#v; the demons that i face//dragons' child

[thaleleah]

𝓖𝓸𝓭𝓵𝓮𝓼𝓼 (𝓟𝓪𝓻𝓽 𝓞𝓷𝓮)

Pairing: Billy The Kid x Fem!Nun!Reader

Warnings: ***NON-CON***, Dub-Con, Dark!Billy, Virgin!Reader, Oral (female receiving), Fingering, P in V, Corruption Kink, Creampie, Possessive Behavior, Masturbation, Wet Dreams/Sex Dreams, Seduction, Emotional Manipulation, Religion and Religious Beliefs, Explicit talk of gunshot wounds, blood, and the bullet's removal (kinda? Idk if it's explicit explicit, but its a little more than just mentioned), Mention of physical abuse/child abuse (not from Billy), Childhood Trauma, Mention of alcoholism, Moral/Religious conflict within one's self, My bad Spanish, Nun breaking her vows, Probably too quick of a healing process to be fucking someone but I'm not a doctor so 🤷🏻‍♀️, Using the word "drawers" instead of "panties" which is kinda cringe to me but I wanted to be somewhat accurate

Word Count: 9.6K

A/N: Billy's passed out for most of this but I hope y'all like it anyway. Please know I'm posting this and then running away. Okay, byeeeeeeeeee

Summary: When Billy stumbles into your clinic, hurt and in desperate need of care and refuge, you don't hesitate to help him. Perhaps this is God's will. Perhaps He has brought him into your life to help heal the parts of him that the cruelness of the world has soiled and broken. You are a healer by trade, both of the physical body and of faith. If this is to be God's mission for you, then it shall be done. How could you have possibly known that the young man who begged for help that fateful night would turn out to be the devil himself?

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Translations:

Por Dios - Oh my God

Que Dios te bendiga - May God bless you

Qué sorpresa! - What a surprise!

Y él no quería que su mamá lo supiera. Así enterró la carne en el jardín - And he didn't want his mom to know. So he buried the meat in the garden

Pero el perro la desenterró y ella se descubrió de todos modos. Tuvo que lavar platos él solo por dos meses - But the dog dug it up and she found out anyway. He had to wash the dishes by himself for two months

Ese niño - That kid/child

Parece que era un buen amigo - Seems like he was a good friend

Sí, él era - Yes, he was

De nada - You're welcome

Gracias, Hermana - Thanks, Sister

They say the devil can take on many forms.

He is a demon figure - with the face of a goat, horns, hooves, and a blade pointed tail.

He is a great dragon - large and terrifying, destructive and formidable in the power he holds.

He is a roaring lion - hungry and fierce as he stalks God’s children, waiting for them to fall into his trap before he attacks them like prey.

But the devil was once God’s favorite angel, amazingly beautiful and wise. The angel of light, God’s morning star - a traitor now, a trickster . . . evil.

The Lord teaches love for all, compassion and understanding despite another’s upbringing or current situation. All humans are God’s children, all made in His perfect image, brothers and sisters in unity under His loving and eternal care. You are thankful to know this, grateful that you can feel His presence coursing through your veins despite the horror that you’ve come to face daily while working at the clinic. His gift to you is your endless drive to help those in need, sitting by the bedsides of the sick and dying, applying a cool rag to their sweaty foreheads, or spoon feeding them soup to give them strength when they are too weak to do it themselves. 

It is a taxing life, and the sorrow you feel when you cannot nurse someone back to health is ever present in your heart, but the Lord is clear in your life’s mission and you will be forever thankful for the lessons you learn in this lifetime. 

He has made you a healer, using you as a vessel for His healing touch for all you come across - regardless of wealth, status, religious affiliation, or criminal record. 

Which is why when he stumbles into the clinic during the late hours of the night, face pale and hand pressing hard to his side where blood is streaming through his fingers despite the pressure, you don’t hesitate to help him. 

You think you should have - should have let him bleed to death on the clinic floor. Would God have abandoned you if you had?

“Sister Maria!” You cry instead, running to the injured man and looping his arm around your shoulders to help him lean against you. “We need fresh towels and water! And sutures! Hurry!”

Sister Maria runs in the room, bedsheets still cradled in her arms from where she had been turning over a recently discharged patient’s room. She gasps at the scene, dropping the linens on the floor as she rushes to the main utility closet. You guide the man to a bed, helping him drop onto the thin mattress with a tortured groan. One of your hands splays over his, helping to maintain pressure on the wound until Sister Maria can bring in the needed supplies. Your other hand lays gently on his sweaty forehead, thumb caressing the straight line of his nose trying to soothe him. 

His baby blue eyes stare up at you through their pained haze. 

“P-please, help,”

The devil can take on many forms and carry many names.

And yet, despite all you’ve heard about who he is and what he’s done, you never once considered Billy the Kid to be one of them. 

Misguided and uncared for - sure, but never evil. 

He’s so young. You can’t even imagine what horrors he must have had to go through to lead him to the path that he’s on now.

Perhaps it’s fate that you’ve been brought together, an opportunity for you to spread the healing power of your Lord’s love and mend not only his body but his bruised heart as well. You’ve seen too many times where hardships have hardened the minds and spirits of others, caging them off from God as they struggle with their wavering faith. 

“Don’t you worry,” You say. “The Lord is here with us. He will see you through.”

Whether he groans from your words or the pain, you’re not sure.

Sister Maria is quick to grab the supplies, dumping them on the side table. She dunks a clean cloth in the water, wringing out the excess, but pauses when she sees his face. 

“Is that— ” 

“Nevermind that!” You hiss, pulling the cloth from her hand. 

You lift his shirt, exposing the injury and the dirt dusted skin framing it. It looks horrible, blood seeping from the laceration in a steady flow and a part of you is thankful that the sight of blood doesn’t make you immediately drop to the floor like your cousin, Paul. He gasps when you touch the cloth to the wound, blood immediately seeping into the white of the cloth and marring the pure color. 

His fingers dig into the fabric of his trousers, gripping it tight as he clenches his teeth against the pain. Your free hand rubs lightly against his forehead, trying to soothe him as best you can while you clean the wound. 

You think it must be God’s mercy that he passes out before you can pull the bullet out. The pain of the forceps digging into his body as you pulled out the thick ball of lead and the shock that would have come with it would have surely dragged him under had blood loss not gotten to him first. It’s better this way - he’s safer cradled in sleep’s loving hold rather than crying and jerking about as you try to save his life. 

Sister Maria holds a small bowl out in front of you with one hand while the other delicately holds his wrist, feeling his pulse between her dainty fingers.

The bullet comes out easy, your forceps finding the lead and guiding it out of the wound’s entrance with ease. It clanks as you drop it into the tiny bowl, and you send up prayers of thanks for allowing such a quick and simple removal. The grace of your Lord has certainly just saved this man’s life.

With quick fingers, you stitch him up, practiced movements securing the wound shut before covering it with a generous dressing of cloth to keep it clean from any dirt and debris. 

His sleep isn’t restful, the pinch in his brow and the way his cheeks twitch in the flickering candlelight of the small room make that clear. Your own brows pinch as you reach a hand out to trace the furrowed skin, smoothing it out with a gentle thumb. You don’t like seeing people suffer, but it’s more often than not that the people you come into contact with while working in the clinic are in pain, or suffering, or at Heaven’s doorstep. You help who you can and pray for the souls of the ones you can’t so they may be guided to God’s kingdom where they can live in an eternal paradise by His side. It always hurts when you can’t heal someone, the feeling of failure is a stark reminder that ultimately it is the Lord who chooses to give us life, and he can choose to take it away just as quickly. 

It feels different this time though, somehow more personal in a way you can’t understand. The young man before you still has his whole life ahead of him, still so much to do and so many lives to touch. The sins that he’s committed thus far can be forgiven, if only he lifts them up to Him and asks for forgiveness. You can feel it, deep in your bones, that you need to save this man. You can’t fail. 

He’s alive, for now. And you can only do your best to make sure he stays that way. 

“He cannot stay here,” Sister Maria says quietly, gathering the red stained water and rags. “They will find him.”

You nod, gathering the small bowl with the bullet remnant and the sutures kit. “We’ll keep him here tonight and move him to the back room in the morning after he’s rested a while,”

“No,” Sister Maria says. “He cannot stay here. Helping an outlaw is punishable by death. They will hang us,”

“God will not abandon us,” You say, firmly. “We are all His children, servants and outlaw alike. He wouldn’t want us to toss him out on the street to die.”

You look over your shoulder towards the sleeping man again. His brow is furrowed again, the sweat on his face glistening in the light. You sigh before turning back to Sister Maria. “Don’t worry, Sister. I’ll think of something,”

The pacifying words seem to offer Sister Maria no comfort, and her worried eyes snap upwards as she looks towards the ceiling, voice cracking as she breathes a pleading, “Por Dios,” up towards the roof. 

The room is silent to her plea.

You don’t leave Billy’s side the entire night, sitting in the chair directly next to the bed, dabbing at his heated face and neck with a damp washcloth and changing his bandage when the first one had soiled through. He wakes a few times during the night, icy blue eyes fluttering open and locking on yours for the briefest second before slipping closed once again, a quiet sigh escaping through his slightly parted lips. 

This is the hardest part - the waiting. Waiting to see if your hard work to heal someone was enough. You keep a close eye on him, looking for signs of pain or illness, keeping an eye on the injury site to try and prevent infection. You flushed it with alcohol during the dressing change, having found an extra bottle hiding in the supply closet while grabbing some fresh cloths. Supplies like alcohol for disinfecting, while needlessly abundant in saloons and brothels, are difficult to acquire for the clinic. You think it's foolish, wasting something that can be used for healing purposes on something as pointless as getting drunk. Your father had been a drunk, drinking away his cares and woes, his only goal was to make it to the bottom of a bottle. 

You wish you would have found it sooner so you could have actually disinfected the entire wound instead of just the outside and stitches, but this is better than nothing, you suppose. The smell as you pour it over his wound makes your stomach turn, reminding you of all the times your father came home reeking of the stuff, belly full of poison and his mind, hazed with drink, still evil enough to find your mother and make her suffer as if she were the reason he deemed himself a failure in life. Billy lets out a pained moan in his sleep, body subconsciously tensing in pain as the alcohol flushes the stitched up skin, but thankfully he doesn’t wake. You don’t want him to be in pain, but there’s a part of you that selfishly thinks he’s sharing your own pain, the memory of your childhood trauma somehow seeping into his brain as you recover his wound. 

You know it’s not true, but you’re thankful he’s there with you anyway. 

When morning arrives, you’re beyond exhausted. 

The night shift always takes more out of you than the day shift and your eyes have been threatening to close since the first rays of the sun started spreading across the dust covered floor of the clinic. 

Sister Ann and Sister Catherine arrive before the sun does, the first rays of it only starting to spill over the New Mexico horizon line when their footsteps echo through the entryway. You lean forward in your seat at the sound of them, glancing over at Billy’s still sleeping frame as Sister Ann’s gentle humming of a nursery song her mother used to sing to her spreads throughout the clinic. Quick footsteps cut through the song, the humming stopping entirely as frantic whispers sound from the entryway. And then three sets of running feet are getting closer to the corner room. 

“Oh, good heavens,” Sister Catherine breathes, eyes locked on the special patient taking up the small bed. 

Sister Ann has a dainty hand clasped against her mouth in shock and Sister Maria nervously wrings her own together from behind them. 

“He was hurt,” You say, immediately defensive of the injured man. “We couldn’t leave him to die. The Lord says–”

“You don’t need to preach to us, Sister y/n,” Sister Catherine interrupts. “It’s the right thing to do. The Lord is on our side.” She’s confident in her words, and it gives you comfort you didn’t know you needed to have your beliefs validated. But she pauses, eyes flickering once again to Billy before they meet yours - the fear in her brown orbs clear as day. “The law, on the other hand, will not be.” 

“We need to move him,” You say.

“To where?” Sister Ann whispers frantically. “The sheriff and his deputies are sure to show up here. They know he’s been shot, it’s only a matter of time.”

“It is a blessing they have not come already,” Sister Maria adds.

They’re right. With Billy injured, they have to know he couldn’t have gotten far. Their only saving grace is that the Sheriff more than likely would have never believed Billy would have come to the clinic for medical attention if on the run from the law. Perhaps holed up in some abandoned alley, bleeding out while propped up against a wall. Or maybe they think he tried riding out of town, desperate to get as far away from the people hunting him as possible before inevitably succumbing to his injuries and falling off his horse in a nearby field. 

You rise from the chair, leaning over the bed slightly to rest a gentle hand on Billy’s forehead. It’s still clammy against your palm and he shivers slightly in his sleep, subconsciously pressing his head a little harder against your hand looking for comfort in his pained state. He needs to get away from here, away from any prying eyes because if he’s found, his life on this Earth is over. He is in no position to run or fight for his life. The road to recovery for him is a long one if he hopes to heal well enough to regain his strength and usual mobility. The only thing he will have to look forward to if discovered before he can is a necklace of rope and a quick fall. 

“Help me get him to the back room,” You say, sternly. In moments of uncertainty and panic, someone needs to be the guiding light. Your fellow Sisters are still as stones in their spots, all in various states of distress as they look at the man who, if discovered under their care, could very well be the catalyst that marks the end of their missions here on Earth. The Lord brought Billy to you - you need to protect him. “He can stay in the alcove until we can figure out where to take him.”

“He cannot stay in the clinic!” Sister Maria exclaims. “They will surely check every room searching for him!”

“Trust me,” You soothe. “Please, Sister. We need to move him before they come or we will all surely pay the price.”

There is a short pause, but to your frantic brain it feels like an eternity before Sister Catherine nods and gently nudges Sister Ann to the opposite side of the bed. 

“Let’s hurry,” She says, reaching to pull away the thin blanket you threw over Billy’s shaking frame at some point during the night. “I fear we don’t have much time left.”

Together, the four of you lift Billy from the bed. It’s a struggle. Even for multiple women to carry a fully grown man, it's a task and a half just to get him from the small patient room to the back area of the clinic. He whines in his sleep, his wound jostling and stitches pulling from the regretfully poor stability you have on his body as you carry him. But, somehow, he doesn’t wake. 

The back room is small, but comparatively large compared to the patient’s rooms. The entire width is the size of two patient rooms combined, but that’s not giving it much grace. It makes you sick sometimes, to see people with money spending it on lavish items, large houses and grand parties just to show off their wealth when there are people in need all around whose lives would change if they only had a fraction of the wealth the ones in good standing do. As it is, the back room of the clinic is despairingly bare - limited backstock of supplies, linens, and food are scattered among the wooden shelves lining the room. If only those wealthy men who think to only fill their pockets would hear the Lord’s call to give to the needy instead. It would make your heart happy to see these shelves filled just once. 

There’s a small alcove in the back of the room that you and the other Sisters use when times prove most trying. On the days when things are difficult, emotions are too much for you to handle alone or a patient isn’t doing well and there’s nothing you can do other than wait and pray for their recovery, you visit the alcove. It's been adorned with simple yet revenant items, a small yet beautiful cross nailed to the center of the wall, a small ceramic dish holding a wooden beaded rosary placed on the floor below it, resting on a pleasantly fluffed up pillow - ready to help guide their prayer. 

Resting against the side wall of the alcove is a folded up cot. It’s not uncommon that one of the Sisters might have to sleep at the clinic during their off shift. More often than not, they are able to return to their lodgings to sleep and reenergize for their next shift. But there are times when too many people are injured, too many of the townspeople have fallen ill to whatever flu or illness that’s crossing through the town and all hands are needed here. The foldable cot is their home away from home, and while it might not be the most comfortable, you are thankful the Lord was able to provide it lest you be made to sleep on the floor behind the extra blankets neatly folded on the shelves. 

You all adjust your grips on the young man allowing for Sister Maria to release her hold and pull back the thick blanket shielding the entrance to the alcove. You grunt under the presence of the additional weight, the awkward grip you all have on him unhelpful in the way his limp body bears down on you all. Sister Maria is quick in tying back the privacy blanket so that it stays to one side, and works to wrangle open the finicky cot. Once it’s unrolled, you help in depositing Billy down onto the makeshift bed, quickly checking his wound to make sure no stitches accidentally ripped in the journey back here before turning to accept the fresh blanket Sister Ann hands you from the shelf. 

Billy’s brow is furrowed again, breathing a little harsher probably from the pain of being jostled. You lay out the blanket over top of him and pull it up to his chin, your hand reaching out to smooth the wrinkled skin between his eyes again. 

“What do we do now?” Sister Ann asks, and Sister Catherine pulls her hand away from where it was plucking nervously at the skin at the sides of her fingers.

“We wait,” She responds, cradling Sister Ann’s damaged hand delicately between her own. “We won’t be able to move him out of the clinic before the Sheriff arrives. We’ll have to keep him hidden here until then and pray they don’t find him.”

The thought of the Sheriff and his men finding Billy here makes your stomach churn. The undeniable fate that waits for you if he’s discovered is one that you’re willing to sacrifice. He’s come here for help, God has brought him here to you for your healing and protection and you can’t fail Him just because your humanity makes you fearful of your end. It’s supposed to be a beautiful thing - death. The moment when your soul on this Earth fulfills its mission here and your granted eternal life at the side of God in the Kingdom of Heaven. It’s what you’ve wanted your whole life, a life of peace and serenity that seems so out of reach here on the soil. Fear will not keep you from looking forward to it. But you’re not done here yet, you have many years left of helping others and spreading His love to those in need. This is not your end. But if it is, it’s worth the sacrifice to try to save Billy. 

You’ll hang with him, if need be. 

Your fellow Sisters though . . . the thought of them hanging for your own choice, regardless of if you think it was the right thing to do, makes you sick. Your decisions are your own, and they shouldn’t suffer for your choices. 

Billy’s forehead unwrinkles under your gentle fingers, and you can feel your heart break as you look down at him. He’s so young still, a young man just at the beginning of his life. He has so many fine years ahead of him. He’s handsome, fit and strong - he would make a fine husband for some lucky lady, a dutiful father for his children. He’s not as evil as they say. You’ve learned to trust your instincts when it comes to people. Sometimes the most misunderstood people are the kindest, and you can’t help but think Billy is the most misunderstood of all. You can’t sense a single whisper of badness in him. 

You stand up and pull the privacy blanket back in front of the alcove, hiding Billy from sight in the safety of God’s makeshift altar. Together, you and the other Sisters make your way out of the back room. A few rooms down a sickly man is coughing up a storm, and from how hard and continuous his coughs are, you know his throat is raw. Sister Ann shoots the rest of you a worried look, but turns to grab a water carafe off of a side table before rushing down the hall towards the coughing man and away from the current situation. 

“You can head back, Sister Maria,” You say, placing a calming hand on her shoulder. “Get some rest. It’s going to be a long day and we’re going to need you for the night shift.”

You can tell she’s torn, both wanting to stay and help in any way she can but seeming to know that there’s nothing she can do. All there is to do is wait. After a few moments, she nods, her own hand coming up to rest on top of yours. “Que Dios te bendiga,”

You watch as she makes her way towards the front, pushing open the wooden door before jerking to a halt. “Sheriff Garrett! Qué sorpresa!”

Her words sent a spark of panic through you. It’s so soon! You knew it was coming, but it’s still so incredibly soon. You had hoped for at least a while longer to try to gather your thoughts and think of a plan of where you can take Billy, but it feels like time moves slowly as the Sheriff and two of his deputies step into the clinic.

“Sister,” Garrett responds, respectfully tipping his hat. 

Even through your panic, you still feel a twinge of irritation. A gentleman would take off his hat, but you suppose it’s better than the two men standing behind him who do nothing but trail their eyes around the clinic's entrance suspiciously (and with a clear bout of judgment).

You know for a fact these men with gold lined pockets have never given so much as a dime to the clinic. 

Sister Maria turns back to look at you and Sister Catherine, desperation clear in her eyes and you're glad that none of the men are looking at her anymore or you think her obvious distress might have given you all away.

“Have a good rest, Sister,” You say, urging Sister Maria away. Thankfully, she listens, nodding to you and then Garrett before scurrying out the door. 

“How can we help you, Sheriff?” Sister Catherine asks. 

Garrett takes a few leisurely steps along the entryway, observing the interior of the clinic with the aura of a man who thinks he can see everything. You suspect he sees nothing at all. 

“I apologize for the interruption, Sisters. I know you’re hard at work," He says. “But we’re looking for an outlaw on the run.” He pauses, looking over at the two of you with pointed eyes. At your silence, he continues. “William H. Bonney, otherwise known as Billy the Kid,”

“Oh, dear,” Sister Catherine gasps. 

You feign concern also, bringing your fingers to your mouth as a sign of shock. Garrett nods in agreement at your supposed horror. 

“As you no doubt know he is a very dangerous, very unlawful, man,”

“So we’ve heard,” Sister Catherine says, nodding solemnly. “Is that what brings you in today?”

“Yes,” He says. “There was an altercation last night between him and I. I was able to shoot him so he is very hurt, but he got away before I could arrest him or finish the job.”

“Kinda stupid to come to a clinic when you’re a wanted outlaw, Pat,” One of the men behind Garrett grumbles. “We’re wasting our time here.”

You can’t help but agree, despite that being exactly what Billy did. But maybe that’s what makes it smart. You're hopeful that Garrett will listen to his friend, will assume that Billy couldn’t possibly be here and leave the clinic without investigating it. 

The small spark of hope dies as Garrett laughs without mirth. “The Kid’s not stupid. But we’re covering all our bases,” 

“Helloooooo,” A voice calls from another room opposite the patient still occasionally coughing up a lung. “Can someone please pay attention to the sick people around here? Hellooooooooooo?”

Sister Catherine smiles tightly. “Mr. Taylor,” She says by way of explanation. “A rather problematic patient here. He’s a good man, just impatient.”

Sister Ann’s voice can still be heard attempting to soothe her own charge, so Sister Catherine has no choice but to tend to Mr. Taylor. When she disappears from sight, you turn back to Garrett, trying your best to deter suspicion. 

“I can assure you, Sheriff, that we haven’t seen any sign of Mr. Bonney around here,” The lie leaves your lips far too easily for it to feel like the sin that it is.

Garrett nods, and you can tell he believes you, but puts his hands on his hips all the same, one hand pushing aside his coat to rest freely on the hilt of his gun. “Mind if we have a look around?”  

You force a smile on your face. “Not at all. As long as you don’t bother any of the patients. They need their rest,”

“Certainly,”

You lead him around the clinic allowing him and the deputies to search the rooms for their missing outlaw. When they get to Billy’s old room, the room they just vacated not minutes before the Sheriff arrived, you tell them that a patient was recently discharged and that you hadn’t had the time to turn over the room yet. 

“Why is there blood on ‘em?” One of the deputies asks, nodding to the blood stains still covering the stark white of the sheets. 

“A cooking accident,” You reply. “An incorrect knife hold can sometimes do that,”

Another lie. You feel this one a little more than the first. 

Eventually their search comes to the back room. You can’t keep them out, that would be too suspicious, so you allow them to walk through the half filled shelves. It's more than clear that there’s no place to hide anyone here other than the alcove and you're naively hoping they won’t even realize it’s there. 

It’s a large blanket hanging on the wall. Of course, they’re going to notice it. 

And, sure enough, one of the deputy’s eyes cut to the blanket. He heads towards it with a gruff “What’s behind here?” but you intercept him, rushing over to stand between him and the alcove.

The Sheriff and his deputies have their eyes on you now, each one closing in closer to you and the alcove, much too close for comfort.

“Sister,” Garrett says, voice stern with authority. “What’s behind the blanket?”

“It’s our place of prayer here,” You say, voice calm despite your nervousness. “Our altar.” You can’t mess up now. If you show any sign that you’re being untruthful, both you and Billy as well as your fellow Sisters out front will be on a one way trip to the courthouse. You’ll all die hanging from its top banister. “When healing doesn’t seem to be enough, it helps to have a place dedicated to God to call upon his everlasting power to perform miracles.”

Garrett nods. “Mind if we take a look?”

“Yes, actually. I do,” Your quick denial clearly catches him off guard, his eyebrows raising towards his hat. “Just as God bids us to modesty with our clothing, we must also show privacy and modesty in our places of worship. They’re sacred spaces. Surely you understand that, Sheriff,” 

The words feel like poison on your tongue. Using worship and prayer to cover up a lie is the catalyst that makes bile feel like it's rising in your throat. It’s not a lie, you have to remind yourself. It is a makeshift altar, you do use it as a place of worship and prayer. Just . . . not right at this moment. 

The reality of the situation is catching up with you, and you hide your slightly shaking hands by folding them together in front of you. You haven’t lied in years. You lied a lot as a child, a necessity of living with a father who’s anger could strike at a moment’s notice. You resented having to do it back then, forced to sin for the sake of trying to keep peace in the home. It’s much like the situation you find yourself in now, having to lie to try and protect another person. To protect yourself. 

When you found refuge at the convent all those years ago, you were told you would never have to be untruthful ever again.

“God is granting you freedom from your woes,” You were told, and you remember how light those words had made you feel. “Thank him for His good graces with your undying loyalty and strive to always be who He guides you to be.”

You hadn’t lied since, no matter how tough things seemed. Sickly patients lying on their deathbed, scared and begging you for any kind of reassurance that it wasn’t the end for them. You wouldn’t give them false hope. Instead, you would tell them to turn their worries to the Lord, clasping their hands in yours and praying with them.

“Your soul is strong, bright and ever-present,” You would tell them. Sometimes you would let them hold your rosary so they can find comfort in it. “The body is a temple, and we do our best in our life to care for it. You’ve done that. If it weakens now, it is because God is calling your soul back to Him.”

The guilt is clawing at your chest, but you force it back as best as you can as you meet Garrett’s eyes. “I ask that you don’t force us to desecrate that,” 

Garrett just stares at you, an unreadable expression on his face. One deputy just looks between you and Garrett, uncertain with how to proceed in the face of defying authority, and the other deputy that sneered at the thought of Billy even coming to the clinic scoffs at your words. 

“Listen, lady, the law–”

“John, enough,” Garrett interrupts, voice shockingly hard as his eyes cut to his deputy. “She’s a Sister and you’ll show her respect.”

You feel a quick spark of satisfaction at the way the deputy’s confident, power hungry facade dies under the Sheriff's ridicule. He mumbles a quick apology to which you accept with a nod despite how insincere it sounds. 

Garrett nods his head towards the door, silently gesturing for the other two to head towards the exit before he tips his hat at you directly, thanking you for your time and apologizing for any inconvenience their visit may have caused. 

You want to tell him it was no inconvenience at all, but you’ve already sinned enough today and you can’t bear the thought of intentionally adding to the tally without justified need. Instead you settle on curving your lips into a convincing smile, thanking the men in return for their brevity and understanding and wishing them a good rest of their day as you usher them out of the back room and towards the front entrance.

Every single muscle in your body relaxes once they are completely out of the clinic, relief washing over you as you whisper out a quick prayer of thanks to God for allowing everyone to get out of the overwhelmingly dangerous situation unscathed - at least for now. 

Sister Ann and Sister Catherine peek out of their respective rooms when they hear the front door swing shut, their wide eyes mimicking the relief you know is shown in your own. 

“I can’t believe they didn’t find him,” Sister Ann admits, and it pains your heart to see tears begin to well up in her eyes. “I thought this was truly the end for all of us.” 

You have her in your arms in an instant, cradling her small frame against your chest as she begins to cry in earnest. For as scary as it’s been for you so far, you can’t imagine what she’s been going through. Sister Ann and Sister Catherine have only known about Billy for less than no time at all. And yet, despite the short period of time between finding out about Billy, getting him into the alcove, and the entrance and departure of the Sheriff - you’re sure it probably felt like an eternity to her. 

“Hush now, Sister,” You whisper, running a soothing hand along her back. “You’re safe, I promise.”

Sister Catherine places one of her hands on Sister Ann’s back as well, but she’s looking at you when she speaks. “He still can’t stay here,”

You know that. You know. You got lucky that the Sheriff didn’t find Billy this time, but who's to say that he won’t come back when he’s unable to find his missing outlaw anywhere else? Covering all his bases, that’s what he said. He’ll come back again when he sees that his other ‘bases’ have turned up nothing but dead ends. 

Your older brother, Joe, has a cabin just outside of town. It’s a hidden place, specifically built for peace. No visitors. He lives alone, no wife or children to keep him company and he prefers it that way. 

“If I’m alone, I can’t turn into him,” 

You're positive he wouldn’t. Your brother is far from being anything like your father, but the task of trying to prove that to him seems to be out of your skillset. He tells you he’s happy with his life, that he’s chosen the path he feels he needs to be on just as you have. Who are you to pass judgment?

Joe likes the solitude, that much is certain. But he also has an adventurous spirit which guides him on lengthy trips from town to town, exploring all the world has to offer while never having to be tied to one place. He’s away now according to the last letter he sent you, planning to stay in Chihuahua, Mexico for a while and that he’s not sure yet when he’s going to be back. 

“It’s dangerous,” Sister Catherine pushes, taking your silence as reluctance.

“I know,” You say. “I know. I think . . . I think I have an idea.”

The cabin will be empty. Joe isn’t due back for the immediate future, and even if he does return earlier than you suspect he will, you and Billy won’t be in danger. Joe can be trusted. He’ll help you, if need be. You can’t imagine that the Sheriff would ever know about it. It’s secluded - far off of any of the usual paths. It’s safe there. The perfect place to hide the wanted outlaw for a while. He can rest there, heal up uninterrupted for a few weeks until he can safely move around on his own two feet again. 

Sister Catherine listens openly to the idea, but her face is pinched in displeasure. 

“We don’t have much of a choice,” She says, reluctantly. “It seems like the best place for him to disappear to until he’s healed.”

You can hear the underlying pause in her agreement loud and clear. “But?”

“The clinic cannot spare two of us. We would lose half of our staff and it is too much for one person to handle alone per shift,”

“I wouldn’t ask any of you to come with us,” You say. No, for as much as you believe God sent Billy into your life for a reason, this was your mission to bear. You’ve already put your fellow Sisters through enough.

