could potentially do more harm to the child than good to the mother,” Cregan swallowed at the thought, “We’ve allowed the princess to soak in warm water, and the stretching helps while we prepare a hot pack over the fire.”

His gaze flickered to the small grate across the embers of the fireplace, holding three large black stones over them. He nodded, turning back to his wife, who had turned her face back into the rug while the other servant girl carefully massaged gentle circles into her lower back.

“What can I do?”

“The hot pack should help with the aches, but I’m afraid the best thing may be to keep Lady Stark as comfortable as possible, anything to keep her mind away from the pains.”

He nodded, “Leave us, I should care for my wife on my own.”

The door closed behind the two women as they hesitantly left their mistress’s side, loyal to the very end. Cregan wasted little time in removing his leather doublet and abandoning it on the plush bed, leaving him in only his breeches and thin linen shirt. He crossed the room, kneeling beside his wife and carefully laying his palm flat to her lower back, a small smirk appearing on his lips as she sighed from the relief brought by his large, warm hand. 

“If you were not so obviously in pain, I would guess that you were enjoying this, my love,” he chuckled as his hand copied the same circular pattern that the servant girl had applied.

“Shut up,” she turned her head to the side so she could glance up at him, “this is your fault.”

“My fault?” He scoffed, “As I recall, your current condition is the result of your uncontrollable desires.”

She pushed herself up onto her hands, “My what? It was you who was gone to the Wall for more than a moon!”

“And it was you who kept me from my duties until midday on the day after I returned.”

She pursed her lips, “Alright, next time I will allow you to go about your duties without a word. Then we will see which one of us is so insatiable.”

“Be that the case, I’m afraid you may be with child for the next decade or more, my love.”

“Just get the hot pack,” Lady Stark rolled her eyes, lowering her head back down to the plush rug, muttering to herself with a small grin, “a decade or more…”

He obliged, wrapping the stones in a thick woolen cloth before pressing them against the small of her back, a dusting of pink coating his cheeks at the sound she released, back curving inwards as relief overtook her body. 

They remained there for a long while, one of his hands holding the hot pack while the other smoothed over her silver hair, braided and still damp from her bath. The stones began to cool against his palm until they were no warmer than her own body heat, finally being tossed to the side.

“How do you feel?” He asked her, hands cradling her head and hip as he helped her roll onto her side.

“Better. Still plagued with discomfort, but better nonetheless,” She smiled softly at him, “I only wish someone may have warned me of the unpleasantness of pregnancy before I agreed to it.”

He barked out a laugh, remembering the many times she had pointed out the many ways pregnancy could ruin any romance in their marriage before it even began, hence their decision to wait before finally trying to conceive. 

“If only, eh?” He smoothed the pad of his thumb over her cheekbone, “Is there anything I can do for you?”

A twinkle appeared in her eye, “Well Maryssa did say that you should be doing anything to keep me comfortable…”

Lord Stark raised his brow at her words, “And what was it you only just said about me being insatiable? How have you gone from crippling pain to reaching for my breeches in such a hurry?”

She gasped, faux offense in her eyes, “I am not reaching for you breeches! What do you take me for?”

He quickly manoeuvred her onto her back, leaning down to press a slow yet meaningful kiss to her lips, “My very pregnant, very beautiful, and very impatient wife.”

She whined against his mouth, “I think impatience is quite appropriate given the circumstances. Your child has brought me the greatest joy and greatest pain of my life, and yet I constantly yearn for you, my love.”

“Constant?” He laughed.

“The maester warned me of it,” she kissed him again, “all a part of my hysteria, he called it.”

He hummed, “Which brings me to wonder why I was not made aware of this. I could have…relieved you of this suffering.”

She snorted a laugh, a sound he knew he could never grow tired of, “Cregan, if you do not take my clothes off now I would like to go to bed.”

“And what was it I said about your impatience?”

She pushed at his shoulder playfully, gasping as he grasped her wrist in his large hand and pulled her to sit up, moving to lift her and carry her to the bed when she pushed at his shoulder, shaking her head with a sly grin. 

“Here,” she insisted, “it is so warm, and this fur is so soft.”

He shook his head at her, rolling his eyes. Only his wife would be demanding enough as to where he had his way with her and choose anywhere except their marital bed. Only he would be so foolishly in love as to oblige her every whim and allow her to make such demands. 

Growing impatient, she began tugging at her own shift, struggling to lift her hips just enough to slide it over her hips and off completely, leaving her bare before her husband while the firelight flickered off of her soft, freshly oiled skin. His eyes fell from her own to her breasts, which had seemingly doubled in size through her pregnancy, then to her rounded belly; only a few moons would pass before she brought their first child into the world, and he could not be any more in love with her. He knew how excited she’d been over the last few weeks as her body developed with their growing child, spending much of her time with little Rickon, who was just as excited to become an older brother as she was to become a mother. 

“I am not simply here for decoration,” she growled, reaching up to begin tearing the linen shirt from her husband’s body, ignoring his laughter as she struggling to pull the fabric over his wide shoulders and causing his head to get stuck for a moment, “As I said, fuck me or let me sleep.”

His booming laugh echoed through the chamber, scarcely hearing his wife, a Targaryen princess and Lady of Winterfell, use such coarse language. It was the northerner growing within her, he decided as he obliged, kissing her with every ounce of desire he’d been forced to swallow throughout the duration of her family’s stay, pressing her back to lay flat against the dark brown fur. 

Cregan made quick work of kissing down her body, taking a few moments to kiss and suckle and squeeze at her swollen breasts, encouraged by her response to his touch on her sensitive skin as he continued further down. He pressed several playful kisses over her belly, whispering to their child to go to sleep so he could take care of his wife guilt-free. She giggled at this, causing a flood of heat to spread across his chest as he finally crested over the underside of her belly, coming face-to-face with the silver curls safeguarding her womanhood. 

Her legs fell apart easily, and he found no resistance as he eagerly began to feast upon her most intimate place. Her fingers curled into the fur beneath her as her whines and whimpers filled the room, unable to reach for his long dark hair with her belly in the way. He was pleasantly surprised to discover how much of her arousal had pooled between her thighs, two of his thick fingers easily slipping into her heat with practiced precision while his tongue massaged her sensitive pearl. 

Her body seemed more responsive than ever, thighs quivering against his shoulders as her peak crashed over her once, and then moments later, once more. 

He pulled away, noting how her hips had begun to pull away from him, her womanhood more sensitive than ever. He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, watching through lustful eyes as his wife grabbed hold of his other wrist, taking the fingers that had brought her to bliss twice only moments before between her lips and sucking them clean. She stared up at him through her lashes, leaning up on her elbow to reach down and paw at the tent that had formed in his breeches, tugging at the laces until they fell open and allowed her to reach inside.

He let out a low growl at the sensation of her hand taking hold of his member, head falling back in relief. Cregan was quick to pull her hand away, shedding his trousers and boots as efficiently as possible so he could lay her flat on her back once more and finally press himself inside of her. 

They both let out long, breathy sounds at the stretch; no matter how many times they would lay together, she never quit got used to the intrusion of his thick cock inside of her, He remained still for a moment, regaining his wits as he willed himself not to finish far too early, though he could not guarantee that he would be able to fight his peak for very long after weeks without his wife’s intimate touch. 

“Cregan, please,” she whimpered, nails scratching down his arm as she planted his fist next to her head, bracing himself as he began to work slow, deep thrusts into her warmth, his own grunts and gasps of pleasure falling from his lips while her lips fell open to allow wails of her enjoyment fall from them with every punch of his tip against her most sensitive place deep within her. 

“My love,” he panted, “For-forgive me…I do not think–”

“Give yourself to me, my love,” she whined, “I need to feel you.”

He nodded, eyes tightening shut as he quickened his pace, chasing his release with grunts and growls and groans until his hips began to stutter, his release pumping deep inside of her until he was shaking. His release triggered her own, pleasure crashing over her for the third time that evening, soaking his length in both of their releases as she clung to his broad frame for dear life. 

She whined when he pulled out of her, sensitive from her three climaxes. He took a moment to stare down at her, stormy gaze trailing from her cunt, where their mix juices had begun seeping from her warmth, to her belly, where their child grew. His eyes then moved to her breasts, which heaved with every deep breath the escaped her parted lips, and finally to her face, which shone with a layer of perspiration as she pulled him down to lay next to her on the fur, turning to press her back against his chest and settling into his embrace as he trailed sweet kisses over her cheek, jaw, and neck. 

“Thank you,” she whispered, sleep threatening to overtake her at any moment. 

“Thank you,” Cregan responded. “I love you.”

“I love you too, husband.”

Silence overtook the room for a moment, only the sound of their slowing breaths and the crackling fire in the hearth could be heard before he finally shared his final thoughts of the night.

“I cannot bear to not have you all to myself for even a moment ever again,” he mumbled into her flesh, “we are never hosting your family again.”

A small chuckle vibrated through her chest.

“I could not agree more.”

[darlingofvalyria]

❝Dragons do not seek permission, niece of mine. Dragons take.❞

[ Betrayal clouds your judgement, for when Jacaerys' indiscretion takes the form of a child, your anger lands in the palm of the Rogue Prince. ]

[ +18 MDNI ] [ 3,412 ] | Daemon Targaryen x Targaryen Niece!Reader, Jacaerys Velaryon x Manipulative Aunt!Reader | this set in an au inside of in hightower green. | this is able to be read as a oneshot.

contains— canon divergence to the second power - an au of an au - targcest, use of 'bastard', infidelity, profanity, revenge, violence, pureblood Valyrian bullshit - thinking about death as a revenge but no suicide/suicidal ideation- angst, smut - two wrongs apparently make a right - mentions of children, pregnancy, childbirth - nsfw: rough sex, biting, degradation, breeding kink, smidge dacryphilia, creampie - no kinslayers, no kings, no betas.

a/n— special thanks to @ahristata and @hiraethrhapsody for kicking my pursuit of this thread!! i woke up (almost literally) to this line of inquiry, & though writing for daemon is difficult, i had a way, way too much fun with this one m'fraid. Ihad so much fun I started laughing at the absurdity. + comment, reblog & like at will, mi luvs, mwa!

You can't breathe.

You stand there, your daughters by your sides, no more than five or so name days, dutiful as ever, the princess of the realm— the heir's wife, blindsided. Betrayed. Lied to. And you can't show them your grief, your anger, your shock— you smile, not betrayed, not realised, stupid.

Your act of stupidity protects you, for you can just tell that others, sharp-eyed as they are owning of sharper tongues, calculate the similarities between your husband and the child he is cooing at, at the arms of the Warden of the North's sister.

His bastard fucking sister.

You can't blink away as the facts, the threads, make a beautiful web in front of you. The conclusion is unmistakable. Jacaerys' consistent travels to the North, despite the campaigning for his mother's seat had not required the frequent stretches of long travels. How Aemond had remarked that the bastard is doing twice as much work in doing so, "as he should," Aemond murmurs darkly. "He casts a disgusting shadow on the Iron Throne, 'tis the least he can do."

The insistent of personally greeting the delegates from the North, you thinking it is just his wondrously formed friendship with the Lord Stark, had you dressing up and bringing your girls with him. So that your daughters can meet their father's fucking friend, one that occupied his time when he could have been at home, tending to his duties, his heirs.

And the woman who follows after the Wolf, the bastard Snow, his beloved sister. Dyanna had told you beforehand, as Lord Stark adores his only sibling. Their parenthood is unmistakable, dark hair and sharp chins. A Northern Beauty.

And then you stop, as there is a babe in her arms, no more than two name days at least.

And you see Jacaerys in his gaze.

His beautiful, warm brown eyes in the child in her arms, and as he stands there, your Prince of the Realm, too close for comfort, too close for platonic friendship, a familiarity one cannot deny— and that fucking, sweet-edged, tender smile on his face...

The same one he wore when you had given birth to his daughters. Soiled sheets, bloodied babes— it didn't matter. He held them to his arms with the very same smile, thanking you for birthing his babes.

A gut punch, a sharp inhale, an anger that coils and burns and roars.

Your bastard of a husband had fucked another bastard, and made himself a bastard little fucking family.

Life can ever be so cruel as it is humorous.

Daemon could have laughed at the prediction you found yourself in.

He sits to the left of his wife, the Queen who— in enough of itself, the evidence of the turmoil the court is about to get under, amusingly is talking quick with her Lord Hand; Corlys and Rhaenyra had not stopped pointedly looking at her heir, words too fast but unmistakable what the topic is if their gestures, the knot between their eyebrows, and unmistakable sighs and determined noises.

He, on the other hand, is pointedly staring at you.

You, who tries so hard to piece together an armour of stupidity, an air of nonchalance. As if there is no anger in your visage at your husband's attention completely stolen by Wolf's little sister and her son... who looked completely like him. Dark colouring, the First Men blood thick in his nose, his hair, at the curled edges of his baby-cheeked giggles.

When standing so close, faces to each other, there can be no doubt a mirror.

Or the lovesick smile on the mother's face, watching the Prince of the Realm interact with her son.

Together, the trio of them don't hint as much as a bead of Targaryen blood. One is able to pretend they are nothing more than a small... brown haired family.

Daemon presses his lips, trying desperately not to laugh so loudly.

He admired the boy, truly. Rhaenyra loved each child from her bosom with equal fervor, and Daemon was prepared take him as purely one of his own... but after he broke the betrothal with his daughter (though Baela could give lesser of a shit, though mildly dissatisfied as she was to become Queen, and the girl held her duties between canines) to marry a Hightower cunt... he had distanced himself from the boy.

