#using kin tags because people look at it

[academiabat]

making another post so my account is easily findable. i’m a bruce wayne fictive, primarily from gotham.

[lucalicatteart]

A new sculpture! Finally... I feel like I never sculpt anymore since I'm always sick or have some 500 other things going on or projects to finish, but I'm trying to schedule time to do it more often this year hopefully..! Just a generic fantasy creature as usual, but did try making the eyes a little more sparkly this time.. hrmm..

[makirinpana]

thinking back to 2016/2017 when love live was huge and the kin community was booming and there were tons of skype/discord networks and kin care blogs and people were at each other's throats if they were doubles. absolutely surreal time. and now, after 8 years, it feels like a total barren wasteland. it's insane. but my nyas ....... my nyas are forever.

[romeoslaughter]

tactful cropping..

[frostara]

To serve, my beloved

Cregan Stark x Karstark!Female

Synopsis: If you pray hard enough the Gods may listen in your words; or do not – they may decide what is better for you.

Wordcount: 1k

Tags: Overall fluff, female character insert as I don’t like “Reader” labels, mind you this is medieval time and character’s view on things is misogynistic and partly delusional

Notes: Well here I go, hopefully some of you will like it! I desperately lack Cregan content here so guess time to make some of my own!

Oh, to be a wife to a good man...

It had always sounded like a fever dream to her. Something that she could not reach in her position. Her husband will be same to her kin - bitter and harsh on tongue, not someone who would love her or their kids, perhaps. She would be stuck with him, and mistake her not, she tried to look upon her future, finding hope that she would love her kids and husband, but, evil thoughts would still come back.

Thus it felt like a blessing from Old Gods when Astrid's father, lord Karstark, took her to Lady's Summons in year 125. Lady of ten and five years was given a chance for a life bettered by the will of Gods. At first, she felt trully amazed, faces and pictures dancing vividly in her head as she tried to portray what would it be like in Winterfell? What things would lay upon her gaze and who would she meet?

Her father made sure that she would be educated on story of the house they had served for many years and it's head - Lord of Winterfell. Listening to the stories, she knew he was a real man, someone to take rulement in his hands and be a true leader, a man who would have thousands following him. Her father would tell her about Starks with so much proud, not forgetting to mention the ancestory they shared.

-Fret not, my girl, conduct yourself with honor and do not forget that we are of the winter sun.

And Astrid listened. When she reached Winterfell after all the days in travel, she could not hide away relief that soon changed for worry - the time had come. All the things she was taught and saw with her eyes were put to use by her. She smiled at people, tried to talk to many and get to know this place. Her father indeed was an example to follow along the teachings of her lady-in-waiting.

But could anyone prepare her for the man when she saw him? Lord Cregan looked like a real wolf in man's skin: dark hair and eyes black like burnt wood in fireplace with furs wrapped around him, or rather, sitting on him like a trophy of a freshly killed animal. Perhaps, wisperers were true. Once he was a boy that killed his uncle, now was of tough kind. His features were heavy with shadows that danced on his face. Astrid thought of how she would look standing in the place beside him - hair of wood colour and eyes of cold water in a river. Mayhaps, she was a match to him.

She in fact was. Were it the other lords or masters or Cregan himself, but he did look at her. And was pleased with her company, as Astrid was later told, because the look on his face was hard to read, and she was worried of herself. Nonetheless, three weeks after the Summon through wich she was in Winterfell, a wedding ceremony was soon to be prepared. She had quite some time to meet people who were serving here as well as some other nobles or rather their children. What really caught her eye was the weirwood tree.

She knew that it had some remnants of ancient wisdom in it. It’s red leaves and face – mesmerising look. Astrid came to it with wary at first, as if she was invading a sacred place and putting a dark spot on it. She only had enough courage to look at it. Then, she dared to touch it and beg for some advice. In hopes that Gods would answer her she would sit or stand there, trying to realise what awaits for her.

The day she was dressed in furs, with hair combed and heart full of excitement mixed with anxiety was she standing in front of him. They only met a couple of times and there still was a lot she wanted to know about Cregan. He looked like he knew it all: what is it like to take a wife and create a family; to be the Warden of the North and the Wolf. Astrid thought they will have lots of moons for him to share his knowledge and to ask each other questions.

And as for now, as his cold lips would be on hers and his hands will wrap around her she will stay quiet – words are left for later.

[damn-stark]

Chapter 10 Heart of Ice

Chapter 10 of Moonlight

A/N- I was giggling and kicking my feet tehehe ;)

Warning- some swearing, talks of miscarriage and death, ANGST!, FLUFF, mild NFSW, SPOILERS, LONG CHAPTER.

Pairing- Aemond Targaryen x Velaryon!fem-reader, Cregan Stark x Velaryon!fem-reader

Episode- 2x01

(If you want to be tagged let me know)

————

There it is, standing so tall that it looks like it’s touching the sky. It’s mesmerizing no matter how many times you’ve seen it, and it never fails to steal your breath.

Yet the wall is at its prettiest when it weeps when the sun hits it just as it rises from the ground. Right now all it does is bring forth an icier chill as the wind blows, making you hold onto your cloak for warmth.

You can only imagine how Jacaerys is fairing, this is his first time at Castle Black.

“How are you holding up?” You make sure to ask your brother as his eyes stay stuck on the towering wall.

“My balls are about to freeze off,” he makes no effort to talk properly in front of you, nor do you remind him to.

You smile at him and look at him with a soft endearment only reserved for those you deeply cherish. “It will be worth it, I promise. I cannot wait for you to see it,” you muse and cup his shoulder.

Jacaerys finally takes his eyes off the wall and meets your gaze with such a warm smile that it’s capable of melting the thickest sheets of ice.

“It better live up to everything you have said,” he remarks lightheartedly, making you drop your head to laugh softly at the ground.

“It will pass your expectations,” Cregan interjects as he finally rejoins you and leads the way to the lift that looks a bit unreliable, but all the people at Castle Black use it, and you have survived after using it so, you walk in. Slowly of course, and you don’t dare pay too much attention to the sounds it makes as it starts moving Jacaerys, Cregan, and you to the top.

“You know,” you take the attention of the rackety noise. “Perhaps one day I will send one of my children over here to take up a role as guardian of the wall.”

“Is that so?” Cregan probes.

“One of your seven?” Jacaerys jokes and you laugh softly but don’t take back what you said, catching him by some surprise.

“It’s a rare thing for a Targaryen or Velaryon to come be a brother of the Night's Watch,” you explain your thought process to the curious men. “But we are the families the people look up to. I mean I understand the sacrifice, but I believe that for us to have a good relation with the North, and for us to protect our realm against what may be out there, we too should be here with a dragon or two.”

Cregan briefly meets your gaze and hides well those emotions you stir up inside since your brother is standing at his other side, but he doesn’t stay quiet, he takes a deep breath before he parts his lips.

“You are right, the sacrifice one must commit is great, but duty is sacrifice,” Cregan begins to say. “It eclipses all things, even blood. All men of honor must pay its price. The North owes a great duty to the Seven Kingdoms, one older than any oath. Since the day of the first men, we have stood as guardians against the cold and the dark. Through its long tradition, the Night's Watch cultivated its strength from doomed men who had their life as their only possession. But my ancestor, Torrhen Stark began a tradition by making an offering at the onset of winter; one in 10 men from our household was to be chosen to fortify the Watch. This is not a sentence but an honor. A duty embraced by all who serve the North. Even by mine own kin. Thus I respect your decision, My Princess.”

He talks so well that even these long comments captivate you, and that’s hard to do because you get so easily bored.

“The North must stand ready,” Cregan adds without losing a breath. “Winter is coming.”

“Coming?” Jacaerys interjects. “What is this, then, that falls from the skies and shivers my bones?”

You roll your eyes away and scoff softly.

He thinks he’s so funny.

“This is only a late summer snow, my prince,” Cregan says something he’s already mentioned once before. “In winter, it will cover all you see and all memories of warmth will be forgotten.”

You look through the gaps on the wooden walls but the lift then shakes so you step back and stand closer to Cregan.

“It pleases me to think that over a century ago our ancestors treated in this very place,” Jacaerys mentions with a lighthearted look on his face. “The Conqueror and the King in the North.”

You can’t help but smile at the thought and the history the Starks share with your ancestors. It’s so bittersweet. But it’s all so corny of Jacaerys to say, he sounds just as infatuated as you.

You would tease him, but now doesn’t seem like the time so you just smile wider to yourself.

Cregan’s gaze wanders to you after your brother's words, and you share some of that sweetness with him because regardless of it all, you are happy Jacaerys expressed his fondness for Cregan.

And when Cregan does see your smile some of that hardened demeanor melts.

“You, at least had the mercy not to threaten me with your dragon,” Cregan quips at your brother jokingly, leaving him silent until he queries.

“Did my sister threaten you with her dragon?”

Does he think of you as some wild beast or something?

Regardless, Cregan's eyes soften before he shakes his head and tells him what you did do. “No, but she did threaten to go over the wall and escape when she first got to Winterfell six years ago.” He says and tilts his head over to you, but you look out the window and shake your head.

“I was having a hard time adjusting,” you remind him. “And I did not end up going over the wall.”

“No,” he mutters softer as if speaking with admiration. “You did not.”

You lift your eyes off the icy wall and let yourself meet and hold his gaze with a soft look just until the lift finally lands on the top because when it comes to a sudden halt the wooden lift shakes, and you’re reminded why you hate coming to the top this way—You almost reach out to Cregan to keep yourself balanced and safe, but you stop yourself and just stand stiffly until finally he opens the door for you and your brother, letting you feel like you can breathe again when you’re on stable ground.

“My Prince, My Princess,” one of the brothers greets you while you slip your arm around your brothers to hold onto more warmth as the coldness nips at your skin.

“My Lord.”

“My Lord,” other brothers greet Cregan while he walks after you until finally he catches up and leads you to one side.

“Surely the great Torrhen Stark would’ve sooner died than bent the knee,” you chose to return to the previous topic as you watch Jacaerys’ eyes fall on every single detail you pass by. “Unless he believed the Conqueror could bring unity to the Seven Kingdoms.”

Cregan nods. “You are right in that,” he agrees.

“That unity is now threatened,” Jacaerys goes on for you with another clever workaround to the subject at hand. “The realm will soon tear itself apart if men do not remember the oaths sworn to King Viserys and to his rightful heir.”

Again you can’t help but be proud of the way he speaks. But you also know this second attempt won’t mend Cregan Stark’s choice.

“Stark’s do not forget their oaths, my Prince,” Cregan reminds him proudly. “But you must know that my gaze is forever torn between North and South.”

Jacaerys glances over at you with discreet disappointment, and you press him an, ‘I told you so’ look right back.

“In winter, my duty to the Wall is even more dire than the one I owe to King’s Landing,” Cregan strengthens his argument. “I need my men here.”

You swallow thickly as you come to a halt just under a post, and Jacaerys turns you around with him to pass Cregan a hard look that furrows his eyebrows. “Whilst your men guard against wildlings and weather the Hightowers plan to usurp the throne,” he remarks.

You grip onto him as a warning for him to calm down, but he doesn’t understand.

“If my mother is to defend her claim,” Jacaerys presses while Cregan guides all of you up the stairs. “To hold the realm united she needs an army. War is coming to the whole of the realm, my lord. We cannot wage it without the support of the North…” Jacaerys trails off when he reaches the top and finally sees with his own eyes the never-ending land beyond the wall, the beauty that you promised, and what you could never fully describe in words.

He moves toward the end of the post and you let your arm slip off his to let him admire for himself the beauty and the mystery that is the North, and the freedom it holds in its cold wilderness.

You can now honestly say you know the pride Cregan felt when he first brought you up here because you feel it. You are not from here, but seeing your brother be so captivated by what’s beyond the wall makes you fill with excitement that you can’t put into words, you can just express it with admiration and awe in your eyes.

Cregan notices and admires you while your brother's attention is far away, and to his surprise, you feel his stare and return his soft gaze while you also let your gloved knuckles brush against each other as you let yourself be swooped up once again by the comfort you have been fighting to feel.

Yet you don’t let yourself get completely carried away, nor do you cross the line by letting your fingers touch, you keep your smile and join your brother's side.

“Was it everything you expected?” You ask before you’re brought back to the cruel reality.

Jacaerys laughs softly and nods. “It was everything you said and more…it feels like I could stay here and admire this forever.”

“It would get cold,” you joke, making him chuckle.

“It would be pleasant,” he murmurs.

You nod in agreement and dread returning to the sore subject, but you will lose yourself.

“I brought your sister, and my father brought King Jaehaerys and Queen Alysanne to see the Wall,” Cregan finally rejoins your company. “His Grace stood at this very outlook and watched as their dragons the greatest power in the world, refused to cross it.”

Jacaerys snaps his head to you and probes for more. “Even adventurous Astraea?”

You look out and nod. “Yes. She perches herself on the wall but never once does she fly over, nor does she dare fly over just to turn. I tried to command her to cross but she disobeyed me,” you back up Cregan's argument and feel a chill crawl down your spine at the reminder.

“Do you think my ancestors built a 700-hundred-foot wall of ice to keep out snow and savages?” Cregan presses your brother in a colder tone that almost works to frighten you.

“What does it keep out?” Jacaerys asks.

Cregan leans in closer to your brother and speaks one word. “Death.”

You swallow back nervously and share your uneasiness with your brother with a simple look that actually helps him let go of some of that tension and ignorance he held.

“I have thousands of graybeards,” Cregan finally offers and breaks the speechless moment between Jacaerys and you. “Who've already seen too many winters. They are well-honed.”

You loll your head to the side and snicker, while Jacaerys says what you were thinking. “So they’re old?”

“I can ready them to march at once,” Cregan assures him and you.

Jacaerys breathes out and accepts the offer. “If your graybeards can fight, the Queen will have them.”

“They will fight hard,” Cregan states with a hint of pride and some faint smugness. “Like Northerners.”

You glance over at him and catch that smugness on his usually serious face and you can’t help your heart from skipping a beat when he glances at you with the same look.

“My Lord,” a man calls for Cregan’s attention, making his face fall hard once again. “A ravens arrived.”

The man approaches the post breathing hard as if in a hurry and hands Cregan a scroll. “Urgent news from Dragonstone,” he announces, making you understand his urgency, and causing you to fall serious and nervous yourself.

But if it is bad news wouldn't it be sent directly to Jacaerys and you?

Maybe?

Unless—

You can’t let yourself think the worst, but you still share your worry with your brother before you watch Cregan unravel the scroll to read what the news is.

He doesn’t take long to read, but it feels like he is reading for eternity in the waiting silence until finally he puts the scroll down and meets your gaze. This time when you lock eyes your heart skips a beat out of worry instead of awe, this time a smugness doesn’t play in his eyes or tug the corner of his lips up, his eyebrows are furrowed and his jaw is clenched like when he makes his face hard, but you can read him clear as day as you simply hold his gaze.

You can see the pity pulling his lips down, and a soft apologetic look in his grey eyes that makes them appear darker. He doesn’t need to say anything for you to know that what he read wasn’t a simple warning or a call home, they’re dark words that he almost but says.

You want to ask, he knows that, he sees your worry heighten in your furrowed brows and parted lips, so with a simple blink his face softens as he gives you sorrow, making your eyes immediately cloud with tears. While in the back, Jacaerys sees it, your shared past. He figures it out in the exchange that is far more complex than one friends should share, but it all makes sense now.

Your friendship always slightly caught his attention, it bugged him in some way. Not because he felt bad for Aemond that you were so sweet on another man, but all your interactions were always weird he just didn’t figure out why until this very moment as Cregan fails to look over at him after what he read, as he watches this speechless interaction and sees the deep aching softness on the Lord's face and a deep set heartache in your eyes.

He had only seen such a speechless complexity in his mother and Ser Harwin. He was too young to realize it then but as he got older he understood what happened around him, and doesn’t fail to understand now.

Yet as much as he wants to give into this anger he feels boil within him at the thought of Lord Stark taking advantage of you in your five years in Winterfell, the news that awaits him helps him stay collected. Thus he steps forward without causing a scene and finally, Lord Stark drives all the attention to him, letting him finally receive the scroll, and leave you waiting longer without focusing on Cregan any longer. Now you turn to face your brother as he reads what was sent.

Once again it feels like what was written is getting read at an infuriatingly slow pace, but now you’re not impatient to know. You’re scared to know or read Jacaerys' face now. But you keep your eyes on your brother and watch his jaw unclench and his lips part to let out a soft gasp, while his once steady hands begin to tremble, and his eyes…water.

“Jacaerys,” you almost plead his name out.

That anger he had at the waiting completely disappears and he slowly looks up at you with a loud and heartbreaking sorrow.

“Jace,” you mewl.

Said man licks his lips and sniffles before he grabs your arm and gently pulls you aside.

“Listen to me,” his voice quivers and only makes your heart race faster than it’s already beating.

“Is it…” you trail off to catch your breath. “A-Aerion?”

Jacaerys shakes his head and keeps in those tears that fill his eyes. “No, Aerion is fine,” he assures you but you don’t feel relieved.

“What?” You beg for an answer and reach for his hands, but he lifts them and tucks loose strands of hair behind your ear.

“When,” he says shakily. “Lucerys was in StormsEnd, Aemond…”

You start to shake your head and his bottom lip trembles.

“Aemond killed Lucerys,” Jacaerys finally reveals quietly.

A cold breeze hits you and all that you had been feeling gets lost in the wind, leaving you numb.

Jacaerys calls your name but you stare ahead blankly. Theres nothing that crosses your mind, there’s nothing you feel that makes you react. You know it’s heavy and painful news, you knew they were dark words when Cregan told you speechlessly, but you can’t accept the truth that’s given. You don’t want to, you can’t because if you do then it means you will accept that your husband, the man you love…did what was written, and you don’t want to accept that.

However, Jacaerys calls out for you again and this time he grabs your arms and steals your attention, forcing you to once again connect to what you refused to feel.

“No,” you blurt and push him back. “You’re lying. You’re a liar.”

Jacaerys shows you the scroll as he gets close again. “You can read it yourself. It’s the truth, Lucerys…he’s,” he strains to say. “He’s…dead.”

Your heart drops and a flood of emotions rams through you, knocking the air out of your lungs, and making your legs weak.

Jacaerys grabs your arms and holds you up before you can fall and pulls you to him, letting you see how red his eyes are, and how drowned they are with tears he’s holding back.

“Jace,” you mewl and cover your mouth to sob.

Your brother nods in understanding without you having to express the rest of your sorrow. “I know,” he whispers. “I know.”

“Oh gods,” you gasp and drop your head while grabbing at your chest as you can’t seem to catch a breath. You can’t breathe. There’s so much air where you are, it’s so crisp but you can’t manage to take in any which in return only lets you feel the pounding of your heart, the rushing of your blood, and a rush of memories of your little brother Lucerys.

All you can think about is Lucerys, you imagine his last moments, and with every memory and every fake scenario the more you fail to grasp for air.

In the distance, Cregan watches how you’re breaking down, but no matter how much he wants to, he has to stay put even if it hurts not being able to help you when you need him the most. He does get close to trying something small since you are in so much pain trying to breathe, and your brother seems a bit lost on how to help you, but Jacaesys then does the first thing he thinks of and pulls you into an embrace.

Thankfully right away, at the feeling of your brother's weight, and at the feeling of his warmth, all those rushing memories slowly disappear, letting you draw in a deep breath. You pull him closer and bury your head in the crook of his neck whilst you wrap your hand around the back of his neck, and push his head down to let him bury his face on your shoulder so he can express everything he refuses to show to the public.

When he clutches onto the back of your cloak your heart comes to a slow pace, but it doesn’t stop weeping. With every ba-dum, you feel an aching pain in your chest that doesn’t go away.

Eventually, after a short time, Jacaerys pulls back and gives his back to Cregan to wipe away his tears before facing him with a sorrow that isn’t able to wipe off. “We need to go, my Lord. You’ll have to forgive us for not accompanying you back to Winterfell, but with our dragons here we need to make haste to return to Dragonstone.”

You grab at your chest and gently caress it as if that would cure you’re heartache while Jacaerys shares something you agree to without the need for a discussion.

Albeit Cregan is the one who protests. “It will get dark soon, why do you not wait until first light to take flight? Wait until you both have collected yourselves so you don't do anything rash in the heat of the moment.”

You shake your head and interject in a broken voice. “The storm won’t pass, Lord Stark. We’ll just face it head-on and leave, our mother needs us.”

Cregan steps forward, gaining a brief glance from you. “Just eat, and rest…I know the pain of losing a brother, I understand your grief, my heart is with you,” he tries to relate so you would listen. “I have lost many others too, I know the anger, please just let yourselves calm down before you return home. I will stay with you here.”

You know your brother too, you know how angry he can get. You know that once your grief really settles you’ll also start thinking of what happened and you’ll get upset too. Thus you don’t hurry to answer, you look at your brother and he looks at you. And without a word, you come to the same conclusion.

“All right,” Jacaerys says for the both of you. “We will stay, but leave at first light. Thank you, my Lord.”

——

*LATER*

Nothing makes sense.

Why? How?

Those questions are what runs around and around in your head accompanied by different terrifying scenarios that could’ve led to the act. A lot of it points to an accident, you want to believe in your heart of hearts that what…Aemond did was an accident. You don’t want to believe that this remorse got the best of him, he’s supposed to be better, he’s supposed to keep it in for your sake.

He knows how much you love your brothers, he knows he can hate them all he wants, but he can’t hurt them. And yes! You know that war was going to happen no matter what, and violence was going to be dragged in between your families, but Aemond went out of his way to…kill Lucerys when all he was was an envoy.

He killed your brother. Your husband killed your brother, and in turn, betrayed you in the worst way possible. He tore your heart out, and what hurts more is that he hasn’t said what he did in the multiple ravens he’s sent! Just like always, he never tells you a thing!

What are you supposed to believe, but the worst? You want to believe he’s good behind all that hard demeanor, you defend him against your family when they say something bad because you want to believe he has a good heart, but what does killing Lucerys prove? That you’ve been wrong all along?

Gods!

Damn it! Why did he have to do it? Why did he take Lucerys?