“You want to go alone?” Sister Ann sniffles, raising her head up from your chest.

“You need to think about this,” Sister Catherine says, sternly. “You shouldn’t be alone with him. He is a child of God, yes. But he is also an outlaw and a man. Sometimes, one of those is worse than the other.”

They’re being protective. The more rational part of you is grateful for their concern, and you think that if the positions were switched and one of them were in your position instead, you would react the same way. But a part of you is bitter. They’ve heard the stories. You know exactly how cruel men can be and you know exactly what they’re capable of. It’s a risk you’re taking, but you feel called to take it anyway. Billy needs your help, and God would never put anything in your path that you can’t handle.

“The Lord will protect me,” Despite the truthfulness of your words, you can see how they do little to reassure them. Your next words are better. “The Lord will help me protect myself.”

Sister Ann looks at Sister Catherine, once again bringing her hands together to pick at the reddened skin at the edge of her nail. Sister Catherine sighs, and the back of her hand reaches up to tap her forehead as if feeling the temperature or wiping away sweat. 

“Alright,” She relents. “How do we get him to your brother’s cabin?”

“I don’t know,” You admit. “We need a wagon. Or a large wheelbarrow that we can put him in and attach it to a horse. I haven’t ridden a horse in a long time, but I’m sure I can manage.”

“Where are we supposed to get that?” Sister Ann’s tone borders on exasperated. 

As if answering your unspoken prayer, the door to the clinic opens once more, this time revealing a bright faced Samuel Anderson, carrying a crate full of fresh supplies. And behind him, lit up by the sunlight like a bright blessing, is his wagon.

Sam Anderson is the son of local store owner, Edward Anderson, the clinic's top provider for basic supplies that are not strictly medical. While medicine shipments and more specialty items are donated from suppliers farther away, and frankly much less frequent than necessary, Mr. Anderson and Sam never fail to come through with plenty of food for you to make soups and nutritious meals for your patients. On occasion, you even have enough to give away to the families who are stacked together in a small two bedroom on the edge of town. With eight children total between two families, you're honestly not sure how they manage - but you do your best to help when you can. 

Seeing Sam walk through the front door is like a beacon of light from Heaven is shining down on him. He’s smiling already, the crate of food handled carefully between his hands as he lets out a cheery, “Good morning, Sisters”. But as soon as he sees your faces, more specifically when he sees the tear tracks still visible on Sister Ann’s cheeks, he’s placing down the crate and across the clinic’s entrance in a second. 

“What’s going on?” He asks. His hands automatically reach out towards Sister Ann’s face as if to cup it, but he stops himself. Instead he just looks at her worriedly, his concerned gaze leaving her face for only a moment to glance at you and Sister Catherine before they’re back on her, voice low and gentle. “What’s wrong?” 

It’s no secret that Sam harbors some romantic feelings towards Sister Ann. There are days when you feel sorry for him - a young man, good and kind and generous, who you have no doubt would make a fine husband to any lucky woman is in love with one of the four women in the entire county who are incapable of returning his affection. But it’s moments like this when it’s easy to see God’s presence in other people. Sam is as respectful and kind as they come. He accepts his feelings can never be reciprocated and in turn uses his undying love and loyalty to Sister Ann by helping you all at the clinic with anything he can. 

Somehow, he doesn’t expect anything in return, never stares at Sister Ann with an ounce of lust in his eyes, and it warms your heart to see the godly quality that’s usually so absent in men so prevalent in him. 

“Something’s happened,” Sister Ann tells him, her voice still wobbly with emotion. 

“What?”

“Sam,” You say, calling his attention back to you. “I know I have no place to ask this and I won’t fault you if you decline, but– I’m asking.”

“Tell me,” He insists, pulling his hat from his head and holding it to his chest, and God bless how the sincerity in his voice bleeds into his words. “Whatever it is, I’ll do it,” 

So you tell him everything. Sam listens with wide eyes, shooting panicked glances at Sister Catherine and Sister Ann when you tell him about the Sheriff’s visit, and he’s genuinely sorrowful when your voice gets caught in your throat as you tell him that you had to tell some lies to get him to leave without discovering Billy. He’s nodding already when you mention your brother’s cabin.

“I’ll take you there,” He offers before you can even ask the question. “My wagon is always at your disposal.”

“It’s dangerous. If we’re caught, you would hang with us,” 

Sam lets out a breath, unconsciously glancing over at Sister Ann again. “If the four most wonderful and religiously minded people in town hang for trying to do the right thing, then this isn’t a town or even a world that I want to live in anymore. Please let me take you. It would be my honor,”

A small smile graces your lips as you reach out and gently cup his cheek in thanks. For as many men pull and grind on your nerves with their endless greed and manipulation tactics, Sam is a breath of fresh air - a truly God-fearing man with a good heart.

He’s another person that you’re putting at risk, another life in danger because of the choice you’ve made. You try not to think yourself too selfish. Surely the fact that Billy has turned up in your life is God’s plan, and He does not put obstacles in your way that you cannot overcome. 

He tells you that he’ll come back tomorrow. He has a delivery that’s expected in a town over and if he’s going to make it there and back before nightfall, he needs to leave before the sun comes up. 

“I’ll stop here first,” He says. “We can load him into the back of the wagon while most people are sleeping and make the trip to your brother’s before I head on my way.”

“Thank you, Sam. Honestly,”

“My pleasure,” He nods his head at you, replacing his hat and tipping it kindly towards Sister Catherine and Sister Ann. “Until tomorrow, Sisters,”

The door swings shut behind him as he leaves and you let out a deep breath, hands smoothing over the dark veil covering your head just to feel a bit more grounded before you pick up the crate of food Sam brought. Billy needs to eat something. You're not quite sure how long it's been since his last meal, but even if he ate a minute before bursting through the clinic’s doors in the early morning, he would surely still be hungry and in need of sustenance by now. His body is weak and it needs nourishment to heal. 

Billy’s still sleeping when you peek around the privacy blanket. His head is turned to the side and buried in his pillow as much as he can get it, mouth hanging open as he breathes. Your hand itches to reach out and touch him again, to smooth against his forehead or cup his cheek, maybe place your fingers under his chin to help close his mouth in hopes of him breathing through his nose instead so his mouth doesn’t dry out. 

You’re not sure where this desire is coming from. You’re as affectionate with your patients as any nurse should be - kind and supportive, offering comfort when needed, but not overly so that it can be considered inappropriate. You’re all brothers and sisters, children of God - yes. But there are still social norms that must be considered. 

It feels different with Billy for some reason. 

“I’m going to get you to safety,” You whisper. You’re unsure about if he can hear you in his sleep or not, but you feel the need to tell him anyway. “I promise.”

You fall asleep at some point during the night, slumped against the wall next to the alcove’s entrance. 

You don’t remember falling asleep. You remember feeling tired, exhausted by the stress of the day’s events, and how your eyelids were threatening to close permanently more and more with each blink. The soup you had made still sat out in the small kitchen, and you had wanted to stay close to Billy so that whenever he awoke, you would be there ready to help feed him.

Instead, you wake to the sound of Sister Maria giggling to your left and a low, unfamiliar but still soft voice speaking in Spanish to her.

“Y él no quería que su mamá lo supiera. Así enterró la carne en el jardín,” The voice lets out a small chuckle, the smile on his face evident in his tone despite you not being able to understand most of his words. “Pero el perro la desenterró y ella se descubrió de todos modos. Tuvo que lavar platos él solo por dos meses.”

“Ese niño,” Sister Maria laughs. “Parece que era un buen amigo.”

You can’t see his face, but you can hear how he loses the smile in his voice. “Sí, él era,”

Pushing yourself to your feet, you step over to where Sister Maria is kneeling in front of Billy’s cot. It’s only now you see the mostly finished bowl of soup in her hands. Billy’s sitting up slightly, back propped up against his pillows enough to allow him to sit up a bit straighter but not enough to pull too much on his stitches.

At seeing your movement, his eyes snap to your approaching frame, big blue orbs staring up at you and you can’t help the relief you feel at seeing them.

“You’re awake,” You breathe, a small smile pulling at your lips. “Thank the Lord,”

His lips twitch a bit in what looks like a suppressed smile. “Kinda sounds like I should be thankin' you,” He says, and you notice how prominent the shift in his accent is as he seamlessly switches from Spanish to English. “Sister Maria says that you’re the only reason I’m alive right now.”

You shake your head, humbly. “Oh, no. Sister Maria and I work together as a team. I couldn’t have done it without her aid,”

“You show no fear,” Sister Maria insists. “Where I hesitate, you show mercy and strength. It is because of you that we are all alive now.”

“See?” Billy says with a blinding grin, and you can’t help but notice how handsome he is while no longer at death’s door. “My angel,”

You feel your face heat up at the endearment. An angel. Surely the comparison shouldn’t fluster you like it does. You’ve thought of your fellow nuns as the embodiment of angels before, angelic beings put into human bodies by the grace of God to spread His word. You know that’s not exactly true, that you’re just using your belief of what God’s angels would be like and seeing those beings in your fellow Sisters just like Billy is doing with you now, but you’ve never once thought yourself to be comparable to such a holy being and the compliment makes you flush.

You run a hand across your face, feeling the warmth under your palm, and clear your throat. “Oh, well, thank you,”

Sister Maria stands, taking the nearly finished bowl of soup with her. “He has eaten plenty and I changed his covering as soon as he woke up. You will want to change it again when you get to the cabin.”

“That’s great. Thank you,”

“De nada. I’ll go check on the patients and keep an eye out for Sam,”

She nods to you and Billy before she turns to leave, a small smile pulling at her lips when Billy rasps out a soft, “Gracias, Hermana,”

When she’s gone, you take her place in front of Billy, kneeling at his side and placing a gentle hand on his shoulder. “How are you feeling?”

“Much better thanks to you,” He responds, wide eyes trained on yours, a smirk playing at his lips as he continues. “Don’t feel much like I’m dyin’ anymore,”

A small laugh escapes you at his morbid joke. “Well, I’d say that’s a very good thing then,”

“Sister Maria said the Sheriff came lookin’ for me,” 

“He did,” You confirm. “The Lord kept us all safe though and has given us an opportunity to get you to safety.”

Billy’s eyebrow raises skeptically. “Sounds like it was more your doin' than the Lord’s,”

You try to not let the slight against God rattle you. You had sensed this was coming anyway. William H. Bonney a.k.a Billy the Kid is an outlaw afterall, and no outlaw becomes an outlaw while still maintaining a positive relationship with the Heavenly Father. He’s gone through many hardships no doubt, and has more than likely deemed his bad luck in life as God’s personal vendetta against him.

“The Lord speaks through all of us, if only we have an open heart to hear him.” You tell him.  “Fear can make His words harder to hear, and I’m thankful that He was able to guide my mind and heart enough through the fear for us to get to safety.”

“Hm,” Billy hums, and you can tell how much he doesn’t believe your words. He doesn’t argue though. “And where exactly is this safe place you’re gonna take me?”

“My brother has a cabin just outside of town. It’s well secluded and unknown to most. We’ll be safe there until you’re healed enough to go on your own.”

Billy’s eyes drop to your hand still resting on his shoulder, thick dark lashes casting shadows on his cheeks before his bright blue eyes are locked on yours again. “You gonna be takin’ care of me, Sister?”

“Of course, I will,” You reply. “We shall see you well again, Billy. I promise.”

His own arm crosses his chest so his hand can rest on your own, his eyes wide and so earnest as he whispers a quiet, “Thank you,”

It’s only about an hour longer before Sam arrives. It’s still early morning, the sun still a ways away from coming up behind the horizon line, and town is silent. Sam pulls his wagon up to the back door of the backroom before coming around the front to help push it open from the inside. It’s been so long since it’s been opened. The door was once used for the scheduled delivery of goods for easy access to the storage area, but as years went on and the county and surrounding counties became overrun with greed and poverty, the shipments became less frequent. Now, anything needed just comes through the front door. It’s never too much anyway, so what’s a trip or two to the backroom while carrying a crate. 

Sam slams his body against the door a few times, the wood groaning in protest under his weight before it finally swings open. Billy watches from his place on the cot, his eyes threatening to close but forcing himself to stay awake. You want to tell him to sleep, he needs his rest to help him heal and recover, but you’re too busy checking your bag to make sure you haven't forgotten anything before tossing it in the back of the wagon. You need to leave before the townspeople start to wake up. If someone sees you, if just one person witnesses you smuggling away a wanted outlaw, then all of this would have been for nothing. 

“Sister y/n,” Sam calls, squatting at the head of the cot. He’s got his arms wrapped around Billy’s torso. “Come grab his legs. We’ll do our best not to jostle his wound,”

You come to a kneel at Billy’s legs, placing a comforting hand on his knee. “Do your best to relax, okay? If you tense, you might tear your stitches,”

Billy lets out a harsh breath through his nose, clearly nervous, but he nods anyway, brows furrowed in determination. 

Together you and Sam hoist him up. He gasps, groaning as his wound pulls but you can see how he’s trying to keep his stomach untensed. Getting him into the back of the wagon is not graceful, and you find yourself spewing endless apologies the whole time despite the relatively short journey. 

Sam’s laid out a bed of hay covered by two thick blankets throughout the entire bed of the wagon. Crates of food and other supplies take up half of the bed, but he’s managed to make it so Billy will have enough room to lay comfortably on his designated side. Billy sighs as he’s laid down on it, one of his legs bent at the knee and his palms pressing into the makeshift mattress as he cranes his neck up to look at you. You ball up a spare blanket, tucking it under his head before you push him back down with a gentle hand on his forehead.

“Rest now, Billy,” You tell him, crawling out backwards and helping Sam slide on the rectangular backing on the wagon to secure it shut. “We’ll be there when you wake up,”

His eyes stay locked on you as you circle the wagon towards the front. Sam helps you up onto the spring seat before jogging around the rear and hauling himself into the driver's seat. You smooth out your tunic, looking around the dark street for any suspicious or wandering eyes that might be peeking out from around buildings or through windows. You don’t see any, even as one of the horses whinnies when Sam urges them forward. The clinic is located towards the edge of town, so it only takes a few minutes of nervous eyes and your head on a swivel before the wagon is passing the final few buildings that mark the town’s end of population and you can relax.

You blow out a deep breath, meeting Sam’s equally relieved gaze as he snaps the reins and nudges the horses a little faster. You look over your shoulder to check on Billy and you’re expecting to see him sleeping, no doubt still exhausted from the trauma of taking a bullet. Instead, he’s looking at you, head twisting so he can see your elevated frame from his laid out position. His eyes seem to pierce into yours, so blue and intense as he watches you that it makes your breathing hitch in your throat. 

You’ve never seen eyes so beautiful before. Like endless pools of glistening water. Surely God must have taken much care when crafting them for him. 

You feel your skin prickle under his stare, body straightening in your seat. He doesn’t stop watching you.

“Sleep,” You tell him. “You’re safe, I promise.” And thankfully he listens, eyes trained on your face for just a moment more before closing his eyes. The tingling feeling in your body dissipates with the removed gaze. 

Your gaze turns around the front again, looking out to the vast stretch of land before you as you leave the civilization of town behind.

“Sam,” You start, looking for anything to pass the time and distract from whatever unusualness just happened between you and your charge. “How’s your mother?”

[kckt88]

Demon In My Dreams II

Summary:

'Sleep those little slices of death, how I loathe them' - Edgar Allen Poe

Despites his best efforts, Aemond is still tormented by the horrors of a future that will never come to pass.

Warning(s): Language, Haunting, Torment, Dream Invasion, Horror, Referenced Character Deaths, Unce/Niece Incest, Kissing, Smut, Oral Sex, Fingering, P in V, Remorse, Regret, Strangulation, Child Birth.

AEMOND x O.C NIECE

INSPIRED BY THE SONG - 'MOTIONLESS IN WHITE - THE DEMON IN YOUR DREAMS'

Word Count: - 7939

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the House of The Dragon or Fire & Blood characters nor do I claim to own them. I do not own any of the images used.

Comments, likes, and reblogs are very much appreciated.

Tag List - @jasminecosmic99 @kaelatargaryen @yesterdayfeelings-blog @immyowndefender @0eessirk8 @darylandbethfanforever9

"Otto plans to usurp the Iron Throne and have Aegon crowned as King," Aemond declared, his voice firm but tinged with desperation.

Daemon's eyes narrowed with suspicion. He drew his sword, Dark Sister, and held the tip against Aemond's throat. "Why should we believe that you would betray your grandsire?" he asked, his tone cold and threatening.

Aemond glanced down at the sword and then looked pleadingly at Rhaenyra. "Please, listen to me. My grandsire will claim that crowning Aegon will prevent a war, but it will only serve to start one. The realm will be divided, and many will die-"

He looked over at Lucaera, then back to Rhaenyra, his expression earnest and full of sorrow. "You will lose both of your daughters," he said, gesturing to Rhaenyra's pregnant belly, "-then Jacaerys and Viserys will die in a battle against the Triarchy in the Gullet."

Rhaenyra gasped, her eyes widening in horror as she fell towards Daemon, her hands gripping his tunic.

“M-My babies-” whimpered Rhaenyra.

Daemon's grip on his sword tightened, as he pressed the sharp point further into Aemond’s throat, causing a small rivulet of blood to run down his throat.

“You do realise what will happen to your cunt of a grandsire if your words prove true?” asked Daemon.

“Yes-I do, all I ask is that my mother, siblings and the children be spared, they had no knowledge of such plots” replied Aemond.

"Swear to me that you speak the truth” demanded Rhaenyra.

"I swear on our ancestors that I’m telling you the truth. I know it sounds unbelievable, but if nobody had believed Daenys the Dreamer, then House Targaryen wouldn't have survived the Doom”

Rhaenyra looked towards Daemon who’s eyes searched Aemond's face for any sign of deceit. After a tense moment, he slowly lowered Dark Sister, but his expression remained wary. "If you're lying, I'll kill you myself."

Aemond took a deep breath, his relief palpable but tempered by the gravity of the situation. "I understand. But I am telling the truth. We must act quickly to prevent the bloodshed that my grandsire's plan will cause."

Rhaenyra straightened, her resolve hardening as she wiped away her tears. "What do you propose we do?"

Aemond met her gaze, determination shining in his eye. "I seek your permission to marry Lucaera. It will unite our families, as my father wished."

Daemon raised an eyebrow, his scepticism still evident as he leaned on his sword "-And it has nothing at all to do with Lucaera being the heir to Driftmark?-as a mere second son with nothing of his own to inherit, becoming Consort Lord is quite the bounty"

Aemond shook his head, his voice steady. "No. I don't care about that. I care about her, and I believe our union will bring strength and peace to our family"

Daemon scoffed, his scepticism turning to open derision. "You care about her? Didn't seem like you cared about her when you were making your little toast. Tell me, nephew, what could have happened between then and now-for you to change your opinion so quickly?"

Aemond looked at Lucaera, who stepped forward, her face resolute. "He came to my chambers, and we laid together” she declared, her voice steady.

A few seconds of silence followed her confession before Daemon burst into laughter. "Years of ire all forgotten because you got your cock wet?" he taunted.

Rhaenyra elbowed Daemon sharply in the ribs, cutting off his laughter. She turned to Aemond, her expression serious. "Are your intentions towards my daughter true, Aemond? You claim to care about her, but Lucaera is, after all, the one who cut out your eye."

Aemond took a deep breath, meeting Rhaenyra's gaze. "What I saw was enough to make me realize that holding on to my anger would only cause more pain and suffering-my intentions towards Lucy are true-”

Rhaenyra's eyes softened as she looked between her daughter and Aemond. "Lucaera, is this what you want?"

Lucaera stepped forward, her hand finding Aemond's. "Yes. I-I care for him also and I wish to marry him."

“What do think Daemon?” asked Rhaenyra, her hand slowly running over her round stomach.

Daemon studied them both for a long moment, his eyes searching Aemond's face for any hint of deceit.

Finally, he nodded, though his expression remained guarded. "Very well. But know this, Aemond: if you betray her, then there will be no place in this realm that you can hide from me."

Aemond met Daemon's gaze without flinching. "I understand, and I swear that I will never betray Lucaera”.

After many hours of discussion with Rhaenyra and Daemon, Aemond and Lucaera finally made it back to his chambers. He was exhausted, yet sleep eluded him, his mind still racing.

He had just given Daemon the names of all those planning to repudiate the succession, and after informing Rhaenyra that tonight was the night their father would die, she had rushed off to be with him.

Lucaera had offered to go with her, but Aemond had refused to let go of her hand, almost as if he was making sure she was truly there and not some figment of his imagination.

Even now, as the two of them lay in bed, Aemond had coiled himself around her, his hand resting on her stomach. The feel of her warm body next to his was a comfort, a reminder that this was real, that she was here with him.

Lucaera turned her head slightly to look at him, her eyes soft and concerned. "Aemond," she whispered, "You need to rest. You’ve done all you can for now."

Aemond shook his head, his grip tightening around her. "I can't sleep, Lucaera. My mind-it won't stop, I worry that all of this is some cruel jest and once I wake up then I will have lost you”

"You won't," she promised, her voice steady and reassuring. "I'm here with you, and I’m not going anywhere."

For a long time, they lay there in silence, the only sound the soft crackle of the fire in the hearth. Aemond's thoughts were a whirlwind, but the feel of Lucaera in his arms, the steady rise and fall of her breathing, began to ground him.

Eventually, his eyelid grew heavy, the exhaustion of the day finally catching up to him. He tightened his hold on Lucaera one last time before sleep finally claimed him,

Aemond stood on the beach, the skies above illuminated by flashes of lightning, Storm's End a dark silhouette in the distance. The wind whipped around him, carrying the salty tang of the sea.

His eye scanned the shoreline until it fell upon a figure lying face down in the sand. Panic surged through him as he instantly knew who it was.

He sprinted towards Lucaera, his heart pounding in his chest. Kneeling down, he rolled her over and screamed in horror.

Her appearance was grotesque—torn skin, missing limbs, maggots crawling through open wounds. The stench of decay hit him like a physical blow, and he retched, vomiting into the sand beside her.

Suddenly, Lucaera's rotten hand shot out, grabbing his wrist with surprising strength.

Aemond tried to pull away, but her grip was unyielding. He screamed again, louder, his voice mingling with the howling wind. As her fingers tightened, he felt the world around him shift and blur.

Aemond lurched awake, his heart racing and sweat pouring down his face. He was back in his chambers at the Red Keep, the familiar surroundings slowly coming into focus.

Lucaera lay next to him, peacefully asleep, her chest rising and falling with each breath. He sat up, holding his head in his hands, but he couldn't stop shaking. The vivid nightmare clung to him, refusing to fade.

He glanced over at Lucaera, reassuring himself that she was whole and unharmed. His breath came in ragged gasps as he tried to steady himself. The feel of her rotten, decaying hand still haunted him, the image of her mangled body seared into his mind.

He squeezed his eyes shut, willing the horrific vision to leave him, but it lingered, like a dark shadow on the edge of his consciousness.

Unable to bear it any longer, he slipped out of bed, careful not to wake her. He paced the room, running a trembling hand through his hair. The silence of the night offered no comfort, only amplifying the echoes of his nightmare.

The Red Keep was on lockdown, the tension palpable in the air as guards stood at every entrance, preventing anyone from entering or leaving.

Inside the Great Hall, the assembled crowd murmured with curiosity and unease. At the foot of the Iron Throne, Rhaenyra stood solemnly, her expression stern as she gazed out at those in attendance.

Alicent, Aegon, and Helaena stood to one side, their faces drawn with worry. Aemond stood with Lucaera, his grip on her hand firm and reassuring. Jace, Baela, Rhaena, Daemon, and Rhaenys were also present, their expressions a mixture of anticipation and apprehension.

As the whispers began to quiet down, Rhaenyra stepped forward. Her voice was clear and steady as she announced, "It is my duty to inform you of the sad news that last night, King Viserys, passed away"

A shocked gasp rippled through the crowd, the weight of her words sinking in. Rhaenyra allowed a moment for the news to settle before she continued, her tone growing firmer.

"There has been a treasonous plot to repudiate the rightful succession and have Aegon crowned instead of me."

Angry shouts erupted from the crowd, voices rising in indignation.

"Treason!"

"Theft!"

Rhaenyra raised a hand, quieting them. "The main conspirators—Otto Hightower, Tyland Lannister, Jasper Wylde, Maester Orwyle, Ser Criston Cole and Larys Strong—have been confined to the black cells, where they await their punishment."

She turned to Alicent, her expression softening slightly. "I will grant mercy to you and your children. On my honour, no harm shall come to you. I only seek one thing in return."

Aemond took a step forward and nudged Aegon, who shuffled forward reluctantly. He stood in front of Rhaenyra and, after a moment's hesitation, dropped to one knee.

His voice was clear as he declared, "I have no desire to rule and no taste for duty. I recognize that Rhaenyra as the rightful heir to the Iron Throne and the true Queen of the Seven Kingdoms."

Rhaenyra nodded, and Aegon quickly returned to stand next to Alicent, his relief evident.

Rhaenyra then turned to the assembly, a hint of a smile on her lips. "To unite our family in the wake of such treason, I am happy to announce the betrothal of my brother Aemond to my daughter Lucaera."

Jace’s face darkened at the news of his sister’s betrothal. His displeasure was evident in the tight line of his mouth and the furrow in his brow. Before he could voice his objections, Daemon shot him a warning glare, silencing him with a look that spoke volumes.

Rhaenyra continued, her voice unwavering. "The King's funeral will take place tomorrow. The day after, I will be crowned in the Dragon Pit. Where all the smallfolk can witness my coronation and see our family fully united, as my father wished."

The announcement was met with a murmur of approval from some and apprehension from others. The significance of the event was not lost on anyone; it was a moment to solidify the Targaryen legacy and ensure the realm's stability.

Rhaenyra’s gaze swept across the room, lingering briefly on Aemond and Lucaera, before moving to Jace. She gave him a slight nod, acknowledging his feelings but also affirming her decision.

Aemond stood tall beside Lucaera, his hand still holding hers. Despite the turmoil of the past, he felt a sense of resolve. He glanced at Lucaera, who gave him a reassuring smile.

Rhaenyra concluded, "In this time of mourning and transition, it is crucial that we stand together. Our father's dream of a united Targaryen family will not be in vain. Together, we will honour his legacy and lead the realm into a new era of peace and prosperity."

Aemond stood in the throne room of the Red Keep, his eyes fixed on the gruesome scene before him. His grandsire, Otto Hightower, and the others who had conspired against Rhaenyra were being executed for their treason.

Daemon wielded Dark Sister with cold efficiency, each swing of the blade bringing an end to a traitor's life.

Aemond's gaze drifted upward, jumping slightly as he caught sight of Lucaera standing across from him.

Her face was twisted and grotesque, strips of flesh hanging from her body like ghastly banners. He shook his head, trying to dispel the vision.

"It's just a dream, it's not real," he muttered under his breath.

Suddenly, Lucaera was standing right in front of him. She seized his face in her hands, her grip like iron as she pulled him toward her.

Her breath was cold against his lips as she tried to kiss him. Aemond struggled to pull away, but her strength was overwhelming.

"What's the matter? Don't you think I'm pretty like this?" Lucaera mocked, her voice dripping with malice as she dug her nails into his face.

Aemond quickly lurched backwards, colliding with the wall. He blinked, and the vision was gone. Everyone was staring at him.

The hall was silent except for the thudding of his heart in his ears. Lucaera, whole and unblemished, looked at him with concern. "Are you okay?" she asked softly.

Aemond nodded quickly, though his body was still shaking. He took Lucaera's hand, gripping it tightly as if she might vanish at any moment.

The rest of the executions continued, but Aemond's mind was elsewhere, trapped between the nightmare and reality.

Aemond lay in bed, his face pressed gently against Lucaera's stomach, listening to the soft rise and fall of her breath as she slept. His voice barely a whisper, he murmured, "Are you in there?" and then, more softly, "My son-my boy"

Careful not to wake her, he continued in a hushed tone, "No matter what, you will know you are wanted, and you will know that I love you. I know that I'm not going to be a perfect father, but I will try my best." Aemond placed a tender kiss on Lucaera's stomach, his lips lingering for a moment before he pulled away.

Silently, he slipped out of bed, careful not to disturb Lucaera's peaceful slumber. He moved with practiced quiet, pulling on his tunic and breeches. The room was bathed in the soft glow of the moonlight filtering through the windows, casting gentle shadows on the walls.

He couldn't sleep. His mind was too restless, filled with his fears over his nightmares. Needing to clear his head, he decided to head to the library.

The Red Keep was silent at this hour, the halls empty save for the occasional guard on patrol. Aemond made his way to the library, the familiar scent of old parchment and leather-bound books greeting him as he entered.

Aemond wandered through the aisles, his fingers trailing along the spines of books until he found one that caught his eye.

He settled into a chair by the window, the book resting in his lap, but his mind wandered back to Lucaera and their potential child.

He hoped that they would find out soon, that maybe it would shine some light in the darkness that had settled around him.

-

Aemond opened his eye and groaned, running his hands over his face. He was still in the library, slumped over a desk with a half-read book before him.

He must have fallen asleep. He closed the book, intending to return it to its shelf when he heard a hauntingly familiar voice singing sweetly.

“Drakari pykiros, Tīkummo jemiros, Yn lantyz bartossa, Saelot vāedis” (Fire breather, winged leader, but two heads, to a third sing).

“Perzyro udrȳssi, Ezīmptos laehossi, Hārossa letagon, Aōt vāedan” (With words of flame, with clear eyes, to bind the three, to you I sing).

“Hae mērot gierūli:, Se hāros bartossi, Prūmȳsa sōvīli, Gevī dāerī” (As one we gather, and with three heads, we shall fly as we were destined, beautifully, freely).

Aemond's breath caught in his throat as he moved around the bookcases, drawn to the eerie melody. He rounded a corner and saw a figure sitting in one of the chairs. He moved closer, his heart pounding in his chest, and then he saw Lucaera.