Daemon viewed it as a sign of weakness, for he knew you. You were just like your mother, prodding into softened parts of his family— that green whore with his brother, young as she had been, his good sister Aemma had not been cold in their memories before she had found herself weightily pregnant with new heirs, and then Jacaerys, new to womanly spells, new to cunt, and you had him making vows in the ways of the dragonlords.

Though he can surmise that much of your mother's movements had not entirely been her own... Daemon knew that calculative look you got in your eye. Blink and it's gone, but your gaze sharpens, your mouth curls in a winning, prideful little smirk.

You were Otto Hightower's granddaughter alright, and you had wanted the Heir's Heir.

But now, it seems like, once a vow broken, it didn't really matter if it was a betrothal or a marriage to Jacaerys.

It brings a sick pull of satisfaction in him, that tugs him to look at you. Every time.

You laugh, tither, still evermore the gem of the feast— a feast you organised with the Lord Hand for your husband's absolutely exceptional diplomatic achievements in the North, truly, Daemon is laughing in the sidelines as the jests and songs make themselves — but Daemon is overtly familiar with dragons. And anger. And you simply stink of it. The way your eye twitches, the occasional grind of your jaw to how your fingers dig crescent moons into your palm. He catches blood in one blink then smeared, then gone, in another.

Your hold onto your armour— the Darling of the Realm, curated so painfully by a young, sly girl moving about the cesspit they call a crown's court — is breaking in pieces and tatters at each hour the feast went on.

It snarls. Like a dragon locked in the pits, tugging at reins, wishing to burn cities.

Maybe you aren't just another Hightower cunt after all.

Not purely at least, he thinks in distaste, staring at the dark green of your gown.

It is a childish tantrum, more than anything, for what is your Hightower green will do now? A bastard has been made, worse, a son. And though Jacaerys himself has muddied blood, he is still a Targaryen. His mother is Queen, prepared to make him an Heir to the Iron Throne as he had been legitimised as Laenor's son. A Velaryon. He bears the name, the crest, and the support of its house.

What is stopping him from marrying the Snow Bastard, legitimising the boy as his own, surpassing your own daughters?

Targaryens marry siblings, they also marry multiple wives.

It is a thought that he can see it dancing in your head— raw, enticing rage and bloodlust that tightens his breeches.

It is an interesting thing.

The green is disgusting, but Daemon can appreciate a young, fertile, Valyrian beauty.

Something your mother had ingeniously provided you and your siblings with, reining in her muddied blood to produce unmistakable Valyrian children. And as a smart little tart, you understood what to do with it.

When Daemon first met you, you were just one of the Hightower spawns that his brother had made to further his line. His brother's daughters—apart from Rhaenyra — were quiet things as babes and children. Odd the two of you were, but not really hostile. When you were introduced to him, your fat babe of a twin brother was teary-eyed and clinging to you, a quiet child with round eyes, staring at him inquisitively, as if challenging.

Then and there, Daemon disliked you so.

Even as you grew, the little of what he could see as he paid no mind of Viserys' other children, you grew up a fine royal, a princess of every word and sung note. Mentions of your progressive fight for the small folk, your charitable heart, your sweet nature that even his brother had made a note once or twice—

He thought it had been Otto Hightower who put you up to such machinations. Wouldn't be below him.

The night you bedded Jacaerys Velaryon, he was pleasantly surprised to find out it had been you all along.

And now here you are, betrayed as you had betrayed his daughter, delicious in your righteous anger and ripe (two babes before the year ended, Jace is an inglorious fool) for the taking. And youthful still. Smooth, soft skin, pretty lips and bright-eyed.

All your scheming, going as far as throwing your grandsire to Oldtown, it is obvious no one has wrangled the clever, spoiled little brat out of you.

As he sips his wine, amused and pleasantly hungry, he muses he might do a job or two of being the strong arm to do so.

He snorts, eyes straying back to the little First Men family.

There it is again. The jest that keeps on giving.

It was pride, truly, that kept you for most of the feast. That kept your gritted teeth to yourself, ducking into corners whenever your anger burned at your eyelids, stubbornly brushing stray tears away.

All is not lost, you stubbornly thought. You just had to plot.

But when Jace had taken your daughters, your Daenera and Aemma, gently tugging them to his bastard whore and his actual bastard to meet— finding your eyes, at that very moment as Daenera's precious, pureblooded hand shyly took the hand of her bastard brother, a fool's tender fucking simpleton of a smile on your husband's face —

Something in your head had snapped. A clean break.

And your armour had fallen. Like limestone from a fortress. Caved in ruins at the pool of your feet. Dark, furious loathe unfurled in your chest. Unable to handle it anymore, you had taken your dress and got out of the feast, for you could feel the urge of unsheathing a sword and going on a bloodied massacre, crowns and titles be damned.

You may not have a dragon, but you have its bloodlust.

Just as you are rushing to your chambers, you stop and make a different turn, knowing that if your husband had caught wind of such an ugly expression on your face, he would try and find you, talk to you, and you don't have the patience to cater to him at the moment— you find what you know of is an empty chamber, reserved for guests at the Keep.

It is a simple room with all the usual accruements. Most of the fanfare, the sheets, are in storage.

You start with a candelabra.

Raise it high before you are violently smashing it against the dresser, shrieks and guttural screams out of your mouth as you tear through the room like a typhoon, cursing Jacaerys, the North, and bastards to the Seven Hells.

None will be the wiser, for you had built your network well. Your spiders will pivot guards and strangers from this area, ensuring you a reprieve where your anger and grief can unfurl and manifest.

So you lose yourself, a dragon untethered. You get so into your rage, quiet in your thoughts, that you don't hear an intruder entering until there is a low, amused laugh too close for comfort.

You whirl around, tear-stained and rage-filled, and though the Rogue Prince expects you to fall into stutters, your eyes slit and you grip— when had you picked up a tome? — the tome tighter to your chest, snarling, "Get out."

Instead of surprise, or even offense, Daemon laughs as if you are the most amusing thing to him all night. Jesters and whores alike.

"I shall not." He makes a noncommittal hum around the dark room. "I rather like it here. It seems this chamber holds a much better entertainment than anything beheld at the feast."

You let out a dark, incredulous laughter. "I have no time for your toying, uncle, get out!" You toss the tome with fervour, but he's a warrior and he anticipates your anger, sidestepping easily before he's back to casual prowling.

"I do not have time to play jester for your entertainment," you hiss, unable to stop the hateful tears from spilling, brushing them away harshly as you watch him watch you.

He raises an eyebrow. "I am not asking you to."

"Are you here then for my humiliation? Press a bitter wound while it's still bleeding, is that it? Is that what would make the glory of your night?"

He snorts. "What would make the glory of my night is a warm body and a tight cunt."

Your face scrunches. "You are disgusting."

He barks out a laugh. "Not as disgusting as your brother."

"Aegon is no longer—"

"— or as stupidly naive as your husband."

A sharp intake of breath before you're once more cracking in broken rage and ghastly pain.

"Of course you would notice, who would not, he looks so much like his fucking bastard."

"Watch yourself, girl," he barks. "You are still talking about the Queen's heir."

A beautiful guard dog, you think, you snort. You push past him, gasping into the crisp, cool air, holding onto the balcony for dear life.

"His already diluted blood makes this conversation entirely hilarious to me I'm afraid." You look down and wonder how fast you will fall. How messy would such a death be? How much care there is left in your wake? Will your husband even care, now that he has his heir? Borne out of true love no doubt, despite such bastardly blood— or is that what makes it thrilling for them?

Mangled bone, spread thin blood— if you die such a way, it should be pretty. You hope it haunts the Keep of so many before you.

But if you die now, you will be replaced so easily. So prettily.

And your daughters—who will care for them? Will Jacaerys even care, if his bastards soon no doubt fill your once home, your mother, your brothers— your daughters pushed aside to make way for fucking dogs.

There is no satisfaction in such a plan.

There are many others.

The Rogue Prince makes his presence known by standing close to your back, close enough that you can smell him, that his heat is your own, as he hums, peering below as you have.

"Have you been drinking, zaldrītsos little dragon?" he whispers, tangling his fingers through your hair, running a lone finger down your neck, up and down in a tantalising movement. You can't help it, it feels comforting, leaning close to it despite such a breathy huff out of your lips.

"Since when am I dragon, kepus uncle? Haven't you always likened us muddied blood, filthier than dragonseeds?"

"I see that I am wrong," he says, almost idle as if he isn't devouring you in his gaze. How you feel soft, pliant under one finger after weighted in wine and the ruins of your anger, how you're almost purring and sweet like this, your fire alive but consistent. "Aōha perzys burns jehikagrī. Nyke hae ziry. Your flames burn bright. I like it."

"Hm. You've had sons, don't you uncle?"

"I have," he replies, amused.

"And many a children." You reach for his chin, your thumb rubbing his bottom lip. He's old, sure, but men don't have the same bodily issues as women. You know he could reach your father's age and be able to produce five more brats.

But his shoulders are strong, spry only as a swordsman can be.

And he isn't like he's loyal to Nyra, turning fully to you with a hand caressing your side.

His hand comes for your neck, halting your movement as he tests a squeeze. There is only much hatred as there is lust. And his cock is winning over his mind, for when your free hand, watching him intently, reaches for the hardness straining against his breeches, giving it a stroke, his breath stutters into a groan whilst his hips push into your hand.

"Dragons do not seek permission, niece of mine," he hums darkly. "Dragons take, or do you have too much of your Hightower cunt of a mother that you—"

You curl your hand over his cock until his breath hitches.

"I want a son. Surely you'd rather want for your true blood to sit on the Iron Throne? Your wife would remain Queen, her and her heir none the wiser. Any son of mine would be King regardless." Your voice is barely above whisper, stroking him as your squirm in his hold, his breath heavy by each promise, each tale you spin so tall. "Wouldn't you like that better? I am a Targaryen, as are you. Our blood would be pure."

"I have pureblooded sons, riñītsos little girl."

"But will they be king? With my husband as your wife's heir?" When his hold softens on your throat, you push yourself forward, pressing yourself against him. "Wouldn't you want your family's legacy, your legacy, unsullied with prettier blood?

"I want a son, uncle," you whimper, thickened with need and desire, willing him to bend and fold because men like Daemon are easy, because a loving marriage is one thing, a man who holds his house as his pride in another fist is another. "I want your seed to take root in me."

And it isn't like you're asking him to betray his Queen.

Daemon is surprisingly a soft lover, prone in a way to worshipping you even as you had gotten impatient and tried to get your way. His punishments are quick and precise, a hit on your thigh, a tighter squeeze in your throat, a firm bite in your breast enough to draw blood. He's soft but by choice, almost as if he is amusing you in each caress while one hand is holding you by your hair, fucking you down into the sheets.

His words aren't better, spun in hisses and spits, mocking laughter and groans.

"Do you want my seed, you little whore?"

"What would your husband say now, his pretty wife mewling for another? Or would he even care?"

"Your tears are pretty, if you want my seed, I think you need to be sobbing, hm?"

When he finally spills inside of you with nothing less of a broken, guttural roar, hips chasing the high, meeting your sensitivity once, twice, again— you are shattered in pieces and contradictions, floating and wide awake, pleasured and in pain.

He slaps your face gently after he's cleaned himself up, tucked his flaccid cock back in his breeches as he comes to your eye line. "Come to me again when you want my seed, hm? I shall prioritise your wants for the good of the realm but I dare say—"

He cocks his head with a smirk, feeling stirrings at the sight of your fucked out state, his seed spilling from your pretty hole that he can't help himself as he chases it with a finger, forcefully pushing it back in while your body trembles and twitches.

"— you may be with child soon enough, niece. I shall congratulate you and my son with the happy news."

Your eyes flutter close at the echoes of his disappearing footsteps.

Nine moons later, through a hearty, blood-soaked birth that rocked the keep with your wails of pure pain— much more painful than when your girls had come into the world — a baby boy is born of pure Valyrian colouring.

A fat babe who cried murder in his first seconds of life, and it is Caraxes who snarls and screeches into the high noon sky.

"I shall name him Daemon," you say to your husband beside you as you beheld the babe with a wondrous smile and a full heart.

"After your brother and my father," Jace says, smiling. "That is wonderful, my wife. He does look much like them."

Your smile curls, a finger rubbing your babe's fat cheek. "He does. And he will be strong swordsman." Your lashes flutter to Jace, poisoned vowels in each word that he blinks, startled. "Just like his father."

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[thyme-in-a-bubble]

the smouldering scar

fused with the foe, chapter three

a/n: big reveal in this one, you guys. hold on to your butts!

summary: you didn’t know how long he remained silent, frozen in the depths of the answer your simple question apparently had, but eventually, you heard him say, “I wanna show you something.”

warnings: king!steve rogers x reader, fantasy AU (monsters, but not much magic), original fantasy world, enemies to lovers, arranged marriage, slow burn, innocent!reader, violence, gore, injury, crying

word count: 3430

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It nearly looked like snow. But you knew it wasn’t. It was ash that swirled around in the smoky air outside of the small windows. 

Sitting on the floor of the chamber that shot off of the grand throne room, your back was pressed back against the stone wall. Numerous servants, mostly elderly ones or others who couldn’t join on the battlefield, had, with a handful of wardens, all gathered in that meeting room. Some were seated at the round table in the middle while others had opted for the floor like you. 

Hugging your knees to your chest, one of your hands slowly slid up and down your shin in a self-soothing caress, the movement eventually came to a stop on the top of your knee. Glancing down, you couldn’t help but turn your wrist and stare at the symbolic scar that marked your palm. Without really realising it, your other fingers came up to trace it gently as the terrifying reality of what was occurring just outside of these castle walls nearly ate you alive. 

