#when shes cruel to the elderly and children >>>>

[pcktknife]

oh so boa is miss pretty privilege I see

[queenlucythevaliant]

Tell Your Dad You Love Him

A retelling of "Meat Loves Salt"/"Cap O'Rushes" for the @inklings-challenge Four Loves event

An old king had three daughters. When his health began to fail, he summoned them, and they came.

Gordonia and Rowan were already waiting in the hallway when Coriander arrived. They were leaned up against the wall opposite the king’s office with an air of affected casualness. “I wonder what the old war horse wants today?” Rowan was saying. “More about next year’s political appointments, I shouldn’t wonder.”

“The older he gets, the more he micromanages,” Gordonia groused fondly. “A thousand dollars says this meeting could’ve been an email.”

They filed in single-file like they’d so often done as children: Gordonia first, then Rowan, and Coriander last of all. The king had placed three chairs in front of his desk all in a row. His daughters murmured their greetings, and one by one they sat down. 

“I have divided everything I have in three,” the king said. “I am old now, and it’s time. Today, I will pass my kingdom on to you, my daughters.”

A short gasp came from Gordonia. None of them could have imagined that their father would give up running his kingdom while he still lived. 

The king went on. “I know you will deal wisely with that which I leave in your care. But before we begin, I have one request.”

“Yes father?” said Rowan.

“Tell me how much you love me.”

An awkward silence fell. Although there was no shortage of love between the king and his daughters, theirs was not a family which spoke of such things. They were rich and blue-blooded: a soldier and the daughters of a soldier, a king and his three court-reared princesses. The royal family had always shown their affection through double meanings and hot cups of coffee.

Gordonia recovered herself first. She leaned forward over the desk and clasped her father’s hands in her own. “Father,” she said, “I love you more than I can say.” A pause. “I don’t think there’s ever been a family so happy in love as we have been. You’re a good dad.”

The old king smiled and patted her hand. “Thank you, Gordonia. We have been very happy, haven’t we? Here is your inheritance. Cherish it, as I cherish you.”

Rowan spoke next; the words came tumbling out.  “Father! There’s not a thing in my life which you didn’t give me, and all the joy in the world beside. Come now, Gordonia, there’s no need to understate the matter. I love you more than—why, more than life itself!”

The king laughed, and rose to embrace his second daughter. “How you delight me, Rowan. All of this will be yours.”

Only Coriander remained. As her sisters had spoken, she’d wrung her hands in her lap, unsure of what to say. Did her father really mean for flattery to be the price of her inheritance? That just wasn’t like him. For all that he was a politician, he’d been a soldier first. He liked it when people told the truth.

When the king’s eyes came to rest on her, Coriander raised her own to meet them. “Do you really want to hear what you already know?” 

“I do.”

She searched for a metaphor that could carry the weight of her love without unnecessary adornment. At last she found one, and nodded, satisfied. “Dad, you’re like—like salt in my food.”

“Like salt?”

“Well—yes.”

The king’s broad shoulders seemed to droop. For a moment, Coriander almost took back her words. Her father was the strongest man in the world, even now, at eighty. She’d watched him argue with foreign rulers and wage wars all her life. Nothing could hurt him. Could he really be upset? 

But no. Coriander held her father’s gaze. She had spoken true. What harm could be in that?

“I don’t know why you’re even here, Cor,” her father said.

Now, Coriander shifted slightly in her seat, unnerved. “What? Father—”

“It would be best if—you should go,” said the old king.

“Father, you can’t really mean–”

“Leave us, Coriander.”

So she left the king’s court that very hour.

 .

It had been a long time since she’d gone anywhere without a chauffeur to drive her, but Coriander’s thoughts were flying apart too fast for her to be afraid. She didn’t know where she would go, but she would make do, and maybe someday her father would puzzle out her metaphor and call her home to him. Coriander had to hope for that, at least. The loss of her inheritance didn’t feel real yet, but her father—how could he not know that she loved him? She’d said it every day.

She’d played in the hall outside that same office as a child. She’d told him her secrets and her fears and sent him pictures on random Tuesdays when they were in different cities just because. She had watched him triumph in conference rooms and on the battlefield and she’d wanted so badly to be like him. 

If her father doubted her love, then maybe he’d never noticed any of it. Maybe the love had been an unnoticed phantasm, a shadow, a song sung to a deaf man. Maybe all that love had been nothing at all.  

A storm was on the horizon, and it reached her just as she made it onto the highway. Lightning flashed and thunder rolled. Rain poured down and flooded the road. Before long, Coriander was hydroplaning. Frantically, she tried to remember what you were supposed to do when that happened. Pump the brakes? She tried. No use. Wasn’t there something different you did if the car had antilock brakes? Or was that for snow? What else, what else–

With a sickening crunch, her car hit the guardrail. No matter. Coriander’s thoughts were all frenzied and distant. She climbed out of the car and just started walking.

Coriander wandered beneath an angry sky on the great white plains of her father’s kingdom. The rain beat down hard, and within seconds she was soaked to the skin. The storm buffeted her long hair around her head. It tangled together into long, matted cords that hung limp down her back. Mud soiled her fine dress and splattered onto her face and hands. There was water in her lungs and it hurt to breathe. Oh, let me die here, Coriander thought. There’s nothing left for me, nothing at all. She kept walking.

 .

When she opened her eyes, Coriander found herself in a dank gray loft. She was lying on a strange feather mattress.

She remained there a while, looking up at the rafters and wondering where she could be. She thought and felt, as it seemed, through a heavy and impenetrable mist; she was aware only of hunger and weakness and a dreadful chill (though she was all wrapped in blankets). She knew that a long time must have passed since she was fully aware, though she had a confused memory of wandering beside the highway in a thunderstorm, slowly going mad because—because— oh, there’d been something terrible in her dreams. Her father, shoulders drooping at his desk, and her sisters happily come into their inheritance, and she cast into exile—

She shuddered and sat up dizzily. “Oh, mercy,” she murmured. She hadn’t been dreaming.

She stumbled out of the loft down a narrow flight of stairs and came into a strange little room with a single window and a few shabby chairs. Still clinging to the rail, she heard a ruckus from nearby and then footsteps. A plump woman came running to her from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron and softly clucking at the state of her guest’s matted, tangled hair.

“Dear, dear,” said the woman. “Here’s my hand, if you’re still unsteady. That’s good, good. Don’t be afraid, child. I’m Katherine, and my husband is Folke. He found you collapsed by the goose-pond night before last. I’m she who dressed you—your fine gown was ruined, I’m afraid. Would you like some breakfast? There’s coffee on the counter, and we’ll have porridge in a minute if you’re patient.”

“Thank you,” Coriander rasped.

“Will you tell me your name, my dear?”

“I have no name. There’s nothing to tell.”

Katherine clicked her tongue. “That’s alright, no need to worry. Folke and I’ve been calling you Rush on account of your poor hair. I don’t know if you’ve seen yourself, but it looks a lot like river rushes. No, don’t get up. Here’s your breakfast, dear.”

There was indeed porridge, as Katherine had promised, served with cream and berries from the garden. Coriander ate hungrily and tasted very little. Then, when she was finished, the goodwife ushered her over to a sofa by the window and put a pillow beneath her head. Coriander thanked her, and promptly fell asleep.

 .

She woke again around noon, with the pounding in her head much subsided. She woke feeling herself again, to visions of her father inches away and the sound of his voice cracking across her name.

Katherine was outside in the garden; Coriander could see her through the clouded window above her. She rose and, upon finding herself still in a borrowed nightgown, wrapped herself in a blanket to venture outside.

“Feeling better?” Katherine was kneeling in a patch of lavender, but she half rose when she heard the cottage door open.

“Much. Thank you, ma’am.

“No thanks necessary. Folke and I are ministers, of a kind. We keep this cottage for lost and wandering souls. You’re free to remain here with us for as long as you need.”

“Oh,” was all Coriander could think to say. 

“You’ve been through a tempest, haven’t you? Are you well enough to tell me where you came from?”

Coriander shifted uncomfortably. “I’m from nowhere,” she said. “I have nothing.”

“You don’t owe me your story, child. I should like to hear it, but it will keep till you’re ready. Now, why don’t you put on some proper clothes and come help me with this weeding.”

 .

Coriander remained at the cottage with Katherine and her husband Folke for a week, then a fortnight. She slept in the loft and rose with the sun to help Folke herd the geese to the pond. After, Coriander would return and see what needed doing around the cottage. She liked helping Katherine in the garden.

The grass turned gold and the geese’s thick winter down began to come in. Coriander’s river-rush hair proved itself unsalvageable. She spent hours trying to untangle it, first with a hairbrush, then with a fine-tooth comb and a bottle of conditioner, and eventually even with honey and olive oil (a home remedy that Folke said his mother used to use). So, at last, Coriander surrendered to the inevitable and gave Katherine permission to cut it off. One night, by the yellow light of the bare bulb that hung over the kitchen table, Katherine draped a towel over Coriander’s shoulders and tufts of gold went falling to the floor all round her.

“I’m here because I failed at love,” she managed to tell the couple at last, when her sorrows began to feel more distant. “I loved my father, and he knew it not.”

Folke and Katherine still called her Rush. She didn’t correct them. Coriander was the name her parents gave her. It was the name her father had called her when she was six and racing down the stairs to meet him when he came home from Europe, and at ten when she showed him the new song she’d learned to play on the harp. She’d been Cor when she brought her first boyfriend home and Cori the first time she shadowed him at court. Coriander, Coriander, when she came home from college the first time and he’d hugged her with bruising strength. Her strong, powerful father.

As she seasoned a pot of soup for supper, she wondered if he understood yet what she’d meant when she called him salt in her food. 

 .

Coriander had been living with Katherine and Folke for two years, and it was a morning just like any other. She was in the kitchen brewing a pot of coffee when Folke tossed the newspaper on the table and started rummaging in the fridge for his orange juice. “Looks like the old king’s sick again,” he commented casually. Coriander froze.

She raced to the table and seized hold of the paper. There, above the fold, big black letters said, KING ADMITTED TO HOSPITAL FOR EMERGENCY TREATMENT. There was a picture of her father, looking older than she’d ever seen him. Her knees went wobbly and then suddenly the room was sideways.

Strong arms caught her and hauled her upright. “What’s wrong, Rush?”

“What if he dies,” she choked out. “What if he dies and I never got to tell him?”

She looked up into Folke’s puzzled face, and then the whole sorry story came tumbling out.

When she was through, Katherine (who had come downstairs sometime between salt and the storm) took hold of her hand and kissed it. “Bless you, dear,” she said. “I never would have guessed. Maybe it’s best that you’ve both had some time to think things over.”

Katherine shook her head. “But don’t you think…?”

“Yes?”

“Well, don’t you think he should have known that I loved him? I shouldn’t have needed to say it. He’s my father. He’s the king.”

Katherine replied briskly, as though the answer should have been obvious. “He’s only human, child, for all that he might wear a crown; he’s not omniscient. Why didn’t you tell your father what he wanted to hear?”

“I didn’t want to flatter him,” said Coriander. “That was all. I wanted to be right in what I said.”

The goodwife clucked softly. “Oh dear. Don’t you know that sometimes, it’s more important to be kind than to be right?”

.

In her leave-taking, Coriander tried to tell Katherine and Folke how grateful she was to them, but they wouldn’t let her. They bought her a bus ticket and sent her on her way towards King’s City with plenty of provisions. Two days later, Coriander stood on the back steps of one of the palace outbuildings with her little carpetbag clutched in her hands. 

Stuffing down the fear of being recognized, Coriander squared her shoulders and hoped they looked as strong as her father’s. She rapped on the door, and presently a maid came and opened it. The maid glanced Coriander up and down, but after a moment it was clear that her disguise held. With all her long hair shorn off, she must have looked like any other girl come in off the street.

“I’m here about a job,” said Coriander. “My name’s Rush.”

 .

The king's chambers were half-lit when Coriander brought him his supper, dressed in her servants’ apparel. He grunted when she knocked and gestured with a cane towards his bedside table. His hair was snow-white and he was sitting in bed with his work spread across a lap-desk. His motions were very slow.

Coriander wanted to cry, seeing her father like that. Yet somehow, she managed to school her face. Like he would, she kept telling herself. Stoically, she put down the supper tray, then stepped back out into the hallway. 

It was several minutes more before the king was ready to eat. Coriander heard papers being shuffled, probably filed in those same manilla folders her father had always used. In the hall, Coriander felt the seconds lengthen. She steeled herself for the moment she knew was coming, when the king would call out in irritation, “Girl! What's the matter with my food? Why hasn’t it got any taste?”

When that moment came, all would be made right. Coriander would go into the room and taste his food. “Why,” she would say, with a look of complete innocence, “It seems the kitchen forgot to salt it!” She imagined how her father’s face would change when he finally understood. My daughter always loved me, he would say. 

Soon, soon. It would happen soon. Any second now. 

The moment never came. Instead, the floor creaked, followed by the rough sound of a cane striking the floor. The door opened, and then the king was there, his mighty shoulders shaking. “Coriander,” he whispered. 

“Dad. You know me?”

“Of course.”

“Then you understand now?”

The king’s wrinkled brow knit. “Understand about the salt? Of course, I do. It wasn't such a clever riddle. There was surely no need to ruin my supper with a demonstration.”

Coriander gaped at him. She'd expected questions, explanations, maybe apologies for sending her away. She'd never imagined this.

She wanted very badly to seize her father and demand answers, but then she looked, really looked, at the way he was leaning on his cane. The king was barely upright; his white head was bent low. Her questions would hold until she'd helped her father back into his room. 

“If you knew what I meant–by saying you were like salt in my food– then why did you tell me to go?” she asked once they were situated back in the royal quarters. 

Idly, the king picked at his unseasoned food. “I shouldn’t have done that. Forgive me, Coriander. My anger and hurt got the better of me, and it has brought me much grief. I never expected you to stay away for so long.”

Coriander nodded slowly. Her father's words had always carried such fierce authority. She'd never thought to question if he really meant what he’d said to her. 

“As for the salt,” continued the king, "Is it so wrong that an old man should want to hear his daughters say ‘I love you' before he dies?” 

Coriander rolled the words around in her head, trying to make sense of them. Then, with a sudden mewling sound from her throat, she managed to say, “That's really all you wanted?”  

“That's all. I am old, Cor, and we've spoken too little of love in our house.” He took another bite of his unsalted supper. His hand shook. “That was my failing, I suppose. Perhaps if I’d said it, you girls would have thought to say it back.”