She was sitting serenely, something cradled in her lap. Aemond approached, a sense of dread washing over him. As he drew nearer, he gasped in horror when he saw what she was holding.

It was Jaehaerys, and she was sewing his head back on.

"Finally come to look upon the consequences of your actions, uncle?" Lucaera's voice was cold, cutting through him.

Aemond shook his head, trying to dispel the vision before him.

"Not that you accept responsibility, of course—it's always somebody else's fault."

He tried to leave, but his feet were rooted to the spot. Lucaera slowly stood up, pressing the boy into Aemond’s arms.

He looked down at the body of his nephew and jumped when his eyes suddenly opened.

"Apologize for the bad stitching, but then I've never really been one for sewing," said Lucaera, her tone mocking. "Haven't got the fingers for it," she added, holding up her hands.

Aemond audibly grimaced as he noticed that some of her fingers were missing, torn of at the knuckle.

"I'm sorry, I’m so sorry" Aemond kept repeating, his voice a desperate plea.

But Lucaera didn't listen. As she walked toward him, her limbs began twisting and contorting, her flesh peeling away.

Aemond lurched awake, a strangled cry escaping his lips. He was slumped over a desk in the library, drenched in sweat. He didn't bother putting the book away; he simply turned and fled.

The Sept was a vision of grandeur, filled with lords and ladies adorned in their finest attire, their faces glowing in the light of countless candles.

At the altar, the High Septon stood with a solemn air, ready to conduct the sacred ceremony that would unite two powerful houses.

Aemond, resplendent in his red and black attire, stood tall and proud. His single eye was fixed on Lucaera, who approached him with a grace that took his breath away.

She wore a gown of shimmering white lace, her long hair cascading in dark waves over her shoulders, and her eyes sparkled with a mixture of excitement and love.

The ceremony commenced with the High Septon intoning ancient words, calling upon the Seven to bless their union.

When it came time for Aemond to drape his cloak over Lucaera’s shoulders, signifying her joining his house, she leaned up to whisper in his ear, “I’m with child.”

Aemond’s eye widened in surprise, and then a joyous laugh escaped his lips. He pulled her into his arms and kissed her deeply, causing a few titters of amusement to ripple through the gathered guests.

The High Septon cleared his throat, a slight smile playing at his lips, “We haven’t got to that part yet.”

Blushing slightly, Aemond and Lucaera pulled back, but their hands remained intertwined, their eyes locked on each other.

The ceremony continued with the High Septon binding their joined hands with a ribbon of gold and silver, symbolizing their unity.

“We stand here in the sight of gods and men to witness the union of man and wife: one flesh, one heart, one soul, now and forever,” the High Septon proclaimed.

He then declared, “Let it be known that Aemond of House Targaryen and Lucaera of House Velaryon are one heart, one flesh, one soul. Cursed be he who would seek to tear them asunder.”

In unison, Aemond and Lucaera recited, “Father, Smith, Warrior, Mother, Maiden, Crone, Stranger-” Their voices were steady and filled with conviction.

Aemond continued, “I am hers and she is mine. From this day, until the end of my days.”

Lucaera followed, her voice soft yet firm, “I am his and he is mine. From this day, until the end of my days.”

Finally, Aemond declared, “With this kiss, I pledge my love,” and leaned in to seal their vows with a kiss.

As their lips met, a cheer erupted from the gathered crowd, and the Great Sept was filled with the sound of applause and joyous exclamations. The kiss lingered, full of promise and devotion, and when they finally parted, both were beaming.

Hand in hand, they turned to face their family and friends, united in love and purpose, ready to face whatever the future held together.

The throne room of the Red Keep had been transformed into a vision of splendour for the wedding celebration.

Banners of black and red intertwined with the silver and sea blue of House Velaryon, symbolizing the union of the two families.

Queen Rhaenyra, resplendent in her royal attire, presided over the event with a serene smile, determined to show the realm that her family was united at last.

Helaena, radiant and cheerful, sat at a table talking animatedly with Baela and Rhaena. The three young women shared laughter and stories, their camaraderie adding a light-heartedness to the atmosphere.

Aegon, as expected, was well into his cups, his cheeks flushed with wine as he made merry with a few of the other lords. Jace and Daeron, sat together, exchanging jests and laughter, the beginnings of a new bond of friendship.

At the high table, Alicent sat next to Rhaenyra, her demeanour slightly tense but making a genuine effort to engage in conversation.

Rhaenyra, in turn, responded warmly, trying to ease her old friends nerves. Daemon, ever vigilant, sat nearby with his hand casually resting on the hilt of Dark Sister, his eyes constantly scanning the room for any signs of trouble.

At the centre of it all were the newlyweds, Aemond and Lucaera. They sat close together, leaning into one another and whispering words of love, their eyes reflecting a happiness that had long eluded them.

They shared secret smiles and gentle touches, oblivious to the noise and bustle around them.

As the evening wore on, the call for the bedding ceremony was made. Aegon, suddenly more animated, began to make crude suggestions, but one fierce look and a whispered threat of murder from Aemond was enough to silence him.

Lucaera and Aemond exchanged amused glances and managed to slip away amidst the laughter and cheers, leaving the revelry behind.

Inside their chambers, the atmosphere shifted to one of intimacy and tenderness. Lucaera leapt into Aemond’s arms, her kisses raining down on his face as she giggled with joy.

Aemond’s laughter joined hers as they tumbled onto the bed, their limbs entwined in a playful embrace.

“I love you,” Lucaera whispered between kisses, her hands cupping his face.

Aemond smiled, his eye softening as he gazed at her. “And I love you”

Aemond traced his nose gently along Lucaera's stomach, his breath warm against her skin.

"Rytsas issa byka zaldrīzes," he whispered tenderly, his voice filled with love and awe (Hello my little dragon).

Lucaera's fingers wove through Aemond's long silver hair, her touch light and affectionate. A soft smile played on her lips as she watched him, feeling a surge of warmth in her heart. Aemond began to press delicate kisses along her stomach, his lips brushing against her skin with reverence.

“Aemond” whispered Lucaera as he moved lower, his hot breath tickling her skin as he moved his head between her legs.

“Nyke jaelagon ao” whispered Aemond (I want you).

“Gūrogon issa” replied Lucaera her eyes rolling into the back of her head as his tongue swept across her slick wet folds (Take me).

Lucaera bit the back of her hand to keep herself from screaming as Aemond began using his long fingers to tease her entrance.

“Let me hear you”.

“A-Aemond. Oh god. Please” begged Lucaera

Aemond pressed two fingers inside Lucaera, moving them against a spot that made her entire body shake, his tongue moving against her folds, his lips wrapping around her pearl.

“I know your almost there. Let it happen my sweet. Come for me” whispered Aemond.

Lucaera arched her back and let out a scream as her pleasure erupted.

Aemond crawled up Lucaera’s body, placing gentle kisses on her skin as he moved higher and higher.

His hands gently cupping her breasts before he sucked one of the sensitive rosy buds into his mouth, his tongue rolling around the stiffened peak.

“I can’t wait to see these filled with milk-” groaned Aemond as he pressed his face in between her breasts.

“F-For our babe” muttered Lucaera as she felt Aemond’s cock against her.

“Surely you won’t deny me a taste of your mother’s milk issa jorrāelagon” replied Aemond as he reached down to take his hard cock in his hand, running the tip through her wet folds (My love).

“P-Please valzȳrys” begged Lucaera (Husband).

Aemond smiled as he slowly sheathed himself inside her, until his hips came to rest against hers.

“You feel so good-” moaned Aemond as hestarted to thrust slowly, trying to prolong the feel of his wife’s warm wet walls clenching around his cock.

"Faster, Aemond" begged Lucaera.

"Patience, issa dōna" chided Aemond as he ran his nose up Lucaera’ neck (My sweet).

“Yes, Aemond, just like that-" panted Lucaera as he withdrew almost all of the way before slamming back in.

Her hands ran over his arms, over his shoulders, and down his back. Her nimble fingers mapped his back muscles and then went down to his arse her nails digging into his skin.

 “Gods, Lucaera" grunted Aemond, speeding up slightly.

"Fuck me, Aemond. Fuck me with that big, cock of yours. You feel so good inside me. I-I want it-I want you”.

Aemond groaned loudly, his pace had increased with every filthy word that dropped from his wife’s luscious lips.

Now he was quickly thrusting in and out, shaking the bed, the wooden headboard banging loudly against the wall.

Aemond lifted Lucaera’ legs onto his shoulders and wrapped his arms around her thighs, squeezing them together as he thrust his cock into her soaking wet cunny.

Lucaera folded her arms above her head as she moved her hips, meeting Aemond thrust for thrust.

“Aemond! I’m going to come. Oh, fuck!” screamed Lucaera.

“That’s it baby-come for me” exclaimed Aemond as he felt her clenching on his cock.

Aemond could feel the tension in his abdomen, but he didn’t want to come. Not yet.

Not even waiting for her orgasm to fully subside, Aemond moved Lucaera’ legs off his shoulders and manoeuvred her onto all fours, she whimpered as his cock slipped out, but he bent forward to press a series of kisses to her glorious arse, his hands kneading the soft flesh.

“P-Please Aemond” whispered Lucaera, her voice slightly muffled as she pressed her face into the mattress.

"Gevie" growled Aemond as he sunk his teeth into the flesh of her arse cheek (Beautiful).

"AEMOND" screeched Lucaera, her finger digging into the sheets.

"Fuck-one day I want to take you here, if you let me" moaned Aemond as he slid a finger over her pucked hole.

"Yessss-I'll let you" wailed Lucaera.

"I want to possess every inch of you" muttered Aemond as he took his cock in hand and sheathed himself inside Lucaera once again, his eye rolling into the back of his head.

"Oohhh A-Aemond. Qȳbor" whimpered Lucaera (Uncle).

“Fuck” groaned Aemond.

“God. Yes” moaned Lucaera.

He began to thrust in and out of her in deep achingly slow thrusts.

Lucaera took one of Aemonds hands that was on her hip and brought it towards her head.

Knowing what she wanted, Aemond placed his hand on the back of her head and pushed her face into the mattress, her back arching. His cock reaching deep inside her as he moved with such ferocity it could rival an animal, his long silver hair unbound and sticking to his sweaty back.

Aemond then grasped both of Lucaera’ arms and held them behind her back as he pounded into her, the sound of his hips slapping against hers echoed around the room.

Her screams of pleasure muffled by the mattress.

 “Yes. Lucaera-that’s it-that's it-take it, fucking take it” moaned Aemond.

He took hold of Lucaera’s hair, twisting his fingers into the messy dark curls before he pulled her backwards, her sweaty back colliding with his chest.

Aemond held Lucaera tight too him as he fucked her, his cock reaching deep inside her.

One hand grasped her hip, his blunt fingers digging into her flesh. Whilst his other released her hair and moved to her throat, squeezing gently, as he pounds into her.

“Give it to me please” pleaded Lucaera her head lolling back onto Aemond’s shoulder.

"That's it-that’s my good girl" whispered Aemond.

Lucaera turned her head to face his, her lips connecting with his in a messy, passionate kiss, their tongues sliding against one another.

Aemond could feel the tension building in his abdomen again, as he thrust his cock inside Lucaera.

“I want you to come on my cock again, but not like this-” muttered Aemond as he once again withdrew from her wet heat and propped himself up against the headboard.

“-Aemond” exclaimed Lucaera breathlessly.

 “Ride me baby” replied Aemond as he pulled Lucaera on top of him. His hand moving to his cock, rubbing it along her folds before she sunk down and completely engulfed him.

“A-Aemond” muttered Lucaera as she began to roll her hips.

“You feel so good my beautiful wife-so full of me, my seed already taking root-” replied Aemond placing his hands on her hips and moving her up and down.

 “Oh-” gasped Lucaera.

“That’s it baby, take it. Take all of me”

Lucaera dug her nails into Aemond’s chest as she moved her hips against his, his cock hitting the sweet spot inside her perfectly.

“A-Aemond” moaned Lucaera as he sat up, moving his hand to her breast again and taking her nipple into his mouth, his teeth gently grazing the rosy bud.

“Let go baby, I can feel you clenching around me” exclaimed Aemond, as he moved to the other breast and lavished it with the same attention as the other.

 “AEMOND” screamed Lucaera as she came around his cock.

 Her husband threw her back onto the bed his cock never leaving her warmth as he pounded into her, her legs wrapped around his waist, trapping his body against hers as he chased his own end.

“God. Lucaera” groaned Aemond as he exploded. His cock throbbing and twitching as he finally spilled rope after rope of his seed, collapsing on top of his wife, breathing hard.

Aemond woke with a start sometime in the night. The room was dark and still, but he immediately sensed something was wrong.

He reached out, his hand trembling as it brushed against Lucaera's body. Her skin felt cold, unnaturally so. Panic surged through him as he took hold of her and rolled her over.

A scream of pure horror tore from his throat. Her face was a decayed, grotesque visage, eyes lifeless and skin peeling away. He scrambled off the bed, landing in a heap on the floor, his heart pounding wildly.

When he stood back up, the bed was empty, the linens undisturbed.

Breathing heavily, he looked around the room, his eyes wide with fear. He felt a presence behind him, cold and malevolent.

He turned slowly, dreading what he would see. Lucaera stood there, smiling at him, her rotten face inches from his own.

"Why do you keep tormenting me?" he pleaded, his voice breaking.

She didn't answer. Her smile widened, and her mouth opened, releasing a torrent of maggots that poured over him.

Aemond screamed again, thrashing as the creatures crawled over his skin.

He woke up with a jolt, his body drenched in sweat. Lucaera was instantly at his side, her eyes filled with concern as she held him.

"Aemond, what's wrong?" she asked, her voice gentle but firm.

He babbled incoherently, "She won't leave me alone. She keeps coming. What else must I do?"

"Shh, shh" Lucaera soothed, running her fingers through his hair. "It was just a bad dream"

Aemond clung to her, wrapping his arms around her and pressing his face into her neck. Her warmth and the sound of her steady heartbeat grounded him, slowly easing his panic.

"You're safe," she whispered, holding him tightly. "I'm here with you, always."

Aemond's breathing began to steady as he absorbed her words. He nodded against her neck, taking comfort in her presence, even as the remnants of the nightmare continued to haunt him.

In the months that followed, Lucaera's stomach swelled with their child, a visible sign of their union and the future that lay ahead.

Yet, despite the joy that should have accompanied this time, Aemond found himself increasingly on edge. The lack of sleep gnawed at his sanity, making him delirious.

The grotesque visage of Lucaera haunted him more than ever, appearing in the halls, at mealtimes, and even when he sought solace with Vhagar. There was no escape from the torment.

Desperation drove him to visit Harrenhal, seeking counsel from Alys.

Her cryptic advice that ‘he must endure, that he might see the truth but not yet feel the  weight of it’, left him feeling more desolate and confused.

He returned to King's Landing with a heavy heart, unsure of how much longer he could cope. Sleepless nights wore him down, his performance in the training yard deteriorated, and he felt trapped in a relentless cycle of exhaustion.

Confiding in Lucaera was out of the question. She was with child, and he couldn't risk causing her any distress.

In his desperation, he turned to Aegon, seeking distraction in his brother's reckless company. But even that escape led to further turmoil when Aegon lured him to a brothel on the streets of Silk.

The visit was brief, as Aemond had left immediatley, but not brief enough.

As Lucaera found out and, in a fit of rage, she had banished him from their chambers for a week.

Aemond was left in despair, barely holding on until Lucaera agreed to hear him out.

Aegon confirmed his innocence, and he was allowed back into their bed, but the nightmares persisted, each one as terrifying as the last.

Lucaera was nearing the end of her pregnancy, and Aemond's struggle had reached a breaking point.

Confined to their chambers, he refused to see or speak to anyone else. Rhaenyra had suggested giving him dream wine to help him sleep, but Aemond had stubbornly refused.

One morning, as he sat in their chambers, having breakfast with Lucaera, the grotesque image of her suddenly appeared before him. His heart raced, and he flew from his chair, pressing his back against the wall.

"Leave me alone!" he raged, his voice raw with desperation.

Lucaera, rose from her seat, concern etched across her face. "Aemond, what's wrong?"

But Aemond wouldn't listen. He kept begging to be left alone, his mind clouded with terror. When she placed her hand on his shoulder, his panic erupted into violence.

He wrapped his hands around her throat, driven by the maddening hallucination.

"If you won't leave me alone, I'll make you," he roared, his grip tightening.

Lucaera struggled against him, gasping for breath. "Aemond, stop," she wheezed, her eyes wide with fear.

But all he saw was the grotesque visage, her skin falling away in clumps as his fingers dug into what he perceived as rotted flesh. He was determined to rid himself of this torment, even if it was the last thing he ever did.

Then, a small voice broke through the chaos. "Daddy."

Aemond looked up to see Aerion standing next to the bed, clutching a stuffed dragon teddy, his thumb in his mouth.

The sight of his son cut through the madness. The grotesque vision of Lucaera faded, and he realized his hands were wrapped around the throat of the real Lucaera.

"L-Lucy," Aemond sobbed, his eyes wide with horror.

Tears streamed down her red face. "Aemond, please," she wheezed, struggling for air.

He released her immediately, and she moved away, coughing and rubbing her throat.

Aemond collapsed to the floor, sobbing uncontrollably. He had almost killed her and their unborn child.

Lucaera, trembling and clutching her throat, watched Aemond writhe on the floor, overcome with guilt and despair. Her own tears mingled with his as she tried to comprehend the horror of what had just happened

Aemond was on his knees, trembling and pleading with Lucaera. "Kill me," he begged, his voice raw and desperate. "I can't take it anymore. I can't cope. I'm so sorry. I never meant to hurt you. Please, Lucaera, kill me."

Lucaera wiped the tears from her face and moved toward him, her heart aching with love and sorrow.

She reached out, but Aemond flinched away, still begging for death. Before she could respond, a sudden twinge in her stomach made her gasp.

Warm, wet liquid ran down her leg. She rucked up the material of her dress, her eyes wide with realization. "The babe is coming," she whispered.

Summoning her strength, she called for one of the guards outside their chambers to alert the maesters and midwives.

Aemond sat in the corner, head buried in his hands, unable to process what was happening. The room became a flurry of activity as people rushed in and out.

His mother and Rhaenyra were there, holding Lucaera's hands as she wailed in agony. Aemond avoided their concerned gazes, his own mind clouded with despair.

Time lost all meaning as he sat there, disassociated from the chaos around him.

Lucaera's screams pierced his soul, but he remained frozen, unable to move. Then, through the haze, the sound of a baby's cry broke through, catching his attention.

"A boy, Princess," announced one of the midwives.

Aemond slowly levered himself off the ground, his legs unsteady as he made his way toward Lucaera.

She was red-faced and sweating, but her expression was one of pure joy as she cuddled their son against her chest.

She looked at Aemond, her eyes filled with love and understanding, and shakily held out the baby to him.

He took his son in his arms, the weight of the newborn feeling right, grounding him.

The baby opened his little amethyst eyes, and Aemond smiled, feeling a deep, unconditional love he had never known before.

Alicent asked what they would call the babe, and Lucaera said it was Aemond's choice.

"Aerion," Aemond said softly, his voice filled with emotion.

Suddenly, he looked up and saw the grotesque image of Lucaera staring at him from across the room.

But she was smiling, and as he watched, her appearance restored to normal. She spoke to him, her voice gentle. "You have finally felt the weight of your truth," she said before disappearing.

Lucaera, noticing the tear slipping down Aemond's cheek, asked softly, "Are you okay?"

Aemond nodded, holding their son close. "Yes," he whispered, his heart filled with a new resolve. "I will be”.

Aemond stood on the balcony of his chambers, looking out over King's Landing. The city's lights twinkled in the night, a stark contrast to the turmoil within his heart.

The cool breeze did little to calm his restless mind. He heard movement behind him and turned to see Lucaera approaching with Aerion in her arms.

"You're not going to jump, are you?" she asked, her voice tinged with concern.

Aemond shook his head. "No," he replied, his voice steady but filled with sorrow.

"You've only just gone through your labours," he said, frowning. "You shouldn't be out of bed."

Lucaera shook her head. "I'm worried about you, Aemond. You could have killed me and Aerion today-"

"I-I'm sorry. These past few months I-I've been struggling to sleep because of the nightmares"

"You need to tell me when things are bothering you-I'm your wife, you can come to me with anything, but you really scared me today-" said Lucaera.

Aemond looked away, guilt heavy in his chest. "I understand if you inform Daemon," he said quietly, recalling his stepfather's threat. "He did say that if I ever hurt you, then he would deal with me."

Lucaera stepped closer, her expression resolute. "I won't tell anyone what you did. I do not wish for my stepfather to kill you, as we both know he would."

Aemond noticed the pain in her eyes and the way she winced slightly from the discomfort of giving birth.

His concern for her well-being took over, and he gently ushered her inside. He carefully placed Aerion in his cot, making sure the baby was secure before turning back to Lucaera.

"Come, you need to rest," he said softly, helping her climb into bed, making sure she was comfortable before he stripped off his own clothes and climbed in beside her.

Aemond turned to her, his eye heavy with exhaustion, he hesitantly reached for her, and she laid her head against his chest as his arm coiled around her and within moments, the sound of his soft snores filled the room.

Aemond woke up feeling groggy, his head heavy and eyes bleary. He instinctively ran his arm over Lucaera's side of the bed, but she wasn't there.

Panic shot through him as he sat up abruptly, scanning the room. His eyes landed on Aerion's cot, which was also empty. Heart pounding, he jumped out of bed and quickly pulled on his clothes.

He rushed to the door, yanking it open with such force it almost came off its hinges. Standing there, to his immense relief, were Lucaera and Aerion.

Without a moment's hesitation, he pulled them both into his arms, holding them tightly.

"Be careful," Lucaera said gently as Aerion started fussing.

Aemond loosened his grip slightly, taking Aerion into his arms and cradling his son close. He looked at Lucaera, his eyes wide with worry. "Where were you? I woke up and you were gone."

Lucaera gave him a reassuring smile. "I was having dinner with Helaena."

"Dinner?" Aemond echoed, confused.

Lucaera nodded. "You've been asleep for almost two days."

Aemond's eyes widened in shock. "T-Two days?"

"Yes," Lucaera replied softly, her concern evident. "You needed the rest. I'll arrange for you to bathe and have food brought. No doubt you're hungry."

Aemond nodded, too stunned to speak. The realization of how long he had been asleep left him momentarily speechless.

He clung to Aerion, feeling a profound sense of relief and gratitude. The torment of his waking nightmares fading as he held his son close.

As the weeks went by, Aemond found himself finally able to sleep through the entire night. The nightmares and horrific visions that had plagued him for so long seemed to have vanished, leaving him with a peace he hadn’t felt in months.

His only disturbances now came from his son, Aerion, when he was hungry or needed his soiled cloths changed. Rearing children was typically left to the mothers as Daemon so informed him after the safe arrival of his daughter Visenya.

But Aemond wanted to be involved with every aspect of it, much to everyone's surprise.

The once quiet and stoic persona that Aemond had carefully crafted over the years visibly melted away in the presence of his wife and son.

When he wasn't training with the sword, he could often be found walking around the Red Keep with Aerion in his arms, muttering about the histories of Old Valyria and the tomes of philosophy that he often read, he even took Aerion to meet Vhagar, his old girl intrigued by the tiny human that her rider presented to her.

The sight of the once formidable Aemond, a fierce swordsman and a dragon rider, tenderly carrying his infant son and speaking to him in soft tones was a source of wonder for those who saw it.

His bond with Lucaera grew even stronger during this time. They spent countless hours together, and Aemond never wanted to be parted from her for longer than necessary. Their love was palpable, and it was evident to everyone around them.

He would often indulge in the pleasures of laying with his wife, whispering words of love and gratitude as he sheathed himself inside of her.

Every night he would take her, sometimes more than once, even through the day if he found her walking through the halls, he would spirit her away and have her pressed against a stone wall in a hidden alcove or bent over a desk in an empty room.

The change in Aemond since Aerion’s birth was clear for all to see. His fierce and guarded exterior had softened, revealing a devoted husband and a loving father.

The nightmares of the past were replaced by the warmth and joy of his new family. He found solace in the routine of caring for his son and the unwavering love he shared with Lucaera.

Even those who had known him for years were amazed by the transformation. Aemond, the once brooding and enigmatic prince, was now a man whose greatest joy came from his family.

He had found his purpose and his peace, and it was reflected in every aspect of his life. The Red Keep, once filled with shadows and whispers of treachery, now echoed with the sounds of Aerion’s laughter and Aemond’s gentle murmurings.

The realm had changed, and with it, Aemond had found a new beginning.

The sun was high in the sky over Driftmark, its golden light shimmering across the sand and sea. Aemond stood on the beach, his gaze watching Lucaera and their two year old son, happily digging for shells in the sand.

The waves lapped gently at the shore, and the peaceful scene seemed to embody the tranquility that had eluded Aemond for so long.

As he watched, a chill swept through him, and the air seemed to grow colder. The grotesque image of Lucaera appeared before him, her decayed flesh hanging from her bones, the stench of rot filling the air.

But he didn’t move, he stood firm as he noticed that her eyes were filled with a mournful sadness as she observed Aerion playing, a rotting hand hovering over her stomach.

The sight was both horrifying and heart-wrenching.

Aemond’s heart ached as he took a step closer. “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice breaking. “I’m so sorry for what I did, for what I took from you.”

"Technically it was the alternate version of you, but I will accept your apology all the same"

"It shouldn't have happened-" replied Aemond.

"No, but it did, you claimed your debt and then you willingly gave your life for your sin-" wheezed Lucaera.

"This is the last time I'll see you isn't it?" asked Aemond.

"Yes-unless of course you wish for me to continue terrorizing you"

"NO-" said Aemond quickly.

"Just as well, you were starting to bore me anyway" replied Lucaera.

"Hmmm"

“You know, I’ve always liked the name Rhaegar,” said Lucaera softly, her voice like a whisper on the wind. "Seems like it would be a good name for a King.”

“I’ll keep that in mind” replied Aemond.

She looked back at him one last time before turning toward the water. “Take care of your family, and don't fuck it up” she said, her tone both gentle and firm.

"I won't-I promise"

Aemond’s eye followed her as she waded into the water, her figure gradually disappearing beneath the waves. He stood frozen for a moment, the weight of what could have been pressing heavily on his shoulders.

“Daddy, come play!” Aerion’s voice cut through his reverie, full of innocent enthusiasm.

Aemond turned to see his son looking up at him with wide, expectant eyes. He cast one more glance out to sea, where the ghostly image of Lucaera had vanished, before walking towards Aerion and Lucaera.

As he approached, Lucaera looked up at him with concern.

“Are you alright?” she asked, her voice tinged with worry as he knelt down in the sand.

Aemond reached out and placed a hand on her swollen stomach, feeling the reassuring movements of their unborn child.

He smiled at her, his expression full of warmth and determination. “Everything is fine,”

[nightswatchdisbandmentera]

I have a few jumbled thoughts about the ending of the Long Night, especially as it would relate to the whole idea of “the dragon has three heads”. The Long Night represents a disruption in a larger, cyclical framework—a period where imbalance overtakes the natural order. And within this context, I see each ‘head’ of the three-headed dragon as uniquely responsible for restoring balance and bringing the world back into harmony. Each ‘head’ embodies a distinct facet of restoring balance to the world, yet they work together, either in tandem or sequentially, to set things right once more. So I’ve been trying to tie together some thoughts I have regarding what each being in this triumvirate is uniquely suited to do. Because I personally don’t think any one person will be responsible for being the hero, as that just seems so antithetical to this series; and I also think the Long Night is just way too multifaceted to be ended by a singular action or person. 

This is what we know about the Long Night:

“Oh, my sweet summer child,” Old Nan said quietly, “what do you know of fear? Fear is for the winter, my little lord, when the snows fall a hundred feet deep and the ice wind comes howling out of the north.Fear is for the long night, when the sun hides its face for years at a time, and little children are born and live and die all in darkness while the direwolves grow gaunt and hungry, and the white walkers move through the woods.” “You mean the Others,” Bran said querulously. “The Others,” Old Nan agreed. “Thousands and thousands of years ago, a winter fell that was cold and hard and endless beyond all memory of man. There came a night that lasted a generation, and kings shivered and died in their castles even as the swineherds in their hovels. Women smothered their children rather than see them starve, and cried, and felt their tears freeze on their cheeks.” Her voice and her needles fell silent, and she glanced up at Bran with pale, filmy eyes and asked, “So, child. This is the sort of story you like?” “Well,” Bran said reluctantly, “yes, only …” Old Nan nodded. “In that darkness, the Others came for the first time,” she said as her needles went click click click. “They were cold things, dead things, that hated iron and fire and the touch of the sun, and every creature with hot blood in its veins. They swept over holdfasts and cities and kingdoms, felled heroes and armies by the score, riding their pale dead horses and leading hosts of the slain. All the swords of men could not stay their advance, and even maidens and suckling babes found no pity in them. They hunted the maids through frozen forests, and fed their dead servants on the flesh of human children.” (Bran IV, AGoT)

We focus so heavily on the Others—understandably so—that we often overlook some crucial details. The Others don’t exist in isolation. They arrive in the wake of an extreme winter, which enables their existence for they are “demons made of snow and ice and cold” (Samwell V, ASoS). And with the sun and its heat gone, they move within the darkness. So confronting the Others in battle, in and of itself, does not end the Long Night. The true struggle lies in addressing the elements that allow them to exist in the first place. To fully defeat the Others, our heroes must first restore light and the balance of the seasons.

No single character in this series has the ability to achieve this on their own. Even the key magical protagonists are only equipped to address certain aspects of the conflict. That’s why the dragon must have three heads, each embodying a crucial responsibility: one to restore the natural cycle and end the long winter, another uniquely positioned as the antithesis to the Others, and a third tasked with confronting darkness by bringing light back into the world.