With every hellish thought that fluttered in your mind, you became nervous that you were mere moments away from throwing your breakfast back up. 

What if Steve didn’t make it back? What if he was lying dead somewhere right now? What if he was just charred enough to make his demise inevitable, but draw his last few moments out in a torturous wait? What if you had to rule this kingdom, that you’d barely even gotten your footing in, all alone? 

Suddenly, doors on the other side of the room were forced open so loudly that it ripped you from your paralysing thoughts and made you jump. Lifting yourself up to your feet, your eyes stayed glued to the exit.

But when the door to the chamber was pushed open, all of the air slipped out of your lungs in an instant. 

With soot and scrapes tainting their features, there stood the royal who wouldn’t escape your worries, alongside numerous soldiers behind him. 

“Turner, Hardy,” not even taking a second to breathe, he instantly called to the wardens who had been guarding the chamber, “go get some supplies, blankets, food and water, as well as some healing supplies to the throne room,” he commanded, “we’ll use it as a sanctuary and gather the people who lost their homes as well as prepare for some of the injured since the hospital is already dangerously close to full capacity–”

Before you even knew what was happening, you’d crossed the room and nearly tackled the king from how forcefully you threw your arms around him. A breath of air seeped out of his lungs at the blow. It wasn’t till his touch slowly found your spine that you realised what you had done. Scurrying back like his touch had shocked you, “I’m sorry,” your wide eyes blinked up at him and your stomach twisted at the reality of what you’d just done, “I didn’t–…” though when you met his gaze, your shoulders melted back down into place as you uttered, “hi.”

“Hey,” he breathed, staring down at you as guards rushed around him, dashing to fulfil his commands, “are you alright?” 

“I’m–…” for a split second you were gonna spill to him just how terrifying it had been, how scared you still were, but looking back at him and the other knights, seeing the obvious signs of the fire they’d just walked through, you instinctively withered down and replied, “yeah. I’m fine,” you tried your best to keep your tone steady, “are you? What happened? Did you–…”

“Steve,” haven already migrated into the chamber, Bucky then tossed the king a roll of bandages, “we’ve got this here, you go take care of your side.”

Watching Steve’s quick reflexes catch the cloth with one hand, your gaze then grew again as it scanned his frame, “your side? What happened to your side?”

“It’s nothing,” he tried to relax his clenched jaw as he said, “it’s fine.”

With chaos buzzing all around the room, you searched his steely eyes a moment before you then turned on your heel. Snatching up one of the healing kits resting on the central table, you then glanced over your shoulder and gestured with your head, “come.”

Weaving through the crowd, you slipped into the vacant war room. A thick table, littered with maps and little markers, grounded the space. Not glancing back at him as you heard him shadow you, he slowly began to lay down the weapons still strapped to him as you pulled out a chair and sat the wooden box down on the table, the glass vials within it clinked against each other at the force. 

“You don’t have to help me,” his deep voice was quiet as he stayed near the door, “this isn’t my first burn.”

Unlatching the lid, you glanced back at him as you opened the box, “do you not want my help?” 

“No,” he shook his head and lowered his shield and axe to a chair he passed when his feet finally began to shift. 

“Then take your armour off,” you nodded clinically as you returned your gaze to the herbs before you. 

As he began to near you, he slowly started to loosen the straps of his leather armour, gently shedding it as he watched you search through the kit. 

“Where is it, where is it…” you muttered as you plucked up the bottles and read the scribbled labels, looking for the right thing, “ah!” you exclaimed as you located the elderberry and milkweed salve, “there!” 

Steve’s brows knit together gently as he placed one of his layers on the chair beside the one you sat in, “…you know how to treat a burn?”

“Yes,” you met his eye, “why? Did you not think someone like me would know about the art of healing? That it would be too grotesque for my fragile little soul?”

“No, I just–… I didn’t know that about you,” he leaned back against the table. 

“So, what happened out there?” your eyes flicked down to the crimson stain on his ivory tunic. 

Letting out a low exhale, a moment passed before he uttered, “I don’t know if maybe we’d been more prepared that we would have been able to win… we tried everything, but it got away… flew out west… with barely even a fucking scratch…” his eyes stayed locked on the same crack in the floor by his boots, “people that I’ve known and fought beside all of my life got turned to ash in seconds… houses were burned down, fields were set a flame… it just doesn’t make sense… none of it does… I’ve studied dragons and never, anywhere, have I come across an account of them just stopping by a town to kill a few folks before up and leaving again. Dragons are greedy, they’re solitary, they’re highly intelligent, I–…” a heavy sigh then seeped from his lungs, “it just doesn’t make sense…”

A knock then echoed at the door. 

Clearing the thickness in his throat, Steve lifted his gaze and said, “yes?”

An elderly servant, balancing a tray, creaked the door open, “I thought some refreshments might do you good, your majesty.”

“Thank you, Hilda,” the king mustered a small smile as she sat the pitcher and glasses down beside him before disappearing out the door once more. 

Carefully, Steve then peeled his soot and blood-stained tunic over his head and revealed the nasty burn that stretched across his left ribs. 

It was terrible, but for a moment you grew thankful for his distracting injury as you tried your hardest not to make the face that his burly physique conjured. 

As you began to smear the salve carefully over the burn, a stifled groan slipped out of him at your first touch. 

“Sorry,” the muscles in your body tensed as you could only imagine the pain he was in. 

“It’s alright,” he uttered through controlled breaths as he watched your fingers glide over the angry blisters that bubbled at his scorched waist. 

Popping the cork back into the stout glass container when the salve had been spread over his wound, you then picked up the bandage and your efforts almost caused you to hug him again as you wrapped it around his abdomen. 

When the clean cloth was secured and you’d turned to pack the supplies back up, Steve suddenly remembered, “oh, you should probably have this back,” and removed the borrowed chain you’d been too blind to notice dangling from his neck. Placing the necklace in your palm, a small smile twitched at his lip, “thank you for lending it to me. One could always use a little more bravery and not just when an actual dragon’s spewing off fire over your head.”

“I guess so,” your head cocked slightly, unsure what prompted him to say that. 

Searching your expression, he said, “you know, because of the rune.”

“What?”

“Because it means courage,” he pointed down to the scratch in the opalescent stone, “did you don't know that?”

“It does?” you glanced down at the necklace like you were seeing it for the first time. 

“Yeah. Is that not why you wear it?”

“No, I’ve just always worn it,” your head gently shook from side to side, “kinda thought of it as a good luck charm since it’s the only item of my mother's I’ve ever had…”

“Cosima, are you sure there isn’t anything more we can do to help?” Steve asked the farmer sincerely. 

Shaking her head, her grey locks were cropped so short that they only offered a silver shadow of hair, “you’ve already done so much, your majesty.” 

Glancing around at the charred remains of the farm that had gotten the brunt of the dragon attack, the king spotted the gloomy girl that shyly shadowed Cosima’s wife as her fingers stayed weaved in the spotted fur of a young sheepdog. 

“Is that your granddaughter back there playing with that puppy?” 

Glancing back over her shoulder, a sombre smile twitched at her lip, “yeah, that’s our little parsnip.”

“How is she taking it?” he asked slowly. 

“I think our attempt at distracting her is actually working, even just a little bit…” her eyes stayed on the dog a moment longer before she glanced back at the king and you beside him, “the attack turned too many children into orphans. We’re staying with the blacksmith and his wife while we rebuild the farm,” she spoke, “and his brother and sister-in-law didn’t make it as well, so now they are taking care of their nephew.”

“Wait, Mary and Richard?” Steve’s eyes widened slightly, “I didn’t know they were among the deceased.”

“I’m sorry to be the one to tell you.” 

Standing by his side, you’d let Steve do most of the talking. Not just because he knew the people better, but you also just didn’t know what to say without bursting into tears. 

Staring at the kid slightly obscured by her grandmother, your feet couldn’t help but shift closer to her and Steve’s voice, “…I was thinking of gathering the town council again tomorrow if you could spread the word to the rest of the members,” slowly faded away as you neared.

Kneeling down before her, you mustered a gentle smile as you asked, “is this your dog?”

Staring up at you, her weary and bloodshot eyes were wide as she quietly replied, “yes.” 

“What’s its name?”

Scarcely breathing in your presence, the girl timidly said, “his name is Oak.”

“Hello, Oak,” you scratched the puppy’s fluffy ear, “aren’t you adorable…” 

“Excuse me, what?” you glanced up from the expansive map that screeched across the table of the war room and blinked back at the king. 

“I said, what do you think we should do?” Steve repeated, “what do you wanna do?”

“You want my opinion?” your shock shined clear through your tone, “really?”

“Of course, I do.”

Letting your gaze flutter to the seagulls flying by outside the window, you exhaled, “well… I’m not sure what I could do to help. I honestly feel kinda helpless,” you shared, “I’m not a carpenter, I can’t help rebuild the homes that burnt down…” but then an idea tickled the back of your mind, “where is it again that the orphanage is located?”

“In The Dandelion Quarter, down by the docks,” Steve’s chin tilted slightly, “what were you thinking?”

“Well, it’s not much, but I kinda wanna go down there, visit the kids if they’ll let me. I don’t know if that’s dumb, but maybe it wouldn’t be nothing if I put some effort into distracting them a bit or whatever they might need. Is that stupid? To do that for as long as they’ll let me?”

“No,” he shook his head, “no, not at all.” 

“Really?”

“Yeah,” letting his fingers ghost over the backs of the chairs, he slowly curved around to the side of the table where you stood, “we both have an idea of what it’s like to lose your parents. I think it’s a great idea.”

As your lips twitched up into a smile, so did his. 

Though as you stood there and momentarily let yourself disappear into his gaze, a thought struck you and you soon found your lips parting once more.  

“Hey, Steve?”

“Hm?” he simply hummed. 

“Can I ask you something?”

“Yeah.”

Noticing that you were gnawing at the inside of your cheek, you forced yourself to stop before you uttered, “why is it that you call me dove?”

You didn’t know how long he remained silent, frozen in the depths of the answer your simple question apparently had, but eventually, you heard him say, “I wanna show you something.”

“Alright,” slowly nodded before following him out of the chamber. 

You’d never before entered the room he then showed you to, never even realised there was anything down this corridor. Though a bit dusty, the magnificent office he’d led you to only granted you more questions than answers. 

“This was my mom’s study,” Steve said slowly as he stepped aside and let you explore the space, “I haven’t changed a thing in here since she died. Everything’s still exactly as she left it.” 

As you glanced around the room, from the polished desk to the untouched tea set still sitting by a soft armchair, a painting on the far side wall caught your eye and made all of the hair of your body stand up.

The portrait was in an informal style, depicting a teenage girl with her arm around another. One of them you knew to be the same lady illustrated countless other paintings within the castle, but the other, the young plump woman depicted in a pair of billowy pants, her you recognised as well.

“Oh my–, is that–…” scarcely breathing at all, you tore your stare away from the painting, “Steve, why is there a portrait of my mother in here?”

Sucking in a breath, his low voice then found your ears once more, “because that is a painting of my mother and her best friend.”

“H-her–,” you felt as if the world might fall out from under you, “what?”

“Our mothers were friends,” he shared slowly, “they grew up together.”

With brows tightly knitted together, you blinked between the king and the painting, “she was born here?” 

“She was,” he nodded. 

“I–… I knew my mom wasn’t from Obelón, but I never knew she was from here…” tears began to blur up your vision as you stared up at the portrait, “this doesn’t make any sense… I always thought my mother hated this kingdom… she was on a diplomatic mission here when she died, trying to stop the war our marriage eventually put an end to.”

“No, she wasn’t,” he softly corrected. 

Whipping your head back at him once more, “what?”

“She wasn’t here for any political reason,” he disclosed, “it wasn’t unusual for her to visit her home, but even that wasn’t the reason why she was here when she passed,” he sucked in a breath before continuing, “Y/n, she was trying to escape. Trying to find a way for both her and her children to leave your father.”

“She was? I always thought they were happy together, that they loved each other.”

“They might have in the very beginning, I don’t know,” you slowly sank down into a chair as he spoke, “but I do remember the way that she spoke about him back then and it was with anything but love. I might have been young, but I wasn’t a complete idiot about what was going on around me.”

“You knew her?”

“I did,” he exhaled, “I mean, I was just a small child, but yeah, I remember her well.” 

Feeling your body tremble at the discovery, you hazily heard yourself ask, “would you–… could you tell me about her?”

Offering you a small nod, he then sat down in the armchair opposite the one you found yourself in.

“My mom always told me that she and Saoirse were practically attached at the hip as kids. Where the crown princess went, your mother followed and vice versa. But at my mother’s coronation, Saoirse met King Ivan and it didn’t take long before he swept her with him. They tried to keep in contact, the best that they could, but at one point the letters were so few and far in between that my mom had nearly lost all hope in the kinship. But then, one day, after I was born, your mother started coming around again. She became like family to me as well. Taught me how to skip rocks, how to throw a punch, she even told me stories of the gods. But the last time she was here it was different, everything was different… my memories from that far back are fairly spotty, but I still remember every single thing from that night… the night that you were born… when Saoirse realised her fate, she made my mother promise her that she’d look out for you, that she’d protect you no matter what. We tried to keep you here, to keep you from going back to the very place your mom had worked so hard at freeing you from, but at the end of the day, all we had to prove you staying here were the dying words of a mother, not the blood you shared with a king. My mom always kept an eye on you for the remainder of her life. And then she made me promise to do the same.”

Feeling a heavy tear drip from your chin and down into your lap, you uttered, “so, that’s why you married me?”

