#viscous mockery | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

syoddeye · 25 days ago

Text

cygnet, plucked | price x reader | part three, final part two cw: dubcon, noncon, forced marriage, stockholm syndrome (kind of), endearments, vague/implied first time, grief, guilt, mild body horror, pregnancy mention a/n: many thanks again to the anon who originally suggested this. part one | part two | masterlist 🦢

The lake is choppy the day John marries you, its surface churned by a coming storm.

Cold water laps at your ankles, bare feet numb in the shallows. The hem of your dress drinks deep from the surface. Soaking up what memories it can before you're further bound to man.

John says marriage is sacred, unbreakable. A higher purpose. It's a slap in the face to what you lost.

The nameless friend he brought stands smirking between you, reciting empty words. Invoking a god you do not recognize, but curse all the same. You answer only when John squeezes your hands. The veil, stitched from your ruin, is a mockery. A whisper-thin shield.

John lifts it with reverence, eyes bluer with the lake beside him, darkening at the edges where clouds gather. He looks at you the way he did that night. Hungry and triumphant.

After slipping a thin gold band on your finger, he kisses you, deepening it until his friend chuckles. Holds your face as if you are delicate and cherished. And for one fleeting second, you hate him less for it.

But when his lips leave yours, you feel it. That hollow space. The sore spots between your shoulder blades. A rift not easily mended.

His friend claps him on the shoulder, bids you both well, and winks as John steals another kiss.

Thunder rolls over the water, threading through and shaking the trees in warning. You doubt he hears it that way. To him, it's nothing but weather.

The first drops hit before you reach the cabin, cool pinpricks that swell into a downpour. John's grip tightens, tugging you along as the storm swallows you both. He laughs as you stumble inside, slamming the door behind him, bracing against it like you've outrun something wicked.

His laughter fades as his eyes rake over you. Your dress clinging, veil slick to your skull. Shivering. He watches for a breath too long before turning toward the hearth.

"Strip," he says, kneeling to coax the fire back to life. "You'll catch your death."

He tells you he overspent on dinner, whatever that means.

The honeycomb drips viscous gold, pooling in the flat of a salted biscuit before spilling over your lips. John hums, pleased, pressing the next bite to your mouth. You chew, tasting the wildflowers.

His chest rises and falls beneath your cheek, solid and warm, still slightly damp. Tracing whorls of hair with your eyes. His arm is heavy around you, holding you firm in his lap, as if you might slip away between bites. He feeds you another, thumb brushing your lips.

With the fire and rain pattering the roof, it's almost tolerable. Nice.

Then his fingers bump against your lips, sticky and insistent. The last of the honey, scooped up and offered. You hesitate. He does not. Two fingers slip past your lips, pressing sweet and heavy against your tongue.

You suck them clean, head buzzing as he pets your tongue. Their rhythmic draw over the muscle elicits a ghostly tug at your nethers. A string of spit breaks and splatters on your breasts when he extracts them. He gathers it as he did the honey, then drags them between your legs.

Outside, the storm howls. The cabin groans under the wind, trees clawing at its walls. Rain batters the roof, thunder cracks, lightning splits the dark.

He puts you on your back. It's only proper, he says as he climbs over you, for a man to first lie with his woman this way. Separates them from the animal.

You don't bother pointing out that it's foolish, him justifying his acts. That you expect him to do whatever he damn well pleases.

Your tongue stays fastened to the roof of your mouth, holding back words that wouldn't change a thing. Self-loathing leaking out with every pulse of your puffy, needy cunt, your feathers soaked from his attentions.

What a creature he's reduced you to.

You go rigid when it's clear he's done playing around, that there will be no more easing you into it. You fold your arms tight, the same as when he sets down a plate of something unappetizing and expects gratitude.

John merely exhales through his nose, a near-silent huff, and keeps on. He grabs an ankle, yanking you closer with an unbroken focus. Your display is nothing more than a child's sulk.

"This was meant to be, honey," he muses, tucking his hands under your knees and opening them. "You and me, right here."

A heavy, hot weight slots into the crease of your thigh, and your head jerks up, unable to stop yourself from looking. It's flushed, redder than you imagined. Thicker, too. Crowned with a thatch of coarse, wiry hair that looks like it'll pull at your feathers.

He strokes himself, fist tight enough to push pearls from the tip, dribbling them over your swollen clit. You shudder, torn between repulsion and enthrallment, each equally strong and disorienting.

John licks his lip. "Arms around me."

You hug yourself tighter on instinct now that you've seen, up close, what he intends to shove inside you. He bristles.

"Fine. Be difficult."

Surprisingly, he doesn't force the issue, but—

"No matter how you deny it or fight it, this is where you belong." His jaw clenches, fingers flexing on your hips like he's barely keeping himself together, thumb pressing a shade too firmly into your skin. Like the fact of finally having you underneath him is almost too much. "Me and you. Me and my wife."

He nudges your lips apart with his length, exposing the core of your heat to it, and glides through until you're squirming. He keeps bumping your clit, purposely nudging the rim he worked open by the fireside. Then it catches for real, and the head alone makes you dizzy. Much bigger than his fingers. A blunter, harsher pressure.

You fought him on that third finger, back on his lap. You regret it now.

When he starts to push in, you picture egrets skewering fish. Impalement. Gasping, wide-eyed, and belly-up. Your arms fly open, startling a laugh out of him, abruptly cutting into a grunt as your nails sink deep into his furry chest.

John exhales hard through his nose, adjusting his grip, palms slick with sweat as he pulls at your hips. "Hell's sake, Shy," he mutters, voice threaded with frustration, but he tamps it down quick, replacing it with something softer and meant to soothe.

A hand lifts, and his thumb strokes over the hinge of your jaw, coaxing it loose. You're tense all over. His eyes are darker now, a thin ring of blue around the black swell of his pupils. The coldest part of the lake, where the light can't reach.

"Ain't doin' yourself any favors, it'll feel good, promise," he says, bracing an arm beside your head. Crushing your chest with his for another kiss. "Relax."

A deafening crack of lightning follows his words. A tree could come down on the cabin right this second, but he wouldn't even blink. Nothing would draw his attention away. That's obvious when he raises slightly and starts again with renewed purpose.

"John," His name cast as a lifeline. Desperate, grasping. "Too big."

"You're alright," he grits out, voice tight, breath uneven. His cheeks, florid beneath his whiskers, lift in a grin when he takes another inch. "That's a girl."

You hiss angrily, spitting mad. Pinned and helpless. Humiliated even as your heels jam into the small of his back.

It keeps doing that, your body. Moving of its own accord, traitorous thing. Clinging when it should let go, leaning in when it should recoil. Caught between the urge to shove him off and the quiet, irksome need to let him in deep.

In, in, in. Your head presses into the pillow beneath it, mouth falling open as he makes a place for himself in your body.

The pain blurs at the edges, numbing into something almost unrecognizable. No, unfathomable. A creeping, repugnant pleasure germinates where his cock drags. And just when your toes start to curl, coming around to the idea of it, to acceptance—he stops.

Confusion fizzes and pops between your ears, leaking steadily through the sieve he's punched in your skull. You slur the beginnings of a question, but the words sharpen, solidifying when he withdraws too suddenly. Something within stirs, sensing his intent, desperate to intervene.

"S-Said you'd take care of me," you choke out. "Be nice. Be nice."

John falters, swallowing hard. He stares down at you, so intensely you think he'll lash out, every bit of him flexed.

"This you saying you'll behave?"

You don't answer right away, breath hitching when his thumb drags over your ribs, just shy of tender.

"Well?" His patience draws taut over the word, a fraying thread poised to snap like his hips. "Say it, honey."

There's but one answer he'll accept.

"Yes," you lick your lips. "Yes, John. Please."

He waits a moment, waiting for you to take it back, then tests: "Arms around me."

This time, you oblige.

How kindly he keeps this promise. The minute shake in his arm from the restraint he shows from not simply barging in. Sweat sluices over the swell of his bicep, tracing the ridges of muscle and the veins pulsing beneath the hair on his arm.

His eyes brighten—just barely. A flicker of tenderness, the same glint you've caught in stolen moments. The longing he's kept at arm's length, from across the table, from the beam outside the cabin, from the doorway. Burned into the back of your neck at night where he confesses but never apologizes.