By now, you can see where I’m heading with this, right? I believe the three heads are Bran, who represents summer and stands as the antithesis to winter; Daenerys, whose dragons are the direct counter to the Others; and Jon, who occupies a more complex role as both the one who harnesses light and embodies it. Beyond this, each of these characters has been positioned as a chosen one, with distinct yet mirrored magical destinies that set them apart from the other POV characters.

I’m reminded of a quote from Arya’s POV in Dance:

One time, the girl remembered, the Sailor’s Wife had walked her rounds with her and told her tales of the city’s stranger gods. “That is the house of the Great Shepherd. Three-headed Trios has that tower with three turrets. The first head devours the dying, and the reborn emerge from the third. I don’t know what the middle head’s supposed to do….”

While I have more detailed thoughts on this passage, for now, I believe Daenerys represents the first head, Bran the third, and Jon the middle. Each head is tasked with a unique responsibility—one that is specific to them, that the others cannot fulfill. To end the Long Night, the three heads work together, but each plays a distinct part. There is some overlap, particularly with the middle head, who might serve as the balance between the extremes, yet each figure is positioned to occupy a particular space within this framework.

So I want to lay my thoughts here and see if we can get some wider discussion 👀 

The first aspect of the Long Night - and perhaps the most important if we’re thinking of what makes it happen in the first place - is the long winter that precedes it.

Bran looked down. There was nothing below him now but snow and cold and death, a frozen wasteland…  (Bran III, AGoT)

This winter provides the very elements that sustain the Others: snow and ice. It’s this aspect that I believe extends humanity’s struggle during the Long Night. With an almost endless supply of ice and snow, can our heroes truly defeat the Others through direct combat alone? I really don’t think so. The abundance of snow, accompanied by a persistent cold, suggests that new Others can continuously be ‘created’. While this is largely speculative given how little we know about them, I find it compelling that the Others seem to materialize out of the darkness itself (see Prologue, AGoT). And when Sam kills the Other in Storm, it simply dissolves…

Sam rolled onto his side, eyes wide as the Other shrank and puddled, dissolving away. In twenty heartbeats its flesh was gone, swirling away in a fine white mist. Beneath were bones like milkglass, pale and shiny, and they were melting too.

And that might not mean much in and of itself, but I’m inclined to think of the ADWD prologue:

The white world turned and fell away. For a moment it was as if he were inside the weirwood, gazing out through carved red eyes as a dying man twitched feebly on the ground and a madwoman danced blind and bloody underneath the moon, weeping red tears and ripping at her clothes. Then both were gone and he was rising, melting, his spirit borne on some cold wind. He was in the snow and in the clouds, he was a sparrow, a squirrel, an oak. A horned owl flew silently between his trees, hunting a hare; Varamyr was inside the owl, inside the hare, inside the trees. Deep below the frozen ground, earthworms burrowed blindly in the dark, and he was them as well. I am the wood, and everything that’s in it, he thought, exulting. A hundred ravens took to the air, cawing as they felt him pass. A great elk trumpeted, unsettling the children clinging to his back. A sleeping direwolf raised his head to snarl at empty air.

The Other and the human skinchanger dissolving after “death” is so fascinating. And it raises many questions. Death wasn’t the end for Varamyr as his spirit went into his wolf. So is that the same with the Other who also dissolved into white air? As long as magic and suitable conditions (i.e., winter and all its elements) exist, then the Others can never truly die and thus could take on another form?

If that’s the case, then winter itself must be addressed to cut off the Others’ vital resources—along with the magic that sustains them, though we’ll get to that later. And who better to combat winter if not Bran Stark of “Winter-fell”?

Now you know, the crow whispered as it sat on his shoulder. Now you know why you must live. “Why?” Bran said, not understanding, falling, falling. Because winter is coming. […] Bran touched his forehead, between his eyes. The place where the crow had pecked him was still burning, but there was nothing there, no blood, no wound. He felt weak and dizzy. He tried to get out of bed, but nothing happened. And then there was movement beside the bed, and something landed lightly on his legs. He felt nothing. A pair of yellow eyes looked into his own, shining like the sun. The window was open and it was cold in the room, but the warmth that came off the wolf enfolded him like a hot bath. His pup, Bran realized … or was it? He was so big now. He reached out to pet him, his hand trembling like a leaf. When his brother Robb burst into the room, breathless from his dash up the tower steps, the direwolf was licking Bran’s face. Bran looked up calmly. “His name is Summer,” he said.

Bran’s wolf, a reflection of his own identity, only receives his name after Bran glimpses his magical destiny. With winter’s horrors looming, Bran must become the summer that rises to challenge it.

As the Prince of Winterfell, Bran’s title and inheritance—rooted in the Stark legacy from the first Long Night and Bran the Builder—signify a dominance over winter. He is the summer prince, heir to the place where “winter fell, defeated”.

“And who is Summer?” Jojen prompted. “My direwolf.” He smiled. “Prince of the green.”

Prince. The man-sound came into his head suddenly, yet he could feel the rightness of it. Prince of the green, prince of the wolfswood. He was strong and swift and fierce, and all that lived in the good green world went in fear of him. (Bran I, ASoS)

Because winter brings death to the land, summer is needed to restore warmth, vitality, and breathe life back into the world. And that’s why Bran’s identity not just as the “prince of the green”, but as the last of the greenseers (of course once Bloodraven kicks the bucket) puts him in a unique position during the Long Night. 

He will be the one to end the winter.

I’m still piecing together what this might ultimately look like, as we need more information about greenseeing and how Bran may fully harness it. However, from what we do know, it seems greenseeing is extends to earth magic—shaping and manipulating the natural world, as seen with events like the Hammer of the Waters. Additionally, greenseers can perceive past, present, and future, which essentially aligns with the passage of time. And isn’t that what the cyclical nature of the seasons embodies? Time flows, and with it come physical changes in the land: winter brings barrenness, spring rebirth, and summer growth. Humanity needs someone who understands this cycle and possesses the power to influence the earth itself.

Since Bran has already glimpsed the heart of winter, it’s possible he will find himself returning there, perhaps retracing the steps of the last hero. Additionally, the Isle of Faces and the God’s Eye, rich with weirwoods and sacred significance, seem like fitting locations for him to play a pivotal role in restoring balance; especially when we consider his role as a Fisher King/Grail figure who is linked with the renewal of once barren land. Whether Bran has to dig deep into the earth’s roots or manipulate the flow of time itself, the Long Night cannot end without his dominance over winter.

However, while restoring the balance of the seasons is crucial, neutralizing the immediate threat posed by the Others and their thralls is extremely important- and that’s where Dany comes in!

That night she dreamt that she was Rhaegar, riding to the Trident. But she was mounted on a dragon, not a horse. When she saw the Usurper’s rebel host across the river they were armored all in ice, but she bathed them in dragonfire and they melted away like dew and turned the Trident into a torrent. Some small part of her knew that she was dreaming, but another part exulted. This is how it was meant to be. (Dany III, ASoS)

I’ve argued before that, of our three chosen ones, Dany is the best suited to take on the role of military commander—and I don’t think that’s a far-fetched claim. She has one of the cleanest and most impressive military records in the main series, proving herself a formidable tactician. Not to mention, she commands the dragons—living embodiments of fire—who have been positioned as the direct counter to the Others, creatures of ice. While the Others bring cold and death, Dany and her dragons are fire made flesh, a force of life and renewal.

There are other narrative arguments for why Dany’s role is going to be so heavily militaristic. 

Until one day Prince Rhaegar found something in his scrolls that changed him. No one knows what it might have been, only that the boy suddenly appeared early one morning in the yard as the knights were donning their steel. He walked up to Ser Willem Darry, the master-at-arms, and said, ‘I will require sword and armor. It seems I must be a warrior.’” (Dany I, ASoS)

“No one ever looked for a girl,” he said. “It was a prince that was promised, not a princess. Rhaegar, I thought … the smoke was from the fire that devoured Summerhall on the day of his birth, the salt from the tears shed for those who died. He shared my belief when he was young, but later he became persuaded that it was his own son who fulfilled the prophecy, for a comet had been seen above King’s Landing on the night Aegon was conceived, and Rhaegar was certain the bleeding star had to be a comet. What fools we were, who thought ourselves so wise! The error crept in from the translation. Dragons are neither male nor female, Barth saw the truth of that, but now one and now the other, as changeable as flame. The language misled us all for a thousand years. Daenerys is the one, born amidst salt and smoke. The dragons prove it.” (Samwell IV, AFFC)

“Azor Ahai, beloved of R’hllor! The Warrior of Light, the Son of Fire! Come forth […]” (Davos I, ACoK)

Azor Ahai is said to be a warrior, and while Dany doesn’t fit the traditional image of what that means, she is still an active participant in warfare. Moreover, one of the central aspects of her character is her role as an agent of freedom:

“…this Mother of Dragons, this Breaker of Chains, is above all a rescuer.” (Tyrion VI, ADWD)

She has spent much of her arc directly combating slavery which might seem unrelated, but the Others come with their own type of bondage in their creations of undead. The slavery of the Others is not just physical, but spiritual, and Dany’s role in battling them aligns with her fight for freedom. She isn’t suited to combat winter itself, as Bran is, but her strength lies in physical battle, which Bran is not. To put it another way: if Bran is Frodo journeying into the depths of Mordor, Dany is Aragorn, turning Sauron’s eye with her dragons and leading the fight to defeat his armies.

But I don’t think her role ends there. 

The Others are not dead. They are strange, beautiful… think, oh… the Sidhe made of ice, something like that… a different sort of life… inhuman, elegant, dangerous. SSM

I’ve already mentioned that beyond the elements of winter—snow, ice, and cold—the Others are sustained by magic. Building on the idea of the Other dissolving into mist, it’s possible that magic is what binds these beings together: magic fuses a consciousness with snow and ice into a corporeal entity. So, in addition to battling them physically, our heroes—and Dany in particular—may have to confront this magic that gives the Others their form and power.

“Half a year gone, that man could scarcely wake fire from dragonglass. He had some small skill with powders and wildfire, sufficient to entrance a crowd while his cutpurses did their work. He could walk across hot coals and make burning roses bloom in the air, but he could no more aspire to climb the fiery ladder than a common fisherman could hope to catch a kraken in his nets.” Dany looked uneasily at where the ladder had stood. Even the smoke was gone now, and the crowd was breaking up, each man going about his business. In a moment more than a few would find their purses flat and empty. “And now?” “And now his powers grow, Khaleesi. And you are the cause of it.” “Me?” She laughed. “How could that be?” The woman stepped closer and lay two fingers on Dany’s wrist. “You are the Mother of Dragons, are you not?” (Dany III, ACoK)

The birth of Dany’s dragons seems to have strengthened fire magic, tying her deeply to the very fabric of magic itself. The AGoT bookend suggests that the Others’ ice magic and the dragons’ fire magic may be connected, part of a larger magical ecosystem, or perhaps opposing forces that coexist on opposite ends of the spectrum. Ice and fire, death and life—both seem bound by the same mystical forces. Given Dany’s connection to magic and the fact that the reemergence of her dragons parallels the resurgence of the Others, she seems best suited to combat the magic that enables the Others to take form—serving as an inverse to her bringing dragons to life. And this underscores her dual role as both a destroyer and creator of life

The specifics on Dany’s confrontation with the Others and the magic that creates them remains unclear. She could venture to the heart of winter/the Lands of Always Winter and face the source of their power, creating narrative symmetry between the dragons of the Lands of the Long Summer and the creatures from the Lands of Always Winter. Alternatively, she might find herself in the Isle of Faces if her dream of fighting the Others at the Trident is fulfilled literally. The Isle, with its rich magical ecosystem, would be a fitting place for such a climax.

Bran, too, seems destined to go to the Isle of Faces (I’m a firm ‘Bran, King at the Gods Eye’ truther). This could be where their paths cross and their roles intersect. Bran, with his deep connection to nature and time, might provide Dany with guidance on how to engage with magic and influence its effects on the world. With Bran’s knowledge and Dany’s firepower, she could then deliver the final blow. While much of this remains speculative, what is clear is that their roles complement each other.

And that leaves Jon, the “light bringer”.

They said the words together, as the last light faded in the west and grey day became black night. “Hear my words, and bear witness to my vow,” they recited, their voices filling the twilit grove. “Night gathers, and now my watch begins. It shall not end until my death. I shall take no wife, hold no lands, father no children. I shall wear no crowns and win no glory. I shall live and die at my post. I am the sword in the darkness. I am the watcher on the walls. I am the fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn, the horn that wakes the sleepers, the shield that guards the realms of men. I pledge my life and honor to the Night’s Watch, for this night and all the nights to come.” (Jon VI, AGoT)

It’s important to see Jon’s primary function as an extension of his current role. He is a man who watches for the night—a sentinel standing against the encroaching darkness. This role is deeply embedded in his identity, and it’s fascinating to see how it manifests in his prophetic dreams.

It’s black inside, and I can see the steps spiraling down. Somehow I know I have to go down there, but I don't want to. I'm afraid of what might be waiting for me. The old Kings of Winter are down there, sitting on their thrones with stone wolves at their feet and iron swords across their laps, but it's not them I'm afraid of. I scream that I'm not a Stark, that this isn't my place, but it's no good, I have to go anyway, so I start down, feeling the walls as I descend, with no torch to light the way. It gets darker and darker, until I want to scream." He stopped, frowning, embarrassed. "That's when I always wake." (Jon IV,AGoT)

Last night he had dreamed the Winterfell dream again. He was wandering the empty castle, searching for his father, descending into the crypts. Only this time the dream had gone further than before. In the dark he'd heard the scrape of stone on stone. When he turned he saw that the vaults were opening, one after the other. As the dead kings came stumbling from their cold black graves, Jon had woken in pitch-dark, his heart hammering. (Jon VII, AGoT)

The Winterfell crypt dreams contain many intriguing elements, but I’ll focus primarily on two key motifs: death and darkness.

Jon is the most natural fit for the middle head of the dragon because he exists at the intersection of extremes: light and darkness, destruction and renewal, death and life.

When the spirit stepped out of the open tomb, pale white and moaning for blood, Sansa ran shrieking for the stairs, and Bran wrapped himself around Robb’s leg, sobbing. Arya stood her ground and gave the spirit a punch. It was only Jon, covered with flour. “You stupid,” she told him, “you scared the baby,” but Jon and Robb just laughed and laughed, and pretty soon Bran and Arya were laughing too. (Arya IV, AGoT)

While Bran is connected to summer and warmth through his magical familiar, Jon possesses a unique sensitivity to death, embodied by his bond with Ghost.

He sniffed at the bark, smelled wolf and tree and boy, but behind that there were other scents, the rich brown smell of warm earth and the hard grey smell of stone and something else, something terrible. Death, he knew. He was smelling death. He cringed back, his hair bristling, and bared his fangs.  Don't be afraid, I like it in the dark. No one can see you, but you can see them. But first you have to open your eyes. See? Like this. And the tree reached down and touched him.  (Jon VII, ACoK)

Furthermore, Jon’s fate at the end of ADWD implies that through his death and eventual rebirth, he becomes a ghost in his own right—caught between life and death, existing yet not fully alive. This intertwines with his connection to darkness, as Jon straddles the boundary between light and darkness: a shadow.

All in black, he was a shadow among shadows, dark of hair, long of face, grey of eye. (Jon VII, ACoK)

“I can show you.” Melisandre draped one slender arm over Ghost, and the direwolf licked her face. “The Lord of Light in his wisdom made us male and female, two parts of a greater whole. In our joining there is power. Power to make life. Power to make light. Power to cast shadows.” “Shadows.” The world seemed darker when he said it. “Every man who walks the earth casts a shadow on the world. Some are thin and weak, others long and dark. You should look behind you, Lord Snow. The moon has kissed you and etched your shadow upon the ice twenty feet tall.” Jon glanced over his shoulder. The shadow was there, just as she had said, etched in moonlight against the Wall. (Jon VI, ADWD)

Shadows, like ghosts, are echoes of something once tangible. They arise from obstructed light, existing in a realm that is neither completely dark nor wholly bright, hovering between presence and absence. They highlight where light is absent. But shadows also exist only in the presence of light, revealing the delicate boundary between illumination and the lack thereof. 

So building on that idea, it’s significant that Jon’s frequent journeys into the Stark underworld, where death and darkness prevail, take a pivotal turn in ASoS when he becomes vividly aware of light fading in real time.

He dreamt he was back in Winterfell, limping past the stone kings on their thrones. Their grey granite eyes turned to follow him as he passed, and their grey granite fingers tightened on the hilts of the rusted swords upon their laps. You are no Stark, he could hear them mutter, in heavy granite voices. There is no place for you here. Go away. He walked deeper into the darkness. "Father?" he called. "Bran? Rickon?" No one answered. A chill wind was blowing on his neck. "Uncle?" he called. "Uncle Benjen? Father? Please, Father, help me." Up above he heard drums. They are feasting in the Great Hall, but I am not welcome there. I am no Stark, and this is not my place. His crutch slipped and he fell to his knees. The crypts were growing darker. A light has gone out somewhere. "Ygritte?" he whispered. "Forgive me. Please." But it was only a direwolf, grey and ghastly, spotted with blood, his golden eyes shining sadly through the dark…

This is particularly noteworthy because of a similar, parallel dreams:

That night he dreamed of the feast Ned Stark had thrown when King Robert came to Winterfell. The hall rang with music and laughter, though the cold winds were rising outside. At first it was all wine and roast meat, and Theon was making japes and eyeing the serving girls and having himself a fine time . . . until he noticed that the room was growing darker. The music did not seem so jolly then; he heard discords and strange silences, and notes that hung in the air bleeding. Suddenly the wine turned bitter in his mouth, and when he looked up from his cup he saw that he was dining with the dead. (Theon V, ACoK)

The fires that ran along the blade were guttering out, and Jaime remembered what Cersei had said. No. Terror closed a hand about his throat. Then his sword went dark, and only Brienne’s burned, as the ghosts came rushing in. (Jaime VI, ASoS)

The ASoS crypt dream runs parallel to Theon’s ACoK dream and Jaime’s ASoS dream, with a common element: the presence of death and growing darkness.

While the crypts are inherently dark, Jon perceives when other sources of light are extinguished—true to his role in the Night’s Watch, which is to keep vigil against encroaching darkness. This ability to sense the fading light underscores his ghostly nature, where he reflects light while simultaneously existing in a state of absence. It also highlights his role as a shadow, existing in the blending of light and darkness. As both a shadow and a ghost, he can navigate these dual states, acting within the world’s transitions between day and night.

Which brings us to what I consider a continuation of Jon VII; while that chapter is marked by a lack of light, this next chapter is characterized by an abundance of it:

Burning shafts hissed upward, trailing tongues of fire. Scarecrow brothers tumbled down, black cloaks ablaze. ‘Snow,’ an eagle cried, as foemen scuttled up the ice like spiders. Jon was armored in black ice, but his blade burned red in his fist. As the dead men reached the top of the Wall, he sent them down to die again. He slew a greybeard, a beardless boy, a giant, a gaunt man with filed teeth, and a girl with thick red hair. Too late he recognized Ygritte. She was gone as quick as she’d appeared. The world dissolved into a red mist. (Jon XII, ADWD)

At some point between these two dreams, Jon found (or even created) light and he wields it as a weapon. And it’s clear that Jon’s sword in this dream is the actual manifestation Azor Ahai’s Lightbringer:

“In ancient books of Asshai it is written that there will come a day after a long summer when the stars bleed and the cold breath of darkness falls heavy on the world. In this dread hour, a warrior shall draw from the fire a burning sword. And that sword shall be Lightbringer, the Red Sword of Heroes, and he who clasps it shall be Azor Ahai come again, and the darkness shall flee before him.” (Davos I, ACoK)

Lightbringer has two major requirements: to give off heat and to illuminate. Jon’s sword does both!

We’ve seen a number Lightbringer-esque weapons (e.g., Beric’s and Thoros’), but Stannis Baratheon’s sword is the most intriguing proxy.

Davos knelt, and Stannis drew his longsword. Lightbringer, Melisandre had named it; the red sword of heroes, drawn from the fires where the seven gods were consumed. The room seemed to grow brighter as the blade slid from its scabbard. The steel had a glow to it; now orange, now yellow, now red. The air shimmered around it, and no jewel had ever sparkled so brilliantly. But when Stannis touched it to Davos’s shoulder, it felt no different than any other longsword. “Ser Davos of House Seaworth,” the king said, “are you my true and honest liege man, now and forever?” (Davos IV, ASoS)

While Stannis’ sword is visually dazzling, it is, in essence, a well-made fake. Its bright glow meets one of the two requirements for “light-bringer”, yet its impressive variety of hues with no actual heat serve as a clue that it is not the true sword of heroes. When the world cloaked in darkness, a weapon that shines as brightly as the sun is undoubtedly a powerful symbol. And Stannis’ sword is bright….

….but it’s almost too bright. His sword emits the wrong kind of light—one that is all glamor with little substance. This great conflict is referred to as the “war for the dawn”. So what humanity needs is a reminder of the dawn itself:

As a red dawn broke in the east, Grey Wind began to howl again. (Catelyn X, AGoT)

A swollen red sun hung low against the western hills when the gates of the castle opened. (Catelyn IX, AGoT)

Dawn and the sun are often associated with red hues in the text, a color heavily tied to fire (e.g., House Targaryen and R’hllor). Stannis’ sword gives off light, but it lacks the essence of true warmth. In contrast, Jon’s sword is the real Lightbringer: it is hot enough to burn against the cold and it radiates the actual red hues of dawn, thus illuminating the world around it.

Jon’s role as the archetypal fantasy protagonist necessitates a magic sword—Lightbringer will be his Excalibur; his Anduril. But more than just being a weapon, his Lightbringer symbolizes the transition from darkness to light. Dawn, a moment of transformation, begins with deep red hues that retain the shadows of night before blooming into the full brightness of the sun. Like the early dawn, Jon straddles the line between night and day, existing between life and death, darkness and light. As the middle dragon head, he embodies balance.

I’m not really sure how that plays out in the endgame; hell, I still can’t figure out how Jon will “forge” Lightbringer in the first place. But he has to end up somewhere for his arc to reach its magical climax. I’ve speculated that Bran and Dany might find themselves at the Isle of Faces or the heart of winter. The latter is a strong possibility for Jon, especially if he too recreates the last hero’s journey; not to mention his connections to snow and winter. But he could also return to the Wall, a mighty structure that symbolizes the boundary between life and death. The Wall is also imbued with ancient magic that radiates outward (e.g., strengthening Mel’s magic and prolonging Maester Aemon’s life). Therefore, it could serve as the ideal location for Jon to reignite and wield the light that has long been hidden.

Though Bran, Jon, and Dany each have distinct roles in restoring balance, their actions are deeply intertwined, with shared themes across their arcs. Jon and Bran connect through their existence in darkness, as seen in their ACoK dreams. All three share connections to death: Bran inhabits the realm of the dead (Mel I, ADWD; Jon’s ACoK wolfdream), Jon embodies a ghost-like nature that straddles life and death, and Dany is called the “bride of fire, daughter of death”. Additionally, Jon and Bran are linked to winter, and both Jon and Dany share the legacy of Azor Ahai and Lightbringer, with dragon breath also echoing the red hues of dawn. Together, they are not just separate forces but three heads of the same dragon, working in concert to ensure that the Long Night ends and the cycle of life and death continues.

TL;DR:

The dragon has three heads, each with a unique role in maintaining the cycle of balance, despite their overlaps in common themes. Bran, the Prince of Winterfell, embodies summer and inherits the legacy of the kings of winter, making him the most suited to confront the Long Night’s origin: winter itself. The Long Night cannot end without Bran’s triumph, as winter represents death while summer signifies new life. Dany, linked to the ebb and flow of magic and the direct antithesis of the Others, is best positioned to engage them in battle and counteract the ice magic that enables their existence. As the perfect manifestation of fire magic, she serves as a powerful weapon, embodying the theme of destruction by being “breaker of chains”. Meanwhile, Jon straddles the boundaries of light and dark, life and death, destruction and creation. His unique position allows him to navigate these extremes, bringing forth the lost light while holding back the consuming darkness. As the embodiment of balance—dead yet alive, icy yet fiery—he ensures the proper equilibrium between these forces.

Dragons, symbols of life, fire, and summer, starkly contrast with the cold death represented by winter and its children. Daenerys, as the Mother of Dragons, embodies the nurturing aspect of life, actively bringing forth new existence by counteracting suspended states of life (e.g., awakening dragon eggs and freeing slaves). Bran, representing youthful vitality, symbolizes young life that is both born and maturing. Jon occupies a unique position in the middle; he is like spring, a new life emerging from darkness, akin to an awakened dragon—life once petrified but now revitalized. Together, these three form a multifaceted dragon that embodies various dimensions of life, each contributing uniquely to the fight against the Long Night.

[skagheart]

Born to Die

hey, so, basically, i was writing this fanfiction called born to die based upon kurt cobain and an original character called nirvana lacey anhedönia and, well, i never finished it and i think i’ve lost the inspiration to. but, i still want it to see the light of day because i think it’s beautiful (sort of). so, here we are.

Gibson Girl.

1480 words.

July 6, 1981.

Aberdeen.

Washington.

[ You wanna… ]

Lovelace.

That’s what I’m fucking carving into my arm. With that oh-so-American size of the knife, the cut was deep and my handwriting as unhinged as it could be, probably and possibly worse than the cruel (upon me!) variety of forms it takes; like it was in my journal (I’ve always adored the copulation of the words probably and possibly as it tends so well to my seeming lack of sincerity and existential confusion), but worse, worse. Tingling all over I was in not an aroused, sexual way—but in the way it tingles when the high becomes scary, when the swirly faces start to scratch at you and when your belly feels scarily pregnant (everyone whom I know wants children; I wonder, am I sociopathic or a prophetess? Probably both, they’re primarily synonymous anyway). I knew so damnéd well I was addicted to this shit, the little, translucent, hallucinatory blotters (I prefer ’em trippy on both the outside and in, and pink; but I’m an addict! I’ll take whatever anyways) I get by shaking my ass to the guy whose name I do not wish to have my married brain clouded with. He still cut into my head like the knife that was working with all it’s effort and my inputs carving that v on my plump, ripe forearm. I was addicted as fuck; and I fucking loved it. At the very fucking least, I was pumping out poems like a heroine of the fifties. It’s what it was: the fifties had Sylvia Plath and the eighties had me. Downright iconic. The blood by now—I felt like a lamb, but I knew I was the dragon—was flooding my lap on which that forearm of mine was settled. I apologise if my writing, grammer, thoughts, anything else is fucked up in this or don’t make sense—I’m drugged up into Cloud Nineteen (ten blotters, two packs of Marlboro Reds over this evening).

I know I sound fucking insane and I probably am, and I treat myself to pain Virgin Mary couldn’t have dreamt off—but, I promise I’m not mean. Just a hard, excessive exterior and a tight, eager posterior in this dollhood of mine. Does that even make sense…? I don’t fucking know shit… “Ah, fuck…” I whispered with the most disappointing one I could muster when I fucked up the second l of Lovelace.

Lovelace, Lovelace… Great, I have to recall him.

The fucker who got me into this.

Norwegian trucker in India who was friends with my greaser pa, Norman Anhedönia, called Gibson Lovelace. The chap had forty years worth of oxygen wasted in his shallow breathing (he always breathed shallow, even when he came; I had noticed), a nine-incher monster of a dick, pedophilia, a drunkard wife and an obsession with me. I’d always been what Nabokovian terms would term nymphet, and I do say I’m split on it. I’m a shit daughter and a demon child, or am I? Maybe I’m just depressed and suicidal, or I’m fucking divine and the reincarnation of Eve meant to meet her Adam through a senseless act of violence upon myself (I didn’t know at the time, but I was fucking foreshadowing; go me.). Every girl needs a senseless act of violence properly upon herself but rarely upon the other to discover her one and only cult leader.

Anywho, Gibson led me into his truck away from my father who was too busy cleaning his shades listening to Elvis on the records: January of ’77, I was seven going to turn eight in the November of that year. He fucked me raw, smashed my head so hard into the steering wheel that I bled (I was questioning too much), kissed my cuts and made me promise I wouldn’t pick up a knife again but didn’t do shit about what I actually felt; he told me to stick my tongue out and placed this thin translucent sheet of pink from a little booklet he kept in his glovebox. And I decided that I loved it. I’m at fault, I’m at fault… Fuck Waheguru.

I’m finished. I squeezed my arm as hard as I could, the blood spraying over the marble floor (I had tucked the rug away; I can’t let Mumma see). My incisors with the utmost force to keep my vocal chords at bay dug into my chapped bottom lip and drew blood there too. It trickled down to my chin and came to nirvana at my lap resting amongst the other red molecules; it left a ferric taste on the tip of my tongue, slightly bitter and quite sweet. Bittersweet. Blood, blood, blood, blood, blood… Blood, everywhere. Gibson would’ve rubbed it all over my nipples and told me to lick it up like it was his sperm all over my asscheeks or, well, just cheeks. I did have quite big tits for an almost twelve-year-old, I must admit… I’ve always had more estrogen and my estrogen was also more sensitive: susceptible. Susceptible to manipulation, fuckery, religion, what not… Finally, I could fucking feel something except for the stimuli of my g-spot and the irritation in my nostrils that still blossomed when I chainsmoked indoors or that itching feeling in me when I go too much time without my LSD. I have this delusion that I only pump men good or pump out good stuff when I’m pumped on those little squares: He said that LSD would be good for me when I told him that I write; I’ve been pumpin’ poetry for my baby ever since. I hate children, and I sincerely wish that all babies die alongside their parents and the doctors and the nurses and the medical’s parents and me…

My disorders kicked in (Borderline Personality Disorder, majorly untreated) and I fucking panicked. After so much shit, I fucking panicked. Panicked. Jumping up almost to slam my head to the sink I was cutting up like ham under, I had to hold onto the sink to make myself stand actually. I slowly experienced my hand creep up to switch on the faucet (like Gibby did to the faucet in my eyes everytime he crossed my neurocircuitry) and my other arm (I’m right-handed) creep to wash the blood from Lovelace off. Thankfully, I had a few bottles of peroxide, a pack of Reds, a babydoll dress all set up, razor and men’s shaving cream, my skincare, makeup—all of that set up, and the shower prepped as well. Today, I was to die.