Meeting your eye, he uttered, “I married you to protect the daughter of a very kind lady I once knew. I married you to keep up a promise I made to my mother.” 

“I see…” the fact that he wed you out of kindness and duty somehow didn’t help how overwhelmed you still felt, “I still don’t understand though why you call me dove. I get why you told me all of this, and I’m-… thank you for doing so, but what does it have to do with that nickname?”

Weaving his fingers together, he glanced down at them, “your mom, uh… it’s what she called you whenever she’d talk to her belly,” unclasping his hands, one of them briefly fluttered up to scratch the nape of his neck, “hell, my mom even continued to call you that long after your father gave you a proper name. I didn’t really realise I was doing it, guess it subconsciously just kind of slipped out when I met you, but I can stop if that’s what you’d prefer.”

“No,” you swiftly shook your head, “you don’t have to stop.”

Glancing up at you, he offered a light nod, “alright.”

Letting your vision flutter back to the youthful depiction of your mother, your eyes took in every little detail as a stomach-turning thought haunted your mind till you couldn’t ignore it any longer. 

“Steve?”

“Yeah?”

“…do you remember what chamber it was that she–…” turning your head to meet his gaze, you couldn’t get yourself to finish the sentence, though thankfully, the king didn’t need any more words to understand. 

“I do…”

Your eyes flickered to your lap to spot the few splotchy tears that had stained the silk.

“…could you show it to me?”

© 2024 thyme-in-a-bubble 

[fandom-puff]

Anything Ned Stark. Second wife, first wife, fluff, headcanons anything. 💚❤💚❤💚 -Maris

Omgg!! Haven’t written much for Ned and haven’t written game of thrones in a while so I rlly liked this one!! I went with 2nd wife HCs for this one.

Being Ned Stark’s second wife would include…

Warnings: AU where Catelyn dies, reference to death, political/arranged marriage, age gap, reference to smut, but it’s skipped over

Gif creds to owner

Almost a full year after catelyn had passed, Ned decided that Winterfell needed a new Lady, and his children needed a maternal figure

Of course, no one could replace Cat, who was the mother of five of his children and kept Winterfell running smoothly while he tended to his duties as warden of the north

So after much deliberation in the Godswood, he visited Lewin’s Solar and had ravens drawn up to the northern Lords

And one to King Robert himself.

it takes several moons, but soon his new bride arrives at Winterfell, accompanied by your Lord father and two of your brothers

The wedding itself is a small affair, with your vows said in the Godswood before the old gods

The children are in attendance, and the eldest among them seem aged beyond their years following the death of Lady Catelyn.

The feast afterwards is quiet, the music played quietly, the guests not yet rowdy.

You sit at the head table at Lord Eddard’s right side, your shoulders weighed down by the great grey cloak of House Stark, and the new responsibilities of the Lady of Winterfell

Soon the children are herded off to bed, and it’s time for the bedding

Your mother had discussed what would happen in the marital chamber in scant detail, so you knew the mechanics

Your father had only told you to do your duty to your house, his jaw tense

But when a rowdy fiddle player tried to liven up the festivities with his bawdy hollering and calls to strip you through the halls, Eddard stood from the table

A cool look from his stern grey eyes was enough to silence the musician

“You may continue the festivities,” he addressed the wedding guests. And although his voice was low and quiet, it commanded respect from all in the Hall.

He then offered his hand to you, and when you slipped your hand into his calloused palm, he guided you up and then down from the platform, through the hall of well-wishers, all bowing their heads to the Warden of the North.

The walk to your new chambers was silent, but not uncomfortably so, and when Eddard held the door open for you, you thanked him in a quiet voice.

“These are your chambers,” he said lowly, gesturing.

They were beautiful, in a rustic, comforting way. The fire crackled, casting flickering shadows over the furnishings.

“In here is your sitting area, with your Solar just ahead. Your bed chambers are through that way. Your things have been brought up already, but you have plenty of time to sort all of that out. And you’ll have help, of course,”

You smile gratefully as he explains that you are free to change the appearance of the chambers as you please.

“My own chambers aren’t too far from here,” he adds with a small smile, and you notice the way his eyes crinkle as he smiles.

Together you sit before the fire, sharing a cup of ale, talking of not much at all, but easing into one another’s company.

“Thank you,” you say, setting your cup down. When he looks at you quizzically, you expand. “For before. My younger brother teased me before I came here, telling tales about bedding ceremonies. I knew you wouldn’t allow it, you didn’t for-“ you catch yourself. “You defended the Lady Catelyn’s honour. And I am thankful that you defended mine too, Lord Stark,”

Eddard watches as you talk, the way you handle talking about Cat, his Cat. There is no scorn, no resentment at being a second wife, at being a replacement, at knowing that he did not love you

Not yet, at least

“I would never dishonour you, My Lady,” he tells you, and you smile gently.

He is silent for a moment before clearing his throat. “I will not make you consummate this marriage tonight My Lady. Not if you don’t want to. We can proceed in the coming weeks, if you would prefer,”

“What if I want to?” You asked. “I must do my duty to House YLN and now to House Stark as well. You and I both know this marriage cannot go unconsummated, otherwise our houses are not formally allied,”

Eddard surveyed you for a moment, relieved he had wed a Lady with a wise head on her shoulders, and not a skittish young maid.

“Then I will go at your pace, my Lady, and you must tell me to stop should your mind change,”

You nodded your head in agreement, and together you made your way to your bedchamber

He keeps his word, and the marriage is consummated slowly, dutifully, gently

Afterwards, he holds you, never leaving to return to his own chambers, and had a servant bring wine for you

But when he returns to your bed, he finds you asleep, snuggled into the fur, your face serene and your hair mussed up

With a gentle smile he slides back into bed with you, though it takes him much longer to fall asleep, killed by your gentle breaths

[tinietaehyun]

Forsaken [XI]

[Sorcerer!Taehyun x Royal!Reader] [Series] [Chapter Eleven]

Pairing: Sorcerer!Taehyun x Royal!Reader

Genres: Romance, fantasy, royal!au, supernatural, angst, fluff, thriller, enemies to lovers.

Contains: Profanity, mentions of capital punishment, whipping, blood & injury, implication of stabbing.

Links: Forsaken Masterlist || Masterlist

Summary: It was time. Taehyun’s painstaking preparations and your intricate attempts at distracting Prince Beomgyu had all led up to this moment. You really hope your efforts would bear fruit!

Taehyun’s spell teleporting you and him would a large task. You only hope that neither Beomgyu nor Soobin would hinder your plans. Most importantly, you wanted the both of you to get back to the Woods of Mors together, in one piece.

Blood splatters across the cobbled flooring. The once honey-skin is now marred by bloody lines from the whip. The Royal Commander flinches and grunts as the whip flies down time and time again, harsher and harsher upon his bare back. His wrists tied helplessly.

Though the young knight did not regret his actions despite the unbearable pain he was in. Even if his actions helped you gain even just a little more time, he’d do it again in a heartbeat. After all, all he was, was a pitiful coward who couldn’t protect the one he loved. The one he was supposed to serve with his life.

Kai’s eyes rolls back in agony; barely keeping conscious. His blood drips down his torso as he shivers violently. The pain encapsulates his beaten body like an agonising vice. This was his consequence, his punishment for deliberately disobeying orders.

“You are indeed lucky, I have not just had you executed. Purely for the notion that the public would be rather unhappy to know of an execution before my coronation. Furthermore, your lineage is exquisite, for that alone, I am leaving you with a lasting reminder of what happens if you disobey me as your king,” Sehun utters, walking past Hueningkai’s trembling body. He was brought to the brink of death.

A disgusted grimace paints Sehun’s visage, “Hm, warden, make sure the floor is thoroughly scrubbed. It is appalling.”

Sehun crouches down with a dark, twisted gaze, “Do not disobey my orders for your measly feelings towards her again. You will stay in your new home here in the dungeons in the meantime. I’ll let you out when your beloved princess is nothing but a corpse.” Hueningkai hisses in pain; countless tears drip down his bloodied face.

Sehun condescendingly smirks, getting up peering at the surrounding guards, “Get him treated. I don’t want news of him dying from his injuries spreading either. Cut his meals, as you do with other criminals.” He muses, peering at the fallen knight, “You will thank me for my mercy.”

Sehun walks out of the dungeons feeling a new sense of self-satisfaction. Preparations for the coronation were going well, he has been tirelessly working on his public persona and slowly garnering the affections of the public with his speeches and drifting attention away from his no-good run away sibling. He will make a fine king, no doubt.

His eyes meet with his dearest friend who sits on his throne with a playful smile. “Yeonjun?” Yeonjun seems distracted by the luxury and intricacy of the golden throne and tufted cushions; his eyes twinkling with desire.

Sehun’s eyes narrow briefly, “Get off my throne.” Yeonjun muses, “My, are you offended that I sat on it? It’s very comfortable you know.” Sehun scoffs, “You know it’s forbidden for non-nobles to sit on it. Do not test me, I am already going through quite the trouble.”

Yeonjun’s eyes twinkle mischievously, “Come now, your highness. I merely jest. This throne is for you and you alone. I was just curious to see your reaction and you did not disappoint.” Sehun rolls his eyes, “You and your games.”

The sorcerer grins, “How is the Commander? Still alive?” Sehun chuckles sitting on the throne, “Barely, but I took into consideration your idea of not killing him. It would only backfire. As wise as always, my friend. This punishment should scar him for a lifetime.”

Yeonjun hums, placing his arms behind his back, “Well, a good whipping never fails.” Sehun hums exasperated, “How was the meeting with the barons and chancellors?”

“As boring as always…” Yeonjun begins and he hums lowly, “Though there are still a few who doubt your ability to rule. They are still concerned about y/n.” Sehun’s grip on the armrests of the throne tighten, “If only I could get rid of those aristocratic pests. Who do they think they are?”

Yeonjun murmurs amused, “A new concern has raised on your ability to catch a mere noblewoman, then how are you able to carry out any decree with sufficient strength and power?” Sehun’s eye twitches as anger and paranoia flood through him. He cannot lose support from the Royal Court at any cost.

Yeonjun peers down smiling almost blissfully at Sehun who tightens his jaw. His heart races. “There are some of your subjects and some journalists who also wish to know of the whereabouts and status of the Princess.” More fear and anxiety flood through Sehun’s system.

The sorcerer frowns, “My, your highness. You look pale. My apologies, you have already spent the last few weeks delirious and under spirits and here I am making you feel worse!” Sehun grits his teeth, “Halt your apologies. I…” His hands shake slightly trying to compose himself.

“No matter, the date of my coronation is approaching and that is all that matters. Once I am king, no one can say anything. My word is law. If I have to act as a tyrant, so be it. If the people accept me as I am, then I shall be a kind ruler.” Sehun mutters, rubbing his forehead distressed.

Yeonjun smiles slyly, “Indeed, I see no fault in your reasoning, your highness. No noble can be purely good. You must adapt accordingly to your subjects and court. It brings me joy to see you grow into a fine nobleman, Sehun.”

Sehun clears his throat, appeased by his friend’s words. “How is everything else, I heard you insisted on checking the budgets for this month? I was not aware you had an interest in accounting?”

Yeonjun hums, “I do not, I was merely interested in the manner in which the finance is handled within the palace. The treasurer is a wise man indeed, even, I almost lost my wits at the scrolls of calculations.” Sehun chuckles, “It is but natural.”

Yeonjun hums, peering at the intricacy of the throne with great admiration, “Do not fret your highness, everything will proceed smoothly.” He murmurs bowing, “After all, I am by your side. As your beloved friend, I would never go against you.”

Sehun nods, “I know you wouldn’t. Unlike the other fools around here, you know your place. You are truly wise, someone worthy of my time.”

“Thank you, your highness. It’s an honour as always,” Yeonjun smiles.

“Oh, and about y/n. I shall sort her out, you merely do your regular duties. Leave everything to me, your highness. As always, I am by your side,” Yeonjun expresses fervently.

Sehun eases up, “Do as you wish. My mood has faltered.” Paranoia floods through Sehun’s body. There is no way y/n could come to stop him. Right? Yeonjun will take care of it. He was ever so capable.

Yeonjun murmurs with a coy smile, “Do not be so sour, your highness. I believe only good things will come your way.” Yeonjun’s eyes glimmer as he peers at the crown on Sehun’s head, “After all, with power like yours. Who could possibly look down on you?”

“Well said,” Sehun murmurs. Yeonjun bows once more before retreating with a dark expression.

Yeonjun’s footsteps clatter amongst the hallways; he’d have to continue to keep an eye on that pesky princess. Otherwise all his years of hard work would be undone. Yeonjun did not want her to enter Fortuna before Sehun’s coronation. Security around the palace has unfortunately increased making him become frustrated.

“Mm…Sehun, Sehun, how pitiful you are.” Yeonjun hums barely above a whisper. With every task Sehun unloads on Yeonjun, it is a boon. Yeonjun took pride in playing the prince like a puppet on strings. After all, he’d make sure the upcoming coronation would be quite the spectacle. A breathy laugh escapes his lips. How could the prince be so naive?

As Sehun would hate to admit it, all the ideas and suggestions he’s implemented came from Yeonjun. Yeonjun peers at his reflection on the marble floor with a dreary sigh. Oh, how fine he would look with a decadent crown on his head. A smirk laces his lips. Oh, how fine indeed.

It was only a matter of time.

————

“Today’s the day, sweetheart. I’ve got everything we need and I’ve recited the enchantment over and over again. It should work. I’ve tried it on small items and it seems to work well,” Taehyun hums as he walks beside you.

You nod with a frown, “It has to work,” you drawl with an exasperated sigh, “Beomgyu is so draining to be around. I feel bored by the pitiful tasks he pushes onto me regarding our so called betrothal. He’s so…ugh!” You huff.