“But father!” gasped Coriander, “That’s not right. We've always known we loved one another! We've shown it a thousand ways. Why, I've spent the last year cataloging them in my head, and I've still not even scratched the surface!”

The king sighed. “Perhaps you will understand when your time comes. I knew, and yet I didn't. What can you really call a thing you’ve never named? How do you know it exists? Perhaps all the love I thought I knew was only a figment.”

“But that’s what I’ve been afraid of all this time,” Coriander bit back. “How could you doubt? If it was real at all– how could you doubt?”

The king’s weathered face grew still. His eyes fell shut and he squeezed them. “Death is close to me, child. A small measure of reassurance is not so very much to ask.”

.

Coriander slept in her old rooms that night. None of it had changed. When she woke the next morning, for a moment she remembered nothing of the last two years. 

She breakfasted in the garden with her father, who came down the steps in a chair-lift. “Coriander,” he murmured. “I half-thought I dreamed you last night.”

“I’m here, Dad,” she replied. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Slowly, the king reached out with one withered hand and caressed Coriander's cheek. Then, his fingers drifted up to what remained of her hair. He ruffled it, then gently tugged on a tuft the way he'd used to playfully tug her long braid when she was a girl. 

“I love you,” he said.

“That was always an I love you, wasn’t it?” replied Coriander. “My hair.”

The king nodded. “Yes, I think it was.”

So Coriander reached out and gently tugged the white hairs of his beard. “You too,” she whispered.

.

“Why salt?” The king was sitting by the fire in his rooms wrapped in two blankets. Coriander was with him, enduring the sweltering heat of the room without complaint. 

She frowned. “You like honesty. We have that in common. I was trying to be honest–accurate–to avoid false flattery.”

The king tugged at the outer blanket, saying nothing. His lips thinned and his eyes dropped to his lap. Coriander wished they wouldn’t. She wished they would hold to hers, steely and ready for combat as they always used to be.

“Would it really have been false?” the king said at last. “Was there no other honest way to say it? Only salt?”

Coriander wanted to deny it, to give speech to the depth and breadth of her love, but once again words failed her. “It was my fault,” she said. “I didn’t know how to heave my heart into my throat.” She still didn’t, for all she wanted to. 

.

When the doctor left, the king was almost too tired to talk. His words came slowly, slurred at the edges and disconnected, like drops of water from a leaky faucet. 

Still, Coriander could tell that he had something to say. She waited patiently as his lips and tongue struggled to form the words. “Love you… so… much… You… and… your sisters… Don’t… worry… if you… can’t…say…how…much. I… know.” 

It was all effort. The king sat back when he was finished. Something was still spasming in his throat, and Coriander wanted to cry.

“I’m glad you know,” she said. “I’m glad. But I still want to tell you.”

Love was effort. If her father wanted words, she would give him words. True words. Kind words. She would try… 

“I love you like salt in my food. You're desperately important to me, and you've always been there, and I don't know what I'll do without you. I don’t want to lose you. And I love you like the soil in a garden. Like rain in the spring. Like a hero. You have the strongest shoulders of anyone I know, and all I ever wanted was to be like you…”

A warm smile spread across the old king’s face. His eyes drifted shut.

[starryevermore]

my pain fits in the palm of your freezing hand ✧ azriel

angst city™ library | send in a request (consult request faqs first)

pairing: azriel x vanserra!fem!reader

summary: azriel tries to fix the mess he made. you almost let him. 

word count: 4,529

warnings?: angst city™ bitch, dual povs, threats of death, traumatic childbirth, azriel begging for forgiveness, open ending, there will be no other parts to this, not proofread

PART ONE

As the only daughter of Autumn, your relationship with your brothers was quite different than their relationships with each other. You were no threat to the throne. A female could never be High Lord. Yet, that did not let you free from Beron’s iron tight grip on his family and their perception by Prythian. The only thing a female was good for was marrying well and producing children. If you ever proved yourself to be an embarrassment to the Vanserra family, you learned the limitless bounds of the former High Lord’s wrath. Your brothers would be there to help mend you, offering comfort in the best ways they could. It wasn’t much, but it meant a lot to you. 

It damn near broke your heart when you realized you had to leave them behind to be with your mate. Beron would never—ever—allow you to be mated to an Illyrian brute. Knowing that your brothers would only be hurt if you told them, you decided that Eris was the best option in confiding your plan to run. Together, you left a note saying that you were leaving to be with your mate and he helped you cross Autumn’s border. You prayed to the Mother that Beron was not too cruel to him, or your other brothers, when he discovered your disappearance. You knew you would likely not see them again, and you hoped they might forgive you for that. Then everything Under the Mountain happened—you were trapped in Velaris for fifty years, all too aware that you would never find out if they did. 

That was the one blessing, you supposed, of returning to the Autumn Court all these decades later. With Beron gone and Eris as High Lord, it was easy to fall back in with your family. Though Eris was ready to march down to the Night Court and burn Azriel where he stood, and your other brothers were ready to follow, things calmed down in the end. The rage still simmered, hovering just below the surface. All it would take was one wrong move by the Night Court and any alliances Eris had previously forged would go up in smoke.

Despite your request for no further correspondence, the Night Court continued to periodically reach out to you. Mostly Feyre because she had been your friend, but occasionally Rhys who would inquire about the status of your pregnancy. Though he never said it outright, you knew it was to find out if your babe had wings. His motives, you were unsure. Was it out of concern for your wellbeing? You recalled how panicked he had been during Feyre’s pregnancy. Perhaps he was worried about you for your sake. A larger part of you thought it was out of concern for his brother. That if your babe had wings, then it would mean you would surely die. And if you were to die, could you find it in your heart to let your mate be by your side one last time? Your skin itched at the thought of Azriel anywhere near your babe. 

Truthfully, you didn’t know. Whenever your healer, a kind elderly fae named Brigid, would ask if you wanted to know, you would always decline. You didn’t want to experience your pregnancy knowing there was an expiration date. You wanted to live it, to enjoy it. Because Nesta could not bargain with the Cauldron any longer. Not even her, in all her power, could save you. You would rather spend your final days healing from Azriel’s betrayal and preparing for the birth of your child than worry about the inevitable. 

Besides, you were worried that the loyal shadow wound up wrist would run to Azriel at the first sign of harm to you. 

Eris was not fond of that choice. He was certain that he could find a way to save your life should it come down to it. You were less convinced. But he was a prideful male, and you had learned long ago to not get in the way of a male’s ego. If he wanted to be delusional, so be it. That didn’t mean you had to feed into those delusions. 

Today, however, was a day of celebration. The Fall Equinox had come and so the Forest House was alive with fae from across the courts. The Night Court wasn’t present—hadn’t even been extended an invitation, if Eris was to be believed. You admired his loyalty to you, but you knew the Night Court was not an enemy to be made. To be their ally was to be protected. In a land still wrought from the effects of Amarantha and the King of Hybern, it would be too costly to be making enemies of a court so powerful. 

You ignored those concerns today, trying to focus on the festivities. It was hard to enjoy them. You were at the end of your pregnancy. Brigid had warned against your attendance, arguing that you needed to rest. But you were stubborn like your brothers. If you wanted one more night of revelry, you should have it. 

That was, ultimately, your downfall. 

You were dancing with one of your brothers, Crispin. Or, at the very least, dancing the best you could. You were sure it looked pathetic—a far cry from the elegance Beron beat into you. You were having too much fun to care. So much fun, you almost missed the pain shooting through. 

You couldn’t help the gasp that escaped your lips. Crispin froze, extending his arms out to help steady you. “What’s wrong?” he asked. “Do you need to sit?”

“The babe—there’s something wrong with the babe,” you manage, keeling over from the pain.

“Give me one godsdamned reason not to gut you where you stand.”

Azriel barely glanced up at the male in his house. It was only a matter of time, he mused, before one of your brothers came for him. For some reason, Lucien hadn’t been particularly high on the list he made, ranking the likelihood of each brother to come breaking down the door. Mostly because Lucien spent most of his time in the mortal lands, far away from news of what Azriel had done. But, eventually, all word gets out. 

“Because I deserve a more painful death than gutting me would provide.”

Lucien’s hand wound itself in Azriel’s hair, yanking it back. A blade pressed against his throat. “Damned right you do. She was always too fucking good for you.”

“I know.”

“Do you know how many males would kill for a mate as kind as her? Do you know how many males begged Beron for her hand? You are lucky she ever spared you the time of day,” Lucien hissed. 

Again, Azriel said, “I know.”

And he did. Mother above, he did. Every day of the last nine months, Azriel had been kicking himself for treating you the way he did. How had he misread all of the signs? Why did he let his anxieties, his worries of not being good enough for you, cloud his judgment? Azriel found himself wishing he could turn back time, stop himself from ruining the best thing he ever had. 

Now, he was left in the dark. His friends scarcely spoke to him. Ever since Feyre and Rhys learned of his accusations, word spread among the Inner Circle. Cassian looked at him like he didn’t even know his brother. Mor sneered the first time she saw him. Amren hadn’t said a word to him. And Nesta…He was sure she was going to rip his wings off and throw him off the House of Wind. Even Elain looked at him as if he were a monster. Sometimes, though, Feyre would fill him in on the few replies you sent to her letters. And if he asked pathetically enough, Rhys would send you inquiries about your wellbeing. Those never got a reply. 

Azriel almost wished he had a mission to go on to distract himself. To able to take his pain out on another helpless soul. But Rhys had barred him from his work. A punishment for his actions, Azriel was sure. Rhysand would never call it that. Always said something about giving Azriel time to reflect. But Azriel was tired of reflecting. Reflection wouldn’t undo what he did. Reflection wouldn’t bring you back. 

“You’re a pathetic excuse for a male,” Lucien spat. “Hybern should have killed you. It would have spared the rest of us from your waste of a life.”

He squeezed his eyes shut. It would have killed you, he was sure, if he had died. But at least you would know he loved you. At least you wouldn’t be aching because your mate proved he didn’t trust you. You wouldn’t have your babe, but at least you could be assured that Azriel would never accuse you of infidelity. 

“Have you seen her?” Azriel croaked. 

Lucien released his hold on Azriel’s hair. He fell forward, but didn’t turn to face the male. He could hear Lucien’s snarl as he said, “Color me surprised when I return from the mortal lands to learn from Elain that you cast my sister aside, made her leave her home, because you refused to listen to her. You’re lucky that Eris answered my letter with haste, explaining she was safe in Autumn. Consider yourself even luckier that the High Lord made me wait to come here before I got that answer. Do you have any idea how far she had to travel on foot? You made a pregnant female—your mate—travel through Winter alone.”

Azriel held back his sob. 

“A farmer had to be the one to bring her to Forest House. She would have died if not for his kindness.” Lucien’s hand curled around Azriel’s throat, his nails digging in. “Their blood would have been on your hands if they did.”

“I-I didn’t think—”

“No, you didn’t—”

Hurt,a shadow whispered. Azriel’s head snapped up. He wrenched himself out of Lucien’s death grip, searching for the shadow he hadn’t seen in months. Most of the others had stuck around, hissing their disapproval in his ear. But he knew one had gone missing, prayed to the Mother that it was making sure you were safe when he couldn’t. Come quick.

“What?” Azriel breathed out. No. No. It couldn’t mean you. You were safe, in Autumn. You were under your brothers’ protection. No harm should ever befall you there. None…Unless—

She’s hurt. The babe is stuck. Come—quick.

Azriel jumped out of his seat, moving faster than he had in months. This couldn’t be. The babe didn’t have wings. Surely, if the babe had wings, you would have told Rhysand. You would have told someone. Unless, you didn’t know. He had to get to you. He had to see you. 

“Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

“She’s gone into labor,” he managed. The room felt like it was spinning. Was he about to lose you forever? No. No, he couldn’t handle that. He could handle you alive, hating him forever. But to lose you like this…For you to not know how deeply sorry he was, he couldn’t live with that. He would sooner follow you in death than live in a world without you. “The babe has wings.”

Lucien’s eyes narrowed. “They’ll kill you if you go. They’ll make me look like mercy.”

“I-I need to get Madja. She has experience with this. I need to give her a shot.” Azriel sniffed, praying the tears wouldn’t fall. Not now. “Even if she never lets me see the babe, I need to do everything in my power to give them a chance to live.”

Azriel half-expected Lucien to drive his dagger into his heart. Instead, his lip curled. “Go. Before I change my mind. I’ll warn my brothers of your arrival. They will welcome Madja’s help. But whatever they decide to do with you, I will not interfere.”

“Thank you.”

“I’m not doing this for you.”

“I know. But…thank you.”

Your screams do not sound like your own. It sounded like, felt like, it was coming from someone else. Nothing about this, truthfully, felt like it was happening to you. You were vaguely aware of your mother on your right side, Eris on your left. Brigid was between your legs, trying to help the babe into a proper birthing position. Somewhere beyond the closed, oak door you could hear your brothers Crispin and Heath shouting at someone. Oh, you hoped they were terrorizing the servants. 

“You’re alright, my love,” your mother was saying as she stroked your hair, “you’re doing so well.”

Your scream was your only response. Fuck. You had never experienced pain quite like this before. Not even Beron’s flames compared to this. It was a miracle you hadn’t passed out yet. Though, the thought of shutting your eyes and closing out the rest of the world was quite tempting. No. You needed to stay strong. If not for yourself, then for your babe. You had to give her a fighting chance. 

Her. You were so certain your babe was a female. Brigid had never told you, because you had never asked. If you had known, the gender or the status of wings, you would want to tell Azriel. It would be the one thing, you were certain, that would break your resolve. You weren’t sure if you ever wanted the shadowsinger back into your life, but…Well, he had always want a babe that looked just like you. A little princess to dote on. To show how to fly. 

Another scream ripped through you. It felt like your soul was being torn out. Like sharp talons raked down your body, gripping at your essence, ready to take you back to the Mother. You wouldn’t go back. Not until your babe was born. After that…If the Mother wanted you, she could take you. Your babe would be in safe hands with your family. 

Desperately, you tried to search out for the shadow that not left your side in nine months. It had become a source of comfort. Its cold nature soothed the flames of Autumn burning inside of you. It reminded you of home. But when your eyes flicked to your wrist, then down your arm, it was gone. How long had it been gone? Why did it abandon you when you finally needed it? Where did it—

Something slammed against the oaken door. 

Eris’s head snapped up to glare at the wood. “What in the Cauldron is happening out there?” he hissed. 

“Go, check,” your mother said. “We need to keep this room as calm as possible. If your brothers are picking fights out there, then they’ll only make it worse. She cannot afford any unwarranted stress.”