A knock raps on your door, but you’re so drowned in your heartache that you don’t hear the sound. It’s not until you hear your name being called out softly behind that door that you almost wake up from your stupor.

“It is I, Cregan,” he announces without the need to, you knew who he was the moment he uttered the first word. “Can I talk to you? You didn’t come for supper.”

You blink repeatedly to relieve the dry spell in your eyes after not blinking for a few seconds and clutch onto the ring you were fiddling with before you get up and unlock the door. You don’t proceed to say anything, you walk away from the door and stand against the fireplace, but Cregan takes the unlocked door as an invitation and walks in, finding your food untouched, you in your nightgown, and your head down.

“I came to check on you,” he says softly as if careful not to hurt you even more with his voice. When he gets no response or even a small breath, he walks in further and notices now how unkempt you are; you’re usually so precise with the way you keep yourself, you always look so clean and tidy, it was only in the morning when you first woke up that he would catch you off guard, but now it’s like you don’t care how you look.

“I hope you are not going to bed with your hair down like that,” he tries to be lighthearted. “You hate having your hair tangled in the morning.”

He waits for a reaction, a soft ‘oh’, but you stay quiet and it just deepens his concern.

“Darling,” he uses your pet name and you finally break from your stupor and turn partially to face him.

He expected a sweet look just out of instinct, but those usually wonder-filled eyes are clouded by agony and tears that can’t even fall down your cheeks anymore; while the fires fierce light brings clarity to your deep set frown, knitted brows, and puffy face worn out from crying.

“Here,” he breathes out and catches a gleam coming from in between your fingers. When he fills his curiosity he notices that the firelight is dancing on a sapphire ring you cannot stop fiddling with in between your fingers; a ring he had not seen you take off once since he saw you. Which must mean your husband gave it to you.

He doesn’t want to ask for many reasons, so he approaches you from behind and gently starts braiding your hair in silence you cannot seem to fill. It’s almost like there was no one inside your body, you were a hollow body left soulless.

“I understand why you locked your door,” he mentions in hopes that would get him a simple reaction. “However, it does not seem necessary, your dragons are restless and it stirs up fear in the brothers. And I am here as well.”

Your back raises as you draw in a deep breath, but rather than filling the silence with a dry response, or some remark, you just breathe out, making him steal a glance at the side of your face that he can see from behind you, before he pulls out the leather strip that keeps half of his hair out of his face to keep your own braid in place instead. He then proceeds to shuffle to your side to grab your arm.

“Sit down, Princess.” He commands softly.

You don’t fight him, you let him guide you down to your seat, and once he’s feeding the fire more wood your hoarse voice finally fills the room.

“I should have gone back to King's Landing…A—He sent me a raven the day after when my grandsire the King died. He didn’t tell me of course, but he told me to go back…I should have listened, I…” you pause to catch your breath. “Maybe then Lucerys…” you trail off and whimper whilst you drop your head in your hands.

Cregan leaves the last piece of wood in the fire and then wipes his hands on his shirt while he stands up to close the gap between you.

“Don't,” he says firmly and crouches down in front of you to grab your hands and pull them down so you can meet his gaze. “Do not blame yourself for your brother's death. What happened is not your fault to carry. What happened is dealt with, don’t dwell on things that can no longer happen.”

You hold his gaze while you process his words for a second and then look down at the ring you still hold.

“I’m sorry,” he says sorrowful words that bring your heart some comfort, but also make your body tremble while those tears that you once couldn’t muster, come rushing down your already stained cheeks.

Nothing else is spoken, and nothing is asked of either of you, but out of instinct your arms slip around his neck, and he returns the embrace and follows you to your feet where he keeps holding you and lets you cry on his shoulder; for hours? For a few seconds? You don’t know, you dwell in his comfort that you missed and relish in it until you stop crying.

He probably should have been the one to pull away, but he doesn’t complain, not once. He lets you pull back on your own time, and even then he grabs your arms to keep you close so he can cup your cheeks and caress them for a final piece of comfort to your aching heart.

Yet that proves to be a mistake because as you linger in his proximity, your eyes fall on his lips and you’re overwhelmed with a passion-filled heat that pushes your lips against his.

At first, Cregan is so stunned by the warmth of your lips on his, and then he’s taken by the excitement of feeling your lips reconnecting that he closes his eyes and kisses you back, but when his lust begins to rush through his blood he pulls back and groans.

“No,” he shakes his head and slides his hands down your face to grab your shoulders, leaving a burning trail down your skin. “You are married. No matter what happened you are still married, and you’re grieving.”

You want to forget your pain for a moment and be consumed by the comfort, bliss, and excitement he provides, but he’s also right. And how can you do that to Aemond…

But…

Maybe you don’t care if it hurts him because he hurt you. He won’t know either way—But you will know, you will know that it’s something that can hurt him, and you…don’t care. But Cregan…is right.

“I’m sorry,” you throw out and step away from him, feeling a chill hit those parts of you that he kept warm with his touch—“you are right. I’m sorry.”

Cregan turns away and swallows back thickly, feeling somewhat disappointed that he has to turn down this heat of the moment. “Perhaps I shall bid you a goodnight now.”

You swallow back to hide your disappointed sigh and nod. “Yes, goodnight Cregan.”

Said man avoids looking at you when he turns. It makes it easier to walk away from you. But when his hand touches the door handle he doesn’t turn it to open it, he stands there frozen with his back turned to you as he feels his honor start to slip.

He turns his head but doesn’t peek over right away, he fights himself but quickly falters when he feels the ghost of your wet lips haunting his. And when he fully looks back and sees the shadow of your sculpted figure in your white nightgown his inner battle is lost. He only proves his loss by locking the door and turning completely to face you, turning around as well.

“Cregan?” You query, puzzled by his presence.

Said man draws out a deep breath before he strides back to you with determination in his step and surprises you by grabbing your face the moment he can. You want to utter his name, but a small gasp is all that goes past your lips whilst you drop the ring that Aemond had gifted you.

“I pride myself in my honor,” he says while his eyes flicker between your parted lips and your shocked gaze. “But when it comes to you it’s turned to ash, nothing stops me from wanting you, from…” he trails off and leans forward, but you don’t allow your lips to touch. You shift your head away, but he follows you to keep your breaths unfurling over each other's lips.

“…desiring you in every way a gentleman shouldn’t. I burn for you when you’re far, and even when I dream of you. It is wrong.” He nods, and you nod too without much effort. “But you are my weakness, you have always been my weakness. You’re my joy, the reason I laugh, and also the reason I don’t march to King's Landing and bring you to Winterfell to make you mine,” he whispers against your lips, making a smile make an appearance on your saddened face.

“Tell me this is wrong, tell me to leave now,” he tells you and drags his eyes up to meet yours so you can know he’s being serious. “And I will. I will leave your chambers and when morning comes I’ll bid you farewell with no remorse and as nothing more than friends.”

As if being hypnotized to his lips you lean forward, but only let your lips brush, leaving your heart pounding as it screams for you to connect.

“I still have to leave,” you make it known while you gently cup his jaw to touch some part of him. “I have to return to Dragonstone no matter what.”

Cregan’s eyebrows pinch together and he hesitates before he nods. “I understand,” he mutters and glances at your lips again. “But that doesn’t change a thing if you tell me to leave.”

You should. You're still married even if Aemond betrayed you by killing your brother. And deep deep down a lot of your conflict comes because you don’t know if you did stop loving the man who killed your brother, but that reason is also why you want to give in to your deepest burning desire.

That reason is why you’re selfish and don’t resist Cregan or stop your heart from swooning at his confession.

“Don’t leave,” is all he needs to hear to smile widely before he finally feeds your desire by kissing you slowly, fueling that passionate heat that completely takes over your body, and leaving you still and breathless for a moment as you relish in the sweet taste of his soft lips melting with yours, guiding your every movement, and driving you mad with lust.

You had forgotten this dream-like feeling, you had forgotten how fast he makes your heart race when he’s kissing you, and you forgot how hot you burn when his fingers explore the perimeters of your body. Furthermore, you forgot how eager he can get until you feel his grip on the back of your gown.

You pull away quickly and protest. “No, no, wait, do not rip it.”

Cregan fingers loosen and you start to giggle. “Why do you always want to rip my gowns?” You bring up, making his lips lift to a smirk.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers between heavy breaths.

You press a kiss on his lips and then tell him, “gently.”

He breathes out deeply and nods once before he slides his fingers back to the ribbon tying your gown together, and slowly begins to untie it while you drift your lips to kiss the corner of his mouth, and then kiss his jaw before you graze your lips up and kiss the corner of his jaw.

Cregan lets out a groan from the back of his throat, making you feel chills grow on your skin.

“I hate all these layers,” he musters while you continue to leave a trail of kisses down to his neck. “They are so infuriating.”

You smile against his neck, causing you to feel his nails dig in your skin.

“It keeps me warm,” you tell him and lick a stripe up to his lips. “Your North is cold, my Lord.”

Cregan clenches his jaw and shakes his head. “A little less with your presence,” he completely wins you over, making you grin and look at him in awe.

“I missed you,” he finally lets himself confess to you. “My darling love.”

You sigh and whisper back. “I missed you too.”

His eyes gleam brighter and that short absence is filled once again with your lips while he finally slips off your gown, leaving you under a simple sheer gown that he slips off with ease.

“You’re beautiful,” he says with awe, and his eyes dark with lust.

“It’s no fair,” you argue between kisses and slowly drag your hands down to help him pull off his layers. “And you say I wear a lot of layers,” you comment, making him scoff.

You finally end up pulling the last one off and throw it to the side mindlessly as you’re captivated by his toned torso and those thick arms that he unfairly hides under all those garments.

“Kiss me,” you command in a voice oozing with honey.

“Gladly,” is all he says before capturing your face to smash his lips on yours and this time make out more roughly as he’s filled with a much more hungry need.

Your own need lets you multitask by unbuckling his pants and tugging on them so he can pull them off in the brief pause you have between devouring each other. Yet when his member is out for you to see, you take a moment to admire how girthy and hard it is, and how perfect every vein is on his length.

You can’t help but start to go on your knees, but he grabs your bicep and pulls you back up to drift you away from that need.

“No,” he says out of breath and instead wraps his arms around you, and presses his lips on your neck to start leaving wet kisses on your flesh while he also slides his hands down your body, making you shiver at the feeling of his warm hands caressing you gently.

Without lifting his mouth off your neck he drifts his hand behind your knee, and with no explanation, he pulls your leg up to help you climb up and wrap your legs around his waist so he can walk you back to the edge of the bed, and gently put you down.

Once you’re lying on your back he pulls back but leans down to press his hands beside your head, and simply hold your gaze with this endearing look that makes his eyes smile.

“I'm going inside you,” he warns you, making you shiver and swallow thickly as you already imagine the stretch. “You need to be quiet.”

You part your lips but utter nothing, instead, you lift your head and he responds by giving you what you wanted, a deep kiss, while he grabs his length and aligns himself with your hole. When his tip touches you you gasp and he grins before taking your lips again to distract you while he slowly penetrates you.

Albeit the stretch is so wonderful and filling that you claw your nails on his back and scratch his back as he keeps going in deeper. Once all the way inside he finally pulls his face back to whisper. “You were made for me. You belong with me.”

You don’t respond with words, you cup his cheeks and brush strands of his hair behind his ears before you slide your hand to the back of his neck to gently pull him down. “Cregan make me yours,” you finally fill the silence, feeling as if his cock hardens even more before he finally starts moving his hips, filling you with a blinding ecstasy that heightens this passionate moment, and makes you only think about him and the pleasure he feels and gives you. You forget your sorrows and the grudge. You forget the war and the responsibilities you have.

You’re selfish in the lust-filled night and remain ignorant even before it's time to get out of bed. You just relish in Cregan's presence for a bit longer.

“Cregan…” you whisper, and the man hums in response letting you sigh before you share what’s been bothering you. “I do not like that I am the reason you disregard your honor. I do not like putting you through that.”

The hand on your back stops moving and a small huff rolls out of his nose. “I think it’s late to start thinking about that.”

You blink repeatedly with discontent and abruptly sit up to face him. “I am not jesting,” you press sharply. “I’m being serious. You hold your honor in high regard, I hate to be the one who makes it falter.”

A faint smile tugs on his lips without regard to your comment before he leans forward and assures you. “I have my honor, I never forget it, but I love you more. I’m being selfish without disregarding everything to be it. I know how to hold myself back,” he says firmly and cups your cheek to bring you closer to him. “I know where I stand, I am just choosing to have a taste of happiness. You, my darling, are my happiness.”

Your eyes water and your heart swoons, there’s nothing you can say that would measure up to the kind things he just said, all you can do is press a lingering kiss on his warm lips before you lay your head down on his chest, and hold onto him like he’s your security blanket.

“I…could offer you and your Aerion refuge here,” he offers and makes your pounding heart hurt.”

“Here? In Castle Black?” You tease without sounding too amused.

Cregan scoffs and starts to caress your arm. “Not here. In Winterfell,” he clarifies without a hint of falter at the mention of your son who is fathered by someone else who does bring him pangs of jealousy every time he remembers you’re married, and when he hears his name. “I would make sure no one could touch you and your boy there. He wouldn’t have to grow up around so much violence and you would not have to worry.”

You tilt your head down to kiss his shoulder before you give his offer an answer. “It's a nice offer, but my place is not hiding in a cage like some frightened bird. My place is out there, with my mother, with my brother, and the rest of my family fighting with the dragon I have. My mother needs me and I don’t want to leave her alone.”

Cregan doesn’t interject with anything, his chest rises and slowly falls back down, letting you know your response slightly wounded him.

“Instead of having her husband with her when she lost my sister,” you begin to say quieter but filled with frustration. “Daemon was out leading her council. I was the one who held her when she cradled my sister's lifeless body. I…have to be there for her now.”

“I understand,” he doesn’t falter to assure you. “But you must know if you ever find yourself needing somewhere to go, Winterfell is yours. You and your son are welcome.”

You lift your head off him to face him in the little space left between you. “I will always remember that. Thank you,” you say from the bottom of your heart.

A smile twitches on his serious face, and he proceeds to press a feathered kiss on your lips before he grins and says. “Sing for me? Just for me.”

You giggle and gently smack his shoulder. “No,” you answer bluntly and lay back down basically on him.

“Why not?” He chuckles. “It's not like you have to fear enchanting me with your song, you already have.”

You roll your eyes. “Shut up. Anyway!” You change the subject. “I was supposed to stop writing to you. I had already planned it.”

Cregan sighs and his chin rests on the top of your head. “I know,” he mutters. “You stopped writing as much as you would recently.”

Your smile falls but you grow desperate and hopeful. “But…you will answer me when I write to you in the weeks to come, right?”

He shrugs and interjects. “If that’s what you want, I will.”

You nod softly. “I do.”

You lift yourself up again to face him so he knows you’re being sincere. “I do.”

He grabs your cheek and his eyes soften. “Are you frightened?” He makes sure to ask.

You swallow thickly and shake your head. “No. Nervous, but not scared.”

He smirks and slides his hand down to caress your chin. “That’s my girl. You know how to fight, use that.” He tells you.

You laugh nervously. “I’ve never had to actually use my skill for violence.”

Your swordsmanship and your skills with archery were never for the intent of being some warrior, you like the idea of being like Queen Visenya Targaryen, and Princess Alyssa, but mostly your need to be trained with a sword and with archery was because you took it as a challenge. They said you couldn’t have it and you challenged them. Thus now that you’re having to face this war and the potential of having to use your skill, you’re honestly quite nervous.

You’ve never admitted that. You don’t want to admit it to anyone but him so they don't feel like you aren’t reliable.

“It won’t be easy,” Cregan says the truth. “But when you face your enemy, do not hesitate. Think quickly but be smart and do not let them gain the upper hand. You have a dragon, use her, and you have skill, good skill. Use it.”

You let out a shaky breath and nod in comprehension. He offers you a gentle smile and pulls you down to press his forehead against yours.

“You must know I will wait for you. Just a while longer.”

Asking what will happen after a while passes scares you, so you leave it be and just give him an honest response. “If fate ends up letting me choose, I will finally come home to you.”

He flashes you a charming smile that eases that worry in your heart and only works to sink you further down into this little escape.

“Now,” he coos against your lips. “Will you sing for me?”

You roll your eyes with a flattered smile featured on your face before you pull away to lay back on his chest and finally do as he asks of you as a parting gift where there aren't multiple people watching you, and pushing you down to hide or pretend that you’re nothing more than friends. You sing him a song for only him to hear before you take your leave and face reality once again.

——

*SOMETIME LATER. DRAGONSTONE*

What good is actually facing reality? Facing a dead beloved brother, and the fact that it was someone who you loved that killed him?

Dragonstone is a painful reminder of what happened while you were away. Only now that pain in your heart is tenfold and you don’t think anyone can actually know the pain that plagues you. Who can truly understand what it is you carry? No one is married to the man who killed Lucerys. They can hate him with ease, but you?

You want to despise him, you fought yourself the entire flight back to Dragonstone to hate him and view him as another enemy, to view him like you view Aegon, but as much as you think you hate him, your heart fights hard to try and tell a different tale. And that’s what makes it worse.

Thus it's easier, it was almost healing, having an escape with Cregan, but now there’s no one who will silence your cries. And what makes matters worse is facing your heartbroken mother. You don’t like seeing her cry or be hurt, when she lost Visenya your pain could never equate to what she was feeling, but you hurt too with every groan, with all the blood that she spilled, and every sob. Now you’re moments away from her and your heart and soul are already shattering.

However, after you watch your dragon disappear into the caves with Vermax, and take a step inside the castle, a hand wraps around your forearm and you’re pulled into a dark dead end where there aren't prying eyes or nearby ears.

“<Tell me the truth,” Jacaerys spats in a whisper so no one would hear the sound of his words also protected by High Valyrian. “About you and Lord Stark.>”

You can’t help yourself, you blink repeatedly in disbelief and gape like a fish out of water.

“< There's no point in lying,” he only further surprises you. “I figured it out when he got the letter from Dragonstone. I would see it every time you would talk but I never pieced it together until yesterday. It all made sense then, the glances, what you would tell each other, and every story you told about him.>”

Tears fill your eyes and your heart echos in your ears as you’re struck with shame. Not for loving another man, but that Jacaerys found out.

“<He touched you?>” He proceeds to ask in your shocked silence.

And it’s in that silence where he figures out your unspoken response and finally lets go of your arm to turn away with a scoff.

“<He never forced himself on me,” you defend Cregan. “Everything we did was because we wanted it to happen. We love each other.>”

Jacaerys turns on his heels with frustration and clutches onto your arms to sneer. “<You saw how much mother suffered because she was with Ser Harwin. Did you not learn anything?>”

You know he’s remarking all that stuff to your face because he cares. He’s being thoughtful in his way but it doesn’t stop you from crying, and when you shed tears you hit a cord in your brother's heart and he lets go of you with a sigh.

“<If you weren’t already married I would turn back and force him, but alas,>,” he mutters and sighs again before turning and dropping his head in his hands.

“<He would’ve too,” you defend his honor. “But I did not want Aemond to hurt him with Vhagar. I choose not to marry him, please don’t blame him. He’s a good man.>”

Jacaerys shakes his head in disappointment and turns to face you with his eyes narrowed into a fierce glare and his lips curled in a snarl. “How am I not supposed to blame him?” He remarks in the common tongue. “He had his way with you and did not do what he was supposed to do! What an honorable man would do!”

“I told you already, I told him not to because of Aemond.”

Jacaerys grabs his face and rubs the bridge of his nose, so you continue to try and calm him down.

“He was always respectful and kind. And…” you pause and lick your lips before you utter the reality. “There’s nothing you can do about it now. There's no use in being upset, I am married and that won’t change even if I love him unless Aemond dies. So please,” you plead softer and step towards him to grab his arm so he can face you. “Please Jace, keep it a secret. No one must know. It’s in the past. Please don’t tell a soul.”

Jacaerys eyes snap to you and he clenches his jaw as he looks at you thoughtfully for a few agonizing moments before he sighs and whispers. “Fine. I will not tell anyone only because there’s nothing I can do now.”

You sigh with relief and wipe away your tears before you offer him a thankful smile and a sweeter comment. “Thank you so much. Thank you, Jace, really. I love you.”

Jacaerys lets out a deep breath and his face slowly lets that frustration go, and instead slowly falls to express a soft sorrow. You slide your hand down his arm to cup his hand and slowly mirror that grief as you remember what you lost and that pain you both now harbor.

No matter how hard you wish, there’s nothing in this world that can change what happened, no one can bring back your fallen brother. And what’s even crueler is that no matter how hopeful you were for the news to be a lie, you’re home now and that hope lies with Lucerys.

You both come to the same realization and speechlessly exchange it, bringing you both into each other's embrace to cry now without care.

And deep down you both want to stay close in just the way you are so neither of you run the risk of losing each other the way you lost Lucerys. It’s a foolish thought, but it’s one brought by grief, and a new fear set in both of your hearts because no matter how much you love your little brothers, nothing can compare to the bond the three of you had. A bond that now consists of Jacaerys and you. Just him and you.

“Jacaerys,” your moment is interrupted by a feminine voice that also speaks your name but does not belong to your mother. And when you both break away and look over you see Baela stand at the end of the hall with her hands clasped together and a pitiful look in her eyes.

“Baela,” you greet and wipe your tears away while Jacaerys turns to wipe his own tears away.

“Welcome back home,” she speaks sweetly.

You offer her a thankful nod before you walk over to her and meet her halfway with an embrace.

“I’m sorry,” she says quietly.

You nod and then interject. “Thank you.” You pull back and glance around in search of her twin. “Where’s Rhaena?”

Baela sighs. “In her chambers.”

You wished to greet her just as you returned home, but now you’ll have to speak to her after you speak with your mother.

“And what about…” you trail off and hesitate. “What about my mother?”

Baela glances behind you as Jacaerys approaches you and then gives you the answer you wanted. “I’ll take you to her.”

You offer her a thankful smile and watch her walk to Jacaerys to wrap her arms around him and offer him sweeter condolences. When the moment passes she guides you to your mother and your heart begins to pound, while your stomach twists and makes you feel almost nauseous at the anticipation. You already know you’re going to break even more, but there’s something about thinking about your mother being heartbroken that already tears you apart.