A chuckle escapes the sorcerer beside you, “Just put up with him a little longer. Just until this evening, okay? We’ve got this.” He snickers, “Is he that unbearable, princess? Come now, was he not ever so charming?” Rolling your eyes, you scoff, “Very funny, Taehyun. But…I just want to go home. Back to Fortuna. Get things back in line.” His expression softens briefly and he nods, “And you will. I’ll make sure of it.”

You frown, “Are you sure you have enough mana to teleport the both of us?” Taehyun’s eyes flicker with subtle unease and he shakes his head with a cocky smile, “Do not forget I am of the Kang Family lineage. Anyway, I can bypass that issue. So it’s fine.”

You pout, “Of course you’re skilled it’s just…you have never tried it with two people. I’m worried if you get hurt. Or…or if only one of us gets teleported.” Genuine worry fills your visage and he gives you a smirk, “Don’t worry, sweetheart. Leave everything to me. Just keep your little Prince Charming there occupied for me, okay? Away from the sorcerer’s chamber.”

You inquire, “Does Soobin know what you’re up to?” Taehyun muses, “Initially he was rather confused, but after these last few days I think he’s put together the pieces. Although, he doesn’t know it’s our way of escape. At the end of the day he is the Prince’s lapdog.” You sigh, “Do not be rude to your friend. I’m sure he means well.”

Taehyun scoffs, “He is sweet of course but the last thing I want is him blabbering our plans and demolishing our chances of escape.” You nod in agreement; Taehyun was being rational.

“Anyway, I’ll apologise later or something through a letter.” You let out a very unnoble snort taking him by surprise and he laughs, “Goodness, I wasn’t aware you were capable of laughing in such a manner, princess.” You smile at him bashfully; his teasing gaze makes your heart flutter and feel warm inside. “Well, perhaps you are the only person to see me in such a state.”

You find yourself staring at his pretty features and as your eyes scan down; your eyes widen, catching glint of a gold object glittering under the candlelight of the lit hallways. Your ring. On his neck?

“My ring…you formed a necklace?” Your heart palpitates; finding yourself breathless. Taehyun’s eyes widen as he tucks the hanging ring under his shirt and clears his throat awkwardly, “It’s nothing. I just, it’s worth a lot so I didn’t want to lose it. Not just for its material value or anything, you did say I could keep it as a souvenir or something.”

You peer at him with a wide smile, “Thank you for keeping it safe.” Taehyun is taken aback by your gorgeous smile, feeling his cheeks grow into a flustered shade of subtle red. “Really, it was just so I didn’t lose the ring. Don’t t-think too much into it,” he scoffs, averting his gaze.

Rolling your eyes, “Of course. Hm, you can be rather cute sometimes, and here I thought you tossed it carelessly into that worn-out satchel of yours.”

Taehyun huffs, “I’m not an imbecile to throw such a valuable thing aside carelessly. I’m not heartless, you know?” You grin, “I’m aware. You’re rather soft inside. A big heart, you have got.”

A scoff escapes his lips, “Whatever, anyway. Keep the pretty boy entertained. As I stated before, meet me in the sorcerer’s tower today by the sunset. Sharp.”

“Beomgyu knows that I’m leaving today, right?” Taehyun asks. You nod, “I told him, we made up a day or two ago. I told him earlier this morning you were planning to leave this evening and I wanted to send you off.”

“He wasn’t suspicious or anything?” Taehyun murmurs. You shake your head, “No, he was fine with the idea. In fact he was overjoyed.” Taehyun grunts irritated, “Of course that obnoxious fuck would be happy with me leaving.” Your eyes widen and he scoffs, “Anyway, follow the plan. Act normal.” You huff, “I know, don't underestimate me.”

“Not underestimating you princess, just want you to be safe,” he hums brushing up past you with a serious expression, “Our lives could very well be on the line tonight.” You nod, “Understood.”

He walks away but not without peering his head over his shoulder and giving you a final snarky smirk and finally walking off.

Everything was slowly setting in place and nerves wrack your body. Absolutely everything had to work out! Otherwise the both of you had to be doomed. Ironically, you’d feel safer back in Fortuna, especially in the Woods of Mors, where not many would dare to traverse.

Images of Taehyun flash in your mind as a warmth permeates your body. You felt safe with Taehyun. He was intelligent, witty and most of all far more capable than you were. You trusted him to be by your side. You would have never thought you two would be like this when you first met his arrogant self in the woods.

With a determined expression you stride through the hallways back to return to Beomgyu’s side. For yourself, for Taehyun, for Kai and most importantly for your people. You would succeed no matter what.

————

Taehyun wipes the sweat off his brow as he finishes the last of the preparations on the floor of the sorcerers’ chamber. The chalk mana circle is fully drawn with the appropriate lines shapes and intricate symbols. Taehyun peers out the small window seeing the golden hues of the sky as the sun melts into the horizon. A shaky sigh escapes his lips.

“Taehyun, this isn’t a mere spell casting experiment. Tell me the truth,” Soobin utters with a frustrated expression. “You’ve kept me in the dark for long enough. I’m beginning to get worried you have other intentions.”

A small laugh escapes Taehyun’s lips, “I’ll humour you then, Soobin.” Soobin murmurs, “You’re planning to leave aren’t you?”

Taehyun stiffens, he’d put it together that quickly, huh? “You’re correct,” Taehyun muses, beginning to place candles around the circle and the various prisms and orbs in the correct positions.

“With Princess Y/n,” Soobin resumes tensely. “Well you’re not a fool, clearly you’re aware,” Taehyun dryly hums. Soobin murmurs with a hurt expression, “I guessed, but I was waiting for you to tell me. Do you not trust me?”

Taehyun bitterly smiles, “Trust? Don’t be naive.” Soobin flinches at his sour tone. “Trust is what got me and her in this shit mess in the first place. Believing your disgusting prince but instead he accepted her for his own benefit.”

“But marrying him will help her strengthen her position, no? I…” Soobin hesitates. “You don’t understand, being forced into marriage is not exactly the same as a mutual alliance is it?” Taehyun snaps.

Taehyun scowls, “You knew, I’m sure he tells you a lot of his idiotic ramblings. Yet you do not once rush to the side of justice. You knew it was suspicious when the guards here wouldn’t let either of us outside.”

Soobin grunts, “I know. I know okay. I’ve known about the Prince’s plans this entire time. That’s why…” Soobin’s voice cracks, “That’s why I went and got the resources you needed for the teleportation. I didn’t stop you. I…I didn’t encourage him either.”

Taehyun stops standing up, peering at his friend. “You intentionally followed my whims?” Soobin frowns, “I know, his highness has been holding the Princess captive here. He told me this before you even knew. This was the plan he discussed with me. I merely went along with it.”Taehyun remains silent processing his words. “I couldn’t object to him, Taehyun. I…he’s the ruler here. That would practically be handing my life over,” Soobin stammers.

Taehyun murmurs, “So you’re playing the ignorant fool. How will you explain yourself after me and her leave? Won’t you be considered an accomplice?”

“Did you think about that? You clearly didn’t care. You would have left me here to clear up your mess,” Soobin seethes lowly. “I have to be selfish, this once,” Taehyun grits out.

Soobin muses sourly, “I’m not angry, you’re doing this out of desperation. I don’t agree with his highness’s actions manipulating her. I get why you're resorting to this.” The two stare at each other in an uncomfortable silence. “That’s why I asked no questions until now,” Soobin mutters.

“You’re not going to tell the Prince?” Taehyun asks, frowning. Soobin shakes his head, “I am not cruel. I may be loyal, but I am not cruel. Fortuna deserves a good ruler, I can see she has the qualities required of one,” Soobin gives Taehyun a smirk, “Especially if she’s managed to capture your attention of all people.”

A scoff escapes Taehyun’s lips, “Hilarious.” Soobin hums, “It hurts. But I’ll manage; I will merely say this happened without my knowledge. I will play the ignorant fool. At the end of the day, I am a coward, Taehyun, who does not wish to go against royalty. I don’t want to die at his highness’s wrath.”

Taehyun’s heart stings, he was going to let Soobin take the fall for the aftermath. Guilt consumes him. “I’m sorry,” Taehyun utters. Soobin’s eyes widen in surprise with a wry smile, “An apology from the prodigy Kang Taehyun? A sincere one at that. You truly have changed.”

“I didn’t want to deceive you. I just thought you’d spill everything to Beomgyu,” Taehyun sighs. “Understandable,” Soobin utters, peering at the sunset, “When it gets dark is the optimal time, yes?” Taehyun nods.

“Isn’t teleporting the two of you going to be exhausting? No, it may even knock you out,” Soobin frowns. “I…I have to try. She’s placed all her faith on me,” Taehyun murmurs.

“Who knows what that much mana output could do to your body?” Soobin quivers. Taehyun crouches back down resuming the final preparations, “I’ve come this far. She’ll be here soon. You should leave the scene.”

“Oh so now you don’t want me to take the fall?” Soobin hums sarcastically. Taehyun glares, “I said sorry, okay?” Soobin takes his things and walks towards the door, “Yes, yes. I shall leave you to your mighty plan. Best of luck Taehyun. Convey my wishes to the Princess too.”

Before Soobin could leave, Taehyun calls out, “Soobin, wait.” Soobin turns briefly and Taehyun murmurs, “If…If things get tough here. You can always come back to Fortuna.” Soobin’s expression falls with a touched gaze. His words moved Soobin greatly.

“You’re a fine sorcerer, you’d be welcomed into the Sorcerer’s Tower with ease,” Taehyun says. “Thank you…Taehyun. I’ll consider it,” Soobin frowns; his heart aching. Taehyun had offered him a way out, just in case.

“I’ve left a copy of the original teleportation spell in the left-hand drawer of your table, like you asked. You said you wanted the spell, right?” Taehyun hums. Soobin smiles solemnly, “Yes, I did. Thanks, Taehyun. I…good luck with everything.”

With that, the door shuts. All that is missing now was you. Just where were you? The sun was setting fast. His heart races in nervous anticipation.

Meanwhile, the dining hall bustles tensely. “Where’s Y/n?” Beomgyu questions as he sits at the dining table, him grabbing a napkin. There’s silence in the hall as the maids and some guards peer at each other, all waiting for someone to respond. Beomgyu’s eyes narrow, “Silence? I asked a question.”

“Your highness, I went to call her highness for dinner but she dismissed me saying she felt unwell,” a maid finally speaks up.

Beomgyu’s gaze darkens, “Unwell? She was perfectly fine this morning? What is the meaning of this? I made it abundantly clear to be sharp on time for dinner.” The dining hall staff remain silent as Beomgyu’s frustration emanates.

With an irritated clatter he stands up and abruptly walks to your chambers. He wouldn’t tolerate such insolence. After all, he could never be too careful, particularly with that pesky sorcerer leaving today.

He knocks on the door once, twice, a third time. No response. Beomgyu twists the knob slamming the door open and finds a heart-dropping empty bedroom. The balcony doors carelessly swung open, the windows open and curtains haphazardly flapping as the golden sunset seeps in.

Rage consumes him. No. This could not possibly be happening! She must merely be on a walk, perhaps she went to the gates to see that pathetic sorcerer off! Yes, that’s it. Anger floods his senses as the guards around him shiver.

A maid suddenly walks by with a duster in hand, “Your highness? What is the matter?” Beomgyu barks, “The Princess, you clean her room and this hallway, yes? Where did she go?”

The maid’s eyes widen and she shakily replies, “I-she told me she was needing a walk as she felt unwell. I didn’t inquire further, your highness. She went down the East Wing.”

A daunting heaviness grows in Beomgyu’s chest. The East Wing? There’s nothing but offices and administrative rooms down there. His mind whirrs, and suddenly his mind clicks. The sorcerer’s chamber.

“Guards, follow me. I believe someone has gotten too foolish. I just want to see where my beloved’s curiosity has gotten her,” he snarls. Surely, he was paranoid. She was not stupid! He was her only choice, betraying him would only lead to her demise. He would slaughter the heir to Fortuna himself if he had to prove his point. He was so close to getting Fortuna for himself and now his plan was on the verge of collapse!

No, he had to compose himself. First evaluate the situation. Then act. Find her first.

Meanwhile, your breaths tumble out of your lips raggedly. Your leg muscles burn as you run towards the sorcerers’ chamber. You didn’t have much time; you had manage to make up numerous excuses to the curious gazes that you met along your way here.

Slamming open the wooden door, your eyes meet with Taehyun. You lock the flimsy lock behind you. Fear consumes you. You knew Beomgyu was waiting for you to join him for dinner. He was an incredibly intelligent individual, he’d pick up that something was wrong very quickly, thus you didn’t have much time. You both had to work fast.

“I’m here,” you breathe out and you rush towards him. His eyes twinkle with brief relief as he takes your hands and squeezes them reassuringly, “Keep calm. We got this. I’ve got everything prepared.”

“We don’t have much time; Beomgyu has probably already noticed my disappearance,” you stammer breathlessly.

Taehyun slings his satchel strap across himself and he murmurs, “Step inside the mana circle. Keep your breathing steady, feel yourself becoming one with the mana entering your body.” You do as he says as concern paints your features, “Wait, only me?”

“Only one at a time. I’ll pass out otherwise, it’s unthinkable to teleport two humans at once! This mana circle can handle two teleportations. I figured it’s safer to do so one after the other,” He explains, distressed. The sun finally sets, only allowing the candlelight to illuminate the room.

Taehyun summons his wand and takes his small notebook in one hand. The chalk circle below you begins to glow beautifully and your eyes tear up; you both were really doing this. You look at Taehyun who closes his eyes in focus as he intricately moves his wand.

