#unwilling guest au

[twstfanblog]

~Manhwa AU- A Fairytale Do-Over~ Pt 2

A/N: GUESS WHAT I FINISHED~? It's been hot as fuck over here recently and our house doesn't have central air. So writing has been hard, but I managed! Enjoy Malleus's huberous trying to hit him but he's still too short to get the lesson. Next part will be when Yuu meets Leona! Word Count: 3.9K Pairings: Yuu & Malleus (Their friendship has ended and he doesn't even know it), Sibling Malleus & Silver, Parental Lilia & Silver Prev / Next

The royal palace was massive, the size rivaling that of an urban village. And that didn't include the gardens, the patios, the woods attached to the grounds; the area was so large that there were even hidden places Lilia didn't know about. It was grand and it was lavished, all that an empirical bloodline could want. But it was empty, halls filled with priceless artwork and historical artifacts echoed with every footstep you took.

It was a sound Lilia had heard twice and never wished to hear a third time. First was when he was brought to the palace to be Maleanor’s playmate, second was the day after her and her husband's funeral.

And now, as he stared down a twitching servant, he was sure the palace had started to prep itself to return to such a state. He massaged his temples, taking a long and slow breath in, “Forgive me…I must have grown hard of hearing in my age…what did you say?”

The servant shook in terror, the silver tray he held in his hands jostling the letter on it. Lilia Vanrouge was retired as a general, but no one in the fleet of servants or guards dared to upset him. Even delivering bad news was seen as foolish and asking to be punished, “Yu-…The young miss Crowley’s invite was returned…unopened…We called their residence to ask…but the servants are stating that…she is ill and unwilling to attend…”

“…”

Lilia felt…flabbergasted. Yuu had attended Malleus's birthdays sick before, the adoration the young girl held for his charge gave her the will to suffer through hours of discomfort. No illness or annoyingly loud guests could deter her from spending time with her friend.

But even thinking that made him flinch. Malleus was not…receptive to Yuu's kindness or shows of friendship. The young fae lord had found the girl to be clingy, annoying, downright a pain. But no matter how he protested their playdates, Lilia kept scheduling them because Malleus needed someone to see as his equal.

Though he was the crowned prince, a marvel to the fae and kingdom, Yuu was by marriage his cousin and closest of equal royal standing. Malleus’s father was not of noble blood, a fact that kept his and Maleanor’s love from truly being accepted by the council. Luckily, Levan had cut a deal with Dire, being formally adopted into the Crowley line in exchange for more loyal ties with the empire's crown once Levan and Maleanor had married.

A promise that was kept with playdates to the two houses’ heirs.

Lilia bit his lip. Though both of Malleus's parents had passed and such a promise meant nothing now, the Crowley line was all Malleus had in terms of extended family. The old fae wanted them to be close should misfortune fall upon him and leave Malleus without a proper guardian.

But Malleus was his mother's son…

Haughty, arrogant, and beautiful. He looked down on nearly everyone around him, deeming them weak and powerless against his steadily growing might. He skipped his lessons; half from his naturally absent-minded nature, mostly because he felt too good to listen to weaker fae try to teach him.

So introducing a magicless girl nearly five years younger as his equal did not go well…

Since their first playdate and Malleus had stomped back into the palace covered in mud, furious, he had simply despised the Crowley child. Yuu had merely giggled and asked to play with Malleus again, saying he was funny and she liked him. To this day, Lilia wasn't sure why Malleus had been covered in mud nor why he seemed to detest Yuu so much so quickly…He refused to repeat what happened and it only sent Yuu into a fit of laughter whenever asked. He wondered if he should have used his magic to see what had caused the issue when he still had the chance…

He sighed, picking the letter up and ignoring the servant's flinching when his hand drew near. Studying it, he marveled, it really was unopened. A part of him felt the claws of dread slowly wrap around his heart, his fears becoming realized before his eyes. Had Yuu finally had enough? Were two years of verbal abuse what caused the young girl to open her eyes to Malleus’s mistreatment and simply not return.

Turning away, he dismissed the servant and bit his lip again. Malleus didn't have other playmates. Malleus, like his mother, was feared by his subjects. A fact that made companionship more difficult than Lilia wished it would be. He wondered if he should visit the Crowley duchy, slip a tonic from the royal infirmary to have the girl healed in time for the party-

“Lilia, Silver's fallen asleep again.”

Lilia looked to the doorway, his worries melting off his shoulders at the heartwarming scene.

While Malleus had created a type of feud with the Crowley girl, he completely adored Silver; claiming the boy as his brother since he first saw him sleeping in his bassinet. They stood in the opened doorway, Malleus in a more informal attire and cradling Silver to his front. The silver-haired nine-year-old fast asleep in the prince's arms releasing angelic snores.

Sighing, Lilia held his free arm out with a small smile, “Bring him here, I will watch him while you finish your studies.”

Passing the sleeping child over, Malleus scoffed under his breath and rolled his eyes, “Studies. I have no need…” His eyes catch the glint of silver in Lilia’s hand, “What is that?”

Lilia didn’t have a chance to answer, Malleus reaching up and snatching the letter out of his guardian’s hands. Huffing, Lilia used his now free hand to properly hold Silver, “We’ve been over this; don’t snatch things from people-”

“Is this…Yuu’s invitation?” Malleus stares at the envelope, turning it over in his hands and becoming bewildered as he notices it wasn’t even opened, “Have you…Not sent this to the Crowley’s Duchy yet…?” His party was only a week away and the grand duchy was at least half a day’s journey away.

“…” Sighing, Lilia turned away from Malleus’s inquisitive eyes, “The invitation was returned unopened. Word is that the young lady Crowley is ill and unable to attend…”

Malleus stood in silence, staring at Lilia’s back before looking down at the letter in his hand, “Oh…” With a smile, he flicked the letter past Lilia and sent it directly into the lit fireplace.

“Malleus!” Lilia watched the letter burn, flaring green in a flash as the wax melted into the flames. Turning around he tried to pin a glare at the giddy preteen, “Why would you do that!?”

With a shrug, Malleus turned around with a smile. Wiping his hands of the situation as though he had easily solved all his problems, “There’s no need for it. She’s ill, isn’t she? Plus, they returned the invite. It’s within my right to do with it as I will.” He clapped his hands together as his thoughts ran wild, the very promise of Yuu not attending his party making him more and more excited for the event, “This shall be my most wonderful birthday yet! Maybe I will be just as lucky next year and she’ll still be ill.”

Lilia could only frown as Malleus laughed, walking out of the room. While Lilia hoped the young prince would go to his lessons, he knew he was more than likely heading toward the gardens or to his growing horde room. Sighing, the bi-colored fae looks down to his sleeping child. It would all be much easier if he just placed Silver as the prince’s playmate. Malleus adored Silver, but Silver was quiet. Silver was so quiet. A fact that would only echo in this massive palace as the years go on. Lilia could only hope that he’d find a cure for whatever sleep curse affected his boy. Maybe Silver could be the bridge between the two; a thesaurus for two similar yet wildly different languages.

He hoped that Malleus wouldn’t be too upset on the day of his party.

The servants would say the day of Malleus's party was divine. Not a tantrum, eye-roll, nor threat of permanent dismissal in sight. He allowed himself to be dressed easily in his outfit, black silks and furs, precious gems stitched to mimic the night sky their lands were famous for and a winding silver banded crown. Malleus looked like a prince of the infamous Noctorn Empire and he was excited.

He had talked Lilia and Silver's ears off at breakfast; his plans to speak to everyone for once since Yuu wouldn't be attached to his side and babbling nonstop. He didn't notice the concerned look in Lilia's eyes when he'd excused himself to use the emergency phone. Lilia called the Crowley duchy directly to ask if they were truly not attending the party. Crewel merely stating they had sent their gifts and wished Malleus a happy birthday in their absence. Yuu hadn't even been heard over the call.

As the beginning of the event drew closer, Lilia felt his nerves worsen, as if a looming threat was breathing down his neck and waiting to strike. A feeling that only grew stronger as Silver lost his fight with wakefulness, falling asleep a little after the first few guests started to populate the entry hall. Lilia had gathered the deadweight child into his arms, tasking Malleus to greet the guests alone while he placed Silver in a more docile environment until he woke up.

Malleus tried, he truly did. He spoke aloud and clearly as Lilia had always instructed him, head held high so that his chin and the ground were two parallel lines. He tried to shake people's hands, growing frustrated as they refused to release the brightly wrapped gifts to do such a thing. After the 6th awkward shuffle away from his outstretched hands he simply elected to not shake anymore of the lord's hands. After the 15th nervous and stuttered hello, he stopped greeting them too.

He huffed, mildly pouting as he left the entry hall, walking toward the guarded room that held his mountain of presents; gifts to be opened and cataloged once all the guests had left. Greeting people alone wasn't as fun as he imagined it would be. It would have been easier if Lilia hadn't left to tend to Silver. Lilia was a social creature in such a way that Malleus never understood, neither him nor Yuu made sense to him as to how they got people to respond so easily to them. But then again, the very thought of Yuu beside him and greeting everyone in his place made him more frustrated. The sight of her gift, as always wrapped in black and white with a bright green bow, only worsened his mood.

Slamming his hand into the brick, leaving behind Cracks and a medium-sized indent he made the choice to enter the banquet hall. (Unaware of the few cowering party guests slowly backing away from him).

The room was filled with people, fine fabrics swishing around the room in elegant dances. Looking around his enthusiasm dipped again. There were so many adults more than children his age, adults that would only give him a half glance and a respectful bow. Malleus walked along the edges of crowds, trying to see if any conversation piqued his interest or if any of the adults would glance his way to wish him a happy birthday. He received plenty of quick bows, long-winded birthday blessings with his full title. A few had even tried to start a conversation, beginning with a comment on their relation to his mother or father. Only to suck their mouths in like they had tasted the worst type of lemon flavor, remembering he never meant his mother nor his father. From there they would bow again and turn to scamper away into a crowd, leaving him alone again.

Just as he began to wonder just where Lilia was placing Silver, he saw someone who made his hopes relight. Another child his age was standing by a window, looking out the large stained glass with an air of boredom around him. They were a noble of origin from outside the empire, their clothing was brightly colored and heavily patterned. A crown of beads and braids kept dark brown hair neat yet wild, a pair of small, round lion ears peaking through. The hint of brown skin visible from the edge of their loose sleeves and crossed arms.

Gathering a bit of courage, swallowing to wet his mouth, Malleus walked forward. He smiled and tilted his head, tapping the other on the shoulder to gain his attention, “Hello. Are you enjoying the party?”

The other boy seemed to startle, almost as if he had planned on being invisible for hours more and Malleus's acknowledgement broke his trance. The boy turned to him, showing his face was marred over one eye with a long thin scar, the bright emerald green slightly duller than the other.

Once he saw who was speaking to him, he frowned. Turning away and looking at Malleus from the corner of his brighter eye as though he was a bug, “Go away.” Short, simple, and sour.

Malleus startled himself. No one had…ever dismissed him in such a way. Even when Lilia sent him away to his own devices, He said as such with an air of teasing, jovial. This…this was just rude. Narrowing his eyes, he stepped into the other boy's line of sight when he fully turned away, “Why should I? You are aware this is my birthday party, aren’t you? You should feel honored that I'm speaking to you.”

The boy scoffs, facing him directly and placing his hands on his hips. Smug, arrogant; he wasn't taller by any means but it felt as though he was looking down his nose at him, “Why would I feel honored being spoken to by a lizard?”

“…” Lightning flashed outside, bringing the already soft ambiance into a fearful silence, “A LIZARD!?” YOU DARE CALL ME A LIZARD!?”

“A lizard who throws tantrums at that.”

“Leona!” Two older men quickly rush over, looking similar to ‘Leona’ with their attire, ears, and, face yet more alike each other with their matching bold red hair. The shorter, younger man had gripped Leona by the shoulders, trying to force the boy into a bow, “Apologize! You promised you'd behave tonight!”

The older man, his red hair streaked with thin yet vivid lines of grey bowed, “A thousand apologies, Your Highness. Please forgive my youngest son. He is still recovering from an injury you see-”

“I don't care about excuses!” Malleus glared, stomping his foot as the lightning flashing again and sent the room into spasms of eerie green light. He pointed toward the scowling Leona, “He called me a lizard!”

“Malleus, lower your tone. You are among company.” Lilia walked over, placing a hand onto his charge’s shoulder and pulling him back as a physical reminder to calm down, “What's happened here?”

“It seems my son-”

Scoffing loudly, Leona rolled his head back and spoke aloud, “I called the stupid lizard, a lizard and he threw a fit over it.”

“Leona.” The younger man strained, shaking Leona by his shoulders in an effort to physically shake the sense into him.

Lilia frowned, looking down his nose at the defiant child with lidded eyes, “That's rather rude don't you think?” He looked from the corner of his eye, catching the eldest man's gaze, “Duke Kingscholar. I wasn't aware you were raising such…brazen children...”

The duke's bow seemed to deepen, “Truly, I offer apologies for every star in the sky. My youngest is recovering from an injury and fever. He isn't thinking clearly-”

The eldest brother leaned down, whispering to the sour-faced child while their father tried to save face with Lilia, “Leona, apologize. Dad's gonna make you sit in the carriage again if you don't-”

“Fine then! I didn't want to come to this dumb party anyway!”

The duke sprang up, his face furious as he rounded on his youngest son, “LEONA!”

Malleus could feel the lightning crackle outside, the bolts dancing along the sealed windows in eagerness to strike Leona down, “How…dare you!? My birthday party is the highest honor any could hope to attend, and you stand here, wasting it and calling my wrath!”

Leona scoffed, rolling his eyes before leveling Malleus with an almost arctic glare, “Who'd consider it an honor to attend a party of someone they don't even like?”

The eldest boy tried to pull his brother back, worry on his face as the lights along the wall started to flash and flicker with the green electricity struggling to breach the walls, “Leona. Enough.”

Malleus glared back, eyes almost glowing from his rage, “I don't care if you like me or not. I am your prince and you will respect me!”

Leona lets out a loud and sharp laugh, shaking himself free of his brother's hands to step closer to Malleus, “I don't respect you and I don't like you. No one does.”

“That's…That's A lie! People like me!”

“Oh, look around!” Leona gestures his arms out, only continuing when Malleus makes small cautious glances around the room, “No one here likes you, they're all afraid of you! And you're too stupid to see it, you pompous motherfuc-”

Leona was all but snatched into the air, his older brother holding his body in one arm while the other pressed tightly to his mouth. He bowed, a mumble of his brother not feeling well before he quickly absconded from the area.

Duke Kingscholar sighed, offering one last apology and a birthday blessing before he followed his sons out.

Malleus watched them leave along with everyone else. And once the Kingscholars had left he looked around the room once more, a new feeling of a sinking stone growing heavier and heavier. No one would meet his eyes, nothing past an accidental glance before quickly bowing. No one other than Lilia came to his defense, every last guest letting him be berated and mocked by a spare. And for what? To stand at the edge of their tif and cower? To…to look at him with fearful eyes?

Only once the Kingscholars left did he realize just how far away everyone else was in that moment. How even as the lightning cleared, the storm calming, no one dared approach him. No one dared look him in the eyes.

The party continued, the Kingscholars did not return and Malleus was happy for that at least. Leona was…a form of abrasive that he didn't care to deal with ever again.

He thought this birthday would be amazing, the best of his short eleven years of life. Instead, he spent the night beside Lilia, holding onto his hand and refusing to look up. Not out of any true nervousness or shame. He just…didn't want to see how no one looked his way.

They danced, they had a meal, they had cake. Everyone left after another hour of standing and talking. Were birthday parties always so…boring? Or was it just because it was his 11th birthday? Was it because Silver didn't wake midway through for cake cutting like he normally did? Was it…was it because Yuu wasn't there?

The thought annoyed him. Yuu would have never left him alone if she was there, she never had any other celebration. Clinging onto him to greet guests, chasing him through the halls while the adults spoke and networked. A leeching shadow that no matter where he went, she would worm her way into the same place at some point.

“Malleus?”

The horned fae looked up, a half-asleep Silver holding the signature black and white present out to him, “Do you want me to have Yuu's present again this year? Father said she didn't come…”

“…” Sighing, Malleus took the gift from Silver's hands, ripping the paper with an annoyed air to the act, “No. I'll keep it. She's ill; there's no telling what kind of human illness you'll catch from whatever she's coughed on in here.”

Lilia sighed, but didn't speak more. Gathering the wrapping paper of the other gifts Malleus had opened and quickly discarded for not holding his interest. He watched his son yawn, smiling as he pointed to the small table with tea and two thin slices of cake, “Silver, have some tea and cake; it'll wake you up a bit.”

“But, you said I can't have sweets past 9pm?”

“Well, I decided you can today. You normally are awake to have a slice of cake during the party…”

“I know…I'm sorry.”

“Silly boy. There's nothing to apologize for…”

As Malleus looked into the gift box in his hands, the sounds of his guardian and brother faded into the background, equally muffled by the crackling of the fireplace. Inside the present was a pair of oddly knitted tubes. To anyone else, they'd be a pair of hideous mittens for someone who didn't even have hands, but Malleus knew what they really were.

Yuu had asked him, earlier that season when he was again forced to have tea with her, if his horns ever got cold in the Winter. He had glared, telling her to not ask such stupid questions, having no time nor the knowledge to explain that his horns never felt cold in Winter nor hot in Summer and he didn't know why. An answer that seemed to have not satisfied the annoying girl, since she had made and gifted him a pair of unseemly horn warmers.

He held them in his hands, the knots sloppy yet tight. The pattern was off and he's certain there were two different shades of green in the same area. They were ugly, plain and simple. But they were something other than a grotesque or a gargoyle cruelly ripped from their post. Useless, priceless gems he had no need for or the rare foolish gift of iron weapons and accessories. The black yarn was too thick, almost swallowing the designs made with the green yarn. Both colors pressed so close that the black seemed greenish in the right light.

Just as Yuu's eyes would.

He knew the Crowley girl's eyes were black, a brown so dark and deep that they mimicked a starless new moon sky mixed with the dying breath of a sunset. But when…when she looked him in the eyes…they almost seemed to leech the green from his own.

“…Lilia.” A beat of silence before the older fae gave a questioning hum, “Yuu's been sick before right?”

“…” Lilia perks up, turning to face Malleus directly as he notices he had opened Yuu’s present, “…Um…yes, a few times before. Why do you ask?”

“…Does…does she feel better soon? She isn’t sick for long, right?”

“…” Lilia smiles, stepping closer and ruffling the hair in the space between Malleus’s horns with a giggle, “I'm sure she will better quicker than you expect! Your little friend will be right as rain and back in the palace for playdates before you know it!”

Malleus pouts, slapping his guardian’s hands away and trying to smooth his ruffled hair. The woolen tubes in his hands not helping in the slightest as they only made his hair more frizzy, “I don’t want her back here! I just don’t want to hear about the bothersome thing dying!” He stands, forgoing his other presents but keeping the ugly warmers locked in his grasp unknowingly, “I’m going to bed! Even when she isn’t around, she manages to ruin everything…”

Floating, Lilia flipped himself upside down, pinching at a furious Malleus’s cheek, “Aw~! You do like her!”

“NO! I DON’T!”

[rottiens]

i must know ur stepcest thoughts 🎤🎤🎤🎤🎤

US AT MIDNIGHT | GETŌ SUGURU

✮ wc. . 2.0K

✮ tags. . stepcest, spit kink, smoker fem!reader, alcohol consumption, praise kink (good girl), canon au. 18+ mdni. divider creds: cafekitsune.

✮ about. . the right thing to do would be to forget about the past and start over. pretend nothing happened. but sometimes the right thing to do is not always what we should do.

✮ notes. . i wanted to explore this trope from a more 'forbidden romance' point of view rather than lust as such, yk? Suguru really cares about the reader. I hope you can still enjoy it and suguru will probably be ooc here so I apologize for that ;sighs;

"You look ravishing tonight." You needn't turn around to know who it was, though it would be hypocritical to deny that you weren't expecting him.

Suguru followed you stealthily like shadow into the backyard, guided by your hips and the sound of your heels against the wooden floor that gave him clues as to what your final destination was. The trees under the breeze of the spring entrance flutter carrying silence.

You steel yourself to turn around, the courage you have never had but now cling to as if your life depended on it. You squeeze the cigarette you carry between your fingers and finally order your feet to move. You almost curse the moon for showing him to you so mysterious, the absence of light allows you to admire his blurred features and the darkness dances on his face preventing you from seeing him clearly. You sigh his manly perfume and smile wistfully at him, dropping your head to the side.

"Suguru." You hadn't said that name in a long time, hadn't thought of it after going to college abroad and abandoning your promising future as a sorceress, so having it in your mouth drags up memories that hit your belly like whips. He returns the same smile, clutching the cup in his hand. In the distance, the sound of music comes muffled through the walls that separate you. "Thank you… you look…" older, handsome, taller "You look good," you conclude with a sigh. "You grew your hair long." You point out the obvious, with a finger gesturing to the black hair that falls loosely down his back.

Apparently something you said makes him grin more, not to the point where he shows his teeth but you do notice the way his shoulders relax at your presence just a little.

"You don't have to hide from me."

"I wasn't," you reply without blinking, trying to keep the plastic smile.

You barely forget about the cigarette burning in your hand, so before the ashes land on your gleaming heels you bring it to your mouth taking a deep puff in search of, ironically, clearing your lungs. After pleading with your mother that you didn't want to attend her and Suguru's father's annual wedding anniversary celebration and she asked that you do so, you created a master plan for tonight that included everything from your hairstyle to your outfit, continuing with the dialogues you would hold and the posture you would assume the entire night… only your perfect plan didn't include your stepbrother cornering you alone like the wolf he is.

You extend the cigarette to him but he shakes his head taking the cup to his mouth instead, ironic, you learned from his vice. You wonder what else has changed in him these past few years.

