#who stalks and eats people from the long grasses

[casuallyanidiot]

Yandere deer Hybrid with a hunter darling.

Tw.Nsfw themes! Dead dove do not eat!

Kidnapping, death, Yandere, MDNI

He's so regal and princely, with auburn colored curls framing his face like ribbon would a doll. Ciervus is a proud one, and he doesn't shy away from it. He stands taller than his peers, and his winding horns only add to his already imposing stature. He's a catch by all means: strong and intimidating to the point where no predator would mess with him and his future doe.

No one except you at least.

Ciervus is absolutely fascinated. He knows you're not something he should trust, but you've got so many things about you that he just can't tear his eyes from. Your hands are rough from handling your rifle all day, everyday, and you've got this permanent frown on your grimed streaked face. How odd. He thinks you'd be a cute doe, if you weren't fully human that is. He can't blame you for that, but it is a bit frustrating. He has his pick of potential mates, and if you just had little fuzzy ears or shiny black hooves, then he's sure he could've had you squealing and under him a long time ago.

He stamps his feet in frustration as he watches you. There's something thrilling about watching you settled in the underbrush, pointing your weapon at those he would consider his people. Every few days or so, someone he grew up with, frolicking in the spring once long ago, would disappear with only a loud bang and a streak of blood to signal their fate.

He knows it's bad to even seek you out. He could die. You would have no reservations about killing him after all. But Ciervus can't help the way his loins grow warm when he catches your scent through the trees. Even when you've dragged off the body of another poor deer, he's crouched, pressing his nose into the earth where you had sat in wait only hours before. There's something primal in the way he huffs your lingering smell off of the scattered leaves and smushed grass.

He wishes that you would know he was here, so that he could woo you properly.

Ciervus approaches you one day, and in his hands are his shed horns.

You're apprehensive, to be certain, but you let him come close. He feels shivers run up his spine. He can feel your body heat as he leans in close and presses his gift into your hands. He doesn't know why for sure you hunt those like him, but he thinks the antlers might have to do with it. He doesn't care all that much. You can't shoot him from this angle, pressed up against your back with his teeth grazing over your skin. He can feel you freeze up, and he grins at the though that this might be the first time you've ever felt like prey out here in these woods.

He lets his hands wander, dipping down the curve of your waist. You smell like death, iron, and sulfur, like you're a devil haunting this place. He relishes your pounding heart, and his lips press into the thrumming pulse point. It's then he reaches back and presses his fallen antlers to you. He figures you should have them. They take a year to grow and fall off, and he's spent that time yearning for you. It's only fair that the human tangled in greenery is the one who gets it.

"You deserve these," He whispers and finally pulls back. You're too shocked to do anything but sit there with eyes almost as wide as his and watch as he disappears.

After that day Ciervus becomes more brazen. He starts to stalk after you. He knows that to you, he's just some weird fawn with a death wish. Maybe he is, but that doesn't mean he'll let you kill him so easily. He gives you so many reasons not to.

He knows that other deer trust him. He knows that to the other woodland critter, he's just an innocent face that is not to be messed with. In that sense, he knows he can be of use to you. For as much as he follows you, you now also follow him. It sends a thrill down his spine, knowing that the barrel of your rifle is trailed after him. If he was going to lose his life to anyone, he'd want it to be you and not some drooling, snarling creature that would tear his beautiful face into a bloody mess. But he wants more time with you, so he leads you to other hybrids.

A fox, a goose, a wolf, other deer, it doesn't matter. You learn quickly, and you know that where he goes, there's an easy catch.

You vanish into the dark tree line, a body dragged behind you, and each night he lets you leave. You always return for some reason or another, and he doesn't fear the lack of you. At least he doesn't until you're gone for over two weeks.

Ciervus is beside himself. It's the first time that he's been without you for this long, and he begins to wonder if you'll ever come back. He's especially volatile during then. He fights any other young buck that come near, his nostrils flaring and his little tail wagging in utter annoyance. He expands his territory in an attempt to see if you went anywhere else, if you finally decided you were done with him.

When you appear once more, face blank and unchanged, he decided he can no longer take it. You must think nothing of him. Truly what a little fool you are. You must learn. You have to understand how he feels, and that he will have you even if it kills him.

He doesn't lead you to another hybrid this time, and he feels his cock twitch when he sees the frustration on your face. Oh...you were looking for him. It's a gratifying notion, and he bites his plump lip in excitement. He lets you go about your normal routine, but this time when you start to take your hunt for the day and leave the woods, he follows.

He's never left the sanctity of the woods. Not once in his entire life. There's this twisted sort of pride that fills him knowing that he's doing this for you. And as he peers inside your little cabin nestled along the roadside, he knows that the only reason why he would be doing any of this is because you're going to be his mate.

Your home is filled with the smell of iron and chemicals that burn his nose, but he watches from your window as you wrap a stiffening body (A rabbit hybrid this time) in a tarp and wait for a rumbling truck to come and take it away. He can see you be vulnerable in a way you'd never been before. Your bulky hunting gear is off, and he can finally see just how little you are compared to him in all his hulking glory. His ears twitch. You really are just a little doe.

He waits for you to relax, sitting on your bed and yawning as you prepare to rest for the day. He strikes then, breaking your window and yanking you out with little regard for how the glass cuts into you on the way out. His lithe and bulging arms wrap tightly around your midriff and knock the air out of you. He smiled at the way you try to fight despite struggling to breathe. He croons and presses a kiss to your cheek. He suspected as much when he gave you his antlers, but you really aren't all that strong, are you? At least not enough to fight him off.

He shushes you and shoves two thick fingers into your mouth when you try to scream, and a wide, unnatural smile crosses his lovely face.