Eris gave a tight nod and stepped away from your side. He didn’t even make it halfway across the room before the door slammed open, the wood splintering. A body hit the floor. Your vision was too blurred to make out who, or the person who stepped over him, approaching your bed. That is, until she was close enough for you to recognize the all-too-familiar face. 

“Madja?” you managed. “How—”

“He brought me here,” she said, stepping in between your legs. Brigid made room for you, taking the opportunity to move away to grab some fresh towels. Madja tutted at the sight of you, then got to work. 

“I don’t want him here!” The words tumbled out before you could stop them. 

You barely caught Madja glancing over to the fallen figure. In the haze, you finally recognized the wings. Azriel. He was here. Your breath caught. That was why the shadow had left you. It had gone to find him. Was it out of loyalty to its master? Or was it out of concern for you? A little shadow escaped from Azriel, speeding back to you. The cold thing stroked your face, as if to comfort you, to apologize for leaving you alone. 

Azriel’s head lifted. You were grateful you couldn’t see the hurt in his eyes. Crispin and Heath each grabbed an arm, dragging your mate back up to his feet. Though you all knew he could easily fight them off, he didn’t make a single move. Purple was already beginning to blossom on his exposed bits of skin. Had that been why you heard your brother’s shouting? 

Too pained to stand the look of him, you focused back on Madja. “Better or worse than Feyre?” Your voice was tight. It took every bit of your energy to not roar in pain. 

“The babe is starting to come out, but her wings are stuck,” she said. “We’ll have to break bones to get her out.”

“Mine or hers?” you nearly cried. 

“Both.” Madja glanced up at you. She masked her sorrow well, but you saw through it. You knew the next thing she was going to say, and you knew your answer, too. “I don’t know that I can save you both.”

“Her. Save her.”

“NO!” Azriel shouted. 

You barely processed Eris’s body slamming into Azriel. He let out a low groan at the contact. If you weren’t already in so much pain, you would have been able to feel how much that hurt through the bond. You wondered how much Azriel could feel. For the last nine months, you had kept your end closed. But after going into labor, it took too much effort to push him away. 

“You are the last godsdamned person who gets to make decisions about her,” Eris hissed. “You’re lucky I don’t throw you in the fucking dungeon—”

“I already gave him the whole speech, brother.”

Lucien? How did he get here? How did he know? 

Azriel ignored your brothers. To Madja, he pleaded, “Give her a chance—both of them a chance.”

Eris’s fist landed square on Azriel’s jaw. “Don’t even look in her fucking direction.”

“All of you, out!” your mother shouted. The males all froze in place. “What did I say about removing unnecessary stress? Eris, take him to the library and let him stay there until this is over. The rest of you, make yourselves useful.”

Your attention turned back to Madja, ignoring the sulking males, as her cold hand touched your knee. “We have to make a decision, dear.”

From the corner of your eye, you watched as Azriel stiffened. He wouldn’t be pleased with you, you were sure. And perhaps it was cruel to subject him to the cold pain of losing a mate. But that was mercy compared to what he did to you. 

To Madja, you said, “Do what you must.”

Azriel stared at the oak doors of the library. Eris and Lucien had been left at his guards while Crispin and Heath disappeared to gather more supplies for Madja and Brigid. He paid them and their snarls no mind. Nothing could distract him from your wails of pain echoing through Forest House. Every inch of him, every fiber of his being, called for him to go to you. To be by your side. It was only your words that kept him still. 

“I don’t want him here!”

Five words was all it took for you to rip Azriel’s heart out. How you did it so succinctly, struck him right to the core, when it took an illogical rant from him to break yours was a mystery to him. Worse yet, Azriel wasn’t sure you were even aware of what you were saying. You looked like you were barely processing Madja’s appearance. Did you truly want him gone? 

Visions of your near-lifeless eyes looking at him flashed through his mind. He was going to lose you today. Was it a kinder fate for you to die than live in a world with him? Would things be different if he hadn’t fucked things up so spectacularly? Azriel imagined you in your shared home, your family—the Inner Circle—surrounding you. Love for you would be in the air, not contempt for him. Would that have been enough to save you? 

He shook his head. He was being ridiculous. Your family—the Vanserras—loved you, too. Perhaps more than the Inner Circle. While his family was content to ignore his existence, yours was willing to strike him down where he stood for even deigning to show his face in Autumn. He was sure Crispin and Heath would have actually killed him if they hadn’t drove his body through the door first.

Azriel flinched as another scream ripped down the halls. 

“Don’t act like this is painful to you,” Eris snarled. 

Azriel managed to lift a glare to him. “I can feel everything she does. If she is hurting, so am I.”

“That mattered little to you when you accused her of being a whore,” Lucien said. 

“And I will regret to the day I die. I will spend the rest of my days atoning for what I did.” Azriel lifted his chin. “But would killing me save her?”

Eris stepped closer to him. “Don’t even pretend to care about her. Where have you been these last nine months? Where were you when her morning sickness left her unable to leave the bed for days, unable to keep anything down? When she would go to Brigid for updates on the babe? When she couldn’t even pick out things for a nursery because the perfect one was left behind in the Night Court?”

He jerked like he had been slapped. Sometimes, he could still feel the sting of Feyre hitting him. Until today, she had been the only one brave enough to hurt him for what he did. Azriel would take every beating, though, if it meant you would live. 

Azriel opened his mouth to respond, but fell short. Silence rung through Forest House. Your screams—they had stopped. The cries of a babe did not fill their place. He tugged desperately at the bond, hoping to feel your pull. Nothing. There was nothing. 

No.

No, he couldn’t lose you. 

No. 

Against his better judgment, Azriel fled from the library. He raced down the hall, the eldest and youngest Vanserra hot on his heels. He needed to see you. He needed to know that you still lived. Perhaps you were asleep. Birth was exhausting. Azriel remembered Feyre slept for hours after having Nyx. Perhaps you were doing the same. But then why wasn’t the babe crying? 

The door was ajar when he reached it. It took little effort to push it open, to open himself to the scene on the other side. On the far side of the room, Madja and Brigid had the babe. A beautiful little girl. His beautiful little girl. Azriel’s eyes flicked back to you. Your mother was covering your body with a blanket. Were you truly sleeping? No, you were too still, even by fae standards. Your chest didn’t rise. Your eyelids didn’t flutter.

Azriel’s gaze fell to your limp hand hanging from the edge of the bed. He sank to his knees, reaching for it. He half-expected Eris or Lucien to rip him away, to throw back back over the border. But no one touched him. 

“Let him mourn,” he heard your mother say. 

“He doesn’t deserve it.” Whether that was Eris or Lucien, he wasn’t sure. 

“It matters little what he deserves now.”

You couldn’t be gone. You couldn’t be. Somewhere beyond, a faint cry rang through the room. A weight lifted off his chest. At least the babe survived. At least Madja managed that. But…None of that mattered if you weren’t here, too. None of it mattered if you couldn’t hold her. 

A hand touched his shoulder. He lifted his head to stare up at your mother. “Her name is Bronwyn.”

“Thank you,” he whispered. 

“We’re going to take her to a wet nurse. But…you may stay for as long as you like. Ignore my sons. They are in pain, too.”

“Thank you,” he said again. 

Silence filled the room again. Azriel was certain he was alone again, until he heard padding of footsteps along the wooden floor. He didn’t have to look up to know it was Madja. 

“She could still live. It is not…It is not the worst birth I have seen. I have seen weaker women pull through from more horrible circumstances.”

“Why do you tell me this?”

“We believe, when people are in this state of limbo, they can still our world. Talk to her. You might be able to pull her back.”

“She wouldn’t come back for me.”

“Then why did she nearly tell her mother to come get you?” Madja patted his shoulder. “Food for thought. Do as you wish, Spymaster. I will be back to check on her later.”

Azriel did not move for three days and three nights. Despite what Madja had said, he couldn’t find any words to share with you. Everything felt wrong. What was he supposed to say? Apologies would scarcely suffice. Should he beg? It was tempting, but he wasn’t sure his pathetic snifflings would return you, either. 

Every so often, your mother would come in, Bronwyn in her arms. She would lay the babe on your chest and coo about how much she was growing already. Lucien would come in to tell you about what he had been doing in the mortal lands. Eris was rant about the politics of being a newly minted High Lord. Heath would talk about the latest book he had read. Crispin came once—sobbed about how he should have realized what was happening, should have gotten you help sooner. 

Everyone else had something to say. Something more moving, more earth-shattering, than whatever grovel he would wretch up. 

But on the fourth morning, as the morning sunlight began to stream onto you, he lifted himself from his knees. There was just enough space beside you that he could curl up to. It cramped his wings, but he was willing to ignore the pain. 

“I should have cherished you,” he whispered. His throat was tight. “I should have trusted you. I do, trust you I mean. Before you, I never knew unconditional love. Even through the last few centuries together, it still boggled my mind that you could look at me and find something worth loving. When I came home that day, I was so scared that you had finally found something better. It will never excuse what I did.”

He reached up, brushing a strand of hair out of your face. “Come back, my wildfire. Not for me. I could spend the rest of my life making up for that mistake, but it would never be enough to warrant your forgiveness. But your family…They shouldn’t be hurt because of what I did. Come back for them. Come back for Bronwyn. Come back, and you will never have to see me again unless you so wish it. Just…live.”

Azriel’s eyes squeezed shut. He felt wetness drip down his face, onto your soft skin where his face was pressed. “Please, live.”

Your eyes opened. 

[sugurufic]

Shopping Carts and Conversations (Geto x Reader)

Summary: You're out shopping with the twins and Geto, when an eldery couple mistakes you for a young couple and the twins as your kids, a comment you're too happy to ignore.

Word Count: 1.2k

Content Warnings: Fluff, for context it's related to Co-Parenting with Suguru, but there's no need to read that for this.

masterlist

At the supermarket, Mimiko clings to your leg as you walk down the cleaning supplies aisle. You grab a bottle of the fabric conditioner and give it to the four year old to smell. Her little nose scrunched up, and you hand her another fragrance of the fabric conditioner. She approves that one and you throw it in your cart.

“Are you tired Mimiko?” You ask the little girl, she shakes her head in dissent but you can tell she is tired. You have been in the store for too long. “Come here,” you tell her before picking her up in your arms, and she quickly wraps her little arms and legs around you. She is very thin and light for a four year old, all thanks to those cruel villagers. 

With Mimiko at your hip, you push the cart forward and grab your favourite brand of laundry detergent and stain remover. You can't remember if Geto has extra dishwash, you quickly text him asking about it.

Geto Suguru: No Geto Suguru: Are you by the cleaning supplies? You: Yes You: Where are you? Geto Suguru: I'll be there in a moment

You're startled with a fake cough near your ear, but you smile on realising it's Geto and Nanako. The sight in front of you makes you and Mimiko giggle - Nanako is sitting on Geto's shoulder, using his bun as her makeshift support. You quickly snap pictures and show it to Mimiko, who nods in approval.

“What's so funny to you?” Geto asks. “Nanako here was helping me search. You rushed away so quickly.”

“We did not rush away, I told you I'm gonna get some detergent. You're out of it back home.” You counter. “Right, Mimiko?”

Mimiko nods in support and adds, “And you said ‘hmm’, Geto Sama,”

Geto blushes for a moment, embarrassed. “Well, all that matters is that we've found you now.”

“Sure,” you tease, giggling. “What did you get?”

“We have to get rice, lentils and vegetables.” Geto says, holding Nanako’s knees on either side of his head. He brings her to his arms and sits her down on the baby carrier in your cart and pushes it out the cleaning supplies aisle after you throw the dishwash in it.

“We’re out of carrots and cucumbers,” you note. “We have enough tomatoes to last the week. Oh, potatoes - stock up on them. That seems about right.” You turn to the child on your hip and then to the one in the cart. “What do you guys think of apples and bananas?”

“Nooo…” they both whine in unison.

“But you have to eat it, or you won’t get big or strong like Geto-kun,” You tease. The girls think hard at that, always admiring Geto as their father figure. “All of us can have fruits together, then ice cream after?”

The twins look like they want to say no, but they’re big fans of ice cream like most children, so they don’t protest much. You and Geto sneaked in some more fruits to the cart and different vegetables that most kids were known to not like. You wait for your cart to be unloaded into bags by the entrance with Mimiko, while Nanako continues to cling to Geto. You reach out for her when Geto is at the exit to get the bill scanned, holding the two of them on either side. Once free of the guard, he quickly snaps a picture and holds the bags in one hand and Mimiko with the other.

“What lovely kids you have got,” An elderly woman entering the store comments. She is with her husband and presumably their grandchild. Your face heats up, but you don’t bother correcting her, and neither does Geto. “Such a lovely young couple with a family,”

“Thank you,” Geto says, smiling at the old couple. “Is that your grandchild? He looks adorable.”

“He is spending the weekend with us,” The old man says with a nod. “May the gods be kind to you,”

“Thank you,” You say this time. “We hope the same for you,”

Your face burns as you sit Nanako and Mimiko down in the back of the car as Geto loads the bags into the trunk. Your girls have little smiles on their face, and you ask them what they’re smiling about.

“You didn’t say anything when they called us a family,” Nanako says.

“And you thanked them for the prayers,” Mimiko adds.

“Well, that’s because we are a family, aren’t we?” You say, caressing both their baby cheeks with either hand. “It’s nice to be polite to polite people.”

On the way back, you’re both quiet, enjoying listening to the twins talk among themselves. Their delight at your silent acceptance has your heart soaring, and you cannot keep that stupid smile off your face. You are barely holding back your giggles, not wanting Geto to think that you have gone crazy. 

“What’s got you so smiley?” Geto quietly asks you, his hand settling on your knee after changing gears.

“They’re so happy to be considered our family,” you admit, unable to keep the giddiness out of your voice. “I love them so much,”

Geto glances at you from the mirror, admiring the way you glow with joy. He half hopes you’ll remark on that comment of the old lady of you being a lovely couple, but you don’t - too happy to be considered the girls’ mother. He supposes it’s fine, wondering if he will ever gather the courage to ask you out.

“You know, you’ve been helping me out so much, why don’t you start calling me Suguru?” He says instead. “It’s a little strange to hear our girls see you as a mother figure but you still calling me Geto,”

You giggle once again, admiring his pretty face from the side. His eyes flicker to the mirror, but he is mostly focused on the road. It’s nice to hear him ask this so casually, and somehow you hope he’ll say something else, something more - but you’ll happily take what he offers. “Okay, Suguru,” you test, loving the way his name rolls off your tongue. He looks positively delighted too. “You should start addressing me by my first name too, then.”