Amber drops stick to his lower lip as he finishes his drink, which he soon swirls around with his tongue. You watch, unable to pretend you have no interest in him, perplexed that he still has the same effect on you.

"I should get back," you say in a voice that is raspy from the smoke, preparing to walk by his side unwilling to drag out the encounter any longer; however his long fingers tangle around your arm and that spark runs through your entire body.

"We didn't do anything wrong."

"I don't want to talk about it." You avoid looking at him at all costs, focusing on the silhouettes of your parents and their guests dancing in the living room.

"I haven't stopped thinking about you," he suddenly confesses and you hate him for doing this to you now, in the middle of such an important celebration for them.

"I shouldn't have come." You try to struggle against his grip to which he relents, only to seconds later grab you by both arms and slam you against one of the columns, in the background, a cicada screams as the guests rampage with a hubbub and your lungs empty from the impact.

Suguru just looks at you as his fingers burn marks into your skin and you wish you knew what was going through his mind… probably the same as in yours.

"We were kids," you try to explain as a last resort. "It was just a game." Suguru moves closer to your neck and you allow him to trespass your personal space, his natural scent clouding your senses and making you cling to his white shirt in search of stability.

Silently and with your breaths ragged and ruffled, Suguru blindly pulls your hand to his hips and you put up no resistance, then lower.

"This is what you do to me," he murmurs hoarsely. Your fingers feel his length through his pants, much fatter than you remember. Unexpected memories shame you, that should never have happened, you tried to run away from home in search of a fresh start but the images always came back to you tormenting you with the raw whip of morality. "Do you need me as much as I need you? Is that pussy wet for me?"

"Suguru…" you call out to him with weak knees, imploring him not to take you to a place you can't escape from.

"That's right. Say my name, your big brother is right here, let him take a look."

You whimper, more for lack of words or response than because you have any other choice, Suguru uses your weakness against you and that makes you feel frail, under his big fingers he destroys the mask that for so long it has taken you to form. His fingers are cradling your pussy above the fabric of your dress, tracing the labia up and down as he parts them at the same time with light pressure in search of your hidden clit, as soon as he finds it suguru starts a swirl taking his time to listen to your body and which way he caresses you is the one that makes you feel the most pleasure.

He helps you remove the uncomfortable belt around his hips so you can find his hard cock, unlike him, you search through the boxers to touch him directly and you both gasp at the contact.

"We cannot…" you try to elaborate, however Suguru shuts you up with a sloppy kiss, makes you swallow the words as he pushes his tongue inside you, touching your upper lip in a mess of saliva and tangling with your tongue as he pauses to suck on it a little.

"Open." As soon as he commands you, still touching you, your lips stained from the smeared lipstick open for him letting his saliva drip onto your tongue. You swallow and he smiles, it's exactly like before. "I'm going to spit again, but this time keep it in your mouth, okay?" your eyes widen a little at the demand and you don't know if he notices, though you do it anyway without protest. Your tongue rolls out and you give him a glimpse of your mouth, suguru purses his lips again and drops a big gob but this time you do as he says and instead of swallowing, you keep it there. "Good girl," he praises you right away. "You look so pretty with your mouth full so you won't tell me things I don't want to hear."

At that moment, he climbs up the skin of your thigh and tosses the already soaked panties aside to play directly with your needy clit. Each touch is heartbreaking, it's like it's the first time anyone has touched you in years, his caresses are tiny bursts of pleasure that climb up your belly and squeeze you from the inside— with one hand on your neck and one on your crotch suguru keeps jerking you off while he talks in your ear and tells you how much he's missed you, how much he needed to see you again, by this point your body was about to explode, your legs tremble and your nipples harden with each dirty word that makes his throat vibrate.

Suguru raises his hand to the level of your face and shows you his open palm as if waiting for something.

"Spit." Seeing the confusion on your face you make him smile, which has an effect on you that you hate. Without further hesitation you spit, and he takes his now wet and sticky hand to his cock to lubricate it and with the same soaked hand he gives two round strokes to your pussy, giving you to understand that he is preparing you for what is coming next.

He abruptly turns you over so that your back is to him while he grabs your hips and lifts your ass, you stand on tiptoe while hiding your face in your hands. Common sense begs you because you still have time, logic tells you that someone could be watching you from afar and that your relationship would be more than an embarrassment to the family, yet it's hard to think about the moment when the thick head brushes your swollen lips in a gentle back and forth.

"Is this okay?" he asks. "Can I fuck you without a condom?"

You can't think. You want to say you're not sure, but a hasty, "Yes," rolls out of you before you can stop it.

You can sense his hesitation in the way his grip weakens around your hips and by how he continues to outline your pussy lips up and down without deciding to thrust even though you are blindly seeking him with your hips.

You call his name, looking back to stare at his body bathed in the dim light; the dark strands obscure his gaze as Suguru just focuses on the image of you open waiting to be taken for him. Even in the absence of light you admire his jaw clench.

"I don't want our first time to be like this," suguru breathes, still not raising his head to look at you. Your brow furrows slightly in both frustration and confusion, after all he's been the one to blame for you getting to this point— your lips parted to complain at the same time his voice fills the place again. "Squeeze your thighs together." He commands back authoritatively without waiting for a no.

You do as he asks. With your eyes straight ahead, you focus on the column in front of you to which you cling for support and amidst the murmur of applause Suguru slides his hard cock in between your thighs after he has spit again.

The sound of his moans are drowned out by the din at close range, his hips thrusting and rubbing desperately against you in search of release. Your whole body feels hot in different places and for different reasons, shame and pleasure are those that stand out the most burning your cheeks and an oppressive sensation cracking your ribs.

The amount of saliva makes the movement fluid, just like a dance in which you help him by pushing your hips back to meet him in that back and forth in perfect unison. This leads him to cum soon, he lifts your dress to spill the ropes of cum on your ass ruining the harmony of your skin, then, still with fingers dirty from his own orgasm suguru pulls you to cling to his chest and from behind drags a hand down your belly to take hold of your pussy once more.

He forces you to look into the room as two of his fingers deep into you and makes you moan, taking care to steal a hard orgasm from you as his kisses make themselves present in your throat and his cum slides very slowly along your ass. His chest heaves with pride knowing that you will spend the rest of the party with his mark on you, as everyone laughs and celebrates a special occasion; his cum would be spilling down the length of your thighs.

He rejoices knowing you had come back to him.

"Meet me in my room at midnight," he whispers in your ear after depositing a tender kiss on your lobe.

[llamagoddessofficial]

What about the noble trio from the pride and prejudice au falling for a servant girl at one of the parties they attend. Among all the noble women in their fancy gowns, there is a hardworking lady in uniform making sure everyone is tended to and everything is going well

😳 Anon how did you know that this dynamic is my weakness

Sans: A servant/maid Mc would have a much more favourable view of Sans than an Mc who was of his class. He might even be her favourite out of the skeleton trio. Despite his frosty nature with people in his own social standing, he's very genial and kind with servants, going out of his way to call them all (even those not of his household) by name- that kindness has made him very popular with the local servant population, Mc included. When he sees her, he doesn't dismiss her, he invites her to talk with him... if he ever sees her in town, he stops to politely chat with her as if they're the same standing. She enjoys his company greatly. If she's working for someone else he regularly compliments her work ethic, politeness, tidiness, etc. She's realistic, but... her favourite daydream is the one where Sans gets down on one knee.

If she worked for him, she'd be directly promoted to position more akin to a personal assistant than a maid. She helps him manage his finances, oversee his household- he wants her close by, and he openly expresses to her that she's the only one he trusts to help him with the things important to him.

Red: Though Red definitely has a reputation that makes some want to avoid working for him, his servants also tend to have the most fun. Unlike other noblemen, his servants have a lot of time off, and he openly allows gambling and drinking. He hires people who have a hard time getting other jobs, like the elderly or socially outcast- his reputation is wild anyway, he can afford to hire whoever he wants. Nobody is surprised.

She has the best rapport with Red. He breaks down the walls she built up from a lifetime of fearing the retribution of the upper class, he can make her laugh until her sides ache. He actively encourages her to speak her mind with him; she'll yell at him for beating her at cards and rather than losing her livelihood, she gets raucous laughter from him. After years of silent servitude it feels so good to speak freely with someone.

... She wouldn't work for him, though, unless he was her only option. Does she like him? Yes, so much. But his track record of wooing servants and nobles alike makes her unwilling to risk it... especially when he's so clearly fond of her, and she can't honestly say she doesn't like him too.

Skull: Skull is beloved by his household. Staff only have one rule; don't go into his room when he's in there. He never throws big parties, so no need for massive preparations, he's quiet and gentle in temper around humans, his only regular guest is the ever-popular Red. His staff are immensely defensive of him, and won't hear a word against him despite his unusual reputation.

She'd probably end up working for Skull, one way or another. One look at her, and he'd throw an obscene amount of money at whoever was employing her, he can't bare the thought of her not being his. She arrives to his household expecting the backbreaking work that tends to come with being the maid of a higher class family, and yet finds herself... not really working at all? Her only 'jobs' are what come with being the only person allowed into Skull's room. He keeps giving her nice clothes, rather than a uniform. Why are all the other servants so nice to her? Why do they keep manufacturing reasons for her to be alone with Skull? Why do they all smile like they know a joke she's not in on?

[shyravenns]

141 Barn Cats AU

Thinking about an AU where Laswell is an unwilling participant in the cat distribution system, and the rest of 141 are just stray cats that she can't get rid of.

There's Bear who's name was appropriately given by Laswell's darling wife (much to her silent aggravation). He was the first cat who appeared seemingly out of nowhere, and settled in as if he were the one paying mortgage. A great big, fluffy creature with faint scars littering his body and small nick in his ear that tells Laswell that he's as much as a soldier as she is. Amber eyes calmly staring back at her from his perch on their counter, as she startles at the sight of him in the morning, already a self made king in the home that she shares her with her wife. A small twitch to his whiskers, and she can tell (though she'd rather be tortured than say this out loud) that he's rather amused by her startled yelp. Her wife adores him given by the simple brown collar she managed to get around his neck, and Laswell knows it's rather embarrassing to be resentful of a cat when said cat strangely prefers Laswell's lap to sit on. Laswell's never been an animal lover, and cats are as much of an enigma to her as lions or tigers, but she's grown attached to the big brown cat with amber eyes that naps on her desk and purrs when she looks at him.

One cat is enough. One cat is supposed to be enough.

And then comes Ghost. A great big black cat that makes her hesitate and wonder if he's really a cat and not some sort of unknown species of feline given his size. A great big, black cat that watches her with a stillness that reminds her a little tiger. Seemingly even more scarred as Bear is, and she wonders just briefly how tough it must be to be a stray cat. A guest who Bear had seemingly brought to them. disappearing for a few days as he often does as they live in a great stretch of land that she inherited, and appearing almost out of the blue on their front porch with a cat that almost seems to fidget given the anxious twists of it's tail as Laswell stares and her wife coos at them. She sighs, rolls her eyes, and glares down at Bear as she widens her door just a bit and allows both cats to stalk inside and begins to wonder if they're even cats in the first place and not some cosmic punishment sent to fuck with her. Ghost doesn't interact much with them save for the occasional pat on the head, and allowing them to get close enough to slip a simple black collar on him. Laswell, knowing not to say anything, when he wife orders a collar with a skull design. Often spending his time prowling after Bear, or hesitantly allowing her wife to get near him while he sits on the window sill, and watches the world outside.

Two cats is more than enough, and she always gives a little sigh before adding kitty litter to her basket.

Bear and Ghost are enough. They're calm, quiet, and independent enough for Laswell to focus on other things.

Until it's 1am, and the yowling of a cat (that she knows isn't one of hers) drags her out of a sleep so blissful she'd cry if she weren't so annoyed. Soap is the name her wife gives him (and pouts when Laswell stares at her in disbelief), as they stumble downstairs to see their unwelcome visitor shaking off the excess bubbles off of his coat as he crawls out from the kitchen sink. Laswell isn't done mouthing "what the fuck" before her wife laughs, and grabs the spare towel on the counter in order to help him dry off. Ignoring the open window above the sink where they assumed he managed to sneak in. Soap is,,,everything a cat should not be in Laswell's rather unprofessional opinion, and reminds her of a dog more often than not. Energetic and noticeable as he makes their house his home within a matter of hours. Making fast friends with Bear, and oddly enough seeming to prefer the company of Ghost. It's not uncommon for her to catch them on the same window sill in the evening or grooming each other much to her own silent delight. He's a nuisance in her opinion, but a very welcome one (and her favorite, but she'd never say that out loud)

And just when she thinks that three is enough there is, of course, another expected unexpected guest.

She's not surprised in the slightest when she wakes up and spies the lean brown cat watching her as he sits beside Bear, Soap, and Ghost as if he's always been there (It's an interesting feeling to wonder if she's been gaslit by a cat) with a slight tilt to his head as if she's the one who shouldn't be here. She doesn't say much to her wife as they both give each other a tired yet amused glance towards one another and watch as he curls his tail around his paws and purrs when begin to take out another bowl. Gaz, they name his together, when gives a small chirp at the tv at the sound of the nickname. He's not as energetic as Soap (thank GOD), but he manages to worm himself into her wife's heart pretty quickly in a way that tells her that he won't be going anywhere anytime soon. He has a liking towards Bear, who often lets him nap beside him on the couch in her office. And appears to have made fast friends with Soap and Ghost as she catches all three of them curled up in the kitchen underneath a sunbeam.

They're good cats, all of them. She doesn't *quite* know where the hell they all came from, but it's hard to really want to know when she gets to fall asleep to the sound of purrs and her wife's gentle snores.

[changetyre]

Not like this (P6) II Charles Leclerc x Reader (Mafia AU)

SUMMARY: After losing everything you seek out your biggest and longest-standing enemy to finish it all.

WARNING: Violence, blood, mentions of death

A/N: Thank you @s-awturn for the inspo on the next part which is teased at the end of this part 👀

You had decided to drive back with one of Charles's men, you needed space and that was as much space as you were getting right now. In the other car, Charles pondered over your words, putting himself in your shoes and realizing how impotent you must feel. 

He wanted to talk to you but he didn't know what to say, how to start. This dynamic between the two of you was new and awkward and he had no idea how to handle it. What was once a relationship filled with pure hatred and rage was now a relationship of unexplainable trust, dependence, and patience. 

He meant to reach out to you once you got back to his place but you had given him no time to say anything before you locked yourself in the guest room. 

Charles took it upon himself to make dinner that evening, or at least attempted to knowing he was useless in the kitchen and he could never make something half as good as your cooking. But he hoped this would help him find the right words to talk to you and perhaps tell you more about his plans.

He had gotten as far as boiling water and putting pasta inside before things started going wrong. The tomato sauce he was attempting to prepare had somehow solidified and was smoking, he would've surely panicked if you hadn't come out of your room right that second. 

"What the hell are you doing?!" You screamed at Charles as you walked into the kitchen that was filling up with smoke. 

"Making dinner." Charles stated unwilling to admit defeat just yet. 

"Turn that off you idiot." You screamed at him as you went over to open the windows of his house to let some of the smoke out. 

Charles begrudgingly did what you said turning off everything on the stove. "I was trying to make Spaghetti alla Napoletana." he pronounced the name of the dish perfectly. 

You scoffed walking over and grabbing the burnt pan and letting water run over it as you carefully scraped off whatever substance Charles had made. "Right you fucked up probably one of the easiest pasta dishes in the world." you laughed. 

"The spaghetti is okay." Charles tried defending himself earning a glare from you. 

"Right, you know you're actually supposed to measure ingredients right?It's not just a suggestion." You brought back the now-washed and dried pan to the stove. 

"You don't ever measure out anything...I've seen you." Charles pointed out defensively. 

"Yeah, that's because I know how to cook." You replied cockily. 

Charles rolled his eyes. "I can do this on my own." He tried pushing you away. 

"Yeah, no way...I want to be able to eat something tonight." You huffed pushing him back. 

"I can cut the onion." Charles reached over as you were about to do it. 

"FINE!" You admitted defeat letting him do it although knowing he was going to regret it. 

You proceeded to cut up the garlic and pick some basil all while holding in your laughter at the way Charles struggled to cut the onion without sniffling and crying.

"Is this enough onion?" Charles asked, avoiding your eyes but you knew they were probably bloodshot. 

You couldn't contain your laughter this time. "You cut far more than we needed." You revealed making Charles turn to you in offense. 

But you noticed the way his lips wanted to curl into a smile. They truly did, Charles hadn't realized how much until now but your laughter was truly contagious and it reminded him of how long it'd been since he'd heard such raw laughter in his home. 

"And you wonder why it's so hard to admit I don't hate you." Charles muttered as he rinsed his hands. 

Your laughter died down as you processed his words. Grabbing some paper towel you let run under cold water before approaching Charles. 

"You just admitted it, Charles." You reached up blotting the towel around his eyes and you could see his eyes and body fill with relief. 

Charles realized what he said, he had in fact admitted he didn't hate you and although he initially felt panic the fact that you had so calmly accepted it brought a weird sense of relief to him. 

It took you a few seconds of silence to realize how close you were to him, you don't think you'd ever been this close to him before but as you continued dabbing around his eyes you appreciated the beauty in them.  "Hmm, your eyes have a little green in them." 

Charles's heart skipped a beat, the way your smiled softened as you looked at him made him question everything he'd ever thought about you. Why did you make him feel this way, suddenly the proximity was too much. 

"Uhmm let's finish this up, It's getting late." Charles stepped away, turning back to the counter to turn on the stove. 

You too were taken aback, you had completely lost yourself in the moment and the quick distance made you dizzy for some reason. "Yeah let me handle it, you just clean up a bit." You gently shoved Charles aside taking over the space of the stove. 

Charles nodded simply doing what you asked as he began gathering things. You continued cooking in silence, the only thing heard was the sizzling of the pan and the water running from Charles cleaning up some dishes. 

"There's a masquerade ball for the neighboring circles tomorrow night." Charles broke the silence. 

You were just finishing plating up the dishes. "Where?" You asked excited about the thought of getting answers. 

"Avolire Palace." He revealed. "I thought maybe you'd want to come." 

"Yes!" You replied a little more eagerly than intended. "Yes, please." 

"Okay." Charles nodded. "I'll go out tomorrow to get you a dress and more importantly a mask. If whoever is involved in what happened is there, they can't know you're alive." 

You nodded, knowing he was right. "So you'll take me as a plus one or-?"

"Yes you'll be my date...for the night." He quickly added. "Hopefully we can get some answers." 

[mintylovesredsocks]

Here's a snippet from the Descendants RoR fic I'm working on. Evil!Red AU goes hard ‼️

“Red! There you are,” the Queen said as Red entered the room. Red’s eyes darted from her mother to the person sitting at the other end of the table. Red quirked an eyebrow. The Queen smiled. “This is a brave little boy called Chad.”

Red’s gaze returned to their guest. He was a full-grown man - that, she could tell. She also noted the rope tying him to the chair. An unwilling guest, it seemed.

“Chad here is trying to convince me that we shouldn’t be in charge right now.”

Red’s eyes narrowed as she locked eyes with Chad, her lips forming a tight line. He dropped his gaze to the floor.

Red walked slowly over to her mother and stood at her side, resting her hand on the back of the chair.

“What are you going to do with him, mother?” Red asked.

The Queen smiled. “What do you think, Red?”

Red took a deep breath in and stared down at Chad.

“He’s committed treason,” she stated.

Her mother hummed, “Exactly.”

Red let out a steady breath. “And the sentence for that would be… off with his head.”

The Queen’s lips curled into a cheshire grin. “Correct.”

I'm really excited about this AU!! I'll avoid spoiling too much but glassrose/hearts is going to be present! (Did I hear someone say enemies to lovers?). The first chapter will probably be up some time this week!!

[sreyaya]

Friend(S) with Benefits?

College AU | Norton Campbell x Reader x Naib Subedar NSFW

Content warning: threesome, slight smut, really just porn (not much plot), 1K words, MDNI

(A/n: this was just basically me and my horny side messing around, also it's really messy as i was too lazy to write, NORTON PLS)

smut under the cut!

It wasn't that long into senior year of college when the young woman find herself entangled in strings of emotions. Norton Campbell, ruffled up dark hair and very much noteable scar marks covering his arms and handsome face, offering her into something she's never thought she's be into

"Friends with benefits," Norton mentioned, his lips curling into a suggestive smile that dabbles with mischief. The girl exclaimed loudly, confused and intrigued, as she grappled with the unexpected proposition. "Well, I take it you aren't into relationships, what about being friends with benefits instead?" Norton pressed on, his tone a blend of casualness and deep curiosity.

In his heart, he does long for the young woman, her unique spirit, her brains, her captivating curves, her plump lips, everything. The girl thought his proposition out throughly, a whirlwind of contemplation and desire. Relationships had never held much appeal for her, but the occasional intimacy in the course of being stressed due to senior year was undeniably tempting. What else could he do, after all?

"Deal", she answered, as the both of them shook hands firmly, an unnoticeable smirk grew on his face.

Nightly rendezvous, periodic meet-ups, casual fucks around the secluded campus classrooms, pristine library halls, reserved meeting rooms, it was all pleasureable for the both of them, craving more and more of each other every passing day. Yet, as weeks passed with their routine, a new dynamic emerged.

It was during one such "meet-up" in the dark-haired man's dormitory that she found herself greeted not only by him but also by an unexpected guest. The door opened, revealing Naib Subedar and all his glory, lying down on Norton's bed, all comfortable. A famous athlete within campus halls, known for active contribution within the campus vicinity, popular and admired by all for his actions and of course, his charisma.

"Is this your idea of 'trying something new,' Norton?" Her words toned with sarcasm, a subtle challenge to his once again, stupid suggestion. "Oh, come on," Norton replied with a sly grin, his voice laced with persuasion. "Give him a try. He's not that bad, you know."