"Shhh, shh its okay- ow! Hnh, haha, I guess I deserved that. No more biting, okay little doe?" He murmurs as he pets your hair and drags you further into the forest. It's so dark, and he knows that your human eyes won't be able to see where he's taking you. He takes you to a little cave decorated all pretty with soft furs, flowers, and moss. He sets you down, thrashing and screeching, into a little nest he's made.

He knows you think you're strong, but he's going to make sure you know your place. You were never really meant to be a hunter, you were always meant to be the strong mate he deserved.

His large hand reaches down and finds your ankle, catching it from where you tried to kick his sides. His wide, dark eyes peer down at you, and he smiles. Oh he how he loves you, but you're far too stubborn. Even now you're clawing at his arms, and his face crinkles apologetically.

"Little doe, this is for your own good," He says with a firm tone. You part your lips to argue, but a sickening crunch reverberates throughout the cold, stone walls of the cave. You let out a bloodcurdling scream as your leg twitches in pain. He releases your now broken ankle, and he wipes away your tears as he puts extra padding around your wounded foot.

"There there, don't cry. Shhh, shhh you're okay. I'll take care of you," He soothes and presses you down. You're a little heap of sobs, and his heart squeezes painfully. "Don't worry, little doe. I'll be a good mate. I'll wait until you're allllllll better before I start trying to get you used to me down here," He says softly as he presses his hand to your clothed crotch. He feels you flinch away, and Cervius can only chuckle.

"I know, I know, we won't do that until you feel better," He assures you and presses his palm over your mouth to muffle the insults and screams that were trying to escape that pretty mouth of yours. He waits until you pass you before he finally relaxes and snuggles up against you.

He's finally caught you. His little doe. His prey.

Continuation here

[nico-is-typing]

"Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation", a guide

Notes:

The chapter summaries were written by the author and translated by the staff at the Mo Dao Zu Shi Wiki. This "guide" serves as a simplified overview.

To make it easier to access the information, this is divided into novel volumes. Aside from the list of chapters, and respective summaries, at the end you can find ALL FLASHBACKS (for people who, like myself, dislike flashbacks and need a previous warning).

Volume 1

Prologue

Wei Wuxian has died!

1. Reincarnation

Wei Wuxian is reincarnated into someone else's body.

2. The Intractable

Part 1: Wei Wuxian makes a scene in front of Gusu Lan disciples. Part 2: Evil spirit comes Part 3: Battle corpses

3. The Prideful

Part 1: I have a little donkey that I never ride Part 2: Wangji's long-awaited arrival Part 3: After washing my face, found out I was actually pretty handsome Part 4: Soul-eating woman Part 5: I am taking this person back to the Lan Clan

4. The Elegant Flirt

Part 1: Overbearing Hanguang-jun's crazy little escaping wife??? Part 2: Inviting death by crawling into his bed Part 3: First meeting as schoolmates Part 4: I hate you Part 5: Inviting death by provoking him Part 6: Teasing this Goody-two-shoes Part 7: Water spirit, loquat, muahh! Part 8: Rabbit, taking a beating, bye-bye!

5. The Sunny Pair

Part 1: Leaving the mountain to elope!!! Part 2: The husband duo leaves the mountain Part 3: Caressing your hand, huzzah! Let's go to a darker place together...╭(′▽`)╭(= =)╯ Part 4: Man-Eating Ridge

6. The Malevolent

Part 1: Rotten luck Part 2: Coming out alive Part 3: Nonchalantly shedding fake identity + princess carry Part 4: Unveiling the secret of the Man-Eating Ridge of Qinghe Part 5: Aaaahhhhh! What else is buried in the walls?!

7. The Morning Dew

Part 1: Come~~ be happy~~ let's drink wine~~ Part 2: "Sir, what's your last name?" "It's... Lan" Part 3: The extermination of the Chang clan, gravedigger, summoning Wen Ning again Part 4: Lan Zhan... is drunk......... Part 5: "You were so wild last night, Hanguang-jun"

Volume 2

8. The Stalk of Grass

Part 1: Foggy ghost city Part 2: Paper effigies Part 3: Paper effigy shop and sticky rice porridge Part 4: Who's outside the door? Bamboo pole clacks Part 5: Who are you, and who are you? Who the f**k are you guys really? Part 6: Secrets start unveiling Part 7: Yi City's story Part 8: Frost Blood Parts 9: Trash Yang incites the wrath of heaven and people Part 10: The husband duo decapitates Trash Yang, Xing-Lan-Qing gets sorted out, Yi City Arc complete

9. The Allure

Part 1: Wangji drunkenly hits Wen Ning, Xiao-Wanjun binds Wei Ying at night Part 2: Special program: "Drunk" by Lan Wangji, "Interrogation" by Wei Wuxian, "Kiss" joint performance Part 3: Take off my headband, you become mine!!!

10. The Beguiling Boy

Part 1: Headless man Part 2: Secret room, head Part 3: The Venerated Triad Part 4: A mutual fan-turned-anti story Part 5: A mutual fan-turned-anti story, complete

Volume 3

11. Supreme Courage

Part 1: Previous life Part 2: The beast at the end of the deep cavern Part 3: Wicked beast and biting Wan-jun, piggyback leads to heart aflutter Part 4: Tease. Flirt. Escape. Bite. Yell. Wail~ Part 5: Kill after finishing teasing, tease after finishing killing.

12. Sandu: The Three Poisons

Part 1: A storm is brewing Part 2: All hell breaks loose. A great slap Part 3: Upheaval at home Part 4: Wen Ning Part 5: Dead end

13. Ill Winds

Part 1: Rise of the evil and charming wickification Part 2: Continuing that rise of evil and charming wickification

14. Soft

Part 1: Inseparably in love Part 2: Sinister melody Part 3: Set out Part 4: Pouncing into a grass pile is a type of romance Part 5: Dig graves and eat melon Part 6: Crusade against

15. Peony for the Soon Departed

Part 1: Everyone, I like flashbacks Part 2: Shadow Part 3: Tossing flower from the balcony

Volume 4

16. The Unruly

Part 1: Crashing a feast Part 2: Defect

17. Distance

Part 1: Two people taking care of a little one together Part 2: Goodbye my love

18. Night Flight

Part 1: Wei Wuxian, lifelong anti-fan of Jin Zixuan, says "I won't troll Jin Zixuan for a year" Part 2: Wickification maxed Part 3: Die with her, everyone!