“Of course,” he says, the sound of your name sounding angelic in his soft voice. You get why he has always been popular among the girls, his pretty face and voice and gentle manners are easy to impress almost anyone. Your face only brightens when he hums out your name, a chuckle escaping you.

Geto cannot stop thinking about the elderly couple addressing you and his girls as a lovely young couple with a family - he hasn’t felt that delighted in a long while, praying to the gods who listen to give him courage, courage to finally ask you out for a date. You’re so kind, helping him with the girls and reassuring him that he is doing a great job with the girls, spending your time with him and your girls, acting like the unassigned-assigned head of the household. 

In his rose coloured dream, he can freely hold you and kiss your pretty face as he pleases, the girls call him papa and call you mama - it’s a fantasy so close to reality that he can almost taste it, but like Tantalus’ fruit, it’s just a bit too far away.

A/N: Can you tell that i'm in love with this dynamic?

[witchofhimring]

Being the daughter of Daenerys Targaryen

Pairings: Daenerys Targaryen x Reader (platonic)

Whether you are a bio daughter or not is up to you.

-Daenerys had always had the desire to be a mother. From the day you were first placed in her arms Daenerys was instantly in love with you. Although the people of Meereen were her children you were the most cherished. Nuha Rina she called you, her child.

It was a warm night, but surprisingly a light breeze carried itself on the wind. Daenerys stood by the window watching over the city with its flickering flames and unique spices. The baby in her arms stirred and one of Y/n's tiny fists retched up. Daenerys placed a kiss on the babies petal smooth skin. The love she felt for this babe surpassed even that of her dragons. Misa, they had called her. Only now Daenerys felt the sole connection that a mother had with their child. An unbreakable bond between two souls.

-Daenerys is a strict mother. Not in a cruel sense, but she does expect you to follow and obey her. However her love is fierce and she is very protective of you. While she might take you into the town amongst the common people, teach you to lead an army and embody the flame of Valyria, Daenerys is constantly scared something will happen to you. While she may walk amongst her people without a care, you are a different matter. There is always a guard by your side. From the time you are old enough to walk Daenerys has a personal guard to attend you. Any maid or lady in waiting is carefully selected.

Daenerys held your small hand, slowing down so you could keep up. The citizens of Meereen were used to seeing their Queen walk amongst them. But today it was a first for you. Normally mother had you stay in the carriage. Visible, but at a safe distance. Despite the Queen's desire to keep her daughter safe she was also aware that because the Targaryen dynasty was little more than a budding flower in Essos. They needed to cement their hold and that could only be done is you showed yourself to the people. It was your duty as a monarch. And besides, was it not a mothers duty to forge a relationship between themselves and their children? "Your Grace, if I may?" An elderly woman approached, a bundle of colourful flowers in hand. Daenerys was used to people approaching her, but her daughter was another matter. She laid a hand on her daughters shoulder apprehensively. Y/n looked up hopefully, waiting for her mothers permission. She allowed the older woman to approach. Normally warmth spread through her body when granted such a gesture. But all she felt was concern. She let out a sigh of relief when her daughter received the flowers, unharmed.

-Daenerys loves teaching you the stories of old Valyria. You will lay next to her on the silk blankets as she talks well into the night. Expect rides with her dragons. While Daenerys might be apprehensive about others in your vicinity, her dragons are different. There will be lots of red and black dresses in your closet.

Y/n sleepily rested against her mothers side. Today had been rather exciting. What, with getting three new dresses all decked out in Targaryen regalia and a ride on Drogon the little Princess was all tuckered out. "Balerion climbed higher and higher into the sky. Higher and higher Aegon the Conqueror flew. So high up he was that Harrenhal was little more than a spot. Suddenly, he advanced upon the stone keep. And the castle, built upon the blood of slaves was in flames-" Daenerys noticed by your breathing that you were asleep. Carefully she slipped you under the covers. With the candles extinguished she allowed sleep to claim her, Y/n in her arms.

This ones a bit shorter than the rest. But I am very tired and want to get this one out. Expect Sansa next.

[monsterrae1]

Fuck it Friday (spooky version)

Tagged by: @devirnis @tizniz @daffi-990 🖤

Im slowly working on my fics for my spooktober prompt list (praying I can post a fic for each week) and here’s something for week one based on this prompt by @911prompts

⚠️ tw for mention of dead children

It was an eerie look. Mrs. Ebner, a woman who was probably close to her 70s now, at first look she was a classic painting of a sweet old woman, completely white hair that curled upwards on the sides, her clothes was modest and soft looking - except for the parts what were completely covered in the blood of the children that she had been torturing not even half an hour ago.

She was now looking at him with pleading eyes, almost as if having Buck vouch for her would mean that being caught in the act would be swept under the rug.

But Buck couldn’t even move, the child in his arms was taken by someone - probably Chimney or Hen, and all that Buck could do was stare at his old elderly neighbor as she and her husband were cuffed and led to the police cruiser.

Even after they drove away all that Buck could hear was her voice calling his name. Her voice now, begging him to somehow save her from whatever cruel and worthy fate had for her. Her voice twenty five years ago, when Buck was just a kid and his brother had vanished into thin air.

Tagging if they wanna play: @lonelychicago @bi-buckrights @prettyboybuckley @rogerzsteven @rosieposiepuddingnpie @honestlydarkprincess @bigfootsmom @underwaterninja13 @father-salmon on @inell @confetti-cupcake @shipperqueen6 @spotsandsocks @sleepywinchesters @dangerpronebuddie @bekkachaos @eddiebabygirldiaz @hippolotamus @exhuastedpigeon @diazsdimples @actualalligator @theotherbuckley @bidisasterevankinard @wikiangela @elvensorceress @saybiwithme and whoever wants to be do this 🖤✨

[reallyromealone]

Day 3 of baizhu

Working with dad

Fluff, child reader male reader

📀💿📀💿📀💿📀💿📀💿📀💿📀💿📀💿📀💿📀

Baizhu lifted his son from his crib, the tiny babe half awake and clung to his dad helplessly with annoyed baby sounds "yes yes, papa is so cruel to have woken you like this" he said Sweetly and rubbed his nose against the babes before wandering to the kitchen "Mrs (neighbor) cannot watch you today so you're coming with me to work" he said thankful he dressed before collecting his son who once seeing his bottle began bouncing happily and reaching to his food.

Mornings were always slow, baizhu was never a morning person and unless he saw food neither was (name).

(Name) lazily drank his breakfast while snuggled into his dad's side "you're gonna help me at the pharmacy, maybe one day you can help me run it" the thought was precious as he imagined it.

(Name) was always dressed in soft clothes, it was summer so he often dressed the babe in nice loose clothes and little sandals.

(Name) was very popular with the elderly who came to the pharmacy, often commenting at how adorable or sweet he was and (name) like most babies adored the attention.

"Helping your papa? Such a good boy" an elderly woman cooed at the baby who sat on a little high chair with his few toys "hes been truly a great source of company" "he's thrown two tantrums " Changsheng said bluntly and the man hushed her with a foux glare but the old woman just smiled at the interaction "oh I remember when my children were his age, they had opinions" she chuckled and handed her coin to baizhu and took her bag of medicine, waving at the babe who bounced slightly.

Though it was a boring place for children, little (name) seemed to have fun as his dad showed him around the store, doing inventory and bonding with his son.

"Alright, papa will be right here while you nap" baizhu gently kissed his sons forehead before placing him in the bassinet he kept for the babe, returning to work as the babe slept.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Iowa's starvation strategy

I don’t really buy that “the cruelty is the point.” I’m a materialist. Money talks, bullshit walks. When billionaires fund unimaginably cruel policies, I think the cruelty is a tactic, a way to get the turkeys to vote for Christmas. After all, policies that grow the fortune of the 1% at the expense of the rest of us have a natural 99% disapproval rating.

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/19/whats-wrong-with-iowa/#replicable-cruelty

So when some monstrous new law or policy comes down the pike, it’s best understood as a way of getting frightened, angry — and often hateful — people to vote for policies that will actively harm them, by claiming that they will harm others — brown and Black people, women, queers, and the “undeserving” poor.

Pro-oligarch policies don’t win democratic support — but policies that inflict harm a ginned-up group of enemies might. Oligarchs need frightened, hateful people to vote for policies that will secure and expand the power of the rich. Cruelty is the tactic. Power is the strategy. The point isn’t cruelty, it’s power:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/25/roe-v-wade-v-abortion/#no-i-in-uterus

But that doesn’t change the fact that the policies are cruel indeed. Take Iowa, whose billionaire-backed far-right legislature is on a tear, a killing spree that includes active collaboration with rapists, through a law that denies abortion care to survivors of rape and forces them to bear and care for their rapists’ babies:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/16/us/politics/iowa-kamala-harris-abortion.html

The forced birth movement is part of the wider far-right tactic of standing up for imaginary children (e.g. “the unborn,” fictional victims of Hollywood pedo cabals), and utterly abandons real children: poor kids who can’t afford school lunches, kids in cages, kids victimized by youth pastors, kids forced into child labor, etc.

So Iowa isn’t just a forced birth state, it’s a state where children are now to be starved, literally. The state legislature has just authorized an $18m project to kick people off of SNAP (aka food stamps). 270,000 people in Iowa rely on SNAP: elderly people, disabled people, and parents who can’t feed their kids.

Writing in the Washington Post, Kyle Swenson profiles some of these Iowans, like an elderly woman who visited Lisa Spitler’s food pantry for help and said that state officials had told her that she was only eligible for $23/month in assistance:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/04/16/iowa-snap-restrictions-food-stamps/

That’s because Iowa governor KimReynolds signed a bill cutting the additional SNAP aid — federally funded, and free to the state taxpayers of Iowa — that had been made available during the lockdown. Since then, food pantries have been left to paper over the cracks in the system, as Iowans begin to starve.

Before the pandemic, Spitler’s food pantry saw 30 new families a month. Now it’s 100 — and growing. Many of these families have been kicked off of SNAP because they failed to complete useless and confusing paperwork, or did so but missed the short deadlines now imposed by the state. For example, people with permanent disabilities and elderly people who no longer work must continuously file new paperwork confirming that their income hasn’t changed. Their income never changes.

SNAP recipients often work, borrow from relations, and visit food pantries, and still can’t make ends meet, like Amy Cunningham, a 31 year old mother of four in Charlton. She works at a Subway, has tapped her relatives for all they can afford, and relies on her $594/month in SNAP to keep her kids from going hungry. She missed her notice of an annual review and was kicked off the program. Getting kicked off took an instant. Getting reinstated took a starving eternity.

Iowa has a budget surplus of $1.91B. This doesn’t stop ghouls like Iowa House speaker Pat Grassley (a born-rich nepobaby whose grandpa is Senator Chuck Grassley) from claiming that the cuts were a necessity: “[SNAP is] growing within the budget, and are putting pressure on us being able to fund other priorities.”

Grassley’s caucus passed legislation on Jan 30 to kick people off of SNAP if their combined assets, including their work vehicle, total to more than $15,000. SNAP recipients will be subject to invasive means-testing and verification, which will raise the cost of administering SNAP from $2.2m to $18m. Anyone who gets flagged by the system has 10 days to respond or they’ll be kicked off of SNAP.

The state GOP justifies this by claiming that SNAP has an “error rate” of 11.81%. But that “error rate” includes people who were kicked off SNAP erroneously, a circumstance that is much more common than fraud, which is almost nonexistent in SNAP programs. Iowa’s error rate is in line with the national average.

Iowa’s pro-starvation law was authored by a conservative dark-money “think tank” based in Florida: the Opportunity Solutions Project, the lobbying arm of Foundation For Government Accountability, run by Tarren Bragdon, a Maine politician with a knack for getting money from the Koch Network and the DeVos family for projects that punish, humiliate and kill marginalized people. The Iowa bill mirrors provisions passed in Kentucky, Kansas, Wisconsin and elsewhere — and goes beyond them.

The law was wildly unpopular, but it passed anyway. It’s part of the GOP’s push for massive increases in government spending and bureaucracy — but only when those increases go to punishing poor people, policing poor people, jailing poor people, and spying on poor people. It’s truly amazing that the “party of small government” would increase bureaucratic spending to administer SNAP by 800% — and do it with a straight face.

In his essay “The Utopia of Rules,” David Graeber (Rest in Power) described this pathology: just a couple decades ago, the right told us that our biggest threat was Soviet expansion, which would end the “American way of life” and replace it with a dismal world where you spent endless hours filling in pointless forms, endured hunger and substandard housing, and shopped at identical stores that all carried the same goods:

https://memex.craphound.com/2015/02/02/david-graebers-the-utopia-of-rules-on-technology-stupidity-and-the-secret-joys-of-bureaucracy/

A society that can’t feed, house and educate its residents is a failed state. America’s inability to do politics without giving corporations a fat and undeserved share is immiserating an ever-larger share of its people. Federally, SNAP is under huge stress, thanks to the “public-private partnership” at the root of a badly needed “digital overhaul” of the program.

Writing for The American Prospect, Luke Goldstein describes how the USDA changed SNAP rules to let people pay with SNAP for groceries ordered online, as a way to deal with the growing problem of food deserts in poor and rural communities:

https://prospect.org/health/2023-04-19-retail-surveils-food-stamp-users/

It’s a good idea — in theory. But it was sabotaged from the start: first, the proposed rule was altered to ban paying for delivery costs with SNAP, meaning that anyone who ordered food online would have to use scarce cash reserves to pay delivery fees. Then, the USDA declined to negotiate discounts on behalf of the 40 million SNAP users. Finally, the SNAP ecommerce rules don’t include any privacy protections, which will be a bonanza for shadowy data-brokers, who’ll mine SNAP recipients’ data to create marketing lists for scammers, predatory lenders, and other bottom-feeder:

https://www.democraticmedia.org/sites/default/files/field/public-files/2020/cdd_snap_report_ff.pdf

The GOP’s best weapon in this war is statistical illiteracy. While racist, sexist and queerphobic policies mean that marginalized people are more likely than white people to be poor, America’s large population of white people — including elderly white people who are the immovable core of the GOP base — means that policies that target poor people inevitably inflict vast harms on the GOP’s most devoted followers.

Getting these turkeys to vote for Christmas is a sound investment for the ultra-rich, who claim a larger share of the American pie every year. The rich may or may not be racist, or sexist, or queerphobic — some of them surely are — but the reason they pour money into campaigns to stoke divisions among working people isn’t because they get off on hatred. The hatred is a tactic. The cruelty is a tactic. The strategic goal is wealth and power.