This time, he unhurriedly feeds you his cock again, bottoming out with a groan, and rubs a circle into your hip.

"This is where you belong," He echoes, half-growling the sentiment with a grind that has you noiselessly pulling him closer. "Not in the muck, not in the grass. Bet you were a pretty thing with wings, but as a woman?"

John doesn't finish the thought, instead fixing his gaze to where you're stretched around him, silently deeming you acclimated. He kept his word, now to keep the others. It's like he said—he'll teach you every little thing you need to know. He'll make it good.

You're not naive about what's happening when he begins to move. Apart from the men you've spied on, you've seen wild animals. But knowing doesn't stop your breath from catching in your throat or the moans that follow.

Noises indecent enough to heat your face, each languid thrust finding its mark. They'd scald you with white-hot shame if emptiness didn't seem so awful a notion now. His cock jerks at a particularly sweet sound that stutters and skips like a stone over water and ends with his name on a sigh.

His fingers dig in, guiding the roll of your pelvis to meet his, grunting out filth. How wet you are, how right you feel.

"Don't even understand what you do to me, do you?"

You don't. Haven't since you arrived. It's still a mystery why he chose your dress from the dozen on the shore. Surely, he hadn't known it was yours. Hadn't picked you especially, hadn't spied you before—your mind severs the thought at the root, a little hysterically.

John switches arms, planting the other elbow beside your head to bear his weight. The other disappears, but you don't follow its path. His breath grows rough, eyes half-lidded and weighted with devotion and its twin. He picks up the pace, rolling his hips harder, bludgeoning his thick cock into you with urgency.

He surprises you by wedging his hand between your bodies, trapping it on the feathered slope of your cunt. He thumbs your pearled clit, stroking over it in tight circles. It makes you clench down greedily, rewarding you with a roll of his eyes and flash of gritted teeth.

It's—He's—

You've no point of reference for this turmoil.

The closest thing is the storm outside, wild and unrelenting. Rain pelting the earth, flooding the soil, swelling the lake beyond its banks. A force that drowns and nourishes in equal measure, tangling ruin and rebirth.

And under your skin, your blood simmers into a rolling boil. It spreads, curling through every inch, pooling under your navel and tightening.

"Give it, honey. C'mon, can feel it," He rasps, punctuating his demands with an ungentle grind of his cock and a quick succession of firm pats to your clit. "C'mon, on my cock, now, Shy."

You don't fight him, but you don't make it easy either.

When you come, euphoria wrestles with doubt. A current that sweeps you away from him, tumbling hard and fast, only to throw you back, gasping for air. And through it all, John's voice, steady as the shore.

"That's it," he rasps, preening, "Knew you had it in you. My good girl."

Your vision returns in fragments, palms sliding from his shoulders, falling limp to either side of your head. He's still moving, the lewd slap of flesh on flesh and squelching loud in your ears. He's fully abandoned his earlier pledge, any pretense erased. Rutting and battering your walls with a singular goal. Exploiting how you've unraveled beneath him. Gives him the perfect excuse to unleash weeks of pent-up frustration, you think hazily.

He bears down on you when he gets close, breath heaving against your neck, your forehead. Chasing his release with such an effort, part of you understands why he must've played the waiting game with you. He's saved his fury, all of it, for this.

John finally follows with a prolonged groan, head tilted back, sinking to the hilt to spill deep. Cheek to cheek, whiskers scraping and sopping up stray tears. Shuddering above you, crushing until your ankles unhook from his back. Until the tension bleeds out of him, freeing him to move. Sated at last.

He lifts enough to press a lingering kiss to your temple, his eyes tiredly twinkling as he drinks in whatever stupefied expression you must be wearing. Then, with a sigh, he finds your mouth.

"Did so good, honey," he murmurs, "Knew you'd be perfect."

He lies with you for a couple minutes, humming at how you tremble around his softening cock as it drags out of you. Pulling out spend which he gingerly pushes back in, mouth twitching at the quivering of your thighs. He stands, wipes his hand on his flank, then staggers away, knees popping, to fetch a towel.

He cleans his excess spend from your thighs and lips, then tends carefully to your feathers. Though in the lantern light, it's as if a different veil has been lifted. All you have is the aftermath.

A belly full of cum. Finger-shaped bruises. A fierce ache. The spell breaks, and whatever idea of romance you had vanishes.

He stole your dress. Plucked and stripped you of your feathers, offering no alternative but the cage of his arms. Earthbound and alone, save for him. You're not yourself and never will be again.

Outside, the night hangs unnaturally still. You know it's a false hope. That this is just the eye of the storm.

When John crawls back into bed, his hand finds your stomach. He murmurs about the future—how fine a wife you'll become, how fine a mother you'll be.

His breath stirs your hair as he chuckles.

What'll it be, honey? A baby or an egg?

You nearly break apart all over again.

Babies. Cygnets. You don't know if it's possible. This union, this wretched coupling, is the first of its kind that you know of.

But from how he takes you again in the morning, nesting within you until he softens, if there is one man who could make it happen—

It's John.

You don't know what you want. Maybe you never did. The thought of leaving gnaws at you in the quiet moments when the fire is low and John's asleep, one heavy arm slung over your waist.

You could slip away. You could try.

But then what?

The forest is vast. The lake depressingly empty. The town full of strangers. And you are neither swan nor woman, not truly. There's no going back to your sisters, no wings to carry you home, wherever that is now. And even if there were—would you take them?

Would you abandon the warmth of his hands, the way he looks at you like you belong to him, like you belong somewhere at all? More precious than the matching gold on your fingers or the money hidden beneath a floorboard.

The guilt coils tight, constricts your ribs. You shouldn't hesitate. Shouldn't find comfort in the rough edges of this man, in the way he steadies you, feeds you, calls you honey and darling like he means it.

He stole from you. He broke you open and reshaped you into something else that fits into his world, not yours. He doesn't even know your true name.

And yet, when his fingers trace lazy circles against your skin, when he murmurs Shy in the dark, you wonder—if you had the choice, would you take it?

It's best to tuck away your past life. Fold it like the lace in the trunk beneath your marriage bed. Shove it into a dark corner and relegate it to a memory to take out on rare occasions, softened with time. Best to recall the sweetness and not let the bitter ruin it.

Months later, you wake from a nap and find feathers strewn across the bed. Your heart stops.

With a trembling hand, you reach for the small of your back, and feel smooth, bare skin.

A wail rises in your throat, but then a tiny kick flutters deep in your belly.

You swallow the grief.

#john price x reader #price x reader #i agonized over the tags so please dm me if i missed one or if you think i ought to add something. thank you!

615 notes · View notes

holybibly · 8 months ago

Text

As much as I love my sugar bunnies, I can't leave you empty-handed before my trip. So enjoy the preview of my new ff for Seonghwa. I love you, my darlings.

𝔙𝔞𝔫𝔦𝔩𝔩𝔞 𝔉𝔞𝔱𝔞𝔩

Mafia!au Alpha Seonghwa x Omega reader

"I think that you should take a little more time off from work, Hwa. If you go on like this, I'm very much in doubt that you'll be able to tie any Omegas with your knot. Aren't you worried that you're going to leave all those sweet, horny babies needy and unfulfilled, daddy?" Hongjoong soberly chuckled as he turned his amberish feline eyes to the gorgeous dark-haired Alpha beside him. There was a hint of mockery in his seductively purring voice.

"Oh, my sweet Joongie, you're so worried about that, I could think you're desperate to ride on my knot too. But you're working so hard too. Aren't you? When was the last time you tied a nice omega yourself?" Seonghwa said as he walked out of his office, which was located on the top floor of a luxurious, high-class brothel.

It was an exquisite establishment for Seoul's chosen elite, full of the most beautiful and fertile Omegas with luscious, sexy bodies and submissive, soft dispositions. Seonghwa would never settle for anything less than the most beautiful and luxurious.

Pulling a black glove made of soft Iberian leather over his long fingers, Seonghwa was walking down the dark corridor that led to the common room when a tantalising scent hit him in the face. It was barely perceptible—just a soft sensuality—but Seonghwa felt as if the scent had taken over his body, making every cell in it tingle and burn and sending goose bumps running up and down his smooth, golden skin.