And maybe a part of it is because…it feels like you had a hand in her heartbreak because it was your husband who killed Lucerys.

It was not really you, you know that. You were oblivious to your husband's affairs, but no matter what anyone says, yes, that’s what is dwelling within, your guilt. It rattles you to the point you can’t be comfortable in your own skin.

As you get closer to your mother's quarters breathing gets hard once again, and your surroundings begin to dim, leaving only the narrow path ahead visible. You want to run away and not face the pain you’ll see. But when the doors to your mother's quarters open and you see her sitting across the fireplace, alone and in the dark, that panic settles as if she was the fresh air you needed to calm down, leaving you with the need to be embraced by her warmth and comfort, while also giving the same in return.

“Your Grace,” you greet her softly once Baela clears the room and leaves only you and your brother with your mother.

Your pounding heart starts racing once again, but it’s not out of fear, it’s racing out of a need to ease your pain, and the pain you clearly see on her delicate face. Yet you hold strong with tears stinging in your eyes already.

“Lady Jayne Arryn has pledged her support,” Jacaerys breaks the emotional silence to share the support you both gained when you were away on a mission. “…In exchange for a dragon to guard the Vale,” you hear the tear in your brother's voice, and when you glance over at him you see him fiddling with his hands while his eyes grow more and more teary, making your already weak hold, falter.

You still want to continue for him, but when you part your lips you can’t utter a word, it’s all lost in your grief that heightens the longer you watch your mother.

“And,” Jacaerys continues sounding even more brokenhearted by the second. “Lord Cregan Stark,” he pauses and takes a deep breath, but doesn’t seem to find the will to finish. He falls breathless and that wall he usually has up to be perceived as strong, and a protector crumbles, leaving him shaky.

You reach over to grab his hand while tears start to roll out of your eyes as you trail on for him. “…Lord Stark…promised 2000 men,” you manage to share with all the might you can muster.

Your mother doesn’t respond, she instead stands from her seat with her face contorting with grief and approaches the both of you, making you completely lose the faltering hold you had on your emotions.

However, when she’s close, Jacaerys reaches out first and she welcomes him in her arms. You want to do the same, you’ve been aching for it, but your guilt hits you and you stand there frozen with your head down.

“Mother,” you mewl with streams of tears. “I’m…sorry.”

Your mother pulls away from Jacaerys just slightly, leaving her arm around his neck to approach you and caress your cheek with no disdain in her eyes; nor does she look at you like you were the one at fault, her eyes are sad, but she expresses her reassurance before she slides her arm around your neck and pulls you in her gentle embrace and confirms that she doesn’t hate or blame you.

It’s such a relieving comfort that it works to lift some weight off your chest. Weight Cregan couldn’t ease when he talked to you.

Now you can ease in your mother's embrace without feeling like she hates you. Now you can caress her back without the fear of getting rejected.

Soon thereafter, neither Jacaerys nor you attempt to leave your mother's comfort. Nor does it feel like your mother wants either of you to pull away from her embrace that protects her two eldest from the cruel reality that took her third child.

You stay interlinked and weep on each other's shoulders until she pulls away to face you both.

“I have been waiting for your return to light…Lucerys pyre,” she shares. “Is it fine if we light it tonight? The sun is setting and the winds are calm.”

You and Jacaerys don’t find a reason to push the funeral back. You also know there are other matters to attend to that don't give you the luxury of sitting in your grief.

But, oh wouldn’t that be nice?

You don’t want to ignore what happened, no, that’s not what you want. You just want to take a moment to process what happened, and who did it, and tell yourself that you will no longer see your little brother Lucerys.

But no, war forces you to face reality and deal with your grief harshly on the same night you arrived from Winterfell, and at the same spot where your baby sister's funeral pyre was lit.

This time the crowd is smaller though, more intimate. Daemon isn’t even here, which isn’t surprising, but it is also disappointing that he can’t be at his wife’s side as she deals with the death of her son, and lights yet another funeral pyre. And what grows your hatred for him even more is that he can’t seem to be bothered to be a father to his daughter who just lost her betrothed. It’s a good thing Baela is at her side.

It’s also good that you can be with your family this time, dealing with your father's grief alone was devastating. There was no one besides your handmaiden Vanessa to hold your hand and embrace you when you wept. Comforting letters could never measure up to the comfort of your mother's arms or that of your siblings and your grandparents.

Now though, you stand amongst them around the fire that will burn away the only pieces you have of Lucerys, which are his things. There's not even bones to turn to ash, nothing was found of him but his cloak, and a part of his dragon's wing.

Thus Jacaerys steps up first and throws in a soft red blanket along with a piece of his clothes. Besides a few tears rolling down his face, he holds strong now, unlike before when he was in the privacy of just you and your mother, which is assuring. He definitely seems to comfort Joffrey, who throws a wooden horse in the fire, leaving you to step up next.

Yet when you step up and lift a small wooden ship you sob for the brother you’ll never be able to see grow into a man. You’ll never be able to see him marry, or see him command his fleets. You’ll never be able to watch him build a family of his own, nor will you be able to dance another song with him, he’ll be gone forever.

You throw away all those possibilities you’ll never get to see in the fire, and watch the flames eat away at the small wooden ship, and turn to ash everything you couldn’t watch your brother do.

Thick smoke rises, it infiltrates through your nose and stings your throat and eyes while also helping you realize something through the stinging pain, that being your hate for Aemond, your husband, and best friend. You were clouded with confusion before, you couldn’t let go, but you see it clearly now in the thick smoke, you hate him.

And it’s because of your realization that you don’t realize your mother is next to you until you catch her throwing in a piece of Lucery’s clothes with agony contorting her face and clouding her eyes. She lingers by the fire for a moment and you watch her shoulders shake before she steps back. You fall by her side and glance down at her empty hand before you reach over to grab it and once again be the comfort she needs in her moment of pain.

A need to go to Rhaena’s side does grow. You feel called to her side to comfort her, but once the fire starts to lose its power, and all the wooden logs turn black, you step away from your brother and mother's side, but come to a stop right away as you feel guilt again. Your mother might’ve speechlessly assured you, but Rhaena’s anger and grief is different, what if she does blame you for what Aemond did?

If you weren’t away you probably could’ve stopped Aemond, but you weren’t with him. What if she blames you for Aemond taking her betrothed?

You don’t want to be the source of more pain for your cousin, so out of fear and guilt, you don’t approach her. You avoid her and instead, let your grandfather give his condolences before embracing your grandmother.

“I heard the Queen made you her hand,” you interject and pull back to face her with a proud smile. “Congratulations, grandmother, I could think of no one more capable than you.”

Your grandmother caresses your face and offers you a sweet and thankful smile. “Thank you, my Sweet. How are you doing?” She asks with a concerned gaze.

You sigh. “I’m dealing with all my emotions, but I’m relieved that I at least don’t have to go through my grief alone this time,” you share, earning a faint smile.

“I was wondering…” you roll out hesitantly whilst you hook your arm around his to head back inside together. “…does anyone accompany you on your patrols?”

Without needing to hear the rest of what you wanted to ask, she figures out the direction you're taking this conversation.

“No,” your grandmother assures you.

“Oh, well I was wondering,” you finally get to your question. “If I could accompany you? The sea is large, together we could cover more ground. Besides,” you sweet talk her to persuade her. “Astraea is fast, and she’s grown large from her time at Winterfell. She’s good at sea. She likes to dive with me on her. And I am a good archer on Dragonback. We could help you.”

Your grandmother scoffs and flashes you a smile. “Well as much as I would like your help, we would have to ask the Queen first. Bring it up with her and if she accepts I would love to share patrol with you, it would relieve me of some work.”

You smile excitedly and nod eagerly. “Good, I’m glad. I’ll ask her at the next council meeting.”

Your grandmother offers you an encouraging smile and helps you feel some joy in the dark storm that casts over you.

Of course, no one or nothing brings you more joy than your little one, your beloved Aerion. When you see him fast asleep in his cradle your dim world lights up and you muster a happy grin.

As much as you want him to wake so he knows you’ve returned to him, you let him be and just crouch by the cradle to admire him as he sleeps.

You admire his cute round cheeks, his tiny little hands balled up to fists over his head, his thin eyelashes he got from his father, and those pink thin lips he also got from

Aemond. But most importantly you watch his chest carefully to make sure he’s breathing.

You could watch him sleep for hours on end and never tire. Especially because sometimes, just like now, you catch him smiling in his sleep and you just can’t help but swoon.

You always wondered what it is they dream about, fairytales mayhaps? Food? Their parents?

Does he dream about his father now that they’re apart? A father who loves him, and takes pride in his son? A father that you hate and…cheated on…

He killed your little brother, and you lay with Cregan because you wanted to, because you missed him, and you were upset and selfish, but now that you’re looking at your son sleeping away a different pang of guilt punctures your heart.

A guilt you shouldn’t feel, Aerion is young, he won't remember this conflict, but he will feel shame if he ever finds out you cheated on his father.

Yes, his father hurt you first, Aemond betrayed you first. He hurt you in one the worst ways possible! But…now…

Now you’re looking at Aerion and you think of how this could also hurt him. He’s young, a baby turning five months old soon, he won’t remember his life as an infant, but your secret won’t be forgotten, especially if in the future Cregan and you aren’t together.

It would hurt him so much if he ever found out. That’s what makes you cry with guilt. Not regret, you don’t regret your night with Cregan, he made you happy, but you do feel guilt and shame.

——

*THE NEXT MORNING*

Does Aemond’s crime justify what you did?

You can’t help but think of that, you can’t help but think of the hate you harbor, but you also can’t stop thinking about him. About the way his family doesn’t show him the affection you do. He protects them and takes care of them, but they will never return it in the same amount.

He’s probably lonely, and brooding. He’s probably silently just lurking in his brother's council, and breaking his fasts alone.

You always tried breaking fast and eating dinners together. He always smiled when he saw the way you were dressed, especially when you wore purple. He always gave you a kiss before you drifted apart for the day, and when you saw each other he kissed you with need as if you had gone years without seeing each other.

When night came, or when you found yourselves just in a calm moment, he let his guard down and let himself be vulnerable. You loved those moments the most because it felt as if only he and you existed in this world.

Actually, he treated you like you were the only person he has ever loved. You came first all the time, even before your son. Which is selfish, but you never minded because who could treat you the same?

Cregan’s people come first, the North comes first no matter what he says. That’s why he’s not marching over here to fight himself because other priorities come first, but with Aemond, he may have his goals and his pride, but you were never held lesser than something. His anger got in the way. It’s blinding but you understand why.

You understood at least…because the truth is you can’t defend him now…

He deserves his solitude. You hate him for taking Lucerys away. That much is true and you put that over everything.

“Princess,” Vanessa’s sweet voice cuts through the blowing breeze of the sea, making you pick your eyes off your son to look into the distance.

“Vanessa,” you entertain your handmaiden with what you know she’s leading up to.

“I was wondering,” she parts her lips, but before she can finish her thought the sound of your name coming from someone else’s lips interrupts the conversation. You look back and smile faintly when you see your grandfather Corlys.

“Grandfather,” you greet sweetly as you stand up to watch him approach you at shore.

“I’m surprised to see you out here so early,” he mentions, making you scoff softly and look down at Aerion watching your grandfather carefully.

“When I saw Aerion he was sleeping, so I wanted to make up for it and spend as much time as I can before I’m called away,” you tell him and study him, noticing he’s standing up a lot straighter than before, and still using a very nice wooden cane. “I wanted to apologize for not going to visit you when you were abed. I’m more than glad to see you up now and attending to your fleet.” You smile brightly and watch him get close to watch Aerion in your arms.

“It's quite all right,” he assures you and meets your gaze. “You are a dragon rider, and the Queen's daughter, there’s a lot to do. I'm happy to see you safely returned, I know Aerion has missed you.”

You glance at your son, and as if he knew you were admiring him he glances at you and smiles before laying his head on your shoulder.

“Rhaenys and I would take him on strolls when the day gave us time,” your grandfather catches you by surprise. “The poor lad would be cooped all day with your mother gone.”

Considering Aerion the son of Aemond, you didn’t think your grandparents, especially your grandfather would much care for your son, but hearing his report really brings a warmth to your heart.

“I noticed that young Aerion quite enjoys being by the water,” your grandfather adds, making you grin and nod.

“Yes, he loves it when the waves roll over his feet,” you share giddily and caress your son's head as you return your gaze to your grandfather. “And he gets lulled to sleep by the sound of crashing waves.”

“He’ll be a fine sailor in no time.”

You hum happily at your grandfather's comment and then watch him glance out at the never-ending sea before he sighs softly, and then looks back at you with a faint smile that lets you catch a look in his eye that makes you think he’s up to something.

“Why don’t you and Aerion accompany me to Driftmark? It’s still early, and you can come back by dragonback before you’re needed,” he suggests.

You have been meaning to keep your mind off all the racing thoughts that kept you up at night, and well, you are extremely curious. It’s not common for him to invite you to accompany him anywhere. That’s what your grandmother does.

“Vanessa,” you address your handmaiden, and give your grandfather an answer. “Return inside, if anyone asks for me tell them where I am and that I will return soon.”

Your handmaiden offers you a comprehensive nod and goes off to do as you asked, letting you walk with your grandfather toward his boat under the morning sky pampered with fluffy white clouds that make you feel a smidge of joy as certain memories infiltrate your mind.

“On nice days like these my father would take me sailing,” you muse with your grandfather. “I’m pretty sure the septa giving me lessons would despise when he would pull me from my lessons since I was a princess and had no business doing boy stuff, but,” you grin softly. “He was the prince consort, he did as he pleased and my mother never minded. Besides, I encouraged him,” you pause and feel your eyes begin to sting without much warning.

“He taught me a lot of ships…I miss him,” you finish in a whisper.

Your grandfather lets out a deep sigh and you see him nod along with you from the corner of your eye.

“Did he teach you how to read maps?” Your grandfather wonders.

You nod. “Yes, and star charts. I could learn more about those, but I could follow the stars North and to King’s Landing with no map. He…never tried to leave anything out, he was always so excited.”

Your grandfather hums and you glance over at him to address something else on your chest. “I’m glad you decided to side your fleet and Driftmark with my mother.”

His dark eyes meet yours and he quirks a brow. “Why would I side with Aegon?”

Well besides him being a man, there’s also the fact that it’s highly theorized Daemon killed his son. You believe and hate him for it, but no matter how much you want to share that belief, you bite your tongue and shrug as if it was just a concerned-filled thought.

Your grandfather understands your speechless response and holds your gaze as he gives his vague response. “I had many reasons to side with your mother.”

You offer him a simple proud smile and reach his boat in a peaceful silence only filled by the crashing waves and the cawing of seabirds. You had hoped to feel a hint of those exciting and tender feelings you oftentimes felt with your father when you were out at sea, but even if you walk with his father, those feelings you ache to reconnect to aren’t anywhere close, reminding you that you’ll never be with your father ever again, or have a bond with any father-figure.

Albeit your grandfather does let you sail the boat to Driftmark, but as excited you do feel to show off your skills and once again maneuver a boat, you still feel empty within.

“My dragon loves the sea,” you begin to say with the intention of persuading him to use your aid at sea whilst you keep an eye on the distant waters. “And I have learned how to use a bow and arrow on dragonback, perhaps I could be the dragon rider to protect your fleet when battle hits our shores, or we attack theirs,” you finish and peer back at him with a sly grin, unknowingly reminding him of his son when he was your age and eager to prove his worth. You even wore the same sly smile Laenor wore when he was proving himself a fine sailor and dragonrider.

“That…” he starts off quietly but then clears his throat and sounds as mighty as ever. “That would honor me.”

You offer him a happy smile over your shoulder and then let your gaze fall on Aerion strapped on your chest, noticing him watching the waves with his eyes wide and full of wonder.

However, the wonder slowly gets lost as he starts to get lulled to sleep. He tries to fight the sleep to keep watching the moving waves, but he’s outmatched and loses himself to sleep not long before you arrive at Driftmark’s shore.

Unlike Dragonstone, Driftmark is more lively with people; both townspeople and soldiers from the fleets as well as those who work on your grandfather's massive ship. Some seem worried that something could happen at any given moment, while others seem to be happy just mindlessly living.

You begin to wonder about that happiness, you don’t envy their joy, a part of you resents all these people being so happy and living their lives unaffected by the death of Driftmark’s Heir. You wonder why it is they don’t feel what you’re plagued with, you want them to feel your sorrow.

But then you do realize that you’re just letting your pain cloud your judgment.

“Besides having you accompany me,” your grandfather interjects, pulling your attention away from the large ship. “I wanted to share something I have been thinking of as of late.”

You clasp your hands together and out of instinct reach out to fiddle with the ring Aemond gave you, but you’re then surprised when you feel that your ringer finger is bare.

You spare a glance at your finger and drift your gaze to the ground, but you’re then reminded of the fact that you left your ring behind in your borrowed quarters at Castle Black.

You probably won’t ever see it again…

“…I was hoping that when Aerion is older he could be my ward,” your grandfather catches your attention and makes you furrow your eyebrows and look at him with disbelief, and slightly bothered.

“Of course,” he continues, “he won’t have to join me until he’s much older, but he is Laenor’s grandson, I want him to know the sea, and I want to teach him about ships and how to command fleets like I taught your father.”

You glance at your sleeping son and cradle the back of his head as if protecting him from being parted from you.

“He’s the son of a second son, he won’t inherit a crown or a castle from his father, but he could inherit…my title.”

You snap your eyes over to him and come to a slow stop as you’re overcome with surprise. You want to be filled with pride and joy, but there’s an obstacle that stops you. “But,” you mutter your thought out loud. “He is Aemond’s son. A man who opposes us. A man who killed your heir.”

Your grandfather turns away from his ship and faces you, and doesn’t fail to nod in agreement. “Aye, he is the son of Prince Aemond, but Aerion has salt-littered blood. He is the grandson of Laenor Velaryon, my son.”

Aerion is also your son, and you are also your father's firstborn, and only biological child, but he doesn’t seem to ever mention that! What are you, a painted portrait?

You would’ve loved to inherit Driftmark and his title of Lord of the Tides, but no!

You would ask about Rhaena getting that chance before Aerion since she is the daughter of his only daughter, but you don’t see that having a good answer, so you don’t even waste your breath.

“What of Joffrey?” You bring up. “He should be your heir.”

Your grandfather sighs and nods stiffly but quickly counters you. “Perhaps, but I want it to be Aerion. The grandson of my son.”

It’s not hard to realize the actual truth behind his response; Joffrey is the bastard son of your father. With Lucerys gone, he can actually name an actual Velaryon his heir. It doesn’t seem fair, your father loved your brothers whether they were his or not, but who are you to deny Aerion of a fruitful future?

He comes first now, and it doesn’t seem like your grandfather is actually asking your permission or for your actual thoughts, his mind seems mind up, so with a deep breath and a hesitant smile you accept what he brings up. “That…would make me happy. And I’m sure it would’ve made my father happy.”

Your grandfather offers you a smile and surprises you by patting your shoulder as an endearing gesture that brings a…silence where you smile faintly out of pride, but you can’t help but think what next. You’ve never actually spent so much time with your grandfather, and if you do your grandmother has always been with you.

“Why don’t you show your knowledge on the ship,” your grandfather luckily drifts the attention over.

However, just as you approach the plank resting on the dock, he stops you by grabbing your shoulder and interjecting loudly. “Alyn!”

You follow his gaze and blink repeatedly in surprise when you see the same Addam of Hull who fought in your engagement tourney.

When the man’s eyes fall on you beside your grandfather his lips part in surprise, but when he reaches you he closes his mouth and bows his head. “Princess,” he greets you properly right away.

“Ser,” you greet him quite excitedly.

“Good,” your grandfather cuts in and steps back. “You remember each other.”

You drift your gaze to your grandfather and express your confusion with knitted eyebrows that he helps ease with a quick response. “I sent him to check on you for me when I was fighting in the Step Stones.”

Instead of going to you himself?

Whatever.

“Really?” You ask with more surprise. “Well thank you, he was a very excellent jouster who brought Driftmark and me great pride.”

Alyn offers you a stiff smile and bows his head as a thank you.

“Good, I’m glad to hear he can’t show his skill,” your grandfather fills the man’s silence. “Why don’t I let you get reacquainted.”

Without room to argue he walks away and leaves you alone with Ser Alyn—or is it just Alyn since it was your grandfather who sent him?

“Seeing you again makes this world feel small. I never thought our paths would cross again,” you fill the silence to avoid awkward silences.

“In truth neither did I,” he admits. “But it is an honor.”

You offer him a smile and notice how much more muscular he is now compared to before. He’s also a lot more serious too.

“Who—”

“Alyn!”

You both turn your attention to the caller, and you see a tall and thin man with long dreadlocks approaching with a bright and charming grin that immediately works to intrigue you.

Albeit when he notices your unique white hair, your long and elegant red gown finer than any material he’s touched; accompanied with shiny gold jewelry on your hands and neck, he realizes that you are no ordinary woman. The man’s grin slowly disappears at the realization and he slows down towards Alyn. Once he’s finally nearby he straightens up and doesn’t fail to bow when he joins you and Alyn.

“My Princess,” the mystery man greets you with a nervous but charming smile that actually serves to completely get rid of any tension or awkward atmosphere he could’ve brought.

“Princess,” Alyn interjects and looks at the man in blue beside him. “This is my brother Addam. Addam, this is the Princess, granddaughter of Lord Corlys Velaryon.”

You and Addam meet each other's gaze and that snobby princess Addam already imagined you’d be upon laying eyes on you completely falls apart when you offer him a bright smile in return. You perhaps are one of the most majestic beauties he’s ever laid his eyes on, he can’t help but think. Even from afar you were luminous and almost like an illusion, but from up close he could see your beauty was no illusion, he could see a sadness in your eyes, but so much more that intrigued him.

You give him your name and Addam’s eyes proceed to fall on the sleeping infant strapped on your chest. “Who is this?”

You cradle your baby's head and introduce him to Addam and Alyn. “This is my son, Aerion Targaryen.”