The same year as Gibson’s arrival to me, I spiralled and ended up flinging my curvy body down the roof of some pretentious hotel in Seattle. I didn’t die, unfortunately. Then, well, I was transferred to a crazy people place for four years until I got out in March of ’81 (this year!) equally, if not more, fucked up. I had glowed so much surrounded by my little hellspawns, my creatures... My paradise is dying in the arms of nobody. But, I couldn’t care when the blotters kicked in and helped my cerebrum in distorting so fucking shittily my face into some eldritch horror that passed the likes of werewolves mid-transformation and golems. I giggled manically at the twistings of my eyes into the hair and my ears into halo, my mouth stretched through the giggle was transmuted to the petrified image of a dog and a lady and what fucking not. Oh, I need my pen… Pen, pen, pen, pen,... pen!

The lad

I tried to write into the journal page I had kept open on the small settee of my bathroom that I had also made sure to drip some of my essence onto (not like that, pervs; the blood, I’m saying) but my mouth wouldn’t co-operate with my cerebellum or my cerebrum. The giggles just wouldn’t stop and they just got more and more distorted like guitars fitted into amps and amps and shredding. I fell back on the ground, it cushioned by my ass, and held my head in my arms, shaking my head as if to curate outside of my all the fogginess and to shake out of my trip. I wanted to write, write! Not whatever the fuck this was. My eyes were squeezed so hard, I was crying. And, I couldn’t fucking stop laughing like a shitshow.

“Oh, God, stop, stop, stop, just fucking stop…!” Hadn’t even realised I was sobbing but in that moment that epiphany hit me like a freight train (whatever the fuck a freight train is; I just picked up on the writing tool from whatever I read using this). My arm was still bleeding, smearing blood over my cheeks; my lip was still cut from my teeth, bleeding the smaller bits too; I was shaking like a fucking banyan leaf in the rainstorms of Wash.

• • •

Strangers.

5010 words.

July 6, 1981.

Aberdeen.

Washington.

[ Don’t talk to strangers, or you might fall in love ]

Even the isolation, deprave, and mesophilia of our fucked-up, Lacey, crazies hospital was better than this drenched, little town. What was better than any of those two fucking disasters, though, was my stance on the railway tracks. Sittin’ there like teke-teke, waitin’ for my gorgeous guts to be smashed over, destroyed, violated, clawed out by the grinders of the train. I’d never seen starry nights—the ladies at Lacey would never have enough testicles to let me watch a shooting star and hope that it crash into me, the fuckin’ meteorite. My years at Cawnpore already were quite less in number, and it eternally was too polluted for us to see something more than the dhruv star and a few other killers; I’d never seen starry nights. According to this astronomical magazine I picked up while the nurses took us out to the local stores of Lacey for us teenage girls to detoxify our battlefields for minds, today was a meteor shower and I was thoroughly intrigued by blazing space rocks in the skies, so I bluffed and fucked my way out of the hospital. My egg and sperm donors did not believe for a major nanosecond that I was cured. At two years of pained age, I was standing in the middle of the gray-like-me roads, conscious of the act; at four, I burnt my pierced earlobe on purpose, using the steam-fuelled iron to; at six, any blade I pranced upon would find it’s metallic way to scent the room in the aroma of my equally metally blood, I only wished for one to kiss those marks and draw about them, to be what the lyre was to Apollo; at eight, this curvy brain of mine finally snapped into her hemispheres and told me to fling my curvy body down the highest story of our hotel. At eight, my suppliers abandoned their Catholic mistake of a dolly into a mental hospital in my Americana birthplace, Lacey.

There, I morphed myself like the blesséd Phoenix, curse, profanity I am into The Mother. Mother Lace, Mother Nirvana, Messiah of thee, and the literary combo of Three. One of the only times I shall ever cherish are my years with those six girls… My girls: my loves, only ones who would ever succeed in enveloping me with so much heat that the outward exterior, the exoskeleton of middle fingers and catty hisses, melts into a puddle of rot beneath me and the inner delicacy of my wretched fragility and mortality is on display for all those mental fuckers to eat.

Needless to say…, I missed my bundle of little women, my packets of compressed, oppressed joy. So, I lay there longing with my arms stretched onward craving hiraeth in the Heavens—now that I look back, it never was hiraeth. I knew exactly what my home was: the browned mental hospital where I spent four formative years of my Jim Morrison's life in. I longed for the hug of my collected daughters, their soft digits brushing my hair as they softly inquired escape from the hellhole I promised to save them from. My girls... I loved them, like the mother they never received. I had promised, I had promised… I was a betrayer. What mother to those girls…

On instinct I experienced my hands reach to the crown of my head, relief coursing through my blood the moment a thorn stung me. Their entity had crafted for me a crown of thorns to relish me as their Lady and Saviour. I did feel blood seep from the pinch, but I stuck my finger between my lips and thrashed my tongue around, gazing at the dying glows of the starry night.

I pretended to be Jesus.

I am Judas, or am I?

I don’t even know what I’m writing. You’re hallucinating while interpreting strange symbols written left-to-right in lead and antimony compounds upon thin, delicate tablet-like structures made of tree sap, so I guess we two are never too far apart in our crazy.

Well, to them (my girls: Laine Jean Ray, Bonita Ana Dios, Aurora May-Belle Long, Theresa Midge Check, Verbena de Baïa Voisin, Margaret Sarah Check), I still remain Yeshua. Yet, I feel a wolf in lamb’s skin as myself; a panther in the throes of the night sky that I stare emptily, tearily, upon. I fake it so real, I am beyond fake (translation: you people are fucking dumb).

In my convulsing tubule of thoughts birthed by my cerebral quality, I failed in my life to notice movement, possibly a metre from me. I was laid over the railway track like a corpse, eyes empty yet body warm for no reason at all. It truly seems bizarre how the movement noticed me neither—maybe dissolved so much in the grief were they that they were as heady as me, as crazy as I! Trapped inside the fever dream of their own thoughts, vowed to never spit it out, bit tongues and summertimes spent in clawing bedsheets and clamping hands over the own lips so as to refrain from the awareness that might spread. That might say…: I am iron. I am usable, extremely so. Exploit me, as if you have not already. Though, I might have not warneth thou… I rot as vigorously as I am used, keep me out in the world and I will break down and become ash of myself. In the velvet night, a puff of air as a sigh crawled out of me, liquid dripping down the corneas of I, ruining not the night (this was to be, I planned to die today for fuck’s sake) but my precious mascara and eyeliner. Oh, how I worked on that lining to accentuate my inherited, unwanted, auto-appreciated felinity. I’d be the prettiest girl in the morgue.

Someday you will ache like I ache.

Anyhow, the shower from the atmosphere had concluded a few minutes prior. And, well, finally, the train I was waiting for to scramble and crumble my guts into nothing but wasted potential, like I already was, had arrived… Only, it arrived wrong. It ran over the steel beside me, beside us (counting in the movement I am). A severe monsoon bummer filled my chest, the void in my heart had been concealed tightly and packed with Lyssa, Eris, what not. I craved to screech at the tyrant Father for his sin, for his fucking disruptive mercy on me—I did not want mercy! I needed death to fuck me like his personal, unpaid, loyal servant-girl; I needed it violent! So, as soon as all registered in my voluminous cerebrum, I recoiled in my pose, resorting to the protection of a foetal position as I screamed out my sobs and muffled them by staining my shaved thighs with my lipstick and drool smelling of minty chew-gum that I chewed last minute, tears of brown-black from my mascara and liner, hitting my head against my knees and punching the bloody rails that I was once moonbathing over until I experienced my knuckles burn and bruise, actual slivers of blood peek through the skin. I continued then too, but was too passionate in my quiet wailing to keep up the aggression.

And, thence, I swiped my tears with my bleeding knuckles, unrealising in my little girl’s misery of the fact, and smeared blood over my eyes and mascara over my blood. By some distance, I could hear some twigs crunching, maybe it was the movement I hadn’t noticed beforehand. When I did notice in that current moment, fear struck my gut like Cupid’s arrow when I had seen Priscilla Presley for the first time in forever. Naturally, a response occurred within the fatty mass of electric muscle in my head and I recoiled within myself, burying my face in my knees that I had pulled to my tits, only my eyes blinking up like a defensing cat—if I had been a cat, my pupils would have shrunken to that reptilian, creepy glare. I saw that the thing was lighting a cigarette, my cravings relit alongside (the appearance of the thing was half-revealed in the dim spark).

Stupidly as I ever could be, I murmured from my coil, “Do you have a light?” However softly I did speak, the boy did hear because it was the death of the night in wherever we were, the railroad was as quiet as could be with the crickets around chirping and inaudible bats may or may not be sauntering about. Dim moonlight that I somedays worshipped (as a witch, I did) proved herself, and I saw him. The first predicament was that he’s cute: blond, ice eyes, hopeless swagger, shaky legs. He paused himself in his trek, and slowly but mildly clumsily, turned to see my form. Perhaps cold moonlight proved her importance to hallucinatory pages of dead sap’s inkéd words of feel-good love. Wow, fuck, I went overboard on there. So, he scrutinised me for a moment, squinting to gaze at me carefully.

I’ll never forget what came out of my future husband’s mouth the first time he spoke a single thing to me…: You look very pretty when you’re crying; tears suit you. I don’t think that I can emphasise the moan that was nearly to escape me at that very moment, it was a shockwave of whatever down my spine to my ladyness. My knees dropped to become flat, just legs, and I did acknowledge the gashes in my doll heart bleeding so vigorously, it matched my swallowed drool.

“You don’t mean that, you’re drunk.”

His honeyed voice, sort of scratchy as I observed he was pubescent and hormonal in his blue jeans, white striped shirt—walked into the room, you know you made my eyes burn!—and black-y jacket he kept open, pushed me to experience the yayo-type, giggly joy of his chuckle, he shook his head in amuséd denial of his drunkenness. He was poetic, he had a slur, he had his thin lips wrapped around a cigarette—shit, I needed them wrapped around mine… And, I loved it. Why the fuck was I enamoured? “You’re a hypocrite,” He paused for a moment, maintaining that smile. Two distinct holes, punctures in muscle, were noticed by thee truly, myself, at that very moment; I felt my ribcaged heart palpitate. “You’re bawling your eyes out here like Virgin Mary.”

“Oh, fuck me, that’s beautiful.” The moan that was slowly and gradually, steadily and irresistibly, mountaineering up my throat finally escaped in the form of this: *Oh, fuck me, that’s beautiful*. Which, I did mean—how could I not mean *this*? I’m not Lisa Rowe, you buzz (although I wish to be—have you not read the sheer charisma produced from the description Kaysen emits of her? She was definitely the prettiest girl in the morgue!).

Hands of his extended to mine, both, and I took them, shakingly wobbling from my psych-out. I felt drunk. As terror-inducin’ it seems, drugs had exhilarated me, no cock of a man who had money this nymphet had onlooked had been left out, I was such a La Lolita for my crazy desires—but I had never had a swig before. Smelling the booze off my falling, twisted guy as he pulled me up from my literal and mental death—I only knew that my heart was hitting at my sinews, she felt a depraved wanderlust. Some wanderlust it was to, like a man in a Prime Minister pose, mark that free, angel Earth mine with maybe a flag (a tattoo) or a hole (a lovebite), something, somewhat. I held onto his shoulders for both metaphorical and literal support, he held onto the curve of the lower back I possessed, though the fabric of his jackie didn’t benefit friction and he kept slipping his arm off accidentally because, one, he adorned too much weight on; two, the fabircs intermingled like our forms, the cheap satin and whatever the fuck his jacket was made of. “Why am I a hypocrite, though?” I finally asked this little blond dude what had been pestering me (I am not to blame for this worthy-of-disdain obsessiveness, I have Borderline Personality Disorder. I am Cool Girl: I am nothing in my soul if not obsessive) for how millennium long. His ocean eyes matched mine for a moment, and he seemed to think through for a momento before he permitted the giggle of a hyena break out of him: Because you’re pretty when you cry, and I’m not.

“Yes, you are.” No hesitation was laced through me, none of that unaware uncertainty that I usually experienced leaking through my tune when I comforted one of my girls—my girls...—and instead was there an ignorant stubbornness. I was always stubborn, but what the fuck? I, having registered in my still plush cerebrum that my crown of thorns (gifted to me by Laine specifically, although all the girls worked on it) had fallen like my Lucifer when I had risen, thence I bent to grab my status, injuring my already injured hand thus further as the thorns pierced and pricked into my skin. And, I didn’t even cry…

He recoiled almost physically at my olden compliment (remember the first dialogue of the previous paragraphed rambling?) and I was due a breakdown of my psyche in that very singular fraction of a minute when my man suddenly perked up, “I only have this cig,”, changing the subject. Yahweh, my knuckles burnt. I ohed a tiny bit, and chuckled, extending one of my quivering, weak limbs and bending to wrap my lipstickéd lips on the ass of that cigarette, same one he took a drag from not fifteen seconds ago. His Atlantic eyes widened for a twiddling momentous, and, possibly and probably in drunken stupor and marijuana heights of his death wish, he giggled—I physically felt my pupils dilate, what the fuck? Maybe it was the nicotine, maybe it was the aftershocks of my tiny-teeny mental breakdown on the rail, maybe it was hisself… Damn, I think I understood Grant so well in that miniscule moment: Heaven is a place on Earth with you.

The world was built for two.

Delusional, I was convinced that it was us two the moment he grabbed the cigarette from me for his chance, and he examined the matte, messy mark of my lip stamped on it.

With the dumbest smile he could muster in my damnéd opinion, this little, blond, territorial, underdeveloped man adjusted his lips on the exact place I had left my shine, suckling it like it was some part of me. He knew what he was doing, I could pluck it from the glitter in his pretty orbs that told me shit he’d never be able to spit out in our tragic, magic relationship of some thirteen years. We kissed in death like we kissed in that moment, he blew smoke into my mouth and I giggled, almost extracting the alcohol of his from the roof of his mouth as my tongue felt her way around. We parted for perhaps, well, a second (I don’t remember the details, I’m writing this after our wedding sex, 1988. We’re in our flight back to Olympia from Honolulu, and he’s sleeping on my tits), and rejoint as I adjusted the angle to kiss-fuck this virginal Cherub better. “Darling, is this your first?”, he nodded, responsive—to be frank, that was adorable...! I’m pretty sure I squeaked out of sheer kiddy excitement, squeezing the sides of his face (cheeks). My grip migrated to around his neck, form bent for he was teenier than I. I didn’t even know his name and we were kissing in the blue dark…

Parting, I only gazed into his oceanic gaze and breathlessly giggled, “Oh, wow, fuck,... That was…, yeah.” A grand total of seven partners (three females, four males) I had engaged in before this merman, and I had never felt myself stolen of breathe ever in my existence after a mere kiss. Possibly was it the intoxication, the nicotine fucking over my senses so that my taste buds tickled with the enriching experience of his glazed cavern, but was it not thrilling, oh Mary! I had enchanted outward the sweetest giggle, and he in his still stupor snuggled his head inside the curve of my shoulder and chest; he was only that much tall. I was not lanky in any aspect, neither I am still—on the flipside, truth is that my mother repeatedly insisted upon me to not drown in my head and force her to onlook, rather to go outside, soak some tan (I am racially brown, thence I don’t require a tan) and run some. I decline profusely, tangling in blankets again and writing what, if discovered, would have positively filed me into the South Sound Behavioral Hospital yet again for a term not of four years now but of God-knows-how-long.

Eventually, I figured: some other day, this nymph may or may not have only prolonged my life now, and I told myself it. By the railway roads were grasses uncared for (like most daughters were; the human was their mother and the stain’d, tall grasses were the lost), we decided unconsciously to sit by those and talk the dimlight of the night off the clouds, to dawn we conversed. As unbelievable as it may sound considering the turbulence not even Athena might have dreamt of that had plagued the twisty courses of my lifetime, I had not sipped upon the liver eater yet: alcohol! With my newfound darling, that was precisely what I did.

We were dwelling inside uncanny synchronisation with our acts: we looked around at the same time, fixated on the same piece of cement, reached to gasp one another’s hands the same moment. I didn’t flinch, neither did the blond darling. Which..., was quite, well, it was especially choking as I... Usually froze at contact of the physique from someone whom I loved. Around this time, with my drink-induced lover, it felt good.

We curled up by grass, against a gray boulder-like structure, perhaps a part of a rotten or demolished building of some sort, debris. There, I suckled upon the lengthy cancerstick and inquired like an owl: “Why were you here, anyway?” In a casual tone I did, as if it was something so normal that I was nonchalant. “Oh, y’know, to kill myself.” The answer delivered by this sweetness would dwelling in me a day or so afterward (take that very literally) was just as nonchalant, confirming the suspicion conjured by my despaired subconscious that he was just as heady as me, as crazy as me, someone who would rot along me like iron all the while fearing the rot, hiding from something murmuring within thyself and teetering about; aura as a nymphic call and melancholia as the default ring of the mood. GOD is a teenaged girl of grunge and glitter, and I am a doll (soulless, empty, pretty with no matter on the inside yet pretty from the back—it matched!).

“No, no, like, why?” I repeated with an accentuated tone and my regular gestures of hand and eye, “The reason you wanted to kill yourself. I don’t judge, promise.” I shrugged, chuckling a bit as I passed the miniature cancer to him for a drag. “Clearly.” He chuckled too, widening his eyes momentarily to allude to my appearance; as I remember it, that elicited out from me a little giggle. I mean, it was the factual; darling, not lying. A girl; a girl dressed in a pearly babydoll dress with lacy tights (opaque white-like, frilled, a bow on top of each, knee-high) and no footwear with mascara smeared down her face from a clear breakdown of her battlefield for mind, manic brown eyes with a grape-coloured lipstick on pouty heart-shaped lips, blood and dirt also staining her optic area due to her bleeding knuckles from which she punched the steel of the rails because the train did not run over her? Paired alongside the fresh wounds on display littered across that fatty arm of hers? Oh, she was a crazy chick—and I could tell that this little guy loved it. He loved my mania, he loved my blood, he loved my crazy, he loved everything that I loved about myself. Maybe it was his alcohol that urged him this way, but I loved him for he loved what he saw.

But is she pretty on the inside?

“Well,” I spaced back in with the thrill of his voice curling the air around us; I wish we were plunged into steel. Sound travels best in something like steel… What would his voice be in steel? The thought messaged down my spine a shiver. “’s mostly everything about my life. Wouldn’t say I’m addicted, but all I do these days is mope and get high, or drink. I’ve been this since last month. Last year, I saw this… This dead boy who hung himself in the woods. That really affected me, I think; I’ve got suicide genes.” He paused a bit, sighing as he was passed the smokestick again. I puckered up a bit and drew closer to his pretty face, rounding my lips out and pushing out a ring of cigarette smoke. On impulse, he stuck nose through the centre of the dissipating smoke ring which drew from me another giggle—he was just like me! I did that too! I’d never thought someone else would…? What the fuck is going on?

Taking a drag, he then resuméd: “My parents are divorced… I’m really embarrassed of that.” He added a bit hesitantly, I could gauge that he still felt the shame of it all; which perplexed me. A divorce is shameful? How so? It’s a fucking life decision… But, that’s okay because this little one was clearly less mature and emotionally developed than I, although that amount still was remarkable considering his physique and my presumé of his age (which I thought to be elder to me, but still not too much so). “Why?”

“I want my real family back. My dad promised me he wouldn’t remarry, and he fucking did; to a bitch nonetheless. I hate her and her children are so… Phoney…!” Humming at his hurt words, I was analysing him: eyes gliding over the pasty, smooth contours of his vanilla face; staring into the trench of his pupils surrounded by his ocean eyes as he passed back the almost dead cigarette to me. The guard he wore over his exterior again was forming as he read that I was reading him without contempt (he thought I was feeling that, but I was simply analysing him emotionlessly—as if he was a labrat and I was dissecting him to figure out the following: what the fuck is this little shit?). But, I got him before he leaned away or apologised: Don’t worry, go on. Say it. I hate my cousins too. He relaxed yet again, I could see his shoulders come down and he leaned into me again,. Our heads were almost leaning against each other’s, breathes intermixing with each intake and out. “Go on.” I repeated, tapping his knee to accentuate my point.

He snapped out of whatever daze (he was reading me too, perhaps; mentally dissecting my Barbie body too, perhaps) and his hand came to clasp mine. I bit back a giggle and a smile at the contact, he did notice the corner of my lips tilt upward so he took that as a positive for further lacing of his fingers with mine. I, now a bit assured in myself, squeezed his hand and nudged him again: go on.

“Right,” He chuckled, “So, well, I just feel… Alien. You know, when I was little, I used to look at the stars,” He pointed briefly to the stars that were shining above the both of us, “And imagine my real family because I just felt like I wasn’t from here, like I was from another planet. I think I like that feeling, I was homesick for a place that didn’t even exist. And, to be honest, you’re the only other alien I’ve met.” That made me giggle after I muttered hiraeth at the sentence spoken second to the last. I found in my nicotined mindscape that this… Theory, was almost verbatim of a theory I myself had gardened in my meadow for mind. “Y’know…! I felt like that too, still do actually. I just used different terms for it. I called whatever the fuck our species are Earth Angels, angels on Earth. I read somewhere once that a person with scars of cuts on their arms was called an angel by a kid, and I think I really internalised… That.”

He chuckled, “Your mind is divine, Pretty. Yeah, I think my family is also a reason in why… I want to kill myself, y’know?”

“Oh, absolutely. I love them so much so I do what they want and they hate me for every speck of originality; I don’t know if it’s my mental disorders or it’s my hormones, but every small inconvenience makes me wanna kill myself. I’m also a hater! I hate everything and I do nothing to change it which, admittedly, makes me an arsehole—but, fuck it.” We both had laughter crawling up our throats and I could tell it wasn’t actual laughter. Oh, no. It was mania, laughing not because it threatened to spill; laughing because you had nothing else to do. Like crazy people (I do think that I am insane, in some way, shape or form. But, I also think that I’m supersane. Who fucking knows? I think a lot, don’t I?).

The cigarette had gone out by now, I think I had stubbed it out by pressing to the moist ground after he had truly started opening the shells of himself, not wishing to be distracted by drugs when I had the most addictive and healthy sedative offering his lifestory to a little shit like me. “Well, what’s it for you? I haven’t ever seen… You around…” He slurred out as we jumped down from our maniacal, little, episodic bursts of sacrilege or insanity… Well, are they not synonyms?

“Ah, so, I just moved here about a… Maybe a few days ago? I think a week or so. I moved from Lacey, though I’m actually Indian. Well… It’s a fucked-up fairytale, really. My whole ancestry and family is the following: sexist, racist, extremist to Sikhism, religious, doomed, homophobic, transphobic, Islamophobic, very, very Indian. It’s only my grandmother who acknowledges the sexism floating between our family; she dreamt high and was ambition incarnate but her marriage to this horrible fucking man led her to be so oppressed she couldn't speak a word of English without being thoroughly taunted for it.” His face clearly contorted into a gnarly grimace, and I felt my nose start to itch and burn again remembering all this up… Never had I ever trauma-puked this well or been so comfortable vomiting it out to someone I did not know.

“’s just… Fuckin’ Hell. I can’t translate it into words, I can only feel.” Shaking my head in a paternal sort of disappointment (no matter how much I despise the fact, I am my father’s daughter; his copy of carbon) at my inability, I felt myself pulled in again… How? How was he doing this shit? Being so fucking kind? It made me anxious, admittedly. Why was he so kind? What did the fucker want?

I’m being too cynical. I wanted to cry; instead I accepted his tentative comfort and shoved my face into the nook of his neck, breathing down it like a vampire in the night. I had the purely feminine, feline urge to wrap myself around him like Sarin and never let go to slowly dissolve into him even if maggots eat us out. Why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why…? For a few minutes I think, we stayed in that exact position, in a sort of silence that neutered my turmoil. His arms were gel onto my wounds, and I, terrified, readily crept in like the Dutch beetle on the elm.

“Don’t.” I eventually muttered out into the tender, pale, untouched flesh of temptation on his neck; I don’t know why I did it, don’t decipher or discover the root at all. What is a girl to do when offered love on a silver spoon when she only possesses a forked tongue of venom caused from licking slivers of love off a parental knife? I was a black, not racially but spiritually. I was corrupt, disgust, free-use trash for swollen cocks with zero semblance of any soul and only a pretty body. It’s my pretty power which is my ugly. I am disgusting… I sometimes feel the scorching need to cleanse myself, to face redemption, to hurry to salvation; and other days I revel in the hellfire of lust that would surround me once I am liberated of this uséd body.

[silentmoths]

Masterlist

Currently writing for: Genshin Impact Compiled in order of first postage

Green means sfw Red means nsfw White means suggestive

Vampire!Zhongli Char.AI

When you pick the horrible octopus over the dragon plushie - Zhongli x Reader sfw

When you pick the horrible octopus over the dragon plushie II electric boogaloo - Zhongli x Reader sfw

Is that laughter? or Just athsma? - Zhongli x Reader sfw

I'm so tired - Genshin Men x Reader sfw

Touch Starved - Zhongli x Masc! Reader sfw

What they smell like - Genshin Men Scent headcanons sfw

Forgetting the occasion - Genshin men x Reader ,suggestive

Please, think better of yourself - Diluc/Zhongli x reader nsfw

No longer the one and Oni - Itto x Oni! Reader nsfw

Perfectionist - Zhongli x Reader sfw

Resting murder face - Genshin men X reader sfw

In your own world - Diluc x reader sfw

The Oni thing i need is you - Itto x reader sfw

Oops-! - Genshin men X Reader nsfw

Angel of mine - Angel!Zhongli x reader, suggestive

Sudden fatherhood - Dad!Zhongli x Child!Reader sfw

Bad day - Kaeya x Reader sfw

Kid Gloves - Genshin men & women x Reader sfw

Tartaglil - Dad!Childe x Child!Reader sfw

Brotherly comfort - Brother!Ayato x Reader sfw

Celebrity Encounter - Celeb!Zhongli x Reader, suggestive

Tutor dates - Albedo x Reader sfw

Pain Relief - Prof!Zhongli x Student!Reader nsfw

I accidentally raised a god from the dead - Thrall!Zhongli x Necromancer!Reader nsfw

An emotional exchange - Zhongli x Reader sfw

A lap to cry on - Genshin men & women x Reader sfw

Cuddle time - Ei/Ningguang x Reader cuddle headcanons sfw

I will wait for eternity- Ei x Reader sfw

How much time do we have? - Boss!Zhongli+Ei x Secratary!Reader nsfw

Warm up - Omega!Albedo x Alpha!Reader nsfw

Mock exam - Prof!Zhongli x Student!Reader nsfw

Demonic corruption - Demon!Zhongli x Excorcist!Reader nsfw

Happy accidents - Zhongli x Pregnant!Reader sfw

Teyvat pussy eating champions - Genshin men & women nsfw

Please mommy - Student!Kazuha x Prof!Reader nsfw

Slow fall - Zhongli x Reader nsfw

Demonic Ascension - Demon!Zhongli x ExorcistDemon! Reader part II nsfw

Friend in the night - Zhongli x reader sfw

The safeword - Genshin men x Reader nsfw

An apple for you to stay? - Venti x Reader sfw

Restart the chapter - Al Haitham x reader nsfw

Good morning, Darling - Zhongli x reader nsfw

When will I see you again? (In your dreams) - Zhongli x reader sfw/angst

Strange arcade event: I just bought that top- Zhongli x reader nsfw

Strange arcade event: Losing composure but everything is mundane - Zhongli x reader sfw

Strange arcade event: wait, you're HOW old!? - Zhongli x reader sfw

Strange arcade event: Let me guess, you caused it? - Childe x reader sfw

Strange arcade event: what the hell were we meant to be cooking again? - Amber x Reader suggestive

Was it cold out? - Yandere!Zhongli x reader, nsfw (minor)

The most amicable guest at the party - Zhongli x Reader, nsfw

the enigma of the moth - Selfship, sfw

Caught in the act - Genshin men x reader, suggestive

The Meow - Zhongli x reader, sfw

Little Champion - Zhongli x reader, sfw

Winter wonderland event- Breakroom Spaghetti - Zhongli x Reader, sfw

Big 👀 Energy - Genshin men x Reader NSFW

Fragile as a brick wall - Zhongli x reader Royal AU - Longform, nsfw

You need to throw a book at director Hu - Zhongli x reader, sfw

A cold cure for insomnia - Pkmn S/V Rika x fem reader, nsfw

Chronically - Zhongli x reader, sfw

Two weeks - Zhongli x reader, nsfw

Kindergarten Blues - Single Dad Zhongli x Kindergarten Teacher reader, sfw

Unspoken arrangement - Capitano x Reader, nsfw

HSR Thirsts - Svarog/Yaoshi/Kafka x reader, nsfw

HSR Thirsts 2, Electric boogaloo - Jing Yuan, Welt, Lan x reader, nsfw

At your beck and call - Butler!Zhongli x reader, nsfw

Quick-Relief - Morax x Adeptus reader, nsfw

A vampired guide to feeding from a hemophobic partner - Neuvillette x Reader, nsfw

A lick and a promise - boothill x reader, nsfw Acts of Service - Blade x Reader, sfw

[snippychicke]

For the Sake of a Smile (v.2) Chapter Five

Title: For the Sake of a Smile (Revised)

Overall Rating: Mature (18+)

Chapter Rating: E for Everyone? Some violence, but not much

Trigger warnings: Nothing beyond the child abuse hinted in the series, though we do explore the consequences a bit more.

Main Pairing: Balam Shichiro/Reader

Summary: Hell on earth was your motto for your job. Granted, you were pretty sure earth really was hell, considering the shit you had seen in your life. And the fact your coworker was a child. 