Tomorrow (Apr 21), I’m speaking in Chicago at the Stigler Center’s Antitrust and Competition Conference. This weekend (Apr 22/23), I’m at the LA Times Festival of Books.

[Image ID: The Iowa state-house. On the right side of the steps is an engraved drawing of Oliver Twist, holding out his porridge bowl. On the left side is the cook, denying him an extra portion. Peeking out from behind the dome is a business-man in a suit with a dollar-sign-emblazoned money-bag for a head.]

Image: Iqkotze (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Iowa_State_Capitol_April_2010.jpg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

[happyk44]

My take has always been Nyx births them in Tartarus but sends them away to the upper world when they're old enough because she has seen the world below from the night sky and thinks it is beautiful and lovable, compared to the dark monstrous and screaming expanse of Tartarus, a chamber, a prison, a place of torture. She loves her children as much as the night sky, a boundless entity can. She would like them to experience the world the way she sees the mortals do, how other gods and spirits do. Running across cool grass as the sun dips and day fades into midnight blue and wine-dark purple. Laughing around a warm fire. Comfortable and safe from the monsters that lurk.

The eldest two are as boundless as she is, as boundless as their father. They take to mortal form more frequently than their parents but were not truly born of it. She remembers the strange sensation of creating a sunrise. Heat and daybreak rising over the murky ocean. The world was dark in the beginning. Then the sun came, Helios and his silly chariot, and so followed the bright of day to truly illuminate the world. The twins had been born hand in hand so entwined in one another she had not realized right away there were two of them. Even in their choice of differentiation, they were so similar - day and the bright upper sky. Hemera and Aether. Glowing light blue air and soft clouds with the sun shimmering nearby.

Then long after Charon came - the oldest of her personified children. Born with skin and bones and a quiet sullen demeanour. Like Hades who lives above. But Hades is reclusive and seems picky about who joins him. He is followed only by the dead. He is far too busy, nonetheless, to handle a child by his side - establishing his kingdom and building his home from the scraps left behind.

Yes, the Underworld is beautiful, cooler than Tartarus, more comforting to those with flesh, but less so than the upper world. That was created for those who breathe with lungs and have beating hearts, so when Charon is spry enough that he walks and runs and snaps at monsters that encroach upon his space, she guides him up and out into the wake of the night.

Shadows lick at his feet. His ever present father will keep watch when the sunrises and Nyx must set. Erebus agrees with her. Charon seems brighter, better up on top than far down below where only the most reviled of persons are chained and burned. The only screams he hears are from the birds chattering. He was born of night and darkness, so he says good night to his sister and his brother, and greets his mother with a cool good morning. He hunts sleeping animals with his father to guide his way. He prefers to fish from the nearby river, sit in the shallow, slower end of the rushing stream. He speaks aloud, knowing his family listens. He expects little response in return.

After him, Moros arrives. Dark and brooding. Where Charon is sullen and withdrawn, Moros is brash and engaging. He dips away from his older brother to bother nearby towns. He tips the scales, adjusts the poles. The way of the world swells and shifts around him. Knives miss the meat to be butchered and sever fingers. Bows slip free of knots and spill collected materials to the ground. The sickly sob. Children recoil in fear.

He is unbothered. He enjoys their detachment, their worries. As he grows, Charon finds him work with the elderly. It's important, he says, that you understand mortals. It is cruel to befit fear upon them all because you have no empathy. Nyx listens closely, Erebus at her side as their son speaks quiet. His monotone voice echoes across the open air. I have no empathy, but I have lived long enough to know that mortals desire compassion. And I have lived long enough to know that being feared becomes tiring in the end.

Moros adjusts. Still he brings doom, but the old are unworried. They know what is to come. The finality of breath. The stop of their hearts. The ceasing of their brains. They know that they will close their eyes and reawaken with Hades' hand outstretched for theirs. Without terror, they tell him stories of their lives. They spill their secrets as he cleans their laundry and cuts their food. He holds their arms as they take feeble steps around the home they wish to die in.

Sometimes he knows they will not and through him they know they will not, but he promises to carry them back and lay them to rest in the ground they own, the earth they cultivated. He is not capable of empathy. He barely understands sympathy. But compassion is there, in faintest amounts, and it is enough.

Thanatos and Hypnos bear witness to the night skies in the months that follow. It is almost amusing the difference between her boundless children and their fleshed out siblings. Daylight and bright skies versus the boy child who digs graves and the boy who bears doom, the boy who finds the dead as easily as he breathes and the boy who sleeps like a cat. the girl who watches battles with hunger and feasts upon the death the daughter who knows only misery and the boy who can only assign blame. She loves them all the same. She sees how mortals exile those who do not fit, who are dark but not cruel, and does not understand. Perhaps it is because she was not born into the world with a beating heart.

Only glittering stars and a spot for the bright moon.

It is quiet with the twins. Instead of bothering mortals, Hypnos spends most of his time attached to his twin's back, dozing off onto strong shoulders. Thanatos carries him like it is his job. Lifts him off from the ground without a word. He follows Charon into the woods each day. The dead come easy to him. More frequently that he had before, Charon carries bodies home to their new graves.

I can feel them, Thanatos says. When they're gone.

Do you hurt? Charon asks. Mangled bodies are not unfamiliar to them. Torn animals picked apart and rotting are commonplace. The state of their corpses indicate pain though. Charon worries.

But Thanatos simply lowers his sleeping brother to the soft grass below and says, No. It's strange. I don't notice them until they're gone. It’s like a call in my head. They could be near me and I would not notice until their end. He turns to his older brother digging another grave. Their souls. Their ghost. Do you see them?

Sometimes, Charon says. But not usually.

Thanatos is comforted by that. Sometimes is better than never. Hypnos never sees ghosts. But he sees other things in the moments he's awake. When they enter mortal towns, he'll gaze with half-lidded eyes upon the mortals that pass by and murmur into Thanatos' ear about their secrets. Their fears. Their days.

Their dreams.

Within the wisps of sleep, Hypnos descends. He coaxes the tired to rest, coaxes babies to calm, settle the elderly and sick down for their final night. Sometimes Oizys reaches out and so he settles inside the soft world of a mortal mind, slipping through their cloud-like subconscious and drawing out what they hold back.

Processing fears is important to living life, he realizes. In waking moments, he speaks with his brother about nightmares. In sleeping dreams, he slips them along. Most dreams are simple days. He likes to watch from the side, a hidden audience. Even the most mundane is entertaining.

Then Ker comes along soon after. She is sharp-toothed and mean. Violent death and bitter disease. There is nothing mundane with her. Only seeking the vicious and cruel. She feasts on the flesh of the dead, hovering near Thanatos as he counts down the seconds to the last beat of a heart.

But she does not join them at meals. Her bloodied mouth is hidden away. The bits of skin dug under her nails are scrubbed after every meal. She knows her nature is unlike the others. That she is worse. She crowds around battles with a hunger for the flesh that will be slain. She brings plague with a single touch.

Maybe she would feel better if she was not looking at her counterpart in all things dying. Thanatos is calm and unbothered. He does not itch for blood. He does not split at the seams and feast on the dead. He is calm and collected, almost a mimicry of Charon's sturdiness. She is only a girl hungering for anguish and devastation. She cannot end a life with her own hands. But she can encourage it, and so thoroughly she does.

Charon settles beside her. Water spills over their feet. Why do you split?

Feels better, she says. There is so much inside me. I need to be more to let it out. Her reflection in the river flickers in twain. Mortals think that there are more of her than there are. The Keres, they call her. But she is just Ker. She separates into many, sloughing off her other selves like old skin, and encircles the bloodied crowd. Is it bad?

No, Charon says. Just new.

I like myself, she says. But others don't. It's annoying. She grimaces. I wish I could be better.

You are what you are. With his nail, he scrapes away a fried bloodied mark across her cheek. Do not be disappointed that others cannot handle you. The ones who can are the ones who matter. We all like you. Why do you think we don’t?

Their bodies do not sever in two, in fourths, in tens, in thousands. They do not drag corpses back home to devour because the food on the table is barely edible to them. They do not force disease on those trying to recover from painful wounds, encouraging them to fail, to suffer, to die. Mortals do not recoil with a terrified immediacy they do not understand when her siblings walk by. Even Moros has more to him than the doom he spreads.

She does not.

Maybe I don’t like myself, she considers. It’s hard being this way. There is no one else.

Charon’s arm is comfortable around her shoulders. Affection always feels so fleeting. Though she recognizes that she pulls away. It feels foreign to her as it is given. Out of step with who she is. But she does not pull away. Instead she leans into him and feels the water rush around her feet. It is cool and forgiving. She is hot and merciless.

It’s true. We will not understand you or the viciousness in your heart, Charon tells her. But we are not unsettled by you. You are why battles end. Without pain, without struggle, there would be no need to speak for peace. If all deaths were as calm as falling asleep, then people would keep fighting. But blood spilled, mortals hacked apart, watching your friends suffer beside you, delivering the dead in pieces back to their homes - that is what forces peace.

She tilts her head up and considers his words. I didn’t think of that.

Nobody does, he says. But it is true. Without death, fighting would never end. And without violence, peace would never be wrung. Whether by compromise or submission. He splashes her ankles with water. Eat with us, Ker. We miss you at the table.

The twins and Ker grow and venture far and wide. They sit beside battles and watch quietly. They walk through towns and villages. Hypnos murmurs sleepy words about dreams of freedom in the beaten and belittled. Ker manufactures suffering and bloody ends, horrible spouses and egregious people falling down stairs. Thanatos brings calm to the old and sick.

Charon disappears in the days they are gone. Months go by in search. Eventually, they find him, guided by their mother and father. He is beneath the earth, beneath their feet. They fly over raging waters and approach the god who has employed him.

He is working, Hades says. So, no, he cannot go free right now. But you are welcome to stay.

Oizys and Momus are born next. Erebus coddles them more than she does. But he is in every nook and cranny. He sees distress trapped in locked closets, follows bare feet as they run from screams and swords. The two fight with bitter words. When they come of age, Charon returns to the upper world. The family home welcomes him with a familiar coolness and wisping darkness.

He is a sharp-tongued mediator for the fighting twins and forces them apart with calloused hands and snarling eyes. They always silence themselves when he snaps. They become accommodating to their brother who drags fallen bodies out from the trees and buries them in plots around the home. When he appears, Momus holds back his bitter blaming screams and Oizys keeps tight her welling eyes and breaking heart.

It is under him that they learn to shift. It is not perfect. Momus is reviled by god and mortals alike for his sharp-tongue. He complains about poorly chosen words, critiques every appearance, laughs at sloppy form. It is helpful to some - those who wish to change. Who are unbothered by his mocking tone. But people are more emotional than he cares for. There are several lives lost to his cruel words. Like the two before him, he has no capacity for empathy. He is unable to learn sympathy and compassion is out of reach.

Who cares, is his most common phrase, spoken every time his sister asks him to become softer, gentler.

Oizys is still pain, she is still distress. Her heart still breaks easy and she cries more often than most. But she becomes kinder to herself for her limited emotional range. It is not her fault that this is how she must be. It is not her fault that this is what she has been chosen to represent in the world. Her tears do not make her weak.

Pain is necessary, she says as she wraps the broken bone of a sobbing child. It teaches us not to jump from trees, and where to draw the line with others.

She finds broken men with battles still screaming in their minds. Their bodies are automated. Every movement is meant to survive, to carry on, but their minds hold memories that keep them from being alive. She finds broken women, broken mothers, broken children. She finds those who hold back the tears and smile as though nothing is wrong. Those who need to let go and breathe. Those who need to cry. Who need to admit to the pain they are in, the anguish they have witnessed, the distress coming from the things they have experienced.

When the emotions release, when the pain flows, she crafts suggestions from the wisp of shadows. Run. Confront. Kill. Talk. Change.

Live.

I believe we are trapped in our natures, Charon had said in the bright of day as he dug a deep hole and she held a shattered girl's hand.

Her body was bloodied, slowly creeping towards utter cold. Her eyes had been glassy, unfocused. The world slowly slid from her view. Oizys held her hand to take the pain because certain things should never have been experienced. Not in anyone, but especially not in children this young.

But that doesn't mean we cannot change what our nature means, her wise older brother had said. I take the dead. I don't know why. I just always have. But I chose to do different than just steal them away from their homes. There are dead out there that will never be claimed. I will claim them. I do not need to claim that which dies at home or in a lover's arms. I will claim the left behind, the slaughtered hunter, the forgotten traveler, and I will give them a grave to rest.

Momus had scowled back rude words but Oizys held tighter the young girl's hand and listened hard.

You both can be better. You do not have to be perfect. You do not have to be nice. Moros certainly is not. Ker as well. But you can be and do more than you think of yourselves right now. He laid his shovel to rest on the ground and reached for the slackened girl. There was no life left in her. It had bled all over Oizys lap. There is more to the world than your base instincts, little ones. Yelling that others are at fault and crying from the distress of being screamed at isn't all you have to do. Look inwards. Think. He laid the girl to rest in the grave he dug. I believe in you.

Charon speaks these words to all his siblings. When Nemesis arrives in a flurry of wild black hair, she tracks across the plains of Tartarus, even in her pudgy youth, and declares pain of those she discovers in chains. She leaves the wasteland far later than any of her other siblings, both older and younger. She is endlessly embittered by the faults of mortals. Reluctance to leave their home cloaks her.

Find your order, Charon says. He has lived long, seen and met many. Dike could help. She loves justice, as much as you crave punishment.

Dike is a beauty on earth. Like her father, the crowned king of sky, she embodies order and justice. Humanity is as far as her range extends. But Nemesis can work with that. Social norms become her focus. Convention and custom are her loves. Remaining steady in tradition is gripped tight in her hand. She offers suggestions with a ruthlessness that Dike sighs through each time. Some are accepted easily. Many mortals need to be struck down by their own hubris. But others are argued about between the two.

Humanity and what it entails holds closer to Dike's heart than Nemesis'. She is capable of seeing what her father, her mother, and what Nemesis cannot. A mortal who kills to be free from pain defies convention, but does not deserve the ruthless retribution Nemesis would befit upon a mortal who kills for enjoyment.

Nemesis is always befuddled by her love's explanations. The logic is sound, she understands the point. But it never quite clicks the way it should. But she remembers Charon holding her hands and telling her that she is bound to what the world had decreed upon her, as are the others.

Hemera and Aether do not understand why their siblings prefer the dark. Moros cannot perceive how it is cruel to tell people of the vicious way they will one day die, nor does he understand why it is not appropriate to bury them in so much doom they drown themselves to escape. Ker does not comprehend that others do not feel overwhelming rage. How calm for mortals in the rest of death and sleep is unwanted by their siblings befuddles Thanatos and Hypnos.  Why people repress their pain is something Oizys will never comprehend. And Momus will never understand why Olympus banished him from their golden floors for his various criticisms.