19. Core of the Truehearted

Part 1: Flashback ends, back to the present Part 2: Unmask Part 3: The crowd of corpses at Burial Mounds Part 4: Battle against the fierce corpses Part 5: A-Yuan, A-Yuan Part 6: Blinding the children by showing off Part 7: Spilling secret Part 8: Don't you know? Once you have a boyfriend, you must take him to see where you grew up Part 9: Pay respect towards heaven, saving mutual salute between couples for later Part 10: The truth behind the golden core Part 11: Jiang Cheng is shook

20. Day and Night

Part 1: Stealing lotus pods Part 2: One inn, one room Part 3: One is handsome, one is charming, therefore they should do something Part 4: Drunken Ji Part 5: Stealing jujube and chicken Part 6: Love bathing Part 7: Overthink Part 8: Now Wei Wuxian can't leave Lan Wangji

Volume 5

21. Hensheng: To Hate Life

Part 1: Time to beat Yao-meimei Part 2: Discipline whip scars Part 3: Confession Part 4: Rescue failed Part 5: I'm sorry. I broke my word. Part 6: But, those are all things in the past Part 7: It is all you guys' fault Part 8: Boss's dignity Part 9: All gathered in one hall

22. Hidden Edge

Part 1: Everyone fights older Nie together Part 2: Nie Mingjue f**k you #%@&#*&@ Part 3: Seal the coffin Part 4: Everyone has their own path

23. Wangxian: Forgetting Envy

Part 1: Every day is every day Part 2: Sweet Part 3: The ballad of Wangxian was as long as the journey here, now the song has ended but the couple are together at last

Extras

Family Banquet

Part 1: Honeymoon, going back to check up on Hubby's family (○｀3′○） Part 2: Honeymoon, day-to-day accounts Part 3: Daily lives of the lovey-dovey husband duo

The Incense Burner

Part 1: Let's gather around and watch Er-gege's () dream Part 2: Yiling Patriarch Xian vs Young Wangji, KO

Villainous Friends

The daily lives of the evil duo, committing crimes and wiping evidence

Gate Crasher

Part 1: A small night-hunt after Wangxian goes into seclusion Part 2: Catching creatures with Sizhui Part 3: You're a virgin? :P

The Iron Hook

Part 1: Patriarch's night-hunt course Part 2: Second night-hunt notes

Lotus Seeds

Summertime of youth

Yunmeng

A dream among clouds, a dream come true

From Dawn till Dusk

Cuddling and grading papers

Flashbacks

Vol. 1

From "The Elegant Flirt, Part 3" to "The Elegant Flirt, Part 8"

Flashback to the beginning of the Cloud Recesses' Arc. Includes: Wei Wuxian and Lan Wanji's first meeting at around fifteen years old.

Between "The Morning Dew, Part 2" and "The Morning Dew, Part 3"

Lan Wangji (re)tells the story of Xiao Xingchen and the massacre of the Yueyang Chang Clan.

Vol. 2

From "The Stalk of Grass, Part 6" to "The Stalk of Grass, Part 9"

Past memories, from performing Empathy on A-Qing (ghost) Includes: The expanded story of Xiao Xingchen, A-Qing, Xue Yang, and Song Lan; What is really happening in Yi City.

In "The Allure, Part 3"

Minor flashback to the archery contest, at the Qishan Wen Clan's Discussion Conference. Includes: One of the first forehead-ribbon incidents

From "The Beguiling Boy, Part 3" to "The Beguiling Boy, Part 5"

Past memories, from Nie Mingjue (non-consensual Empathy) Includes: Meng Yao's back story; A look into sworn-brotherhood; What really happened to Nie Mingjue?

Vol. 3

From "Supreme Courage, Part 1" to "III Winds, Part 2"

Flashback to Wei Wuxian's first life. Includes: Nightless City Arc (Wen Clan of Qishan); Burial Mounds, the first appearance; The demise of Wen Chao; Jiang Cheng and Lan Wangji realizing Wei WuxIan has changed.

From "Peony for the Soon Departed, Part 1" to "Peony for the Soon Departed, Part 3"

Flashback to Wei Wuxian's first life. Includes: Archery competition, the full story; A sneaky kiss; Jin Zixun being the worst.

Vol. 4

From "The Unruly, Part 1" to "The Unruly, Part 3"

Flashback to the "The Downfall of Wei Wuxian". Includes: Crashing the Jin banquet; Qiongqi Path (freeing the remnants of Qishan Wen Clan); Turning the Burial Mounds into a home; Cultivation World leaders start scheming; Jiang Cheng wants to fight.

From "Distance, Part 1" to "Distance, Part 2"

Flashback to the "The Downfall of Wei Wuxian" continues. Includes: Lan Wangi visiting the Burial Mounds; Accidentally adopting a child together; "Rich-gege"; Jiang Yanli is a bride now.

From "Night Flight, Part 1" to "Night Flight, Part 3"

Flashback to the "The Downfall of Wei Wuxian" continues. Includes: Wei Wuxian tries to be a good uncle; Ambush at Qiongqi Path; R.I.P Jin Zixuan and good-riddance Jin Zixun; The Wen siblings surrender; Wei Wuxian says goodbye to his remaining sanity (Yanli deserved better); Bloodbath of Nightless City ensues.

There's no actual flashbacks in Vol. 5. Still, some of the Extras take place in the past.