Numerous glowing runes and symbols appear around you and you find yourself feeling tingly, almost light as air. A warmth fills you. The glow illuminates his gorgeous features making him look almost angelic, unreal even.

His eyes open to meet yours leaving you breathless. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be right behind you, sweetheart,” Taehyun hums with a smirk. You frown, he had to be.

Taehyun peers down at his notebook and begins murmuring the incantations. The symbols around you glow brighter and your body feels lighter. A grunt escapes Taehyun as he moves his wand accordingly.

“Think of my cottage, my home. Keep that in your mind. Think of absolutely nothing else,” he orders. You see his hand shaking slightly and him focusing intently building up his mana.

You close your eyes and imagine your surroundings. His home. The Woods of Mors. His dingy kitchen and alchemy corner.

All of a sudden, the clatter of armour resounds coming towards the door and your heart races, shattering your reverie. Taehyun stiffens and the runes around you flicker. No! No!

“Princess, don’t lose focus. Ignore them. We’ll get out of here, we’ll get out of here. Close your eyes and trust me,” Taehyun snaps. His eyes plead with you, “Trust me to get you out of here.”

Shakily, you nod and clamp your eyes shut despite the door banging and creaking. The guards and Beomgyu were out there. “Just what the hell is happening in there? It’s locked? Break it down! Immediately!”

“Focus. Focus,” Taehyun utters, gathering all his strength and mana. “Believe in me, princess.”

He utters a few last words before he swings his wand with a grand flourish and a sudden intense wave of energy wafts over you and the surroundings begin to disintegrate around you; you feel as though you’re floating away. You were teleporting, how odd this was.

The environment around you becomes brighter and brighter, your eyes meet with Taehyun who continues channeling his mana. He had to come with you!

Just as the last bits of your vision white out; you hear the door come crashing down and armour rapidly clatter in. Taehyun looks taken aback and before you can release a scream. Everything disappears around you in a rapid blur.

No. No. In the emptiness of the white space, a wretched scream escapes your lips. He’d be fine right? He was right behind you right? Think. Think. Woods of Mors. Woods of Mors.

You suddenly find yourself falling and flailing and your eyes clamp shut once more. With a pained grunt you find yourself falling and tumbling onto a familiar wooden floor. You cough and splutter feeling disoriented. The room was blurry; you sit up and take in your surroundings.

Indeed, you had been teleported successfully to Taehyun’s home. Your eyes widen in bizarre amazement. He did it! His spell worked! You sit up trembling violently, the smile off your face is wiped off as you realise Taehyun still hadn’t appeared beside you.

No, it would take some time. He’d be fine. Taehyun against a couple of guards and the Prince? They were no match for Taehyun. He had to appear any second now. Deliriously, you get up, “Taehyun?”

“Taehyun!” You yell shakenly. Panic floods your system as more seconds pass by with no sign of him arriving. They couldn’t have hurt him right? Tears drip down your face as fear wraps around your senses. Were you selfish to go first?

Beomgyu would surely kill him, if he got his hands on Taehyun! You sniffle, “Oh goodness, Taehyun. Please, please.” You plead openly with shaky hands clasped together. Your skin prickles as goosebumps appear. Your heart beats as though going to shatter your ribcage.

Defeatedly, you crouch down onto your knees, tears slide down your cheeks. He’s still not here? Oh Taehyun… You cover your face wiping your tears and running nose as you sob losing hope each second.

A bright luminescent orb appears before flashing the entire room and you hunch over closing your eyes to prevent being blinded. Shortly, you hear a clumsy thump. The air itself feels electric as you slowly sit up opening your eyes with a squint.

Your eyes catch glimpse of a figure lying on the floor groaning and grunting. You lunge forward with sobs wracking your body. “I was so scared! Taehyun, oh my god!” You place your hands on his weakly rising and falling chest. His eyes meet yours, “Mhm…told you, I’d be right,” he coughs, “Behind you.”

Your heart sinks as you spot blood pooling under the right side of his torso. Your lips tremble, “Taehyun- what? What happened?” He blinks slowly, his breaths ragged and uneven.

“That,” he hisses in pain, “B-Bastard, sliced into me, ah- fuck.” You shake, “He- you’re fine right? Can you heal? You have healing spells right?”

He lies his head back on the floor with a dull gaze, exhaustion evident on his features, “Don’t think…I have enough,” his blinking slows, “mana…strength.” You cup his cheek shaking his face slightly, “Taehyun! Taehyun stay with me!”

Taehyun deliriously hums as his eyes closed, “Mm, just fine. Just a s-scratch.” You snarl tearfully, “This is not- where are your medical supplies? God, stay with me.”

Taehyun smiles almost blissfully as pain envelopes him, “Mm…medication- alchemy corner…cabinet.” The young sorcerer goes still and your eyes widen, “Taehyun! Taehyun! Can you hear me?” He was unconscious this wasn’t good!

You hurriedly peer at the alchemy corner seeing the several cabinets, which one was it? He passed out before he could say! You had to act quick he was losing too much blood! You had no idea how to take care of injuries! No, you had to try. You’d mimic what the palace healer would do, is all. How hard could that be?

You couldn’t let anything happen to Taehyun. He had to remain alive. After all, he was in this condition because of you.

It was your turn to take care of things.

You’d save him. You had to save him. You peer once more at his bloodied and pale face. In even the face of death, he looked ethereal.

You knew you couldn’t lose him.

You won’t.

Taglist: [open]

@royallyjjk @wolfytae-exe @rencarnationofangel @sirenla @matcha-binz @beomies-world @michinri @parkweylyn @wikireads @hanniehaeeeeeee1004 @elara828 @wonioml @onima-chan @moonekth @glossykai @jjunielvrs @beargyuuzz @cathyun @hanstarrs @m3chigo @vanicogh @baekberrie @nap-of-a-starr

[jazzmckay]

soulmate au (dao edition)

alistair, who has gone through phases of daydreaming a fairy tale ending with his soulmate, then resenting his soulmark for being just another aspect of his life that's been decided for him, to either finding his soulmate and getting the happy ending he used to wish for... or having to give up on having a soulmate to enter an arranged marriage for the good of ferelden

morrigan, who has been taught to think nothing of soulmarks or soulmates. she should remain independent, should not spare any part of herself for genuine entanglements with another person. she should do what she wants, for her own gain. she doesn't need anyone else. doesn't want anyone else. until the blight, until the warden, who shows her she can rely on others. even so, she has her own goals that she chooses over love, but that's a choice she makes for herself, not one her mother influenced.

leliana, who believes the marker is responsible for the soulmarks. he found his soulmate in andraste, and has bestowed the same possibility in all his children, they only need to find the person who bears the corresponding mark. she isn't sure how to feel about the fact that marjolaine isn't her soulmate. marjolaine seems to only clutch to her tighter for it, which is a grand statement on it's own, isn't it? how lucky she is to have someone so committed, against the grain of destiny itself. she finds out later that marjolaine's firm hold was nothing to cherish at all. the right person for her was still out there, waiting, and the maker led her on the right path after all.

sten, who does not have a soulmark. qunari do not have soulmarks (so the qun says). they have never had soulmarks (so the qun says). soulmates would be a distraction from one's duty to the qun (so the qun says). calling someone kadan is a choice that needs no mark. he needs nothing else (so the qun says).

wynne, who learned early in life that having a soulmark made little difference for a circle mage. she rallied against this, initially. but she learned. she learned to dedicate herself to the circles, to teaching the apprentices. sometimes, she wonders if it's wrong for the circles to dissuade their charges from seeking out this gift from the maker. but it makes little difference, and she has learned. (but what would it have been like, to allow herself such open love? would she have been a good mother, if things were different?)

zevran, who has multiple soulmarks, and expects that not a single one will bring anything good into his life. he's a crow--his life is not made for happily ever afters. his soulmarks will not stop him from using seduction to his advantage. the soulmarks won't stop him from completing a contract, even if the target bears one of his matches. he isn't made for having soulmates--until, perhaps, the warden gives him the chance to live his own life.

oghren, who considers branka his soulmate, the marks be damned. orzammar takes the marks into consideration when it suits them, and ignores them when they don't. oghren and branka's marriage is of the political sort, but oghren is a dedicated man, and branka is his damn soulmate. everyone else might give up on her, but he will not. he won't until the choice is taken away from him. oghren, who then has a chance to try having a relationship with the person who does match his mark... but perhaps it's too late. being made into the shield of orzammar leaves little space for him to know what it means to be anything but a weapon, even after orzammar has tossed him aside.

shale, who may never know if they ever had a soulmate. if they did, it didn't change anything. they have no soulmark now, and they are glad for it. the thought of having a soulmate is disturbing, in fact. maybe they always felt that way, maybe they didn't. what matters is they are free and content.

loghain, who met his soulmates at a young age, but what did it matter? they had a war to fight, a throne to reclaim, a country to lead. there were more important things than the marks they shared. their happiness would have been short-lived anyway, if they'd ever had the chance to have happiness at all.

[xiyouyanyi]

Modern Era At Last: Spider Queen Special

My original idea for this AU starts with "Filling up the Celestial Realm", so we'll just say that S1 works more or less the same unless otherwise specified, and let the real diverging point start at the Spider Queen Special.

-Hell no, the trigram furnace isn't kept in the throne room, it is where it is in Tusita Heaven, Lao Tzu's place. And the place is quite empty and quiet when they aren't refining elixirs and the flames have been extinguished.

-Which means MK and Pigsy/Tang wouldn't be going to two different buildings, just two wings of the same building.

-It's also Lunar New Year, during which all the Kitchen Gods went back to submit their reports to the Celestial Host, so most of the officials and guards are gathered around the administrative halls.

-To celestials, it's more of a daily meeting, though. A.k.a. "Those last few hours where you are stuck in the office, desperately wishing you are somewhere else."

-Red Son has access to the place because PIF, as the former Grand Mistress of the Wind Bureau, keeps a backdoor key. The spider minions sneaked in by turning themselves tiny and latching onto the jet's wing before the formation activated.

-The gang landed in the Wind Bureau sky-harbor, right next to Lao Tzu's place, and immediately ran into Lady Hanzhi, known to Red Son as "Auntie Wind"——which, coincidentally, was not too far off from her most well-known title nowadays, Feng Po. 

"Please, that name makes me sound so old! Why not Sister Wind?"

-She acted like she always does: your overly helpful, enthusiastic, pushy aunt who seems to delight in embarrassing the youngsters, and immediately jumped to conclusions, asking Red Son if he was taking his cute dragon girlfriend on a date.

-Upon being met with an unambiguous "NO!" and some desperate attempts at backtracking ("We are just…not hating each other at the moment!") she chuckled, but was perceptive enough to understand they were in a bind, and immediately agreed to help out before Red Son even got the full story out.

-Naturally, that left Mei a little suspicious. "Uh, we are like, stealing your stuff? Ya' really don't have a problem with that?” 

-Hanzhi just laughed and was like, "You think I care about my job? Or want to be here? Even though Little Red's mother left me quite the mess to sort out, I'll take an old friend's kid over The Reasons We Are Here at any time of the year!"

-Which, to her surprise, failed to be assuring when she opened her Wind Sack and told Red Son and Mei to get inside.

"Okay, not to be mean or anything, but that's just…sus." "As suspicious as a bunch of mortals sneaking around in funny modern day robes? My, whenever I thought your fashion standards could not get any worse than these awful queues and melon hats…but ah, I'm rambling." "The point is, your friends are going into Tusita Heaven while the furnace is unlit. No one will be there, except for the new furnace-fanning boy and…That Lady." Hanzhi wrinkled her nose. "Ugh, the old witch with a broom. Pretty easy to fool, but remember, stay at least five Chi away from her, or your entire mission is a bust." "You two, however, are going into the Peach Garden. With actual guards and visitors, and one of my junior brothers as its new warden. You are not getting in, or out, without someone leading the way."

-Kui Mulang is still working as a furnace-fanning boy——he could have been done with it long ago, had he not intentionally fucked up during the Three Rhino Kings fight out of spite and got his sentence prolonged. When the place is not in use, he's put in a cangue and chained to a pillar in the storage room.

-When Pigsy and Tang entered the lab sector in search of the golden pill, he took the latter hostage through a combination of deception and the space-warping magic of stellar gods. 

"Now, hog, pick that vial of liquid off the shelf, and pour it on these chains," The Wood Wolf Star exposed his teeth in a feral grin, as he poked at Tang's back with the ethereal dagger,"very, very carefully. If you spill a single drop on me, my hand may just slip."

-Jiang Ziya's dead and deified ex-wife, Ma The Broom Star, makes an appearance as the cleaning lady on duty.

-She can passively curse people AND immortals with bad luck: not kill-your-entire-family, ruin-your-life level of bad luck like what the Taisui Star or the Dipper Mansion deities are capable of, but things like making people slip and fall on their butts, sneeze/burp at the most embarrassing time, arrive late to urgent meetings, etc.

(Also, firing comets out of her broomstick like a true witch.)

-MK, affected by her Aura of Inconveniences, fell right into the (unlit!) furnace while trying to sneak past her using the building's support beams. She heard the scream, but thought he was one of those bratty immortal acolytes and responded to his cries for help like the bitter old lady she was. 

"Serve you right for horsin' around, boy! Now sit in there and think about what you've done, till I'm done cleaning this place! Goodness gracious, I'm never so glad to have a daughter, not that my good-for-nothing ex-husband didn't try turning her against me, yeah, some Grand Master of Strategists you are, Jiang Ziya…"

-MK then committed the grave error of asking "Huh? Jiang Ziya? Who?" and was subjected to a long, incensed, caustic rant, most of which he tuned out for the sake of his own sanity.