“Hm, not one to care about first impressions I see,” Addam throws out boldly, making his brother shoot him a warning glare. You, however, laugh genuinely in return, which is something that surprises even you. You didn’t think you could ever laugh the way you just did again.

“He takes after his father,” you mirror his humor.

“Well, we’ll let this lad get away with it this time.”

You scoff and nod. “I’ll make sure he’s more prepared next time,” you remark lightheartedly.

He hums and glances over at his brother. “Could I ask how you met?”

“At a tourney,” you answer for Alyn. “Last year. Apparently, he was sent by my grandfather.”

“Tourney?” Addam asks as if it’s the first time hearing of it. “Aren’t you supposed to be a knight?”

“Actually I was trying to get to that too,” you share and both wait for a response from the serious man.

“Well I was surprised to see what money could buy,” he remarks. “I was deceitful when I entered. I am no knight.”

You hum and ease his growing worry right away by assuring him. “Well, I would say you were actually quite entertaining and impressive. You fought well and won.”

Addam pats his brother's back and whispers, “I’m proud of you.”

You watch Addam offer his brother a very faint smile and you can’t help but remember the grief you had pushed aside as you remember the brother you lost.

“I was hoping to have some early brunch with my brother,” Addam now directs at you. “But it seems insignificant now that you have graced us with your presence.”

You can't help but smile with amusement and feel slightly flattered. Addam is surely more outgoing than his brother in a way that doesn’t fail to catch your interest and actually helps bring attention to his fierce spirit that you can’t help but feel the need to get to know.

Actually meeting him makes you feel like you found something you had been in search of your whole life.

.

.

.

.

.

A/N- romantic or platonic? (For those who have read moonlight before already know but please don’t spoil it for the rest heheh :)

Tagged- @namelesslosers @stargaryenx @chainsawsangel @lauftivy @winxschester @cloudroomblog @llarue @padsdarlg @sofietargaryen @gracielikegrapes @dreaming-of-the-reality @itzelpeyton @patdsinner33 @mrsdominickstark @elaena-aerrin @todoroki-slut @snh96 @urmomsgirlfriend1 @nifujiswhore @sweethoneyblossom1 @kaetastic @lightdragonrayne @squidscottjeans @oh-you-mean-me @wallacewillow0773638

[mariaofdoranelle]

Stage Kiss

Written for Throne of Glass Microfics

This accidentally ended up the size of two microfics but I’m tagging you if you’ll still have me @throneofglassmicrofics

Prompts: mainly indulge but I ended up using mayhem too

Warning: teenagers

Words: 1,9k 🫣

1st run

Today, at 3:30 p.m., Rowan would kiss Aelin Galathynius on the cheek.

Pathetically enough, this little knowledge was on the forefront of his mind all day. Not his classes, no. Just Aelin’s ivory—occasionally rosy—cheek.

“Whitethorn!” Fenrys shouted in the hallway several steps behind, forcing him to turn and stop so his friend could catch up. “Looking good,” Fen said, playfully slapping the back of his hand against Rowan’s bicep.

Rowan rolled his eyes. He thought that going to the gym every day—plus taking supplements behind his mom’s back—would magically make him more confident. It didn’t. The only difference was that he looked slightly less thin, so now Fenrys occasionally catcalls him and reacts to his IG stories with the flame emoji.

Even worse, Remelle Wiselheade was now hitting on him. His plan to get Aelin’s attention absolutely backfired.

As if he was a mind-reader, Fenrys said, “And how does it feel to be Aelin’s husband?”

Rowan blinked. “Uh…”

“I mean in the play!” Fenrys threw his head back and cackled, then urged them towards the school theater. “Bro, you’re—“

“I obviously knew that!” Rowan said, defensive.

He was just taking theater classes because his mom thought it’d help him with the shyness. But Aelin? Aelin Galathynius could give Margot Robbie a good run for her money—in both talent and beauty.

If enduring his crush on her during classes wasn’t enough, they were acting as husband and wife for this play.

And it required him to kiss her on the cheek.

He was glad that Mr. Emrys, their drama teacher, had a no-kids-kissing-on-stage policy. Rowan was half a lip virgin—that thing with Lyria didn’t count—and while having an almost first kiss with Aelin would’ve been great, he wasn’t looking forward to a very public cardiovascular malfunction.

Once inside, he quickly found her by a wall with Nehemia. Aelin didn’t see him at first, but he slowed his pace to look at her better, making Fenrys—who was right behind him—trip and take Rowan down with him. Not down, since both recovered before falling face-first on the floor, but the whole thing was loud enough that now he had Aelin’s attention. At the worst moment imaginable.

She smiled at him and sent a tiny wave, and by the poorly hidden smirk on Nehemia’s face—very similar to Fenrys’—she must’ve figured out his crush on Aelin. She had to. Nehemia Ytger was one of the smartest people he knew, he just hoped she’d keep her mouth shut for now.

Once everyone gathered around Mr. Emrys and he gave them directions for today, the first rehearsal for Hamlet began.

It passed like a blur until the scene arrived.

[Modified Act 1, Scene 2]

The court gathers. Claudius stands before the throne—simple practice chairs, actually—with Gertrude at his side. Hamlet watches from a distance, looking somber and disapproving.

Rowan didn’t want to read too much into why he learned even the narration. He turned to his “court” and said:

Though my dear brother’s death is fresh in memory, we must also move forward.

Therefore, I have married my brother’s widow, Gertrude, to strengthen Denmark and honor our kingdom.

Gently holding Aelin’s hand, Rowan swallowed and almost froze when it was time, but her encouraging smile propelled him further.

He might’ve just dipped in and out, but feeling her skin under his lips was the quickest yet longest second of his life.

His cheek kiss was followed by deafening silence. For a second Rowan thought he’d embarrassed himself somehow, until he found everyone staring at Fenrys, waiting for Hamlet.

His friend looked like a deer in the headlights.

“I forgot.”

“A little more than kin, and less than kind, Moonbeam.” Mr. Emrys took a calming breath. “Let’s do another run of this scene, shall we?”

2nd run

Therefore, I have married my brother’s widow, Gertrude, to strengthen Denmark and honor our kingdom.

Rowan took Aelin’s hand again. Both experience and her open expression made him kiss her cheek more confidently this time, and he was calm enough to enjoy the moment.

The same awkward silence again.

“Mr. E, I have ADHD,” Fenrys protested, though the twitch in the corners of his mouth betrayed the seriousness. “Don’t you think it’s a bit fascist of you to make me learn all these lines in medieval?”

It’s called ‘Early Modern Common Tongue’, Moonbeam. You’ll learn with practice.” Mr. Emrys settled back into his seat. “Let’s do another run.”

4th run

By now, Rowan was very well practiced in kissing Aelin’s cheek.

Because of the political nature of their characters’ marriage, a greater actor would make Claudius give Gertrude a triumphant look rather than a fond one, but if Mr. Emrys wanted a great actor, he should’ve thought twice before casting Rowan.

Therefore, I have married my brother’s widow, Gertrude, to strengthen Denmark and honor our kingdom.

As practiced, he reverently took Aelin’s hand and leaned in for the cheek kiss.

But she turned her head. The spot on her cheek that he focused on became a blur, and before he could grasp the situation, he felt the softness of her lips in his.

An awkward miscalculation on her part.

Or was it?

The way Rowan jerked back in surprise made their peck quicker than the other kisses.

“Whitethorn!” Mr. Emrys called, one finger pointed at him. “That was supposed to be on the cheek, mister.”

He froze, glancing wide-eyed between the teacher and Aelin’s mischievous look. He could protest and clarify that she was the one to incite the kiss, but that would just be loser—worse, virgin—behavior.

Rowan may be both, but he sure wasn’t acting like it.

With the snickers that came from the students, their teacher’s stance relaxed. He slowly shook his head and muttered, “Teenagers,” as a chuckle escaped him.

5th run

Rowan was determined to return Aelin’s peck, which meant that now stakes were higher. This time, he was even more nervous than before the rehearsal started.

She is cute. Rowan really likes her. And she kissed him first.

And this self-pep talk was shit at calming him down.

Therefore, I have married my brother’s widow, Gertrude, to strengthen Denmark and honor our kingdom.

Instead of holding her hand, Rowan held her jaw instead. By their silent exchange, she had an inkling of what was coming, and her expression seemed welcoming. A quick brush of his thumb as another warning, and he leaned in.

Pillowy soft lips briefly against his was a brief shoot to the skies and back.

It was quick. It was glorious. The sweet, sticky feel of her lipgloss was the best thing he’d ever tasted.

“A little more than kind, and—“

“Gods, Fenrys, it’s kin!” Nehemia shouted from the sidelines, distracting the teacher enough to forget about the kiss.

After this, Mr. Emrys stopped complaining—he had bigger battles to fight.

7th run

After their third kiss—plus four on the cheek—Rowan began to wonder if it was too soon for a “What are we?” conversation.

Maybe he should ask her out.

Scratch that, he was absolutely asking her out. If he got rejected, life would go on—after he changed schools.

Therefore, I have married my brother’s widow, Gertrude, to strengthen Denmark and honor our kingdom.

Rowan stroke her cheek with his thumb and leaned in once again for their peck, but once he did, Aelin threaded her fingers through his hair and kept him there, tilted her head. She waited a second for his response, then retreated once it didn’t come.

Shit. Was this—

With hawk-like speed, Rowan grasped her face with both hands before she could draw back and… well, it was too much of a whirlwind inside his head to make sense of what was going on. All he knew was exploring tongues and her hands on his neck and his heart that threatened to leap out of his throat to interrupt the kiss.

He couldn’t believe he was kissing Aelin Galathynius, and she felt so soft. Soft lips, soft skin, a soft sigh that he felt in areas he’d rather forget to not embarrass himself.

“A little more than kin, and—HOLY SHIT”

The absolute silence turned into mayhem once Fenrys abruptly addressed what was going on. Once he did, the students howled and whistled at them.

However, the only reaction he cared about was Aelin’s, who stared at him with flushed cheeks and wide turquoise eyes that sparkled with something he couldn’t quite place. She giggled and hid it behind her hand, and the sight of her nervous excitement brought a funny feeling to his stomach.

“Okay, that’s enough,” their teacher said to interrupt everyone’s shouts and cheers. “Moonbeam, you’ll arrive with your lines fully memorized next time—this is not a request. Everyone’s dismissed except for Whitethorn and Galathynius.”

The mood immediately sobered as students grabbed their things between whispers. It didn’t affect him like people thought it would, though. Rowan had just kissed Aelin—with tongue. Mr. Emrys could put him in detention ‘til eternity, he didn’t give a fuck.

They got ready to leave along with everyone else, but gathered around the chair their teacher was still on once the theater was empty.

A twitch of Mr. Emry’s lips into a firm line told them he was trying to get into ‘stern teacher’ mode. He’s not really the authoritative type, but they broke the rules, and it was in the job description that he plays a role for discipline’s sake.

“In the script, it says ‘kiss on the cheek’, and I need my actors to do exactly as scripted, okay?”

Rowan and Aelin both muttered their agreements.

“Great. If that—“ Mr. Emrys pointed at the spot their kiss happened. “happens again, I’ll have to take measures all three of us won’t like.”

“We understand.”

“Great.” He said in an upbeat mode, without his ‘stern teacher’ frown, switching back to ‘nice teacher’ mode. “Glad that’s settled. You can go now, but I want you in your best behavior from now on.”

The thing about Mr. Emrys is that he’s a really cool dude. He rarely gets angry at his students, most times it’s an odd sort of fond exasperation. It worked on their favor this time, but Rowan wouldn’t take it for granted.

Outside, Aelin stopped once the door was closed. So did he. The playful flirtation they had during rehearsal was gone, and Rowan was unsure on how to make a move in this awkward silence.

It was now or never, though.

Aelin chuckled and went her way down the hall, which he followed beside her.

“So, that happened.”

He gave her a brief, close-lipped smile. “I was thinking…”

“Yeah?” She swiftly looked up at him, eyes wide.

“Doyouwannagooutsometime?”

Rowan hoped the blood rushing into his cheeks wasn’t visible from outer space.

Aelin had both hands gripping the shoulder straps of her backpack as she fought the corners of her lips from quirking up.

“Sure,” she said. “Do you have something in mind? Because there’s this movie I really wanna watch—”

“We can watch it.”

Aelin bit her bottom lip, eyes brimming with amusement. “I haven’t told you which movie it is yet.”

He tilted his head, silently urging her to give the information.

Please, anything but that gorey demon one he saw last weekend.

“Do you wanna go see Healers vs. Demons?”

“Sounds great,” Rowan half-lied.

Any movie sounded great if it was on his first date with Aelin.

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[blasphemousclaw]

thank you for being so normal about the hornsent 🙏 Thank you cause jesus christ. anyways for the ask ermm The hornsent npc melina or messmer

you’re welcome I just got so attached to the hornsent while playing the dlc! after watching Belurat burn in the story trailer, going into the ruined city in the game and seeing all the graves and mourning spirits really affected me, and I’m honestly shocked that such a huge portion of the fanbase didn’t feel the same way. also they are literally so cool like look at their art and architecture. their armor sets. their divine beast dancing lion. if people can’t enjoy that because they’re “evil” well I have great news. they are not real

anyway here’s capital H Hornsent my best friend Hornsent

• favorite thing about them

how his quest ends with him attacking us no matter what we do. I know I know! it’s so frustrating that we can’t convince him we’re on his side! but the fact that he tries so hard to push us away just makes me love him more! he refuses our second offering of scorpion stew because he isn’t here to make friends, he’s here to win he’s given his life for his revenge... his line “I wish not to friendship kindle” drives me crazy because we have this moment of human connection with him, which he acknowledges, but he can’t let himself lose sight of his purpose! admit it Hornsent. you like me

also his character design and voice acting are fantastic

• least favorite thing about them

I already like how his character is handled but I think it would be even stronger if he or someone else dropped a few more details about life in Belurat before the crusade. he enacts his revenge not just in the name of his murdered family but his entire culture, and it would be nice to learn a few more hornsent cultural details through him!

• favorite line

“What’s this? Do you think me in need of alms? Ah… but this dish. Tis fare o’ the tower. I remember fondly this kin-clad scent. …Brings back memories I’d all but forgot. This, by my troth, is but a dismal copy. Indeed, I think it rather plain to see… things once broken can never be the same.”

I love the scorpion stew interaction so much! “things once broken can never be the same” hits so hard after exploring Belurat and seeing the city’s destruction, and pairing this dialogue with the scorpion stew description is even more tragic: “Traditional meal of the hornsent. Once made with love by a certain elderly woman for the family table.”

• brOTP ОТР whatever this is

Hornsent and Tarnished. what if I could fix him

• nОТР

I don’t think about this at all

• random headcanon

the marks on his face are burn scars from the fires… I think he had hair but it mostly burned off. maybe I’ll draw what I think his face looked like without the limitations of the npc character model sometime

• unpopular opinion

I don’t think he was a greater potentate! I think it’s strongly implied that he lived in Belurat before the crusade, not Bonny Village. I think he sought out the potentates’ caterpillar mask because it’s used to enhance focus and banish feelings of doubt in one’s purpose, which makes perfect sense for his revenge quest

• song i associate with them

once again please leave any suggestions in the replies/tags!!

• favorite picture of them

not to boost my own content but this was hysterical

[interstellarsystem]

This isn't at anyone in particular, but it's very disheartening to see that the otherhearted AND otherkith tags are full of.... Posts that are almost completely unrelated to those experiences. Otherlink tags are much the same.

A few in there are geared toward all alterhumans in general, that's fine, but... Posts specifically only about therians, otherkin or fully nonhuman identities without so much as a mention of heartedness don't belong in the otherhearted tags. Therian/otherkin specific posts don't belong in the otherlinking tags either. It's so hard to find anything related to being otherhearted or otherlinking because it's almost all content that only explicitly relates to therians or otherkin. It really looks like they sometimes just slap the smaller tags on there for reach.

It doesn't get your therian posts reach though, because as far as I'm aware, hearted people and otherlinkers follow the tags for posts relating to those specific experiences. Sure, people can be more than one thing and there are definitely therians and otherkin following those tags, that's fine, but it's not why those people follow them. Flooding the hearted and otherlink tags with otherkin posts really only makes it impossible to see anything from other individuals who are otherhearted or otherlinkers. The people who want to see your posts will be following the otherkin or therian tags.

You don't need to tag in different community tags for reach, this is tumblr where tags do actually matter because they're the primary way of finding posts. There's no algorithm at all if you don't use the "for you" page. And when you're putting therian and otherkin only posts in tags that are for much, much smaller communities like otherhearted people and otherlinkers.... It becomes impossible to keep those communities present here.

I don't know if there's separate tags that otherhearted people and otherlinkers use that aren't flodded with otherkin-only posts but if there is I haven't been able to find it because the only post we can even find recently in the hearted tags thats actually about heartedness is one we made today.

We've went on about how the term "alterhuman" isn't just for otherkin content before. We're sad the tag for it has less variety than the community really encompasses. Yes, otherkin are alterhuman and have the right to post there--no one is saying they don't--but a lot of the times people post "alterhumanity is about being an animal and no one knows" or something when it's definitely not always the case. Alterhuman isn't the same as nonhuman. I want to see more diversity and acknowledgement that there can be other alterhuman identities aside from identifying as an animal. As an umbrella term, alterhuman encompasses a lot more than nonhumanity and I don't like that even the hearted tags are covered in unrelated material.

I really think that non-kin and human+ or just plainly still human identities that fall under the alterhuman umbrella need to be acknowledged and respected enough to not be flodded out of their own tags.

[terriblyrenderedenigma]

The Coveted Star

(A/n: This is my first little attempt at a little transformers blurb of Megatron x OC/Self insert who will be greatly elaborated upon in later posts. Just thought id dip my toes in the water here.)

Tags: Nonspecific Transformers continuity (As of current at least, leaning towards TFA, or maybe changing context and interaction before going earthspark) Description: Megatron trying to persuade a human turned unaffiliated bot into joining the Decepticons. Word Count: 637 Warnings: Probably ooc Megatron x Fem oc/self-insert; Probably confusing lore but will have an oc lore dump post laterrr; brief corpse mention but not serious; Religious Imagery - hell mention; slight xenophobia; eye strain because colored text; probably poor use of cybertronian anatomy

“Look at you! A great star in the sky among walking corpses with withering souls! You hold amazing power… it would be such a waste for you not to use it…” The dirtied grey mech held out his servo in offering to Aquarion, his broad digits scratched and deeply scarred from decades of fighting, of war. The sleek femme’s purple optics moved with trepidation from the dark flat palm of his servo, flitting across his dented plating until their optics met.

The crimson glow of his optics burned like the fires of hell that made old historians writhe in their sleep before vomiting their horrors onto withered pages in striking raven ink. If his passion was inferno, he burnt like the lake of fire he'd be condemned to for the sins he held heavy servo'd against his fellow kin. Palms bathed in enough energon alone to rejuvenate his dead and broken home...

“I cannot take a place at your side…” Aquarion’s soft tone breaks with static, vocalizer quickly correcting as she vents a heavy puff of steam. White plating shone like freshly fallen snow, violet bio-lights peeking out between the crevasses, the breaks in her armor.

Her frame ran hot. Wiring burning with unease much like the nerves that used to sting her once human flesh with sensations deeper than this by tenfold. “To take up my burdens and follow you would be to turn my back on the people that I used to be a part of.” As the words left her, a frown wormed its way across her faceplate.

“Used to. Have you not experienced the hateful gazes? The fear and scrutiny in their fleshy eyes as they look up at the form that has consumed you. Changed you-" The leader of the Decepticons arms swing out dramatically, gesturing to the femme in all her new glory. The body that held her conscious was strong and sturdy, powerful, volatile, capable! It would kill Megatron to see the potential in her circuits wasted on neutrality -- or worse, the Autobots. "-Named you Aquarion and chose you out of all your kind for a higher purpose! This is a gift... You are no longer one of them! You are one of us!” Megatron demands, the deep timbre of his voice echoing not only within the gears of his own chassis, but hers as well. There’s an echo of desperation, an anticipation to make her understand that things are not the same anymore, her life is no longer what it was and never will be again.

No longer human, but hot blooded cybertronian... "I can't-"

"Take my hand!" Megatron demands harshly now, thrusting his servo forward once more at her continued hesitance, the swift movement of his hand towards her making her massive wings flare in a defensive stir. "Take my hand, and I will show you greatness you've never known! Teach you who you were meant to be..." The roughness of his vocalizer tapering off into a tender request.

Why did he persist so strongly? Demand so insistently that she follow him? Go with him into the deep dark night into even more mystery?What fears would she have to conquer as her palm fit smoothly within his own?

What manipulation, scheming, plotting would she be forced to be a part of? The decepticons certainly weren't the kindest or truthful of all beings. But Megatron their great leader, strong, dangerous, downright terrifying to any normal human... Stood face to face with her and-

"Please."

His pleading, set in motives unknown sent her over. Aquarion relents and takes his servo firmly and without another thought.

"Alright then... why don't you show me what I can do?"

Aquarion knew not what path this choice would lead her, but she was sure of one thing. This was going to end terribly.

[a-dragons-journal]

bit of a rant re: that one post about terminology: my biggest pet peeve about it is that it is had made it absolutely impossible to find the kind of stuff I used to come to tumblr for back in 2012. I'm dragonkin and nearly 40. I've known I was 'kin since before the year 2000. i used to be able to follow a couple of kin tags and find art, poetry, and essays on the things we all have in common. once in awhile there would be music. Now all I seem to see is people arguing about who's allowed to use what term, who is 'valid,' and people splitting hairs to the finest down on microlabels. I am, in my head and in an experience sort of way, a big reptile who flies and hunts and, frankly, isn't very bright. I have not really kept up with terms in the past decade because it seems like every time I look, the words mean different things, and I cannot be bothered to follow all that. none of it changes the way I feel my scales or how there is a part of my brain devoted to tracking good hides and good takeoff locations. none of it changes the fact that I have to make rent with a brain that wants to be tracking air currents and chasing small game. And none of it changes how delighted I am every time I eat a good piece of fruit or a slab of chocolate with an omnivore's ability to digest plant matter. obligate carnivores can't enjoy sugar the way my human body does. it's great.

a moose and a tuna are very different creatures, but they would both complain about orcas and sharks in their feeding grounds. someone who is a pterosaur and someone who is an angel can both talk about missing the feel of air beneath their wings. a mantis shrimp and an alien and a bat can all talk about how light looks through human eyes. someone who is a little bit of a werewolf sometimes and someone who is 100% a housecat all the time will probably both be able to talk about managing prey drive. I miss having places on the internet where we could talk about shared experience in this way. I couldn't care less what words people use to argue about how different they are. we are all using human hardware to run incongruous beings. Two bog-standard human siblings who grew up in the same home will argue that the same scene in a movie shows different things. everyone's different. there's always gonna be some way to split yourself off from the group.