The Alpha stopped abruptly, practically bumping into Hongjoong, and let his nose wiggle a little, trying to find out where the delicious scent was coming from. All of his Alpha instincts flare up with a strong curiosity. The blood in his veins becomes more viscous and hotter by the second, and saliva starts to collect in his mouth.

'Shit, Seonghwa, what are you...' Seonghwa doesn't let him finish and abruptly cuts him off in the middle of his sentence.

"Can you smell it, Joong? That aroma..." His voice is hoarse and deep, and there is a slight, velvety purr to be heard in between the letters. Seonghwa almost groans as a puff of air brings a new wave of the thick scent to him. A heavy, rich, almost maddening smell—there is something big in it—something sinful, decadent, depraved, but at the same time fresh, pure, and so innocent.

"What's that, Hwa? What do you feel?" Hongjoong's voice is filled with genuine curiosity. He raises a well-groomed eyebrow in question and sinks his teeth into his plump lower lip to keep the grin from spreading across his demonically handsome features. He takes real pleasure in seeing Seonghwa, who is normally so cold and perfect in every way, turn into an excited puppy at the slightest whiff of an unfamiliar scent.

"We have a new Omega in the brothel, don't we?" Seonghwa's voice drops a few octaves, each sound enveloped in a thick, murky sexuality. His breathing becomes heavy and hot, as if he has a fever. Fuck.

"Oh, that..." Hongjoong nods in understanding and now grins openly, revealing the tips of his pointed fangs. "I think it's the new Omega that Yeosang told me about—the cute little thing has just been hired to work here, Hwa. She's probably still waiting in Yeo's office."

Before Hongjoon could finish his sentence, Seonghwa was already halfway to Yeosang's office, the bare, luscious scent of vanilla wafting through the air and seducing him, and Hwa immediately wanted to know whose scent it was.

Seonghwa quietly opens the heavy, oak door leading to one of his assistants' offices and looks inside to finally see the owner of that intoxicating scent.

"You know, you can just have this omega if you want to.'" Hongjoong whispers as he tries to peek over Seonghwa's shoulder to get a better look at the Omega, the scent of which has made his friend so excited.

"Can you just shut your pretty mouth and stay out of my way, Joong?" Seonghwa hissed back irritably as he rolled his beautiful feline eyes on the other alpha before he focused all his attention on the unknown Omega.

Oh, what a little sugar baby you are. You look just too adorable dressed up like a doll in the fluffy pastel-coloured sweater with the open shoulders, the high socks with the satin bows, and the white lacquered Mary Jane shoes with the little gold buckle. You seem completely out of place in the gloomy atmosphere of the office, but you are seductive all the same. There is an inexplicable eroticism about you, like a fragile butterfly caught in the deadly web of a spider. Which was basically true because Seonghwa was the king of the world's dark side, and you fell right into his hands.

Your hair is long and black and shiny like the silk sheets on his bed; he can't see your whole face from his seat, but the contours of your plump cheeks are seductively soft and pink, and your lips are childishly plump and overly sensual. Seonghwa would even call them kissable, but as far as he's concerned, he'd rather bite them bloody and lick them with his tongue than kiss them.

You're clearly nervous; it's all too easy to tell by the way you fidget restlessly in your seat and the slightly bitter notes in your scent, which fills the entire office like fluffy candy floss, sticking to his tongue and leaving a moist, sweet trail on it. Seonghwa can't help but wonder: What could a candy thing like you be doing in a brothel in search of work?

This is definitely not the kind of place he would have in mind for such a delicate Omega. You might look perfect between his legs, with a diamond collar around your swan-like neck and your sweet, glistening lips curled around his cock, but a brothel...

Only the most desperate and needy Omegas seek work in a brothel. And even then, not all of them get the chance to find a place. It's necessary to comply with too many requirements to be able to be just an object of pleasure for the rich Alphas, Betas, and even other Omegas.

His curiosity is aroused even more, as is his excitement. His hard cock tugs at the fabric of his leather trousers, and the knot at the base begins to press slightly, slowly swelling. Fuck, he's no puppy to be so shamefully turned on by your scent alone, but you smell heavenly and look like an angel, and Seonghwa just wants to spoil you in the most depraved and darkest way, and maybe this desire is too strong for his own good.

Something catches your attention, and you turn your head sideways, allowing Seonghwa to finally get a full view of your angelic face. Involuntarily, a small sigh escapes from his throat, his feline eyes darken, his fangs ache to sink into the soft skin of yours, and thick saliva gathers in his mouth.

You're beautiful, a real little angel from the heavens, an exquisite porcelain doll for his pleasure. With a face like that and a scent of pure innocence and sweetness, you could be a gold mine for a brothel. Seonghwa isn't surprised that Yeosang hired you. If even Seonghwa himself wants you so badly, he has no idea how long the queue for you will be.

"Seonghwa, Mingi wants to talk to you." Hongjoong whispers in a low voice, hands a mobile phone to the dark-haired Alpha, and tries not to draw the attention of the Omega to them. Seonghwa closes the door carefully and takes the mobile phone out of the hands of the other Alpha.

"I'm listening...' Seonghwa glances at the Omega for the last time before walking away. He leaves behind his back the rich scent of vanilla and a sweet, angelic face with sugar-sweet lips. There is no doubt that you will be the object of his wet dreams.

Seonghwa had tossed and turned for hours in his luxurious royal bed, unable to sleep. The black silk of the expensive sheets flowed around his body like a surface of water, cooling the excited heat of his bare skin a little. But it did nothing to help him control his feelings and thoughts.

Even after all these hours, he can still clearly hear every seductively innocent note of your intoxicating scent, and he feels as if the bare, viscous sweetness of the vanilla has soaked into his skin and seeped deep into his bones. He almost chokes on it.

With a heavy sigh, Seonghwa leans back against the soft, fluffy cushions, his dark, feline eyes meeting his own reflection in the mirrored ceiling. Even though Seonghwa was hellishly tired, his body categorically refused to relax; every nerve tingled, and his muscles tensed and trembled as if he were in heat. And it's all because of you.

You're such a sweet, voluptuous omega, with a face like an angel, big innocent eyes that literally beg: "Fuck me, Alpha," and the most sinful lips he's ever seen. God, he just can't seem to get you out of his head.

As soon as he covers his gorgeous eyes, the image of your sweet mouth stretching so beautifully around his thick cock appears in his mind and causes his whole body to react in an instant. Seonghwa can feel how his cock is straining once again; the massive velvet length is getting harder by the second, and drops of pre-cum are starting to appear on the dark pink, swollen head.

The Alpha lazily runs his long fingers over his bare chest, hissing from his hypersensitivity, lust burning like poison under his skin. No other Omega in his life has ever been able to interest him in such a way that Seonghwa becomes hard just at the mere thought of her.

And he doesn't know if he hates it or if it just makes him more horny.

You are the very real Miss Pink Sugar, not at all his type, but still, Seonghwa longs to crumble you up between his teeth like a damn shiny lollipop and to devour you without a trace.

The alpha in him purrs with approval at the thought of that.

As he stares at his reflection in the mirror, Hwa can't help but wonder what you would look like if you were lying in his bed with his cock deep inside of you. Your pretty tiny pussy is stretched so deliciously around his thick knot, and your belly is swollen from the huge amount of cum that he is pouring into you. Fuck. Hwa would have marked every millimeter of your soft skin and would have left behind forever the inflamed marks of his teeth, which would have bloomed like bloody flowers on your body.

Your pretty little brain can't even begin to imagine the horrible, dirty things that he would do to you if you were in his presence right now and how much he would teach you.

And he'll be doing that soon.

For him, there is nothing more pleasurable than to corrupt someone's innocence, to turn divine purity into vice and sin—it is his natural instinct for his inner Alpha, one that has appealed to him since the very beginning of his kind. Hwa has never been a gentle Alpha; he has always been one to take what he wants, and you will be no exception.

To be honest, he didn't know what he would do with you once you had stated his hunger and satisfied his Alpha's dark desire. But that was the least of his worries at the moment.

Seonghwa wants to see your lovely, sweet face contorted in pure bliss as he ties you with his knot, your soft, plump cheeks all flushed with shame and wet with tears, and your beautiful mouth sticky and glistening with his cum.