None of them ever understood why Charon chose to bury strangers either. They followed when he ventured out and helped him carry back bodies he found. Animals too rotten to eat, people no one came for. They watched as he dug holes. As he wrapped them in clean cloth and buried them. They did not understand why. But they understood that he had to, and so he did.

You punish because you must. People fear punishment because they fear our sister. If she can continue on despite the pain that being feared brings her, I know that you can. They will never understand why you choose the retribution you choose. And you will never understand why they beg for something smaller. But you do not have to. You just assess their point of view. He laughed quietly and squeezed her hands. Or ask Dike to explain it to you.

In the years that follow Nemesis's final departure from the family home, Apate and Dolos spring out from the shadows with mischievous grins. They spread lies and tall tales in their youth. They find villages and scam, decrying potions and balms in replace of medicine. Death abounds. So Charon settles them into the dirt and tells them they can do more than harm.

There is no demand to stop being cruel. After all, Nemesis still jumps to ruthless violence in her ideas for retribution. Momus does not know how to be kind with his words. By nature, Oizys is cruel to mortals. Moros still approaches strangers with a bitter grin and watches them cry in grief and terror from their ensuing fates. But cruel is not all they must be.

The twins sidle alongside Ares, who knows Charon well. Apate guides spies into enemy lines. Acting becomes a passion of hers. After all, what are elaborate performances if not deceit of the audience? Dolos sits on friendly territory and pushes whispered suggestions from the shadows. Make it seem like you are retreating, he sighs into a general's ears. Draw them out into the open with a subtle trap. Surround them. Destroy them.

It is more enjoyable to them than scamming the masses, than telling them silly lies with elaborate words that make them believe in things that don't exist. There is a sense of accomplishment when their side wins the battle, wins the war. There is a sense of pride when Ares pats their heads with his heavy warm hand. They do not follow him everywhere. They want more than war. So they dabble in politics, in petty family squabbles. They still sell scams and spread rumors. But often they draw back to Ares' side with mischievous grins and help his chosen heroes win wars.

Geras is born with wrinkles and frail bones. His skin sags off the muscles that never truly grow. Youth annoys him. Hebe is his sworn enemy long before they ever meet. But Charon holds him as he breathes hard and reminds him of the genius in age.

I was stupid when I was young. I'm older now. Wiser. More mature. He holds his little brother's wizened frame gently. Listen to the stories of the people. Sit with your brother when he visits his dying friends. There is no permanence or perfection in being young. You are a reminder of change, of inevitability, of maturity. I would not be able to tell you this without having lived and grown through so much before me.

Immortals don't age, Geras huffs bitterly. His voice is cracked and gruff, like an older blacksmith who has breathed in too much acrid smoke.

Everyone ages. We simply are not bound by it. Shapeless. Formless. If we want to look young, we can do so. If we want to look strong, we can do so. It is a blessing. He strokes Geras's thin hair. And much like curses, blessings can be taken away.

Geras sighs and sinks into his brother's stable hold. I don't know how to make myself look different.

Then don't, Charon says. You know how, little brother. We all do. But you do not want to look young. It is not who you are.

Then who am I? What am I? Geras cries. I want to be a child, not an ugly old man. I do nothing for the mortals like the others. I don't bring the day, I don't let them know that the end is near and they should prepare. I do not allow them to feel their hurt. I do not enact punishment and I do not win wars. I am just old and tired.

As I said, you are change. People become different over time. They learn and change, they age and grow. And you are inevitable, even to the gods. You are the reason Moros has friends. You are the reason Oizys creates mourning. You are stories told to grandchildren, you are the head of the household, you are the matriarch, you are history. You are a reminder of the end, and you are a goal for the sickly, for the soldiers in battle, for couples so deeply in love. Charon presses his lips dryly to his brother's wrinkled temple. And you are my brother. You have purpose in that alone.

Eris is hardened to the world when she leaves Tartarus. As always, Charon takes leave of the Underworld and guides her hand-in-hand through darkness and grass to the family home. She is a bitter thing. She finds fault in all things. Constant conflict is demanded of her. When he does not fall to her huffing ways, she grows louder and rougher. But Charon has been steady and stable since birth. Her need to sow problems over nothing does not rile him.

Calm down, he says when she slaps food off the table for being too cold, or shouts that he mended her clothes incorrectly. She cannot calm. It is beyond her. Still he holds her shaking hands and guides her down to a seat on the floor. Relax your breathing. Search for what settles you and utilize that.

Like many of the others, Charon brings her to Ares’ side. War does not settle her, not fully. Still, she finds solace in Ares and in Enyo, her preferred companion. Enyo enjoys the bitter sensation of discord, the craft of competition that awakens in Eris’ presence. Eris is no stranger to being cared for despite how she is, but it is odd to see it reflected in the face of someone who is not her family.

They bicker and argue over anything. Eris is always the instigator, but Enyo happily throws the first blow. Hands beat against faces. Blood bleeds into spit on the ground. Bruises bloom against skin. When the fight is done, they grin and breathe and move along. They are often joined by Ker, bringing horror to the soldiers who spot her flying above right before the final blow.

She spreads trouble outside of battle. Apate and Dolos pull her into their lies and trickery. Arguments follow her subtle instigating words. The twins pull strings behind yelling backs. Momus brings blame and she pushes hostility. The ensuing breakdowns are always so fun to watch. Harmony and peace, a sense of calm, does not befit her. But in carefully placed antagonism she finds a settlement, what Charon spoke of with gentle words, and it is enough.

The last to find life on the outside is young Philotes. Her siblings think she is strange. Even from birth, she is unlike any of them. In Tartarus, she befriends monsters, even the cruelest of punished souls. She hugs with abandon, and smiles wider than any of them thought was possible for their faces. She is not sharp-toothed, and she is not mean. She is not relaxed with sturdy sullenness. She is bright and joyful.

Charon does not bury forgotten bodies around her, nor does he hunt creatures as they sleep. Death upsets her. Violence is rejected. Ker and Thanatos find no fault in her eschew of their nature. She does not fault them for being as they are. It is harder with Eris, but only on her side. Trouble and conflict slides off Philotes’ shoulders like rain. It does not make her angry, or have her spit bitter words. Eris finds that vastly annoying. But despite their stark differences, Philotes loves her family without question. 

Darkness does not suit her, though she walks through shadows as is her birthright, and does not shy away from the depths below as her companions in the clouds of Olympus do. Making friends is easy for her. She finds her way to the mountaintop from smile to smile, and hug to hug. The Graces adore her joyful nature. Pasithea finds amusement in their traded places - her born of Olympus to descend to the depths, and Philotes born of Tartarus to ascend to the golden skies. She does not join their numbers, but attends to their needs. It is a contented life filled with love, with friends, with good sex.

Charon waits for the call of his mother to let him know that another has joined their ranks but it does not come. He does miss, sometimes, the family home when it was filled with the life of another. He will settle there in his free time. The beds are clean, the pantry clear, cobwebs nonexistent. The passage of time does not encroach upon the home he built for his siblings. It does not rot the stone, nor the cloth. The house remains steady, stable, as he is.

Sometimes he walks down to the river. He will sit in the slow and shallow end under the night sky, feeling shadows wisp at his arms. There is no preference between his old and new homes. The Underworld suits him. Macaria who took him down to the depths and gave him his boat is there, his best friend. Styx rushes by as he floats. They speak casually amongst each other. The world is forever dark in the Underworld. It is cool. It is calm.

While only a few of his siblings live with him among the poplar trees and obsidian stone, the others do visit with annoyed huffs from Hades but nothing else in complaint. They join their mother and father in the heated wasteland of Tartarus. They visit the family home. They did not live there all at once, and they never will. He raised them to be independent, decisive. To be better and do more than they thought they could. Their home was a place to grow, and they have. It is no longer necessary for them. For him.

But it is always nice to walk through familiar doors and find his siblings talking amongst themselves. Lounging on cushions they used to sit on when they were much smaller, much younger. Eating at the table, sneaking bites of each other’s food. Playing the games still left behind on shelves and tables.

He never worried about what it meant to be the oldest made of flesh and bone. When he had followed Macaria down below, he did not mean to leave the three behind. They had ventured out, as Moros did. When days pattered by with no return, he thought they had found their own place in the world. Seeing them standing strong and hard-headed in front of Hades and demanding his return was more than amusing. Warmth cut through his heart.

Ferrying souls is his purpose. Watching the entrance when the Underworld is open is his purpose. It is what he has done from the beginning, carrying corpses home and laying them to rest, finding internal settlement in river water rushing beneath him. He is the ferryman and the gatekeeper. Carrying souls across the rushing river. Keeping eye on the doorway and forcing out those who try to push in without reason.

But as he always said, there is more to them than the base instinct of their nature. Like holding hands with little siblings as he walks them to their home, and guarding them from mortals and monsters and gods who do not understand what beauty exists in the dark.

[radiaurapple]

Lucid Dreams of New Orleans: Chapter 8

CHAPTER SUMMARY: IN WHICH Alastor goes for a swim.

The last time Lucifer saw his father, he was granted a fragment of His divine power — a punishment in the guise of a blessing — that he might serve as steward of the wayward souls cast down into Hell. It is a cruel gift, designed to ensure that he will always be haunted by his mistakes; Lucifer has endured the past seven thousand years by avoiding its use at all costs. But in the aftermath of the fight with Adam, Alastor’s worsening injury threatens the foundations of his daughter’s dream. Lucifer does what any good father would do: he uses his long-forgotten power to deliver Alastor’s soul from the brink of destruction. In turn, knowing Alastor — with all his sins, past lives, and heartbreaks — teaches Lucifer a little more about what it means to be human.

[AO3 LINK]

Another Saturday means another chapter + another promo art attempt!!! it's human Alastor and Lucifer on the subway!! Next chapter coming next Saturday, chapter preview below! 📻🍎

Alastor returns the next three nights. Lucifer brings him first to Victorian-era London, where they explore the rainy streets under a conjured umbrella. The following night they visit a speakeasy in Chicago — the next they spend wandering the streets of modern Tokyo. 

It is nothing like those nights, so many years ago now, when Lucifer would seek out Lilith’s warmth on the other side of the bed. When he and Lilith touched, they almost always ended up somewhere sleepy and serene — a meadow in the midst of Eden’s enormous, ancient trees, or a breezy morning on the deserted Mongolian steppe, in one of Lucifer’s memories of the age before humans spread across the Earth. Perhaps it had reflected a love built more on companionship than actual desire — the love that would bind any two souls alone at the desolate edge of the world. The love that hadn’t been strong enough, in the end, to hold them together — that had instead flickered out over the years into a warm but lonely friendship. 

This is different. 

The doors of the F train slide shut and the train lurches into motion — Lucifer glares up at Alastor, both of them gripping the pole in the center of the car. 

They’re in New York in 2019. Alastor’s visit today was an unexpected surprise on a lazy morning with no meetings and nothing to do; they’d arrived here just before sunset and spent a while exploring the Lower East Side before they hopped on the train at 2nd Avenue.

“You are fucking unbelievable,” Lucifer says, too loud — a father seated between his two children casts him an affronted glance over the top of his phone. Lucifer continues at a whisper: “How the Hell can you be so sure this is a downtown train? You’ve never even been to New York.”

“I can be sure because I have made use of an advanced technique known as observation of our surroundings. I highly recommend it.”

“Okay, well, you’re wrong. I’m getting off at the next stop. Asshole.” 

“This is a downtown train,” says a voice behind him, not unkindly — Lucifer turns around to find an elderly woman watching them, leaning her forearms against a cart of groceries. She inclines her head above her, at the monitor that lists the upcoming stops. “See? It’s going to Brooklyn.” 

“Oh,” Lucifer says. 

He shifts his weight on his feet as the train slows to a stop. The doors slide open; Lucifer stares out at the pillar reading Delancey/Essex and fights a losing battle against the flush rising on his face. After what feels like an eternity, the doors close again and the train accelerates out of the station.

“This is my first time in New York,” Lucifer says to the woman, as if it will in any way improve this situation. The woman glances up at him again and offers him a smile, but says nothing.

“No, it isn’t,” Alastor says behind him. “He’s been here many times before. He is the Devil, nearly as old as time itself — unfortunately he is notoriously absent-minded and plagued by the regrettable belief that he is always correct.”

The woman blinks at Alastor. The silence is broken by the deafening screech of the train’s brakes as it slows; the doors slide open before an enormous sign that reads East Broadway. 

“Ah — this is our stop. Thank you for your assistance,” Alastor says. He steps fluidly off the train and turns down the platform, toward the exit.

Lucifer stares after him in shock for a long moment, then jolts forward. “Hey!” He trips off the train, quickly rights himself — “You can’t just tell people I’m the Devil!” 

Alastor’s laughter echoes down the platform like music. 

[AO3 LINK]

[aetherialpiplup108]

What the Train Takes With It

“For the record, I don’t trust the military,” Pinako says, fingers flexing instinctively in search of the bottle of liquor circumstances seemed to demand. Alas, it was no longer the 1870’s when she would outdrink those haughty travelers until they lay awestruck under the table, listening to her smack her lips and offer insincere gratitude for quenching her thirst with their dimes while encouraging the terrified visitor to stop by the old sheeptown in a few years because mark her words, Resembool’ s a-goin’ places whether Amestris is gonna follow or not. 

It was no longer 1870. Madam Dendra’s spirited tavern had been robbed of walls and smiling customers alike by the Civil War; hardly any travelers would stop by Resembool now except to catch connecting trains; Pinako herself had to drop a few vices in favor of responsibly raising her children and their children; and it wasn’t like alcohol could compete with the bitterness crawling down her throat as she watched children too young inflict irreparable damage on their bodies and psyche to withstand burdens too big.

“We’ll take care of each other, Granny,” Alphonse says, sweet as always, and his shoulders are rigid in the way an immobile suit of armor should be but Pinako delivered this boy herself and hell if she didn’t know those shoulders would be shaking if that simple right of expression hadn’t been stolen from him, too. 

Edward is made of flesh and metal she herself fused with youthful nerves and he, too, does not shake. He offers neither an apology nor a reassurance. 

He does not meet her eyes.

That says everything anyway. 

Pinako sighs, wondering if Trisha Elric was cursing her from beyond for whisking her children away from one hell only to let them walk into another. 