I just miss being able to find solidarity with fellow Internet Weirdoes (affectionate). if you only share your stuff with your micro-group you're going to miss out on all the others who you could be talking to who may understand, at least in part, what you're going through.

and most of all, I miss the art.

Yeah, I feel that. I feel that.

[alizha]

𝒊𝒎𝒎𝒐𝒗𝒂𝒃𝒍𝒆 𝒐𝒃𝒋𝒆𝒄𝒕𝒔 | 𝑹𝒐𝒍𝒂𝒏 𝒙 𝑻𝒂𝒗 | 𝑪𝒉𝒂𝒑𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝟏

Rating: M Word Count: 5.9k Tags: female bard tav, tav is not described, angst, sibling relationships, sexual tension, kissing, neck kissing, references to canon-typical violence

Summary: Rolan has only ever had Cal and Lia. They insist he’s family, but he doesn’t even need that. He’s never needed or wanted anything more.

next chapter | masterlist | cross posted to ao3

Rolan’s words are harsh, he knows that. But the truth is that they’re simply an island of three amongst the sea of other refugees. Just because they’re all on the same exodus from Elturel doesn’t mean he feels any camaraderie with anyone outside his small circle.

The infernal orange ring of Lia’s irises flare. She can’t be reasoned with when she’s like this, and Rolan should know. Still, he plants himself steadfastly across from her. If she wants to be stubborn, he can easily rise to the challenge.

There’s no basis of evidence for his true age, but when they were all small, Rolan felt like he was younger than Cal and Lia. He remembers being a gangly, uncertain child. It was them who led him by the hand out of his own self-imposed walls back then. Of course, he’s never stopped following them, but it’s more out of a sense of responsibility now.

Which is why he refuses to risk their lives for the sake of a group of people he never wanted to join in the first place. Zevlor’s people are slow, a hindrance. And most of all, Rolan doesn’t know them. Lia is petulant if she thinks raising her voice at him and calling them ‘kin’ is going to change his mind.

“You only care about your apprenticeship!” she says.

Those words are the ones that finally cut deep. Rolan sputters, nearly losing his hold entirely on the calm demeanour he’s managed to cling to thus far.

“Take that back!”

“These people aren’t fighters! We should help!” she barks.

Cal, ever the voice of reason when tempers blaze too hot, tries to step in. Even he can’t quell Lia today.

“I don’t mean to intrude,” starts an unfamiliar voice.

The woman it belongs to has edged close to them, leaning in curiously with her arms tucked across her chest. Undoubtedly, she’s one of the adventurers who helped dispatch the goblin raiders outside the gate, but that notion seems a little ridiculous now that Rolan’s looking at her up close.

A lute hangs by a strap on her back, still wrapped in traces of Weave, marking her as a bard. She doesn’t look particularly strong or intimidating, especially in the bright colours and whimsical patterns of her jerkin. This is what passes for an adventurer?

“But you are intruding,” Rolan says acridly.

Lia turns her gaze furiously back to him. The woman tries to hide an amused grin. Badly. It strikes him in a way he doesn’t expect. A feeling like irritation sparks in his stomach.

“You should all stay,” she says. “Who knows? A single blade could make a difference.”

“Thank you!” Lia says, throwing her hands up. “You see? We have to stay. It’s the right thing to do.”

“She’s right, Rolan. We’re better than this,” Cal says.

With that, Rolan feels the situation has suddenly careened too far out of his control, and all because of a few words from this intruder. He tries mentally to renew his grasp on the thread of his argument, but he’s sick of fighting. And no matter what, he will not lose his composure in front of an outsider.

“Zurgan,” he mutters. “Fine. I’ll stay, too. Lest the both of you end up with your throats slit by a goblin blade.”

“Thank you, Rolan!” Lia beams, though not at him—at the bard. “You’re the one who tangled with those goblins, aren’t you?”

Personally, Rolan has no interest in where this conversation is headed next. He uses the last of his energy to stop himself rolling his eyes as he turns and heads back into the hollow.

❖ ❖ ❖

Her name is Tav. It was the last thing his ears caught as he left Cal and Lia with the errant adventurer the previous day. Not that he was trying to catch it. She had intruded on their conversation, plain and simple, much in the same way she was now intruding on Rolan’s peace.

Cal and Lia had insisted they were going to make themselves useful that morning, and apparently that meant ingratiating themselves with the guards at the top of the gate. Rolan prefers to keep them both in his line of sight to make sure they don’t get into trouble. Or cause it. In that spirit, he sticks to the secluded area on the periphery of the gate so he can keep an eye on them while he practises his magic.

Throwing himself in his studies has always been his refuge. Withdrawing into his magic feels natural, even when being a part of a family doesn’t. He remembers running away to their shared room and slamming the door whenever everything became too much or too loud and disappearing into a book until his frayed nerves recovered.

Instinctively, Rolan shuts his eyes and reaches into the Weave, its warmth rushing to envelop him. Two decades of training, and the sensation never changes. It’s reminiscent of an embrace, all-encompassing acceptance—the kind that doesn’t wink out of existence when he doesn’t feel worthy of it. Because this is something he’s earned after years of learning everything he can about magic on his own.

And then, Tav had shown up, flanked with the same followers she’d been running around the grove with yesterday. A gith, a half-elf in Sharran armour, and an elf with a smile more pointed and dangerous than the daggers on his belt. They are decidedly more formidable-looking than their bard.

She greets his siblings like they’re already friends, and that is enough to poke holes in Rolan’s focus. He tries to firm his concentration, but the sound of their laughter shreds it to pieces. Tav’s laugh is clear as a bell, with a quality to it that begs everyone around her to give her a reason, another opportunity to hear it again.

The image of her thinly-veiled grin sticks in his mind, and that’s the last straw. Rolan releases the last dregs of his focus, letting the curling tendrils of Weave surrounding him to furl in on themselves and evaporate with a sigh. Gods, he misses the peaceful quiet of his room in Westerly and the wingback armchair by the window he liked to curl up in with the spires of High District soaring in the distance.

“Hello,” Tav says, suddenly appearing at his side.

He tenses. “What do you want?”

“To say ‘hello’,” she says as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Bad day?”

The inane question grates at him. Rolan doesn’t understand how she can’t see that he’s sequestered himself by design—to be left alone.

“We should have left by now,” he says bitterly.

“This again?”

“Yes,” he snaps. “Instead, because of you, we’re just sitting here, practically begging to be attacked.”

Rolan’s not entirely sure what possesses him to lay the entire blame on her, but it feels right in the moment. And perhaps, he would regret it if not for the self-satisfied look that settles over her countenance.

“Leave on your own, then,” she says, shrugging. “If you’re so impatient.”

It’s a transparent attempt to call him on his bluff, but it’s an effective one.

“That is tempting,” he admits, “but I could never leave Cal and Lia behind.”

Tav’s face softens at his words. The shift in her expression is subtle. Rolan feels something twist in his belly in response that he finds utterly confounding.

“What?” he demands, frowning.

She presses her lips together and shakes her head. “Nothing.”

Before he can (rightly) call her a liar, her half-elf friend calls her name and waves her back over.

“See you around,” Tav says with one last momentary glance before striding back up the path, gone as quickly as she appeared.

Rolan watches her reunite with her companions and head together further into the grove. It’s only after they disappear from view that he realises he feels warmer than he’d been while wrapped in the Weave.

❖ ❖ ❖

The sting of steel pulls a gasp from Rolan’s lips. He lifts his finger to his mouth to swipe his tongue against the bead of red forming from his cut. Thankfully, it’s not deep.

“You’ve been distracted,” Cal remarks. His own handiwork with a blade has already produced a small pile of skinned rabbits, whereas Rolan has only managed a few measly carrots. He’s used to helping out in the kitchen but never been as skilled with a knife.

When Okta enlisted their help with the stew today, he’d hoped it would prove a good way to get his mind off things. Things, specifically, like the sound of Tav’s laugh and the soft, hazy glow that formed around her whenever she stepped into the columns of sunlight pouring into the hollow through cracks and openings in the stone canopy.

“Away with you!” the old woman says, snatching his knife and shooing him from his station toward a basin. “Away until you’ve washed your hands!”

Rolan grumbles a little but does as he’s told. Okta is meddlesome and a busybody, but she’s shown the three of them an abundance of kindness, always making sure they’ve had their fill of gruel or watered-down stew. He plunges his hands into the basin and lets his chin fall to his chest.

“Been a few days since those adventurers came around,” Cal says pensively. “Wonder what they’ve been up to.”

It’s true that Tav and her friends haven’t shown their faces in a while. Not even to sell off their rubbish.

“If they really did go to deal with the goblins like they said, they’re probably dead,” Rolan says.

“Don’t be morbid,” Cal says. He pauses, then, “What do you mean ‘if’?”

Rolan lifts his head to send his adopted brother a look of disdain. “Did you really think they were going to traipse into a goblin camp for the sake of some unfortunate refugees?”

“You don’t trust them?”

It’s a far sight easier to believe they had never intended to help them than to imagine them falling short. Just like with the druids.

“About as far as I can throw them,” he says.

❖ ❖ ❖

When the news comes that the goblins’ leaders have been defeated, Rolan’s pride tempers his giddiness. They can finally leave and resume the journey to Baldur’s Gate, to their futures.

“They did it! They really did it!” Lia says.

“I knew they would,” Cal says, giving Rolan a knowing look he’s seen too many times before.

Rolan scoffs, feigning disinterest. “Let’s just get on with it. I don’t want to spend one more second longer here than we have to.”

His wish to get back on the road immediately is promptly delayed by the suggestion of a party. A final celebration at the adventurers’ camp of their victory before parting ways. Rolan can’t think of a worse idea.

The druids keep a rustic domicile within the Emerald Grove—a grand name for what essentially boils down to a smelly cave. There’s no separate shelter for the oxen. They’ve simply buffered a small space to keep them while staying there, along with their troughs and hay.

Rolan’s robes are no doubt saturated with the odour by now. The thought of attending a party wearing them, much less showing up in Baldur’s Gate to meet Lorroakan, is difficult to swallow. He contemplates washing them in the river, but everything that goes in the water tends to come out with a thin film of slippery grime that clings to the skin unpleasantly.

Not long after the scouts break the news, Tav and her companions show up at the grove. Rolan tries to appear as unaffected as possible as they speak to Zevlor, but he’s purposefully peering through the crowd for a better look.

They look a little ragged under all the sweat and goblin viscera. Even Tav’s brightly coloured jerkin is stained with drying spatters of scarlet. Maybe Rolan doesn’t have so much to worry about fragrance-wise after all.

The moment they finish their conversation with Zevlor and start moving, Rolan looks for anything else to turn his attention to. What he lands on is rifling through his pack to look busy, but there’s barely anything in it except for a waterskin, an apple, and a few crumpled letters. Tav takes her time talking to each of the refugees she’s apparently become acquainted with while he feels stupider each second he spends pretending to search for something that doesn’t exist.

It’s not even been a tenday, and Tav seems to have spoken to more of the other refugees than Rolan’s ever had since they set off from Elturel. He realises, perhaps for the first time, that he never tried to get to know any of them because he didn’t see the point. There’s never really a point. It’ll always be him, alone, trailing after Cal and Lia—just like it was when they were children.

His hands still. Maybe that was why Tav inspired such a feeling of hostility inside him. Left him all twisted up and warm. She was like a foreign object wedging its way between them.

He shakes the thought from his head. It was completely irrational, he recognises that.

“Rolan,”

Cal gently knocks the toe of his boot against his. He looks up to find Tav has finally made her way over to them. She flashes him a brilliant smile.

“Took care of those goblins for you,” she says.

Ah, she means it as a jest. Rolan straightens and arches an eyebrow at her.

“For me? Really?” he says sceptically. “I nearly dispatched them myself, but you seem to have managed well enough.”

“‘Well enough’, is it?” Tav echoes teasingly.

“Yes. Why wield a masterwork where a butcher’s blade will do?” He eyes the bloodied rapier at her hip.

“Is that what passes as gratitude in Elturel?” she says, patting the handle of her weapon nonchalantly.

“Certainly not,” Cal says with a pointed look at Rolan. “Come off it, Rolan. You really think you could have Thunderwaved every goblin in that camp alone? Thank the nice lady for saving our skins.”

It’s almost worse that she tries to fight against the smirk threatening to burst across her face. Rolan scowls at Tav, at the locks of hair plastered to her forehead and the flush lingering in her cheeks from the heat of battle, and swallows.

“Thank you, truly,” he says stiffly.

❖ ❖ ❖

“You like her,” Cal says, seemingly out of nowhere.

Rolan nearly drops his end of the barrel they’re in the middle of lugging over to the ox cart.

“What?” he hisses.

“Tav. You like her.”

The repeat of his words makes Rolan cringe, even though he brought them on himself.

“It’s just like Zephirine all over again,” Cal goes on. “Your ears got all red.”

“‘Cept he made Zephi cry,” Lia says, the venom in her voice a little thin if only due to the distance of years since the particular event she’s referring to. Rolan can’t imagine Tav bursting into tears because of something he says anytime soon.

“If you’re not careful, she’ll think you’re a prick.”

“You make it sound like he still has a chance,” Cal says with a lighthearted laugh.

They pause at the back of the cart as Lia joins in on the chuckling. Rolan knows they aren’t trying to be mean, but wants to fold in on himself anyway. Together, he and Cal swing the barrel up onto the cart.

❖ ❖ ❖

Hells. Cal was right.

Rolan loathes admitting these kinds of things to himself, hates the futility of it. He’s always rejected distractions to his singular focus of achieving power. The kind of power that meant the three of them would never have to lose their home again.

It takes a glass or two of cheap wine for the merriment of the celebration to smooth the edges of his discomfort. At least, Cal and Lia don’t leave his side, swaying to the music with big goofy smiles on their faces. Seeing them happy gives him permission to relax.

Cheers erupt amongst the dancers, drawing Rolan’s attention to the centre of the camp. Alfira is sidling up to Tav, nudging her not-so-subtly as she continues to strum her lute. Tav makes a show of rolling her eyes, but her enthusiasm is plain as day. As she reaches for her own instrument, the crowd cheers again.

She falls into Alfira’s lively tune easily, bouncing back and forth with the beat. The fire throws warm light across her face, sparks and embers twirling with the movement of the dancers. Tav spins theatrically, drawing hoots from onlookers—she’s a natural entertainer, glowing in the attention.

Rolan tears his gaze away and closes his eyes, letting the phosphenes from the fire fade away into black. He is certain Tav is a puzzle, and anyone who wants to be with her has to fit neatly into her and her life. Much like himself. Futility. Coming to terms with that makes it a whole lot easier for Rolan to put Tav out of his mind.

“Didn’t you say you were going to put on your little show?” Cal says, slightly winded as he drops to a seat on one of the rocks nearby.

“Fireworks!” Lia exclaims, knocking into Cal. She looks up at Rolan eagerly. “We finally get to see the fireworks! Well, come on, then!”

She and Cal lean forward on their knees. The ale has turned her cheeks an even rosier shade of red than usual. ‘Fireworks’ is a bit of a stretch for a minor prestidigitation spell, but he’s inclined to humour them.

“Patience,” Rolan says, feeling his confidence reemerge. He wags a finger at them. “Have you no respect for showmanship?”

Stretching out his arms, Rolan dips back into the Weave. His self-assurance swells as he feels its warmth surround him. A pleasant shiver runs up his spine.

“Having performance issues, Rolan?” Cal loudly whispers.

Lia smacks Cal in the shoulder. They’re even more obnoxious when they’ve been drinking, but Rolan’s mood is quickly improving. He shoots them each nothing more than an unamused look.

“Hush,” he scolds them.

Drawing from the well of the Weave’s power, Rolan concentrates his magic at his fingertips and makes a grand sweeping gesture as a brilliant light flashes above them, white at its centre and fracturing into iridescent colour around the edges. It evanesces into residual sparks around them before fading completely.

“Remember when he could barely cast that?” Lia says, elbowing her brother.

Cal grins. “They grow up so fast.”

Rolan shakes his head, though he can’t help but chuckle a little. The sound of clapping interrupts him. Alfira and Tav have brought their duet to a ringing end, it seems.

“They’re good, aren’t they?” Lia says, twisted in her seat to look over at them.

Tav is reluctantly putting down her lute, clearly determined not to take up any more of Alfira’s stage. She waves off requests for an encore with a sheepish grin and tucks a lock of her hair behind one ear. When she looks up and catches Rolan’s gaze with hers, her lips curve into a small smile. His chest nearly bursts.

“Pass the wine,” he tells Lia, turning away.

❖ ❖ ❖

“I saw your spell,” Tav says by way of greeting once she finally tears herself away from a conversation with her elf companion.

She saunters over to his side, a goblet of wine in her hand. Cal and Lia immediately begin whispering to each other as if he can’t hear them.

“Very impressive.”

“Come to offer your adoration?” Rolan says, opting to ignore obvious gossip. He’s had a couple more cups by this point, and it’s so much easier to do so. “You’re too kind.”

Tav looks a little surprised. “You’re certainly more at ease.”

“Might have something to do with not having to worry about goblins anymore,” he tells her.

She hums in agreement and takes a long sip of her wine. When she pulls the goblet away, it leaves a drop of the deep ruby liquid on her bottom lip. Rolan actively fights against the urge to reach up to wipe it away with his thumb. That would be a wildly inappropriate and intimate gesture, he reminds himself.

Her tongue darts out to swipe at the droplet. It’s a quick motion, but just a hint of the pink tip suddenly makes his pulse accelerate. Even though Rolan hastily averts his eyes, Tav seems to have noticed him looking and grins.

“I’m glad it worked out. You risked a lot to stay. I don’t know what I would have done if anything happened to you or your siblings,” she says.

It’s his turn to be surprised. He hadn’t expected sincerity, hadn’t known she was capable of it.

“Of course, that probably would have meant I was dead. So, you know. Hypothetically,” she says with a weak laugh.

She drops her gaze to the reflection of stars in her cup, and Rolan recognises an attempt at walking back a moment of candour when he sees one. They had stayed, and it had been because of something she said. Of course, she would bear the heavy weight of responsibility if it had ended badly.

Impulsively, Rolan thrusts his own drink out in front of him and takes a deep breath. “Well, here’s to it all working out,” he says a little too quickly so that his words all jumble together slightly.

It manages to pull a laugh out of her. Soft, but still clear and bell-like. The sound tugs at something in his chest, beckoning. His mind scrambles, unbidden, to try to think of anything to say that might get her to laugh again in the future.

“To it all working out,” she agrees, gently clinking her cup into his.

❖ ❖ ❖

He was awash with a spell that night. One made of the taste of dry wine and the crackle of the fire and the tantalising prospect of a singular chance.

They are bound for different paths, ones that he can’t know for sure will ever cross again. And even if they did, Rolan won’t fold into her life neatly, and she won’t fold into his. It’s simply how they operate.

But they have this one night, and one thing Tav seems to know how to do is take a chance. She reappears several more times between making the rounds with everyone at the party, bringing offers of coy looks and fleeting touches. Rolan isn’t so clueless as to not recognise how women like her behave when they want something.

So, what stops him? He tries to parse the answer to that question for far longer than he’d be willing to admit.

It’s not just one thing. It’s the thought of leaving Cal and Lia alone, of the inevitable mess of rolling around with her in the dirt. The tenderness in Tav’s eyes when she speaks in hushed tones with her wizard companion. The burning embarrassment of the fiasco that was his first kiss. The smell of ox lingering in his robes.

In the end, he lets the opportunity slip through his fingers, and it feels easy. It’s almost liberating.

“Think we’ll see them again in Baldur’s Gate?” Cal asks, taking one last glance behind them as they leave the adventurers’ camp in the wee hours.

“Maybe. It’s a big city,” Rolan says unaffectedly. He doesn’t look back.

❖ ❖ ❖

It takes three people in total to drag him away from the site of the ambush. Adrenaline pumps through his veins. Rolan screams at them to let him go after Cal and Lia until his throat is sore.

The snivelling of the children chafes at his already fragile sense, rubbing his nerves raw. It’s unbearably cold, even when he touches the Weave—as if even Mystra’s reach cannot fully penetrate the shadows. Shadows that have buried deep, into regions of his chest reserved for himself and his magic.

They’ve never been apart, the three of them. Not like this. Rolan’s island shrinks in on himself.

It feels like the shadows have gripped him and refuse to let go. Rolan plants himself at the bar inside Last Light Inn and drowns himself in Arabellan Dry so he can stop replaying the way Cal and Lia threw themselves at the cultists in his head.

The others call him a mess. Rolan shoots nasty glares at them. He’s drunk, not deaf.

❖ ❖ ❖

“You look awful.” She says it like she can’t help herself, teasing and a bit regretful. Rolan feels the undeniable need to cut her down to size bubble up his throat like bile.

“Stick your nose in someone else’s business this time,” he spits at her over his cup. “Haven’t you done enough to my family?”

Tav’s face falls, but she clings to her sad smile. It makes him want to shove at her and run away. Unfortunately, this is the only place the alcohol is kept.

“Alfira told me what happened,” she says. “She said you stepped in and protected everyone.”

Rolan scoffs and turns away, sagging over the bar. “Cute. And while I did, Cal and Lia were dragged away screaming. Maybe you two can write a ballad about that.”

“I’m sorry about what happened to them, but—,”

“You should be sorry. It was you who convinced them to play hero, and now they’re gone.”

He’s done it again. Laid the blame at her feet. This time, for some reason, it doesn’t feel as gratifying.