Damn, you're going to look divine. Seonghwa has no doubt about it.

Hwa growls in irritation, turns over in the bed, throws off the silk sheets that are now only a nuisance to him, and reaches for his phone.

"Seonghwa, is there something wrong?" Yeosang's voice is deep and sultry as he answers his call. Seonghwa lets out a grim chuckle, knowing exactly what the gorgeous Alpha is doing right now.

"Why doesn't that surprise me, Sangie, that you're fucking around instead of concentrating on working? Sometimes I have the feeling that you all are an absolute waste of my time and my money, Sangie." Before Yeosang starts talking again, a muffled groan and rustling can be heard on the other side of the phone.

"I can never deny myself the pleasure; you know me as I am, but why are you calling me at such a late hour?"

At such a late hour? Seonghwa looks absent-mindedly at the screen of the phone. It's almost three o'clock in the morning; yes, really late. He's been spending more time in his fantasies than he would like to.

Fuck, he'll just go crazy if you're not in his bed, but he doesn't mind spreading you out on any available surface.

"Never mind. Hongjoong told me that you've hired a new Omega, right?"

"You mean Y/N, don't you? The doll is so gorgeous; it's not at all clear why she decided to work in a brothel, but let's just say it's our luck. I've already got some plans for her. In my opinion, she could be one of our star girls..." Seonghwa doesn't let him finish and rudely interrupts him.

"Sangie, I want you to bring her to me first. Do you understand me?"

"Oh, what do I see? Someone wants to play with the beautiful Omega, eh? Finally, our Seonghwa will have some time to himself. But I'll do whatever your wish is. Just don't break her, OK? She's real gold."

Seonghwa doesn't answer him, but ends the call and throws the phone down on the bed before she leans back onto the silk sheets.

As usual, Hwa will get what he so desperately wants very easily, he just has to wait a little longer.

625 notes · View notes

rius-cave · 4 months ago

Note

Lucifer: *Crafting the most creative and hurtful insult ever known*

Adam looking down at him: You're so short. Lol.

Adam used viscous mockery. It's super effective.

Adam just DMs this image to Lucifer every day from Heaven change my mind

#hazbin hotel #adam #lucifer #ask

144 notes · View notes

thyras · 1 month ago

Text

→ of mourning & loss (bonus chapter)

PAIRING → mairon | annatar | sauron x female!elf!reader

WORD COUNT → 6.2k words

SERIES → of sauron & the moriquendi

WARNINGS → grief, loss, angst, dad!sauron

SUMMARY → face to face with her father for the first time in years, aerilaya confronts him about her mother.

AUTHORS NOTE → so this has a spoiler in it for the next chapter, but I never planned for this to be the ending of the story, but it was one of the possibilities. just going to post it anyways as I think we all kinda knew where i was going with their story. the next chapter is taking longer than i thought so i hope this holds y'all over till then.

masterlist // series playlist // mood board

Aerilaya pressed the tip of her blade against his throat, the steel cool and unyielding against his unnatural skin. Her emerald eyes blazed with fury, burning like embers stoked by years of pain. She had not seen him in all that time, yet here he was—a specter of the man she once knew.

He had been radiant once, his icy blue eyes and elven grace masking the darkness that had always lurked beneath. Now, that mask had fallen away. His eyes, once bright and piercing, were nothing more than endless voids, hollow and cruel. His skin, once kissed by moonlight, had been leeched of all warmth, pale as bone. Whatever remnants of the man she had once trusted, even loved, had long since rotted away.

Aerilaya’s fingers tightened around the hilt of her blade, steady despite the storm of emotions surging within her. He swept his gaze over her, unbothered by the threat of death lingering at his throat. His brow arched slightly, amusement flickering in his darkened eyes, mocking her.

“I was not expecting you,” he mused, his voice smooth but edged with something sinister. His gaze flickered to the silver chain around her neck, where a jewel shimmered, pulsing with an ethereal glow. The flames of the burning ruins around them danced upon its surface, casting fragmented reflections in the suffocating night.

For a brief moment, silence stretched between them—an aching, suffocating thing, heavy with all that had been lost. Then, he smiled. “But it warms my heart to see you, Aerilaya.”

His voice was velvety, almost tender, yet it slithered through the air like a serpent coiling around her. That smile—sickly sweet, a mockery of affection—curved his lips, sending a shiver down her spine.

Aerilaya’s heart pounded in her chest, a war drum beating against her ribs.

“I had hoped to see my daughter once more.”

The words struck her like a dagger, sharp and merciless. Daughter. The title, once sacred, now dripped with something tainted, something wrong. He was no father to her—not anymore.

Her grip on the hilt tightened, fury swallowing hesitation. She pressed the blade harder against his throat, her resolve unwavering. A dark liquid oozed from the tip where steel bit into flesh, thick and viscous, unnatural. It dripped to the ground, sizzling softly against the scorched earth, staining it like ink spilled upon an ancient parchment.

Yet still, he did not flinch. Instead, his smile widened. “You truly are the spitting image of your mother.”

Aerilaya’s face hardened, but the words struck deep, an invisible wound reopened with cruel precision. He spoke of her so freely, as if his hands were not stained with the grief that had driven her to despair. As if he had not been the one who shattered her beyond repair.

A sharp ache settled in Aerilaya’s chest, tightening like a vice around her ribs. She could still remember the way her mother had wept—silent, broken—until sorrow became too great a burden to bear. In her darkest hour, she had whispered her final plea to Nienna, the Lady of Mercy. And Nienna, ever compassionate, had answered.

She had gathered her fëa into her arms, cradling her as a mother would, and guided her into the halls of Mandos, where pain and longing no longer reached. There, at last, she had found peace. A peace Aerilaya had never been granted.

Her grip on the blade never wavered, but something burned behind her emerald eyes—rage, grief, and the unyielding weight of all she had lost.

“You speak so freely of her, snake," Aerilaya spat, her voice sharp as the blade at his throat. "But you were the cause of her pain. Her torture.”

The words trembled on the edge of grief and fury, a storm barely restrained. Her chest ached, her throat burned, but she refused to let the tears fall. Not before him. Not before the one who had shattered her mother beyond repair.

She searched his face, waiting—hoping—for something. A flicker of regret, a shadow of guilt, anything to betray that he was not as hollow as he seemed. But there was nothing. His expression remained untouched, carved from something colder than stone, a mockery of what he had once been.

Her fingers tightened around the hilt, knuckles whitening.

"Do you feel nothing?" she whispered, the question slipping past her lips before she could stop it.

Still, he did not answer.

And that silence was an answer all its own.

Aerilaya's jaw tightened, her emerald eyes narrowing as she stared into the abyss of his gaze. The silence stretched between them, thick with centuries of pain and betrayal, an unspoken chasm neither could cross.

"Nothing," she echoed, her voice barely more than a breath, fragile yet unyielding. "You truly are lost."

A low chuckle rumbled from his throat, but there was no warmth in it—only something hollow, twisted.

"I feel things, Aerilaya," he murmured, his voice smooth as silk, yet frayed at the edges. "I feel the pain of your mother’s absence."

Before she could react, he moved. A sudden shift, swift as a shadow, knocking her back a step as he rose to his full height. He loomed over her now, his presence suffocating, his darkened eyes locked onto hers.

“I ache,” he continued, his voice quieter now, almost wistful. “Because she left this world and went where I could never follow.”

Aerilaya’s breath hitched, her grip tightening on the hilt of her blade. She had spent years imagining what she would say to him if ever they stood face to face again. But the words she had prepared, the accusations, the fury—they faltered against the quiet agony laced beneath his tone.

"You could have followed," she whispered, her voice breaking against the weight of the truth. “You could have gone with her, if only you had listened.”

For the first time, something flickered in his expression—a ghost of something lost. But it was gone just as quickly, swallowed by the darkness he had long since embraced.

Aerilaya had only come to understand the truth of her father’s origins after Erynwyn and Elrond had told her. Her mother had never spoken of it, never uttered a word that might taint the image of the man Aerilaya had once loved with all her being. He had been her anchor, the guiding star by which she measured all others, the standard to which she held the world.

But those days were long gone.