Casting a slight glance over Norton's shoulder, she glared at the man in the dark green jacket, his muscular frame noticeable beneath the fabric. Perhaps a moment of stressing out after today's brainwrecking exam was not entirely opposed to. She just hates how she blatantly agrees to all propositions Norton has to offer, even sudden ones like this.

"Fine," she answered, her tone edged with annoyance. "I'll give it a shot. But if I'm not enjoying myself, he's out." With a pointed gesture towards the man seated on the bed, engrossed in a book. She made her terms clear, unwilling to compromise her own desires for the sake of Norton's stupid arrangements.

Tonight's session happens with an intensity that left the young woman breathless, the thick walls of the dormitory serving as a surprisingly tough barrier, holding off echoes of pleasure, surrendering to Norton's relentless thrusts, with her sitting on top of him his every movement sending waves of ecstasy and pleasure as it courses through her, the usual that always fills her up inside her jelly walls.

Meanwhile, Naib, a silent observer no more, took off his jacket to reveal a amusingly sculpted body in a tightly compressed sleeveless turtleneck, unbuckling his belt to take off his pants, his presence adding a new pressure to their intercourse. With sterness, he cupped her jaw, his touch both tender and commanding as he studied her teary eye while slowly caressing her moan filled lips.

Without hesitation, he tangled his fingers in her hair, guiding her towards him with a simple command.

"Suck."

That was all it takes before she obeyed, her lips enveloping him eagerly, her every movement shows off her skillful ways of giving pleasureable blowjobs, coating him in saliva, making the bulge in her throat a visible. Slowly moaning from the pleasure she feels from her arousal down below from each heavy thrusts Norton was giving, releasing adorning vibrations for the brunette to enjoy.

As the hours melted away into a haze of sensation, the room was filled with moans, groans, and hefty grumbles of pleasure. With each passing moment, Norton's heavy thrusts found their spot, sending waves of ecstasy coursing through her body, with him knowing full well all of her pleasureable spots due to the multiple intercourses they'd been having.

For the girl, pleasure washed over her in relentless waves, each climax more intense than the last. With every thrust, her inner walls stretched and yielded, welcoming him deeper with each penetration. The sheer length and girth of his member brought her to the brink of climax time and time again, her whole being trembling with the intensity of their shared passion.

Naib, unlike Norton, savored every moment of their passionate encounter, his steady rhythm shows how he's enjoying every second on fulfilling his desires. Remembering his defeat on the track competition, channeling his frustrations into each languid thrust, relishing the slick heat of her walls wrapped around him. As he approached the peak of his pleasure, he pushed deeper, his throbbing length pulsing until the knot in his stomach soon came undone, painting her walls white before withdrawing.

On the contrary, Norton seized the moment with one final thrust, his grip firm on the girl's lower hips as he poured himself into her, his seed spilling over her skin as he reached the the climax, a sense of contentment washing over her as she settled into the warmth of Norton's bed.

"That was quite something," she murmured, her voice heavy with satisfaction as she nestled against the sheets, falling deeply into sleep.

Norton chuckled softly, his fingers trailing through her ragged hair as he stared at her delicate form. "You seem to like her," he remarked lightly, his touch tender against her skin.

"Her skills were... impressive, i guess," Naib answered with a scoff, unable to deny the truth.

It was more than just another session, undeniable pleasure and connection filled her heart with satisfaction. Perhaps, just perhaps, their nightly sessions would be filled with the same captivating passion and pleasure, who knows?

(A/n: the last few paragraphs i was rushing LMAO internet sucks here)

[see-arcane]

Blood of My Blood: The Law's Delay

Shout out to @ibrithir-was-here for putting up with my never-ending goal of overfilling the glorious Blood of My Blood AU with my ramblings and extra shout out to @everchangingfungusthoughts and @animate-mush for tripping me down the slope of Writing Another Text Brick. Specifically via this whole thing.

Summary: Jonathan Harker, now fifteen years deep into his life at Castle Dracula, finds himself the unwilling guest of yet another frightful host and his company. Talk and violence and time tick by.

The sun sinks low.

The dead travel fast.

And a vital Lesson is taught regarding the Law of the land.

Warnings for graphic violence, suicide, and murder.

Jonathan’s head ached.

Partly from the agonized spot at the back of his skull where the cudgel had struck. Mostly from the state of his current company.

They were nomads, he knew, but not Dracula’s men. This lot were too fresh for that. In fact, some wore tailoring that the locals weren’t accustomed to apart from tourists and the occasional city dweller passing through. He wouldn’t bet money on how many were ‘donated’ from past victims and how many were afforded through helping themselves to said victims’ purses and personal cheques. They were a dapper group, whichever the case.

From what he picked up while feigning unconsciousness, there was someone missing from their assembly. Someone’s…paramour? Wife? A young woman close to the presumed leader. Some grousing about superstitious idiots. Counter-grousing about precaution and history and how somebody’s cousin’s friend was slaughtered by the ‘superstitions.’ A third sect was grumbling about how thin Jonathan’s pockets were for a supposed noble, monster or not.

“A half-full purse and a few strips of dried pork don’t particularly line up with your theory, Jacob.”

“Props, idiot. Would some common huntsman be wearing what he wears? Would he have these?”

Jonathan heard the heavy jingle of his set of the castle’s keys. They had taken the ring of them from its chain among a handful of other lightweight treasures. All that and his wedding ring. That would cost them.

“Oh, yes. Of course. Because all the revenants who run a swatch of the Carpathians’ government are surely wandering around with frightful things like jerky and house keys.”

“Are you blind? Do these look like house keys? Half of them look older than the mountains!”

“Well, perhaps that is the ‘prop’ of his property, eh? A fancy set of keys made to look old. They certainly haven’t any rust. It wouldn’t be a terrible gimmick these days. Everyone is a fiend for the local bogeyman or a good haunting. I would do tours with my own castle, dribble a little red sauce on my lip, charge a fee for the thrill and the courtesy of not killing anyone on the way out.”

“You talk like it’s a joke. This, when I was raised in these godforsaken crags, and my own neighbor lost their newborn and its mother in the same night! The father blew his brains out when he found what was left of them in the forest. His forest.” The words were hissed in Jonathan’s direction. “God! If we had known how easy it was to take him by daylight!”

There was a snort. The leader’s voice. Sour.

“You say ‘we’ like you weren’t still in nappies, Jake. Like the castle in question isn’t a fortress on a cliff in the dead center of the mountains, all covered with wolves and your frightful bloodsuckers. What would Mama and Papa do if they knew better back then? March all the way up with the neighborhood and hope they made it in time before sunset? That’s assuming the advised tools of the trade actually mean anything against the bastard in question. If he’s as old as legends claim, throwing himself through a hundred wars’ meat grinders with his head and heart and all his other giblets getting minced, with him still standing after it, who’s to say an axe and stake are enough?”

A kick was delivered to the chair Jonathan sat bound to.

“Assuming this piece of work is said bastard.” Spoken with equal parts resignation and frustration. “I’ll grant he looked a bit off in broad daylight. Sure as hell would pass for a cadaver. But if this is the man who had your slovenly little villages soiling themselves after dark, I’m not impressed.”

Snickers from most of the room. A few grimmer sounds from the believers.

“If you don’t believe us, then—,”

“I believe in precaution, Jake. There are strange things in the world. If we want to believe that talking pile of dust, Vordenberg, who I’ll admit was a museum exhibit in his own right, we had us a near miss back in Gratz. So, fine. We finish this in the fashion of the locals. We can even set the pieces on fire if it makes you happy. Not the point. The point is—,”

A hand caught in Jonathan’s hair and wrenched his bowed head up, making the back of his skull throb anew.

“—we know Katrina was seen with you last, you ghoul.”

Jonathan opened his eyes. It had a noticeably sobering effect on much of the room. His host even eased his hold enough to stop trying to rip Jonathan’s hair out. A glance was spared for the assembled party. Easier now that he wasn’t doing it through his lashes. They really were a well-dressed bunch. One of them even wore the silver watch taken from Jonathan’s pocket quite well, though it clashed somewhat with the dagger he was fiddling with. He’d sprung for a handle with a gold hilt.

“Well?” He received a last yank before the man flung his head against the back of the chair. “Where is she?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know anyone by that name. Could you describe her?”

“Oh, I doubt if she would give her real one out to anyone. But we know you know her, Count.”

Jonathan felt the headache blossoming into a migraine.

“Count?”

“Dracula,” the one called Jacob grated out. He stood close to the table with his hand near the aforementioned tools of the trade. A wood axe. A sharpened garden stake and a sledgehammer. Matches. But he, like the rest of his friends, was content to leave his other hand resting on the pistol at his hip. “Don’t think you can throw your word games around here, you leech. You are not boyar here. You are not even a monster by daylight. Just a man—,”

“A man I am talking to, Jake,” from the leader. He turned back to Jonathan. “You see we have some bias in the retinue. Now, Jake and his cadre believe you are, in fact, the same awful old man who likely played out his Báthory fantasies by killing off a few local rustics for kicks once upon a time. Same white hair, same carcass complexion, and some properly unhealthy-looking windows of the soul. As an aside, you have the same body heat as a slab from the butcher. If you had a chance of living beyond today, I might have recommended you see a doctor about your circulation.

“Because I, like the bulk of the room, am of the belief that you are Count Dracula in the sense that the original Count and some Countess loved each other very much and managed to squat your malformed self out into the world before croaking. And, before departing, father dearest passed on the family tradition of idly killing off whoever was convenient as a little hobby. Am I near enough?”

Jonathan said nothing. Chiefly because he was fighting a wave of nausea, but also because it allowed him to keep his gaze steady. The westward window was visible over his host’s shoulder.

“I asked you a question.”

“I will answer if you tell me how you possibly concluded that a middle-aged man walking in the woods was a nobleman.”

To his surprise, the man revealed his evidence: the tarnished gold clasp of a dragon sitting against a garnet setting. This would also cost them.

“Hard to imagine the average hiker idling around in that corner of the wilds with this particular emblem on his coat.”

“That’s true,” Jonathan nodded. “I am not a hiker or a hunter any more than I’m a count. I am only the castle’s retainer.”

“Ah, well. That’s different. We are men of the people, sir, and we take pride in doing our fellow servile class the courtesy of a quick death. It’s only the aristos and nouveau riche who get the extra effort. Them and bleached out old bastards who go around taking what’s ours. What’s mine.” Jonathan watched the man slide a handsome pearl-handled blade from his pocket. It had a very fine edge. “Case in point, a certain young lady, of the flaxen and doe-eyed variety, being spotted in town with an older man of very unique description, not two days ago. Who she left with in his goddamn caleche.”

The blade came down in a gleaming arc. It sank cleanly into Jonathan’s left shoulder. Jonathan screamed at this and at the blade being flicked out. The steel was wiped clean on his sleeve.

“It should go without saying,” the leader said over Jonathan’s noise, steadily dwindling into hard breaths behind his teeth, “that the locals have a few choice theories about just who and what the man driving those horses is. Human? Dead? Dracula or one of his cohorts? Anyone who’d know for certain is either underground or a living antique themselves. Oh. But they did point out you seemed polite enough, according to most. Not someone anyone is eager to shake hands with, but fair. If you are the old devil of before, the younger generation are relieved you’ve gone mellow with the new century. Well done on the new leaf.”

“They were lying,” Jacob intoned, the picture of exasperation. “We all used to lie about him! He had eyes and ears everywhere! You didn’t mention him aloud unless you wanted to wake up to your child missing or you yourself being drunk dry or taken apart! I’m telling you, Katrina is already gone or worse!” His hand clutched eagerly at the whittled garden stake. “Let us be done with this, Anthony.” 

Anthony gave his blade another cleaning swipe. He opened his mouth—

“The stake is wrong.”

—and closed it. He and the others peered down at Jonathan as he righted himself against the chair. The migraine was marching in circles around his head now, lighting fireworks and banging pans. At least his shoulder was a small distraction.

“Say again?”

“The stake. You haven’t finished the end of it. If you don’t burn the point down, harden it, the wood will just splinter if you don’t get it in one blow. One of you took the flint lighter from my coat, yes? Use that and save yourself the matches.”

The room looked owlishly at him. Jacob and his small band especially. Awkwardly, one of the latter fished out the stolen lighter and began cooking the point with its steady flame.

“See that? He’s already feeling accommodating.” Anthony clapped his palm with heavy chumminess against the wounded shoulder. Jonathan winced appropriately, stealing another squinting glance at the window. “Care to keep in this giving mood, or would you like me to even things out?” The blade pointed airily at Jonathan’s right shoulder.

“No need. I said before, I do not know anyone named Katrina. But I did give a ride to a young woman two days ago. Not ‘flaxen,’ though. Her hair was red.”

Anthony abruptly straightened. The blade twisted and fidgeted in his fingers.

“Red,” under Anthony’s breath. His brow furrowed. “She took the wig too?” There was a low murmur from the less vampirically-invested portion of the group, of that specific tone that declares ‘I told you so’ by vowels alone. Anthony whirled on these members like a viper. Several mouths snapped shut. “Did you lot have something you wished to share? Hmm? I’m all ears.”

Interest increased in the state of each other’s shoes, the floor, the lovely view of the mountains, and the progress of the stake. It was now neatly blackened and free of loose slivers. Jacob stood by with it, toying with it as Anthony had his knife. He kept trying and failing to meet Jonathan’s gaze.

“Ah,” Anthony grinned mirthlessly, “that’s what I thought you said.” The blade flashed. “Now, Count, Retainer, Whoever or Whatever, while you are being forthcoming, is she alive or dead? I confess I might be just as happy with one or the other at this point, so no need to fret over a lie.”

“She was alive the last time I saw her. I dropped her off outside Bistritz,” Jonathan said, clearly recalling turning the horses toward Bukovina. He winced again as Anthony laid a hand on the bleeding shoulder, driving his thumb against the wound as he leaned.

“And? How did the bitch pay for her ride? Did you introduce her to necrophilia or did she just throw my money at you?”

“Neither. I am a married man and you can tell I had no bank vault in my pockets. In any case, I must assume whatever she took from you was fair recompense.” Jonathan felt a shift come through him. The old cold tilt that made him lean three-quarters of the way out of humanity and into something else. Whatever it was that lit his eyes and froze the air around him. That made the entire room shift an unconscious inch back. “Considering the state of her face.”

Anthony’s own countenance squirmed between aggravation, anger, and a surreal flash of embarrassment. As if leaving the girl’s face mottled with patches in shades of plum and charcoal was the equivalent of friends overhearing a marital spat in the next room. The man’s lip curled, making the well-trimmed whiskers twitch.

“Do forgive me if my decorum isn’t up to your standards, sir. I tend to get a touch irate when the thankless sow I’ve been bedding not only comes within inches of blowing our cover over some brat who went and poked his head out at the wrong time, but has the gall to try and resign after a few threadbare months. As if I didn’t scrape the little strumpet out of the gutter with my own hands.” A storm roiled in the man’s face. “Had a whole life of gold ahead of her, getting to play out her idiot actress dreams, and she thanks us by taking off with three hotels’ worth of work. Over a goddamn toddler. But that is the way with women, isn’t it? Always falling apart over a babe.”

“Men as well, in my experience,” Jonathan hummed. His line of sight drifted back to Jacob, whose attention was now firmly split between Jonathan and the view from the west window. Even halfway through spring, the sunsets did still tend to rush in the mountains. Shadows were already starting to stretch.

“Personal experience?” Anthony asked with an appraising glance that saw value in the negatives with Jonathan’s mien. “Is there a little Dracula pup crawling around nursing on the countryside?”

“Oh, no. He’s grown out of crawling. Apart from roaming along the castle walls, when he wants to surprise me. There’s no getting away with it with his mother.” Jonathan swallowed a bitter lump, knowing it had to be heard aloud, “Or his father.” Jacob was looking at him now. This time Jonathan held his eyes as they grew an increment wider. A slight dew of sweat had formed on the young man’s brow. “I only know where they are half the time. But they can always find me.”

Anthony barked an acidic note that tried to be a laugh.

“Is this the part where you tell us you’ll be missed? That there’s some cavalry who will come seeking vengeance? Please spare yourself the storytelling. If you were anything other than a relic living off a skeleton staff you wouldn’t be driving your own horses or puttering around by your lonesome. Really, what we’re doing here is a public good. What’s the loss of one more parasite riding into the twilight of peerage’s relevance?”

“Regrettably, he has thought ahead on that,” Jonathan admitted. “The gold he’s already sitting on is kept partly for emergency seed money, but mostly as a memento. He’s been on top of the capitalistic pulse since 1652 going by the oldest records. Given another decade, I believe he’ll be a magnate in a dozen industries from here to the United Kingdom.” A genuine moue puckered his face. “He calls it investing in the live-stock. No, I didn’t think it was funny either.”

This he addressed to Jacob.

Jacob, who had to set the stake down because his hand was shaking.

Jacob, who had been keeping watch of him and the window and seen how blandly Jonathan greeted the approaching dusk.

Jacob, who had finally taken a closer look at what Jonathan wore under his coat. His coat, worn because he was always cold—a chill that he truly felt. Covering an ensemble of boots, long sleeves, and a high collar. In mid-April. 

“��You still have time,” Jonathan told him gently. “If you had your childhood here, you know there’s time. You still wear your crucifix, yes?” Jacob flicked his gaze up to Jonathan’s. His whole face seemed to shine with perspiration. He did not know what was wrong yet, what piece was missing, but he scented something. “Do you? Any of you?”

Jacob nodded jerkily. The men behind him did likewise. Some fidgeted at their shirts.

“That’s good. It sickens them, did you know? Stings them away from the throat.” Jonathan smiled for him. A sad curl. “Hold it out before you if you like.” He tipped up his chin. Just above the shirt collar was a glimpse of sickish color against the maggot-white skin. Something worse than a bruise. “You can check. Or ask one of your friends. But it does help to know for certain. To have it confirmed.” The smile grew worse in its apology. “There have been no vampire attacks in Transylvania for the past fifteen years. The youngest around here take it all as local legends. Parents’ and grandparents’ fairy tales. Because they grew up without knowing what you do. Without realizing why people stopped disappearing after dark when Count Dracula still rules here. When there are still sharp mouths to feed up in his mountains.”

Jacob gawped openly now. He looked strangely like the boy he might have been fifteen years ago, hearing his neighbors whisper and moan about the latest loss in the night. Fifteen years ago, when a foolish young Englishman had come to Castle Dracula, and everyone had known. No one had seen him again…supposing one belonged to a family who had moved away at last, daring their monstrous master’s ire to save their son.

“Oh, for God’s sake, what is this? Are we playing theatre now?” Anthony and his handful of fellow eye-rollers looked between Jonathan and Jacob as if expecting to spot some invisible party holding up script cards for them. “Jake, if you want to play at slaying the vampire, you are welcome to it. Get your stick and your hammer and have at it. Erik, take the axe.” He waved his blade like an impatient conductor with his baton. “Well?”

Jacob moved forward without the stake. His crucifix was held out as far as the cord would allow.

Then he hooked Jonathan’s shirt collar and pulled it open.

Jonathan hadn’t been able to get a good look at the full state of himself in some while. Occasionally he might steal a glance in a mirror for sale or a clean shop window in town. There was rarely anything good to see as far as his development went. Age was not weathering him the way it would an ordinary man. What should have become the easy creasing of crow’s feet and smile lines had given way to something sunken and grey. More than a few children had come to nickname him ‘Herr Geist’ when he passed through. On one occasion, he’d been approached by an American claiming to be a talent scout for a circus who thought Jonathan could easily bill as, The Walking Corpse.

But that was all just the effect of his face. He hadn’t seen his throat or a clear view of his shoulders in years; the real estate with the greatest number of visits for fifteen years. It had to be at least twice as unpleasant a sight as his forearms, pocked by only one hungry mouth’s nursing. To judge by the shudder of revulsion that jolted the entire room back on its heels, his neck was apparently quite the visual.

To judge by Jacob’s expression, the discolored map of ruined skin and old punctures was his own obituary in all capitals. Nor was it a very peaceful end it spelled out. His eyes rolled up to Jonathan’s like wet marbles. Jonathan could no longer maintain his smile, however somber. There was only condolence in the look.

“I told you. I am Castle Dracula’s retainer. At least, in the sense of a retaining wall. I have played the role of its inhabitants’ personal bloodletting pantry for a quarter of a century. Which would be cause enough to worry. But I am also a married man and that is worse.”

Jacob wobbled on his feet like a sapling in a high breeze. He almost fell over with a cry when the first thunderclap boomed over the cabin’s roof. A horrified look shot to the westward window. Sunset was less than a jagged slit across the mountaintops, already erased in the smear of a rushing storm. Lightning drew livid eyes in the clouds.

“I am sorry. You might have had a chance if you hadn’t been cautious,” Jonathan went on. “There would have been a coin toss if you had simply shot me dead in the forest. I fear I am testing everyone’s patience in that household by keeping to my contract against turning until the twenty-year mark. Special occasion and all that. But if you had gone with a bullet or a slit throat, that would mean that I would be undead by sundown. You would still be slain for trespassing on private property,” he gestured to himself as best he could with his bound hands, “but it would have been tidier. They might even be grateful for ripping off the plaster and booting me over the threshold. A mere snapped neck apiece.  

“Unfortunately, I saw your tools of the trade. I heard your plans for ‘destroying the vampire,’ or the madman playing pretend as such. Heart staked, head removed, burn the body. All very thorough. But because I saw and heard these things, they saw and heard these things. Just as they know your faces now.”

Thunder snarled again. An explosive sound joined with a noon-bright flicker of lightning. Wolves sang a violent song. Close.

Jacob’s friends within the gang were talking in frantic tones to each other. The rationalists of Anthony’s side of the room seemed a touch less comfortable where they stood, grasping at their holsters. Anthony himself looked as if he was waiting to wake from a particularly confusing dream.

Jacob’s eyes were running. Pleading. A man only five short years past being a boy.