“I’m going to get them back, Rolan,” she says.

There’s not so much as a shake to her voice. Her words are quiet but confident. The desire to steal even a fraction of her audacity threads through his being. Rolan whirls around to face her again. His head swims.

“They’re my responsibility. Leave me and my family alone.” He laces the command with acid and revels in the way she flinches in response.

She seems like she wants to say something else. The glint in her eye carries a suggestion of worry. Or pity. For her sake, Rolan hopes she keeps it to herself.

“Fine,” she says finally, as if sensing his silent warning. It’s the last word she says before making herself scarce.

❖ ❖ ❖

He might have still been a little inebriated when he slipped out of Last Light, but the shadows quickly chase the last of the haziness away. This isn’t the worst thing he’s been through, Rolan tells himself. And if anyone is going to rescue Cal and Lia, it’ll be him.

He’s not doing this out of a misplaced sense of pride. Certainly, this has nothing to do with the way he very confidently told Tav off and declared that this was his responsibility.

Certainly not.

Even when he’s alone, Rolan still finds himself trailing after his siblings. There’s probably some irony in that he’s currently failing to identify. The hem of his robes routinely catch on dead branches that reach out of the darkness like gnarled fingers. He’d be more worried about potentially showing up to his apprenticeship in this state under different circumstances.

There are shapes moving in the dark that make him question the integrity of his darkvision. Rolan moves with purpose through the winding cobblestone paths, gripping the torch in his hand so hard his nails dig painfully into the palm of his hand. The skin on the back of his neck prickles.

Clumsily, he climbs over the edge of a broken bridge and down the splintered fragments of road leading south. At least, he thinks it’s south. Lia was always the better tracker.

He can’t pinpoint exactly when he becomes aware he’s being stalked. All Rolan knows is that there’s nowhere to hide, no reprieve from the shadows this far from Last Light. And the deeper he goes, the darker the shadows will become. The best he can hope for now is a good spot to make a last stand.

❖ ❖ ❖

All this time, and he’s never seen Tav in action before now. She commands the fight just as well as she commands an audience—that is to say, better than Rolan ever expected.

He can’t believe he ever thought she wasn't intimidating. Thousands of hours with his nose buried in books, and he isn’t sure he could even match the vastness of her magic. How does a bard access the Weave with the consummate ease of a wizard?

It’s neither the time nor the place, but as Rolan watches her send down a blast of light that disintegrates the final shadow creature, he recalls the words of praise she offered him about his magic trick at the party. Had she only been humouring him? The idea eats away at him like acid, and when Tav turns to him, glorious with her hair wild and chest heaving, he fixes her with a look of pure vitriol.

“Godsdamn it all!” he shouts. It feels good to shout. Cathartic. Even though his throat is still a little sore. “Not you again! Anyone but you!”

“Tymora’s tits, Rolan! I can’t believe you would do something so stupid!”

Tav matches his tone, apparently forgetting all about her companions watching on awkwardly behind her as she storms at him.

“You're going to get yourself killed, you fucking arsehole!”

Her hands are on the ornate silver plate stretching across his chest and shoving him. It’s not a forceful shove—Rolan imagines he’d receive more than a few bruises if the barbarian at her back was the one doing this—but he’s also not expecting it. His back hits the rocky outcrop behind him with a soft thud.

“You’re supposed to be at Last Light!”

Tav raises one arm up to furiously swipe at her reddening face with her sleeve. The edges of Rolan’s vision turn white. She doesn’t get to do this.

“I’m supposed to be saving Cal and Lia!” he barks back at her. “Instead, I found myself cornered by shadow fiends and in need of rescue! From you, of all bloody people.”

He can hear the way his tone veers toward condescension. It’s a bluff of the highest order. She could probably strike him down before he even gets out the incantation for Magic Missile. But falling back on arrogance is his last defence against the slip of her mask threatening to tug at his heartstrings.

“Was I supposed to just let you die?” Tav says with a sneer.

“Alright, soldier,” her tiefling companion says, drawing her back gently by the shoulder. “I think he gets the picture, don’t you Rolan?”

His muscles hurt from tensing. Rolan forces himself to draw in a deep breath of cold, stale air.

“I know when I’m outmatched,” he says, defeated.

They let him go off on his own and return to Last Light. He’s surprised they’d even trust him to do that right.

❖ ❖ ❖

The pain is almost too much to bear, but Rolan doesn’t want to so much as look at another bottle of wine. Not after he spends a good hour retching over the side of the docks behind the inn. It feels deserved anyway.

He doesn’t understand how no one else seems to be going insane at quite the same rate as him in this godsforsaken place. The constant darkness is draining, an eerie echo of the day when the eternal light of the Companion was snuffed out. It almost feels like they’re about to be swallowed up into Avernus again.

The lack of day and night distinction makes it difficult to determine just how much time passes as Rolan sits and waits. He doesn’t even know if he’s waiting for Cal and Lia to be saved or for Tav to return with unsavoury news, if she comes back at all this time.

Nothing exists beyond the borders of the shadow-cursed lands. Rolan can’t even fathom making it out of here alive, let alone making it to Baldur’s Gate alone. He slumps over a table, resisting the urge to slam his head down on the wood, and rests his cheek against his stacked hands.

Someone calls his name. The voice sounds muffled with his ear pressed against his arm, but Rolan would recognise it anywhere.

“Lia?” he croaks, lifting his head.

It’s them. It’s really them. Cal, Lia, his family. Rolan is on his feet, but they refuse to move.

“We’re back,” Cal says, closing the distance between them because he can’t seem to.

“That’s all you have to say?” Rolan says, angling his body away from them coldly. “While you two were Torm knows where, I was out there battling the wretched darkness. What were you thinking?”

Recently rescued prisoner or no, Lia’s fiery temper remains entirely unaffected. Her nostrils flair. “Oh, I’m sorry we got captured by murderous lunatics,” she snaps.

“I thought you were dead, you ass!” Rolan fires back. “Both of you!”

“We’re all safe!” Cal says, scrambling to physically place himself between them before Lia can get in his face. “That’s all that matters.”

It’s like a dam breaks inside him. Rolan has no choice but to surrender to the wave of emotion crashing down on him. His eyes sting.

“I thought my whole family was dead,” he says, voice breaking.

Lia visibly deflates. “I’m sorry,” she says, sincerely this time. “We should have been here.”

“No—no, it’s not your fault,” Rolan says as Cal claps a hand over his shoulder. “I shouldn’t have shouted. I’m sorry.”

“You two are idiots,” Cal says affectionately.

Rolan exchanges amused glances with Lia and lets the corners of his mouth lift into a small smile.

“Troglodytes, the both of you.”

❖ ❖ ❖

He’s not sure why he’s hiding. It’s humiliating, the way Rolan presses himself against the wall of the upstairs landing.

The adventurers have returned and are sitting around the fire at the centre of the main hall. From what he can hear, they’ve worked out a portion of how to break the shadow curse. The sound of Tav’s tired voice pins him to the spot like a spell.

Rolan peers through the railing down at them, stomach churning. They all look… rough. The Sharran cleric (Shadowheart?) is cradling her head in her hands, slouched forward in her seat on her elbows. Karlach is crumpled in the barstool next to her, and Tav’s being held up in her chair partially by Wyll’s arm slung around her shoulders.

“Who’re you spying on?”

Cal’s whisper comes from way too close to his ear. Rolan reels, cringing, and rubs his ear frantically.

“Ah, they’re back. Need to properly thank them for what they did at Moonrise,” Cal says, getting up from his crouched position beside him.

“Are you trying to kill me?” Rolan says, heart still pounding.

“What are you sods doing skulking about up here? Come on,” Lia says, emerging from the door to her room.

Rolan accepts the hand Cal offers him with a sigh and follows them stiffly down the stairs to the common area of the inn. A few pairs of eyes glance up at them as they enter. Tav’s are noticeably not among them.

“I’m going to get some air,” Rolan mutters to his siblings. As if there’s any to be had in this hellhole.

He keeps his head down and scuttles toward the exit before Cal or Lia can protest. The moment his foot touches the eerie moon-like light cast from the Selûnite shield, he feels a short tug on his sleeve and freezes. Rolan knows who it is before she even starts speaking.

“Don’t you have anything to say?”

It takes him a moment to steel himself before he can face her. ��Thank you,” he says. “Thank you for bringing my family back to me.”

The expression on her face is unreadable, but the dark circles under her eyes jump out at him.

“And?” she says.

He shifts his glance briefly back up toward Cal and Lia, hoping they might sense his desire for a well-timed intervention. No such luck.

“And…,” he pauses and bites back a groan, “I’ve lashed out at you, drunkenly and otherwise, and you helped anyway. You didn’t deserve that. I’m sorry.”

Rolan expects her to look at least a little satisfied—it was rather a good apology. Instead, her brows knit in disappointment.

“Hells, humble Rolan is a bit uncanny. I think I like you better when you’re being pretentious,” Tav says, plush lips quirked into a lopsided grin.

He’d almost forgotten after everything that she is still the same meddlesome, needling bard he met in the grove.

“Are-are you being serious right now? I mean, do you never drop the glib bard act?”

Tav the adventurer. Tav the bard. Tav the fighter, the saviour, the flirt. Rolan grasps at aspects of her of his own making, trying to find the one that comes closest to the truth, but it’s like trying to catch smoke.

“I’m sorry,” she says with what seems like genuine remorse behind her weak smile. “I’ve been dealing with a lot, mostly unhealthily. With a lot of alcohol and humour. I suppose I’ve gone a bit mad.”

The air seems suddenly sucked out of his lungs. Rolan doesn’t often find himself at a loss for words. He’d heard from around the inn, of course, about the illithid affliction plaguing Tav and all her companions.

“Oy! Get a room, why don’t you?” Karlach calls, waving at them.

Startled, Tav spins and shoots her friend a rude gesture. The others hoot and laugh around her. Rolan’s cheeks heat uncomfortably.

“Your friends seem reenergized,” he says flatly.

“Do you wanna get out of here?” she asks him.

He very nearly stammers out some nonsense answer before she quickly clarifies.

“I’m just talking about a walk around the inn, Rolan.”

“Ah, yes.” He feels a bit foolish. “Of course.”

❖ ❖ ❖

“I’ve never had the pleasure of travelling through Elturel. Been all up and down the Sword Coast but never that far east.”

Tav finds ways to fill the silence that seem to come so enviably natural to her. She makes Rolan feel like an awkward lanky youth again, stumbling over his words and his steps, not quite yet grown into his frame. They skirt the perimeter of the dark water, past the boat Cal had told him he and the other prisoners used to escape Moonrise.

“Trust me, you’re not missing much,” Rolan tells her, toeing a bit of gravel over the edge of the dock. “I’m sure Baldur’s Gate is a comparable city to Elturel.”

“You’ll soon see for yourself. When you finally make it to your apprenticeship,” she says.

“You’re very confident we’re making it out of here.”

That pulls one of her addictive laughs from her. “I have to be. I don’t know what the alternative would look like.”

Of course, that makes sense. Rolan hadn’t even been able to form a loose idea of what he might do with his life if he’d really lost Cal and Lia. He chances a glance at her at his side watches her pensively as they stop at the edge of the Moonshield. Beyond, there's a bridge that extends over a narrow in the water.

He can’t help but wonder what they’re doing out here. If Tav had seemed somewhat out of reach before, she might as well be untouchable now. She spends all her time with Karlach, the Blade of Frontiers, bloody Gale of Waterdeep. It feels as though it should be one of them standing here beside her.

Besides, he doesn’t want her. He’s come to respect her. Perhaps, that came a little late. But he does not want her. Rolan has his family to think about, a path already set before him, a future as an Archmage with his own tower someday. That sort of thing doesn’t fit neatly into the life of an adventurer, and he can’t imagine she’d want to be tied down either.

So then, this must be some sort of fling for her. A passing fancy. Tav is saying something, but Rolan had been too preoccupied with his own thoughts and missed most of the first part. Something having to do with the Underdark and a bulette—he doesn’t really care. He turns to her abruptly and cuts her off.

“What is it you want from me?”

His question gives her pause, and he can practically hear Lia’s voice in his head. If you’re not careful, she’ll think you’re a prick. He can’t help it. It’s just always what he’s done to anyone who’s tried to get too close, for good or for ill.

“Nothing.” She says it cheekily, as if trying to elicit a reaction. It succeeds.

“Liar,” he tells her in a low voice.

Her tongue flickers out over her lip. “Yes,” she says simply. “Maybe I just want you to yell at me a little more.”

“Don’t jest. You might not want to think about it, but you could die soon. Or worse.”

“That could be. But to be honest, I’ve always believed fortune favours the bold,” she says with a shrug.

Bloody follower of Tymora. He’s certain he’s heard her invoke the Smiling Lady’s name before. Leaving so much in the hands of his goddess isn’t something Rolan is in the habit of. He clenches his jaw, transfixed by the self-assured expression Tav wears so well.

“You’re not just Lady Luck in disguise, are you?” he says, narrowing his eyes at her. “Here to tempt me and move on to the next shiny toy?”

She gives a decidedly unladylike snort at that. “I feel rather strongly that gods ought to avoid relationships with mortals at all costs. But more importantly, is that really what you think my dastardly plan is?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know you, and frankly, you don’t know me,” Rolan says, aware of the frustration edging its way into his voice.

Tav chews the inside of her lip, scrutinising him. “Alright, Rolan. I can take a hint. No hard feelings.”

She moves to leave, and Rolan feels a jolt through his chest. This is what he wanted, and Tav isn’t as much of a fool as he likes to think she is. She can see the walls he builds around himself brick by brick meant to keep people like her at arm’s length.

Rolan has no clue what compels him to snatch her hand into his. The leather of her glove is worn, stopping at the second knuckle and giving way to callouses at her fingertips from years of playing the lute. Even just that slightest contact of bare skin against skin sends electricity sparking along his veins.

Sod it all. He has the fleeting thought that if she manages to ruin him like this, then so be it. His name tumbles like a question from her lips in the split second before he pulls her into him.

He crashes his lips into hers, flinching at the dull pain of the clumsy collision. It’s not how he meant to kiss her in the slightest, but if he breaks away now, Rolan thinks he might lose his nerve. Tav doesn’t seem to mind anyway.

When he threads his fingers through hers, she splays her free hand over his chest, twists into the fabric of his robes, and pushes up onto her toes. Gods, he’s relieved he’s been able to bathe since arriving at Last Light. Rolan admittedly has little practical experience of this kind, but like magic, a firm grasp of the theory must provide a good enough foundation. Methodically, he adjusts his movements—more lips, less teeth—until he matches her pace.

“Rolan,” she whispers against his mouth, tugging lightly at her handful of his robes. It sounds like a plea. He’s trying too hard.

Consciously, he softens his efforts, and Tav swiftly takes the opportunity to slip her tongue between his lips. The feel of her palm sliding against his jaw is warmer, more comforting even than the embrace of the Weave. She tastes like spiced tea sweetened with honey, and he hasn’t kissed many people before, but he knows instinctively that this is how a kiss should be.

Her tongue swipes along the roof of his mouth, sending shivers down his spine. She’s clearly done this before. Multiple times. Rolan is tired of her continuously running circles around him. He won’t let her surpass him this time.

Daringly, he winds one arm around her waist to draw her body against his. With his other hand, he takes Tav by the chin and tilts. The squeak she lets out spurs him on as he trails kisses from the corner of her mouth to the side of her neck. When Rolan presses his tongue flat against her heated skin, she claws at his sleeves, gasping.

There’s another gasp just then that Rolan knows couldn’t have come from Tav. It’s louder, farther away, and quickly followed by astonished titters.

“Oh, my.”

Rolan’s racing heart stops, and he snaps his gaze up. Bex and Danis are rooted to the spot where they apparently stumbled upon them, eyes big as saucers. Hells.

Mortified, he lets go of Tav and scrambles to put a respectable distance between them. Bex lets out a giggle as the pair makes a hasty exit that lances him through the stomach. Rolan considers jumping straight into the murky river right then and there.

Tav makes a strange strangled sound, drawing his attention sharply back to her. She’s covering her mouth with both palms, cheeks still beautifully flushed, laughter threatening to burst through her lips. The moment is honest to goodness ruined. Rolan rolls his eyes at her.

“Really?” he says.

It takes her a moment to compose herself, though it seems she still can’t help but beam at him. “It’s funny.”

He responds with an unamused grunt. “Come on. We should probably get back.”

[anonymooseforever007]

Shadow by the Bed

(Mainly Finn & Tommy platonically) + (Technically Finn Shelby x Unnamed Girlfriend)

Summary: It's the middle of the night after a family party and everything seems calm. Until Lizzie's woken up by a shadowy figure standing over her and Tommy's bed.....

A/N: Hi Y'all! No trigger warnings other than Finn and his Girlfriend getting drunk. Also even though this was made as a Finn x Reader fic in mind, it really is a Finn and Tommy funny fluff fic, and I actually didn't use Y/N in this one at all. I think I want to connect it to some more ideas I have for the same girlfriend in mind, hence the tag. But the prompt for this one has been on my mind for a while and it was super fun to write! Also I looked it up and it seems the first "instant portable camera" so to speak was invented in 1923 which I checked on that fact! Enjoy❤️

WC-4.2k

Main Masterlist

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It was Lizzie who woke up in the early morning to the sound of master bedroom being entered. The squeak of a doorknob broke through her previously unconscious mind, and the soft stumbling steps towards the bed woke her even further. And for a second, her sleep idled mind thought it was Tommy.....but he was ,for once, sound asleep next to her. Then she thought it could be Charlie, trying to find comfort in their bed after a nightmare. But when she looked over, her blood ran cold and she froze, seeing the tall figure standing by the side of the bed, cloaked in shadows too dark to see his face.

The intruder looked at her for a second, and tilted his head, as if he was confused to why she was there. Tommy himself still hadn't woken up which served to scare Lizzie even more since he was probably the lightest sleeper she'd ever met. Every time she went to check on baby Ruby, or when Charlie tried to sneak in because of a nightmare, Tommy would be wide awake as soon as be heard the turn of the doorknob or footsteps by the bed. So the fact her usually vigilant husband was still softly snoring while an unknown man stood over them both, only increased her growing fear of what was about to occur. But before she could open her mouth to scream or hit Tommy awake, the figure moved again. He raised his hand and waved at her, almost eagerly, like he finally recognized her as someone he liked a lot.

"Hiii Lizzzzieee!"

Finn. 

It was Finn standing beside the bed in the middle of the night waving at her. He was drunk too, very drunk in fact, but Lizzie recognized her youngest brother in law. She remembered the party the family had that night. By then end of it, the only two people remaining in the living room were Finn and his girlfriend who, sat on his lap as they eagerly talked, lost in their own little world again. Evidently, after the rest of his kin had gone away Finn decided he wanted another drink... or four. Placing her hand over her chest, she took a few breaths trying to calm her racing heart. Now it made sense why Tommy hadn't woken up. 

Thomas Shelby was a hard man to sneak up on, even in his sleep. He was a light sleeper and had been since before the war. Almost every little creak or bump in the night was enough to wake him to at least open one eye and see what was going on. It was like his mind perceived any noise as a possible threat he needed to size up.  And as he grew older it remained that way. But for some reason, Finn was the only one able to move around at night and not wake up Tommy. It didn't matter if he was trying to be quiet or accidentally knocking over the dining room chairs at three o'clock in the morning. It was like Tommy's internal danger sensor had a glitch that would skip over any ruckus made by his youngest sibling. And there was a reason for that too. It was likely caused by the years of young Finn sneaking into Tommy's bed at night. Whether it was because of the cold or nightmares or just because he wanted to, there were many nights before the war then Tommy would wake up to his youngest brother sprawled out on his chest hogging all the blankets. And even if in the beginning Tommy would wake up, it seemed he got use to it. So much to the point where his little brother's movements at night became a background noise he could recognize even in sleep. One he recognized as nonthreatening and thus not a reason to wake up. And it was a noise he could apparently remember even years later today. Hence why Tommy was currently laying on his bed eyes closed and breathing peaceful, while his youngest brother and his wife stared each other down. 

"Hiiii Lizzie....."

Finn repeated again, slurring slightly, noticing he didn't get an answer the first time and in his fogged mind figured she hadn't heard him. Lizzie ran a hand down her face once and finally composed herself again, whispering to the freckled twenty year old who grinned at her drunkenly.

"Finn? What are you doing here? Is everything alright," she questioned, hoping that nothing had happened to him or his sweet girlfriend after the family had left them. She couldn't think of any reason why he'd be here otherwise. Something must have been wrong. Tommy grumbled slightly and shifted in his sleep at her words.

"Noo.. It's all fineee," Finn replied, his words being drawn out and trialing off as he spoke. But he still hadn't told Lizzie why he was there. She'd evidently have to try a new route.

"Ok, that's nice Finn," Lizzie spoke in the same manner she did to four year old Charlie when he showed her the croaking dirt covered mystery box he was trying to take to the bathtub one day. She still wasn't sure how he'd caught so many frogs... "Why don't you tell me why you're here ok? Wouldn't you rather sleep in your bed?l

"No. I want Tommy."

"Tommy?"

"Yeahhhh, I need Tommy right now," Finn raised a hand to rub the back of his head, nodding like everything made sense. He nodded to himself again, looking down at his sleeping brother  once more. Then to Lizzie's surprise, and with much more agility than a drunken boy should have, he sat on the bed and rolled to lay right on top of his older brother. It was the sudden weight on top of him that finally woke Tommy. Even if he could ignore the noises his little brother made moving around the room, the sudden, almost crushing heaviness on his chest was enough to scare him out of his sleep.

"Fucking fuck....Fuck!"

Tommy shot up, cursing as he tried to get his bearings. Well, he tried but the heavy mass on top of him, grumbling in his ear, made it hard to move. Fortunately, before he could grab his razor cap from the side of the bed, he recognized the annoyed whine of his baby brother coming from the man whose head he was trying to shove back. It was Finn. Why the fuck was Finn on top of him?

"Finn?"

"Tommmyyyy!," the mentioned man groaned lightly as Finn shifted on top of him. Despite being the youngest, Finn had nearly a head over his brothers and wasn't quite the tiny little thing he use to be. He practically blanketed Tommy as he sprawled over the bed. "Tommy I'm gonna sleep here tonight. I want you to rub my back."