Gone were the stories of a time before creatures roamed this land, before Arda had even settled into its first breath of life. Gone was the father who had once smiled so effortlessly in her mother’s presence, whose very light had radiated for her alone. Aerilaya had spent her life longing for that kind of love—to feel the unshakable bond of two souls woven together by fate itself.

To share in the beauty of Ages spent side by side. To fill them with warmth, happiness, and the promise of a child born of that sacred union.

But her mother had known the truth long before Aerilaya had. She had known that he would never change. That no matter how much light he tried to grasp, the shadow had already claimed him. It had consumed him so entirely that even his choice to live in the light had been a deception.

His greatest deception.

And it had been her mother’s last straw. The last fragile piece of love she had clung to had been smothered by the darkness he had embraced.

Elrond had told Aerilaya that after Eregion fell, her mother had been little more than a shadow of herself—heartbroken, laced with grief. Yet she had endured. She had carried on for Aerilaya’s sake, laying the foundations for her daughter to know only the light.

To ensure that Aerilaya would never fall as he had.

She had taught her to wield her gifts only for virtue, for the betterment of the world. Her power over the elements, particularly over beasts and the living things of the earth, was proof of Yavanna’s blessing. But it was in rare moments of great need that she was granted something more—a gift beyond even her mother’s teachings.

A gift of the stars.

A light so pure it could blot out the deepest shadow. A force that turned any darkened beast or figure from her path. A gift of protection from Varda herself—a preservation of the grace and radiance her mother had instilled within her.

A light that would never bow to the darkness.

Aerilaya's fingers unconsciously ghosted over the jewel resting against her breastbone, feeling its warmth pulse in time with her heartbeat. It was a piece of her mother, a lingering ember of her love and sacrifice, shining defiantly against the darkness that sought to swallow it whole. The silver chain and the gem it held had been forged by none other than the very man before her—the one she once called father. He had created it for her mother when they wed, binding light and shadow together in a union that had long since crumbled into ruin.

Sauron’s eyes followed the movement, a flicker of something passing over his features—hunger, longing, perhaps even possession.

Even now, he wished to claim that piece of her. To seize the last remnant of what had once been his, of the light that had drawn him in, ensnared him in the promise of redemption. The light that, for a fleeting moment, had made him yearn to walk a different path.

But that moment had passed.

Now, he coveted it for what it could do—for the power it held, for what it might grant him. His desire was no longer for the love it once symbolized, but for how he could twist it to serve his will.

Aerilaya’s fingers curled protectively around the jewel, her grip tightening as its warmth pulsed against her palm, steady and resolute. She met Sauron’s gaze, unflinching.

"You cannot have it," she said, her voice low and fierce. "This light was never meant for you."

A shadow passed over Sauron's face, his features contorting, shifting into something cruel and insatiable. "Oh, but it was, Aerilaya," he murmured, his voice like a silken snare. "It was always meant for me. Do you not see? Eru himself wove us into existence together—light and shadow, twined in a harmony that could never be broken."

He stepped forward, slow and deliberate, his presence thick and suffocating. Aerilaya tensed, her blade rising between them in silent warning.

But Sauron paid it no heed. His gaze remained fixed on the jewel at her throat, as though it called to him in ways neither steel nor words could deter.

"I forged that jewel for her," he continued, his voice dipping into something almost reverent. "In a light as pure as Aman itself. It holds a part of me, just as it holds a part of your mother."

His fingers, cold and relentless, reached toward it, seeking to reclaim what he had lost.

Aerilaya jerked back, her grip on the jewel tightening until it burned against her skin. A shudder ran down her spine as his voice slithered closer, each syllable a whispered ghost of a past she refused to acknowledge.

"I vowed to her that night," he murmured, a glint of something dangerous in his darkened eyes. "That she would never be parted from me. Never again."

But she had been.

By her own will.

By the mercy of the Valar.

And Aerilaya would not let him defile that mercy now.

“Let her be at peace. Let her know the light of Aman, for she has suffered too long.”

Aerilaya’s voice wavered, but her resolve did not. Tears spilled down her cheeks in silent streams, tracing paths of grief across her flawless skin. She did not try to stop them. Not now. Not when she was pleading for the one who had given her life, for the mother who had borne the weight of love and loss alike.

“Let her have those memories, those pieces of you that she now finds comfort in. Let her be as she was when we were a family—happy, joyous, full of life.”

Sauron's expression flickered—an unreadable shift in his ever-darkened gaze. A shadow of something long buried, some fractured remnant of a feeling he had once known.

For the briefest moment, he seemed to waver.

“Peace,” he echoed, the word slipping from his lips as though he had never spoken it before, never tasted its meaning. His eyes drifted past Aerilaya, unfocused, searching for something unseen beyond the charred ruins that surrounded them. When he spoke again, his voice was softer, almost distant.

“Do you think she sits in the gardens of Lórien, basking in the light of the Two Trees? That she walks among Melian and the others, free from the burdens of this world?” A bitter smile twisted his lips. “Or does she wander the Halls of Mandos, reliving every moment of her life—every joy, every sorrow?”

His voice, once cold steel, turned to something quieter, something raw.

“Does she remember the warmth of my embrace? The nights we spent whispering dreams to one another? Or has she cast it all away, erased me from her memory as though I never existed?”

Aerilaya’s fingers tightened around the hilt of her sword, her knuckles white with fury.

“You have no right to speak of her,” she hissed, her voice trembling under the weight of barely contained rage. “No right to wonder about her fate when you were the one who drove her to it.”

Sauron’s gaze snapped back to her, the softness vanishing, swallowed whole by something dark and violent.

“I loved her,” he growled, his voice laced with something dangerously close to pain. “More than you could ever understand.”

Aerilaya’s breath hitched, her grief and anger coiling into something sharp, something merciless.

“Love?” she spat the word like venom. “You know nothing of love. You twisted it, tainted it until it was nothing but a weapon in your hands—”

Before she could finish, his hands shot forward, gripping her wrists with an ironclad hold.

The blade fell from her grasp.

The world around them wavered.

And then—

Darkness.

A shift in time, in space. The cold ruins, the fire, the pain—they were gone.

Aerilaya gasped as the world pulled her under, not into blackness, but into something else.

A memory.

One that still lived in the fractured, dying ember of the man he used to be.

Aerilaya blinked, disoriented by the sudden shift. The charred ruins, the suffocating heat of fire and smoke—all of it was gone. In its place, a garden stretched before her, bathed in soft, ethereal light. The air was sweet with the scent of night-blooming flowers, their delicate petals glowing beneath the silver radiance of the stars. A gentle breeze whispered through the towering trees, their silver leaves rustling like a distant melody.

She knew this place, though she did not remember it being as such.

Eregion.

Not as it lay now in ruin, but as it had been in its prime—before shadow and flame had ravaged its beauty, before betrayal had sunk its fangs into the heart of all that was good.

A melodic laugh drifted through the air, light and carefree, like the chiming of distant bells. Aerilaya’s heart clenched as she turned toward the sound. Beneath an archway of intertwined vines and starlit blossoms, she saw her mother.

She was radiant.

Her hair cascaded down her back like liquid starlight, shimmering with an ethereal glow. Her eyes, bright with love and joy, reflected the very light of the stars. She wore a flowing gown of deep cerulean, silver embroidery catching the light like woven constellations. The sight of her, untouched by sorrow, unhardened by grief, stole the breath from Aerilaya’s lungs.

She had never seen her mother like this—so full of life, so unburdened.

And then she saw him.

He stepped into view, his movements fluid and assured, his presence commanding without effort. His arm slipped around her mother’s waist, drawing her close with effortless familiarity. Aerilaya's breath hitched as she gazed upon the face of the man her father had once been.

Mairon.

His eyes—clear and piercing, like the sky over the sea—held no trace of the darkness that would later consume him. They shone with something Aerilaya had never known from him: unguarded devotion. His smile, free of cruelty or cunning, was warm and genuine as he looked upon the woman in his arms.

"Mairon," her mother whispered, reaching up to caress his cheek.

The name struck Aerilaya like a physical blow. Mairon. Not Sauron. Not the monster he had become. But the being he had once been—the one her mother had loved.