Jonathan still could not hold a smile for him, but he spoke in the tone he had for Quincey the time he’d came across a bat with a half-broken neck in the forest. Wings smashed, head cracked open, it had been alive in the worst way. Quincey had been thirteen then, considering himself practically a skip away from adulthood. He had still gone to his Papa, eyes dewy with blood trying not to spill, asking please…please…

Jonathan thought back to how his son had hidden in his coat sleeve while he ended the creature’s pain with a brisk twist.

It was quick, you see? It won’t hurt anymore now, shh, it’s alright, son.

“It’s alright,” he said in the present. “You still have time.” Not much. A few minutes at most. But still, “You’ll be safe from it. From all of it.”

Jacob nodded with a twitch. A puppet on a caught string. His hand trembled as it held up the crucifix again.

“…May I keep this? After?” Jonathan nodded. “Thank you.”

Jacob kissed the Cross and tucked it under his shirt.

“Jake, I swear to God, if you don’t drop this act, I will—,”

Bang.

The sound was almost lost in another thunderclap. Not so for the sound of Jacob’s corpse hitting the floor, the new tunnel in his head oozing a scarlet pond out from under his skull. There was a moment of quiet.

Then the wolves bayed again.

The men bayed too. Curses and questions of equal inanity whirled around the room.

Bang.

The sound of Anthony’s own pistol firing a hole through the ceiling.

“Shut. Up. Every one of you, bite your idiot tongues.” The barrel swung to point at Jonathan’s temple. “He says he has people on the way? He says they’re vampires or werewolves or the Four Horsemen a-riding? Then it would perhaps behoove us to think rather than squeal like women over this,” his shoe struck Jacob’s corpse, “fool’s choice of exit. Coward.” He snapped his fingers at the room. “Come on! Block the windows, set up arms! Move!”

And so they moved. Some men scrambled and shouldered into each other trying to cover the windows. Chairs were broken into pieces for stakes. Guns were unpacked and loaded. Erik held the axe as if his hands were welded to it. Anthony, meanwhile, took one of the unbroken chairs for himself and perched at Jonathan’s side. Something between supreme irritation and a baffled sort of wonder shaped his face.

“I do have to give you credit if this is all improvisation on your part. You should have been booked at the Grand Guignol instead of rotting up here.”

Jonathan watched Erik begin to pace, gripping the axe as though it doubled for a shield.

“That or one of those hypnotist acts. Jake was always a nervous one. An easy mark, ironically enough.”

Jonathan’s peripheral caught on Erik’s figure as he came to a stop by the door. There was no peephole to spy through, yet he inclined his head toward it. His ear was cocked as if listening for something under the thunder and wolves.

“But supposing this amounts to something more than an act, I admit I’m curious to see what these things are supposed to be like outside the pulp on the bookshelves or clogging up the stage. Everyone has their opinion on them these days.”

Erik first frowned, then nodded at the bolted door. The anxious creases of his face began to smooth. A smile tugged his lips up as the axe lowered.

“Are they the same kind of horror show as you?”

“Usually quite the opposite,” Jonathan allowed. “But that is by choice. They make some rather impressive exceptions when the occasion calls for it.”

Erik set the axe down. His freed hands moved the wooden bolt aside and reached for the key on its hook. This didn’t go unnoticed. The nearest man, one of Jacob’s friends, jolted toward him.

“Erik, what the hell are you doing?”

“Didn’t you hear her?” Erik spoke over him in a dreaming lilt. “The girl outside. Lovely voice.” He turned the key in the lock. “She and her brother got lost in the storm.” He turned the knob. “Wouldn’t be right to leave them out th—,”

Bang.

Erik dropped like a felled tree. Jacob’s friend whirled on the rest of the room, his gun and free hand up. He had his crucifix worn outside his shirt now.

“I had to! You know I had to! Jacob and old Vordenberg laid it out, didn’t they? You invite the things in and it’s all over!” He pointed at the door with the new stain on its timber. “One of them is out there right now, trying to worm into our heads, so we’ll let it over the threshold.”

As every eye nailed itself to the man and the door and the second corpse within five minutes, no one paid attention to the fireplace. They had not lit it, having opted solely for lamps. Chimney smoke would give away their location to anyone happening by the area.

Only Jonathan stared at the open stone mouth of the hearth. Watching what crawled out. Watching it watch him.

Anthony swatted Jonathan in his bad shoulder. He looked up and realized he’d been asked a question.

“Pardon?”

“Is he. Telling. The truth. Or did Erik lose his brains over nothing?”

“A vampire cannot cross the threshold of someone’s home without invitation. I think, at a stretch, you could call this temporary base of yours ‘home.’ Strict definition is tricky for travelers. But if you declare this place yours—,”

“We do,” insisted half the room in unison.

“We do,” Anthony echoed, somewhat dryly. “Our lovely domicile, this. And we are strictly against welcoming any visitors tonight.”

“Understandable. But there’s still the trouble of this afternoon. It’s hard to be more insistent about an invitation than resorting to abduction.”

“And? What of it?”

The fireplace continued to purge its contents out and out and out. Cooling the room like a thin and steady gust. Heads finally began to turn as gooseflesh spread and the sight became unignorable: A thick mist had been pouring into the room since Erik’s brains splattered on the door.

“You thought I was Count Dracula. Whether I was him or not, he was the man you wanted here.” Jonathan looked Anthony in the eye. He was not surprised at what he found there as it squirmed and sweated. “I’m afraid you invited him in two hours ago.”

The lamps guttered. One snuffed. Then its neighbor. A third, a fourth. Voices raised in tandem with the weapons.

“Light them!” came the universal cry. “Turn them back up, come on!”

But the room blackened and blackened until it came down to one canny fellow who’d dived for a lantern. The same man who’d pocketed the flint lighter. He lit the lantern and set it shakily on the table, its glow seemingly safer than the lamps’. The lighter was almost as bright in his hand, making a spotlight for himself in the ruddy gloom.

“What? What is it?”

Every head was turned to face him. Every eye wide enough to show its whites, like the stares of startled horses. The man opened his mouth to utter a third query—and stopped.

There was a hand on his shoulder. Cold. Far colder than the man he’d taken the lighter from. Its fingers ended in claws.

Above his head, the firelight caught on what might charitably be called a grin. It was, in fact, the default state of Count Dracula’s jaw in this shape. A medley of the wolf and the bat and the nightmares that are born when children’s imaginations first start to sketch the things that will eat them in the dark.

Jonathan wished he could have closed his eyes for all that followed. He did try. But there was an implicit order sunk into his mind that demanded he watch. Had this been a decade ago, this may have been for the sake of an object lesson.

This is what I can do. This is what I would have done to your little hunting party at the right hour, with your guard down for an instant. This is what I will do to any sheltering cattle you try to run away to with wife and child. Watch, my friend. Watch.

But that was practically a lifetime past. They were coming up on a mere five years until the wait was over and his free will and the final fig leaf of humanity was forfeit. Which suggested that he was a captive audience solely for the fact that an audience was desired. There was some artistry to it all, in a medieval sense. Some of the acts performed with the makeshift stakes and the barrels of guns and certain repurposed bones reminded Jonathan of old woodcuts left out for him to see once upon a time, back in that first summer alone with the castle’s Master.  

By the time one of the men died choking on his own severed arm, the rest of the lot stopped shooting and herded themselves to the door, desperate. To their relief, there was no vampire at the threshold. They fled.

A heartbeat passed before the screaming began anew. Gunfire mingled with it. The screaming dwindled down and down, the choir thinning to a single shriek that ended on a terrible sound. Wet and crunching. Wolves were heard soon after.

Anthony had not moved from his position behind Jonathan’s chair. He’d resumed his grip on his hair, this time holding his blade just below the Adam’s apple.

“If you don’t have a head,” Anthony panted at the Count, now busy picking gristle from the spades of his nails, “you can’t be undead. The plays make a lot of fuss about staking the heart, but this?” He tugged Jonathan’s head back another inch and pressed the blade’s edge until the skin broke. “I figure it’s a fair bit more vital. I am a practiced man at my profession and quick when I need to be. You want him in one piece instead of two, you leak yourself out the door, call off your pets, and I’ll send him on his way come sunrise.” Though he couldn’t see him, Jonathan was certain the man was trying to smile. “If you’re amenable, perhaps we can even get a silver lining out of this whole thing.”

Dracula sucked a piece of sinew out of his thumbnail.

“I am accustomed to getting my hands dirty. While I’ve been in the habit of leading assorted hapless dregs around, I can easily see myself following someone worth respect. Your friend here indicated he’s on the edge of retirement anyway, and I imagine you could do with someone to step into the role. Or add to the ranks.”

Dracula busied himself with scanning the floor. He plucked up the silver watch still chained to a torso that was twisted like a wrung washcloth. A scowl was spared upon retrieving the key ring from a puddle of a head. Then the pouch containing Jonathan’s allowance. He deposited each bit of treasure found on the table. The last thing he discovered was Jonathan’s wedding ring. He seemed to ponder flicking it aside, but saw Jonathan watching. The ring was dropped in the pile the way one might discard a clump of dirt.

“Well?” from Anthony. “Do you talk or not?”

“I do,” from the Count. “Though not usually to vermin. Especially ones who raid my pantry.”

“Honest mistake on our part. I hadn’t realized you were the one-in-a-thousand legend that isn’t just the fumes of an invented ghost story.”

“I see.” Dracula bent and retrieved the stake that had its point burned. It left the holster of a man’s sternum with a damp sound. “And this too was a mistake?”

“Just trying to placate the skittish sorts in the party. You saw how Jake was.”

“I did.” The Count tapped the stake’s point against his chin, pondering. “In fact, I think I recall a face like his. A sailor I met once. He took to the sea, having no bullet in reach.” He leveled the stake at Anthony’s head. “You called him a coward for this, yes?”

“Am I wrong?”

“There is a fine line between cowardice and wisdom,” Dracula shrugged. “It moves more than you would think. Little Jacob was wise tonight, if sadly mistaken in his target. He was not the first of his type. Likely not the last. The same goes for you, vermin. You, who squeak and chitter about preying upon the predator, and then try to sell yourself to the cat.” Though much of his face had reset to a human shape, the Count’s teeth remained a bristling forest of white needles when he grinned. “I have had this land in my jaws for half a millennium. I have not gone a single century without your like slinking underfoot, thinking to kiss my cape and offer a tithe of others’ throats to win my favor. My power.”

“Way of the world, isn’t it? Strong bows to stronger. What makes this cadaver,” another jerk on Jonathan’s hair, another throb in his skull, “so special? Better resumé? Seasoned arteries?”

“A number of things.” Another shrug, a twirl of the stake like a toy. “He does so hate to hear it anymore. It has been so long since any kind of praise heartened him and age has made him shy. But he cannot shush me, so I can say he does far more than bleed, be it himself or his victims of old. He certainly has a more impressive history than robbing and gutting tourists for a living, and so is far more attuned to the Law of this land than any other. Not the yapping dogs of mortal authorities. Not your jailor or judge or bureaucrat. Not even those of the sciences, such as they are.”

Thunder cracked and lightning danced. The Count’s eyes burned brighter than the lantern.

“He knows that I am Law in these mountains. That my will, my word, and my want order all that is here. He knows that there is no escaping consequence for trespassing upon what is mine. But.” The Count clapped the stake into his open palm with the joviality of a cruel teacher with his yardstick. “Beyond all this, he is something which guarantees his value over yours or any other’s. He warned you himself.” The jagged grin turned almost saccharine. “He is a married man. And you have kept him out far too late for his spouses’ liking.”  

Anthony shifted behind the chair. The grip on Jonathan’s hair shuddered a moment as if suddenly repulsed to be touching it.

“God. Even the monsters are in on that depravity up here?”

“Depravity is a pastime of mine. But I am not so low as to debase myself by touching filth like yours.” So saying, the Count raised both hands in mock surrender. “I shall not waste my time or teeth on you.”

“Fine. Fine, you say that and I can believe you. Once you’re out the door.”  

The door, still open.

The door, which Anthony had not dared to look at for fear of taking eyes off the Count.

The door, full of mist.

“Ah, but I cannot go yet. There is a show I have been so looking forward to. You mentioned the Grand Guignol. Such a promising establishment! I plan to see it in person some night. But for now, we must content ourselves with your meager scene.”

Anthony opened his mouth to ask something. Say something. Maybe he was just drawing breath. Whatever the reason, his mouth froze in a voiceless O of epiphany.

There was a hand on his shoulder. Cold.

It distracted him from the other, decorated with its simple gold band, locking around the man’s forearm; the one responsible for holding the blade.

Snap.

Anthony’s mouth dropped open wider, belting a screech that left Jonathan’s ears ringing. Then the man was torn away from the back of the chair and all the noise of him was pinned and shrilling on the floor. Laced over the ensuing sounds of his dismantling, both vocal and visceral, was a voice that threaded through the mind more than the ear:

He cut you. Twice he cut you.

“I’ll be fine, Mina.” Said because there was concern in the statement. There was. But, more pertinently, there was the accusation. The condemnation. The citing of the crime.

He cut you. He meant to kill you. He meant to unmake you out of reach forever.

Anthony made a new and piercing noise. The kind just an octave short of a dog whistle. Jonathan winced.

“And he failed to. It’s alright, Darling.”

“Hardly,” from the Count, now turning Anthony’s abandoned seat around to face the slaughter. “You are too soft as always, my friend. Even when it comes to a rightful culling. Or do you think they deserved to live after their crimes?”

“I think this was excessive.” Jonathan withheld a sigh as Dracula hooked the back of his chair, hoisting and turning it so that his back was no longer to Mina’s work. She seemed to have an innate understanding of what could be taken apart and to what degree, the better to leave Anthony still clinging miserably to a thread of life. “And I also think I’m ready to have these off.”

He flexed his hands and feet as far as they could go against the ropes.

“Have what off?” Dracula asked as he swiped a finger into the shoulder wound. A child stealing cake icing. He clicked his tongue. “This would happen just after a feeding. All this guilt-free cuisine and your knights-errant are too full to enjoy the banquet. A pity. Have you eaten?”

“If I had my hands free, I could get my—,” Jonathan pursed his lips as Dracula brandished a bouquet of the retrieved dried pork. Deciding against waiting for the mesmer to prod him into it, he opened his mouth a crack. Bit. Chewed.

“Do you suppose the Grand Guignol has concessions? Any actual blood used in place of the stage swill?”

Jonathan swallowed. A nauseous feat, considering the piece Mina removed from Anthony in the same moment. 

“I doubt any director is so dedicated, Sir.” Anthony was growing quieter now. There wasn’t enough air in him. Jonathan could tell by the glimpse of lung through his ribs. “Does Quincey know about this?”

No. It was blocked from him. He believes we are out on business.

Crunch. Twist. Rip.

Anthony went silent and still at last. Dracula afforded this a light round of applause.

“Not wholly a lie, you will grant. Though I suspect the boy thinks it was code for a more,” the Count made a face caught between glee and disdain, “intimate excursion. Which should be an easy enough ward against any prying you fear from him. You may have made a sickening romantic of the boy, but there is never a child alive or undead who wishes to know what his parents get up to out of his sight.” The Count craned his head, squinting at what was left of Anthony. “Did you come across it?”

That depends. Where’s mine?

Mina stood with the dragon clasp in one red hand and her other held out and open. Dracula idled a moment or three longer than was necessary before the stolen wedding band was produced. Clasp and ring were thrown rather than exchanged. Jonathan had each reattached to him. Though the Count spared a curse in three different languages at finding the coat not only mangled at the shoulder, but torn where the clasp had been ripped away.

“As if they could not understand the mechanics of a brooch? You should have pinned this in his eye.”

You should have fed him the stake. Look at this.

Mina touched the nick on Jonathan’s throat.

I know you count my wound as a blessing, but I would think you’d not risk losing his voice.

“I had to stall while you cleared up the leftovers outside. I may as well have left you with the boy.”

And lost your show and your diversion.

“You—,”

“I cannot feel my feet anymore,” Jonathan announced. “And I would like to stitch and plaster myself before we head out. Whatever Quincey may think we’re up to, it will be easier to lie without me looking like I just left,” he gestured as best he could at the room, “this.”

A minor miracle came and went as there was no suggestion made that they simply lay a new bite apiece over the wounds. The ropes were cut, what was filched was returned to its owner, give or take a little scavenging of their own. Jacob and the others were left with their tokens of the Son. Outside, the wolves went on enjoying the meal Mina had left for them. Up until a titanic thunderbolt struck the cabin and sent them scrambling. The building went up like a great bonfire.

“I know, my friend, you were clearly looking forward to digging more graves. But you must admit my method is quicker and far more thorough in erasing evidence.” The nettling cadence waned. “I suggest you avoid wandering away from the castle for some time. Considering your state.”

Not while dressed in this, at the very least. It’s clear this insignia draws as much ire as it deters.

“A fluke,” the Count huffed. “Such degenerates as those are rare. The chattel know better. Besides, the folly was in drawing attention by playing Good Samaritan to the wrong victim and her maudlin pleading. Something else to keep in mind.” Jonathan tried and failed to keep his head down as the hook landed in his mind and turned his eyes up. Dead blue against burning red. “At least for as long you insist on holding to your last few years as…this.”

Jonathan bit into his last strip of the dried pork. Loudly.

“Five years. That’s all.”

“Four and a half.”

“Four and a half I mean to savor. In-between being waylaid.” The careful placidity fractured as his free hand drifted up to the back of his skull. Still aching. “I think I shall finish off the Golden Mediasch tonight.” His hand was plucked away by Mina’s own, her chilled fingers seeking out the tender place under his hair. Her fingertips felt the scabbing patch.

I should have skinned him.

“You are welcome to stroll through the fire and do so,” the Count hummed. But his smile stopped short of his eyes and his own hand swept Mina’s away to thumb at the ache. “The Mediasch is barely more than fruit juice. You will want something stronger.”

Jonathan didn’t argue. Nor did he protest when the horses of his ex-hosts were commandeered for the return to the castle. Quincey thrilled at the sight of them almost as if they had arrived riding wolves. Was this the business they went on? Tunet and Pretekár were quite new—and solid obsidian as the horses before had been—but it was good to see them gain more company. And they’d picked piebald this time!

“They’re beautiful. Do they have names yet?”

“Thought we’d leave that to you,” Jonathan managed lightly enough. Or nearly so. Quincey frowned at him, nose pricking at the smell of dried blood.

“Papa, are you alright? You—,” his eyes landed on the coat, “—what happened?”

 “Just a quick lesson from our new friends about minding their moods. I was tossed and landed in a less than opportune pile of rocks.”

Quincey scowled at that and scrutinized the stallions.

“Which one? I’m not riding him. Or petting him, even.” He considered. “At least for a month.”

“Seems a cruelty too far. I suppose I just won’t reveal the guilty party.”

“And what if I get on the wrong horse and I get tossed and land on a rock somewhere? What then?”

“Then you will get back up and be perfectly alright. Or am I misremembering the night you fell asleep on the side of the north turret and fell through half a tree on your way down?”

“Yes, well. They were fairly soft branches.” Quincey fought and lost the attempt to keep his smile up. “Papa?”

“Yes?”

“The horses weren’t the actual business, were they? You could have gotten them yourself.”

“That’s true. The horses were only picked up afterward. Quite a bargain, not counting the lumps.”

“Then what happened?”

Jonathan looked at his son. His Sweetheart, though the boy had finally started to bud into that stage that visits all adolescents, demanding a shedding of childhood names. There was a dusting of stubble barely fringing his jaw and his mother’s own whorls outgrowing the edges of his last haircut. But the eyes were still a child’s. Bright and molten as the sun at dusk.

“…There was some trouble two days ago. I aided a girl trying to leave behind some people who hurt others. Who hurt her. They had some less than scrupulous plans for the future and had already bypassed local authorities to get where they were by the time I crossed them. So I reached out for some assistance.” And, because he felt the air prickling with observation, “Your Father was very keen to educate them on the difference between the laws of other lands versus the Law of his land. And your Mum has always been of a rescuer’s bent as a rule. So.”

“So Mum and Father caught them? Together?” The sunset eyes gleamed at the prospect.  

“They did,” Jonathan nodded.

“Were they bandits?”

“Of a sort. But they won’t hurt anyone now.” Jonathan watched from the corner of his eye how the boy, so near to a young man, glowed over the notion of being a son to heroes.

He got to the tower before he felt his eyes begin to sting as sharply as his head.

[dat-town]

curse me out

never seen circus masterpost

Characters: cursed prince!Sunghoon & female reader

Setting & genre: magical realism au, fantasy au, reincarnation au

Summary: Many came to you over the years to get rid of their curses but nobody like Sunghoon.

Warnings: general creepiness of an eerie circus, ambiguous ending, blood, injury, implied past death, is a spoiler or a warning if i say it was inspired by enhypen concepts?

Words: 2k

i guess i will tag you in all of these @restlessmaknae 

Some curses were better off untouched.

It was one of the first things you learned, just like prophecies were always up to interpretations and Ouija boards were banned for a reason. The other side was not to play with.

But you had an eye for curses. You looked at them like they were complex riddles waiting for you to solve them. Every curse had a little back door, a tiny loophole and that was where you came in: for the right amount of money, you helped people find that hidden exit, you helped them get rid of whatever made them struggle. Be it a curse for terrible luck, no love or some sort of disfigurement. Some curses could only be undone by the shaman or witch who put them in place but you had many connections and you knew how to strike a deal. You got yourself your name when you joined the circus, you were called the cursebreaker as if it was something unique when in reality you were just a witch with a keen interest. One of your kind in the always on the move circus.

Some people didn’t even know they were cursed, they blamed things beyond their control on such silly things as fate or beat themselves up for not being able to change when there was nothing humans like them could have done. With those cases, it was you who seeked them out, drawn to their curse like a moth to flame. But sometimes people found you. They heard rumours about the disappearing circus and the cursebreaker inside. They were always desperate ones with dark curses.

But no darker than the boy’s who walked into your tent that day.