A child named Suzuki Iruma, in fact. A kid who’s life was decidedly worse than yours, but yet he smiled despite everything. It wasn’t long after meeting him that you decided you’d do a lot for his smile. Including summoning a literal demon and signing your soul away.

But as it turns out, hell (The Netherworld, actually) was a lot better than living on earth. Demons were more humane than a lot of humans you knew.

And Iruma’s smile wasn’t the only one that would change your life.

Masterlist | Ao3| Mairimashitai! Simps Discord

Walter park was in ruins by the time you and Sullivan arrived. Three beasts continued their rampage amongst the wreckage, easily towering over everything else. A red dragon, a blue minotaur, and then a yellow rodent-like monster. None of which you had read about in your studies of your new home so far.

“Where do you think Iruma is?” You asked, clinging to Sullivan as he flew closer. Despite carrying you carefully in his arms, all traces of the genial old man you were beginning to call 'dad' were gone, leaving a serious persona you presumed his enemies had to face. 

“Usually I can sense him, but those monster’s mana are making it difficult,” He answered, before explaining further without prompt. “Those are summoned beasts, with mana stemming from multiple individuals. It's like a fog of mana covering the whole park. making it hard to pinpoint anything from this distance. Especially someone whose own, natural, mana is as weak as Iruma’s.”

“Damn it,” You growled, clutching at the fur of his suit. “What are we supposed to do then?”

“Well, I can pick out Opera, Kalego, and Balam. They're high-ranking enough that their power stands out amongst the fog.” He sighed, “And of course, each of them are near one of the monsters. I’m confident in each of their abilities…”

“Balam!” You interrupted, remembering he had texted you stating Iruma’s phone had died. Maybe Iruma was with him!

Sullivan was silent for a moment, no doubt contemplating your words and his next actions before sighing. “Okay. But, if you’re going to be near those things…” Something shifted, and it wasn’t just Sullivan as he suddenly descended. You recognized magic swelling around you, wrapping around you like a cocoon before black marks appeared along your body, stinging like a bad sunburn as they appeared on your skin. “There. That should keep you safe.”

You studied at the harsh, sharp lines, twisting and curling around your limbs, marked by runes in open patches. “Please don’t tell me these are permanent,” You groaned. Yes, there was alway that rebellious desire for a tattoo, but not like this. And definitely not across your whole body.

“They’ll fade after a few hours,” Sullivan reassured as he touched down on the ground, helping you to stand on the broken concrete. “It’s old magic I learned from a friend, that someday I hope to teach you since Runes are one the few types of magic that humans can use. After all, it’s how you first summoned me.” He smiled slightly before pointing towards the red dragon rampaging not too far away “Now, Balam is near the carmine dragon. I’m going to go towards the panther rat since that’s where Opera is.”

“Wait!” You grabbed his hand as he went to take off again. “You really think it’s safe to split up like this?”

“I wouldn’t put you in danger if I didn’t know you could handle it,” He reassured with a soft smile, patting your cheek. “You’re well defended, but who’s to say Iruma has that same guarantee?”

His words stirred that fire in your heart, and you let go with a firm nod. You could trust Sullivan. Besides, you weren’t completely sure that Iruma was with Balam, or if he was with one of the other groups and Balam was just relaying the message.

Hopefully, if he wasn't with Balam, he'd be with Opera. 

You weren't sure if it was the magic or your frantic desire to see your adopted son safe and sound that gave you the boost of energy. You ran across the debris, the path becoming more rocky and treacherous the closer you got to the rampaging dragon. You soon met demons fleeing the other way, though thankfully none tried to stop you.

"--children, can you believe that?"

"--not even their own, why?"

"--crazy, all of them. I mean--"

"--blue hair--"

The last comment made you skid to a stop and turn towards the demon who had overheard. "Wait! What about blue hair?!"

The demon looked startled by your intense expression. "Uh! Well! A group of children were trapped, and some boy with blue hair swore he was going to rescue them! Even though it has nothing to do with him!"

That was Iruma, alright. And you didn't know if you were proud, worried, angry, or all three at the same time. "Where?" You snapped, grabbing his shirt.

He pointed shakily towards the dragon, and you continued your run without another word. It wasn't long before you were caught in its massive shadow as the dragon towered less than a few meters away, still causing chaos without an apparent target.

Then a blast lit up the sky, making you falter and instinctually cower. You glanced up at the sky, stomach turning as you recognized the blond and pink haired demons in the sky above you.

Sabnock and Asmodus.

And wherever Az was, there was Iruma.

"Az!" You screamed up at the pair. "Sabnock!"

You not only garnered the two students' attention but also the dragon's. It roared as it twisted towards you, its claw a blur as it swept towards you.

Oh. Fuck. You didn't know what else to do but brace for the inevitable, hands protecting your head. The massive paw struck like a raging bear.

A bear you somehow withstood. Knees shaking, arms trembling as you felt its claw press down, but the only thing that buckled was the concrete itself. The runes burned, making you hiss, but it was minor compared to what it would have been like otherwise.

Like being squashed to death. Instead, you were stuck at a standstill, sandwiched between the ground and the dragon.

Could you push it back?

You screamed with determination as you pushed against its scaley claw. You didn't exactly push the dragon back, but shifted the claw enough it slammed to the ground beside you causing a tremor to shake the ground.

The dragon apparently didn't like the fact it was unable to crush you, and roared again…except now its mouth was filling with white-hot flames. Even as Asmodeus and Sabnock tried to distract its attention away from you, their familiars now by their side, you feared you had pissed it off too much.

Would the runes protect you against that? Or would they fail? You looked for shelter, but everything nearby had been reduced to piles that had no place for you to hide.

The fire crackled like a raging wildfire, giving you a brief warning to brace one more time for the inevitable.

Except there was a gust of wind instead of fire, The flames roared around you, casting off intense heat but otherwise harmless, the familiar swell of mana casting over you much like Sullivan's. You opened your eyes, and saw nothing but a dark shadow before you.

Eventually the blast faded away, letting you see more than a shadow as Balam glanced back at you, his expression indiscernible.

"Hi," You breathed out, more than a little stunned by the impressive display. "T-thank you."

“What are you doing here?” He finally spoke, sounding frantic and worried. “How? Why! Do you realize how dangerous it is right now?”

“And you think I could stay away when Iruma is in danger?” You shot out of reflex moments before the dragon roared. You could barely move as the dragon fired a blast once more, but Balam's reflexes proved quick enough as he pulled you close, a cocoon of magic wrapping around you the same way his arms were.

“I suppose right now isn’t the best time to argue,” He admitted, barely audible over the flames despite his mask brushing against your hair.

“Agreed," You replied, fighting the invasive thought from being so close. Instead of being warm, he felt nice and cool, shading you from the heat.

“Now that the children are safe, I’ll step in,” He continued, “but you should take cover with the boys over in that building.”

“Sounds like a plan, just…” You paused, looking up at him, meeting his gaze. "Be careful, please." You wanted to blame the adrenaline for the odd thumping of your heart as he gently touched your face. It was a very brief moment, yet felt far more significant than any touches in the past.

“You too,” He finally spoke as the flames died. “Now, run.”

You didn’t look back as you sprinted towards the half-demolished building. Your heart lightened when you saw Iruma waving at you. Him, Agares, and half a dozen small kids meeting you near the entrance.

“Mom!” Iruma crashed into you with the same intensity you crashed into him. “What are you doing here?! Are you okay?!”

“Am I okay? Are you okay!” You pulled away to check for any injuries, though found nothing more than some mild scratches. The boy did have inhuman reflexes at dodging, but it still felt like a heavy boulder was lifted from your chest as he gave you a smile.

"Yeah, I'm fine." He said, glancing towards the others. "We're all okay, I think."

Once you were satisfied he was unharmed, your attention moved to the other kids. Agares was fine, if looking mildly annoyed that he had to share his cloud with the young children. All of which looked terrified, still covered in dirt, a few scrapes but nothing serious. Still, that maternal instinct urged you to clean the dirt off their faces. “Are you kiddos good?”

“Yeah,” They each sniffed, nodding their heads. You smiled reassuringly as you fussed over each one, checking for yourself for any injuries. More than a few ended up silently clinging to you, desperate for a reassuring touch. 

"Iruma!" You looked up to see Asmodus and Sabnock approaching, the taller demon looking like he had taken the brunt of one other dragon's fire attacks. Iruma tackled Asmodus in a hug, and you shifted your attention to the golden haired demon.

"Are you two okay?" You asked, wishing you knew more than the basic first aid for small cuts and minor burns. Or maybe just first aid for demons. You weren't sure if what you knew applied to them, considering every human you knew would be near death looking like Sabnock, but the teen was (mostly) upright and grinning.

"Yeah, we're fine!"

"Liar! Neither of us can barely walk!" Asmodus shouted from behind him, still holding Iruma tight. "Let alone use any kind of magic right now!"

"Yeah, but we're alive aren't we? And so is Ms. Suzuki and the kids Iruma saved! And we looked absolutely cool while doing it!"

Relief washed over you in a brief moment as the two bickered, and you could see Iruma's smile reflect the same emotion. Agares groaned and grumbled about the two being too loud, and the children just watched with stars in their eyes, as if meeting real super heroes.

Though, in a way, they were. All of them.

And you couldn't be any prouder.

The earth rumbled again, cutting your thoughts short. You feared the red dragon had set its sights on your group again. But instead, a second dragon now stood guard between the shelter and the scarlet beast. The new dragon looked more like a creature that dragged itself from the depths of a swamp than an actual dragon, with a mane like seaweed from head to tip of its tail.

And, barely able to be seen, was Balam hanging down from vines that seemed to make up the dragon, using his clawed feet to hang on.

"Is that Professor Balam’s familiar?" Iruma asked with the same awe you felt.

"Actually, I think that’s Nigyul," Asmodeus answered. "I've heard rumors that Professor Balam had a Nigyupnil dragon as a pet named Nigyul. Nigyupnils are related to the nigi-nigi weed, except they grow with mana instead of water. They're nearly impossible to find, and I admit, until now I thought the Professor taming one was just a rumor."

And until now, you hadn't really seen Balam as the demon he truly was. After all, he was so nice, so kind, so eager to learn, and hardly seemed to want to harm anything or anyone.

But as you watched the two dragons fight - Nigyul easily overpowering the carmine dragon - you realized that there was definitely a powerhouse behind his usual demeanor.

But, also, you realized that you weren't quite in a safe place as Nigyul wrapped vines into the other dragon, causing it to begin to thrash violently. The surrounding buildings shook as if an earthquake had hit, rubble once more raining down. "Let's get out of here before something happens," You urged, helping Sabnock despite his reluctance.

You expected the tussle to last a while, especially as the carmine dragon used its fire breath. Except the fire seemed to pass over Nigyul as harmlessly as it passed over you and Balam earlier. Nigyul shaked off any embers that managed to catch its mane before he lunged forward, tackling the carmine dragon and digging in his claws, teeth, and vines.

The carmine dragon's roar of pain was choked off a thick bundle of vines. Its massive maw snapped at the air, claws pinned to keep it from scratching at the noose. It took a minute before the dragon started to waver, slowly collapsing onto the ground - as if in slow motion - before landing heavily.

Still, Nigyul waited, making sure the beast was well and truly dead before releasing his grip.

You were stunned by the display as Nigyul shrank rapidly, Balam landing gracefully on the ground, with Nigyul in his hand, no larger than a small kitten.

Minutes. Minutes is all it took for Balam to topple the dragon. You had felt the power of the dragon itself crushing down on you, nevermind the evidence of its destructive power was in the ruins of the amusement park surrounding you.

Yet, for Balam and Nigyul, it had seemed no more than a minor opponent.

Iruma, Sabnock, and Asmodeus soon crowded around the tall professor expressing the same sentiment, professing how 'cool' and 'powerful' he was.

 It was amusing to see Balam flustered, his face pink but obvious that a smile was hiding behind his mask. He looked over towards you as Asmodus and Sabnock started to argue once more, something changing in his gaze. 

You ignored the flip-flop of your stomach as you took your turn to approach the hero of the day.  "That was amazing,” You offered, feeling unusually shy. You were fully aware everyone else had said the same thing, but still, you felt like you needed to say it. 

And even then, it didn’t seem to do justice to what you had witnessed.

"Thank you," He said, rubbing the back of his head, face still darkened by a blush. "Though, I hope no one was hurt by any flying debris when the carmine dragon was thrashing around…"

"Not a single pebble hit anyone, as far as I know," You reassured, your attention drifting to the dragon in his hand. Without really thinking, you reached up to brush its wet-looking mane. It looked so cute with its tail twisting around his thumb, reminding you of an opossum baby holding onto its mother. "I can't believe this little cutie is the same beast that took on that dragon with little effort."

The small dragon sniffed your fingers carefully before headbutting them, reminding you of a cat demanding to be pet. And well, who were you to refuse the chance to pet an actual dragon? The main felt soft and damp, while his hide felt both pliable but firm, rather like the body of a vine. 

"Nigyupnil dragons feed on magic. The more magic for them to consume, the more they grow. While in the wild the largest they usually achieve is that of a hellcat, Nigyul can grow far more massive when linked to my mana." Balam explained, easily sliding into professor mode before catching himself. "But more importantly, how are you here?"

You were about to explain the rapid flow of events when two flashes of light caught your eye. You barely realized the carmine dragon itself was starting to glow when Balam shifted his stance, standing between the magical beast and everyone.

"Stay back!"

--+-- Su-Ki-Ma --+--

Opera was surprised when Lord Sullivan landed beside them, watching as Ameri fought the panther leopard. "Lord Sullivan? What are you doing here?"

"I saw the newscast and was worried about my precious grandson!" The demon lord answered, pouting slightly. "How could I stay away when my precious Iruma-kins was in danger?"

That made sense, but only very superficially. "Iruma is with Balam's group." And Sullivan should have been able to pinpoint exactly where the human was, considering both the magic of the Gluttonous Ring and the cologne masking the human scent of Iruma was easy enough to follow.

"Oh, I know," Lord Sullivan confirmed with a smile and went as far as winking at his security demon "But I have every faith the white gargoyle of Babyls can protect not only Iruma, but maybe impress my dear daughter some more while doing so."

Opera smiled faintly, their hands clasping together as their tail twitched with glee. "Oh? So Operation: Matchmaker is a go?"

"Absolutely!" Sullivan agreed with a clap. "Oh you should have seen the way she was smiling at his messages today!" Sullivan pulled out his own phone, showing the feline demon snapshots of you smiling at your phone, happiness evident on your face. "Those two are going to be so cute together!"

"Indeed they will be, sir," Opera readily agreed. They were happy that they had possibly found someone appropriately suited to be their kohai's mate; someone who wasn't perturbed by his skinship habits, or intense love of learning about anything that breathed.

You had accepted Balam's quirks readily, and even appreciated them. Opera even dared to hope that you were beginning to love him even for the supposed flaws.

Hopefully, you wouldn't be scared off by his physical quirks either. It was easy to tell you found the professor attractive, but you hadn't seen his scar yet either - or the rest of his demon nature.

"Speaking of which," Lord Sullivan interrupted Opera's silent musings. "Have you figured out which of these lovely demons have a thing for our little Iruma?"

"I'm pretty sure all of them, sir. Though Master Iruma continues to be oblivious."

“I’m glad they can all appreciate how wonderful my grandson is! Though, I have a feeling Asmodeus will be giving them a run for their money.” Lord Sullivan smiled as he watched Ameri land the final blow. “To have the honor of seeing the next era of the Netherworld develop right before our eyes, Opera, is going to be more fun than I thought it would be.”

[nkirukaj]

Fawning for You (22)

Pairing: Alastor x Voe (Fem!OC)

Warnings: Swearing, Graphic Depictions of Violence

Genre: ANGST (& Humor!)

Word Count: 1.6K

22. Wait for Me

They make their way outside, seeing the Vees sitting at the top of a giant robot, Vox in the middle.

“Try and ignore me now Voe!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!”

“Are you serious?”

Alastor rolls his eyes “Ugh,”

“I’M VERY FUCKING SERIOUS! HOW DO YOU LIKE ME NOW VOE??”

“Less and less!”

“FUCK YOU!”

Vox presses a button and shoots a missile at the hotel. Voe whips around at the damage, as Angel runs outside.

“What the fuck?! That wall again?! Oh hi, Vox,”

“FUCK YOU ANGEL! NOBODY LIKES YOU!” 

“Everybody likes me!”

“Velvette, are you seriously part of this nonsense?”

She sighs, holding up her phone “No, I’m just here for the views,”

Voe sighs “Fair enough,”

Alastor grows ten times larger and shoots out his tentacles, wrapping them around the giant robot’s legs and pulling them forward as the Vees crash down on the ground. They shoot another missile that Voe narrowly avoids. 

Alastor growls “Have a nice trip? See you next fall,” he laughs and he stands and steps atop the robot crushing its legs

“MY LEGS!!” Vox screams

“And next will be your face! LEAVE! HA HA!” 

Vox points up at Alastor “YOU DON’T SCARE ME!”

“But do I?” Voe flies up in her demon form baring her teeth

Vox scoffs and turns his head up in concern “WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?!” he points upward

Voe crosses her arms as Angel brings out Charlie, Vaggie, Lucifer, Casper, and many other residents. “Nice try, but I’m not a child,” she glances down seeing everyone else looking up as well, and turns to where Vox is pointing.

A hoard of exorcist angels descending from a portal to Heaven wielding weapons as they get closer, with Lute front and center. 

“I think we should go,” Val tells Vox

Velvette nods “Agreed,”

Vox presses a button and the top of the robot ejects and launches them back toward V-Tower.

“What’s going on? Why are you here?” Charlie asked

“You’re overdue on an extermination,” Lute spits through her teeth “But we’re here by order of the Head Seraphim, to eliminate a pair of illegal sinner children,”

Voe’s eyes shoot open and glances back down at her husband and Lucifer. Illegal sinner children? 

My children. She thought. Her children, innocent and little, never asked to be here and only brought love and light to every room they entered. They slept peacefully in their crib and here come angels trying to kill them.

“We don’t know what you’re talking about,” Charlie lies, her eyes darting back and forth

Lute scoffs “You’re a terrible liar. Bring us the little abominations and you can keep whatever is left of the ‘hotel’ once we’re done with them,”

“NO!” She screams without thinking

For the first time, Lute turns to her “Oh? Are the abominations yours?” she smirks a sick smirk

“You’re the abomination with your metal arm, that’s not natural. Isn’t that against Heaven’s way?”

Lute laughs dryly “Funny, but we’re still killing your children,”

Vaggie flies up next to Voe, her spear drawn “Then you’ll have to get past us,” she points it at Lute

“I intend to. You and I have a score to settle,” she grins before launching at Vaggie

“Vaggie!” Charlie called out

The angels descend upon them, as Voe twitches and convulse, turning into a large dragon. She bites and swipes at them as Alastor uses his tentacles to grab and throw exorcists about, Cherri throwing angelic bombs, Angel shooting angelic bullets from machine guns, Husk with his cards, and Niffty with her dagger. One of the exorcists zooms past them, straight through the glass of the window looking into their room, Voe changes back and follows her, finding her babies crying after being awoken.

“Aw, how cute are they? Shame they’ll have to die,”

“If you don’t leave my kids right now, I will kill you with your own weapon

She chuckles and reaches down to grab Alyson when she is suddenly slammed through the wall by Voe. 

“Not my daughter, you bitch!” Voe spits through her sharp teeth. The tussle between them lasts a bit. Voe is not above scratching and biting, leaving as much damage as possible, her nails coated with angelic steel. She wrestles the sword out of the woman’s hands and slowly inserts it into her abdomen “I say exactly what I mean!” she comments before running her through with the sword and slicing her up the middle. Golden blood splattered onto her face.

Voe slices her way through every exorcist who tries to lay a hand on her babies, braving through the slashes they land on her as well. Her anger was more righteous than the ones attacking them. 

“I told these bitches that she would come back!! AAAAHHH!” She screams while sltting an angel’s throat “Why didn’t you just kill her?!!!!!” she slashes an angel’s stomach open. She takes her time to soothe her babies back to sleep “I’m sorry, I know Mommy is being loud, let me move you somewhere else.” she takes them to her closet, wraps them in clothes, and places them on the floor “I know I’m sorry this isn’t ideal, but I want to keep you safe, okay? I’ll come back once this is over, alright? Momma loves you,” she kisses their foreheads as they fall back to sleep closes the door behind them.

Voe takes a deep breath and rubs her head, the sounds of battle getting to her. When she opens her eyes she sees Alastor, taking care of one exorcist while another sneaks up behind him. Her eyes widened as she dove out the window with no hesitation, using her wings to glide down and intercept the exorcist’s blade. The only consequence being that she herself was slashed, the blade meeting her skin and being driven deep into her torso. She closed her eyes, the pain taking over her body as she screamed out. The pain is lessened while her eyes are closed, the blade no longer being driven deeper, but still inside her skin. 

She opens her eyes and all of the crew surrounds her, bending and leaning down to look.

“It doesn’t look good,” Angel whispers

“Dad, can you do anything?” Charlie asks and Lucifer looks away knowing that he can’t 

Alastor breaks the semicircle, his smile tighter than it had ever been “Why would you- what?”

Voe coughs and sucks in some air at the pain of movement “She was…going to attack you,” she smiles a little “So I stopped her,”

He moves his hands around frantically “W-why would you do that?” he cups her face

“Because I love you,” the words came easily and naturally to her, even in this moment where every movement was hard

Lute lets out one more battle cry, trying to attack from behind, and Alastor enraged, grabs her spear with his bare hands and turns it around on her, making this her final stand. When he comes back, Voe’s eyes are closed and she has stopped moving, not even breathing as they all stare.

“Come on Voe,” Charlie gently tries to wake her “You can do this, you can stay awake,” but she can’t

Alastor can do nothing but stare with everyone else, as he forces his tears to stay inside their ducts, at least until he can be alone.

Voe lets out a large gasp and coughs heavily. 

“You’re all right?!” he asks her

She coughs again “I guess so, I felt myself dying, and then I just….didn’t,” she reaches for him and he helps her stand. Once she’s steady, she pulls the blade out of her with lots of effort, the sound of her screams the only thing heard. She drops the blade and beds over trying to breathe, a deep red spot soaks its way through her clothes. Alastor embraces her when he lets go, he holds her face, neither of them caring about the blood everywhere on them, mixing together.

“Once upon a time, you said I was a monster,” he breathes into her

She nods with tears in her eyes “Yeah.”

“You could truly love a monster?”

She smiles with the tears flowing “Only if that monster is you.”

She leans in to kiss him and he leans to kiss her back before Voe feels an agonizing pain, as though her flesh was being torn. She bent forward in pain as two wings ripped themselves out of her back. 

She collapses on the ground in pain. Alastor kneels to tend to her. 

“Voe?!” 

She lifted her head slowly “I’m okay. I’m okay.” She looked at her lover, smiling “I’m okay.”

“You have wings, my love,”

“Yeah, I can feel them” she laughs. She tried to pull him in for a kiss once more when a blinding light appeared behind them and Voe began floating towards it. 

“Love, what are you doing?”

She whips her head around “I’m not doing that,” Higher and higher she floats toward the light “Alastor?” Her arms are outstretched toward him, while he remains frozen in shock. “Alastor!”

Her cries snapping him back into reality and he jumps onto his feet, grabbing her hands as she is pulled toward and into the light. 

“Vera!!”

And just like that, she was gone. The image of her crying out and reaching for him, burned itself into his mind. And for the first time, Alastor did not care about his image, nor that people were watching, fell to his knees and cried. 

“I never got to say I love you,”

[fallen-gabrielle]

Presidential/White House AU Headcanons compilation

Hello KND fandom! With friends from the discord server, we expanded the fake future from Operation: W.H.I.T.E.H.O.U.S.E. and made it an actual alternate universe/future.

I also decided to write a fanfic about it based on the headcanons we came up with 👀: Wrath of The White House, title suggested by @scarlett-v-the-fox. She also came up with a lot of headcanons about Lizzie's alien specie.

Many things come from the fact that President Uno gives major "I cheat on my wife with my secretary" vibes and we all just rolled with the idea. So yes, in this AU and fic, Adults!Nigel/Kuki is a thing and things get cra-zy between them, so I'm warning you, there will be a lot of adult stuff under the cut, such as freaky physical intimacy. If you don't like it for any reason, don't go further.

There's also a few things I left out from the list, because it would be kind of spoilery for the fic, but with this list you already know where you're getting yourself into, so no big surprises.

I will probably reblog this post when we explore the other characters not so mentioned here, but this is a good base to start.

Ok, are you ready for it? Remember, the following might make you uncomfortable so if you don't want to read it, just keep scrolling.

HEY I WARNED YOU, THERE WILL BE REALLY ADULT THEMED TOPICS, THIS IS MY FINAL WARNING, DON'T COMPLAIN ABOUT THINGS YOU DIDN'T WANT TO SEE CUZ I GAVE TWO BIG WARNINGS ABOUT IT! FINAL CHANCE TO TURN BACK!!!

The main things that can be hard to read are: kinks, torture, domestic and child abuse. All of this will be explored in some degrees in the fic.

We good? Okay, here it is then!

President Nigel Uno/Wrath -Won the elections through shady means: bribes, blackmail and other illegal stuff. -He made it possible for him to be President for life -He's in charge of the English mob, who he sent people to do the dirty work -He also has his personal army of demons as henchmen who helped him with the shady means to become president -He has powers, but he hides them very well in the face of the public. -The whole demon lineage is a family secret that he didn't even tell Lizzie. -He is known in the undergrounds as Wrath and you really don't want to piss him off. -His silhouette form is the classic pitch black suit, he has claws and a dragon tail, as well as straight horns on his forehead. His hair is messy in this form as well. -He's an asshole. He cares more about his hair than his heir (plz laugh at this) -He had many love affairs but only a few were consistant (a lot of one night stand). He only had one kid out of it with Rachel. -He uses a lot of hair gel. When he doesn't, his hair are messy just like his son's (they basically have the same haircut if not combed)

Nigel and Kuki (that's where the freaky bed stuff is, guys) -They fuck in secret but some people know what's going on. -They get crazy in the sack, with a shit tons of kinks. -Seriously, they try stuff in the bedroom, they're really creative. Tickling that Nigel actually enjoyed, Kuki liking having her hair pulled a little bit. They both bite and love it. -Their kinks involve leather, chains and extreme role plays (she has a collar with his name on it) -Technically they're switches, they take turns on who's the dominant one, but Nigel secretely likes being the sub in their relationship bc he gets a break from being in charge, and he gets praised. He can't hear "good boy" without blushing. -They can't go to specialized clubs because they can be regognized so they do it in private places -They have a code in little gestures to warn the other when they want each other. When she fixes his ties for exemple. -Their relationship is purely physical intimacy, there is no romantic emotion between them. -Outside of the bedroom, and off duty, they're just friends. -After the act, Nigel and Kuki share some fluff moment, where they simply like the presence of each other and like to snuggle. -She is serious, strict and stern as the secretary but in private with Nigel she loosens up and is a real tigress in bed. -"I will work late tonight honey" => is actually with Kuki -In the morning, Kuki likes to exchange her glasses with his just for fun, but one time they actually had to rush to get out and still had the wrong glasses on their faces. For those who didn't already know about them, that's how they learned what's going on -Kuki always travels with him on his trips

Nigel and Rachel (plus her family) -He had an affair with her during the early years of his marriage with Lizzie. -They're still in love even to this day -They had a daughter together named Lucy, 14 years old -Nigel loves his daughter very much, she's his little princess -He clearly has a favorite, and it's his daughter -They've been keeping their love affair a secret from everyone, mostly -Rachel is also hiding her daughter from most people's knolwedge -Rachel ended her relationship with Nigel and put an end to his secret visits to his daughter because things got sus and Nigel was also starting to change as he became greedier and lusted for more powers. He wasn't the man she fell in love with anymore. -Nigel sends her money to support their daughter but Rachel never accepted the money as it comes from corrupted/dirty money. -Rachel is the head of national security -She knows all the hacking tricks in the book. She can bypass a n y t h i n g -Harvey knows about the secret child and absolutely despises Nigel (and so does he)

Nigel and Lizzie -Lizzie is the same overbearing and annoying person as ever -Lizzie suspects that Nigel has an affair with Kuki Sanban. -She has no clue about Rachel and the illegitimate daughter. But when she learns that fact, all hell will break loose -She will especially be super mad that Nigel got a daughter with another woman and she didn't. -When she does get a confirmation about Kuki, she has to keep it down because the scandal would be too much to handle. Also, Nigel would be worse to her if she throws fits. -She doesn't know the extent of what Nigel is doing with Kuki, just that he's cheating on her with the secretary -When they do get intimate, it's the most boring stuff ever. -Nigel absolutely doesn't know she's an alien. When he finds out, he sends her to Area 51 -He will torture her to know why she was sent to earth

Nigel and his parents/relatives -Actually the only people he's not a complete douchbag to. -He really loves his parents and they love him too. He just never has the time to visit them as much as he would want to. -But they still never approved of Lizzie. They hate her. -Mrs Uno occasionally mentions divorce to her son so that Nigel would someday click and dump Lizzie -Nigel is also close to his uncle Benedict. He taught his nephew how to use his powers when he got them in his 20s.