She watched, transfixed, as Mairon leaned into her mother’s touch, his eyes closing briefly, as if savoring the warmth of her palm against his skin. When he opened them again, they burned with an intensity that stole even the breath from memory itself.

“My love,” he murmured, his voice a low caress, rich with devotion. “Divine.”

His fingers traced the curve of her cheek before coming to rest upon the jewel at her breastbone—the same jewel that now hung around Aerilaya’s own neck, years later. In this memory, the gem pulsed with a gentle, living light, as though it breathed in tandem with their love.

“Do you remember the day I gave this to you?” Mairon asked, his thumb gliding over its smooth surface.

Her mother smiled, and the sheer beauty of it made Aerilaya’s heart ache. It was a smile untouched by sorrow, unmarred by regret—a sight she scarcely remembered.

Mairon’s gaze drifted downward, his expression softening further as his hand ghosted over the gentle swell of her mother’s stomach. Beneath the flowing fabric, Aerilaya lay, not yet born, cradled in warmth and light.

“My greatest inspiration,” her mother whispered, placing her hand over his. “My light in the darkness. May you wear this, so I am never truly parted from you.”

Her eyes sparkled against his soft gaze, and for a moment, they stood together—whole, unbroken, untouched by the tragedy yet to come.

Aerilaya felt her knees weaken beneath her as she watched.

For the first time in her life, she saw them as they had been.

Before the fall. Before the lies. Before everything was lost.

The vision shattered like fragile glass, dissolving into the acrid air of the present. Aerilaya gasped as the scent of sweet night-blooming flowers faded, replaced by the stench of smoke and ruin. The warmth of a life that once was—one she had never known—slipped through her fingers like sand, leaving only the cold weight of reality.

Sauron—no, Mairon—stood before her, his grip on her wrists loosening. His eyes, no longer the piercing blue of the vision but fathomless voids, searched her face. For a fleeting moment, he seemed unsure, untethered. A man caught between past and present.

"Do you see now?" he whispered, his voice rough, raw with something Aerilaya couldn't name. "Do you understand what was lost?"

Her breath came in ragged gasps, her mind struggling to reconcile the man she had just seen with the being before her. The father who had held her mother so tenderly, who had spoken with devotion, who had placed a reverent hand on the swell of her stomach—where had he gone?

Was he ever truly there?

"I..." she began, but the words caught in her throat. For a moment, the monster before her was gone, replaced by a ghost—a shadow of what could have been. "I see what was," she finally said, her voice wavering. "What you chose to throw away."

Sauron's grip tightened, his fingers pressing into her skin like iron shackles. His eyes darkened, pain flashing behind them before twisting into anger.

"I did not throw it away," he hissed. "It was taken from me."

Aerilaya wrenched free, stumbling back, her hand flying to the jewel at her throat. The warmth of it pulsed against her skin, steady, grounding.

"No," she said, her voice gathering strength. "You chose this path. You chose darkness over her—over us. You deceived her, even when she begged you to turn back."

She swallowed hard, her grief sharp-edged and burning. Then, her eyes locked onto his, ablaze with a fire that once—perhaps—mirrored his own.

"You killed her," Aerilaya whispered, the words laced with quiet fury. "You killed her with grief and sorrow."

Sauron's face contorted, a storm of emotion flickering across his features. For the briefest moment, he looked almost—human. Vulnerable. Lost.

But then, as swiftly as it had come, the moment passed. The mask of cruelty slid back into place.

"You speak of things you do not understand, child," he snarled, his voice like distant thunder. "The choices I made were necessary. The power I sought—it was all for her, for us."

Aerilaya shook her head, tears burning her vision. "No," she whispered. "It was for you. Always for you."

She stepped back, her hand clutching the jewel as its warmth pulsed stronger, as if responding to the storm raging between them.

"She loved you," Aerilaya continued, her voice trembling with the weight of truth. "She believed in you—until the very end. But you twisted that love into something unrecognizable."

Sauron's eyes darkened, a tempest brewing within their depths. For a heartbeat, Aerilaya saw something fracture—a glimpse of the man from the vision, the one her mother had loved, the one who had once spoken her name with reverence.

But it vanished just as quickly, swallowed whole by the abyss.

"You know nothing of what transpired," he snarled, taking a slow, menacing step forward. "Nothing of the choices I was forced to make. Of the sacrifices—"

"Sacrifices?" Aerilaya’s voice sharpened, cutting through the air like a blade. "What did you sacrifice, truly?" Her eyes burned with accusation. "Your conscience?"

Sauron recoiled, his expression flashing with something that might have been pain. A wound long buried, suddenly laid bare.

But then, just as quickly, he recovered. His features hardened into a cold mask of fury.

"You dare speak to me of sacrifice?" he hissed, his voice low, dangerous. "I, who have given everything for the greater order of this world?"

He advanced, his presence suffocating, shadows pooling at his feet like a tide of darkness.

"I offered her the world, Aerilaya," he continued, his voice thick with conviction. "A place where she could walk unshackled by the burden of the Morgoth’s curse. We could have been a family still." His expression twisted, anger warring with something dangerously close to longing. "She threw it away."

Aerilaya did not move. Her heart pounded in her chest, but she stood her ground.

"She wanted none of that," she retorted, her voice steel despite the tremor in her breath. "She wanted you. The real you. Not this..." she gestured at him, her voice thick with sorrow and rage, "this twisted shadow you've become."

For a moment—just a moment—his mask cracked. The glimmer of something human, something aching, flickered behind his darkened gaze.

But then it was gone. Replaced by cold certainty.

"Mairon died long ago," he said, his tone eerily calm. "And even if your mother still saw good in me, it would have never been enough for her."

He sighed, almost as if speaking to himself now.

"She doubted me at every turn," he murmured, his eyes dark, distant. "Held onto petty notions of the being I once was. Redemption is not earned through love. It is earned through peace. Through order."

Aerilaya's heart clenched, a storm of emotions surging through her—grief, fury, pity.

"You still don't understand," she whispered, her voice barely audible.

Sauron’s eyes snapped back to her, narrowing into dark slits of fury. "What don’t I understand, child?" he hissed, his voice low, dangerous—a blade hidden in shadow.

Aerilaya stood firm, though the weight of centuries pressed down upon her shoulders. The chasm of loss and betrayal stretched wide between them, yet she did not waver. Her emerald eyes burned with an unyielding fire, one that would not be swallowed by darkness.

"Love," she said simply. The word hung between them, quiet yet powerful.

Sauron scoffed, but there was something in the way his jaw tensed, in the way his hands curled into fists at his sides—something that betrayed him.

Aerilaya pressed on.

"True love doesn’t seek to change or control," she continued, her voice steady despite the tremor in her heart. "It accepts. It nurtures. It grows."

Her fingers curled protectively around the jewel at her throat, its warmth a steady pulse against her skin, as if her mother’s spirit stirred within it.

"She saw the light in you," Aerilaya said, her voice softening. "Even when you couldn’t see it yourself. She believed in you. She chose to believe that the goodness in you had not been completely consumed by shadow."

Sauron’s expression twisted, his features contorting under the weight of something unspoken.

For a fleeting moment, she saw it—the ghost of the man from the vision. Mairon, standing beneath starlit blossoms, his clear blue eyes alight with devotion, his hands cradling her mother with reverence.

His mask cracked.

Pain flickered across his face, raw and unguarded. His lips parted as if to speak, but no words came.

Then—the moment passed.

A flicker of grief. Then fury.

Sauron’s face hardened, his expression twisting into a snarl of denial, of defiance. His eyes burned with something dark and unrelenting, swallowing whatever brief weakness had surfaced.

"You speak as if love is some divine force," he spat, his voice laced with venom. "Some unshakable power that bends the will of all who encounter it. But love is fragile, Aerilaya. It is fleeting. It fails."

His gaze darkened further, shadows coiling around him like living things.

"And when it fails," he whispered, stepping closer, his voice dangerously low, "it is nothing more than a weapon. A tool to shackle and blind those foolish enough to believe in it."

Aerilaya’s breath caught in her throat, but she refused to step back.

"That’s where you’re wrong," she said, her voice like tempered steel. "Love is not weakness. It is not a weapon. It is the one thing the shadow will never understand."