And that was what the military was, no doubt about it. A staple truth of the elderly woman’s painfully long life. The hometown she had once bragged about to anyone who’d listen was set back thirty years, scared and wounded by war. Every ounce of love the great Panthress of Resembool gave her son was a scalpel carving out her insides at his funeral. And now she was watching Amestrian blue and a silver chain wrap a leash around yet another child she loved dearly.

Pinako Rockbell had chosen to be an engineer because she yearned to rebuild what was broken and protect what was dear. 

And she was damn good at her job. 

A right and true trailblazer in the industry, a godsend for veterans and betrayed civilians alike during the Eastern Conflict, a hero by anyone’s metric.

All that and Pinako still found herself helpless when it came to her own family. 

She should stop this. 

She should have put her foot down and slammed the door in the Flame Alchemist’s face the second he had the audacity to step foot into their house and extend an offer to her child. She should have refused Ed’s reckless demand to cram his recovery into a single year. She should have at least asked Alphonse to stay behind because if she had to lose one of them, why let go of the other as well?

Maybe if she had kept a closer eye on them, none of this would have happened.

In the end, she could only—

(Alphonse sat alone, moonlight glittering cruelly against azure steel as hours blended together in what seemed like an eternity of isolation. "I'm all right," he lied. "Nothing worth worrying about."

Edward leaned forward to grasp her hand, eyes blaring with determination borne not of strength and recklessness but guilt and need as he asked her for prosthetics. "My fault," he rasped. "Let me make it right. Please.")

—let go.

It was a cruel world. Tragic and depraved, cold and unfair.

But it was theirs.

A whistle cut through the air with a sense of impending finality and Ed offered a shaky smile as he took a step backwards towards the stabilizing train. Alphonse matched his step, the locomotive’s doors flapping open behind them leaving a residual image of angels about to take flight. 

They were beautiful, her children. Like their mother, like her son, like Sara.

She didn’t want to bury them, too.

Winry’s palm, still marred with scratches from the wires and metal she spent nights welding together, rubbed against her weary eyes in a futile pursuit to scrub away the water that had not stopped streaming down her cheeks since the first drop of lighter fluid hit a house stocked with memories of an old life, long gone but cherished.

She forced a smile. “This isn’t goodbye,” she croaked, voice dry but sure. She was still so young. “It’s not. When Al gets his body back—and you better hurry up, okay? No dilly-dallying, you two—you’ll come back here. First thing, right?”

Sharpness flashed across golden and crimson stares alike. “Right.” 

They were all such bright children, radiant and young. Pinako scrounged for the hope she had never been able to fully abandon and wished that light would guide them to the future they deserved, if not the one fate had in store.

“I don’t believe in the military,” the old woman repeated as her boys ascended the vehicle, steam beginning to flow out its stack. Ed leaned out the window and watched them frantically with wide eyes, Alphonse close behind, as if trying to memorize the details of their faces to recollect later. It would be a while before they met again, and Pinako wasn’t sure what she’d find in their gazes the next time she saw them. “But I do believe in you. Wherever you go, whatever you see…remember that you are more than capable of making it through.”

“Thanks Granny,” Al whispered, and Ed swallowed, simply nodding as his bangs were swept by the exhaust of the rumbling vehicle. He raised a hand in farewell.

Winry chased after the train until it darted past the station’s border, and they watched as it took the remaining half of their hearts along the tracks to the world beyond.

They stayed there for a while, the old lady and her granddaughter—the ones left behind, the ones that gave the boys the strength to move forward—before the duo trudged back to the warm house atop the grassy hill belonging to a sheep town that had produced some of the strongest people Amestris had ever known. It was quiet now.

But it'd be all right.

Come back soon. Come back safe.

Come back as yourselves.

[maxbuck]

i feel like there's something to be put into the conversation of the timing of the bucks heel turn entering 2024 that i havent seen really talked about yet? the bucks are really the only ones who havent betrayed purposefully the other elite members pre evps, and yes absolutely they were bad friends to hanger and theyre egotistical and mean but they were not usually purposefully cruel. i think the fact that even after they got adam back from the first betrayal so to speak, he still left them alone in the ring to get beat down while he chased swerve. something to be said about them losing their last titles to swerves group the same night adam left them lying in the ring. something to remember that immediately after this kenny leaves them to make a new team with jericho without talking to the bucks first. and i dont think kenny was thinking completely straight in doing so, having been betrayed and brutalized by don just recently, not used to not having someone choose his battles for him, almost going open arms into someone he knows hurts people. and thats the thing about it, jericho has hurt the bucks. not in the rivalry way with kenny, i mean really hurt them, trying to take nick out of the game seriously, assaulting their elderly father and laughing about it. i cant imagine having lost your best friend to revenge, your tag team titles, and then walking into your locker room to crash out and the guy who tried to kill the only people you have left is there. there's something deeply fucked and important character wise about kenny having been the last person the bucks fought pre heel turn. because when they make the stipulations for the match, the only thing matt desperately tries to make as a rule if they win, is that kenny leaves jericho. is that they have their friends back. but kennys stipulations were taking the only shot left in their career they had left from them. and he did! is the truly fucked thing. for the first time after years when kenny reached out after the match matt was the one to shove him away. because in that moment i think it broke something in the bucks, and matt specifically. that it hit her she can only trust nick and thats it. kenny in their last match, he told them to grow up and stop acting like children. and then thats exactly what they did. the bucks have always been petulant in their following what other people say. kenny tells them to be adults in a mocking tone, and the bucks come back to aew after months long breakdown in full fitted suits. and one of their first orders of buisness is firing kenny. it was cruel, of course, but it was exactly what he told them to do in a twisted way. grow up. they do. the title of their new intro song is you leave us no choice.

[queentheweeb]

Jake Sully X Fem Omaticaya Reader X Male Neytiri

Prompt: "We're not just friends, and you fucking know it." 

Neytiri= Nei'ko

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

The last few months have been stressful for everyone, not just you. Once the sky people were driven from your home, you had many people that needed to be buried... It was harrowing and sad, and you mourned deeply having to bury friends and family, the children and the elderly... The only comfort was knowing they would be with Eywa, safe and happy. 

"Y/N, we need your help over here." You were brought out of your thoughts and made your way over to the warriors carrying stuff, so you lent a hand, working effortlessly, which allowed you to get lost in your thoughts again. During this time, Jake has taken to being Olo'eyktan, dare you say, even better than Tsu'tey. He took all of the teachings to heart, and even though he was to blame for the sky people attacking, he more than made up for it. He and Nei'ko had bonded under the eyes of Eywa, who accepted their mating with open arms. You knew she would; she was not cruel and kept the balance of life. 

"Start bringing the supplies to the west side where our Olo'eyktan and the warriors are." You nodded your head and grabbed a stack with a grunt. It was rather heavy, and you found yourself envious of the muscles on Jake and Nei'ko. What kind of training did they do? You found yourself blushing when your mind went in a sexual direction, so you shook your head, needing to focus on the task at hand and not your useless crush on the two. You walked along the dirt path, trying not to trip, and you made it safely to where you needed to place the supplies, dropping them with a huff. They were heavy for no reason; what kind of weapons and stuff were there? 

"Thanks for the help." You turned around, smiling at Nei'ko, who smiled back tensely. He was always tense, but understandably so. He lost his father, his brother Tsu'tey, and so many friends, all while having to be Tsakarem and helping to heal the injured. He's very strong. 

"No worries, Nei'ko. Since you and Jake have found this new home for us, there is much to do, and it will not be done in one day. You deserve to relax even if it's a few minutes." You stared at him as he began protesting that he was not done, so you rolled your eyes and grabbed his wrist to tug him along. 

"What are you-" You turned your head to squint at him and frown.

"Don't be like that. I'm taking you to Jake; I might go in my head a lot, but I've noticed how you haven't been together much. You're both freshly mated still; you must relax and be together. Don't fight me on this." You both had a stare-off, but he huffed and maneuvered his hand to hold yours instead.

"Fine, but just hold my hand instead of my wrist. You're stronger than you think." You playfully rolled your eyes but obliged as the two of you walked while conversing lightly until you saw Jake in the distance, and you picked up the pace. His ear twitched, and he turned with a smile, greeting both of you, his arm reaching out to grab Nei'ko as you let go of his hand. 

"Ma Nei'ko, hi baby." You looked off to the side as they kissed, ignoring how your heart twisted at the open display of affection. You wanted to be in the middle of them. "What are you doing here? Is something the matter?" You hummed, taking that as your chance to speak.

"He has been tense, and I told him that he needs to relax and be with you. You two are mated and need to be together." Your tail waved languidly as you watched them talk with their eyes. It was always so...interesting to see. You want to be able to do that and have that close connection with them. You wanted to bond with them and feel and understand each other on a deep level that no one else would understand. 

"Thank you, Y/N, for watching out for him; I think I have the perfect idea of what we could do." Jake's eyes finally left him to look at you with a twinkle in his eyes.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" You felt your tail wave with anxiety and excitement when he grinned at you with all his teeth. You wanted to lick them.

"What ma Jake is trying to get out is if you want to join us on a walk...I know the perfect spot." Nei'ko was staring at you with a sneaky grin that had you looking at both of them in excited confusion. Jake and Nei'ko were so similar, yet so different.

"Are you sure I will not intrude on your time together?" You really hoped you weren't because that would be just a shame. You'll take any time you can get to be with them. They looked at each other again before facing you with matching grins.

"You already know that we won't mind, or else we wouldn't have invited you." You chuckled lightly at that and nodded your head in agreement. 

"That is true." You looked around at the stuff you were doing, but it could wait and be done by someone else since Jake and Nei'ko wanted you to come with them. "I don't mind going with you two. The work can be done by someone else." They nodded, and Jake wrapped an arm around Nei'ko's waist and the other around your shoulder as the three of you started talking lowly and heading out to the trees where your Ikrans were. You followed obediently, getting your Ikran, climbing on her, and flying with them for a few to an unknown destination. As you flew through the trees, letting the breeze hit your face, you were unaware of the lovestruck looks both men were giving you. Soon enough, the three of you landed on a cliff edge, and the three Ikrans disappeared behind you in the trees. 

"It's beautiful, isn't it." You turned to answer Jake, but he was already in your space, crowding you. You found yourself smiling at him and wrapping your arms around his shoulders as his hands landed on your waist.

"The view or me?" You were teasing him, and your smile grew as hands landed on your hips in that tight grip you loved.

"You know who we are talking about syulang." You looked down, grinning to yourself as the two men held on to you and squished you in between their bodies. You loved this; this was all you wanted, but...it was sad that you couldn't act like this in public because neither of them had claimed you. You knew it wasn't the right time, but it still upset you.

"What are you thinking so hard about, sweetheart?" It was Jake asking this. He moved a hand to your chin, forcing you to look at him. "Talk to me, sweetie." You took a breath, never breaking eye contact.

"I'm just wondering how it would feel to be open about us...but I guess we're just friends." You looked off to the side, missing how his eyes darkened and mouth twisted in indignance. He didn't wait for you to turn him; he squeezed your waist and used his free hand to grab your face to turn to him.

"We're not just friends, and you fucking know it." You blinked, going to say something, but gasped at the feeling of teeth sinking into your shoulder. It was Nei'ko who bit you and pulled away to lick and kiss the wound he had just made. You went to scold him but hissed at the feeling of teeth sinking into your other shoulder. That was Jake! They both just marked you, and it felt...good? It felt good to be claimed.

"Friends don't hold and mark each other Y/N." You felt Nei'ko wrap a hand around your throat, forcing your head back. "Or do this." He brought his lips onto yours, swallowing your soft moans as Jake took the opportunity to leave love bites on your neck, humming every time you jolted. When they both pulled away, you were breathing heavily and confusingly aroused. This was not what you saw happening today.

"I think we've been hiding her too long ma Jake. She needs a reminder that she's wanted, and...once everything settles down, we will announce you as our third. It's not uncommon within the Omaticaya anyway." You felt your eyes widen in hope, looking at Nei'ko, smiling gently at you, his pupils enlarged. 

"You mean it?" He grinned, pressing a kiss to your forehead.

"Of course I do." You smiled serenely at him, bringing your attention to Jake, whose eyes were wide with fondness.

"I can't wait to announce you are ours...but, first, let's make it up to you, yeah?" He didn't wait for your answer; he got it when you hugged him and moaned into the kiss. All you could think about was their hands and mouths on you as you thought about your future with them.

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

Did something different again! Let me know what you think about this one.

[linnoya-writes]

Zutara “unexpected father-in-law” canon-compliant AU

It’s interesting how, in the ATLA finale, there’s no real indication that Katara actually got to see Ozai before he gets imprisoned for war crimes.  

In the finale, everyone, including Toph, gets to throw their own personal jab at Ozai.  Not Katara. And part of me likes to believe that she chooses not to see him intentionally.  Because it’s her rough spot.  Not just because this was a man who waged war and destruction for years... but also because she has a hard time processing that the young Fire Lord she finds herself falling in love with is the son of this horrible, cruel man.  

She doesn’t want that to be true. 

She doesn’t want to accept that Ozai and Zuko are the same blood. And it takes years…. decades… for Katara to finally come to terms with that hard truth, and she pays a visit to her now elderly father-in-law in his prison cell.  

His face is gaunt and hollow at first sight, but when he looks up to her, the flaming, brilliant golden eyes are very much Zuko... and she holds her breath.

Ozai is also speechless, and only manages a grin to mask that curiosity.

Over the years, he’d only been lucky to catch glimpses of his aging brother before his passing and been visited occasionally by Azula.  Zuko, however ironically, had been the one to visit the former FireLord the most frequently… promptly at the first of every month.  It became Ozai’s personal passage of time.  At first his son had come with tea, and as the months went by… he came with news: about reconstruction of their FireNation governments, the peaceful republic of Earth Kingdom colonies encouraged by Avatar Aang, the new alliances and trade agreements made with the Southern WaterTribe.  Zuko mentioned all of this to him not as an insecure boy seeking advice, but as a learned man -- one who’d risen from countless mistakes and had eventually found his own diplomatic resolve.    

It was a kind of confidence Ozai had no idea existed within his son, and it was in this way that Zuko announced in that cell that this young Fire Lord would finally be married. 

“Who is she?” 

“Her name is Katara, of the Southern Water Tribe.” 

“A Water Tribe peasant,” Ozai muttered, amused.  Appalled.  

“Oh, if you knew even half the things that woman has done for this world, you wouldn’t think the FireNation even deserved her.” Zuko glances down, a shy smile forming. “She is unbelievable.  You’d be lucky enough to meet her.  I hope she’ll come around.”  