Nigel and Shirley -They have a very cold relationship -Nigel doesn't care much for his son's existence except when it comes to his own image -Nigel is more neglectful towards his son than he is verbally or physically abusive towards him -Nigel insists on his son being proper all the time. -He combs his son's hair whenever he thinks it's not perfect -When Shirley gets his alien genes activated and apparent, Nigel absolutely hates it and cuts them off violently. -He always scolds Shirley for being ‘too noisy/agitated’ when they visit his parents because they’re old people so therefore they mustn’t be rushed. But Monty and Margaret really don’t mind their grandson for doing what a kid is supposed to do. -Shirley doesn't know his dad has affairs and just thinks he's always busy on business trip and extended meetings. -Viggo finding dogs’ collars in his dad’s stuff: "wait, he secretly has a dog? And he always refused that I get one myself !!!" Poor boy doesn't know what this really means

Shirley/Viggo -He's part human/demon and uvinea (alien part) -He doesn't know his true lineage on either side (yet) -At some point, he will start having flowers growing on his head -His vines can be torn apart and it hurts, but they will grow back -He doesn't know anything about his father's infidelity drama, including his older half sister -He really despises his dad in general -He admires Numbuh 1, whom he doesn't actually know that's his dad -I let you imagine the shock when he'll find out the truth xD -Leopold Lincoln/Numbuh 5'000 is his best friend -Shirley spends some times at the Lincolns', because Leo's dad is so much nicer than his own and wishes to have a dad like Leo's -Despite how dysfunctional his family is, Shirley still hopes that one day they could be a "normal family". -He loves his grandparents a lot (who doesn't tbh) -Nigel and Lizzie fight a lot for small things as well as the bigger ones (Nigel’s cheating for exemple) and it’s too much for Shirley so he goes to his grandparents’ place to have some calm and wholesomeness or sometimes to the Lincolns' -He hates the cold

Fanny & Patton plus friends -They're married and have a daughter -Her name is Sheila and her codename is Numbuh 860, soopreme leader -Patton is in the army but doesn't have a high position -He has to put up with Wally's bs all the time -He's away from home a lot -Fanny, as head of Nigel's security guards, records the shenanigans between the President and his Secretary and keeps the tapes as off-brand for herself. -She's actually supposed to delete anything scandalous about the President but eh, she sometimes blackmails Nigel with it. -She sometimes watches it with her colleague Chad and her husband when he gets back home -They all treat it like it's a fictional tv drama show -Therefore, they know all the dirty little secrets the President Uno has in the sack -She gossips about everything going on in the White House with her colleagues but makes sure nothing get out really (her boss is Nigel, remember) -Fanny actually does know about the Nigel/Rachel affair, because she is friend with Rachel -Fanny talks Rachel into watching the tapes. Rachel reluctantly agrees, and she's speechless until she mutters over halfway in, "Why couldn't we do any of that stuff? Damn."

Abigail Lincoln -Married to Maurice, he took her last name. -She was arrested under false accusations/She tried to organize a coup against his administration and failed -Nigel tortures her to get info from her (mostly about the knd) -She lost her right eye during one torture session -She was never decomissioned as she was tasked as a teenager and later as an adult to look after Nigel. Obviously she failed. -She is constantly tormenting herself about the fact she wasn't able to save Nigel -She was also part of Nigel's administration and she refused to help him in his corruption

Leopold/Numbuh 5'000 -His dad is Maurice -He's Shirley's best friend and always calls him by his nickname Viggo -He doesn't freak out nor is scared of his friend when he gets his powers -He kinda fanboys about it, actually, which makes Viggo cringe a few times -He writes and collect letters from the family for his mom. -He sneaks into the prison to bring her the letters and pastries his dad baked for his wife -He has to make his visits more sparce to avoid getting caught -“Dad misses you” “Dad brought you this” “Dad is working on your case” -He failed to protect his mom from being jailed and feels really guilty about it -He's a brave kid, but he still cries late at night for his mother. -His aunt Cree also helped raising him while Abby is imprisoned

[artisticdemon]

I'm bored so here are the songs I have in my phone

What the title says. Also I have a lot of songs. You've been warned.

50 shades - Boy Epic

Αντιο φιλε - Σταθης Ψαλτης & Γιωργος Σαλαμπασης

Να Μ' Αγαπας - Παυλος Σιδηροπουλος

Μεγαλωνουμε - 12ος Πιθηκος

Μην Μου Λες Αντιο - Κωστας Μακεδονας

Τα Αντιθετα - Βασιλης Σκουλας

Φωτια Μου - Μιλτος Πασχαλιδης

ΧΙΛΙΟΜΕΤΡΑ - Madclip & Hawk & Light & Sapranov

Always On The Run - ISAAK

Another Life - Motionless in White

Armin Meiwes - SKYND (If you love true crime just listen to this singer, she is amazing)

As Above So Below (Slowed and Reverb) - In This Moment

Beast Within - In This Moment

Bed Of Nails - Alice Cooper

Bernadette (Slowed and Reverb) - IAMX

Big Bad Wolf - In This Moment

Black Tar & Nicotine - Dorothy

Black Wedding - In This Moment

Black Wedding (Slowed and Reverb) - In This Moment

Bones - Imagine Dragons

Burning Our Bed - Alice Cooper

Carry Me Down - Demon Hunter

Closer - In This Moment

Closer - J2

Columbine - SKYND

Crazy In Love - The Eden Project

Custer - Slipknot

Cut Me Clean - Johnnie Guilbert ft. Jake Webber & Yung Scuff

Dark Nights - Dorothy

Daylight - David Kushner

Demons Are A Girl's Best Friend - Powerwolf

Devil Trigger (Devil May Cry 5) - RichardEB ft Lolita & Little V

Dirty Little Animals - Bones UK

Don't Speak - Hidden Citizens (I swear Hidden Citizens are so underrated!)

Doomsday Blue - Bambie Thug

Ecstacy - Jake Webber & Johnnie Guilbert

Edmund Kemper - SKYND

Eternally Yours - Motionless In White

Favela - Rack

Fight Fire With Gasoline - Self Deception

Flesh - Simon Curtis (I have read too many smuts while listening this in the background)

Gimme Some Truth - Johnny Depp

God Is A Woman - Ariana Grande X Imagine Dragons (100 times better than the original)

Guns For Hire - Woodkid

Hayloft II - Mother Mother

Heart Of Darkness - Tomme Profitt ft Sam Tinnesz

Heart Shaped Glasses - Marilyn Manson

Hellsing Intro - A Word Without Logos

Highway To Hell - ACDC

Hold My Hand - Lady Gaga

Hope It Haunts You - Citizen Soldier

House Of Fire - Alice Cooper

Hymn For The Weekend (Slowed and Reverb) - Coldplay

(Tired? We are still in the middle)

I Am The Spider - Alice Cooper

I Bet My Life - Imagine Dragons

I Feel Like I'm Drowning - Two Feet

I Just Died In Your Arms Tonight - Hidden Citizens (perfect for all you fellow sadists that read/ write whump or heavy angst)

I Would Do Anything For Love - Meat Loaf

I'll Bite Your Face Off - Alice Cooper (I need to make it into a shirt)

I'm Not A Vampire (Slowed and Reverb) - Falling In Reverse

I'm Your Gun - Alice Cooper

Irresistible - Fall Out Boy ft Demi Lovato

It's A Dangerous Game (Lucy & Hyde) - Anthony Warlow

Jim Jones - SKYND

John Wayne Gacy - SKYND

Kiss Me You Animal - Burn The Ballroom

Kiss The Goat - Ghost

Love Is Blindness - The Damn Truth

Love's A Loaded Gun - Alice Cooper

Low Lays The Devil - The Veils (Lucifer had THE BEST music I have ever heard of)

Masterpiece - Motionless In White

Mediterranean - Sidatra ft Sasuke

Mobscene - Marilyn Manson

Monster's Ball - Queen Bee (Helluva Boss)

Never - Voltaire

Oh Lord - In This Moment

One For The Money - Escape The Fate

Paint It Black - Ciara

Paint It Black - Hidden Citizens

Paint It Black - Wednesday Addams

(Paint It Black is my theme song)

Paranoid - Black Sabbath

Paranormal - Alice Cooper

Personal Jesus - Marilyn Manson

Poison - Alice Cooper

Prisoner - Raphael Lake (We all know where this is from, moving on)

Rain - Grandson

Raised By Bats - Voltaire

Repair - Johnnie Guilbert

Revolver - Madonna ft. Lil Wayne (If I was an undercover agent, posing as a stripper, this would be playing while I kill my enemies from the dance poll during a mission in the strip club)

Rock Is Dead - Marilyn Manson

Roots - In This Moment

See Me In The Mirror - Alice Cooper

Sex Metal Barbie - In This Moment

Shameless - Sofia Karlberq

Sleeping With Your Ghost - Johnnie Guilbert ft Shannon Taylor (The first song I ever heard from Johnnie, it's so sweet and sad)

Steven - Alice Cooper

Supermodel - Måneskin

Sweet Child O' Mine - Guns N' Roses

Sweet Dreams - Marilyn Manson

Switchblade - Neverware

Tainted Love - Marilyn Manson

That's The Way I Wanna Rock 'N' Roll - ACDC

The Beginning Of The End - London After Midnight

The Black Widow - Alice Cooper

The Fighter - In This Moment (Holy Hell just go listen to this, Maria's voice is just phenomenal)

The Fight Song - Marilyn Manson

The In Between - In This Moment

The Loneliest -Måneskin

The Summoning - Sleep Token

The Wolf - Siamés

This Is Love - Air Traffic Controller

Thunderstruck - ACDC

To Paint The Angels - Second Salem (can't wait to hear more from them, the singer is amazing)

Umbrella - J2

Vengeance Is Mine - Alice Cooper

Venom Of Venus - Powerwolf

Vent'anni - Måneskin

Venus In Furs - Johnny Depp

Voices - Motionless In White

We Will Rock You - In This Moment

Welcome To My Nightmare - Alice Cooper

Welcome To The Jungle - Guns N' Roses

Werewolf - Motionless In White

What Could Have Been - Sting

Whore - In This Moment

Zitti E Buonni - Måneskin

Zombified - Falling In Reverse

The End. For now.

[belzimbub]

The lack of essays about The Binding Of Isaac, a game that is literally a giant metaphor for everything, made me create my first English-speaking video. I hope you enjoy!

Text version of the video below:

Let's start from afar.

Every year the channel Nanda V Movies invites essayists to tell about their favorite scenes on a particular topic and then adds all their videos to one playlist. This way giant love letters are created that introduce us to moments from movies, TV shows and sometimes even video games. I wanted to participate but for a long time the previous topics were… difficult for me: One Musical Scene and One Villainous Scene. Which is weird because video games are full of great music and insidious bosses. For example, my dear series Like A Dragon is a wonderful combination of both of these things. Nevertheless, I didn’t have some personally impressive example to create an entire video… until recently. After a couple years from its release I was able to play the final expansion to one of my favorite game, The Binding Of Isaac. And this DLC is what gave me the boss, the villain that I keep thinking about, even when I turn off the screen.

Isaac and his Mother lived alone in a small house on a hill. Isaac drew pictures, played with toys and his Mom watched Christian broadcasts on the television. Life was simple, and they were both happy. That was, until the day Isaac’s mom heard a voice from above, telling her to kill the son. And she wasn’t going to disobey the Lord. To save his life, Isaac threw himself down into the basement and embarked on a journey into the unknown depths below. The depths where… there are a lot of bosses and all of them know how to impress. Worms, excrements, demons — I remember my first encounters with each monster. And sure, most of them are nothing more than obstacles in the way of the player. But some manage to stand out. Going deeper we’ll meet creatures that boggle our mind a bit: the nonhuman versions of Mother, Isaac as a hostile angel, the white face indiscreetly called Delirium and etc. After defeating the bosses of this type, the cutscenes are shown that reveal to us not something that is not obvious, but something we don’t want to think about.

Of course, there are no caves, catacombs and the cathedral under the Isaac's house. The Binding Of Isaac is a fantasy of the child. The child imbued with religious ideas who goes through the parents’ divorce and blames himself for all the sins. Those bosses that I mentioned earlier bring out Isaac as a character: the lack of motherly love, self-loathing and the traumatized, wild side of the psyche. I love this game for such imagery and the same can be said about the people who worked on the DLC Repentance. And that’s why I am sure that when coming up with a new boss they had a question: «How to make it as artistically rich as others?» Thankfully, they found an answer and it was quite simple. You use what lies right before people's eyes.

With Repentance, the alternative routes will appear in the game that have most of the new content. One of these routes will lead us to Dad’s note and begin “Ascend”, the most overtly plot-driven moment in the entire game. For the first time we have an opportunity to visit locations in reverse order, and, rising higher and higher, we experience the most painful memory — the parents arguing because of Mom’s religious mania and Dad’s alcoholism. We go through several floors, return to the very beginning and then we see… The Isaac’s room. Not the weirdest thing as we could see it even in the depths. But everything seems… different. We leave the room and we are greeted not by the catacombs but by a hall, a closet, a TV room and Mom’s bedroom. We go to bed, wake up in the middle of the night from a terrible vision and approach the light in the middle of the gloom house.

The first thing I’ll say is this boss looks awesome and very natural. The Binding Of Isaac style is based on this balance between cartoonish and disgusting. And some monsters, in my opinion, go overboard with one or the other. But the battle with this fetus made of noises, with its umbilical cord sticking out of the screen, feels right. It doesn’t mean that Dogma is unoriginal. Quite the opposite, its design exudes attention to details. If you put some effects on the boss, the static will suddenly get worse. Sometimes Dogma turns for a couple of seconds into 4 images, symbolizing the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse. And speaking of religious imagery, its attacks include the qualities of both angelic and demonic items. And this connection between holiness and blackness is punctuated by the sound design. Remember my whole tirade about “One Musical Scene” and so on and so forth? Well, Dogma has one of the most unique musical themes that I have ever heard. The song is full of noises and static which after a while come out like an explosion, emphasizing the full power of the boss. And after the destruction of the TV and the start of the second phase, the battle becomes unforgettable thanks to…

The preacher's screams begin to be heard, warning of the wrath of God, saying that you need to atone for your sins and that blasphemy will not be forgiven! This voice passes from one ear to the other while we are trying to dodge the rays of light. By the way, they were perfectly described by a commentator on Youtube: these rays sound «both heavenly and like impending doom». And in the middle of this beautiful cacophony you may not notice the quiet reading of the psalm. Dogma tries to convey to us that in both life and death we can put our trust in God, while using the most sinister voice in the whole game (even though the Devil is in it!):

Well, as you can see, this boss's presentation is pretty cool. But let's return to the previous question. «Is Dogma "artistically rich?"» Yes, absolutely. Firstly, its concept is simply witty. Taking a line from the intro about «Christian broadcasts» and turning it into a monster — muah, beauty. Secondly, even though the player has yet to battle the final boss, I think the most important moment in the game is the fight with Dogma. Let me be a literature teacher. As I said, The Binding Of Isaac is a fantasy of the child, and this fantasy is based on his worldview. In Isaac's understanding, he is a demon, a sinner who deserves punishment from the highest powers. He does not doubt the fairness of his suffering, because it is more logical than the fact that the family could simply end. But at one point Isaac decides to face reality, to remember those terrible shouts of his parents, which allows him to fly back up. He looks back at what he experienced, what story he created for himself, and asks the question: «Where did it all begin?» «Ascend» marks the beginning of Isaac's doubts about the truth of his beliefs.

Beliefs that later take shape as Dogma, whose cries of God's wrath now seem wrong. It becomes clear that the faith of the self-critical boy was distorted by the television. The child's curiosity, his love for monsters and dressing up turned into sins leading to eternal torment. And as soon as the family tragedy occurred, this idea became true for Isaac. And that's why it's important to see him resisting Dogma. He understands that he does not deserve pain for his interests, that religion was used against him. And I hope he also stops blaming himself because these programs played a bigger role in Mom's mania and Dad’s abandonment than any of Isaac's hobbies. After defeat, Dogma turns into a cross of noise and falls on the hero, at last trying to destroy him from the inside. But it fails, and for the first time Isaac himself becomes an angel. All that remains is to defeat his last figment of imagination, and not as a punishment, but as a final trial.

I recommend you to play The Binding Of Isaac. Not only because the gameplay is fun and you can spend hundreds of hours on it. Not only because, in fact, I did NOT spoil a ton of things and there is more for you to see. But because the game is a giant pile of metaphors that wants you to use your imagination. For example, for me, Dogma is the main villain: it combines the best aspects of the game, and the worst moments in Isaac's life are directly related to this boss, making defeating it feel like a real climax. Maybe you also have some ideas on this or any other matter? Maybe even something worthwhile, but thoughts about your own mediocrity turn creativity into a nightmare? It’s funny, because of something like this, I couldn’t participate in one YouTuber’s project. But now, I’m finally finishing this text and I can say without a doubt the following: give yourself one more chance.

[finality-and-origin]

"The Ascendant" || Deduction Quests + Rumor + Skills

Rumor: Born from arrogance and befallen by tragedy, this homunculus aims to take back everything from others who wronged her.

Skills:

Space Barrier [External Trait]

Due to the Ascendant's unique nature, the space surrounding the Ascendant is lighter than normal. Survivors and items caught in the Space Barrier have slower movement and interaction speeds, and may even be subject to momentary sub-zero gravity, floating up into the air when attempting to vault pr any way to launch oneself into the air. Space Barrier has 2000 charges on it, and using her skills depletes the charges of the barrier. The less charge the barrier has, the smaller the radius is and the weaker the debuffs are. She passively gains charges back.

Spatial Displacement [Ability]

Using her unique abilities, the Ascendant can relocate items and survivors through Spatial Displacement. Using Spatial Dislocation costs 150 charges, but using this means the Ascendant can lift any object with ease, including chests, cipher machines, and survivors. She can simply relocate them, or even throw them across the map. [2nd Presence] The cost and cooldown to use Spatial Displacement goes from 150 charges and a 20-second cooldown to 100 charges and a 10-second cooldown.

Dragon's Claw [Ability]

Summoning the spirit of her old friend, Bella, the Ascendant cuts a hole through the space-time fabric and commands a powerful strike against her foes. Survivors hit by this attack take 1 damage and can be terror-shocked by this move.

I. Fairytales are sweet little lies.

The first book she ever read was a fairytale. In the story, the princess was promised a happily ever after. But she knew, from her hospital cell, such promises were nothing but lies.

Basic Objective: ⭐ Discover a Survivor 2 time

Advanced Objective: ⭐ Discover a Survivor 3 times ⭐ Discover a Survivor 4 times

Conclusion: A torn children's book lays on the library table, half of it consumed by an otherworldly source. A note is attached to the book. 'I consumed part of the book. I am sorry, Miss Librarian.'

---

II. The world moves on all the same.

It doesn't matter who dies. The world does not revolve around you, nor does it wait for you to get better.

Basic Objective: ⭐ Hit Survivors with a normal attack 1 time

Advanced Objective: ⭐ Hit Survivors with a normal attack 2 times ⭐ Hit Survivors with a normal attack 3 times

Conclusion: A photograph: A small child, carrying a shovel in the pouring rain. There's a crudely made tombstone, reading the words "Experiment Failed" on it.

---

III. Glowing Hearts and Plum Roses

"These roses are for you, beautiful miss."

Basic Objective: ⭐Destory 1 pallet

Advanced Objective: ⭐Destory 3 pallets ⭐Destory 5 pallets

Conclusion: A diary entry: I didn't want her roses. But... I couldn't say no to such a gentle and pretty face. I suppose I will keep them for now.

---

IV. Good for Nothing...

But these chocolates... I will accept them, for now.

Basic Objective: ⭐Hit Survivors within 'Space Barrier' 1 time

Advanced Objective: ⭐Hit Survivors within 'Space Barrier' 2 times ⭐Hit Survivors within 'Space Barrier' 2 times

Conclusion: A photograph: Two young women out at a cafe, talking. They're sharing a slice of strawberry shortcake.

---

V. ...What are you doing?

"Get that freak reject out of our city!" "Evil witch!" "Demon!" "Look, she's holding that woman hostage!" "How despicable!" "Freak!"

Basic Objective: ⭐Place Survivors on the Rocket Chair 2 times

Advanced Objective: ⭐Place Survivors on the Rocket Chair 3 times ⭐Place Survivors on the Rocket Chair 4 times

Conclusion: A torn diary entry strained with purple tears: I'm not a monster... I'm not... please... I'm not a monster...

---

VI. No More.

I've done everything right... haven't I? Kept quiet, did as I was told... I never fought back, not once. I did everything right... so why does everyone hate me?

Basic Objective: ⭐Displace one cipher using spatial displacement

Advanced Objective: ⭐Displace two ciphers using spatial displacement ⭐Displace three ciphers using spatial displacement

Conclusion: A torn diary entry: I've tried everything I can, Bella. I'm at a loss. Please... give me your guidance, old friend.

---

VII. I've had enough.

Fine. You win. I am a monster. Let me show you how monstrous I can be.

Basic Objective: ⭐Down 1 Survivor using Dragon's Claw

Advanced Objective: ⭐Down 2 Survivors using Dragon's Claw ⭐Down 3 Survivors using Dragon's Claw

Conclusion: An old TV station news report, broadcasting the destruction of [REDACTED] City. It is forever stuck on a giant dragon, bathing the city below in purple flames.

---

VIII. I've wiped you off the map.

Serves you right.

Basic Objective: ⭐Break 1 pallet using Dragon's Claw

Advanced Objective: ⭐Break 2 pallets using Dragon's Claw ⭐Break 3 pallets using Dragon's Claw

Conclusion: An old map. Part of the map is burned past all recognization. Experts still aren't sure what used to be in that area on the map.

---

IX. This is not justice.

This is not revenge.

Basic Objective: ⭐Eliminate all survivors

Advanced Objective: ⭐Eliminate all survivors ⭐Eliminate all survivors

Conclusion: This is the finality. This is the end. Your time... is over.

---

X. Voided

Die.

Basic Objective: ⭐...

Advanced Objective: ⭐... ⭐...

Conclusion: I can see you reading this. And, I'm coming for you.

---

[mage-of-black-robes]

Verses

V; Main - Takes place on Krynn throughout the course of the musical, when Raistlin is working toward his goal of overthrowing Takhisis, but before he time travels back to Istar.

V; Lord of Nothing - Takes place after the musical, when Raistlin is getting used to the measure of godhood he has attained. He is tortured by visions of Takhisis mocking him, and by the void that the Abyss has become as a result of her death, but desperate to make something new of it and himself. Eventually, he becomes a guide for the ambitious and vengeful, as well as the Mad King of Darkness, drawing demons and chromatic dragons alike into his thrall via a series of trials where he proves his might. He seeks not to conquer the world of Krynn, as he has already attained the throne he so craved, but to manipulate and punish the wicked in equal measure. He has come to a sort of understanding with Paladine and the other gods: as long as they and their followers keep out of his realm, he will refrain from waging war.

V; Change of Heart - Upon realizing that he’s fallen in love with Crysania, Raistlin finally begins having some second thoughts about his plans. Takhisis possesses her as normal, but instead of strengthening his resolve, it forces him to face the fact that he’s throwing away his life along with the lives of countless others, and that combined with the fact that he’s coping with his first real love sends him into an existential crisis. Seeing the perfect opportunity, Takhisis begins torturing him with visions of his past and possible future, from memories of being relentlessly bullied as a child to nightmares of being trapped in the Abyss forever as her servant. He’s tearfully reliving his murder of the illusory Caramon at the end of his Test of High Sorcery when Crysania finally breaks free of her possession and intervenes, with the real Caramon showing up just in time to help her drive Takhisis away. Raistlin is left unconscious and exhausted, but when he awakens, he tells the pair that they need to seal the portal as thoroughly as possible, and that he never should have tried to open it. He and Crysania work together rather excellently to do so. A lengthy confession and apology from Raistlin follows, and after a lecture from Caramon about all the damage caused by the wizard’s machinations, the trio vow to do what they can to provide relief to the war torn lands of Krynn, with Caramon splitting off from Raistlin and Crysania because he needs time away from his brother. Eventually, after years of working with him, Crysania forgives Raistlin enough to confess that she has fallen in love with him, too, and the two get married!

V; isekai - an AU in which Main Verse!Raistlin gets yeeted into any other setting (modern, BG3, Curse of Strahd, DC, Marvel, etc.) via portal shenanigans, a magical mishap of some kind, or a rogue Nautiloid snatching him and a few others up as it bamfs in and out of Krynn. DM me for details if you want a thread like this! I love it a lot, and am happy to talk it out.

Modern Verses

Background - Raistlin and Caramon Majere were born in Detroit, Michigan to a Russian immigrant mother and factory worker. Caramon came out first, and was born healthy and strong, but Raistlin’s birth was far more difficult, resulting in a number of health problems. The doctors gave him a few days. His mother, however, was equally stubborn as she was nurturing, and with her care, he beat the odds. He was a sickly child, and very much an introvert despite his natural charm. Caramon was always the more outgoing of the two, playing with the neighborhood kids and defending his brother from bullies. When they were around five or six, Raistlin began to show both signs of a genius level intellect and interest in his mother’s occult studies. His father wasn’t enthusiastic about it, so she taught the boy spells when he wasn’t home. A few months later, Raistlin’s and Caramon’s father was killed in a work place accident caused by the foreman’s negligence, but their nosy widow neighbor declared that Raistlin was a wicked child, and that it was his fault. Furious and heartbroken, their mother packed up everything, sold the house, and moved them out of Detroit following the funeral. They settled down in a small town in Connecticut. It was an adjustment, for sure, but the family was able to start over again. Eventually, their mother remarried, and they wound up with a cool lawyer for a stepdad. Caramon started playing football in middle school, and Raistlin finally found his voice when he joined the choir, as well as a love for the stage. When they entered high school, he immediately got involved with the theater department, auditioning for the annual musical and getting the lead. Caramon saw how much fun his brother was having, and decided to follow suit in their sophomore year. They became nearly inseparable after that, filming various skits and duets to put on their YouTube channel. It didn’t stop Raistlin from surging ahead in terms of academics, though, and he wound up graduating a year early. He was accepted into multiple universities at seventeen, but ultimately decided on Harvard.

V; Modern 1 - Raistlin is a university student, majoring in Performing Arts and minoring in Occult Studies. He’s well on his way to a Master’s Degree, but is aiming for a Doctorate. He also has a love of Dungeons & Dragons and other improv heavy tabletop games.

V; Modern 2 - With a shrewd strategy, relentless ambition, and cunning mind, Dr. Raistlin Majere has made waves in the spiritual side of the academic world. His numerous essays and journals detailing definitive proof of demons, devils, and ghosts have rocketed him to stardom as one of the world’s foremost occultists, and he now enjoys a tenured position as a professor at Harvard University, teaching Demonology and Occult Studies. Rumors swirl about him practicing black magic, but when his students ask, he always deflects, and time seems to fly by. The few who have dared to meet his gaze directly after such conversations swear that his pupils have an hourglass design, but it’s gone when they look again. He doesn’t hide the fact that he’s a Satanist; that’s something his mother taught him, and he will always be proud of it. He does, however, make a huge effort to debunk a lot of the gruesome myths surrounding Satanism.

AUs/Wishlist

Pokémon - Raistlin is an occultist first and a trainer second, running ghost/dragon/dark type team.

Gilmore Girls - same as the modern verse, but the twins grew up in Stars Hollow. Raistlin, Caramon, and Rory were thick as thieves throughout their childhood, with the boys being the closest things she had to brothers. They taught her a decent bit of Russian, and often dragged her and Lane into their skits and other theatrical shenanigans. Rory joined Caramon in defending Raistlin from bullies, making Lorelei incredibly proud, and this trend continued when they went to Chilton together; in return, Raistlin did the same for her, privately hexing any entitled brat who tried to get under her skin, and publicly embarrassing them with his razor sharp wit. The two stayed close throughout high school, but grew apart after Rory chose to go to Yale instead of Harvard.

V; Regency - compliant with Bridgerton, but not strictly tied to it. Essentially, Raistlin’s mother remarried into a noble family when he and Caramon were both little, after their father died. Adjusting to life in the ton has been difficult, but they’ve managed, and at 25, Raistlin has finally been pushed and prodded enough to find a suitable spouse. He’s not fond of the marriage mart. At all. For many reasons! But his good looks and bookish nature have made him quite the desirable bachelor. Caramon, who’s already been married for five years, assures him that he will find the right person in time, but Raistlin would much rather be holed up in his study, poring over ancient tomes and solving the mysteries of the occult.

V; Fairytale/Fantasy - Once a noble hero, the great wizard Raistlin Majere fell to the temptation of dark magic, though he claimed he only wished to use it for good. After a spell went horribly awry, drastically altering his appearance and degrading his health, he was revealed, put on trial, and sentenced to exile in the Marwood for treason and witchcraft. Bitter and vengeful, Raistlin retaliated by putting a curse on the king and his family. Every heir to that throne would be compelled to try and find him upon their coronation, only to be doomed to wander the Marwood until they met a gruesome end. The curse would only be lifted if one managed to find him and bring him back to the palace. He then disappeared in a puff of smoke, and hasn’t been seen since, though his twin brother, Caramon, has organized many a search party.

V; DC - Raistlin Majere is an occultist living in Gotham. Has the potential to become a villain or antihero, but doesn’t yet have the motivation. He mainly focuses on his studies.

V; Marvel - During the battle of New York, Dr. Majere was giving a guest lecture on demonology at a local university when chaos erupted. The lecture hall was destroyed by Chitauri, and many students were injured or killed. Raistlin tried to save as many as he could, demonstrating his arcane prowess, but it cost him dearly. Only by making a deal with a demon as he lay dying in the wreckage did he manage to make it out alive. Hair bleached white, eyes turned a sickly yellow, and skin rendered golden, he was forever changed, and swore vengeance upon every cretinous wretch that dared to invade his world. He keeps himself hidden away, now, but when a threat arises, the Black Mage always shows up to hex a bitch into next week!

V; Yu-Gi-Oh! - As an occultist, Raistlin has quite a fascination with the spiritual aspect of Duel Monsters, though he’s more of an expert on European demonology and black magic than on Ancient Egypt. He became a duelist at a young age, and upon discovering that he could see and communicate with duel spirits, bonded with a powerful spellcaster known as Chaos Sorcerer. As devoted as he is to his studies, he still makes time to duel in tournaments on occasion, as he finds it entertaining to trounce others with his Spellcaster/Fiend deck, and he has aspirations of defeating all the major duelists in the world (Kaiba, Pegasus, Yugi, etc.) at least once. Just for fun. And perhaps to boost his ego. His twin brother is also a formidable duelist, though Caramon is a professional and takes the tournament circuit far more seriously…when he’s not out drinking his friends and rivals under the table. The two have even competed in tag-team tournaments before.