Sauron's expression flickered—an almost imperceptible hesitation. But then his fury returned, colder than ice, hotter than flame.

"Then you are just as blind as she was," he said.

Aerilaya’s grip on the jewel tightened.

"And you," she whispered, "are more lost than I ever imagined."

For a moment, silence stretched between them, heavy with everything unsaid.

The silence stretched between them, heavy and suffocating, thick with all that had been lost. Aerilaya’s words lingered in the air like a final judgment, reverberating through the shattered ruins around them. For a heartbeat, Sauron remained still, his face carved into an unreadable mask.

Then—he moved.

Faster than a striking viper, his hand shot out, reaching for the jewel at Aerilaya’s throat. His fingers, cold as iron, grazed the silver chain, but she was faster.

With the reflexes honed by centuries of battle and bitter expectation, she twisted away, her grip closing protectively around the gem.

"No," she breathed, her voice barely more than a whisper—yet filled with unyielding resolve.

Sauron’s eyes ignited with fury, but beneath it, something flickered—something darker, rawer. Desperation. Or perhaps—longing.

His gaze burned into hers, his presence suffocating, his form wreathed in shifting shadows.

"Give it to me," he snarled, stalking forward with slow, deliberate steps, a predator cornering its prey. "It was never meant for you."

Aerilaya stood her ground, her heart hammering, but her grip did not falter. She could feel the warmth of the jewel pulsing against her palm, steady, unwavering—a heartbeat not her own.

"This was hers," she said, her voice a quiet storm. "It was forged for her—by you. You cannot take back what was freely given."

Sauron’s face twisted, his expression unreadable, torn between anger and something far more dangerous.

"I forged it," he murmured, his voice low and almost reverent. "I shaped it with my own hands, with light I captured in the fires of my own making. It carries a piece of her—and a piece of me. It belongs to me as much as it ever did to her."

Aerilaya’s fingers tightened around the jewel.

"And yet, she chose to give it to me."

A muscle in Sauron’s jaw tensed. His fingers flexed at his sides, as if struggling to contain himself.

"She is gone," he said at last, his voice quieter now, but no less sharp. "Clutching that trinket will not bring her back."

Aerilaya’s breath shuddered through her, but she lifted her chin, emerald eyes locking onto his with unwavering defiance.

"No," she said, "but it will keep you from defiling what remains of her light."

For a fraction of a second, something flickered in his expression—a shadow of the man from the vision. A sliver of grief, buried so deep beneath centuries of cruelty that it barely existed anymore.

But then, just as quickly, it was gone.

Sauron’s face twisted into a snarl, his eyes darkening into fathomless voids. The air thickened, pressing against Aerilaya like an unseen force, the very atmosphere trembling under the weight of his wrath. Shadows coiled at his feet like living things, writhing, shifting, reaching—hungry.

"You speak of defiling her light?" he hissed, his voice a blade honed to cut deep. "I sought to build altars in her name, for all to revere her as I did. To worship even one like you."

He took a step forward, his presence suffocating, his movements slow and deliberate.

Aerilaya did not move.

Then, to her surprise, he reached for her.

His hand, cold yet impossibly gentle, lifted toward her cheek. She did not flinch.

For this moment alone, she allowed it.

His fingertips brushed her skin, a ghost of a touch—something that might have once been tender, but now felt like a whisper from the past.

"You are as beautiful as Lúthien herself," he murmured, his voice softer now, almost reverent. "A flame of eternal light, carved by the hands that shaped you—the hands of a Moriquendi and a Maia."

Aerilaya’s breath caught, not from fear, but from the weight of the truth in his words. She had always known her lineage, but to hear him speak of it—to acknowledge it, to honor it—felt like standing at the precipice of something ancient and powerful.

But she would not be swayed.

She reached up, her own hand closing around his wrist—not in acceptance, but in restraint.

"You speak of worship," she said, her voice steady, unshaken. "But worship is not love."

His expression flickered, a crack in the stone.

"You claim to have honored her," she continued, her emerald eyes burning. "Yet you destroyed all that she held dear. You claim to have loved her, yet you twisted that love into a cage. And when she could not live within it—you let her die."

A shadow passed over his face, something dark and deep and aching.

His fingers twitched against her cheek—then withdrew.

"You think you know love," he whispered, his voice barely more than breath. "But love is a force far older than you, Aerilaya. Older than even I.” He paused. “I never meant for any of this, never meant to drive her away. I only did as I saw fit.”

The silence between them stretched, thick with centuries of grief and regret. His words had settled between them like the final toll of a bell, reverberating through the shattered remnants of all they had lost.

Sauron—Mairon—stood before her, no longer the unshakable force she had always known him to be. His expression, once so meticulously controlled, had fractured. His shoulders, which had borne the weight of ages, sagged as if the truth she had spoken had finally sunk its fangs into his very soul.

And yet, his eyes—once dark voids of hunger and fury—now shimmered with something Aerilaya had never expected to see.

Tears.

"You're right," he whispered, his voice raw, brittle as glass. "I lied to myself. I twisted the truth until I could no longer see it."

His eyes drifted past her, lost in the ghosts of what had been. "I loved her," he continued, his voice breaking under the weight of the admission. "More than anything in this world or beyond it. But I was afraid."

Aerilaya’s breath caught in her throat. She had never imagined she would hear such words from him, the being she had spent a century despising, the one she had blamed for all her mother’s suffering.

"Afraid of what?" she asked softly, hardly daring to believe this moment of vulnerability.

Sauron's gaze remained distant, unfocused, as if he could still see her mother standing before him, radiant in her love.

"Of losing her," he murmured. "Of being unworthy of her light. I thought... if I could reshape the world, make it perfect, then perhaps..."

His voice faltered, dissolving into silence. He looked lost—adrift in memories of what could have been.

Aerilaya swallowed against the lump in her throat. Despite everything—despite the devastation he had wrought, despite the choices he had made—she ached for him. For the father she had never truly known, the man who had once cradled her in reverent hands, who had adored her mother beyond reason.

"But you did lose her," Aerilaya whispered. "By trying to control her, to reshape her world, you pushed her away."

Sauron's eyes snapped back to hers, a storm raging behind them. "I never meant—" he began, but the words faltered, as if they no longer held weight.

For a long moment, the air between them was thick with everything unsaid, everything too late to change.

Then, slowly, hesitantly, Sauron reached out.

His fingers trembled as they hovered near the jewel at Aerilaya's throat—the very last remnant of her mother, the final link to a love long buried beneath centuries of ruin.

"May I?" he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

Aerilaya hesitated. Her instincts screamed to refuse, to pull away, to protect this piece of her mother from the very man who had driven her to despair.

But then she saw it—the vulnerability in his gaze, the unspoken plea buried beneath the weight of all his sins.

Slowly, she nodded.

His fingers brushed against the jewel, and in an instant, it pulsed with a brilliant, ethereal light. A warmth unlike anything Aerilaya had ever felt surged through her, spreading from the gem and wrapping around her like an embrace. A love so pure, so fierce, it stole the breath from her lungs.

Sauron gasped softly, his eyes widening in something like awe.

"She’s still here," he murmured, his voice thick with wonder and grief. "After all this time..."

His fingers lingered on the jewel, and for the first time in all her years, Aerilaya saw the impossible.

A single tear slipped down his cheek.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, his voice breaking. "I'm so sorry."

The words hung in the air between them, fragile and raw. A confession years too late, yet filled with a depth of pain Aerilaya had never known he was capable of.

Her hand moved of its own accord, covering his where it rested on the jewel. Its warmth pulsed beneath their joined fingers, a steady heartbeat of light and memory.

"She loved you," Aerilaya said softly, her own tears falling freely now. "Even at the end. Even when it broke her heart."

Sauron's eyes met hers, and for the first time, she saw the full depth of his torment—centuries of longing, of regret, of sorrow so vast it threatened to consume him whole.

How long had he endured, shackled by the choices he had made? How many times had he dreamed of her mother, only to wake in the darkness of his own making? How much had it destroyed him to know she had chosen peace over him?

Aerilaya saw him now—not as the tyrant, not as the Dark Lord, not as the shadow looming over Middle-earth.

But as a man.

A man who had once held everything—and lost it all.

Her grip on the jewel tightened, and she took a shaky breath.