The bell chime made you look up from where you sat, meditating, and you felt air being sucked out of your lungs.

Oh, for hell’s sake, he was beautiful.

The boy was tall and wide shouldered. He had raven black hair contrasting against his clear, pale skin. His eyes were just as dark as his locks, highlighted by his all black outfit, his long coat swirling behind him from the outside wind blowing. Despite his youthful features, he held himself with ageless elegance like a prince. It gave his soft features sharpness and coldness to his demeanour.

You blinked when he took another step closer and his curse was suddenly all too clear in front of you. Most people’s curses clung to them like leeches but not his. His was pulsing, like a black heart, like it was keeping him alive. Like there was no him without the curse.

“I can’t help you,” you told him straight away, without any polite greeting. You shot up from your place, meditation long forgotten. You weren’t afraid of him but you didn’t want to experience his rage either when he found out why you refused to help him.

“What makes you think I came for your help?” Your guest raised an eyebrow challengingly while watching you equally intrigued but it only made you confused. Why else could he have come to your tent?

“Did you come to kill me then?” You asked, unwilling to show fear.

“No,” he flashed you a smile, his thin, rose coloured mouth tilted upwards in a lazy slope. It should have been dangerous yet it somehow made your heart flutter. “I heard you can see how curses unfolded, their maker.”

“You want to know who made you like this.”

It wasn’t a question, it made sense.

“I have waited for a long time to meet somebody like you,” the beautiful boy sighed, resigned, sounding much more tired than somebody who looked his age. But looks weren’t everything, you knew that.  “So tell me, were the rumours about you true or not?”

“Take a seat,” you pointed at a pillow on the ground as it was as good of an answer as any, then you followed in suit, sitting across from him after lighting some scented candles while he was looking around curiously.

From up close, he was even more beautiful, perfect porcelain skin and those enticing eyes but you knew better than to fall into his trap. It didn’t mean you were immune, not when he smelled like sandalwood and leather and something rich and sweet.

“Give me your hands,” you told him, extending your own hands, palms up, towards him. He did as you asked, his cold skin grazing yours sending a shiver down your spine. You closed your eyes and focused on the pulsating darkness around him.

“You are very old,” you blurted out at the first image slipping into your mind about castles and a different era. You could hear the not-so-boy laugh.

“Huh, I don’t hear that everyday. Didn’t you know that’s a rude thing to say?” He teased and you felt yourself blush. At least, with your eyes closed you didn’t see his expression when he noticed.

“You are a prince,” you whispered as you saw him wearing a crown, sitting on a throne, people bowing to him.

“I was,” he confirmed quietly.

Prince Sunghoon. He’d had a lavish life but he had lived in a turbulent era. His position and power had been threatened by not only neighbouring kingdoms but power hungry men of his own too.

And there had been a girl too. Not a princess but a commoner, a shaman’s daughter. You saw the two of them met in an alcove, her hiding him from traitor knights, her tending his open wounds. The curse felt familiar with her. You felt familiar with her.

Your eyes snapped open and even though your guest couldn’t know what exactly you saw, he looked at you knowingly. As if he expected this.

“I lied before,” he admitted slowly as if he was weighing his options, like he was afraid of your reaction. “Actually I waited for a long time to meet you.”

You gulped and pulled back your hands, briefly wondering whether you had enough time to retrieve a weapon even though the immortal being claimed that he didn’t want to kill you.

“Even if my ancestor did something to you, it has nothing to do with me,” you said, defensive, not sure what on earth this cursed prince wanted after centuries had passed.

“That depends,” he mused. “What exactly did she do?”

You remembered the blood from the vision. The black magic. The girl’s sacrifice. You felt justified to take her side, to displace the prince’s baseless anger. Surely he couldn’t have wanted to die instead of the life he had gotten.

“She saved your life. She died for you.”

Sunghoon’s pretty mouth twitched.

“My life was worth nothing without her,” he said, melancholic, and that was when you realised what he meant. He had loved her. He didn’t want to know what had happened because he was hungry for revenge but because he wanted to know whether his feelings had been reciprocated. After all these years though? You were surprised that he was so adamant.

“Make sure to remember it in this life,” the immortal prince told you but his words only left you confused once again. Why should you have remembered that?

“I… what?”

“You told me there would be other lives, chipmunk,” he smiled and his voice softened like expensive silk.

You were fairly sure that nobody had ever called you that and yet, the pet name brought up memories you didn’t even know you had buried inside you.

“Did you come to punish me, Your Highness?” You didn’t even bother looking up from your work table full of herbs, your mouth set in a small smile.

“Do I look like a tyrant, chipmunk?” The prince put a hand over his heart, feigning being scandalised. “Though maybe I should as you stole something very valuable from the kingdom.”

“Did I now?” You looked at him, amused, knowing very well that he would have never hurt you.

“Yes, my heart,” Sunghoon smiled as he whipped a single rose out of nowhere, holding it out for you.

It became a common affair: meeting the prince in secret but eventually it was bound to be found out.

“Father,” you yelped in surprise when you came face to face with your elder after saying goodbye to the boy who ruled your country. Your father looked at you with grave concern, so you were sure he knew.

“It won’t end well,” he warned and you didn’t need to ask to know what he meant.

Maybe you should have given his words more consideration. He was a shaman after all. But you were too taken by the boy with the most adorable moles you had ever seen to care about warning signs.

“Your Highness,” you gasped in horror when you saw Sunghoon at your threshold covered in blood.

“I… didn’t know where else to go,” the prince coughed up as he leaned his weight against you once you opened the gate wider and let him inside. It was scandalising to do such a thing so late at night but you didn’t care about neighbour gossip, not when Sunghoon was dying on you.

“What happened?”

“It was a trap. An ambush,” he forced out between gritted teeth, his beautiful face pained and you wondered how much of it was physical and how much due to the facts that he couldn’t trust in his allies anymore. He had doubted their loyalty before but the fact that he came to you instead the royal physician told a lot.

You laid him down, his skin already feverish and sweaty, blood dripping down on his pale neck. He was the heir to the throne and yet, he looked so fragile like that. You were familiar with your father’s shaman practices enough to know what he needed to be saved and you knew what the cost was but no price was too high to save him. So you gave him your life and many others. You gave him eternity.

“Sunghoon.”

His name rolled off your dry lips like a plea and familiar despite not even remembering a few moments ago. You stared at him in disbelief, your past self trying to keep herself atop of your conscious memories.

“We never stood a chance,” you told him because even if you had stayed alive, your love had been impossible. A prince and the shaman’s daughter? You had believed you had done him a favour.

“Like star crossed lovers, I know,” Sunghoon nodded and reached out, his pretty pianist fingers grazing against your arm, making you shiver once again, this time more pleasantly. “But what about now?”

“Now… I will die of old age one day and you won’t. Your curse can only be undone by death itself,” you told him, trying to keep level headed no matter how hard it was to think near him. Was immortality really a curse? It was, if you had to see your loved ones dying.

“Then let it take me too with you. I have lived long enough. I don’t want any more countless lives, I only want this life, with you,” he said and it was the closest thing to an I love you you have ever heard.

How could you have said no to that? Your job was to break curses after all even if his was your own making. Even if it cost both of your lives. Because you understood it, a simple life was better with him than forever without him.

“I guess, we have a lot to make up for before that, Your Highness,” you smiled and slid your fingers between his, something you would have never dared before in the positions you had been.

“I guess, we have,” Sunghoon smiled too as he brought your hand to his mouth and hinted a kiss over your knuckles, making you blush deeply, blood roses blooming on your cheeks.

Some curses were better off untouched.

And some curses took centuries to come full circle.

[umthisistheonlyusernamenottaken]

A ballad of beasts Neslin (au)

Man or beast, I would love him with all my heart. Thorns and all.

SO, it's official! I'm going to start writing my fic 'A ballad of beasts' !!!

I want to thank everyone who reblogged/ replied to my initial post encouraging me! This fic only exists because of you amazing people!

I've got the plot pretty much figured out, so now I just have to hope that the writing gods don't abandon me while I write this 🙏🏼 Will be posting this to Ao3 as well as updating here!

(The first chapter is still nowhere near fully finished, but here's a little sneak peek!

p.s. I've changed a few minor things about the plot, which you will see below!)

{chapter one snippet}

“Tamlin! Little brother! Happy name day!”

Tamlin stiffened, his fingers tightening around his glass. Ignoring him hadn't worked, as his brother's voice continued to call out. He tossed it back, hissing at the burn. Gwaine’s arm swung roughly around his shoulder, nearly knocking him off of his feet. To any passers by, they would appear like two brothers having a friendly altercation.

“Gwaine,” he gritted out.

“Are you enjoying the festivities, dear brother?” 

“Not as well as you appear to be.”

His breath reeked of sour cherries and barley. Evidently, he’d already been sampling the wide variety of spiced drinks and spirits on offer at the banquet.

His eldest brother’s laugh sent a nauseating cloud of stench towards his nose.

“Oh, why so glum, little bum? You turn five hundred today, that’s almost a male grown!”

He did not deign to dignify that with an answer. Gwaine didn’t seem to mind,  already setting to fill the silence with his loud, brash tones.

“Finni! Come join us, you bastard!”

Tamlin swore under his breath. One brother was already a curse, a second was a damned plague.

“Tamlin.”

“Finnian,” Tamlin answered resignedly. 

“Finni! I was just telling Tamlin here that he ought not to be so glum! Not when father has such a wonderful surprise waiting!”

Tamlin glanced over sharply. “Father has a surprise?”

That was laughable in and of itself for a multitude of reasons. The High Lord of Spring was decidedly not notorious for his spontaneous name day surprises.

Finnian merely smirked.

“Oh, I won’t spoil it for you, it’s rather good,” Gwaine said, miming stitching his mouth shut.

Tamlin sighed, “Wonderful. Well, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll-”

“Aht aht aht! Not so quick, little Tam,” he chastised, darting out an arm to keep him from skulking away.

“The fun has barely begun!”

 Gwaine spun him around just as the doors to the great hall blew open, and a fanfare proclaimed to Tamlin’s great dismay,

“General Amarantha Casimir of Hybern!”

“Father’s esteemed guest,” Gwaine said gleefully.

She entered the hall with a retinue of attendants; young girls dressed in robes white as a swan’s wing, each carrying a corner of her gown’s train. Thousands of bejewelled strings had been woven together in imitation of a spider’s web, and the fabric flowed down to the marble floors, the little gems hissing with each of her long strides. The low cut gown was underlaid with a diaphanous black silk, for what little it did to hide her sensuous figure. She ascended the dais, bowing to the High Lord and Lady of Spring. 

Tamlin turned away.

Finnian smirked, “I am sure tonight will be very… eventful.”

“Yes, most definitely a night to remember.”

Tamlin glared at his brothers, irritated, “What in Prythian are you two on about? What do you mean?”

“Well, you shall see soon enough,” Gwaine gave Tamlin’s chest two solid pats before sidling off with a cackle; as Tamlin predicted, towards the banquet table. Between the two of them, his brothers would empty the casks and barrels before the night was through.

He was about to walk away when Finnian leaned in close, murmuring in his ear.

“I wonder, brother. What would it be like to bed a female like that? Would you fuck her from behind? Or would she bend you over and mate you like her whore?” 

Tamlin recoiled. His reaction only made Finnian’s smirk widen and he continued in a low voice, his hand still firmly wrapped around Tamlin’s wrist.

“Doomed be the male who takes her to wife, don’t you agree? I wonder what our father was thinking. Certainly not of you.”

Tamlin pulled away more forcefully, and Finnian let him go, his eyes never once leaving the younger male’s face.

“What the hell are you-”

His brother’s words dawned on him then, and it felt as though his lungs had frozen in his chest, “What?” Breathing seemed impossible.

“Finnian, what do you mean?” his voice cracked with urgency. He took hold of his brother’s tunic and shook, not that it budged him at all.

“Finnian!”

“Oh, didn’t you hear?” Finnian asked with mock concern. His rain-cloud eyes were sharp with cruel delight.

“You’re to marry the Hybernian bitch.”

The floor fell out from under him, and he barely registered his brother walking away.

No, no, no, Mother and Cauldron above, no.

When he finally dared to turn back to the dais, Amarantha was already staring at him. 

She raised her glass, filled to the brim with black wine, and smiled with a mouth of dripping fangs.

[callsign-relic]

(Not a request dw)

I saw a video on the lore of Soundwave, and apparently during one of the G I Joe crossovers Soundwave had little wirey, arm things in his cassette deck???

And that makes me think of how he could probably just use those to keep his cassettes from fighting each other, or acting out whilst they're inside him.

It'd especially be daunting for his new cassette (In the Empty Nester AU) to have to grapple with, bc they'd be getting fussed over even when the giant mech that's been holding them captive is working on something else!

If they tried throwing themselves at the window/door thingy on SW's cassette deck in an attempt to escape, he could just use the little arms in his deck to carefully restrain them before opening up to stick a cassette-sized blanket inside. The arms would then carefully swaddle the (rightfully) upset human with the blanket, and then loosely loop around them.

Patting the top of their head, holding the single hand that they've managed to wriggle free, and generally just being cuddlier with them than Soundwave typically is. (Mostly bc they are an extension of him that reacts with his emotions when he isn't actively controlling them.)

Soundwave prefers to maintain the image the human has of him in a similar manner to how he would behave around the other Decepticons. An impassive, incredibly smart and patient mastermind that knows your every move before you even think to try it. Of course, he Can read the processors of other Cybertronians, and as for the human, while they still Are human? Well...

He's had his other cassettes for at least 300 times longer than the human has been alive. Those little shits have thought of Everything to try his patience. (Though they weren't trying to escape him.) There isn't much the human could pull that he hasn't already built up a resistance to in regards to being annoyed.

And even if they could open the deck door open, he'd have to be considerably distracted in order to not just catch them again with the deck arms anyways. The only time the deck arms handle cassette repairs is if Soundwave is too busy fighting/running from something to do it himself.

He vastly prefers Maintenance Time to be something that doubles as bonding time with any cassettes he may have. He wants them to associate him, and being held by him with comfort. Comfort, and Safety are the two main things a cassette carrier must absolutely provide for their cassettes (Other than food/fuel and shelter bc duh.) Also, bc getting close to people, having them stick around with you, and survive for long is exceedingly rare during/after the war. (To the winners go the spoils, and to the losers, the leftovers.) (Even before the war as well if you were among those considered disposable by the upper class.)

So, all that to say, Soundwave is secretly terrified of losing the few people he has left after the war.

(The reason he let his typical crowd of cassettes go ((In the Empty Nest AU)) is bc he respects them too much to just keep them cooped up with/in him all the time. The issue with them not being around arises after they've left, anyways. Plus, they do visit when they can so it isn't Too bad for the ex-human cassette. At first.)

(I love how this started as a 'Huh? Soundwave is kinda weird in some iterations.', and ended up as 'Soundwave is a sad father of one adopted child that loathes him, bc it wasn't actually an adoption but rather a kidnapping. Also, war is Hell.')

-Not a Request Anon

Ooohh this is interesting :0 I didn’t know Soundwave had those wirey tentacle thingies. They’d certainly be useful for him, having some extra appendages to keep the humans safe in his deck.

As for that last part, yeah that makes a lot of sense 😔 he’s just trying to fill the emptiness he feels with an unwilling guest

[toporecall]

Chapter 2. Ballerina Bend Under The Weight Of It All

We're back with chapter 2 of If Forever Gets Lonely, a Feyre-born-fae AU. Another High Lords meeting, scandalous dreams, and more Prythian drama.

Read it all on AO3 or chapter 2 below the cut.

Prev chapters: [1]

Normally a meeting of all seven High Lords was a rare occurrence, maybe once every few years, but given the imminent war, another meeting had been called just a couple weeks later. Tension was ratcheting within Prythian. Rumors were spreading rapidly that Hybern’s soldiers were preparing to invade and Tamlin and Lucien were still trying to negotiate where the people of Spring would go in the likely event that Spring was the first landing point.

They had called this meeting and so they were hosting all seven courts in their Spring home. Tamlin had pulled out all the stops—long tables of decadent food had been prepared and, rather than a ball, the green lawn just outside the manor had been set up with all sorts of games and festivities for after the meeting. 

Meanwhile, Feyre was doing her best to avoid the eyes of both Beron and Rhysand. Beron, becuase she couldn’t get his offer out of her head. Could this whole negotiation really be solved if she capitulated and slept with him? And was that such a steep price to pay for the safety of a people she was soon to be responsible for?

Rhysand’s gaze she avoided for an entirely different reason. She did indeed like the idea of having a friend at these occasions but, over the past couple of weeks since they’d met, she was having increasingly…unfriendly thoughts about Rhysand. On the rare occasions Tamlin came to share her bed, she struggled to keep her mind from straying toward the High Lord of Night. And on the more common occurrences that she helped herself alone in bed at night, it wasn’t Tamlin’s green eyes she saw but violet ones. 

Just last night she’d been laying in bed, alone and frustrated. She was having a hard time sleeping with the anticipation of all the courts coming to Spring the next day. She let her hand drift lower, under her blankets and nightdress. But the fantasy her mind served…

Rhysand was here, at Spring. Everyone had gone to bed, Lucien, Tamlin, and Feyre in their respective rooms in the east wing and all the guests in their rooms in the west wing. She was tiptoeing back to her room after fetching water from the kitchen when she felt more than saw a shadow wrap around her, stopping her in her tracks just outside of Tamlin’s door.

She knew immediately it was Rhysand. Knew it as his hands slid down her arms from behind, sliding over her hands to the tops of her thighs. She just started to protest when one hand lifted to cover her mouth.

“Shh shh shh. We don’t want to wake Tamiln, do we?” he whispered in her ear.

He pulled her closer to him, her back flush against his strong body. She could feel every inch of him as his right hand dragged over the fabric of her nightdress, over her stomach then lower until his fingers grazed her center and she whimpered into his hand.

A cough in the room startled Feyre from her thoughts. What had been getting into her lately? She hadn’t even realized she’d slipped back into last night’s fantasy. She glanced around the room, shaking off her own thoughts. Helion was trying to negotiate with Beron and Tarquin on Tamlin’s behalf to relocate Spring’s population. Kallias and Thesan were either listening or pretending to.

Rhysand was looking directly at her. She couldn’t tell if she was imagining the sparkle in his eyes or if that was coming from the light through the window. 

She forced herself to hold his gaze, unwilling to be the first to look away. After a few long moments, he finally broke their eye contact and leaned to his left, whispering something in one of his advisor’s ears—Cassian, she had learned.

“Perhaps Feyre has an idea or suggestion on how we could negotiate this potential resettlement.” Her name on Beron’s lips snapped Feyre to attention. The rest of the room had stopped talking and was looking at her expectantly. She could feel her face turning red at the reminder of Beron’s hand on her ass and his offer. “Feyre?”

She opened her mouth, trying to remind herself that no one else knew what he was implying. But before she could come up with a reply, Tamlin chimed in abruptly.

“Feyre is really just here to listen.” He placed a hand on her knee. “Maybe we should change the topic for now and return to this question later.”

Feyre wasn’t sure if she was enraged by the dismissal or grateful for being saved from having to reply to Beron’s taunt.

“Very well,” said Beron. “Then perhaps next we should address the subject of my eldest son’s impending wedding.” Eris sat beside his father, looking smug as he sipped his drink.

“As a matter of strategy?” Morrigan asked, nearly rolling her eyes. 

Beron sneered in her general direction. “One of Hybern’s generals has requested an invitation.”

That certainly got everyone’s attention.

“And you’re just now mentioning this?” Kallias asked, eyes wide.

“You neglected to mention that you’re in touch with Hybern, father,” Lucien said, speaking slowly as if he was being careful to choose his words.

“I am not in touch with Hybern. I simply received a letter from them,” said Beron.

“It seems rather obvious that given the impending war,” Tamlin emphasized, “our interests would not be served by inviting a Hybern general to celebrate with us.”

“It was less of a request and more of a decree.” said Beron.

“Who is it?” Rhysand spoke for the first time in a long while.

“Their general Amarantha.”

Rhysand’s gaze remained steady but Azriel, Cassian, and Mor all sat up straighter abruptly and glanced at each other.

There was a stilted silence in the room before Lucien finally cleared his throat and spoke. “I think it would be better if that did not happen.” 

“As I said,” Beron replied sternly, “it was more of a declaration than a request.”

Another terse silence.

“Maybe this is an opportunity to avoid war altogether? Maybe a chance for peace?” Feyre asked, knowing even as she spoke that it was an incredibly naive question given everyone’s reaction to this news.

“Maybe,” Mor said with a small but generous smile.

Tamlin stood abruptly, knocking his chair over, and left the room without another word.

Lucien pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’ll go,” he muttered to Feyre before following Tamlin out of the room.

The room was silent for a few moments and Feyre realized with a jolt that she was technically the closest thing to the host now. 

“Well, when is the wedding?” Feyre asked Eric and Beron.

“Two months from Saturday,” Eris replied.

“Lovely. Congratulations.”

The meeting wrapped quickly after that. The other High Lords clearly wanted time to process the implications of this revelation before continuing their strategy meetings. Feyre sent them all out to the lawn for music, games, and refreshments and promised she’d be out shortly.

She hurried down the hall to Tamlin’s study, careful not to trip over her pale lavender skirts. She found Tamlin and Lucien in the middle of a tense conversation, Tamlin standing and pacing behind his desk and Lucien seated across from him. Tamlin wore a dark green tunic, a lovely representation of spring. 

“What was all of that about?” she asked, shutting the door behind her. She didn’t move further into the room but simply stood with her back against the door as if she needed it for support.

Tamlin just shook his head and waved a hand toward Lucien.

“There’s a lot of history with Amarantha, this Hybern general. She was close friends with Tamlin’s father. Since his death she’s been increasingly,” he paused and cleared his throat a bit, “erratic about her…attentions toward Tamlin. And Rhysand for that matter, who she blames for Tamlin’s father’s death given Rhysand’s father killed him.”