-Meanwhile, at the Peach Garden: Hanzhi walked in without much of a problem, using the excuse that she is bringing her junior some tea right after getting dismissed from the meeting. Said junior is one of the 28 Lunar Mansions: Bi Yuewu of the White Tiger Mansion, a.k.a the Moon Crow Star.

-In ancient Chinese astrology, the Bi Star was seen as having power over rain, and the section of the sky it was in charge of housed the Tianyuan constellation, or "Heavenly Orchard". His Stellar Beast form, a one-legged crow, is based on Shang Yang: a mythical bird that would dance before every huge storm like a goofy weather forecast guy.

-He excels at controlling cloud formations, to the point he got "borrowed" by the Wind and Thunder Bureau more than some of the Water-aligned stars after deification. That did not translate to battle prowess, though, and he mostly relies on his formations to misdirect, trap and stall enemies for the rest of his team to handle.

-After Kui Mulang's sentencing, Star Lord Mao had taken over as the substitute leader of the White Tiger Mansion stars. As a fellow bird star and the anxious secretary to Zi Huohou's shy intern, Bi looked up to him, a lot. 

-Today happened to be his shift——one of the 28 Lunar Mansions is exempt from the daily meetings, to watch over their sector of the sky. Like most celestials, he was used to Hanzhi just walking around, finding people to chat the moment she was off-work, and wasn't surprised when she came out of the treasure storage room without her Wind Sack.

"Little Red, you've actually been here before, I trust you know where the kitchen is? Go there, grab a peach, get out, and please please please don't try to go into the garden proper if you can't find one. Just return to this room and wait, Auntie Hanzhi will handle it." As the shrill screech of a defensive formation triggering echoed through the pavilion, and Bi leaped out of his chair, Hanzhi could not help but sigh and thought, Of course these kids tried to go into the garden, why wouldn't they.

-Except they didn't try to go into the garden. It was the spiders, and a tiny immortal girl with an embroidered ball.

-Yep, it's Li Zhenying, Nezha's little sister, only mentioned once in JTTW! Here, she's a bit older and the holder of one of Nezha's magical weapons, the embroidered ball.

-In Zaju plays, this ball contains a shit ton of demons and evil spirits, subdued by Nezha and now working under his command, but that's not safe for kids so it just has a mouse inside now.

-Specifically, Lady Diyong, who's serving her prison sentence in there after her second capture and acts as Zhenying's unwitting hamster-slash-playmate. 

-The way the ball works: it can keep beings captive and enable the holder to use their powers, like a magical Pokeball. Once something is inside, it can only be released by the one who initially captures it.

-So Li Zhenying used Diyong's power to get under and past the defensive formation undetected, because…she's bored and wanted to practice some Cuju, and just happened to run into two very lost and frustrated spider demons.

-They decided to stalk Red Son and Mei together, in their mini-spider forms——it was the former who had the backdoor key, after all, and without that, they wouldn't be able to get back to the mortal realm safely after snatching up the three items.

-So they crawled into the Peach Garden and lay in wait. And waited. And waited. And no one came. Then, when they tried to leave, they couldn't, and kept circling back to the same place until a 12 year old popped out of the ground and yelled "Stop right there, bug people!"

-They laughed. They stopped laughing when one of them got sucked into the embroidered ball like a Pokemon. The sight of a huge, muscular spider guy desperately running away from a little girl was still pretty comedic, though.

-He didn't last for long. Diyong started screeching inside the ball because ewwwww, spider people, gross! She's not into that and she doesn't want them as her future neighbors! Get them out of here, at once! 

-Zhenying found her terror quite amusing, but ended up doing so because all the screaming was getting annoying. And that was what Hanzhi and Bi saw when they charged into the depth of the formation: Li Jing's youngest kid, swinging her toy around in a circle and sending two black dots flying into the sky.

-Hanzhi let out a silent Oh no at the sight. Bi let out a loud "You WHAT?!" as Li Zhenying explained her encounter with the spider people, and commented that pest control must be quite hard if all the bugs in here could grow into people. 

-Bi proceeded to have a nervous breakdown because I let a spider demon infestation happen right under my nose and trapped Devaraja Li's daughter inside my formations, oh fuck, oh fuck, I'm so dead.

-He was too busy curling up in a ball and rocking back and forth to notice Hanzhi slipping away, an immortal peach hidden in her sleeves, to retrieve Red Son and Mei. Back at Tusita Heaven, however, the rest of the gang weren't having a good time. 

-Ma had finished rambling about Jiang Ziya's great-great-however-many-times-great-grandson, the "Biggest Shame of Qi", and was about to narrate the start of their lineage's miserable downfall with a spiteful glee in her voice.

-MK asked her why she was so angry, which just made her more angry.

"Why am I so angry? Oh, I have no idea! Maybe it is because my bastard ex-husband wrote my name onto his oh-so-mystical-scroll and made sure I can't even DIE PROPERLY, boy! I raised his daughter after he divorced me and ran off to fight a war with his sorcerer friends, and this is how he repaid me——" "No, I mean, why are you so angry at people you've never met before? They are your kids and grandkids too, right?" "Exactly! I never got to meet them, and that's why they are a bunch of pathetic, dull-headed degenerates who got played like a fiddle by their own noble clans!" MK severely doubted that. "I never got to set them on the right path, grab them by 'em ears and scold them properly, match them up with good wives that weren't their own half-sister——for heaven's sake, that Duke Xiang, what was he even thinking?!" She paused. When she started speaking again, the indignance had drained away. "I never got to see any of them with me own two eyes, or speak to them, because I wasn't in their ancestral temple. I never got to meet any of them, and now they have been dead for thousands of years, and I…I couldn't even blame all of that on Jiang Ziya."

-For the first time since MK met her, the old woman fell silent. He was about to return to his own crisis of self-confidence when the entire furnace shook and violently toppled over, spilling him out onto the floor with a yelp.

"Go." She said, the tip of her broom still smoking, without sparing a single backward glance. "Scram back to your quarters, boy, before more of the Broom Star's bad luck rubbed off on you——"

-Then the lab's other wing exploded.

-Let's rewind back to the moment before this, when Kui Mulang was holding Tang hostage and threatening Pigsy into destroying his chains with a vial of corrosive chemicals. 

-With no other choice, he complied, and the moment the last chain came apart with a sizzle, Kui Mulang shattered the cangue via his Stellar Beast transformation——but not before trying to stick the dagger into Tang anyways and failing, due to his golden barrier triggering in a panic.

-Turns out, it was these magical chains that truly shackled him and his powers, and the cangue was just additional humiliation. 

"Ah, a thousand thanks to you," the beast's eyes narrowed into a slit, as it turned towards Tang, who was desperately trying to scramble away inside the golden bubble, "Golden Cicada. Now that you are a Bodhisattva, I bet your Body of Manifestation would taste even more divine."

-What ensued was a pure horror movie chase sequence, as the pair ran for their lives, toppling over shelves, throwing anything they could get their hands on at the Stellar Beast in the hope of slowing it down.

-The explosive reaction between two reagents did end up accomplishing that. Not hurting it permanently, but the big bang managed to draw Ma and MK's attention and stopped the former from asking too many questions.

-Turns out, being one of the 28 Lunar Mansions didn't actually protect you from the Broom Star's field of mundane bad luck.

-It wasn't enough to defeat Kui Mulang, and her comet attacks were doing no lasting damage, but he kept missing his targets by a tiny margin, or tripping and falling like a Looney Tunes character, or MK's staff just happened to knock a chunk of the ceiling loose and pin him down briefly…

-The problem was, her bad luck field worked on her allies too, and there were a lot of mutual misses and wacky fails, and the consequences were worse for MK than for their opponent.

-Red Son and Mei were on their way back with Hanzhi when they saw the commotion from afar; they basically dashed right into that one Community meme. 

-Hanzhi assessed the situation briefly, told them she'd deal with Kui Mulang, while they went and grabbed their mortal friends, as well as whatever they needed from the lab, fast. Then she stepped back and unleashed the full might of the Wind Sack.

-The giant AOE attack caught all three combatants, lifted them off the ground, and firmly slammed them into the nearest standing wall, allowing Red Son to grab a very disoriented MK and rush away in the chaos.

-The fight was still ongoing when the gang hurriedly dragged the furnace into their drone, activated Red Son's backdoor key, and blasted off into the mortal realm. It didn't last much longer after the Thunder Bureau reinforcements arrived, led by Heavenly Lord of the Nine Thunders, Wen Zhong.

-Wen Zhong was a loyal man of principle in life, even more so after his deification, when he was basically made the head of the Celestial Justice Department (Thunder Bureau isn't just in charge of weather, but also divine retribution and punishment.)

-He's what a lot of people think Erlang should act like: grim, serious, utterly dedicated to maintaining order and justice, and an absolute powerhouse (he also has a third eye, btw).

-Hanzhi knew she wouldn't be getting any leniency from her senior brother this time, so she didn't even try to argue when he ordered his Thunder Generals to detain everyone involved and take them away for questioning.

-Bi Yuewu was interrupted from his mental breakdown by Star Lord Mao, who, like the majority of officials, had just been released from their end-of-day meeting when the Thunder Bureau received an emergency message from Tusita Heaven and flew off in a hurry.

-Putting two and two together, he quickly guessed that their old squad leader had broken free, and went to gather the rest of the White Tiger Mansion stars for their own emergency meeting. Bi was the first person he seeked out, and the situation…didn't look all that great.

-But Rooster Man, being the good bro he was, listened patiently to Bi's story, and told him it wouldn't be a problem. He'd take Li Zhenying home to her brothers, let them come up with a cover story, while the spider problem…well, that was what his Stellar Beast form was for, wasn't it?

-A few miles below, two tiny spiders, still falling towards the mortal realm, suddenly heard a rooster's crowing and were struck by the worst headache they ever experienced.

[nathaaaan]

The Child of The Titian

More commonly known as “Empress Hecate”

Or “Luz”

Child of The Titan AU

that’s literally what it’s called, sue me.

Okay, so this is the part where I talk about this AU. If you wanna know more, keep reading! If you don’t, well uh, leave?

This won’t be long cause I’m not going over the whole story. Lol.

Background:

If you’re too lazy to read, allow me to summarize it. Luz is captured by Belos, and she believes that Eda and the others will come to save her.

But in COTT (Child of the Titan AUGH I like this name), Luz is not saved. A year later, a rebellion forms, and it’s led by the Clawthrone sisters and they’re ready to end Belos’ tyranny. But they’re also consistently looking for Luz. Eda searches for three more years until she forces herself to stop as it’s becoming unhealthy. Then, the rebellion organizes an attack on the throne. They fight, yada yada, Belos dies. They search for Luz a little while before they’re swarmed by scouts, and they’re tired from fighting Belos, so they leave. Thinking that they won.

I won’t talk about what happened to Luz in that span of time, as you might find out when I write the fic.

I will say five things;

1. Hecate can use magic like a witch, but it’s unstable and requires a lot of energy.

2. Palismen. BUT! Stringbean!!!

3. Hecate hates everyone, and everything expect for Hunter. Hunter’s okay. 👍

4. She wants to make the Isles better.

5. She wants to go home, and won’t hesitate if she has to fight anybody in the Rebellion.

Speaking of the Rebellion, let’s go over who’s all in it, shall we?

The Rebellion

(Raine couldn’t come up with a better name, and neither can I)

Founders/Leaders: Eda & Lilith Clawthorne.

Members: Amity Blight, Willow Park, Augustus Porter, Raine Whispers, Derwin, Ember, Katya, Principal Bump & all his students, Edric & Emira Blight, Alador Blight (eventually), Glandus High students, Dell & Gwen Clawthorne, Gilbert & Harvey Park, Perry Porter, Malphas, Morton, Puddles (Viney’s Griffin), Salty (recently), and Vee (when she realizes that something’s wrong with Luz, and after they find out Hecate is Luz.) Darius Deamonne & Eberwolf (eventually), other Wild Witches and Demons.

The Inquisition

Previously the Emperor’s Coven

Leader: Empress Hecate

Members: Hunter “The Golden Guard” (Head of Inquisition), Kikimora, Darius Deamonne (Abomination for now), Eberwolf (Beast for now), Scooter Crane (Bard), Terra Snapdragon (Plants), Adrian Graye Vernworth (Illusion), Mason (Construction), Vitimir (Potions), Hettie Cutburn (Healing), Osran (Oracle), Coven Scouts, The Warden, Coven Guards, Vee (for a while, other witches and demons.

[dimmadoome]

What if I wrote a Baldurs Gate Game Of Thrones AU? One where Astarion Targaryen is forced to marry Gale Hightower for political reasons.(Astarion is FTM trans and his family wants to send him off to the "proper and religious" house to either sweep him under the rug or get at least SOME heirs they can marry back into the main line.)

Gale and Astarion kind of hate eachother but after a while, grow to be friends. After a year of marriage, they get word of wights at the wall. So they ride (on dragonback because of course I'm giving Astarion a dragon. Maybe caraxes because I think he would be a good rider for him.) up to the wall with their cousins Wyll Tyrell and Karlach Baratheon. While they are on their journey they find Jenevelle Blackwood (Shadowheart) and her lover Lae'zel Sand (Martell bastard) running away from Shadowheart's home because lesbians.

Gale and Astarion recruit them to their cause. When they get to Winterfell to speak to the warden of the north, Jaheria Stark, they meet and subsequently recruit some of her fiercest bannermen, Halsin Mormont and Minsc Umber.