And Zuko leaves before Ozai can say anything regarding a tainted mark or brittle branch that will result of this marriage within Fire Nation royal history.  

Over the years, Ozai hears about this marriage, the political alliance that formed from it, the mixed daughters birthed between a peasant and a prince.  When Ozai asks the guards if his granddaughters were borne firebenders, the prisoner doesn’t receive an answer.  Instead, he receives a visit from the children themselves in their royal garb, along with their father.  Ozai sees the familiar golden flame in the girls’ eyes, despite the tanned complexion of their WaterTribe mother.  

The girls take a fire-bending stance, and the old man gets hopeful.  

But it’s when ribbons of blue begin to dance around the girls alongside the fire-bending movements that Ozai’s smile disappears.  

The blue he sees is not Azula’s Fire.  It’s actually not fire at all.  

And when the girls end their routine and smile at their grandfather, Ozai turns his back away from them.  Confused and sad, the girls turn to Zuko and ask if they did anything wrong, and their father kneels down to their level, hugging them tightly… and assures them they did not.  

Zuko’s visits become less frequent after that, only coming in to disclose important decrees and updated policies to the former sovereign.  Ozai hears about his granddaughters through Zuko, year after year, learning about their favorite foods and colors… their interests beyond bending, their worldly education fueled by their parents’ influence as well as the youthful, progressive Avatar.  

When the girls become teenagers, they finally visit their grandfather again-- this time, on their own… and ask Ozai about the war… if their family was indeed responsible for it. 

They ask about it not in an accusatory way, but more an assertive way… wanting to understand for their own sake, their future, and how the world might see them as either a blessing or a threat. How delicate their position truly is.

Over time, Ozai grows accustomed to the water he sees and the stories about the WaterTribe he hears with each of his granddaughters’ later visits.  They become women before his eyes, esteemed princesses of two cultures… and when they leave the palace independently, Ozai hears through news of the guards how these girls- much like their parents before them- are making a difference, changing the world, falling in love outside of their borders.  

It brings the old man to tears.  

The days become quieter, shorter over time.  Nobody visits him anymore, and even Fire Lord Zuko has dedicated his time more to other important matters.  Time runs glacially, erratically.  Ozai combs his now silvery mane of hair with lanky fingers to pass the days, and the last thing he expects is a new visitor approaching his cell.  

Sandwiched between two palace guards is this petite, middle-aged woman he’d never seen before, wearing royal red and blue garb.  He recognizes her face instantly, from the ones of his granddaughters.  

An old grin passes his face.  “I’m impressed the heat of our country never compelled you to flee, highness.” 

Katara grins firmly, finding her breath.  Her eyes are glistening. 

“I can handle the sun, thank you.” 

Despite having spent most of her life adapting to royal Fire Nation courts, Ozai can still hear this woman’s humble origins.  

He looks away in his cell, straightening up in only the way a former Royal can. 

Katara nods to the guards, reassuring that she’s okay and they turn on their heels to give her some time alone with the prisoner.  

Slowly, she pours the old man some Ginger tea in the same delicate way Uncle Iroh had taught her.  She doesn’t hand him the cup, but rather places it down past the rails, which he takes, and watching her then pour a cup for herself. She’s just beginning to graze her fifties, he thinks, noticing the sternness to her brow, the overworked draping to her lids… and yet, it’s the blue of her eyes that makes this woman seem timeless.  

It’s a patient, firm, kind and tranquil blue that Ozai doesn’t understand, but the old man can already sense he will spend his last decade feeling both eased and haunted by it.  

It’s quiet for a long time, sipping their tea.  

Ozai shifts uncomfortably in his sitting. “To what do I owe this honor? Are you here for some kind of absolution?” 

“No. It’s pointless to do that now.” 

Ozai stares at her. “Hmm. Then I suppose you found the urge to gloat over the irony of all this, how the tables turned so beautifully for your people.  I can imagine the spirits of your ancestors are celebrating some kind of victory, is that right?”  

Katara looks at him. “I can see how you’d think that, but no.” 

Ozai stares again.  “Are you waiting for me to beg for forgiveness?” 

Katara shakes her head even before he finishes asking. 

Ozai can only look at her, then.  Katara waits a long moment and gives him a look that could’ve made any instinct of his prepare for battle forty years earlier.  

It’s in that moment where Ozai remembers the advanced, lethal Waterbending technique he’d heard talked about in the palace halls— how it had returned after so many years of outlaw and imprisonment of waterbenders, thanks to women like her sitting in front of him.  Ozai heard that this same woman had managed to master the technique for healing purposes… but looking at her face now, Ozai wondered if she wasn’t against making an exception.  

“Are you here to kill me?” 

He asks this not afraid, exactly, but rather…. tired, alone.

Defeated.  

Her look only lasts a moment, and he sees the woman take a long, deep breath from her center.  She sets down her tea and says “no” looking at him square in the eye, and in her softest voice. 

It leaves Ozai uncomfortably impatient.  “Then, why are you here?”  

Katara looks away, then shrugs, feeling the old skin of a naive, stubborn teenager stir beneath her as she looks back to him.

“Because I love your son.  And… that makes you my family.” 

Ozai hums incredulously, looking out past Katara’s presence for a long quiet moment, and laughs on the way an old man only can.  

She chuckles as well, because it’s funny.  It’s messed up.  But it’s funny.

The room becomes quiet again as they sip their tea.  Katara pours her father-in-law another cup, gently handing it to him through the cell bars.  Ozai receives it.

And that’s how their long-overdue conversations begin.

[carnival-beetle]

Down with the Monarchy [Past Event]

TW: Murder, mentions of abuse, graphic depictions of violence, blood Winds howled outside as a storm slowly brewed. The royal family, consisting of a king and queen alongside their three children, two girls and one older boy, were safe and sound within their respective sleeping chambers. Although the king was alone tonight, his wife, the queen, was off in a different nation trying to form some sort of alliance with them, leaving the king alone and asleep in their shared chamber. Bare feet silently shuffled against the hallway towards the king and queen's chamber, a young male demon with two sets of horns was making his way there, a large butcher's knife clutched tightly within his left hand. The kingdom's jester stood outside of the chamber doors, a blank expression dressing his deformed and scarred up face, scars that he sustained from his king's cruel hand. He still remembers the burning sensation as someone in the crowd suggested the use of acids as a "punishment for not being funny enough". His blood boiled, his forehead began to throb with rage. He wanted to storm into the room, swinging and slashing his knife wildly, but he didn't. He placed the knife down and got onto his knees, using his claws to unlock the doors ever so silently.

The jester grabbed his knife once more before he slowly pushed open one of the doors, slipping himself inside. The king's bedroom was beautifully decorated with reds and golds and lion motifs. Jester hated it, he hated it so much. He hated the KING so much. The throbbing in his head only grew more and more as he approached the king's sleeping form. An old man the king was, graying hair and wrinkles scattered across his pale skin. Jester wanted nothing more than to see that face splattered in blood. And that's exactly what he was going to get. He jumped onto the bed, startling the elderly demon awake. He tried to scream, but Jester was faster and brought the knife down with one strong swing, plunging it deeper into the king's chest without a second thought. A gurgled cry escaped the king as he began to thrash around which seemed to anger Jester more. The orangish-pink demon pulled the knife out, stabbing the king in the chest over and over again until several large wounds opened up, slowly spreading downwards across his whole chest. Blood was gushing out from every wound Jester delivered, exactly how he wanted. He pulled the knife back and grabbed the dying king's hair. With a hard yank, he pulled the king's head forward and plunged the knife directly into the top of his head. Blood spurted outwards, dripping down the king's forehead and decorating his pale complexion. Jester dropped the king back down to the bed, moving himself off. His eyes were wide, pupils slit, there was no emotion to his face. The dead king lie dead, wrapped up in his silk sheets and found in the early morning by his wife and two guards when she had returned home. But Jester was nowhere to be found.

[embermoonsworld]

Olrox Headcanons

.Olrox was the son of a Tetechutin, a high lord of Aztec culture (he seems too regal and sophisticated to have just been a commoner. Another tell he was probably royalty or nobility is his emerald earring as only royals/nobles could wear them).

.Though polygamy was common among Aztec nobility, his father was loyal only to his mother. This is what inspired him to be a loyal, devoted partner.

.He was young when the conquistadors came, about in his mid to late teens.

.He blames Montezuma for his empire's downfall because he foolishly let the invaders live instead of killing them on sight. He believes it would've saved them so much trouble.

.He and his family kept their titles as a result of the conquest and the implementation of the Spanish order (because the Spanish king saw it as a way of pacifying the local nobles). However, the rest of his people were forced into hard labor under the Spanish encomtenda (landlord). He hated every moment he was forced to bear the Spainards but kept it in for the sake of his remaining family.

.He saw many friends and family members die either by warfare or disease. He suffers survivor's guilt as a result. This also began his greatest fear- losing loved ones and feeling helpless to stop it.

.Olrox was turned in the year 1533 and was between his late 20s-early thirties.

.His sire was an incredibly ancient and powerful Olmec vampire (Olmecs were the ancestors of the Aztecs and lived thousands of years before they did). He/she was a priest/priestess of the god Quetzalcoatl in their human life and, for whatever reason, made a pact with the serpent deity to become a vampire. Olrox then made a similar pact when they turned him and that's why Olrox is so powerful- his sire was very powerful and very ancient, at least 1500-2000+ years old.

.Olrox slaughtered the encomtenda and other local oppressors that had indentured his people, freeing many of the Aztec slaves as well, some of them following Olrox and being turned by him. After that, he began traveling the world. He would cross paths with many so called vampire hunters. Well, you all know how that fared for them.

.After two centuries, Olrox had long become the lord of the vampires in the Americas, (possibly being one of the first vampires in the New World). His reputation is what possibly drove Julia Belmont to hunt vampires in America.

.His feathered serpent form is the result of his sire's pact with Quetzalcoatl.

.He met his Mohican lover at least a decade or so before the Native American was killed by Julia.

.His lover refused to feed on human blood, only animal blood. Olrox respected his wishes. Olrox even followed his example by splitting his feedings between animals and humans.

.Olrox protected his lover on the battlefield when he fought in the Revolutionary War.

.Olrox is bisexual but leans more towards men. Homosexuality was frowned upon in Aztec society and for a long time he struggled with it.

.His favorite color is purple.

.His favorite flowers are orchids.

.His favorite food was tamales.

.His eyes were light green even as human. According to him, he got the color from his mother.

.His preference for feeding on the rich stems from his deeply ingrained grudge against rich white men. Although, he equates rich white men to diseased vermin at times since they brought plagues to his people.

.He would never feed on women, children or the elderly. He's not that cruel.

.In vampire society, he's attained the status of an aristocrat. He understands that power and wealth is what drives the world and plays the game if just to survive and keep from ever being powerless or enslaved again.

. It's not that he hates money and wealth, it's that he hates corrupt people using money and status to harm others.

.In his 250+ years as a vampire noble, he's accumulated an insane amount of wealth, power and influence. He gets his wealth mainly from his own trading company and has many trade partners all over the world (most of them vampires). You won't find him complaining about his massive bank account.

.He's come to love British tea and began trading in it. He was PISSED when one of his shipments was ruined in the Boston Tea Party.

.The earrings he wears are relics from his Aztec culture and from his days as a human, as is his obsidian dagger.

.He's acquired a taste for fine wine, as well as all the finer things in life. He's also more than a bit vain, dressing in only the finest clothes and using only the most expensive soaps and oils for his skin and hair. He was born into wealth and luxury after all. He also detests getting dirty but still will if he has no other choice.

.The ghostly skulls he summons in battle come from the Spirit World as he can open portals to the realm.

.He knows a lot of spells and magic and is quite the mystical scholar.

.He has a large python and a jaguar as pets back home.

.He still enjoys eating regular food very much, like most vampires do.

.He's very much an avid reader, and has taken a liking to English literature.

.He'll admit: he loves European fashions and loves the way silk and satin feels against his skin. He will NOT however in this, or any lifetime, wear a powdered wig! You won't catch him staked with one on and whoever came up with them was obviously mentally retarded.

.He goes back to Mexico every year to visit and honor the graves of his loved ones on Dia Del Los Muertos.

.He took his lover's body back to Stockbridge and buried him in a spot that held sentimental value to the both of them- like underneath a favorite tree or by the river where they spent so much time together.

.Olrox combs his hair at least one hundred times.

.One of the hardest parts Olrox went through when he first became a vampire was learning to eat and talk without stabbing his lip or tongue with his newly acquired, lethally sharp fangs

.Olrox doesn't feel the need to drain humans dry when he feeds- he can get by perfectly fine on a small, safe amount. To him, such an act is quite barbaric, not to mention a gluttonous waste. That is, of course, unless said human truly pisses him off.

.He abhors slavery and sympathizes with slaves- he knew what it was like to have his people become enslaved. All of his subjects follow him willingly because he inspires great loyalty in them as well as ruling them with fairness and compassion. He's even freed a number of human slaves across the globe as well.

.Olrox is a very devoted, passionate and affectionate lover. His significant others or lovers would experience unparalled romance and pampering at the Aztec vampire's side. He loves to cuddle and is very "touchy-feely.'' The sex is also out of this world!!!

.Olrox doesn't like to be referred to as an "Aztec'' as that was a term coined by the Spanish. His people were really called the Mexica (that's how Mexico got its name).

.He is either immune or is at least resistant to sunlight (we've seen him out in daylight twice- once when he went to the Abbey and once when he stood in front of a window with sunlight streaming in).

.He's read the Bible, but considers it preachy and hypocritical. He once laughed at the thought of it making him "burn up."

.He is disgusted by the practice of devil forging because he feels it's an abomination as well as completely disrespectful and inhumane to the souls of the deceased.

.He has a soft spot for children and goes out of his way to protect the human children in the vicinity of his home from other vampires, robbers, monsters etc.

.Deep down, Olrox knows undeniably that if they had met other different circumstances, if he (Olrox) had never had his previous lover, if the Belmont family were not so adamantly sold on killing vampires, Olrox would've definitely pursued Richter as a love interest (the boy is a pretty, feisty little thing after all).

.He lives in a large manor somewhere in New England, possibly close to Stockbridge, because that's where his lover was from and by living there, he feels like he is keeping some part of him alive.

.The beads Olrox wears in his braid belonged to his lover. They are tokens he kept to remember him.

.His style of flirting includes teasing and provoking the object of his affections with touches or jibes. He loves to see them get riled up and display great fire and passion. That's what he loves the most about his potential lovers- a fiery spirit.

.If he takes a fancy to you, good luck trying to shake him; baby boy will stick to you like a shadow.