Feyre’s head spun and she was happy she had the door for support. This was the thing with High Lords, she was learning—immortality and power was a hell of a combination and bad blood, no matter how old, never quite seemed to clear.

“And?" she asked, sensing there was more.

“And,” Lucien’s jaw tensed, “years back I was sent to her as an emissary for the Spring Court. She didn’t take kindly to that perceived rejection from Tamlin. Words were had and she retaliated by gouging out my eye and sending me back home with a bloody hole in my face.”

 Feyre was beginning to feel ill. Tamlin’s rage was palpable in the room.

“Surely Beron can’t invite her to the wedding,” Feyre reasoned, voice coming out high and strained.

“Unfortunately, I think my father is right. It’s more of a declaration than a request. And the punishment for not capitulating could be far worse than whatever game she’s planning. It could possibly be the start to this war that we are woefully unprepared for and desperately trying to avoid.”

“There has to be something we can—” 

“Maybe the strategizing is best left up to us, Feyre.” Tamlin cut her off. He was gripping the edge of his desk and the wood was starting to crack beneath his fingers. “Our guests are without a hostess. Maybe you could attend to that.”

Feyre felt her face reddening. “We are to be married, Tamlin. I think I can be of more use to you than just a hostess.”

Feyre gasped as the wood splintered under Tamlin’s grip. Even Lucien looked startled.

“Maybe leave us. For now, Feyre.” Lucien said gently with an apologetic look. 

Feyre huffed in disbelief but did as she was told, spinning around and shutting the door loudly behind her which she recognized was someone petulant. She stopped halfway down the hall that lead outside, not realizing her hands were trembling until she took a moment to breathe.

Was this to be her fate? A doll for the Spring Court? A female to look pretty, play hostess, and receive Tamlin in bed whenever he deigned to show up? Feyre knew that as a merchant’s daughter, and the youngest at that, she hadn’t been bred for this life the way some females had but her courtship with Tamlin had lead her to believe that she would be more of an equal in this household. Even if not an equal, at least a respected voice. 

She felt almost as betrayed by Lucien for not sticking up for her.

Feyre took a deep breath to soothe her shaking fingers and headed outside, pausing at a mirror in the hall to check her appearance before returning to their guests. She looked pale and had definitely been losing weight since she’d moved here to Spring Court. Something about this lifestyle made her withdrawn and finicky about her appetite. 

She pinched her cheeks to give them a little color and went out to the lawn. The members of the various courts were mingling, enjoying the mild air and refreshments. Some were even playing the games they’d had set out. 

Feyre got herself a glass of sparkling wine and drank it quickly, as surreptitiously as she could manage. She put the empty glass aside, picked up another, and went to mingle with the guests. It did seem that everyone was trying their best to act as though they liked each other. She fielded a few questions about where Tamlin and Lucien had gotten off to with vague and pleasant replies. 

Mostly, she tried to keep at bay the dawning realization that the life she had signed on to was not what she thought it would be. Feyre had grown up fairly independent. Being the youngest daughter, there was much less emphasis put on her to marry well and be a proper young lady. Instead, she’d had more freedom to run wild in the woods, to shoot a bow and arrow, to explore her passions as long as they didn’t interfere with her family’s propriety. Her interests were often looked at with an eye roll by her family, but tolerated nonetheless. 

And then she’d met Tamlin. He’d made her feel so special and so singular. Their whirlwind romance was more than she ever could have dreamed of. Engaged to a High Lord—how fate had surprised them all! It had all seemed so magical, even with the uncertain situation with Hybern. But Feyre was now starting to realize that she had penned herself in. She was not to be treated as an equal here, a partner to help lead Spring Court, the land she’d spent her whole life in. She was a window dressing, a pretty face. 

Feyre’s thoughts were interrupted by the appearance of Eris in front of her. She automatically pasted on a polite smile.

“Congratulations again on your engagement. I hope you’re enjoying your time here,” she said as pleasantly as she could. 

“Oh yes, well, some marry for love, some marry for station.” An odd reply. “Care for a little friendly competition?” He asked with a glint in his eye.

“What sort of competition?”

“Lady’s choice,” he gestured to the games set up around the lawn. Feyre had the urge to roll her eyes at his cocky smile but suppressed it.

“Alright then,” she placed her wineglass on the nearest table, “archery.”

There were three targets set up at varying distances. It was decided they would each fire three arrows, one aimed at each of the three. A small crowd had gathered around them as they prepared. Eris was going first. 

As he pulled back the bow, readying to fire at the closest target, he turned to Feyre. “What does the winner get?”

She thought for a moment. “A favor. To be called in at the winner’s will.”

Another cocky grin, and not in a charming way. “Very well.”

He fired his first arrow, hitting a few inches to the left of the bullseye. The High Lords and their courts clapped politely. The middle target he hit in about the same spot, just left of the bullseye. The farthest target was trickier and his arrow landed at the very edge of the target, just barely avoiding a miss.

Feyre suppressed a smile. She was an excellent shot and was completely confident that she could beat Eris. She picked up the smaller bow, relishing the familiar feel of it in her grasp. She’d always loved how capable she felt holding a bow. Without a word, she fired her first arrow. A bullseye. She fired at the second target a little farther off. Another bullseye. 

The crowd was murmuring, clearly surprised and delighted at this turn. She looked up, smiling at the group until she spotted him. Tamlin had finally come outside and was standing at the edge of the gathering. She could feel the reproach burning in his gaze. A lady shouldn’t be so skilled with a bow and arrow. A lady shouldn’t be firing a bow and arrow at all dressed in a lilac gown fluttering in the breeze. She should scoff at such a thing. 

Feyre readied her final shot, letting out a breath as she steadied her hand. She knew she could easily hit the final bullseye, but with Tamlin watching…

She fired. And missed the target entirely. 

There was a collective gasp and a smattering of applause. Eris was declared the winner.

“I’ll let you know when I need that favor,” he said with an infuriating wink.

Feyre did her best to smile back good-naturedly before turning and retrieving her wine. The group had dispersed and was once again spread about the lawn, playing various games and chatting. It was easy for her to slip off quietly to the edge of the woods that lined the property, eager for a few moments of quiet. Tensions throughout Prythian had been increasing enough that Feyre was conscious of the fact that these moments of peace and quiet might be some of the last she’d know for a long while. 

A few moments was all she had before she heard the sound of soft steps approaching from behind her. She turned her head and peered around the tree she was leaning against to see Rhysand approaching. 

She wanted, badly, to ignore the feeling in her gut at the sight of him, at the knowledge that he had sought her out again. Wanted so badly to pretend that he was just another male, just another Prythian High Lord to deal with, but she couldn’t deny the spark she’d felt when he’d kissed her hand at Summer Court. She couldn’t deny that the sight of him out here, separated from the rest of the gathering, had anticipation coiling within her like a snake. 

“Rhysand,” she said, nodding her head in greeting. “What brings you out here?”

“Rhys,” he corrected as he reached her. “And I wanted to see where the bride of Spring had gotten off to. I thought you might be hiding some secret delight out here.”

That crooked smile. Those eyes looking down at her. Feyre shook her head as if she could shake the thoughts away.

“Just needed a moment of quiet. It’s been a long day.”

He hummed in acknowledgement and they stood in a comfortable moment of silence, gazing out at the forest. They could hear the sounds of the rest of the gathering off in the distance.

Feyre was lost enough in the sounds and sights of the forest that she startled when she felt Rhysand lean toward her, his lips almost at her ear.

“I know you missed that last shot on purpose,” he whispered. 

Feyre turned toward him which she quickly realized was a mistake. His face was so close that she could see the stubble along his jaw, could practically imagine what it would feel like beneath her fingertips.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, taking a step back for self preservation.

He relaxed his posture. “Sure you don’t.”

“What reason would I have for missing?”

He said nothing for a moment, just long enough that Feyre turned to look back at him again. He looked more serious now, the crooked smile vanished from his expression.

“Don’t let them change you, Feyre. In this world, you need to be your own weapon. Don’t ever forget that and don’t ever let them take your power.”

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

taglist (let me know if you'd like to be added/removed!): @the-lonelybarricade @popjunkie42 @magic-and-ships @starfall-spirit @soopsiedaisies

[voraciousvore]

Giganterra (Prologue)

A g/t medieval AU featuring characters from my other stories. King Richard, the giant ruler of Giganterra, keeps the human kingdom of Minimaterra under his thumb, and it's up to our tiny heroes to stop his reign of terror.

Table of Contents: Ch. 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58

General Content Warning: this story will feature vore, violence, death, gore, and NSFW/ 18+ content (sex scenes with giants and giantesses, both romantic and non-consensual).

Prologue: soft, fatal, unwilling g/t vore, and some blood; 2.8k words

------ Prologue: Saturn Devouring His Son ------

“I’m going to put a stop to this madness and confront him.” 

Ronny looked up at his older brother Alessandro, the crown prince. His brother was a tall, handsome giant, with a sturdy build, intense dark eyes, and short, slick, black hair. Ronny had always admired Alessandro and hoped to be like him someday. While Ronny inherited the same dark eyes and black hair from his mother, he was smaller and scrawnier, and certainly less confident and courageous. 

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Ronny stammered with uncertainty. Confronting their father the king seemed impossible from his perspective. 

“I can’t just stand by and do nothing any longer,” Alessandro declared, clenching his fist with passion. “Perhaps I can reason with him.” He stood up and marched briskly out of the room with purpose. Young Ronny watched him go with a pit of dread forming in his gut. 

Alessandro traversed the long stone corridors of the castle, his footsteps muted by the opulent carpeting. He gritted his teeth and tried to dismiss the nagging doubts that pecked at his brain. He would not allow himself to be dissuaded this time. Innocent lives were at stake, even if they were small and humble. He needed to act. 

He ascended the steps to the king’s private suite, sequestered in the left wing of the castle. His personal guard stood stiffly at the wooden door, immobile despite the lack of eyes observing him. He was a gigantic, hairy, hulking brute of a giant, with a scar running down his weathered face covered by a leather eyepatch. When he spied the crown prince heading his way, he bowed obediently. 

“Ajax,” Alessandro addressed the guard with authority. “I’m here to request an audience with my father.” 

“Very well, Your Highness,” the guard acknowledged, rising back to his feet. “I shall return momentarily.” He left to announce the prince’s presence to the king. Alessandro waited impatiently, tapping his foot on the stones and pacing. Ajax finally returned, gesturing wordlessly for the prince to enter. Alessandro advanced forward with a haughty mien, the guard following silently behind. Paranoid as always, the king insisted that his guard accompany the prince to his quarters, even though his guest was his own flesh and blood. 

“His Royal Highness, Prince Alessandro,” Ajax announced, holding the door as the prince strode in holding his head high. 

“Ah, Alessandro!” a deep masculine voice boomed from within the room. “What a pleasure!” Despite the warm ebullience of the words, Alessandro felt a frigid chill down his spine. His father, King Richard, sat in a luxurious chair of red velvet by the roaring fireplace. Even though the weather outside was bright and sunny, he had the curtains drawn, draping the room in shadow. 

“Come, sit,” the king encouraged, raising a bony hand out of the gloom. The fire reflected off his eyes, making them spark from his foreboding silhouette like the eyes of a demon. The twin lanterns turned towards the door. “That will be all, Ajax,” he commanded in a much harsher tone. Ajax gave a deferential bow and closed the door behind him as he left. 

Alessandro scanned the room with unease as he sat opposite his father in an identical plush chair. His hand strayed to the slim dagger concealed by his side, under his belt. He didn’t want to use it, but he feared he may have no other option if his implorations fell on deaf ears. 

“What brings you to my quarters on this fine day, my son?” King Richard asked. His fingers absently stroked the armrest of his chair, digging into the fabric with thick nails. 

“Father...” Alessandro swallowed, trying to bolster his nerves. “I urgently need to discuss important matters of state. Specifically, regarding our relationship with the human kingdom under your... illustrious protection.” He bit his lip. 

“Ahh... is that so...” the king mused. His lips peeled back into a wolfish grin, his slick teeth glowing orange in the light. “You have my ear.” 

Alessandro took a deep breath to center himself, then spoke the phrases he’d been meticulously arranging in his mind for months now. “Father, I believe our purpose has been corrupted. In olden times, us giants protected the humans from outside forces that would destroy such a delicate people. Our influence was benevolent and mutually beneficial.” He paused to allow his words to sink in. 

“But now... now... our touch is more sinister, more avaricious. We are always demanding more, too much. And this business of insisting upon a tribute of young maidens: I will be frank, it makes me ill, terribly ill.” Alessandro attempted to maintain his outward composure, but his body nevertheless vibrated with poignant emotion. 

“Mmmmm...” the king hummed. “Why don’t we discuss this over wine?” His flippant attitude spiked Alessandro’s temper, but he didn’t dare protest. To his surprise, the king did not call a servant, but rather collected a bottle and two goblets from a nearby table. When he poured wine into one of the goblets, Alessandro thought he saw something glint between his fingers in the firelight—though perhaps it was merely his imagination. 

The king’s pale hand emerged from the shadows to offer a goblet, and Alessandro politely accepted. He held the goblet in his lap and resumed the conversation. “To be blunt, I cannot support these barbaric measures any longer. They are unjust and morally indefensible. We have strayed from the righteous path, and we must correct our course, lest the legacy of our Hardon dynasty be forever tarnished.” 

“Oh, is that so?” A taunting smirk played on his father’s lips. “And what would you have me do?” He took a serene sip of his wine. 

“Stop this madness. Allow the humans full sovereignty. Release them from this heavy burden of tribute. The resources required to secure our border on that side are minimal. We don’t need the humans to pay us in living flesh,” the crown prince recited firmly. 

“Hmmmm. And what would you say, if I rejected your suggestions?” He drank another sip of the red liquid from his goblet and licked his lips. “Have a drink, Alessandro. It will clear your mind.” 

“Father, please. This is very serious.” Alessandro huffed, annoyed by his progenitor’s inability to focus on the issue at hand. He brought the cup to his lips to placate him, pouring a small amount into his mouth and swallowing. “If you refuse to listen... I’m afraid I can no longer support you.” 

“No longer... support?” King Richard straightened in his chair and leaned forward, setting aside his cup and clasping his hands together. His visage finally entered the light, displaying his wrinkled features, graying hair, and striking blue eyes, cold as glaciers. Alessandro was disturbed to behold, instead of the troubled concern he anticipated, a devious leer spreading across the old man’s face. “Alessandro... that smacks of sedition.” 

“Perhaps,” the crown prince replied. He stiffened, his nerves screaming of impending danger, yet he did not flinch from the confrontation. 

“My dear son... I’ve sensed your discontent for a long time coming. I’m surprised it took you this long to come to me with your concerns. I thought you were made of sterner stuff than that.” His grin faded. “You disappoint me.” 

“Father, I—” Alessandro began, but halted as a sharp burning sensation invaded his gut. He placed his hand over his midsection with a grimace. King Richard evinced no surprise as his roguish smile resurfaced. The prince groaned, doubling over as the pain spread through the rest of his body. His goblet of wine toppled over, spilling all over the carpet, but the king didn’t seem to care in the least. His extremities felt like they were being poked with thousands of needles as his joints and bones audibly cracked and crunched. His flesh compressed as if squeezed by the coils of a python, forcing his organs to twist and contort to fill the hollow cavities of his form. His vision swam as the room appeared to distort and warp around him in a distorted mess, the chair beneath him expanding into a sea of velvet. 

Alessandro cried out pitiably in a combination of agony and fear, not fully comprehending what was happening as his innards rearranged and he was swathed in blackness. Something incomprehensibly enormous closed around him and lifted him high up into the air, what felt like an impossible distance. He fought against the powerful mass, pushing against the squishy surface with his limbs, but his strength was insufficient to produce any meaningful yield. He let out a frightened yelp as he was dropped onto a warm, soft, ridged surface.  

Alessandro was beyond baffled, unable to explain all these wild sensations. His heart palpitated in a frenzy, enough to make him dizzy and disoriented. He looked down and blushed as he realized he’d been stripped of all his clothing, as well as his dagger. He was as bare and defenseless as the day he’d been born. His eyes drifted further down to examine the uneven lined surface he was sitting on. He gazed at the patterns dumbly with confusion, which seemed so familiar, yet simultaneously so alien. Nothing made any sense. 

A booming chuckle, accompanied by a gust of warm air, directed his attention skyward. Alessandro froze in shock. His vision was overwhelmed by a gigantic mouth that loomed over him, as wide across as an entire room, with teeth large enough to lounge on like furniture. The prince scrambled back from the terrifying sight, only to run into a wall made of fingers that towered over him like trees, much taller and thicker in diameter than his entire body. He perceived, with horror, that he was cupped in a gargantuan hand. He whimpered with instinctive terror. 

“W-what is this? How?” the prince managed to stammer out, his complexion paling. 

Another resounding chuckle made him shirk back into the giant fingers. “I put a shrinking potion into your wine, you ignorant fool,” the mouth rumbled, bathing the tiny man in humid breath that reeked of wine. “I knew it was only a matter of time before you rose against me. I can’t believe you were too blind and trusting to see this coming.” 

The prince was speechless as the platform of a hand raised up alongside the cliffside of the giant’s face, so that he was eye level with his father, now a colossal beast of unfathomable proportions. His irises were huge and frigid, like mountains in winter, devoid of any empathy. The black holes of his pupils dilated as he examined his miniaturized son with fascination, making Alessandro shiver. King Richard’s gigantic eyes rolled to the side as the gleam of metal caught his attention. 

“Ho, what’s this?” the giant rumbled. He reached into Alessandro’s heap of clothes left behind on his chair and pulled out the dagger. “Ah. I suspected as much.” The shrunken prince gasped as his own blade, glinting with hot flames in the light, was turned against him, the tip touching his bare chest. At his current stature, the blade looked miles long. 

“I ought to carve you up with your own knife for even thinking to stab your father,” the king growled. He pressed the tip harder into the prince’s chest, producing a thin trickle of blood. Alessandro winced. “I could dismember you, limb by limb, slice you open and eviscerate you, decapitate you! A fitting end for a repulsive traitor!” 

He let up on the pressure and cast the dagger to the side. “However... you are still my son, and I have a merciful heart for my own flesh and blood. I shall give you a more suitable death, worthy of the honor of the Hardon bloodline.” The wicked grin plastered on his features hardly seemed to fit his words. The immense hand beneath the diminutive prince abruptly rotated to the side, dropping him. He shrieked as he fell through the air and splashed into a lake of liquid. 

Alessandro resurfaced, sputtering, and rubbed the substance out of his eyes. From the taste, he recognized it as the very same wine he’d drank earlier. As his vision cleared, he was horrified to find himself swimming in a huge vat of wine, encompassed in a circle by smooth gilded walls. He turned ashen as his father’s mountainous face hovered above the edge of the cup. 

“No... you wouldn’t...” he choked, as the obvious implications of this action sank in. 

“Quite the contrary, my son, I would!” King Richard guffawed cruelly, hurting the prince’s delicate little eardrums with his deafening voice. “What better way for you to die than to add your strength to my physical body? Isn’t that poetic?” 

“No... please... don’t...” Alessandro implored with escalating alarm, as the king swirled the wine in his cup, his bloodthirsty leer deepening. The prince flapped his arms to stay afloat, staring in horror up at the king’s mouth, blown up before him in grotesque detail. The slick surfaces of his teeth shined with saliva, marred by a microscopic chip in one of the teeth on the side, a feature that Alessandro never noticed prior, when he was a proper giant. The huge slab of meat that constituted the tongue emerged and dragged along the teeth and thin lips, wetting them further. 

Alessandro’s heart jumped into his throat as the vast set of lips settled on the rim. The cup angled, causing the wine to flow, along with Alessandro, towards certain death. The prince frantically swam in the opposite direction, but failed to beat the current as it dragged him closer to the giant mouth. The lips parted, revealing a foreboding cavity of darkness that stretched deep within. Alessandro screamed as he watched the upper lip and incisors pass over his head, and he was sucked into the maw. His last view of light was extinguished as the mouth closed, encasing him in a semicircle of teeth and gums. 

The prince struggled for his life, to no avail. The king stirred the sip of wine in his mouth at a leisurely pace, savoring the moment. The tiny prince banged against his molars, bounced on his massive, squishy tongue, and hit his head on the hard curved palate above. He cried out in terror as gallons of wine began to drain down the tube beyond the tongue, carrying him with it. He tried to grab the uvula at the back of the throat to halt his descent, but failed miserably, instead sliding down the base of the tongue and into the dark pit below. The throat received him eagerly and gulped him down in a suffocating embrace. 

The poor little prince could hardly move as the powerful muscular contractions forced him down, down a terrifying drop into a nightmarish, claustrophobic new hell. A thunderous heartbeat thudded in his ears, along with gusts of wind from prodigious lungs, as he was constricted through the giant’s noisy chest. He plummeted further, overwhelmed with mindless fear as ominous grumbling resounded louder around him, announcing the next step of his horrific journey through King Richard’s digestive system. He wasn’t ready. He hadn’t mentally prepared himself for such unspeakable horrors. 

His legs were suddenly free, and he kicked them wildly as he was pushed through the esophageal sphincter into the stomach. He plopped into a puddle of stinging fluid, gasping for breath as rancid, acidic fumes assaulted his eyes and nose. He couldn’t see anything in the darkness, but he could feel the stomach walls churning around him, the excessive heat, the acid sloshing and bubbling and slowly eating away at his skin. The various sounds of the gastric juices stirring and gurgling, the meat walls squelching as they shifted, and the reverberating heartbeat and breathing, overwhelmed him and made him involuntarily shudder. 