[silviakundera]

Lighter and Princess ep 1

@dangermousie 's posts have seduced me and I always meant to get to this drama, because the lead actress is one of my cdrama crushes. So let's gooooooooooo

Holy shit, how are these the opening lines for a modern cdrama lmao

"Betrayers shall go to hell." / "Just consider me a betrayer. Anyway, it's not binding to me. It doesn't matter if I go to hell. I'm experienced." 😶

Ok but actually, the metal fence separating them, the wind in her hair, the way the field of dry grass matches his bad dye job. Captivating.

Mom starts nagging FL about marriage and all I can focus on is how beautiful her hair looks as it spills over her shoulder. Her pouty mouth 😩

Sorry ML I know your prison release is very poignant but still stuck on how perfect your once & future gf looks when eating cherry tomatoes.

ok ok I'm with u buddy. Setting things on fire on a rooftop at night. Dressing in all black, including long coat. Terse replies. Your goth stylings and soulless eyes are bewitching me, body & soul.

FL's first visit home is to a self-proclaimed 'vampire' friend with a fridge literally half-filled with booze. I can see why she's a girl that's hard to get over.

I'm guessing L&P CEO man is the villian and tbh he's got my respect by not sweating across the table from glowering feral mongoose in human form who seems one moment away setting that office aflame, just to feel something.

ah, the 3 were best friends in university! yep, the dude that didn't end up in prision or flee the country is DEFINITELY the villain.

yaaaassss "betrayers have to pay a price" Simple, vague, yet ominous. Like all threats should be.

awww I like his prison buddy. They shared the same cell and he managed to survive. He's totally foreseeing how intense his bro is gonna be about all this.

wow, flashback More Innocent Times FL was pretty intense herself about pyro boy.

who....is stalking her in the present? Or I guess not.

The fact that he actually came to collect his debts and demand money: based. I'm pretty sick of a 'the only thing I have is my pride, so I refuse all financial support from people who can easily afford it' protagonist.

She has no interest in art? HUH. I like that too. Goes against the 'cultured rich girl' cliche.

lmaooooooo band friend got her revenge by forcing ML to run into FL and bland painter boy.

Prison buddy ganking the check and booking it brings a sense of pride to ex-cons everywhere. Plus, I get the pleasure of FL's silky hair in the lamp light of the street corner she's slammed him into. 😍

[writingescapades]

Livestock

A/N: Cyno my beloved. Should I make a part 2?

How do most fantasy stories start? Once upon a time, Long long ago, In a far off world. You played within such worlds as you endured your daily life. A life full of repetitive boredom. Every morning you gathered the cows and goats and sent them off to graze. You stood there, watching them eat slowly slowly slowly driving you insane. Out of of curiosity, you once reached down and tried a handful of the grass yourself. Bland. You didn’t spit it out, but kept chewing, thinking that maybe some secret ambrosia would seep out. Instead all you discovered was tough grass, incredibly hard to break down and swallow.

Some days, when the drought season was at its worst, you had to drive the herd further out. Under the blaring sun, you monitored the herd, keeping an eye out for opportunist wolves and jackals. When the midday sun rose and the heat became too much for even the herd, they gathered together to doze off. You sat near them and started to slip into your fantasies. Once the sun started to slip, you would bring the herd back and return them to their respective owners. Such was your life. You had a knack for drawing animals near you and making them feel safe. Thus, it was often your responsibility within the village to tend to the herds. Since the entire village was dependent on the herd, you skills naturally brought out the awe and respect of the villagers. But it also brought out their envy, which is why you currently found yourself trapped in a luxurious room.

The chamber was pristine, cool, and lush. The type of room royalty would squander their lives in while their subjects suffered. It was certainly a step up from your bare house with only the single khat bed weaved out of dried stalks. You half expected to see a bulbous royal lounging upon the heavily draped and jewelled bed that rested at a distance from you. Instead, you saw a lithe figure with gleaming red eyes that stared sharply at you. Initially you stared back, waiting for the man to explain why his guards dragged you to this room and why your hands were handcuffed and chained to the wall behind you. But the man continued to watch.

You knew the rumours behind the man. Prince Cyno, adopted son of the king. Royal terror. He was next in line for the throne and he already had a reputation. Every night, the prince would meet one person in his chamber. The following morning, that person was executed. A reason was always provided. One person orchestrated a massive syndicate. Another was an assassin. Another dealt in human trafficking. In each case, a law was broken and Prince Cyno was known to be a stickler for law and duty. But you had never committed such crimes, so you had no reason to be here!

“There are claims that you are involved in illegal witchcraft,” the prince started. “Do you admit to this?”

Witchcraft was not banned in the kingdom, but there were many regulations. Decades of studies combined with continuous testing and reporting. Only the most wealthy and dedicated went into the field to be authorized as legal magicians. Those who could not afford it or could not commit to the hours, were branded as illegal. It caused a mad mass migration of many magicians people out of the kingdom once the law was passed. In the chaos, you lost your parents in the desert and tumbled into the village several years ago. Now you understood why the prince brought you here. Your parents were affluent magicians. They worked for the royal family, but they were not authorized. As their only known surviving child, anything odd about you would be considered as illegal magic.

Fortunately for you, you did not inherit your parents skill in magic. Your magic, if it could called magic, was in your ability to make animals feel safe. You couldn’t manipulate them. You couldn’t hear their thoughts. You were no more skilled than a young child and their attachment to the family pet. Yet the concern was on whether you should tell the prince this. Small magic or not, you were using it, thus you were an illegal practitioner.

“Yes,” you sighed. You might as well tell the truth. You never feared death, just the possibility of pain being associated with it. But if such an ending was your destiny, you might as well face it. Surely it would be better than spending a lifetime following livestock.

The red eyes narrowed.

“For this crime, you will be executed at dawn,” Prince Cyno’s deep voice sliced the air.

“As you wish, my lord,” you quietly replied, looking at the foot of the bed over anything else.