"Is this what you wanted?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

Sauron blinked, his brow furrowing. "...What?"

"This," she gestured around them—the ruin, the darkness, the power that weighed so heavily upon him. "Did it bring you what you wanted? Did it ever fill the emptiness?"

A muscle in Sauron’s jaw twitched. He looked away, but not before she saw it—the hesitation, the doubt.

The answer was there, unspoken.

And for the first time, Aerilaya saw it.

He did not know.

For all his centuries of conquest, for all his hunger for dominion, he did not know if it had ever been worth it.

And that was the greatest tragedy of all.

#sauron x reader #sauron #annatar x reader #annatar #trop fic #rings of power fic #the rings of power

57 notes · View notes

blackcrystalball · 10 months ago

Text

Fig/Emily's "I want to see you dead" rant at Ruben may as well have been a high level viscous mockery. She fucking flayed him lmao.

#lexi's diary #dimension 20 #d20 #fantasy high #fantasy high junior year #d20 fantasy high #fhjy #d20 fhjy #emily axford #figeroth faeth #fig faeth

176 notes · View notes

dobbie-doo · 3 months ago

Text

˗ˏˋ ꒰ YOUR GENTLE MADNESS꒱ ˎˊ˗ ballader/wanderer

pt I - pt II

Scaramouche loves you - incorrectly, abnormally. As if he were putting out cigarettes and licking burns, breaking your bones and knitting them in his own way..

✧ warnings — singer ! fem ! reader, dark content, stalking, dead (not reader ofc), unhealthy attitude, angst, psychological abuse n some yandere shit . ✧ a/n — I want to portray it not as psychopathological madness, but as selfishness and tenderness in one bottle and control of emotions over actions. On the victim's side, there is a heavy contradiction, doubts and Stockholm syndrome.

Enjoy and be careful reading!

Scaramouche is not one to sacrifice his time, running through the shadows of alleys and trying to be more attentive for the sake of a foolish mortal girl.

Someone inside him laughs sarcastically - a pathetic lie.

This is exactly what the harbinger does. At first, quietly, completely unnoticeably, he watches from afar, being carried away by the color of your eyes, or the shimmering ringing scattering of your voice. Scaramouche catches with his gaze the girl's half-smile, the sliding gait and the heap of unruly hair, braided into (your hairstyle)

You appear every shift in different corners of the island of Narukami and the main city, one way or another near the village of Konda, and for a long time you sing intricate tunes with a fairy-tale flair, while you are showered with mora

The balladeer finds it as pitiful as it is natural, because the ringing of the coins, their shimmer and shine when they are next to your slender legs, dressed in attractive stockings, all merge with your shining skin, your alluring eyes and interesting appearance, with an image worked out to the last detail.

A well-planned show. And one cannot help but notice how you, seemingly opening up to people, while your gaze is just as cold and far from participation, preserve your mystery.

Your little mortal soul sees him for the first time out of the corner of its eye and does not even attach any importance to it. He, leaning against the wall in a large hat and dark clothes, is erased from memory like a haze on the surface of the water. And Scaramouche can no longer deny himself the mischief and get to your hidden essence.

And more to come. He follows on your heels, finds you in all parts of Inazuma.

With each subsequent day, the harbinger appears more often. Now you can't just forget him, and now you allow yourself to watch him back, squinting invitingly as you shower everyone with your beautiful voice, moving to the music on stage. He smiles slyly back, a silvery glint in his gaze. You mistake it for curiosity.

Scaramouche is really trying to be gentle with you. As much as he can.

The lanterns are lit in Inazuma as you finish your song and, to the satisfied hum of the crowd, you gather your mora, disappearing between the houses and exiting the city onto the main path. His voice bounces off the expanses of Teyvat in a dull echo.

"Aren't you afraid of running into a wild kitsune at such a late hour?"

"What? Feel like keeping company?" - You immediately slyly respond to his mockery.

To all the sarcastic comments and stinging reproaches, you willingly echo him in the same way. Puppet laughs to himself: it is so funny that you perceive his words as a challenge.

Y/N…

Your name spills on his tongue like a viscous, bitter molasses.

And it is the only name in his entire life that he will carve into his memory until bloody scars.

Scaramouche is not one to place such a high value on mortals.

However, he understands that he is not so much captivated by your mischievous eyes or your melodious voice, as by all of you.

"I visited Ritou recently," you say casually.

Balladeer of course, knows.

You turn to him and slyly pull the corners of your lips.

Inside, Scaramouche trembles as the sun reflects off the chrysalite of your eyes and illuminates your face as brightly as you illuminate his darkness with a smile.

"I met a guy, he seems nice," he tilts his head in anticipation.

"Nice?" He looks falsely surprised.

"Do you really think so, sunshine?"

You shrug. - "His eyes are beautiful, like amber gold."

"It's stupid to play with fire," Scaramouche exhales into your neck, very close. "And don't even try to disappear, deciding to run away."

"I didn't plan to," you grin, but After a long look from Scaramouche, you add: "Okay, okay, I promise not to run away. Any more instructions?" You ask mockingly.

"Don't let yourself be shared with others."

You roll your eyes. You should take this more seriously, but you're too used to this kind of commanding tone from Scaramouche. You, stupid fox, perceive it as a game that tugs at the strings of your soul.

"And where do you even get the right to be jealous.."

Your feigned indifference and arrogance mix with bright flashes of sympathy and traces of embarrassment on your cheeks. You admit to yourself that you like him - not with a passionate hurricane feeling, on the contrary, routinely, but inevitably. This knowledge brings the harbinger to an exciting saturation.

He creeps up on all the bolts of your soul like a predator, and someone else's sincerity is a sweet poison. Help yourself, my dear demons in the dark. Demons willingly accept and ask for more, only everything suddenly falls out of their hands and bursting at the seams, seeing you with that worthless man. Again.

Wasn't he merciful to you?

Scaramouche takes his eyes, as if he were plucking ripe berries from a bush, and crushes them in his hands, melting this amber gold with his icy rage.

He wrings someone else's neck under the screams of the victim and your frightened look.

He is not one to forgive a mistake.

And despite this, puppet gently cups your face in his palms, leaving bloody streaks on your skin, and says irritably:

"I warned you, didn't I?" You look at him nervously and see nothing but blood stains and cruelty. You can't breathe in or out.

"Oh, so you can't say a word because you feel guilty?" Scaramouche adds caustically. His fingers slowly, almost lovingly stroke your cheeks, but you feel nothing. You yourself seem to be at the bottom, completely lost. You stop feeling your body and are left alone with a visual nightmare and a dry throat.

"I," you exhale with titanic efforts. "got it."

"I won't do it anymore.." You forcefully pull the words out of yourself as if with pliers.

"Ha-ha-ha!" His laughter, sincere, condescending, the kind that happens when a child does stupid things, thereby amusing you. You glance sideways and see behind Scaramouche, the lifeless body of a familiar guy. You feel nausea approaching.

"Don't act like an fool,little one, it doesn't suit you. We both know that I can't trust you anymore." You know, but you don't want to believe it. How could this happen? How could you cross paths with the wrong person. How could you — feel lovestick to him — how?!

Scaramouche brushes your hair away from your face, smearing blood across your skin and staining your hair, and peers into your face with his indigo eyes, which you used to look at so lovingly.

"Don't tell me you felt sick from the sight of blood and someone else's death," He sarcastically pulls and rolls his eyes. — "Forget about him and let's go, you look bad."

And he pulls you like an obedient doll. You are scared of what has fallen on you and chained you, but you are even more horrified by the familiar, harmless tone of the harbinger, as if everything is as before. He is just as kindly sarcastic and playful, and you — caustic and sharp-tongued. A stunning symbiosis.

Only the system was initially flawed - Scaramouche never tried to appear kind.

in the third part it will be… tough, it will be really tough.

@comesatimecomesashadow @anantaru @hitomisuzuya @lavandulawrites @himasgod @neuvigroove @quimichi @rsventhesecondd @anemoswirlsmyheart @nil4everheartz @kujiba @genshingorlsrevengeance @ashyashylee

#genshin impact #genshin x reader #yandere scaramouche #yandere scaramouche x reader #scaramouche x reader

74 notes · View notes