He was done for. He was going to die. The appalling truth hit him with the force of a sledgehammer. He had utterly failed, and his death would be in vain. He lamented his failure, even as his vision turned gray from the thin air, and his consciousness slipped away from him. His last thoughts were thick with regret. He wished he’d said a proper goodbye to his younger siblings, his little brother and sister, before his death. He wished he could’ve saved the little humans trapped at the castle and shielded the human kingdom from King Richard’s reign of terror. He wished he could’ve made a difference, and his life had held any meaning at all. His piteous pleas for clemency were left unheard, as he suffocated and his life ended, and his body dissolved into the acid like any other scrap of meat. 

King Richard sat back down in his chair with a luxurious stretch and drank his wine, reveling in his success. He patted his belly as he felt the feeble squirms within gradually fade. He smirked, running his tongue over his teeth. There would be no rebellion, no regicide on his watch. He did what he had to do, even if the necessary measures including devouring and killing his own heir, his pride and joy. For he wasn’t just some meek pushover: He was King Richard Hardon, the most ruthless and Machiavellian ruler of them all. 

Chapter 1

[evenhisfacewasanalias]

Fragments of Eros (Part 6)

Lady Jane Grey/Guildford Dudley

Rating: Adult

The last of the embers turned to ash, and something brushed her hand. She let out a small cry at the brief touch, the anticipation of claws or teeth that followed. But none did.

Only the feel of a warm circlet of gold slipped around her ring finger by human hands. The sound of a man’s voice, gentle, and not a beast’s.

“With this ring, I thee wed.”

A Cupid and Psyche/(Beauty and the Beast) AU, inspired by and encouraged by schokoleibniz.

Part 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Chapter 6: The Invitation

For the first time, Lady Jane awoke within the arms of her husband. Though she remained blindfolded, the hazy light of dawn slipped just below the silken clothing, making it known that the sun had well and truly risen, while Guildford still remained with her in their bed. His familiar hand stroked warmly across her bare stomach, alerting her that he had also arisen from his slumber.

She smiled at the feel of his wakeful body pressed along her back, the evidence that their earlier bout of love-making had not been nearly enough to exhaust him. She welcomed her husband’s desire as he pressed inside her once more, pulling her body back into his as his hands teased across her front. Together they found a languorous rhythm as they enjoyed this first morning in which they did not have to part.

“Guildford,” she sighed as slow waves of pleasure rolled over her, delighting in his shuddering response to her use of his name.

He shortly followed her in her release, spilling across her thighs. 

This she now understood as well. Jane had once thought he merely sought not to bind them together more permanently, but after all that had been revealed to her, she well knew his fear at the idea of passing along his curse. She still knew so little about the nature of his condition, but she was beginning to understand more about the man himself. 

Jane’s hand slipped into the broader one still wrapped around her waist.

“It’s pleasant having you here in the morning. I can almost believe you are real.”

“Then I shall endeavor to stay more often,” came the response whispered into her ear.

“I love,” she began, and quickly caught herself, “waking up like this.”

Guildford pressed a kiss to her nape, unaware of the words she had nearly let slip.

Jane’s mind raced. The thought of what she had nearly said had startled her. Had she merely been swept up in the romance of waking in his arms, the sharing of his secrets the night before? Or did her unspoken words hold some deeper truth?

There was so much she didn’t know about her husband - so much that she didn’t understand about him or her own role in all of this. She had promised to help him, but she wondered how much of that was to satisfy her own curiosity. Too much had been kept from her, and she desperately hated the not knowing. 

Jane looked into her own heart, and realized that she still remained unwilling to stay trapped within the castle walls forever. As for her husband, she had been bound not of her own will. Without this choice, she reasoned there could be no real love. 

And so Jane kept silent, and did not speak further of her uncertain feelings.

Instead, she shared in the simple joys of a morning together. The indulgent caresses. The gentle intimacy of having someone to dress her again - as her mother and sisters had done - though she could not yet see what he had chosen for her. Of allowing her lover to feed her her breakfast by hand, both of them unwilling to remove her blindfold and hasten their parting.

****

After this first morning together, Jane found her routine pleasantly altered. Each new dawn she would wake with Guildford still sharing her bed, if only for a brief time. After, Jane would once more return to the seeing world, to the daily reality of her work within the castle. Though most of their recent guests were well on the way to healing from their recent battle, there were still bandages to change, salves to mix, and her particular aid desired in all quarters of the castle. 

Her evenings she now reserved for study - sometimes alone, though more often with Guildford nearby, hidden just out of sight - as she attempted to unlock a cure for Guildford’s condition, or find a creature that matched his preternatural form. There seemed to be an endless number of tales of mythical beasts found within the volumes of his collection. Some among these beasts were said to have been cursed, while others were simply born as monsters and could be traced to no human source. Such were the cases of the manticores of Persia, the Estries and the Leviathan of Hebrew lore. These works, she quickly set aside.

In most of the Celtic legends of their own lands, animal transformations were something greatly desired - gifts bestowed on gods and the greatest of men. An animal form was treated as a blessing, rather than a curse. The other beasts of her acquaintance all felt the same, though they each took on a less frightening form, and could change at will from one form to another. Nothing within these myths could explain Guildford’s lack of control over his metamorphosis. Jane began to believe he really had been cursed.

But those beasts of legend that were said to be the result of some punishment were often born of the forbidden union between the creature’s parents, like that of the Minotaur. Or a beastly union, in the case of the horse Arion, or the serpent Jörmungandr. This idea she too set aside. Guildford's parents had both been human, and their union blessed by the King. Lord Stanley, though occasionally beastly in manner, had no such ability to transform himself whether willingly or not. 

Neither Stanley nor Guildford spoke often of their late mother, and Jane thought better of reopening this hurt for now.

She turned instead to the cases of Arachne and Actaeon, of Arge and the Chelone. They were condemned by the gods for their own hubris and ill manners, which seemed a more likely cause of Guildford’s condition. Her husband was possessed of a mischievous nature, and neither was he without a streak of arrogance. 

Still others, like Callisto and Io, were transformed as the result of an affair with a god. Jane knew her husband to have taken other lovers before their marriage, though the gods no longer wandered among humanity as they were once said to. 

Certainly either curse required the intervention of some ancient, petty god, which would not be able to resist the change to make itself known, to demonstrate its power. Guildford did not yet know the reason for his curse, or at least he did not share it with her.

The gods of modern England, whether Anglican or Catholic, were certainly vengeful, and beyond mortal view - but the punishments meted out were far less fantastical, and often struck a mortal blow. It was only Nebuchadnezzer who was punished for his pride with such a beastly transformation - though it was never clear whether he was cast into some sort of beast or whether he simply resembled one in his powerlessness. Guildford’s beast was not as helpless as the storied Babylonian king. 

Jane was beset with many such disappointments in her search for anything resembling Guildford’s metamorphosis.

It took several weeks of study in such a manner for her to happen upon such a creature as her husband might have been. Jane found a description bearing great similarity within the exploits of Hercules - the passages depicting the mares of Diomedes mirrored in many ways her lover’s frightening form. But the mares of the legend were fed a steady diet of manflesh to force their horrifying bloodthirst. Jane was certain that Guildford had never eaten anyone before his hidden form took shape, nor was he so entirely so untamed as the legends were claimed to be. Worse that this, nearly all of the stories ended with death or exile for the mares. Jane set these volumes aside, and resolved not to dishearten her husband with such tales.

In truth, her attempts to unlock the origins of his curse were not helped by her husband’s still secretive manner. Guildford seemed unwilling to speak of what had happened during his first transformation, or what he had been like prior to its occurrence. Lord Dudley and his second son were both quick to make themselves scarce whenever she inquired of them. She knew only a little from Guildford’s days in the court of her uncle, having steadfastly avoided the gossip of the nobility - a distance which later doomed her brief reign. Jane feared she was once more doomed to failure, finding nothing resembling a cure within the cursed figures of myth, and even less from the lips of her own husband.

****

Pondering on Guildford’s family, and the familial tales she translated each evening, had also begun to make Jane long for her own family. There had never been any real secrets between her and her sisters, and she found herself even missing the blunt honesty of her mother. Once, she had thought only of her freedom from their constant intrusions on her solitude. Now she only wished for some small piece of news of them, to offer them some sign of her in return.

In this at least, Guildford did not fail to notice her growing melancholy.

“Is the work too much? I have spent much of my life collecting these volumes, I did not expect you to read them all within a month’s time. If you are weary, we may pause,” he offered kindly, observing her from some unseen location within the chapel.

“It is not that - or it is not only that. It is simply that I am missing my family. They are not even aware of my fate. My sister Margaret likely believes me to be devoured by some monster.”

Jane knew that it would not have been possible for Princess Elizabeth to assure her family of her survival without divulging her own role in arranging Jane's marriage. They knew as much of her fate now as when she had left them.

“Perhaps there is a way we could send word to them, to let them know that you have not been eaten,” Jane felt her spirits lift at the possibility. “Though I am happy to devour you whenever you desire.”

His words raced hotly through her veins. That part of their nightly ritual had not changed. Each evening her husband continued to seduce her with words and with unseen body as he had before, introducing her to new manners of lovemaking and ever increasing heights of pleasure. Jane, however, was no longer so easily distracted by her own desires.

“I would like to send word to them as soon as I can, if it is possible. I do not wish them to continue to worry about me. I suppose there is no possibility they might write back, to tell me of their own condition?”

“There is no messenger that can travel so easily back and forth.”

The truth of this was readily apparent to Jane, though it did not too greatly mar her happiness at being able to send word of her safety to her mother and sisters. She began work on her missive that very night, careful not to give away any details beyond her own safety and the small measure of happiness she had found - even kept so far from her family and former home.

Susannah was chosen as messenger, being both the most willing and most stealthy among them, though Archer had been more difficult to convince of this. She flew under the cover of night, to the place where she had last known her family to reside - the palace of Queen Mary. The mission was not without some danger, and Jane nearly regretted asking this of her old friend. It was not until Susannah’s safe return that Jane ceased to feel such guilt at her own weakness and longing for home. She begged her for more news.

Though she carried no return letter, Susannah had observed the sleeping forms of her mother and two sisters, safe within the palace walls, and seemingly well looked after by the Queen. Joyful tears filled Jane’s eyes at the assurance that her sacrifice had not been for naught. Jane embraced her old friend, and thanked her heartily for this gift.

With Susannah’s brave deed accomplished, a great weight was lifted from Lady Jane. She threw herself wholeheartedly back into her study of ancient myths and strange curses, to thank her husband for his part in Susannah’s gift. She set aside thoughts of the family of her birth to better steel herself for the disappointments of translating yet more transformation tales with unhappy ends.

****

And so the arrival of her two sisters at the castle gates came as a great surprise to all, but Jane above all others. The pair arrived at dawn nearly a week after her letter had been sent, and their familiar voices called out her name to the high windows of the castle. Jane raced to windows to catch a glimpse of them, appearing through the morning mists atop a single white horse. 

“Jane, you must be careful,” her husband cautioned from just behind her. She had to remember not to look back, her blindfold torn from her eyes at the sweet sounds on her sister’s voices.

“Surely you cannot ask me to remain within the gates with them outside?” 

“Your sisters are welcome within our walls, just as you are. I only ask that you not reveal too much to them, unless they choose to remain.” 

It was a bargain she well understood. Jane certainly had no intentions of inviting further disturbance from Queen Mary into their home. She would not reveal the secrets of the castle, or of how she had been brought here through the work of her cousin Elizabeth. Even if her sisters came here seeking sanctuary, it would be best that they knew little of Archer or Elizabeth’s strategies. They were not her secrets to share.

Guildford hid himself away at their arrival, and left Jane to prepare to greet her sisters on her own. She dressed herself hastily in the fur-lined gown still tucked within her wardrobe, the finest of those that had been lent to her by Rabbit and the one she had been until now reluctant to wear. The fabric was a deep viridian wool, with soft fur along the neckline cut just below her shoulders. Another band of the same fur lay just above her elbows, below the gathered upper sleeves. A belt of golden cord was wrapped low on her waist, to match the embroidery along the hem and ends of her sleeves. With the addition of her wedding jewelry and a golden ribbon woven into her braid, Jane discovered she resembled a fairytale queen, which she knew would delight her sister Katherine most of all.

She too felt the part of a fairytale heroine as she rushed through the castle gates and the gathered mist to greet her sisters. Margaret was the first to leap from their horse and wrap her small arms around Jane’s hips.

“I thought you had been eaten by a monster!”

Jane would have laughed had she not imagined the same thing when she first left her sisters.

“I was told you were bound in matrimony to a demon king.”

Katherine’s arms held fast to her shoulders, all three sisters clinging to one another in this long wished for meeting.

“He is neither monster nor king, but a man,” Jane assured her sisters.

“Is he not one of the beasts?” Margaret frowned.

“Yes, but they are not as we have been told. They have all treated me with great care, my husband most of all.”

“What is he like then?” Asked Katherine.

“I will tell you all later, but first we must go inside, and you must tell me how you arrived here - and how long you may be able to stay.”

Both girls and horse were brought within the gates, and they marveled at the ancient castle. Katherine, who had always treasured romantic tales of knights and maidens, found the ruins as if a dream - imagining aloud how it must have looked in ages past. Margaret, who had loved stories of battle and bloodshed far better, reveled in the well worn battle scars etched in the stones. 

The sisters were happily met by friends old and new, Susannah being the first to greet them and enjoy the shock of recognition on their faces. Rabbit came to hear Katherine’s praises of her dressmaking, and it was to her that Katherine revealed the wedding gift she had brought for her sister - three bolts of richly embroidered damask, and several lengths of ribbon that were originally to be part of her trousseau. Jane was pleased that Rabbit could share in this gift, as she herself was secretly more gratified by dried herbs and seeds brought by her youngest sister, who had clearly pilfered them from Jane’s own belongings.

Though the other beasts had been initially more wary at Jane’s presence, their gradual acceptance of her now extended to her sisters. She considered the possibility that they even preferred them, and Margaret in particular. Many of the castle’s residents readily transformed into their animal selves to amuse and delight her youngest sister. Even Archer himself allowed Maragaret to ride on the darkly furred back of his bear form, giving in to each of her pleas for a faster canter, a higher jump. Jane had not seen any among them quite so open with their transformations in the presence of humans - including herself - but it seemed that they were far happier to humor a child’s whimsy than satisfy a grown woman’s curiosity.

“When can we meet your new husband?” Katherine finally asked.

“He is away from the castle today, and will not be back until much later.”

It was the closest thing to a lie she had yet told her sisters. 

Jane had been both heartened and disappointed to learn that her sisters had only secreted away for the day. She was glad that they were still safe within the palace, even under Mary’s rule, but saddened by the thought that they must so soon leave again. The pair were equally dismayed at not being able to meet their brother-in-law. Jane was forced to dodge their many questions about him, not quite knowing how to answer them.

She brought them back to her room with breakfast for all three of them, making a picnic across her bedspread. Afterwards, they lay together in her bed as they had not done since they were children, with Katherine’s head at her shoulder and Margaret’s pressed into her belly.

“Tell me, what news of home?”

Margaret giggled and Katherine’s smile grew even as she blushed.

“I am to be married soon - William Seymour has asked for my hand.”

“Lord Seymour’s son?”

Was Katherine to marry the son of her great enemy?

“Oh Jane, they are as different as night from day. He is as an angel without wings,” she sighed to describe her love.

“He was the one who helped us come visit you. He even lent us his horse,” Margaret added.

Jane considered how unlike her own mother she was, and how unlike her cousins and even sisters, and resolved to give Lord Seymour’s son a chance to prove himself his own man. This decision was helped along by Katherine and Margaret’s many tales of his kindness and good humor. Had she not known his name, she would have never thought there to be a relation to her uncle’s odious Lord Chancellor, and Queen Mary’s right hand man.

The conversation grew more somber as Katherine spoke of the Kingdom and its Queen.

“Many still call you Queen, Jane. Especially as each day Mary grows more cruel in quelling those that oppose her rule. They have begun to call her Bloody Mary. I even begin to fear for her own sister, as many have called for Elizabeth to supplant her as well.”

Though the moniker of Bloody Mary had reached even here, the calls for Elizabeth to take the throne had not yet. Jane considered her sweet, soft-spoken cousin, the true successor to the crown if Mary were ever to be deposed. She could not quite imagine her as Queen, though neither could she have imagined herself as such. 

Margaret divulged even more troubling news.

“Mary’s even planning to wed the King of Spain!” 

Spain’s exploits in attempting to eradicate both beasts and all non-believers were well known, and Jane dreaded to think what this marriage might mean for the Kingdom.

“Perhaps he will meet her, and call off the wedding,” Jane attempted to lighten her sisters’ moods to their former ebullience. 

“We can only hope so,” said Katherine. “But you must tell us more of your own wedding, and of your husband! Is he quite handsome?”

“What manner of beast is he?”

“Did he gift you all of these gowns?”

“I heard that only one of the Kingsguard returned from the last raid, and he saw a huge monster that ate several of the other guards!”

The torrent of questions nearly overwhelmed her, for all she did not know how to answer any of them.

“What is his name?” Katherine asked her, and this question seemed safest to answer.

“Guildford Dudley.”

Her sisters immediately grew silent for several moments, until Katherine finally spoke up.

“Guildford Dudley? Oh Jane, that name is twice cursed. His father is said to have killed the king, and he…”

“It is said that he killed his own mother.”

A shudder ran through Jane at the harsh certainty of their words, but there had been a reason she never listened to court gossip.

“I have met Lord Dudley, and he is no killer. Neither could Guildford ever harm anyone he cared about.”

“What about the Kingsland guard?”

“All within the castle will fight to defend themselves - even I would, if called to.”

“They said that he ate them,” Margaret cried out. Jane was not certain whether she was horrified or impressed by the thought.

“His animal form may seem frightening, and I don’t doubt that he may have killed some of the Queen’s men in defending our home, but he is not a monster.”

“So you have seen his change?”

“I heard that none can look upon him and survive.”

“If that were true, who would have told the story?” Jane reasoned. “I am still here.”

“But he is not, and you have told us so little of him. We are your sisters, Jane, we know when you are hiding something from us.”

Jane sighed at this, knowing Katherine’s words to be true. She would not reveal to them that Guildford thought himself cursed, but she finally told them of her unseen lover. Taking care not to reveal too much in front of her youngest sister, she told them of being blindfolded on her wedding night, of not being able to look upon her husband without forcing his transformation. 

“It is not so bad as it seems. There are many women who would be glad to never have to see their husbands.”

Neither sister believed her forced levity. “So you truly have no idea what he looks like?”

“I caught a glimpse of him, once, in the seconds before he changed. And I know him by the feel of his shape. I think him quite handsome, even if I am barred from seeing him fully.”

Her sisters tried to understand this strange arrangement between them, but their imaginations were limited by their youth and having so often gotten their own way in all things. Jane was far more used to the unfairness of life, and thus had already begun to accept this strange marriage for the time being. She offered them instead stories of his humor, his wit, the myriad ways in which he was nearly an ideal partner, but for their circumstances. Jane assured them she had found enough of happiness here for now, in studying and healing others as she had always wanted. She neglected to tell them that she still longed for her freedom, and was still troubled by her husband’s many secrets. 

But the sisters were sent off that evening with smiles on both their faces, and tears in their eyes at once again parting with Jane. Jane could only wish them a safe journey home, as she held back her own tears at their leaving.

****

The rumor of Guildford’s past crimes continued to trouble Jane in the following days, however she had dismissed its mention among her sisters. Though she did not entirely believe the rumor, there was often some kernel of truth to the gossip of the Court. Her father-in-law may not have been responsible for killing the former King, her cousin, but he had conspired to put Jane on the throne in Mary’s stead. This to many would be considered treasonous in itself. 

Perhaps Guildford’s mother had perished while giving birth to him, or from later illness caused by her pregnancy. Perhaps there had been some accident, which might explain why Guildford so rarely spoke of his mother though clearly he had loved her. And perhaps this all was part of his inability to control his transformation. But how to ask him such a thing? 

Several evenings later, as she read of the Meleagrids - those sisters transformed by Artemis into birds to better bear the grief of losing their brother - she thought to suggest grief as the source of his curse. 

“I am not the only one among the beasts who has lost someone. And the form I take does not aid my grief but compounds it.”

Jane knew this to be true, she had met many of their kind with even greater losses. Though their hurt or grief could force a temporary transformation, it did not forever place it beyond the realm of their control. And each of them still took only the form earthly creature, their sorrows did not alter this.

“Why can you never speak of your mother?” Jane’s voice echoed as she spoke to the stained glass window above, its somber depiction of Mother and Child.

“Because it will not bring her back,” came his voice from behind her.

“What if it might help you?”

There was a long silence before she heard his response. “I only asked for your aid in translating these books.”

Jane could hear her husband’s growing vexation with her questioning, which by her own nature forced her to press harder for answers.

“You extracted a promise from me to help you end your curse. I cannot do so if you still keep secrets from me.”

Her own lingering hurt at being so kept in the dark at the beginning of their marriage seeped into her words, and turned them spiteful against her husband. His own words came back with equal defiance. 

“What do you wish me to tell you, wife? That my mother’s death is my own fault? That I have no true memory of my first transformation, only that she was dead when I awoke?” The sound of a contemptuous scoff echoes in the chapel. “My own father refuses to tell me what happened that day, and I am selfishly glad for it, for I do not wish to know.”

Though nearly overwhelmed by the force of this revelation, Jane couldn’t help but see a glimmer of hope in his honesty. “Guildford, I’m so sorry for what you have been through. But what if it is this guilt that transformed you? You told me that you cannot even look upon yourself since you first changed.”

“You think that I did not consider this? But there is no way to undo what I have done, no way to end this curse. I will remain forever the monster you have only ever glimpsed, more murderous and cruel than you could know.”

The bitterness of his reply had her longing to turn to him, to offer him some greater comfort than mere words. Her chest ached that he could not see himself as she did

“But I do know! I have seen the beast, and I have seen the blood that stains it. And I still..” 

Jane again surprised herself by nearly telling Guildford that she loved him. She felt perhaps that she even meant it in this moment, but knew that neither was yet ready to hear the words.