A brief glance to his left, showed Tommy his wife who was quietly laughing at his predicament. After she got over the fear of his intrusion, Lizzie found the whole situation quite entertaining. It wasn't often Tommy was caught so off guard, especially when he couldn't just threaten or fight the person off like he usually did. Polly would probably beat his ass if he shoved Finn off him and left him to his own devices while this intoxicated. It didn't happen too often, but when Finn did get as drunk as his older brothers usually did, it never ended well. Last time it ended with him climbing a tree and refusing to get down even when all his brothers demanded it. To his brothers' slight annoyance, in the end, all it had taken to get him down was his girlfriend passing by on the street, who saw him and asked if he would come down to hold her hand. Before she had even finished her request, he was out of the tree, fingers entwined with hers, grinning like an idiot even though she was softly lecturing him on the dangers of drunk climbing. But now, Finn's girl was nowhere in Tommy's, admittedly limited, sight. That still didn't stop the growing annoyance towards the brother who'd interrupted his sleep.

"Don't you have a your own bed to do that? And stop moving your fucking legs, I don't need you kicking me in the balls."  

Somewhat defeated, Tommy closed his eyes again and laid his head back against his pillow. Lizzie, still laughing silently, obviously wasn't going to help him, and truth be told Tommy was still tired enough that he didn't want to keep trying to move what wasn't moving. Finn ignored his last comment, shifting again to get more comfortable, and buried his face deeper into the blankets on top of Tommy.

"I can't go to bed. My girl's there."

"Your girlfriend's in your bed?"

"Yeah, I have a girlfriendddd and she's reallyyy pretty and I lo..loveee her and she helps me read and she had this really cute fucking freckle on her top lip that's slightly off the middle and you can only see it if..." Finn's intoxicated rambling about his favorite person could barely be heard as he described his love. Rolling his eyes beneath closed lids, Tommy wished he could free one of his hands to pinch the bridge of his nose.

"That's great Finn, she sounds great, so why don't you go to her and ask her to rub your back and play with your hair? Why don't you get in bed with her?"

It was a decent enough question too. What would compel a young drunk man to seek the company of his grumpy older brother over the girl he's so in love with? Especially if he wants affection. In fact, Tommy was rather confused why Finn came to him instead of her. He knew that when he was this young and drunk he would rather have been with Greta than Arthur any day of the week. He remembered the nights long ago when they'd both fall asleep on his small bed after a night out. She use to play with his hair and kiss his neck lightly while he drunkenly professed his love in Romani... But that was a long time ago. And judging by the way his head finally shot up in shock, and by how he attempted to...glare maybe?....At Tommy, Finn had other opinions.

"I'm a not fucking pervert," he slurred out slightly while mixing up his words and bringing up a hand to thump his brother on the head, almost as if admonishing him for suggesting such a thing. Which confused Tommy even more as it wouldn't have been the first Finn shared a bed with his girlfriend. He'd come across them curled up in Finn's room after a party on more than once occasion, so it wouldn't be a stretch for it to happen again. 

"What does that.... stop fucking hitting me... Lizzie grab his hand... Lizzie help me.... Lizzie help.... ok. What the fuck does that mean?"

Rolling his eyes (or trying to) and pulling up his head to scrutinize his brother again, Finn huffed.

"She's drunk. I'm not gonna get in bed with her if she's drunk," he explained as it was the most obvious thing ever. "She doesn't like doing it with me. So I'm not going to do it with her. It's respectful and all that shit."

"She's drunk?"

"Yeahhhh, we played a game to see who could flip a coin into a cup first and if you lost you had to drink and theeenn we both lost a lot. And she kept giggling and almost tripped on the stairs and then she was tired so she's sleeping in my bed. But I'm not gonna get in with her. Not tonight. No no no," Finn shook his head eyes closed as he recounted the end of his night with his girl. Even if he had too many drinks, he still remembered all the times she sent him to her couch for being a bit too tipsy after a night out. Sure, she'd still give him water and kiss his forehead, but she didn't want to risk getting thrown up on. Besides she had told him she didn't feel comfortable getting in bed with him when he was drunk and he figured she'd feel the same way about it if she was. 

Finn kept shaking his head to show how much he wouldn't be sleeping in his room that night, until the motion made him nauseous and he groaned burying his head back on the bed. He didn't notice Tommy's look to Lizzie, who was already grabbing her robe from the side of the bed to go check on the occupant in Finn's room. Though it was unlikely she was injured or needed help, the older pair felt it would be safer to check just in case. 

Now the only two people in the room were Tommy and Finn, the latter of whom was still sprawled out over his brother. Tommy shifted around once again, hoping that Finn would move to take the spot Lizzie left empty but to no avail. It only served to make Finn groan more as the consequences of the alcohol began to hit his his system. 

"Tommy.... rub my back... don't you love me?"

Finn had resorted to trying to guilt trip his brother now. It was something he'd done many times when he was younger. Asking for something and then questioning his siblings love if they said no. It was always done with the mischievous intentions of a sneaky child. It rarely worked on Polly, who was immune by now to the childish manipulation, but more often than not his siblings were more than willing to "prove" they loved him the most. 

Tommy let out another sigh, but this one was laced with slight amusement. Even if it was slightly annoying, there was some entertainment to seeing Finn this way. It felt nice for Tommy to be able to recognise the bit of youth still left in him. Truth be told, he didn't see it as much anymore. 

In recent years, Finn had become very different from the kid he use to be. And not in the fact that he was a bit harder like his brothers. No, Finn was undoubtedly softer than the rest of his family, something that wasn't necessarily bad. But as he'd grown, the effects of the pressure he felt from his family had become more and more obvious. Almost gone was the Finn young who use to ask lots of questions and run around, rather spending the day playing football than sit at desk. He was replaced with a quieter young man who often lacked the confidence his older brothers posed. He didn't laugh loud enough to be heard from the street like he use to, always unsure if it was the right thing to laugh at or not. He seemed to make a point at time never to be louder than his brothers. like they set all the limits for what should be done. Where his brothers gladly wielded the power their last name held, Finn didn't seem to know what to do with it. He was always somewhat tense even around his closest family and friends. Like if he fully relaxed and acted as he did when comfortable, he'd be teased or told to man up like so often before. Tommy wouldn't apologise for it, but he knew it was partially him and his brothers fault for that. The anxieties that came with what Finn thought his family would want him to say or do or enjoy often lead him stay quiet, and do nothing, rather risk the wrong thing. At it's worst, it came to a point where someone would have probably looked at him and the only words they'd have been able to use to describe him would be Shelby and Blinder. He's gotten so caught up in appeasing his family he forgot to have a life and personality outside the image he believed they wanted him to be. 

Luckily however, finding his girlfriend seemed to fix that. She was the sweet girl who had agreed to teach him how to read. One day their lesson plans switched from reading words in books to reading the word cards during a silent film. Then when she started taking him places with her friends and going to do the things they liked to do, Finn was able to get a bit of his younger self back. When he was able to find a place in life that was completely separated from the one he was strictly living, and have time to try interests he enjoyed independently, even if his brothers didn't care for them.... That's when his family noticed another, admittedly healthier, change in their youngest. He was more relaxed and comfortable making his own decisions, knowing that there was someone there for him at the end of the day, even if he'd messed up at work or the rest of his family was fighting. A little bit more social at the family gatherings again, he wasn't as annoyed by the teasing comments they'd always made, and felt a bit more confident to share his opinions, knowing he had someone who'd usually try to back him up or at least hear him out. His girlfriend had done some good in him, helping him recognise that he could still have a life outside of his family's expectations. And while it did hinder somewhat his brothers plans to toughen him up to the darker side of the business, they were glad to see Finn a happy as he was. When he was around her he reminded them of the bouncy kid he was when he still laughed loud enough to be heard down the street. And Tommy was glad for that. 

"Tommmmyy," Finn mumbled again, his eyes were closed and he was almost asleep. His words were barely audible. Tommy looked at the face of his twenty year old brother, seeing it was still so much like the one he'd had at five. Sure he'd lost the baby fat and gained a numerous amount of freckles and a few small scars, but it was still the face of the small boy who climbed in his bed because at night when Arthur's snoring sounded like a monster in his closest. It was the same face that shared a mischievous glint with Ada when he wanted to prank John. It was the same face that tears were streaming down on the day he'd left for France and the same one buried in his neck the day he'd returned. It was the face he kept seeing in nightmares for weeks after the Lee family blew up the car, imagining what would have happened if he hadn't got there in time. It was the face of Tommy's baby brother, he still didn't like to deny, even if he did it more and more often these days.

"Do you really want me to rub you back like I did when you were little?"

"Uh huhhh...." 

Finally relenting, Tommy rolled his eyes again, but this time he had a small smile on his face. Giving a somewhat dramatic sigh, the older brother was finally able to free his arms from the weight on top of him. Then, much to Finn's delight, Tommy moved his arms around to rub and scratch his brother's back. He did it the same way he'd done it all those years ago, calming movements all the way down and then rubbing a few small circles between the shoulder blades. Occasionally he'd move one hand to the base of Finn's neck and place some pressure there for a few seconds. 

Tommy's couldn't even hear Finn's mumbled thanks as the younger man had finally fallen asleep. The soft familiar snoring made it's way to Tommy's ears less than a minute after he'd finally given in, leaving him to chuckles softly under his breath. Finn always did fall asleep fast, especially when someone was rubbing his back. Tommy could have chosen to stop now, rescinding his hands and moving Finn off of him. He could have gotten up and gone to meet Lizzie in the guest room by the nursery that she was likely sleeping in now.... However he didn't. 

That night Tommy would spend another half hour rubbing his sleeping brother's back, before he fell back into his own, surprising peaceful, sleep. Finn remained sprawled over his brother, softly snoring in his ear, while Tommy's hand lay on his brother's back, softly gripping the shirt he wore. And once again the night was calm.....

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Fucking hell Ada, go slower or you're gonna step on my balls"

"I am going slow, it's not my fault that John's fat ass is making the bed squeak."

"Fuck off, my ass isn't fat! Besides at least I'm not the one using his head to keep my balance."

"All of you quiet before you wake them."

Argued whispers broke though Tommy's mind a few hours later. It confused his sleep idled mind. Not the fact they were arguing, that was a regular occurrence, but just hearing the voices of Arthur, Ada, and John so early in the morning. Why was he hearing them this early?...

Or maybe it wasn't early, Tommy could feel a warmth on his back probably from the morning sun. Usually he was at breakfast before it came up. Still half asleep, he ignored their argument, not wanting to deal with whatever fight they were having now, and shifted to get more comfortable. Only to find that he couldn't move, still held down by a heavy weight. Moving agin to try and free himself he realized that not only had he turned on his stomach during the night, but the warmth on his back was from Finn, still asleep hugging onto his form. He also figured it was Finn's hand gripping his hair tightly too. The quiet ginger had a habit of doing that in his sleep to Tommy when he was younger. 

The hushed voices around the room froze, and he could feel eyes on his form. Then he felt the bed shift slightly and the soft thump of a hand hitting a chest. What the fuck was going on?

"Shit, Esme take it already."

Groaning at the bright light, Tommy opened his eyes and lifted up his head. It took a few moments for his eyes to adjust and his nose inadvertently scrunched at having to wake up. For once, Tommy was actually sleeping well and he was mildly annoyed at having been disturbed. But that annoyance turned to more confusion soon enough. 

Ada, John, and Arthur were all situated on their own spots in Tommy's bed. He could feel the back of Arthur's knees by his head to the left side of the bed and it was Arthur griping his hair, apparently for balance. Ada seemed to be next to Arthur sitting criss-cross, the extra pressure over his back indicating that she was leaning some of her weight on Finn. And John he could actually see sitting directly on the back of Tommy's knees, keeping him from rolling over again.... had Finn not still been sprawled on top of him. Looking to right he saw not just Esme, but Lizzie, Linda, Polly, Michael, AND Uncle Charlie watching them. He also noticed Finn's girlfriend over Lizzie's shoulder, wrapped tightly in a blanket, watching silently with a glass of water for her own hangover. They were all observing the scene before them with equal levels of amusement as all the Shelby siblings plied into one bed for the first time in an over a decade probably. It was that moment Tommy, still half asleep, noticed the camera in Esme's hands and realised what was about to occur. But he didn't get the chance to protest.

"Shit he's seen it, ESME GO!"

A second before Esme took the photo, Ads raised her hand and brought it down as hard as she could on Finn's back. 

Scared shitless Finn shot awake and cursed, his eyes wide open. Instinctively he began fighting off whoever was on top of him, causing Tommy to groan in pain as an elbow was driven into his back. This started a miniature wrestling match between the five of them as Finn scrambled to grab whoever hit him, Ada, John, and Arthur, fought to hold him down just because they could, and Tommy, having enough of it all, fought to get up. They were all yelling, but none of them could be understood by the rest of the family watching on. Eventually, Finn tried to shove himself up again and succeeded to do so while also knocking Ada off the bed. When she fell she grabbed John and Arthur, who ended up grabbing Finn, who grabbed Tommy and they all ended up in another pile on the floor. 

Across the room Linda and Lizzie were almost crying they were laughing so hard. Uncle Charlie was holding onto Michael's shoulder to keep himself up right as they laughed. Polly was chuckling quietly but just mostly watched the scene with a nostalgic smile on her face, remembering the times when the siblings acted like that more often. It have been a long time since then and it was nice to see them acting like they did when they were younger. Esme's smile was partially hidden as she held the camera to her eye to take another photo of the pile on the floor. Finn's girlfriend was still wrapped with a blanket around her like a hooded cloak, and she was grinning while telling Esme the best spot to take another picture. In her hand was the other photo that had just finished developing. Arthur, John, and Ada could be seen smiling happily as they piled over their two brothers, Finn's face showed pure fear as he was smacked awake, and Tommy's half asleep confusion finally processing what was in Esme's hand. It was a perfect picture showing the Shelby siblings in their natural habitat....Chaos.

From the pile on the floor, it seemed as if Finn's body finally remembered the events of last night and he heaved slightly as the nausea kicked in.

"I'm gonna be fucking sick."

His siblings scrambled to get away.

....

Main Masterlist

[underdark-dreams]

I just binged all your Rolan x Tav fics on here (about to go to A03 and give kudos ❤️) and just wanted to say 😩😩 Perfect! AND! I saw you wanted suggestions! i would love to see the first interact/first meeting of Rolan and Tav from his POV if you felt inclined! No pressure! Thank you, keep up the good work! ❤️

I've grown so fond of this vague fem Tav I keep pairing with Rolan...so I hope these pronouns are ok for this request! Tav gets her name finally. (Cal and Lia also barged their way into this one in a big way)

Blades and Spells

A sanctimonious soldier isn't Rolan's idea of a good person to know, but is seems Tav is doing her damnedest to prove him wrong. The day of their first meeting at the Grove.

Tags: Fem Tav, Fluff, First Meetings, Sibling Bonding

Word Count: 4,322 [Read on AO3]

"We don't even know these people—"

"They're the closest thing we've got to kin, and you know it!"

The bright and promising midday had been punctured by a bloody ambush at the gate. Kanon was dead—a goblin booyagh's arrow and a nasty fall behind the front wall. No doubt his body was still cooling just a short walk from where the three siblings stood inside the shaded mouth of the Grove.

Their caravan's brief respite was shaken by the attack. Zevlor had retreated to strategize; the other Tieflings were on edge, a few downright panicked, the fresh tension around them only fueling the siblings’ words. 

It had been weeks since he and Lia had a proper fight—Rolan felt all the pent-up anger rolling out now.

Lia stood with fists braced on her hips. "And what about the goblins? I know you're handy with a spell, Rolan, but I seriously don't fancy our chances alone on the Risen Road."

"Did you not see what just happened?" Rolan said, casting an arm behind his sister toward the gate. "That treasure-hunting idiot just led them right down on our heads. There’s bound to be more, and I don’t want us sticking around to find out how many."

"That’s all the more reason to stay!” Lia’s voice rose to match his. “These people aren't fighters, Rolan. We’d be cowards to leave. We can protect them—we should—"

“Or keep making a scene,” Cal said from the sidelines, to no one in particular. The other Tieflings had grown used to their bickering many miles ago.

Lia was undeterred. "Is this about your precious Lorroakan? Because I promise you, Rolan, he'll still be there when we finally get to Baldur's Gate."

Rolan's voice dripped with sarcasm. "Oh of course not, why would I want to achieve my lifelong dream, see my family finally be safe and provided for along the way—"

"Don't put this on me and Cal," his sister warned. "It's all the same excuse, you'd have left these people yesterday—"

"Because they're not my kin!" Rolan practically shouted, not caring how far his voice carried. "No matter how many times you say it! I'm not going to risk all three of our lives, our futures, on people who can't seem to keep themselves alive. How do you think I'd feel if I let anything happen to you? Either of you?"

"We know, Rolan," Cal interjected, trying to bring a little understanding.

"If you care about me and my future—" Lia jabbed a sharp nail at Rolan's chest—"you won't ask me to turn my back on these people when they need our help."

As Rolan opened his mouth to respond, he caught motion in his periphery. He turned to see an unfamiliar face standing at the edge of their conversation. The stranger rested a hand on her sword pommel, looking on quietly curious at the scene.

"Yes?" Rolan snapped at her. Sticking your nose into a private conversation hardly deserved politeness.

“Wait," Cal piped up beside him. “I saw you at the gate after the goblins."

Lia was quick to follow, disagreement all but forgotten. “You fought out there just now?” She sounded practically jealous. “Sweet hells, that must have been a rush. We owe you.”

"Good timing, that’s all," the stranger replied, shifting her weight a little. From real or false modesty Rolan couldn't tell.

He finally recognized her then—the one he saw speaking with Zevlor for quite a while immediately after the attack. Judging by the flecks of wet blood on her equipment, and on that of her companions behind her, these were the surprise reinforcements he'd already heard other refugees chatting about in energetic tones.

They weren't so impressive in person. Scrappy, in Rolan's private judgment. His eyes passed over the pouting cleric, the murderous-looking Githyanki with a massive sword on her back, the elf who was glancing around himself as though trying to decide which element of his current surroundings he disliked most. 

The other wizard looked sane enough, Rolan allowed. He could practically feel the ripples in the Weave all around the man's shoulders. Perhaps Rolan would have a chance at an intelligent conversation in this place after all.

As for the one in front—she smiled pleasantly at Rolan despite having just walked from a goblin ambush. That, to his mind, marked her as the most eccentric of all.

"Tav," she said, extending her sword hand. Rolan glanced down at the dark stains on her fingers.

Wasn't this hovel filthy enough? His clothes already smelled of smoke and grease from days in close quarters; he drew the line at smearing them with goblin blood.

Tav tracked his eyes, letting out an awkward laugh as she moved to wipe her palm on her pants. From beside him, Lia firmly intercepted the handshake.

"Lia. Forgive my brother, you know how wizards are about their robes." His sister's tone was light, but she shot him a look from the corner of her eye. 

As if Rolan cared what some passing stranger thought of him. If he’d had his way, they wouldn't be here to have this conversation at all. But Cal introduced himself as well, looking a bit starstruck.

“Well met,” Tav told them, Rolan included. “Sorry, I know I’m interrupting.”

Perhaps sensing Rolan was about to agree, Lia jumped in. “Please. It’s a pleasure to meet people willing to risk their necks for a bunch of strangers, especially Tieflings. You all heading to Baldur’s Gate?”

“Aye. Same as you, I imagine—”

The inanity was enough to drive Rolan mad; it was like their first days on the road from Elturel all over again. He crossed his arms and zoned out as she and his sister made their meaningless smalltalk. He'd rather get his tail stepped on than do this painful getting-to-know with one more person they’d never see again. 

Then he heard Lorroakan's name, and his ears perked up.

“He’s taken Rolan as an apprentice,” Cal was telling Tav proudly.

"Have you met Archmage Lorroakan?" Rolan asked her, suddenly interested in the conversation again. Tav looked at him with hesitation.

"Not personally. Gale said—" She glanced down the slope deeper into the Grove, and Rolan realized that the companions behind her had all trickled away in the short moment he hadn’t been paying attention. Seeking rest and recuperation, no doubt. "Gale was saying he's heard of him."

The human wizard, Rolan gathered. Hearing a stranger speak the archwizard’s name somehow rekindled the fire in Rolan’s chest, one he hadn’t realized had grown so low on fuel. He clenched his fist beside his robes and felt the crinkle of Lorroakan’s letter there in his pocket.

Tav was regarding him with a quizzical expression. "I mean, if an archmage that famous has an apprenticeship waiting for you…I guess I can’t blame you for wanting to move on sooner than later."

"Naturally," Rolan said, a bit stiff. It annoyed him that this newcomer could see more sense than his own siblings.

Then she continued. "But Lia's right. You three seem like you can handle yourselves, and I'm not sure the same could be said for everyone here. We'll need every fighting soul to defend against that goblin nest. Especially you—" Tav directed the comment to Rolan. "Having another Weave caster could make all the difference."

Well, so much for sense. Speaking of we and us as if they all had the same goals. A transparent tactic. Rolan wasn't sure what altruistic world Tav had waltzed out of, but he'd heard enough rousing speeches on kinship and unity from people like Zevlor to last him a lifetime. He wasn't about to listen to one from a stranger.

She was correct, however, to acknowledge the value of his skills. No one on the road here had displayed anything close to what Rolan knew he was capable of.

He glanced one more time between his siblings. The set of Lia's jaw told him her mind was well made up. Cal just looked hopeful for a resolution.

Rolan swore. "Fine. We've only taken our damn time getting here, what’s a few more days lost? If we’re lucky, we’ll reach the city with a good story, at least."

"Thank you, Rolan." Lia was meek now that she'd gotten her way.

“You must be quite skilled,” added Tav, sizing him up a bit. "To catch the eye of the Archwizard of Baldur's Gate."

Rolan didn’t miss a beat. "I am.” Cal rolled his eyes over Tav’s shoulder, but Rolan ignored him. “I’ve been manipulating the Weave since I was a child.”