As the days get colder and the nights grow longer, Gale and Astarion fall in love with eachother and the fierce heir to bear island. Since Astarion is a Targaryen, he says fuck it, I can have two husbands and they seal their marrige with Halsin in the godswood. After a good amount of time and hella politics with Lorroakin Tully, Ketheric Lannister, Orin Bolton (and Gortash Baelish being hella problematic in the background.) All seven of the companion crew band together, fight against the night king (Minthara) and win the battle for the dawn. (Astarion is the prince who was promised and is completely pissed about it.)

[return-to-twisted-wonderland]

Inuyasha AU: The Warden's Tiger

[Scarabia - After Jamil Overblotted & Cast Everyone Out]

[Jamil sat on the throne while the hypnotized members of Scarabia were preparing his feast. Jayden - in his Full-Demon Form - was resting behind Jamil's Throne with his massive body curved around the throne; his feet on one side and his head resting his on pawed-hands on the other side.]

Full-Demon Jayden (Raises his head & Yawns): YAWN~ *Feels Jamil scratching him under his chin* *Happy Tiger Noises as he nuzzles Jamil's hand*

OB!Jamil: Jayden, I'm glad you've returned to me.

[localsharkcryptid]

Official LSC DSMP AU Project List!

A few of these are just gonna have summaries as if they were books (mostly), since I hope to write them all some day or something similar!

Their respective tags will be in the tags section though I haven't spoken about a lot of these! Additionally if you have any questions at all feel free to send an ask or two my way, I genuinely do my best when I'm prompted to explain something so I'd be happy to answer whatever about whatever if people are curious!!

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Also note, when I list 'Relationships' in this case it means what usually would be a ship - I'm weird about relationship labels and pretty much every close dynamic is freeform to me/doesn't fit the usual romantic vibes, so just, any pairing in the relationship label take it as me listing it as a ship or just saying "HEY THEY'RE GONNA KISS AND/OR FUCK AND/OR GO ON BOYFRIEND DATES"

I love shipping I'm just iffy with the labels of dating/ships cause it's more complex to me - I see it as like qpr/romantic usually but anyways that's enough of my own qpr influencing me.

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Dragon Rider AU (DRAU)

-Will be getting an official title eventually

Main Focus Character(s): Dream & XD (Primary POVs)

Ensemble Cast (I think I have 90% of the SMP in here)

Relationship(s): Drunz, XDnf

A story separated into three large arcs, primarily following the young prince, Dream, who is presumptive heir to his kingdom's throne and his brother (XD) who reigns as King as they try to navigate their newfound positions in their kingdom and everything that comes with that.

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Mer/Siren AU

-Will also be getting a name eventually (Been calling it Fathom but not set on it yet)

Main Focus Characters: Dream

Ensemble Cast Mostly

Relationship(s): Awesamdrunz

Dream finds himself in the care of humans after unfortunately getting a bit too close to shore - becoming victim to net entanglement and proceeding to get himself more injured trying to escape. During his time at this little rehabilitation facility he makes friends and learns more than he expected about the world about the waves.

This discovery spirals quickly into a whole new ordeal, as the facility members aren't the only ones on the island who've found a mermaid - and soon news coverage starts going on about some 'rogue animal' attacking fishermen on their boats offshore.

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"What Keeps Us Human" TLOU AU

Main Focus Characters: Dream, Punz, Purpled & Tommy

Other characters work as cameos mostly, The Syndicate is important late game though!

Relationship(s): Drunz

The story follows the separate duos throughout their travels as they both make their way to a designated meet up spot - a place that initially was just for Purpled and Punz but both of them have picked up company, so now the duos face the threats of this post apocalyptic world alongside their own inner turmoil. In the end though, there is something better for them on the horizon.

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"Prisoner"

-Very Very loosely based on/Inspired by Damsel

Main Focus Characters: Dream, Sam

Pre-Doomsday Cast mostly

Relationship(s): Awesamdream

After a rather notable series of unfortunate events Dream lands himself imprisoned. It's an unfavorable situation at best which only gets worse as his slight... "hobby" of being a necromancer is revealed to Quackity of all people. So now he finds himself in the depths of an elaborate cavern known as Pandora's Labyrinth, getting tortured on occasion and at the mercy of a dragon who he's only known as 'The Warden'...

Sam is this dragon (think DND style dragon, sapient/can shape-shift/magic n all that but with the vibes of the one from Damsel/Khaevis) and merely a legend, a fairy tale if you will to the vast majority of the land. Dragons died out with magic, that is what is said, and sure some of them may have perished but he certainly did not. Now he's tasked with keeping Dream within his own lair, fueled by the promise that he's doing something good for the kingdom who lives in the shadow of his mountains and the other part of this deal that Quackity struck with him, a promise of information...

Though like everything there is far more to this tale, as secrets wait to be unburied and the most unlikely of relationships will develop.

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Other Projects - Mostly Ideas/Old Concepts/Things That Need Work or Are In Progress Just Not As Finalized As The Others

•Making at least ONE standalone AU for most of the Dream ships/and variants of said ships cause god I love poly dynamics (I'm also the multishipper guy ever and wish to give each ship enjoyer group a little treat also Dream deserves to kiss men and by men I mean all of them)

•The Good Ending - FUCK YOU DSMP HAPPY ENDING FOR EVERY FUCKIN CHARACTER, NO FAVORITISM, EVERYONE GETS TO BECOME BETTER!!!!

•Alien Isolation AU - Locking everyone on a space station with a Xenomorph, specifically THE Xenomorph from Alien/Big Chap, Dream is the final girl I take NO criticisms

•Subnautica AU!!!!!

•A Dozen or so Monster AUs For Various Characters - Nagas/Mermaids/Sirens/Werewolves/Werewhatevers/and so on, literally whatever I love monsters and the implications and you can't stop me.

•Origins SMP/Origins Mod Based AU but it's like casual fun

•Supernatural Town AU tm, a little town in a nondescript area in the Pacific Northwest host to all kinds of monsters, shenanigans ensue.

•Httyd AU, it's a must for me

•Various Hybrid AUs, more so just differing designs but like I'm putting them in the AU category cause usually the changes would mess with the plot a little

•Some sort of fantasy carnival/circus AU, Quackity runs the thing and basically did that thing of tricking people/making concerning sales pitches like with Las Nevadas but bigger scale. Also Awesamdrunz again and Dream's a fucked up rabbit creature (a wolpertinger)

•Rivals Duo but I force them into FNAF 2 and then the plot got elaborate - there's so much more to this than I planned, please send help

•Egg Apocalypse AU, based on RE:7 & Village

•The AU where I let George go powermad cause he decided to throw XD a bone and now has god as an attack dog (this one gets interesting)

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More To Inevitably Be Added

[heliopauseentertainments]

An Unfamiliar Battlefield

Anonymously requested here on Tumblr

Continuity: IDW1 (roughly)

Relationship: Megatron/Hot Rod

Characters: Megatron & Hot Rod

Rating: Teen

Warnings/Notes: AU of an AU, Canon Blending, Past Relationships, Referenced Character Death, Romance, Recovery from Grief, Vignette

Crossposting: AO3 | Dreamwidth

Summary: In which a seemingly unqualified suitor vies for the open Lord Protector position for the Prime of Destruction.

Fic below cut.

Small. Thin armor. Loud paint. Incautious gait.

Megatron could have crumpled him like a frail sheet of foil if he so chose.

Yet in front of him, posed confidently with his hands on his hips at the foot of the impractically tall dark granite dais, beamed some red little fool the herald had introduced as “Hot Rod of Nyon.” Given the obnoxious flames painted on his chest, Megatron thought the mech’s name was a little on the nose.

This scrawny fool, apparently, wanted to be the Lord Protector of the alleged incarnation of Destruction itself. What a ridiculous thought.

Since Orion, Megatron’s previous Lord Protector, had succumbed to early onset cybercrosis more than three decades ago, Megatron had spent most of his time alone.

He, in fact, intended to keep it that way.

Watching his partner waste away against an invisible foe had been more of a punishment than being forcibly ascended to a position of ritualized shame and fear for his crimes had ever been.

The ritual mourning periods of seven months, then thirty months, and then a decade had all passed. The generals and officers who made up his “priesthood”—more like a religious militia meant to keep him in check—hadn’t pressed him to take another protector before the formalized markers of grieving had been reached. It wouldn’t have been proper, for all they, his prison wardens, pretended to care about propriety even when their “Prime” still lit decennial memorial lamps.

Megatron, regardless of his own opinions on the matter, was kept around solely for the fulfillment of ancient laws and summoning his strength in times of war. The First Prime was nominally the Prime of War, but Sentinel spent far too much time playing politician, leaving Megatron as the de facto holder of the purview.

It wasn’t as though he needed protection, not physically. He could protect himself, as was obvious from the battlefields they pleaded that he would drench in spilled fuel, like the arena of banal bloodsport they had unilaterally plucked him from. When Megatron had turned the rare suitor away before, the battle clerics hadn’t objected too strongly.

Usually.

Besides, it wasn’t as though suitors were commonplace. Not many were lining up to consort with a “deity” of death, forced to use his violence as a tool for theocratic control. Orion, before his untimely death, had been an irreplaceable exception. No one is else would or could ever take that place again; it would never be the same.

Starscream, the general who oversaw all the others who allegedly paid Megatron homage, was a sharp-eyed mech with innumerable half-spoken agendas. He relished being what passed for this "Prime's" high priest, chief jailer rather. This was clearly part of some of his machinations.

He stood, smirking, next to Megatron’s throne, arms crossed in front of his chest. His gleaming white wings were held out wide as he swayed side to side, not-so-subtly trying to make his heavily embroidered cape undulate in the artificial breeze.

“Starscream, this is unnecessary,” Megatron said, hunched over with his elbows against his knees. He glowered down at Hot Rod. “You know this is unnecessary.”

Hot Rod was hardly much bigger than one of Soundwave’s mini-bots, who were generally relegated to sabotage work as a result. A Lord Protector, expected to accompany him into the heat of battle, could never be allowed to fill a less combat-oriented position. Hot Rod would end up as little more than shrapnel littering the battlefield.

“Come now,” Starscream said, his slick grin stretched broad. It barely concealed that he was up to something, a fig leaf of pious duty. “It’s been so long since you’ve kept any company but your own.”

They both knew the other role a Lord Protector fulfilled: controlling the sacred monster.

“He’s not—“

"You've been lonely, absorbed in nothing but your work for far too long."

Starscream, of course, would be eager to have someone once more take up that mantle… for the approval of the public rather than practical necessity, given Megatron’s self discipline. That was likely why he had allowed this fragile mech to even put forward a petition. Any tether at all was better for their reputation than a beast with no leash.

“I’m right here!” Hot Rod, speaking for the first time, brazenly put his foot on the lowest step on the dark dais and smacked his tiny fist against his chest. His beaming grin became a frown at the perceived disrespect. “Don’t talk about me like I’m not here.”

What a rude little mech.

Talking out of turn, ascending the dais uninvited…. No self preservation to be had. The distance was supposed to be for the protection of any visitors, in case the “god” lost control. More time for the jailers masquerading as devotees to restrain him if the Lord Protector didn’t get there first.

This Hot Rod was clearly on some elaborate suicide mission for some reason. This was far more effort than most would bother putting towards such an end; there were doubtlessly easier ways to go about it.

“Just how badly do you want to die?”

“Not at all, actually.” Hot Rod didn’t back down, a determined look set on his face. “A big shocker, I know.”

Not the answer Megatron had expected, not that mechs tended to be forthright about their deathwishes.

“What exactly is your purpose here?”

“Surely, that’s self-evident.” Starscream’s opinions, as usual, were unnecessary so Megatron ignored him.

He merely repeated the question to Hot Rod, who had begun climbing the dais as though he thought he’d been given some sort of invitation. His bright paint was a stark contrast to the stone, black as the void, giving the impression of a rising star.

Some of the officers, all armed with guns and blades, stationed at various points up the steps began to shift, bristling with unease at the blatant disregard of norms. Several stepped forward, as though to get in the intruder’s way.

Megatron gestured for them to take no action.

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure it’s obvious what I’m here for.” Brow furrowed, Hot Rod continued scaling the dais, stepping past the officers as though they were harmless bystanders. Armor clattered in the quiet hall as they made way for him.

Hot Rod’s bravery reminded him somewhat of Orion.

Orion had not climbed to meet him, no, but had lain down his weapons on the floor of the hall and had challenged Megatron unarmed combat.

Hot Rod too was challenging him in a way, but why?

Megatron silently let him approach.

Starscream whispered a reminder to mind his manners, as though he were some uncouth newbuild courting for the first time.

If only Starscream didn’t have wings…. Megatron occasionally considered pushing him off the side of the platform.

Once Hot Rod reached the top level, he stopped just within arm’s reach of the throne.

Megatron leaned forward, as far as he could without overbalancing. Seated, he was at Hot Rod’s eye level.

“What do you gain by asking this?”

Hot Rod’s bright smile was back, this time as a smirk, like he thought Megatron was joking.

“What do you lose by letting me?”

Smart aleck.

“Why are you determined to die?”

“I’m not.” Hot Rod shrugged, as though that were the obvious answer despite all evidence to the contrary.

“So you’ve said before, yes, but that’s the only outcome at the end of the path you’re trying to walk.”

“That’s my business, I think.”

Stubborn.

“So be it.”

Huffing, Megatron waved Starscream over without looking at him. The clicking of thruster heels against black granite told him that the high “priest” had obeyed.

“Yes?” he purred, clearly pleased with himself. He was getting what he had wanted after all.

“Have him trained. Presuming he survives, schedule the ceremony.”