You didn’t notice the confused expression on Prince Cyno’s face as he took in your meek acceptance. He was used to anger, vile language, even tears and bribes. Nothing worked to move his heart. Those people deserved to pay for the crimes they committed. They should have known better before choosing to live in this kingdom. He was surprised by your quiet acceptance. He assumed you were unable to handle the guilt of your crime.

“Explain your magic, how were you able to avoid detection for so many years”.

As he spoke, you could see a sharp object glinting in his hands. You were surprised that the Prince thought threats would work after you had just been condemned. As if reading you mind, the Prince spoke.

“This blade will take out your left eye. The next will take your right. Another two to your cheeks, and so on for as long as your silence continues”.

Ah, so that was the choice then? Torture or no torture?

“I make animals feel safe. I suppose I’ve gone undetected because I was useful, and it’s not like I was doing anything obviously magical”.

Prince Cyno interrogated you. He inquired about all the magic you knew. He asked whether you enchanted the animals or the people. He asked whether you manipulate bodies, minds or emotions. Whether you magically drugged the animals. He wanted to know how much you earned for your services. For each question, you shook your head. As for payment, you lived in the small hut in a village. Your fees allowed for the hut and some food. Nothing else.

The prince became more and more confused with every answer. Your words did corroborate with your status, but nothing indicated crooked intentions. Was it possible for magic users to be so, so weak? Silence fell over the room as Cyno mused over what you told him. It was obvious you had no nefarious intentions, and he could hardly justify your execution to the king and nobles. They would ask what magic you carried and his answer would cement him as an unjust ruler. Riots would break out. People would attempt more and dangerous assassinations upon his life. But a crime was a crime, right?

“Shall I tell you a story,” you interjected.

Stunned at your voice and on what you were asking, Cyno just stared perplexed for a moment. When you repeated your question, he waved his hand, indicating he did not care whatever decision you made. You shrugged and started talking. If you were going to die, you might exact some revenge in telling your dull life story to the prince. You told about your birth and growing up in the palace. You spoke of the mass migration, the fear, losing your parents. You told him how you wandered around the desert for what seemed like days before finally collapsing on the outskirts of some village. It was pure luck a villager happened to pass by and notice a dehydrated child. You told the prince how the kindness of the villagers made you decide to stay and repay them for their kindness with the one skill you had. You then told him how boring it was to watch cattle eat. How many times they grind their food. You even told him the time you attempted to eat the grass yourself.

It was near dawn by the time you finished. Alas, you realized the end of your life was still marked by livestock. You started to feel nervous about your impending doom. You glanced at the prince. During your entire story, Prince Cyno did not utter a single word. Nor did he made any sign for you to stop. He just stared at you.

A knock came from the door and a soldier entered. He bowed and greeted the Prince, paying no attention to you. Cyno nodded and the soldier drew near. The prince whispered something into the soldier’s ear. The soldier nodded and moved towards you.

This was it. You were going to die. Good bye life. Good bye cattle and goats.

The soldier unchained you from the wall, then unfastened your hands. You were confused. Did the prince grant prisoners the dignity to die unshackled?

“You’re free,” the soldier spoke, then left the chamber.

You turned to the prince, face demanding an explanation. Prince Cyno shrugged.

“I was moo’d by your story”.

[brightdarkness-2013]

Chapter 5: Chapter 5?! No Way!

Summary:Prowl gets a new hang out.

Blaster and I had decided that our mer friend needed a place to go during the day. Being trapped in the cove and swimming in a tight circle around the rock wasn’t the best place to swim. There was no room to stretch and the water was only up to our waists if we stepped in. His injuries were healing rather well and it was painfully obvious he needed more space to move. Thus we set off one afternoon in search of a good spot along the shore. A little trekking through some light brush, grass, and some long stretch of beach littered with so many shells our steps crunched no matter where we stepped we found a little place far enough from the town it was unlikely anyone would head out here. The little cape was void of any garbage or evidence that anyone had been around the area. Even if there were some people who came out there were plenty of rocks and patches of seagrass to hide in. So early the following day we coaxed our mer friend out with some m&ms.

“Come on.”

We were running along the coast, our mer easily keeping up. We’d give him an m&m every once in awhile to keep him from turning back. However he didn’t appear to be thrilled that we were only giving him one at a time if that glare he gave us every time we threw one was anything to go by. Blaster and I on the other hand were laughing like we were having the time of our lives. Once we got to the slope that separated from the water our mer hesitated, giving out a few quiet sounds as he watched us as he lifted his head from the water.

“We’ll meet ya on the other side.” I reassured as I made the motion of going around something though he just gave out another noise that sounded suspiciously like a whine. “We’ll call ya if you get lost. I promise.”

Off we went again. Once we made it to the cape I stuck my hand under the water and snapped my fingers like I did to call him so many times before as Blaster called for him. Thankfully it didn’t take long. All in all the discovery of a safe place with more space had put our friend in a better mood. We’d still feed him in the cove on weekdays, but on the weekends we’d head down to the cape where we’d talk and watch our mer stalk the wildlife there. Either creeping around the rocks or hiding in the seagrass. The fish in the cape were small, but it wasn’t like he needed it to survive with us feeding him. I’d whistle little tunes every once in awhile and Blaster would watch as our mer gave me questioning looks. And one day I had my inspiration. Sunday at ten am I had it.

“Prowl.”

“Huh?”

“That’s what I’m going to call our mer.” I answered as we watched him.

“Prowl…” Blaster tried out the name. “It fits. You can only hope he thinks so too.”

“Eh, he’s a fish with-”

Blaster gave me a mildly disappointed look and I just grinned. “Mammal.”

“Ok, he’s a mammal with an attitude, but I doubt he’ll care too much what we call him.”

“Fair enough… Please tell me you haven’t been referring to him as a fish this entire time.”

“In my defense I assumed so because he lives in the ocean.”

“So do dolphins.”

“Oh whatever that’s one example.”