“It’s true,” Lia confirmed. Still feeling guilty about winning the fight, perhaps.

“Really?” Tav broke into a grin, clearly impressed. Rolan drank in the admiration. "Good thing you're staying, then."

Behind his pride, Rolan couldn't help but feel a bit manipulated. Perhaps Tav wasn't the unsophisticated sellsword that she’d appeared at first.

"Well, I should go find the crew before they make too much trouble.” Tav was turning to leave before she paused, sheepish. “Say—don’t suppose druids keep a blacksmith around? One of those worgs’ teeth put a big scratch in my baby here.” As she spoke she looked down at the sword belted to her hip, almost like an indulgent parent.

“Dammon can fix you up,” Lia told her at once. “He’s one of us, a Tiefling. And he’s damn good. Take a left down the hill and you can’t miss him. Follow the loud noises,” she added, with a grin to match.

“Cheers,” Tav told her. “See you all later?”

The three of them watched her figure disappear deeper into the Grove. 

"She stabbed a warg right up close,” Lia murmured, sounding morbidly inspired. “That’s incredible.”

Rolan scoffed at her. “Better to kill it from a distance and not damage your most valuable piece of equipment in the process.”

“Hey.” Cal glanced over to his older brother. “Did you even tell her your name?”

Rolan wasn’t concerned. “I’ll tell her later, if she’s still around.” She and her companions would remember his name soon enough—them and all of Baldur's Gate.

—

In these cramped quarters, it didn’t take long before they encountered Tav again. Her hands swung a bit awkwardly at her sides, as if she didn’t know what to do with them. Her scabbard clanked empty against her greaves; presumably, Dammon was hard at work repairing her blade. 

Cal and Lia practically swooped down beside her as she approached. Rolan tried to hide his scowl at their eagerness.

"Have you been around the place yet? Cal and I can show you around, if you’ve got time.”

“I’d like that,” she told them both with a genuine smile. “Perhaps later, if you’re willing? Zevlor told me about your…druid problem. I promised him I’d have a talk with Kagha.”

Who had elected her emissary? Rolan glowered. "I assure you, the druids will tell you it's a foulblood problem."

It wiped the smile from her face, and Rolan found it difficult to feel bad. She wanted to dig through other people's problems? She could get used to uncovering ugly things.

"Yes…well. I'd prefer to keep an open mind," she told him evenly. With another small comment to his brother and sister, she continued on toward the deep clearing where the druids were gathering in preparation for their rite. A place strictly off-limits for Tieflings.

Lia rounded on him. "I swear, you embarrass me worse than Cal sometimes."

Cal frowned. "Hey—"

"Because you care too much about what people think," Rolan answered his sister. "Believe me, she and her people don't care about us. Didn't you hear her little speech before? She only wants more bodies for the fight."

Internally, Rolan was still bristling at the idea that Tav had complimented and cajoled him into staying at the Grove. He didn’t truly believe that was the reason for his decision, but the fact that she’d gotten to him at all unsettled him.

“Come on.” Lia knocked her arm against his playfully, an effort at reconciliation. “I’m just saying, Rolan. It costs nothing to be a bit nicer to people around here.”

Rolan heaved a sigh. Even he was growing weary from all the bickering they’d done today, though he’d never admit that to his sister. “All right. I’ll try, if it makes you happy. But believe me—people like her look after themselves. And I intend to look after us.”

—

Tav hadn’t been in the heart of the Grove for more than ten minutes before she reappeared, practically stomping up the path from the Kagha’s inner sanctum. Apparently the emissary work wasn’t going so well. Without her sword, her hands were clenched at her sides in empty fists. Her expression was thunderous.

“Have you seen Zevlor?” She asked the three of them as she approached, bypassing the smalltalk Rolan was beginning to expect from her. He directed her back toward the carved door in the corner of the cave. 

“Everything all right?” Rolan asked, curious in spite of himself.

Tav exhaled sharp through her nose. “Kagha was having a grand time interrogating a hostage. That little girl, Arabella.”

“What?” Cal’s voice rang with alarm.

“I guess she tried to steal the druids’ carving of Silvanus,” Tav told him. “The one they need for their ceremony. Her mother was nearly out of her mind…the child’s all right,” she added in haste. “Back safe with her parents now, but shaken up.”

Lia quivered with outrage at Rolan’s side. “Thank the hells you intervened.”

“Of course,” Tav replied at once, as if the situation called for nothing less. “I understand it’s the idol of their deity, but by all the gods…Kagha was ready to call her asp down on a terrified child.”

“That fucking viper." 

Cal wasn’t referring to the snake; his siblings both glanced at him in surprise. He was a gentle soul, but if Cal cared about anything, it was protecting the young ones.

Tav seemed of the same mind. “There’s something about her,” she agreed with a dark look. Abruptly, she wheeled on Rolan. “What do you think?”

She sought his opinion as a wizard, he realized. All three of them were watching him, in fact, hanging on for his answer.

“Ritual magic is quite different from the Weave,” Rolan replied carefully. “Especially druidic magic. I don’t have the same feel for it. But Kagha…” 

He cast his mind back to the first day their bedraggled caravan arrived in the Grove. The lot of them exhausted and bloodied after fighting off goblins and gnolls just up the road. Halsin, the massive elf who was then First Druid, squaring his shoulders above the smaller woman who somehow seemed to tower to his same height.

“She’s powerful,” Rolan decided. “Quite. Where it comes from, I couldn’t say.”

Tav was staring at him with an intensity Rolan hadn’t seen on her face yet. She looked far more intimidating than she had to him before. 

But then she let out a thoughtful hum, and her features were back to their usual lightness. “I guess that’s one more reason to find this Halsin sooner rather than later.”

They all watched her take her leave toward Zevlor’s makeshift war room, the stone door sliding shut again behind her.

—

As the sun dipped below the horizon and a stiff evening breeze picked up at the cave’s entrance, Rolan and his siblings settled toward the insulated back wall of the Grove where Okta was tending hearth. Whatever the old woman had simmering in her massive cauldron smelled a bit like damp wool, but the warmth of the coals underneath was toasty and wonderful against the skin on Rolan’s face and hands.

Cal and Lia were in wistful discussion on either side of him—something about which landmarks of the city they wanted to visit first. Rolan let the feel of the conversation wash over him without hearing the words. His eyes were on the glowing coals, but his mind was also on Baldur's Gate—that and its great archwizard. 

You are fortunate, young Rolan. The flourish with which Lorroakan had written his name floated through his mind's eye. Even the parchment itself was heavy and fine, almost promising of better things. Rolan’s fingers brushed the hip pocket of his robes again as if to assure himself. He still carried the letter with him everywhere, though he’d long since memorized its contents.

From behind him Rolan heard the sounds of a friendly disagreement and turned to look. Tav again. He shouldn’t be surprised; the woman seemed to be everywhere today. 

Across the path, she was engaged in a polite argument with Dammon at his tent. The smith held a hand up as if refusing something. Rolan caught sight of the polished sword pommel back in her scabbard once more, and surmised that Dammon must be turning down payment for the repair job after her help at the gate today. That seemed like his chivalrous style. 

Indeed, Rolan watched her tuck her leather coin purse away and offer a hand instead. Dammon accepted and shook it with a warm smile.

As he continued watching, the two struck up a friendly conversation. Rolan supposed a soldier would find much more to talk about with a smith than with an apprentice wizard. Her hand was draped at rest over her sword hilt again; that seemed to be an idle habit of hers. 

He remembered the city guard back in Elturel displaying the same gesture while posted at watch, and wondered whether she might be in a similar line of work. Back in…wherever it was she hailed from.

Insipid questions that Rolan nevertheless filed away in his mind to ask her at some point. If nothing else, it would make Lia happy to see him making an effort. Being nice.

Rolan glanced again at the dark stains on her fingers. She hadn't taken time to wash and rest yet since the fight. It was all over her, goblin blood and human, small flecks of it visible on her clothing and chestplate and even on the side of her face. Didn't she find it unpleasant? It would drive him mad. But it didn't seem to concern her, and Dammon certainly didn't look bothered.

The smith said something that made her laugh then, and a dimple appeared in Tav's blood-spattered cheek.

Dammon had an easy way about him that always seemed to earn him fast friends. Right now, Rolan found he was a bit envious of the trait. He didn't intend to come off as such a prickly ass, as Lia so affectionately liked to call him—though time and again he seemed to manage it. 

The constant setbacks between them and Baldur's Gate had just soured Rolan's mood in recent weeks, he told himself. His apprenticeship was all his mind could dwell on at rest, and each delay was harder to bear than the last.

But none of that was really Tav's fault. Inwardly, he could admit that Lia would have talked him into staying on her own anyway. Rolan found himself hoping that he'd made a non-terrible impression on the newcomer.

An elbow in his ribs broke his line of thought. "What?" Rolan looked around, rubbing the spot with a hand.

"I said, you're staring," Cal repeated. He and Lia were both looking at him—Rolan didn't like the expression on either face.

"Shut up," he said, though neither of them had spoken. "She's got blood all over her, who wouldn't?"

"I'm just saying." Cal put up both palms, his eyebrows raised. "From your face, you didn't seem that put off."

"Maybe she’d like to see your Thunderwave, Rolan," his sister suggested.

"You're both idiots." Rolan turned around with arms crossed, watching Okta pluck a dead chicken as though it might be interesting. The idiots on either side were not so easily deterred.

"There’s something about a woman in armor, isn't there, Cal?"

"I've always thought so." Cal leaned a forearm on Rolan's shoulder, sounding quite sincere. "Hey, you could offer to magic the bloodstains off her stuff for her. Use that presto—presti—"

"Prestidigitation," Rolan supplied, eyes still on Okta's cooking. A shockingly good idea from Cal. But it would be strange to offer that to a person he'd just met; Rolan dismissed the thought.

"She should've just taken the time to clean it herself before it all dried," Rolan said aloud. "The way her companions did, no doubt. Instead of running back and forth back here all day."

"Yeah," Lia drawled. "Saving little girls from pit vipers. What a waste of time."

“Well, only one way to find out if she’s interested.” Cal turned around and cupped a hand to his mouth. “Hey, Tav—”

Rolan would have smacked the back of his brother’s head had the woman not already turned toward the sound of her name. She approached their spot near the hearth looking politely curious.

“Lia was just wondering,” Cal started in—leaving Rolan’s name out of it, a smart choice for his skull— “won’t it take a long time to get all the stains out of your armor?” 

“Oh.” Tav sounded taken aback, but glanced down at herself as if just now noticing the state of her equipment. “Oh yeah, this’ll cost me a good half hour at least. And probably both my elbows,” she added with chagrin. “Damn. Got distracted by everything, I guess.”

“Because Rolan can magic it off in a second,” Lia said in a rush.

"Really?" Far from averse, she was looking at Rolan with sudden enthusiasm. "I didn’t know magic could—I mean, of course it can. I guess. Why, are you offering…?” She glanced between him and his siblings then, as if finally picking up on the strange energy between them.

Rolan felt all three pairs of eyes come to rest on him. He could hardly back out now. “If you’re interested,” he told her.

“Hells yes,” Tav laughed. “Are you kidding?”

Lia clapped her hands together softly. “Excellent. Well, since Tav’s interested—” She placed a strange emphasis on the word, one Rolan hoped only he noticed— “Cal and I should get going to set up camp. See you both later?”

“Right,” Cal agreed at once. With that, the pair of them slipped off in a few flicks of the tail. 

What a couple of damned children. Rolan let out a heavy sigh; they seemed determined to try every last slip of patience he had.

Tav followed him to a spot closer to the back corner of the Grove, a bit removed from the sounds and smells. A stream of cool air seeped in from somewhere outside the walls, and Rolan breathed in gratefully. He had found it hard to concentrate in the stale surroundings of this place.

“Right.” She stood opposite him, looking a bit unsure. “How does this work, exactly?”

“Just keep still,” Rolan advised her. This would be easier if she took off the pieces of her half-plate first, but asking her to do that seemed unthinkably familiar.

She did as he directed. “Sure you’re not going to transform me into a pigeon or something? Give me wings?”

“This is the simplest spell there is, I’m not an idiot.” Rolan’s tone was irritable, but it only made her laugh. He realized that she was teasing him.

Regardless, Rolan steadied his stance and reached out to the Weave. Whether or not it was technically correct, it was the way he’d taught himself. 

Breathe in—quiet each thought—feel the air above and the ground below—

Like a warm embrace from the oldest friend, the Weave flowed as a golden light into his cupped hand. Rolan formed the clear intention in his mind and guided the magic toward her. 

“It tickles,” Tav said in surprise, but he could tell she was doing her best to keep still. Her eyes were squeezed shut for some reason.

Rolan blinked at her, not sure how long she had expected this to take. “You can—it’s done.”

“Really?” Tav looked across her chest and shoulders and the greaves on her legs, admiring their new shine. “Wow…neat trick, that. So you’re saying Gale’s been watching us polish our armor and weapons every night when he could just use the Weave for two seconds?”

“The manipulation does take energy,” Rolan told her, not wanting to discredit a fellow wizard while he wasn’t here to defend himself.

Her expression changed a bit. Then she reached a hand to his shoulder. “Thanks for this, Rolan. It might be simple to you, but—” She dropped her arm and cast around with a tired laugh. “Life has honestly been…kind of terrible lately. Thank you for making it better.”

Rolan felt he could stand to hear more of that story, but he doubted she'd want to tell it. “You’re welcome,” he told her instead.

It was a bit awkward traveling back through the winding Grove together toward the entrance, but it could hardly be avoided. Their camps were both in the same direction.

The night patrol were watching vigilantly from the wall; the massive carved gate raised before them as if in anticipation. Rolan stepped out into the dark, cool evening with another grateful breath.

Beside him, Tav sighed wearily. "Well, 'night. Off to enjoy my extra sleep," she said with another smile to him before she turned away.

No such easy goodnight for him, Rolan knew. He imagined Cal and Lia perching awake on their bedrolls, eager to hear what chaos or embarrassment or both their meddling had caused for him this time. 

More concerning to him right now was the way his shoulder seemed to radiate where she'd placed a grateful hand before. Rolan rolled his arm a little, trying to shake the tingling warmth near his collar bone. It didn't quite work.

But perhaps he'd think about that tomorrow.

[cyborgpuppyofficial]

Hey! Before I begin this thread, I just wanna say, DON'T HARRASS ANYBODY. If you find the original post about what this is, then don't harass them or send them threats. They just have a bad take, that's all. Don't look for them, don't engage, just ignore their ass.

Trigger warning for Transphobia, and general dumbass takes ahead. This is gonna be a long one, so strap in! ^w^

So there's this assinine thread that is spreading around in the Sonic Headcannons tag, and I'm here to ratio it, and debunk it. Because it's been REALLY on my nerves, and I wanna talk about it in a longer format. Again, don't look for this person. And if you find them, don't harass them. That's not cool, and I blurred their name for a reason. Anyways, let's begin! In this first screencap I took, they talk about Sonic not being Trans because it doesn't fit with his character

Now me personally, I don't see Sonic as Trans. But I do see him as Demisexual and Demiromantic as two parts of my headcannon for him. So I'm gonna tell you that it's NOT THAT DEEP. Sonic can still be Trans or Cis, and still have the same personality. It's almost like Trans people are human beings, who have personalities outside of being Transgender! Who would've thought! What a crazy concept!😱 Which by the way, his personality changes in many interactions, look at Sonic Prime, or Sonic Boom for example. In Sonic Prime he acts way more goofy, and in Sonic Boom he's more of a sassy dork. But they still like the same things as far as we're aware. Do you know what would change about them and their personalities if they were Trans? If you said absolutely nothing, congratulations, you're not a braindead idiot! >w< Sonic can still run fast, be cocky, eat hot chili dogs and lie, as well as being Transgender! Because being Trans changes nothing about a person, especially not a FICTIONAL CARTOON HEDGEHOG.😱😱

Also Sonic is a fictional character, he's not even from nature itself, and it's fine if he were to change his gender. Which by the way, MOST TRANS HEADCANNONS MAKE HIM FTM, WHICH CHANGES NOTHING ABOUT HIS PYSICAL APPERENCE OTHER THAN TOP SURGERY SCARS. Side note about this first part, whoever actually uses "Woke Propaganda" in a non ironic way, I'm not gonna take you seriously. >:3

This next part of this weird take talks about how Trans Sonic is not representation, and that I can call them a transphobe all I want. So I will! Okay Transphobe, and I will fight you.🥰

Sometimes people like to just put headcannon things onto characters they kin, or they genuinely have reasons for thinking Sonic is Trans. Either way, Sonic and someone's headcannon of Sonic aren't the same! Someone drawing cute little top surgery scars on Sonic isn't going to change the Sonic Brand. It's not cannon, and Sonic being Trans is a headcannon for a reason. It's just a silly thing that lots of people agree with, and it literally harms nobody that some people draw Sonic as Transgender. People can still love Sonic the character, and still draw him as Trans.

They aren't doing a disservice to the franchise by making him Trans, people are just having fun. You should try that sometime! It's better than spewing hateful opinions, and unironically using the word "Wokies" to refer to anybody who DARES to draw Sonic with two little lines on his chest. By the way, bellow is what they're SO PRESSED ABOUT!😱 Isn't that just the scariest thing you've ever seen!? Just two little lines on a character's chest area! Woah! I'm never gonna be able to sleep again!/silly Grow up.

(I don't know who the original artist is, if ya'll know, please tell me!)

Last screenshot I promise, but I'm not sharing their image they included with their lovely post.

Uhh, Trans teenagers exist in real life. Sure a lot of them don't get surgery, but that's the beauty of FICTION. Also why do you care so much that if he is a Teenager and Transgender? That seems a little gross to me. Trans people are able to make their own decisions, and can choose to, or to not get surgery. I'm not Trans myself, and I think that people should wait until they're older to get surgery. But I'm not going to throw up in disgust because someone made a choice for themselves. And it's really weird that you're pressed over a fictional teenager with top surgery scars being drawn on them.😒

People can draw their favorite characters as Trans to kin them, or just because they feel like it. In either scenario, it's a drawing. A fictional drawing that was made for fun. And what exactly are you "helping" by saying this take? Just exposing yourself for being scared of little lines on Sonic's chest? What changes about the video, or drawing, or media you consume because Sonic is drawn with, or without top surgery scars? Again, ABSOLOUTELY NOTHING!🥰🥰 Unless you're reading or watching a comic about Sonic's journey with being Transgender, which is a fanmade thing. Then nothing about certain videos or fan content changes in the slightest. And I think it's so strange that you're hurt enough by Trans Sonic, that you had to say it was the worst headcannon BY FAR. What about those headcannons that Sonic is in love with Tails, or where he's a stalker, or a creep? I guess those aren't nearly as bad as a Trans person existing according to this lovely individual. And I guess a Trans person is the worst thing he can be. (GROSS TAKE)

Fuck off, get a hobby, cope, L+Ratio.😒 Also Trans rights are human rights, and all my Trans fans are valid! And they're allowed to headcannon whatever character as Transgender, since they aren't hurting anybody by doing it! ^w^

Thanks for reading all of this if you did. Again don't look for this person, and don't harass them! I just had to get this off my chest as someone who's been harassed for my own Sonic LGBTQ+ headcannons before. Continue doing your headcannons, as long as you aren't being mean about them. And I hope you... enjoyed this post I guess? XD I hope I did well debunking this weirdo. I'll be sharing my own headcannons, as well as their headcannon designs over here hopefully sometime soon.

Trans rights are human rights! And have a wonderful day everyone, peace out! ^w^

Boo! Ahhh so scary!/silly

[gojos-thot-patrol]

I'm thinking of Soft!Sukuna again. This time in fall weather.

Sukuna, who while he may not understand your obsession with fall, he finds it too precious to question.

He notices how happy the falling leaves make you and how much you value them, so when he finds a particularly cool one, he brings it to you.

Carving pumpkins is such a fucking odd ritual, but anytime he gets to play with knives he's happy. Though, he is a little offended when you tell him his is "too scary" to put on the porch.

He loves watching scary movies with you. Not because he particularly gives a shit about human cinema, especially not this cinema. But he's entranced by the effect theses movies have on you.

He's not paying attention to the blood and gore on screen, he's paying attention to the way you hide your face in his side, flinching away from all of the "scary" parts.

The way you trust him to protect you from all of the monsters of the world- dispite the fact that he is one of them. It makes him melt every time, knowing just how much faith you put in him.

He holds you close, rubbing your back comfortingly as he promises you "don't worry Darling. I've got you." And he's never ment anything more in his life.

Hes been quick to snap and snarl and quite literally every other being in the world. Every being except you. He's as docile as a baby bunny in your touch.

Even when he's on the verge of a full murderous melt down, all it takes is an ounce of your attention to being him back to earth.

It's an ability you have to use frequently when shopping. He fucking hates people, ans whoever designed Wal-Mart is a sociopath that could rival him. But, right before he gives in to his violent tendencies, you're there. Asking him to smell this pumpkin spice candle, or feel this throw blanket that you're thinking of getting.

Do you even know what you're doing?

He absolutely does not understand the ritual of giving treats to random ass children dressed as monsters. It just doesn't compute in his brain.

He is agahst when you tell him you will be partaking in this ritual by escorting your little cousins around while they participate in the candy collecting ritual.

But, he tags along if for no other reason than to protect you and your kin. After all, this little brats make you happy, and who knows what creeps would be using tonight to take advantage of people? Still, he's not keen on spending all night with a kid who just learned how to run off, and a kid who still needs a stroller.

That is until he sees you with them. How sweet you are, how good you are at wrangling them in, how well they listen to you. You were made for this.

And now all he can think about is your family together. How precious you would look holding a baby he gave you. He had never wanted to be a father before, but something about you makes him feel scarily domestic.

The candy you get to take home at the end of the night is just a major bonus, considering stroller child doesn't have any teeth yet.

As the two of you sit in your couch, eating candy while you hide in his chest from the poltergeist, your new candle steadily burning away in the background, it finally hits him. He's safe.

He doesn't have to fight and kill for what he deserves anymore. He doesn't have to constantly sleep with one eye open. He's finally reached a place where he can just relax with the love of his life.

He knows you find safety in him, but he wonders if you know just how much safety he finds in you.