“Do not say what you cannot mean. I know I have trapped you here, that you still wish to be free of me. Go then, you are no longer bound by your vows. I release you.”

The words were not what Jane had ever expected. In all of their time together her husband had always been willing to fight with her, for her, hiding and revealing his secrets to ensure that she stayed. Demanding promises of her in return for some distant freedom. But now that it was offered, the words felt like ash on her tongue. She hated that she could not turn to face him.

“I did not ask to be released, not before I fulfilled my promise to try and help you. And I believe Archer and the others to be right, that you need only accept what you are to conquer it.”

“How can I accept the beast that is my own mother’s killer? How can I accept what I have done? If that is your only answer then you are freed from this oath as well. You need not remain here.”

“I do not wish to leave.”

Her words fell soft, pleading with him to understand she only wished to help. But his anger only grew.

“There is nothing keeping you here - no mystery to solve, no poor brute in need of your rescue. What use are you to me? Just go!”

“I will not!”

From behind her came the sound of her husband’s own escape from the chapel. Jane found herself unwilling and unable to study further, not with Guildford’s words still ringing in her ears. She extinguished the candles, and swiftly followed him out. Jane did not know where he might retreat to, and she was torn between searching him out once more or leaving him to his anger.

But when she emerged from the chapel tunnel, she found the castle doors being shut once more, and she knew without being told that Guildford had left through them. She pleaded with the men at the gate to allow her passage, and raced anxiously out into the dark night after him.

In the form of a man, Guildford could travel in near silence, making his way unseen through the palace each day and slipping into her room every evening. With no eyes to perceive him, he was almost as a ghost. If he had wanted to disappear, she would be unable to track him, no matter her efforts.

Guildford was not silent now. Just ahead, she could hear the expected sounds of his braying, the harsh scraping of armor, the clash of battle.

Lord Seymour’s men had been lying in wait for them, hidden just beneath the canopy of the forest from the sharp eyes of their avian scouts. Though few in number, they had not come unprepared for this ambush. Jane’s sight fell upon the men just as a large hessian cloth was thrown over her husband’s warring form. 

The sheet fell, and the beast was no more. Guildford’s mortal form fought from beneath the cloth, but the weave was sturdy, and he unarmed. He was quickly bound within it before Jane could so much as cry his name.

The only weapon Jane had in her possession was the element of surprise. She used it as wisely as she could, racing towards the men when they had expected a retreat. The first man’s sword she took as her own, fighting off the rest as she tried in vain to pierce the bindings that held her lover captive. 

But they were many, and the ropes too thick. Guildford was concussed in the struggle, and she disarmed. The Lady Jane soon found herself fettered as her husband had been, taken captive by her former Lord Chancellor. 

“Thank you for bringing us the king of the beasts, we couldn’t have done it without your help,” grinned the leader of the Kingsguard. 

Jane had much time to ponder these cryptic words, as they were both of them carted back to the palace of the Bloody Queen Mary.

[cilil]

A little more warmth

Eönwë was more surprised that the Balrog had actually remembered the concept of payment in lieu of pillaging than by the offer, but his head and ears were nicely warm now, and he was more fond of the cute white and yellow patterns on blue than he had assumed; he did, however, fear for the bobble's safety just a little bit.  "If it isn't too much trouble," he said, polite as always, yet failed to suppress a giddy smile and blush. Who would've thought that one day he would be the one getting pampered by a big, strong Maia instead of all the expectations of courtship resting on his shoulders? 

❅ Pairings: Gothmog x Eönwë, background Fingon x Maedhros

❅ Characters: Eönwë, Gothmog, Ori, Maedhros, Fingon, Caranthir, Aiwendil (briefly), Nári (mentioned), a guest appearance by a very special mortal

❅ Synopsis: After Gothmog successfully talked Eönwë into going on a date asked Eönwë out, the two Maiar visit the market together to buy some gifts, argue and enjoy each other's company - while making everyone else's day significantly worse. Also featuring a few fun cameos from my giftee's favourite characters.

❅ Featuring: Canondivergence/AU - everyone's alive and happy, holiday fluff, awkward dates, bickering, marketplace stroll, kissing, holding hands, fluff & humor

❅ Warnings: Some sexual humor and innuendo

❅ A gift for @i-did-not-mean-to, written for the @whiteoliphaunt exchange. IDNMT also kindly let me use this super cute star divider.

➥ Read on AO3

"Do you think this is... appropriate?" Eönwë asked bashfully, referring to the fact that his hand was presently being held by a larger, clawed one. 

"How else am I supposed to let everyone know that this hot piece of ass is mine?" Gothmog retorted, chuckling when he looked over to see his not-quite-official lover blushing furiously. 

"Language," Eönwë hissed and squeezed his hand for emphasis, but made no move to pull away. Gothmog had suspected for a while now that he secretly enjoyed open displays of affection and even desire more than he would like to admit, stuck in his mindset of etiquette and propriety as he was. 

"Let's get you something to keep your ears warm, hm? The tips are all red," Gothmog teased, gently tugging on the smaller Maia's feathered ear before pulling him over to the nearest market stand that had any sort of textiles for sale. 

A Dwarf with reddish brown hair was currently leaning over a box filled with wool, engaged in spirited conversation with a dark-haired Human, only for their fun to be woefully interrupted by the appearance of a Balrog. 

"Hey you," Gothmog addressed the Dwarf. "Do you have something to put on the head of a pretty little hero? He's all red from the cold." 

"Gothmog, please." Eönwë flashed the duo an apologetic smile. "He is... very enthusiastic today." 

"Oh, um... that's lovely!" the Dwarf replied with as much elation as he could muster, still seemingly spooked by the way two Maiar had just interrupted his conversation. "I have a couple of hats you could try... woolly ones, some with bobbles too –" 

"A bobble hat. Blue if you have that," Gothmog interrupted, grinning from one non-existent ear to another. 

"Must you always attempt to ridicule me?" Eönwë grumbled, his plumage fluffing up defensively, but the Balrog patted his head as their unwilling acquaintances beheld the spectacle. While the Dwarf searched his wares, nervous but determined and smiling unerringly, the Human appeared to be strangely entertained by the scene she was witnessing. 

"I have blue with a bit of yellow –"

"Perfect." Gothmog snatched the hat he was offered and placed it on the smaller Maia's lovingly patted head, pulling it over his eyes in his enthusiasm. 

"Aww. You look cute. Do you like it?" He flicked the bobble with his claw while Eönwë adjusted the hat and smiled at the friendly Dwarf. 

"It is very lovely, my dear –" His sharp eyes caught the small name tag made of clay that was attached to a thick woolly shawl. "Ori." 

"And it suits you, good sir," Ori complimented, "the blue matches your eyes. Well, um, your current ones, I mean. Mahal told us that your kind can change that at will, but –" 

"Yes, he's very pretty, with and without his blue eyes. And he's my boyfriend," Gothmog cut in, a hint of smugness in his tone. "Do you want the hat, bird? I'll get it for you." 

Eönwë was more surprised that the Balrog had actually remembered the concept of payment in lieu of pillaging than by the offer, but his head and ears were nicely warm now, and he was more fond of the cute white and yellow patterns on blue than he had assumed; he did, however, fear for the bobble's safety just a little bit. 

"If it isn't too much trouble," he said, polite as always, yet failed to suppress a giddy smile and blush. Who would've thought that one day he would be the one getting pampered by a big, strong Maia instead of all the expectations of courtship resting on his shoulders? 

Gothmog, lord and brother to the bane of dwarven kind, leaned closer to Ori who flinched a little. "You. Do you accept gems as payment?" 

"G-gems? Yes, certainly... uh... which ones do you have?" 

Instead of answering, Gothmog merely pointed at his gem-encrusted shoulders. Ori's eyes widened. "Oh! Yes, one of those is quite alright!" 

 ˚ ੈ✧̣̇·˖ 　˚ .　　　✶ ˚　　✦　. 　 ˚　.　　 . ★⋆. ࿐࿔　.  ˚　

"I am most grateful for your kindness, but did you have to scare the poor Dwarf like that?" Eönwë rebuked, the bobble on his head wobbling from the force of his righteous indignation. 

Gothmog took advantage of his momentary distraction to reclaim his hand and hold it as they continued their market stroll. 

"Hey. Now the little guy has a trophy for his bravery, facing the mightiest and most terrible of all Balrogs!" He chuckled to himself. "Nári would try to fight me on that, but she isn't here." 

"Thankfully so." While Eönwë feared no opponent on the battlefield, neither the bite of a Balrog's whip nor the edge of their blades, he knew to respect the sharpness of her tongue. 

"Don't let her hear that either." Gothmog looked around for other things of interest, then suddenly pointed at another stand. "Speaking of people with flaming hair, isn't that the Elf who escaped you back in the day?" 

It was indeed. The former high king of the Noldor, known as Maedhros after his time in Beleriand, was busying himself with the making of candles, carefully dipping them in wax over and over again until he was satisfied with their shape and thickness. 

"How do you even know about that?" Eönwë asked, referring to his companion's previous question. 

"Mairon told us everything," Gothmog shrugged, "and this one escaped us too. Slippery little Elf. But still just as flammable as his father."

Eönwë elbowed him warningly. "If we are to talk to him, please refrain from making such comments. And don't set anything on fire." 

"Fine." 

Maedhros appeared to be blissfully oblivious to their approach, focused on his candles as well as a certain other Noldo manning a stand close by, carving soap and exchanging the occasional glance and smile with him. Eönwë recognised Fingon, yet realised too late that this other former high king was, unfortunately, yet another victim of Gothmog in particular. 

Before he could intervene, they had already spotted each other, and a huge grin appeared on the Balrog's face. 

"Soap, huh?" 

"Would you prefer me carving something out of your horns?" Fingon retorted, managing a smile that was a little too pleasant in return. 

"You could certainly try, little Elf."

"I could indeed. You don't have your friends with you this time." 

"Enough. No more of this," Eönwë said firmly and greeted the two Noldor with a respectful nod. "May we have a look at your wonderful work?" 

"Sure. Though I am not sure what you need a candle for if you have a Balrog with you," Fingon said with a cheeky wink at Maedhros. 

"Some of them are scented," the red-haired Elf hummed, watching wax drip from the candles he was currently working on. "I suspect Balrogs are not." 

"Perfume is even more flammable than incarnates," Gothmog said lightly and walked closer to Maedhros' stand to take a whiff. "What's that supposed to be?" 

"Berries. The others are vanilla and sandalwood." 

"Ah." Gothmog continued sniffing. "Interesting." 

"Nothing you would find in Angband." 

"Heh. You know it." 

Eönwë made sure to stay close to his companion and admired the candles. 

"I didn't know this was one of your hobbies," he said. 

"He has developed quite the skill with candles and other things like them." 

Maedhros blushed furiously, and Gothmog eyed the two Elves as if there was something suspicious about the comment, though whatever hidden meaning it held was lost on the ever innocent wind spirit. 

"And you with soap it seems," Eönwë chirped happily, ignoring the awkward atmosphere, and walked over. "So many lovely scents too... may I touch these?" 

He pointed at the artfully sorted and stacked bars of soap.

"Of course."

"I've had candles, but never soap," Gothmog commented and lowered his head to sniff a green bar Eönwë had picked up for closer inspection. "What's this scent even?"

"Fir," Fingon answered. "You probably didn't have that in Angband either." 

"What's a Balrog supposed to do with a tree anyway? Turn it into firewood?" 

"Please never repeat that when Lady Yavanna is near," Eönwë chided. "Speaking of the lords and ladies though – which scent do you think would please Lord Manwë and Lady Varda, Fingon?"

"Vanilla," Gothmog snorted and proceeded to heartily laugh at his own joke while his three former and current enemies stared at him in silent disbelief. 

 ˚ ੈ✧̣̇·˖ 　˚ .　　　✶ ˚　　✦　. 　 ˚　.　　 . ★⋆. ࿐࿔　.  ˚　

"No. Absolutely not."

"Yes. Very yes." 

"Gothmog, please. How am I supposed to look anyone in the eye after this?"

"You don't have to. I could just take you home and keep you as my pet bird until the end of Arda." 

Eönwë glowered at the grinning Balrog. 

"You are not going to publicly purchase lace underwear for me," he said, slowly and empathically. "Neither I nor poor Caranthir want to have that conversation, I would imagine." 

"If that angry little Elf doesn't want to talk about lace, he shouldn't be making it," Gothmog huffed and gripped Eönwë's hand to pull him over to the stand of Caranthir who was already eyeing them with mild dismay. Unfortunately for the heroic herald, he lacked both the size and strength to prevent the inevitable embarrassment. 

"Hey you," Gothmog greeted the Noldorin prince with his usual lack of courtesy. "Do you think you have something that would look cute on my boyfriend?" 

Eönwë's sigh of exasperation caused all nearby textiles to flutter dangerously and Caranthir to stare in disbelief. 

"Manwë's herald is dating a Balrog of Morgoth?" 

"You watch what you're saying, Elf. The boss doesn't like that name," Gothmog growled before the other Maia could respond. 

Caranthir was still staring. Eönwë resisted the urge to hide his face underneath his wings and cleared his throat. "We have... become more closely acquainted." 

"That's his way of saying we're dating, yes." Gothmog smacked the counter with his free hand. "While I'm at it: Be sure tell your uncle too. Tell him that I meet up with the pretty bird to train now, and afterwards we f–" 

"Gothmog!"

"What?! Just making sure."

"You have said more than enough!" 

Caranthir blinked a few times, watching as the two Maiar turned back to face him after their brief argument. 

"You... you meant that?" 

"Yes! Need I say it again?" 

"No. Please don't." 

He cast one last glance at Eönwë who merely closed his eyes and prayed that all his embarrassment would be cleansed in Arda Healed. 

"Well..." Fighting to regain his composure, Caranthir began to look through his completed pieces. "Are you looking for anything specific?" 

Gothmog shrugged. "No idea. I don't wear underwear myself, so..." 

"Just look for... any sort of bottoms," Eönwë mumbled, the word alone causing him to blush. He didn't consider himself overly squeamish with language – at least not after all the foul words he had heard during the War of Wrath and after – but part of him feared this statement could somehow end up revealing too much. 

"Good idea, bird." Gothmog pulled him closer and rubbed his cheek against the side of his head. "I can already imagine how cute your ass would look in some nice lace panties –" 

Caranthir let out a choked noise of discomfort, but Eönwë's attention was preoccupied with something different. He had dealt with the lewd and vulgar behaviour of Melkor's servants enough times to predict what might be coming next and seized Gothmog's wrist before he could touch the part of his anatomy he was referring to. 

"Not in public," he hissed. "Or else I shall be forced to draw my sword and take your hand."

"Feisty bird." 

"I am a warrior. Never forget that." 

In the meantime, Caranthir had selected a few pieces. With an expression that spoke of defeat, the fire in his dark eyes dim, he showed a skimpy piece of soft blue fabric with white lace. 

"That one would match your hat," he commented. 

Eönwë was unsure whether it was mockery or an earnest attempt at being helpful. 

"Thank you for your trouble," he said with as much grace as he could. "Though I am not sure if you need my measurements or anything...?" 

"You could just try it on," Gothmog suggested with a gentle nudge. 

Maia and Elf alike stared at him, utterly mortified. 

 ˚ ੈ✧̣̇·˖ 　˚ .　　　✶ ˚　　✦　. 　 ˚　.　　 . ★⋆. ࿐࿔　.  ˚　

"You are terrible." 

Eönwë's tone was still accusatory, but Gothmog remained unfazed. 

"Drink, bird," he encouraged with a gentle nudge – one that would have still sent any incarnate flying, but caused only a mild rustle of feathers thanks to the smaller Maia's impeccable stance and balance. 

"Fine," Eönwë mumbled and took a sip of mulled wine, critically eyeing the beverage. The taste was more pleasant than he had anticipated, but he needed to be careful not to drink too much, lest he be seen tipsy or even drunk in the company of a Balrog. His lack of alcohol tolerance was something other Maiar, particularly those in Oromë's, Tulkas' and of course Melkor's service, liked to tease him about. 

"Hey, don't look so glum. Don't you like shopping?" Gothmog held the bag filled with various items they had acquired up with one claw, and Eönwë couldn't help chuckling lightly. Neither of them seemed like the type to enjoy a quiet marketplace stroll, but it had been surprisingly pleasant, even with the Balrog's tendency to tease and intimidate other visitors. 

"I will never hear the end of this," Eönwë lamented, though more for show than out of actual annoyance, and downed half of his cup for dramatic effect. "Buying underwear together with the Lord of Balrogs... oh the amount of questions I will have to answer." 

"I don't get why people are even wondering," Gothmog shrugged and practically inhaled his wine, causing steam to rise from his mouth and nostrils. "I mean, what's there to ask? Everyone's seen that cute ass of yours, and I bet I'm not the only one who –" 

"Enough," Eönwë hissed. Aiwendil, who had been feeding some pigeons nearby, was staring at them with wide, curious eyes, but squirrelled away when he realised he had been noticed. 

"Anyway. It's mine and I want it to look pretty." 

"If you insist." 

"Aw, birdie..." Gothmog wrapped one arm around his shoulder, and Eönwë found himself reflexively leaning against him despite his (futile) attempts at salvaging his dignity. "I was hoping that, if I get you some nice stuff for your collection, you'll be in the mood to try on those panties later... and show me how pretty you look in them..." 

"We shall see if your behaviour warrants such a reward."

"Must you always be so strict with me? And with yourself too?" 

When Eönwë looked up at his companion, surprised by his observation, Gothmog's smile was weirdly disarming. 

"Y-you need to understand that I need to maintain a certain decorum, even though I... admittedly have grown quite fond of you," he attempted to explain himself. 

Gothmog shook his head. "Eh, I'm sure they want you to believe that, but you also know we think differently. You deserve to have fun too." 

His expression shifted to a devious grin. "As do I. May I perhaps have a kiss then?" 

"In public?" Eönwë asked nervously. 

In lieu of a response, Gothmog dropped the bag, fished a mistletoe twig out of it and held it over their heads with his free hand – an easy feat thanks to his greater size. 

"See? Now we're basically socially obligated to kiss." 

"Did... did I already say you are –"

"Terrible? Yes. And smart and handsome too."

"Was this Melkor's idea?" 

"Maybe. Does it matter?" 

It didn't, and Eönwë knew just as well as Gothmog did that he tended to talk too much and ask too many questions when he was flustered. Accepting that he had been outsmarted by his fiery lover and mortal enemy, he proudly raised his head to receive a searing hot yet gentle kiss. 

taglist: @a-contemplation-upon-flowers @asianbutnotjapanese @a-world-of-whimsy-5 @bluezenzennie @edensrose @eunoiaastralwings @i-did-not-mean-to @melkors-big-tits @singleteapot @wandererindreams

[britishassistant]

We need some more octo-trio shenanigans in this house! How about this, yuu receives a coupon for half off at Mostro Lounge, they show up wanting to cash in (and looking like a total snack themselves) but once they’re seated they’re tied up and their attention is directed to the main stage, cue leviathan and Co trying to seduce the reporter through the power of bombastic musical numbers

Anonymous said: If azul ever had a song in this au I headcanon it to be either “phantom” by natewantstobattle or “poor unfortunate souls” (Jonas brothers ver.) both are equal parts rock and roll and just intimidating enough to get the message across, though for the sake of the funny rule I’d lean more towards “poor unfortunate souls” just because I can see him dragging poor yuu around while he’s singing

Thank you for the asks, dear anons!

Yuu should’ve known better.

After Azul discontinued his “frequent kidnapping” cards, Yuu should’ve known that he’d never actually give out a voucher for 50% off at the original location’s black tie evening without there being some sort of catch behind it.

But they were hungry, and short on funds, and damn it, they just want something nice to eat that doesn’t mean they have to break the bank or exhaust themselves after an already long day by cooking.

The outfit they slip into is an old standby, one that Uncle Divvy had tailored for them back when Yuu was just out of university, after a discussion about their career path and how important it is to dress for the occasion should they wind up covering a high-profile event.

Asymmetrical, form-fitting, with a matching clutch just big enough for the fedora to slide into. The ensemble pairs well with the glittering ivory-into-silver-into-black eyeshadow that Yuu spends ages perfecting the gradient on.

The reporter has to remind themselves not to feel flattered when Floyd actually does a double take when they walk in the door, that any attention from either of the twins is not attention they want if they want to have a nice, peaceful meal.

To say nothing of how their boss will react…

The maitre d’ leads Yuu to a table a reasonable distance from the entrance and the bar, takes the coupon, and brings them a cocktail they spot several other guests sipping on.

An oddly cutesy drink, brightly colored gummies in a tall glass of carbonated liquid, with a sweet, tart taste designed to mask how alcoholic it is.

They resolve to sip it sparingly, and are perusing the menu furiously, trying to work out whether they can afford to splurge on a starter or dessert with the coupon, or if they should focus on eating a filling main, when the already dim lights go out.

There are a few gasps and confused mutters from the other patrons, murmurs from the staff that there’s nothing to worry about, it’s all part of the show—

Yuu feels something cold and metallic brush their waist.

They try to leap out of their chair, get away from it—!

But it’s much too fast, wrapping around them as tightly as an octopus’ tentacles around unwilling prey, trapping their arms and legs by their sides and inducing a sense of vertigo as they’re lifted high into the air, away from where their clutch (their fedora!) is lying on the table.

The lights go up on a stage area below them, Jade sitting behind an electric keyboard while Floyd’s gone and got drums from somewhere. Other Octavinelle minions are standing with their instruments at the ready.

And, of course, Octo Dealer is standing center-stage, a microphone in front of him, wearing a sly grin.

“So lovely of you to come out tonight, my dearest reporter.” He says. “As thanks, I’d like to dedicate a little number we’ve been preparing to you.”

“Hit it!”

Needless to say, Yuu would probably be more impressed if they’d been actually allowed to eat something, before getting roped into this ridiculous song and dance number.