“Whales.” My friend was grinning smugly now.

“Shut up, Blaster.”

Blaster just laughed and I shoved him over onto the beach where he just continued to laugh much to my dismay.

444444444444444444 Even more fours!4444444444444444444

“Jazz! Finally! I’ve called you like twenty times!”

“I’m kind of celebrating my sister's birthday right now.”

“Oh please you’re in the corner with your headphones eating all the sweets.”

“I’m outnumbered and last time they locked me out in the backyard and ate all of the cake in front of me because they thought it was funny.”

“It was.”

“Blaster.”

“And it was good cake. Ice cream and oreo.”

“Blaster!”

“Ok, ok so I went out with Gaven and you’re never gonna believe what happened.”

“What did you find a giant squid? Did you fall in?”

“No. Prowl helped us fish. He herded them into the net. Gaven nearly fell off the boat the way he was leaning over the side. Kept yelling at me to get the camera.”

“What? Really?”

“Yeah. He must’ve seen me leaving with Gaven and followed. We got a ton of fish and Gaven even shared some with Prowl afterward.”

“I bet he was happy to have some live meat for once.” I couldn’t help, but laugh.

“You have no idea. He seems to be doing much better. I didn’t realize how much those wing fins helped. He can take some pretty sharp turns now that the right one isn’t torn.”

“Maybe if he can keep helping ya and your stepdad he won’t leave.”

“Jazz, if his pod comes I doubt he’s gonna stay and settle for a fishing boat. Not exactly a good pod member to befriend and bond with.”

“And what if they don’t? What if they’re dead? Maybe herding fish for ya guys will be enough to make him stay. I mean that’s basically what he did when he hunted with his pod, right?” I fidgeted in my seat as the girls laughter in the next room erupted.

“Possibly… But he can’t just stay in the cove.”

“And why not? If they’re dead he has nowhere else to go. What is he going to do out there alone? I don’t want him to just die out there.”

“I don’t either, but if he does decide to leave what then?”

“I don’t know… I just don’t want him to go. I mean we’ve made some great progress. He stopped growling at me. He twitches an ear fin when we call his name. I think we’ve bonded.”

“I know what you mean, but… Just… Prepare yourself for the worst and hope for the best. Maybe they’ll come.”

“Is it really that wrong that I kind of don’t want them to?”

“Maybe, maybe not. I don’t want him to go either, but he misses them.”

“... Is there a possibility that he could be accepted into another pod? You know if they are dead and he still leaves?”

“I have no clue. I doubt he’d want another. They’re his family. Pods may mingle from time to time during a breeding season, but I don’t think they join unless they absolutely have to.”

“So that’s a no.” I let my head fall back in my chair as I blindly reached for another treat.

“Certain types are different and have different ways. I only have the barest knowledge on mers. For all I know they could be completely accepting of new members.”

I sighed and silence reigned for a time. In the end Blaster was the one who broke the silence.

“Sometimes there’s just nothing you can do, Jazz, no matter how much you want to.”

“I know… See you tonight at the cove?”

“I’ll be there.”

Next

First

Masterpost

[soulsxng]

I don't think I've ever posted much info about Misne, now that I think about it. Other than the fact that he's JJ's son. So! Here's an info dump about the lil' dude.

JJ found him while he was helping Kadios, Koza, and Sirci out with some things in the Aifaen Plains of Brinnela. He got back to his little camp site, and found Misne digging through and eating his food. Once he realized he was caught, he posted up like he was going to try to attack, and then...got too scared, and ran off. This continued off an on for a few days, until the point when Mimi was comfortable enough with JJ to sit around and eat with JJ there. Eventually, JJ was able to bring him to Kadios, who took Misne to what is essentially a foster. Mimi didn't like that, and he'd run off to find JJ whenever JJ was in the Plains. Evidently he's a really good tracker. JJ, when found, would hang out with Mimi for a little while, before bringing him back to the foster. ...JJ got attached, Mimi got attached, within a month, JJ had adopted him as his own. That was about a year ago now!

Misne is about 5 years old, but because he never really spoke any non-beast languages, his speech makes him sound a little younger.

He's also pretty small for his age, from having to essentially fend for himself for who knows how long. It's taken some work, but he's finally starting to catch up a little.

Nobody knows for sure what happened to his biological parents, though JJ has since met people that knew them. Apparently, the three disappeared out of nowhere one day-- most people thought that Misne had disappeared with them, though he was just kicking it around the forest by himself.

He's an Aifaen! One of the 'original' 4 species along with the Ahniri, Setana, and Vasyrus. Aifaen are essentially a species made up of animalistic shifters of various types. Lots of mythical beasts, or chimera-like beasts that are more or less a big mix of different animals and such that are around today. Misne in particular has traits of bears, otters, some various big cats (though in very trace amounts), aaaand...

^^^^ This buddy ^^^^ Particularly a paralyzing bite, spiny tail, and two extra sets of arms (though the latter is usually only present in his beast form)

He's a very snuggly little buddy. JJ picks him up, and Mimi immediately plunks his head on his dad's shoulder and is out like a light within minutes. Commonly sleeps on and off over half the day, and then has big, but short-lived bursts of energy when he's up.

Likes to climb things, swim, roll around in the grass, "stalk" little frogs and things that he finds when rolling around in said grass (he doesn't really have much of a hunting instinct beyond that yet, though), and laying around in the sun.

Greets people he doesn't know by doing a lap around them while sniffing them. If they move during this process, he'll get nervous and go hide behind JJ, or whoever else is with him.

Has a very good sense for people. If they have bad vibes, you can bet he's bristling up immediately and growling at them as he backs himself behind whoever he's with.

Refers to himself in the third person (as "Mimi"). Has a hard time with saying names (JJ is "Dayday" or "Dada Dayday" most of the time, for example), but he remembers them really well!