V; Rockstar - Modern AU in which Raistlin ends up becoming the lead singer of a gothic glam rock band named Lord of Nothing. The group prospers mostly on talent and iconic appearance alone (a mix of goth/punk black leather and dark fantasy, with Raistlin appearing as a silver-haired mage), though a bit of black magic has gone a long way. He just hopes it won’t come back to bite him later. The rest of the band has no idea that he’s been conducting dark rituals here and there to boost their popularity.

V; Wizarding World - Raistlin and Caramon are the orphaned twin heirs of the pureblood Majere family. After their parents were murdered by Death Eaters, the two moved from Russia to Scotland to live with their mother’s sister. They got their Hogwarts letters a couple of years later, and attended in the same year as the Golden Trio. Despite having vowed to protect each other no matter what, Caramon was sorted into Gryffindor, while Raistlin was sorted into Slytherin, and thus marked the beginning of their slow drifting apart. Raistlin excelled in Transfiguration and Defense Against The Dark Arts, but quickly became thirsty for knowledge of the Dark Arts themselves, eager to find a way to avenge his parents and become more powerful than the wizards who’d killed them.

[ruiniel]

Remember

Fandom: Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba

Pairing: Kokushibō x fem!Reader/Kokushibō's wife

Count: 2.7K

Rating: 🔞

Chapter Tags & Warnings: Sengoku era flashbacks, Reincarnation, Codependency, References to childbirth but nothing graphic, Obscure childrearing practices, References to marechi blood, POV Second Person, POV Tsugikuni Michikatsu, blood drinking, dub-con elements veering into non-con, you see how this just keeps getting worse

Part I - Part II - Part III - Part V - Part VI - Part VII - Part VIII - Part IX

On AO3

IV.

There’s never been a waver in his step, not quite like this. The breaths he takes are plentiful yet not enough, and the way to the chamber feels like an ever-lengthening corridor, swallowing the destination even as he strides across it. 

He’d heard you, by all the gods he did: on his way to the village, and on his way back during those long hours, the whimpers and low sobs as you tried to keep silent for the sake of bravery more wretched as time passed. 

Incredible, how joy can flourish from hardship. The midwife appears, bows after she closes the sliding wall with small, nervous fingers. “Michikatsu-sama.”

“Sumi, how is she? How are—they?”

“All is well,” the woman says, as calm as only one experienced with this process can be. “I’ve left Yuwa to keep watch over her.”

“... to keep watch? What for?” 

“Yes, Michikatsu-sama, for the seven days after the birth it is good for one to not fall too deeply into sleep, and we must help—”

What? If an exhausted soldier has survived a heavy battle, rest is paramount to regaining their strength. Why would a new, weakened mother be denied this vital need? 

“That makes little sense to me, Sumi.” He tries to be kind, he does: he is grateful for the dutiful care they’ve all displayed towards you and more relieved than he’s been in years. “You should have asked.”

The midwife’s eyes are set on the ground, the quirk to her lip hinting at a differing view; but she keeps her peace, nodding and moving aside to make space. 

His hand has been steadier when gaining access into this room before, true, and what Michikatsu finds as he enters helps little in alleviating the condition.

Yuwa sustains you, propped up against rolled-up quilts, appearing so spent it tears at him. Clutched at your breast like a dragon’s egg is a bundle, a tiny thing he can’t even see properly, partly shielded by the fall of your hair. His mouth opens, then closes. You must not have heard him, your eyes half-closed, a sheen on your skin even after the women washed and changed you. 

“Yuwa… leave us,” Michikatsu says, and at his voice your expression livens, your gaze set on him as he slides the panel closed. A smile brightens your weary face. 

The girl, who also looks tired, furrows her brows and bows low. “My lord? I was assigned by Sumi-sama…”

“No longer.” He shuffles close, unable to keep his eyes off your face, your chest, your–face–the tiny paw-like limb resting against your skin— “I will watch her tonight. You may retire.”

Once alone, Michikatsu nears and carefully drapes himself at your side, caressing your hair, kissing the top of your head. The paw moves, stirring a beat as silent as a butterfly wing.

“He’s…”

“Yours.” 

Michikatsu smiles at the tint of humor in your voice—he probably looks as lost as he feels, then, so he clings to you, worn by this unfamiliar whirlwind of emotion. You shift, making yourself more comfortable against his shoulder.

“I’m here.”

“I know.”

“I’ll be here every night.” His thumb grazes the hand holding your child to your breast. 

Your eyes close, your sigh warm against his neck. “I know.”

You glance briefly at the priest, met with his soft smile. He’s easy to speak to, and despite being skeptical you decided to return and see if he did find any written knowledge on the nature of your abnormal experience. You can’t help but yawn every few minutes, your eyes on the old scroll unfurled on his small desk. Your sleep has been terrible the night before, with vivid dreams of peculiar nature flowing one after the other. You barely remember most of it and woke with the weariness of having run an entire day. Work at the factory left its mark as well, but still, you want to get this over with. 

“A sleepless night?” 

His voice is as warm and soothing as summer rain after a drought. “I’ve been having… intense dreams lately.”

“Oh?” 

He seems genuinely interested, and you want to tell him more—you want to tell him everything, and yet… “It’s nothing, just… gibberish. It’s nothing.”

His striking eyes are on you, their pupils darkly set in the middle of his bright irises. “Either way, I have unfortunately found nothing to fit your description. But,” he raises an elegant finger, sighs, then taps it against his desk. “Nevermind. You would not believe it.”

“... what? After what I’ve seen, I… I admit my views of the possible have been amended, if only a little. I’m willing to hear it, if you would share.”

“I see… well, simply put, Mrs, the notion I am referring to is the existence of other creatures aside from ghosts… people would refer to them as demons.”

He was right. You do have trouble believing this. But well… “That’s indeed not something easy to grasp. I've always treated this, all of this, as folklore.”

“I’ve never heard of an encounter myself, but there are rumors… unexplained deaths and disappearances, people speaking of secret organizations dealing with dangerous things lurking in the night… Oh well,” the priest waves a hand, his reassuring voice a contrast to his words. “It might only be people’s rich imagination. We do have plenty of that, don’t we?”

You smile, rising to your feet. “Thank you for trying.” The disappearances you’d heard of, another reason you avoided traveling at night alone. It had been so ever since—... You shake off the memory. 

“Of course, any time,” he bows. “If anything else happens, you will always find me here.”

You’re grateful, walking with him to the gates outside, where a clear night has settled. After saying your farewells, your tired body announces itself, craving rest. 

There’s no other option but to head out, making a point of reaching your home as fast as possible. 

Maybe you’re overthinking all of this, maybe you simply are exhausted and your mind conjures images like living dreams. You’ve read about such fancies befalling people, but then you remember: the inexplicable need to be close to him, the pressure on your lips that last time you saw… him? It? 

Setting your desk to chop vegetables for dinner, the trail of your thoughts tapers away into mundane worries to the dull repetitive sounds and motions of your cutting knife.

The silence is broken so unexpectedly, your hand slips. “AH!” You stare absently at the thin trickle of blood seeping from the cut on your finger, your hearing caught on the sounds of a… flute?

What’s more, you know that sound. You’ve heard it before, so many times it tugs at your chest. You grab a cloth and press it to the cut as you hurry outside, thinking your hearing might be playing tricks, which says little about your deteriorating state of mind. 

But instead, you see…

“You!”

He’s propped with his shoulder against a pine tree, playing a tune you’ve never heard before and yet feels painfully familiar.

When you speak, he ceases to play, raising his gaze to you—those unnerving eyes of intense red and gold able to see beyond your skin, or so it feels. “Why… why have you appeared?” The priest’s words ring in your mind. 

He rights himself, nearing you silently in a sure glide. He extends a hand and you realize, he’s offering you your flute. 

“You had left it, by the bench, last time. It was still there.”

You press a hand to your mouth, thankfully taking the object from him. His skin feels so cold, impossibly cold. “Well… you… play well.”

He says nothing, watching you with that eerie stillness that sets your nerves on edge. Demon?

“Why are you here again?”

He glances away for a moment. He looks rather dignified, comes the thought. He faces you beneath the yellow, artificial lamplight. Shadows play on his unusual features like living tentacles. “I’d like to speak, if…”

His voice is cut abruptly, as though an invisible hand took him by the throat. His gaze roams all over you as if seeking something, settling on the piece of cloth wrapped around your finger. 

“Speak… to me?” And like having icy water poured down your back you remember how your last meeting ended, and shame warms your face. What had gotten into you, then, anyway? How could anyone have been taken by such thoughts and in relation to him no less? 

He had good reasoning… it was foolish of me. When no other word leaves his mouth, you cross your arms at your chest, tucking your hands around your body.  “Oh, I cut myself. It’s not deep.” But the oddest thing: he won’t react.

“You’re bleeding.”

What a strange concern to insist upon. He looks different, the lashes of those kanji-adorned eyes heavier, as though fallen under a trance. “Is… is something the matter?” 

“... no.” His chest rises, then falls in a deep breath. “I do not have an answer.”

Your confusion has reached such critical levels, you find yourself wanting to shake him. “About what?”

“Your question. Last time.”

You think, replaying the moment…. Why do you keep coming here?

“I see.”

“But…” he pauses again and swallows thickly. “But I can share other truths, and a warning.”

You don’t seem fazed, and he carries on despite the weakness in his knees and the thundering of his own blood in his veins. The moment he felt the scent, he knew it for what it was and now he is fiercely, desperately hungry. 

He ought to—

No.

Flee from you? That happened once before; never again. 

Instead, he takes another step towards you. The craving shivers through him like fissures of desire. Focus, you are stronger; you have been, for a long time. 

“Demons… a reality…” Your voice holds incredulity after he's shared with you the forbidden knowledge, but your features—alarmingly—show curiosity more than any other emotion. 

“You see, the priest was not lying.” Now standing inside, he slowly takes hold of your injured hand, a strange emotion snuffed fast when you let him, so trustingly. He places your palm on his chest, “Am I not real?”

“You feel real,” you murmur. Your hand is warm, heated with your blood.  “You have a pulse, a quickened one.”

Upper Rank One forces himself still, the smell of that rare blood like a shield around you. He loathes it; he wants it. “The priest… is not human.” Doma knows what he's doing, and manipulation is his crown tactic after all. “And neither am I.” 

He expects disbelief to change your face, or at the very least for you to draw back in a burst of human survival instinct. 

You do neither. If anything, you feel closer, weaving with this situation like a moth in spidersilk. A situation he failed to retreat from, reopening a wound he still cannot locate. And that, well, that is infuriating.

No matter. Once he’s finished, your doe-eyed thrill will surely fade.

“You're not human,” you repeat, now studying his features with intense focus: his eyes, the letters engraved in them. The sight might make others flee as it has before, but you seem to take it in stride. You linger on the flame-like mark adorning his jaw, snaking down his throat as your hand feels the fabric of his kimono between curious fingers. 

“I would…” This closeness fuels a need so selfish he must steel himself to speak without a slur to his voice. “... not return to that temple if you value your life at all.” Your body warmth is like a furnace, closer, not close enough. 

You frown. “You mean to say, the charming priest so many people trust and take refuge in... has ill intent?”

He nods. “The beings you call 'demons'… they need flesh and blood to thrive. Human.” His clawed fingers circle your wrist, removing your hand from him. 

“And, you…” 

“I have consumed many across hundreds of years.” The blunt truth is always the best way. Nowadays, he rarely indulges. The potent blood of that man flows through him as if he’d been turned yesterday. But that changes nothing of the past. “Now do you understand…” 

“I do. I try… but somehow, even if I don’t even know your name, I don’t quite believe you’d hurt me.” You pause. “... is something the matter with you…?”

Are you immune to all sense? You must be. You’re staring at him with no fear, your pulse still beating against his palm—he’s not released your wrist, as if drunk on all the wine he could not drink for centuries. 

"Is that what it is?... Is that the reason you’re trembling? Are you hungry?” 

Your question and the awareness in your eyes as you ask it surprises him. And he realizes, that he is indeed not mastering his body as before. “No, I’m…” 

He would never tell you, would he? Giving anyone a tactical advantage against you is always a bad decision, leading to many downfalls. Your rare blood spilling makes him weak, like he could fall into the sun and die singed by its heat, uncaring of all existence, of the mission given to him by the only one stronger than he, the regrets he’s forgotten and the ones he cannot; a hateful state of being, and one he must shed as soon as possible. But, how?

You near him even more, your head tilting to meet his eyes. “Forgive me for being so forward last time.”

He lingers like that, watching the pulse at your throat leaping like butterflies trapped beneath your skin. “There is nothing to forgive.”

“Do you need it? Will you have it, if it helps you?” You’re pointing at a large vein in your forearm. 

What an unbelievable, ludicrous turn. “You would… give of your blood to me? Freely?”

His throat aches, the need to feed stronger than it has ever been in recent memory. The fear he hadn’t sensed in you before is present now, its trembling aura rippling around your spirit. He wishes he could feel sympathy, to retreat, and he knows you’d be dead by his hand if he wished it, and still…

You nod, breathing deeply. “A settling of scores. You saved my life, back then. So, consider it… an offering? All debts are paid.”

“There is no… debt.” What a strange being you are; what a foolish one, he thinks, drawing nearer, his gaze locked on yours. If this were a battle, this faltering balance would cost him.

“There is.” Your voice is tinged with uncertainty. 

“It will hurt.”

You nod as though to say, ‘I accept that’. 

Your face, your damned face… he’s seen these features before, he knows this determination. But the memories jumble and merge with one another, the hundreds of years having churned them until their dust is scattered over his mind with little meaning. You’re close enough to touch, close enough…

In a breath, his hands are iron bands around your wrists; he slams you into his body so strongly you gasp, arms crushing you close, head tilting to inhale the skin at your neck.

“Wh—”

His fangs dig deep, closing on tender flesh.

Your heart rages against his chest; you writhe as he drinks and drinks, the taste of life drowning his reason with brutal, unyielding force. He does not hold back, wants you to know and feel the enormity of what this means. Here… this is what you agreed to… will you be as brave next time?

You might have whimpered, you might have wept. Words barely reach him; weakly, you squirm against him, the pleas to release you smothered by a delectable rush infusing every cell in his body. If anything, it spikes the thrill. 

“A moment longer... Hisa… a moment…”

A name, foreign yet known to him. He finally ends his feeding as the tension in your limbs eases, blood-stained lips gliding along your jaw, the grip on you slackening; when he feels your body softening against him he lifts you in his arms, turning to gaze around your household. 

You’ve fallen unconscious, eyes closed, your head lolling to one side. “I warned you it would hurt,” he murmurs, kneeling and laying you on the futon in what looks like the sleeping chamber. 

The taste of your blood is sweet on his lips, searing down his throat and lapping like languid flames at his insides. 

The blood… then, this is the reason. The reason why he kept returning here, rather than retreating alone anywhere he deemed. Why do threads of confusion cut him when he looks at you now, lying there motionless, your breaths heavy?

No, no ... That is not the reason. He should drink you dry and end this wallowing. He’s always known or predicted all the variables in a situation to tilt things in his favor, except for now.

You groan softly as he stares into nothing, and that stirs an uncomfortable urge to remain by your side. The demon reaches, smoothing strands of hair away from your wet forehead. He should drink you dry, yes. But he won’t, and neither will anyone else.

Part V

[benefits1986]

Digital Detox

When your modern daily cross is a black mirror, spending quality time away from it allows you to see the universe in full color.  Fourth of May. Cinco De Mayo. My Taurus Twin Tower’s birthdays. V’s 40th death day. C’s death anniv. All died too soon. And this Labor Day... my ina’s 40th death day. The past weeks have not been easy but, I know something really curious is coming, or perhaps, already started. Still hanging by each moment that is either a spiral or a sparkle.  What did I do the during my first-ever long leave this 2023?  -Finally had a video call with my soul sister that turned out to be a session about the inner child conversations PLUS was able to finally tell her something I’ve been meaning to reveal since we were 17 years old (Yes. I’m that “not an open book” even to those closest to me.)  -Visited ina’s grave several times without breaking down when no one’s watching and started planning her eternal home in a style that best represents her existence and her after life, too (Damn. This is not about the glam side of burial spots. It’s about carving her corner where her 70-80+ kids, grand kids and great grand kids can come together.)  -Planning the restoration of my ina and ama’s humble home and turning it into a humble ancestral home which is so surprising as this has been a really, really crazy ride; but is here and now. (Never expected that we’d be on this page; but, hyperinflation is real so, let’s proceed with caution and a consistent set of actions. Will most likely focus on curating bits and pieces of my family plus restoring photos, mostly in film.) -MatchaME’s first voyage in the hilly sides of my ina’s sleepy town, an art hub in Laguna, another sleepy town where there’s a tiny eatery I grew up loving called Beatles (This happened during my Taurus Tito’s birthday.) In fairness, this B is really a good buy after the long wait since 2015. Will talk more about this soon because it deserves its own space and pace. HINT: No vinyl stickers, no bathroom tapes, no bike skin. Laspagan szn is on na ba talaga? Abangan ang B-Rides & B-Rolls: South To North Edition, mga ka-thiccs. LOL.  -Seeing a red pimped pick up (Rar!) and a yellow butterfly during MatchaME’s first 7Eleven stop over. Cried fat tears in between chugging cold caramel mach and polvoron which again reminded me a lot of my Tito’s usual merienda in our roadtrips. The pick up was very much like my Tito’s aesthetic so it’s not about the glam car; but how it reminds me that I have to keep moving forward and that though a pick up is a dream; truth is, dreams could be demons and dragons, roaring in red, too.  -Getting my teeth cleaned and hearing (again) that I have to stop munching on ice because my teeth are in good shape for my age BUT the cracks are gonna bring them down. The dentist is a Gen X liberal-conservative lady who wants to set me up with male people because she feels I am prime for survival with a pack. Later, she realized that she’s gonna have a really tough time looking for someone I can actually date. Let’s see what happens because I already politely declined but she insisted. LOL. Mhie, house plant era na po kasi talaga ako.  -Getting a turtle named Master Splinter for Batulao garden house. :D I can no longer get another dog, so let’s go with the reptilian empire this time. Also, my inaanak Z has a pet turtle!  -H1 life audit (jusq). No further comment, your Honor.  And “so what?” and “what now” monologues.  -Managing my dad’s looming spiral without him noticing it as a sneaky shithead me (LOL). Losing a mom is really life-altering.  -Ambient noise and sound immersion. Didn’t listen to any PL and rarely watched any vids/content pieces which is so otherwordly. Ah, analog in lo-fi and hi-fi... you are liquid gold, indeed -Vitamin D dose :D (Still didn’t get caramel skin because my hair color is a blocker; but really had a good time under the morning sun plus sunsets, too) -Looking after my cousins as they face a final battle with the Big C in the family WITH specific boundaries  -More hustle, more intent, a volunteer work that’s really close to my hidden heart and soul and a new workspace ---all these are coming this week onwards. Test of maturity, patience and intent. Never easy to be honest, but, I’m really, really, really excited. There’s something about the testosterone x estrogen x progesterone high and lows that gets me going. I really need to turn the “spiral” vibes to “sparkle” vibes. The spiral is not about work to make it clear. It’s about the road to 2024 and beyond. ;) LUH.  My soul sister told me so many times that something is OFF the past weeks. Told her that, after so many struggles, I am choosing peace amidst the chaos, the noise and the non-essentials of the gods. She was taken aback and so I am. She also told me that my aura is radiating a glow. As an empath, she is amazed and still in disbelief because for the first time in forever, I might have been changed for good. Let’s see!  May the Force be with you and me!  PS: Really need to rewatch Star Wars. Road to geek na ba talaga ito? (Stereotyping na naman po tayo, so early in the morning!) Daming XY na tatawanan ako kasi mukhang kakainin ko mga bashing ko sa kanila from then until now a; but I don’t care. LOL.   PS2: Hogwarts Legacy is still on my mind, heart and soul. :D Ang mahal though ng mga gaming consoles but, I’m thinking of making content out of this. Rar. Eto na ba ‘yun? Para naman sulit ‘yung effort saka first of hanashes in life. Abangan! 

[bumbleklee]

(tw: eating disorders) feel free to ignore this but i was wondering if you could do hcs with kaeya, zhongli and xiao with a gn reader whose dealing with an eating disorder? im going through a lot right now and this would be v comforting for me haha I love your work btw

hello! u got it :,) and just know that what's going on, you can get through it <3 my messages are always open

trigger warning: these hcs deal with eating disorders so if this is something that bothers you or makes you uncomfortable, please don't read. this is going to be under a cut for this reason 

kaeya

the first time kaeya realizes something is wrong is when someone comments on your weight

they mention you look thin and at this, kaeya realizes you do look thin 

very thin

he’s known you wanted to lose some weight and he had been supportive of you through it since this would make you happy

upon closer inspection, he noticed how easily you were bruising and how your hair had lost its shine and was even falling out slowly

he knew something was very wrong and knew that if it didn’t get to the bottom of it now, he might run out of time

You hated your body. You weren’t sure when it started but one day you just started skipping meals. Slowly, the weight fell off and you began to love how you looked in the mirror. You knew that skinny meant pretty and the smaller you could become, the more beautiful you would be. 

You were planning on skipping dinner one night when Kaeya surprised you with a meal - your favorite meal. You watched anxiously as he set up dinner at your kitchen table. 

“Hey, I’m not really hungry,” You started. 

Kaeya peered at you, “But this is your favorite. Are you feeling okay?”

“No, I’m fine. I just don’t want anything.” 

Kaeya sighed, knowing it was time to conquer his worries. He sat you down at the table despite your protests and held your hand. “You know you can talk to me about anything, right?” You nodded and he continued, “You haven’t been eating much lately. What’s going on?”

At this, you stared at your lap. Of course Kaeya would realize what you were doing. You didn’t know what to say, a mix of guilt, anger and sadness washing over you. 

“You’re beautiful. You don’t need to lose any weight. I love you and...I don’t want anything to happen to you.” Kaeya prepped your plate and pushed it towards you, “Please, just eat something.” 

You felt tears well in your eyes and you shakily picked up a fork. You took a forkful of the food and slowly chewed on it, relishing in the delicious taste for a moment. You weren’t able to eat all of the food before your body rejected it but at least this was a start. 

Kaeya couldn’t have been prouder. 

zhongli

you hid your eating disorder from zhongli well

you were ashamed of what you did and if he found out, you would be utterly crushed and embarrassed

but this was an addiction and you couldn't escape it, even though you knew it was wrong and you shouldn’t be doing it

After dating Zhongli for a year, he asked you to move into an apartment with him. You were excited, since you loved Zhongli, but also nervous since you were hiding such a dark secret. 

The first week of moving in together, he found out. 

He was cleaning up after dinner when you retreated to the bathroom. He heard you throwing up faintly and being the concerned boyfriend he was, he went to check up on you. Never in a million years did he suspect to see you shoving your fingers down your throat. 

“Y/N...” He couldn’t find the right words and you couldn't face him.

“Go away,” You said coldly, gripping the seat of the toilet, “Go away!” 

Instead of listening to you, Zhongli bent down next to you and wrapped a strong arm your shoulders. He felt horrible - he should have known what was going on and stopped it. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” He asked softly. 

You head cowered down and tears streamed down your face, causing you to cry like a child. Instead of rejecting you, Zhongli only pulled you tightly into his side and whispered sweet nothings. He promised on that day that he help you get through this if it was the last thing he ever did. 

xiao

he found out about your eating disorder before you even realized you had one

he didn’t understand mortal life completely but he knew something was wrong when you lost a substantial amount of weight in three weeks

xiao confronted you about it, making you realize what you were doing to yourself

his approach was blunt, he didn’t mean to, but he just didn’t get why you were voluntarily hurting yourself like this

“Why are you doing this to yourself?” Xiao sounds angry but he's not - just confused and hurt. He’s sitting next to you under the Dragon Queller. His arms are crossed. 

“Why are you being so mean about it?” You whisper, looking away from him. 

“I’m not...I just...” Xiao sighed and ran a hand through his hair, “I don't get it and I don’t know how to handle it, okay?” His voice broke and you shrunk into yourself, “You didn’t even come to me.” 

Xiao felt like a failure. He was a protector, a fear slayer, yet he couldn’t protect you from your biggest demon - yourself. 

“I’m sorry,” You mumbled, “My eating was the only thing I could control and I just let it get too far, I guess.” 

“Let me help you.”

Xiao reached out for your hand and you let him take it. You tried to hold back you tears but they dripped down with your cheeks still. You were just trying to achieve perfection but if being perfect meant losing Xiao, then you would settle for less. 

“Okay.” 

[aspiringtrashpanda]

Hello, hope your doing well. Would it be possible to request a drabble of robin x male reader, wherein the reader was known as a famous war hero when they were in their teen years(before hitting 15), but were also considered a "Devil Child" by their comrades? I thought it would be an interesting ask. Thanks

HI! Thank you so much for my first Tumblr request! It is much appreciated. I hope you enjoy!

💕💕💕

The first time she had met you, her whole world came crashing down.

The flames and smoke had crowded her senses, overwhelmed only by the screams of her friends and family as gunshots fired and canons slammed into surrounding homes. She had been searching for someone, anyone to help one of the fallen children – one that often threw rocks at her, but that didn’t matter when lives were at stake – when she had locked eyes with you.

Shaking, rifle in hand, tears streaming down your cheeks, dripping past the corners of your trembling lips. Corpses upon corpses had surrounded you – a young marine scout no older than 15 – the most prominent being the body of a lieutenant, blood pooling from a stab wound in his stomach.

You had said nothing. She had said nothing.

Then, she had run.

The second time she had met you had been at the G8 marine fortress.

You had been visiting Navarone, escorting the famous sibling chefs from Mary Geoise.

She remembered the panic flickering in your eyes, reflecting the flames of the Tree of Knowledge. The recognition was mutual, the startled realization that you were staring at a ghost evident in the way your pupils contracted, the way your jaw dropped before you shut it firmly, grinding your teeth.

“And so the Devil Child comes face to face with the Demon Dog of the Navy,” Robin had whispered, loud enough for your ears only as she shouldered past you, out of Commander Johnathan’s office.

You had followed her as she had sauntered down the hall, borrowed officer’s jacket swishing with every sway of her hips. Her boots clicked against the sparkling linoleum floor, and she paused to praise a young chore boy on his mopping abilities.

“Er, Special Inspector Shepherd!” You had called out, attracting her attention, “It’s not what you think!”

She had shot you a sardonic smile, musing, “I thought it didn’t matter what my people think.” Her sleek raven locks brushing her shoulder blades, she turned away from you, continuing into the depths of the fortress without another glance in your direction.

The third time she had met you was at a human auction house in Sabaody.

The shrieking of the goddamn celestial dragons had been bordering on infuriating. Why had they still been there? They should have been long gone, evacuated to safety, away from the fight that had broken out surrounding the building.

You had been among the few marines to slip inside of the structure, to take on the remaining Straw Hat pirates within. A war hero of the military, the Demon Dog of the navy was to bring them all, dead or alive, to headquarters.

Though, you had ulterior motives for leading your squadron.

You had needed her to know, to understand.

You had reached out to tug at her forearm, eyes pleading as she spun on her heel and prepared to lash out. You hadn’t blamed her. Even if she had known it was you, you would have understood the hatred that boiled beneath her perfect skin.

She must have seen something in your gaze, for she had let you tug her into the back of the auction house, just long enough for you to breathe, “I’m a fraud.”

Her slender eyebrows furrowed together, a tight frown pulling at her lips.

“I… I didn’t kill anyone that day, I promise,” The words had tumbled out of you, your heart threatening to spill out of your throat next. “I found the lieutenant like that. And then the Admiral saw me right after you fled. It was all circumstance. I never told them. I’m nothing but a coward.”

Her gaze had been indecipherable, her eyes liquid crystals as she peered into your very soul.

You had wondered if she could feel the vibration of your pounding heart through the concrete floor, if she could hear the steady thump despite the shouts of the battle outside.

“A coward is better than a marine hero,” She had spoken softly, hand lifting to brush against your cheek. “You’re human.”

This time, you had run.

The spoon clinked against the tin bowl Black Leg Sanji had procured from the marine ship that had arrived to retrieve the G5 and the children from Punk Hazard. You were cold, the frigid winter wind biting your skin despite the steaming stew clutched between your palms. At least, you had been shivering, until she had taken a seat next to you, jacket rustling as she folded her long legs to the side, her gloved hands crossed on her lap.

Her quiet stare made the brisk air feel like the hottest day of the summer, your skin burning under her observant watch.

“You were demoted,” She noted softly, gaze shifting to ensure that none of your peers were close enough to overhear. There was no sympathy in her piercing cerulean eyes, instead, something akin to pride shown through. “Good.”

“I came clean,” You murmured, staring down at the chunks of potatoes bobbing in broth within your bowl, “I didn’t want to be the Demon Dog of the navy anymore.”

“It’s nice that you had a choice,” Her tone was dark, though when you looked to her, you saw nothing malicious in her comforting smile. She was being genuine.

Then, her captain hollered for her, told her it was time to go, and the words jumped into your throat before you could think through the consequences of what you were about to say. “Nico Robin,” You spluttered, “I hope I see you again.”

She stilled on her way back to the Thousand Sunny, lifting her arms over her chest.

And then she was there, again, right next to you, occupying the spot she had left. You could see Nico Robin in front of you, meters away, eyes fixed on her crew. Yet, she was also brushing her fingers against the back of your hand, leaning in, eyelashes dusting her cheeks as her eyelids fluttered closed. Her warm breath ghosted against your cheek as she let her lips graze your skin, soft and supple, sending shivers down your spine.

The Robin by your side burst into flower petals, dancing away on the chilling breeze as the Robin in front of you lowered her arms.

She did not look back.