Lots of things given to him still go right in his mouth ^^;;

Gets hurt a lot, but he's pretty durable tbh, so it hardly fazes him.

Doesn't fully understand how to shift yet, which is something that JJ has been getting help from some of his Aifaen friends for. Because of this, sometimes Misne has a hard time shifting on command, and it's more of a random chance thing. Sometimes he gets stuck partway through, and that's painful, which is why JJ jumped on getting help for him really quickly.

Knows around when JJ usually comes home when he's been working. Will grab Jas, or Rouri, or whoever is watching him, and just start pulling them outside, because Mimi knows he's not allowed to go out alone, but he's gotta go find his dad!

[theretirementstory]

02/06/2024. 😱 it’s June already! Looking back 5 years when I visited this beautiful old house with Monique, in Rosnay-l’Hopital. Did they really have the red carpet out for us? It was a glorious day, we had had a BBQ in Monique’s garden, a little snooze then a visit to the house.

Fast forward to this day last year and it was the day I came home from hospital after spending 4 weeks in there. I am not ashamed to say I cried, when I saw my town, my house and my garden, it was all that had kept me going those long four weeks.

However, I am home now, the gardener came on Tuesday and cut the grass which has made a big difference to the garden. My cherry tree, which was laden with cherries, have all been snaffled up by the birds while we were waiting for them to ripen. The birds have kindly left the stones and stalks still attached to the branches. Oh well, I guess what you never have, you never miss! The hellebore has another couple of flowers on and the rose bushes are budding so more roses soon.

I was in Paris at the hospital on Monday, a very tiring journey there and back 6.5 hours in total but at least I was only at the hospital for 2.5 hours. Tomorrow I am there again this time for a CT scan and possibly a transfusion or transfusions. I was also in hospital at Troyes for the day on Friday as the results of my blood tests showed my levels to be very very low and two transfusions were needed. As a consequence I have to relax this weekend (whatever that means).

Being unable to drive for two months, as well as being so fatigued that I couldn’t even make it round the supermarket, I have had my neighbour doing the supermarket shopping and Anie went and purchased my fruit and vegetables. It’s wonderful that these people really don’t mind helping me out.

Although I could use the cleaning lady to do my upstairs, I couldn’t cope with her chuntering. Normally her days are Monday and Thursday and it looks as if these are going to be my days for the hospital so it’s no use asking her to come. I will just make do or as Monique has volunteered I may take her up on it. She also volunteered to come and tidy my borders.

I have an English friend (lives in France) coming to visit on Tuesday. I would like to make something to eat but don’t think I have the energy, so it may just be cake and biscuits and a drink.

“The Trainee Solicitor” started his Uni course on Thursday. It seemed to go well. He decided to “let the train take the strain” and although it means leaving home early in the morning it does mean that he can work, eat and drink while travelling. The course is for six weeks the number of days vary week on week but once it’s done, it’s done!

“The Reconnect Navigator” has had a pretty trying week, some weeks can be like that so let’s hope that next week is less “trying”. It was her Grandads birthday yesterday, so it was all round to his house for a party. Let’s hope there are not too many headaches this morning 😊.

My gorgeous grandchildren have had a wonderful break in Buxton, Derbyshire with their Mummy and their Grandad who was over from Canada. They are now spending the weekend with “The Photographer”. They are pretty tired from their adventures, where they saw penguins, wallabies and lots of different animals. “The Photographer” was out on the election canvassing trail on Thursday, he was doing photos for his friend who is standing for Parliamentary MP locally.

“The Jetsetter” has her feet planted on terra firma for a little while longer. A friend was doing a charity bike ride so she and “The Photographer” went to see them finish the ride, of course photographs were involved. Although the week involved a Bank Holiday it appears as if it was a busy week all the same.

I know I seem to be stuck in the 1970’s for a lot of my music but that’s how it goes and then when you realise that these tunes are almost 50 years old it’s a bit scary. Anyway here are two more this week.

The first is by ELO from their 1976 album “A New World Record” it’s “So Fine”.

The second has not been so easy to think of so many songs buzz through my head.

So I am choosing “Stay With Me Till Dawn” by Judie Tzuke from 1979.

Lots to do today, preparing for tomorrow morning’s journey to Paris. The taxi is coming for me at 5:30am, keep your fingers crossed that it is only a short visit to the hospital but somehow I doubt it!

Wishing you all a good week until next week.

The garden looking lush and green.

Prends soin de toi.

[citadelsushi]

blah blah original fiction I want to share blah

In the shadow of a massive redwood tree stood a stone cabin. Its foundation was built into the surrounding hills and its thatch roof extended to the ground. Sparse grass and wildflowers crawled along the upward slope of the straw structure, reaching for the thin streams of sunlight that penetrated the think canopy overhead. Pine needles accumulated in thick beds of warm brown hugging the stone. It looked as if the building was birthed from the Earth rather than forced upon it, a stark contrast to the imposing Towers of Mage in the cities proper. Despite the snap in the air, no smoke rose from the tall slate chimney. It would be easy to miss this hut altogether if passing by from a distance. An ideal home in which to find solitude and tranquility. Or a perfectly inconspicuous refuge for someone who didn’t want to be found.

Kaito stalked the perimeter. Only three windows split the stone walls; two small squares near the pitch of the roof and one at waist height that was covered with wooden planks. The scrape of heavy wood against grass was deafening in the otherwise whispering forest. Someone was coming outside. Kaito pressed himself into the shadow of the closest pine. A woman of average height and slender build stepped into the pool of sunlight past the door’s threshold. Hand over her brow to block the light, he couldn’t make out her face. Even if her hand did not obscure his view, he doubted he’d be able to make out her features clearly. Brilliant white hair fell to mid-back, casting a glare so bright it rivaled the snow fields of Northern Tyrzia on a clear day. He squinted and watched her walk around the side of the modest building. Save for her hair, she did not strike him as elderly. She moved with the practiced grace of a dancer, fluidly enough to denote a person not yet suffering from stuff joints.

Squirrels chirped in the trees as she stepped further into the woods. Birds quieted. A blanket of eerie silence fell as if all the forest critters were evacuating from a nearby threat. Sweat coated his palms as he reached for his blade. The woman carried no visible weapons, but that did not mean she was harmless. Daggers or throwing blades could be hidden beneath her skirt or she may have stashed a bow in the thicket of fallen needles toward which she walked. She could possess magic. For the animals to respond as they did, they must have picked up on the same quiet danger that had his gut clenching. Kaito kept one eye on the woman, the other on the forest floor as he crept closer, careful to avoid snapping any twigs beneath his feet.

No, she couldn’t be enlightened. The people of Erie were notoriously vicious toward magic kind ever since the destruction of Cormmond Tower. Tales of their sadistic execution methods were taught in every tower as a warning to all students and motivation to stay loyal to The Mage. If this woman possessed power, Erie would have found and destroyed her. Furthermore, Almon was the only missing student of which he knew. There could be no others.

A breeze swept through the forest and The Giants groaned. Kaito took advantage of the noise and darted from his hiding place, eating up the distance in long, floating strides, and pressed himself flat against the building just as the trees quieted once more. The woman still had her back to him as she reached a pile of needs stacked higher than the surrounding ground cover. As she knelt and began brushing needles aside, Kaito pressed forward. Blade drawn, he steadied his breathing, let his mind grow distant and wander to the place it needed to be before a fight. Lightning sang in his veins, his magic awaiting the opportunity to strike. It knew as well as he did that he had been right. The forest never lied. This woman was dangerous. She must have sensed his presence, or seen him watching from the shadows, and was trying to reach her weapon without alerting him to her plan. What was she hiding that made her hostile to strangers?

Kaito charged. The steel of his sword gleamed as he held it to her neck. The woman yelped in surprise. Clever, but he wouldn’t be fooled. “Hands up,” he ordered. She obeyed, limbs trembling. A nice touch. “Don’t move.” He circled her, blade pivoting against her skin, pressed just hard enough that if she did move abruptly, she would slice her own throat.

Her face remained angled toward the ground. “I am unar­—”

A jolt as she spoke, a brittle angry sound that felt like a song he once knew by heart and had since forgotten. “Shut up.” Kaito kicked the pile of needles. One, twice, three times before they cleared to reveal a wooden hatch sunk into the ground. “What’s this?”

“My cellar,” she answered begrudgingly. “If you’re looking to rob me, I don’t have much. You can have it all if you leave my head intact.”

 “I don’t need your pathetic stores.” Kaito briefly surveyed their surroundings. “I’m looking for someone. A young man with black hair named Almon. He was recently injured and is not in his right mind. Have you seen him?”

“No,” she gritted out. Now it was clear her voice was not rough from disuse, but from anger.

He felt the familiar tingle of power at his fingertips, begging to be released. Something was off about this woman. He slid the tip of his sword under her chin and lifted. “Look at me.”

Slowly her white crown tilted back, and her eyes – as green as the grass of the Northern Cliffs after a storm - snapped up to meet his. Startlingly green. Familiar green. Kaito’s power vanished in the instant his heart stopped.

Amara.

No, it couldn’t be. He had born witness to her death. Years later, he could still feel the quake of the ground beneath his feet as the tower fell. Some nights he woke coughing on dust that was five years settled. Yet those green eyes locked on with the same haunting intensity. The same smattering of freckles dusted her nose and cheeks, dotting across her forehead like drifting cottonwood seeds. Even her hair, which was now stark white instead of a rich inky black, was pulled back from her face the same way she’d always done it; twisted and pinned against her crown, strands falling loose to frame her face.

“What…what is this?” Kaito demanded weakly, his tongue dried and shriveled in his mouth. No one possessed this sort of magic. Shifting into another form was impossible. Not to mention whoever this was would have needed intimate knowledge of Amara to recreate her so accurately. And of Kaito himself to know her significance to him.

“I—”

His grip tightened on his sword, angling the blade and forcing her mouth to close, chin tilted higher. Her eyes widened. “Before you speak, know that if you lie to me, I will bleed you like a pig. Who are you?”

“You know who I am, Kaito.” His name on her lips, the same dusty pink, full lips that he used to taste daily, broke something inside of him. If this was magic, this person rivaled The Mage in power. Gods, they’d gotten every detail correct.

His heart hammered so loudly against his sternum he could hardly hear himself speak. “Prove it.”

“Who else coul—”

“Prove. It.”

The woman pressed her lips together. “You’re ticklish along your neck. And behind the ears.”

As his sword slipped from his hand, he whispered, “Amara.”

And then his arms were wrapped around her, pulling her to her feet and squeezing tightly. Somehow, she got her arms free to return the embrace. Five years since her death and he was holding her again. Gods, he was holding Amara. Face buried in the crook of her neck where his blade had been only seconds ago, he breathed deep. Her skin held the same honeyed vanilla scent, like hydrangeas, but different. Less floral, more earthy, like the moss that covered nearly every stone surface in Erie. It was a combination so wholly her, so much like home, the world faded into insignificance as he inhaled deep, lung-bursting breaths.

“I thought you were dead,” she whispered into his shoulder.

A sob ripped from his throat. And I you. The words died on his tongue, drowned by his tears. Years ago, he had been trapped beneath the rubble of the tower for hours only to emerge and learn that she was counted among the dead. Everyone had, save for him and the one to whom he had been able to extend his shield.

“I can’t believe you’re real.” Kaito choked on another sob. How could one hug a ghost? He squeezed her harder, crushing her to him as if to prove she was in fact real and not some cruel illusion. She was too warm, too soft to be a figment of his imagination. They still fit together perfectly. “I thought…”

I thought I’d never see you again.

I thought all the dreams I had for us were laid to rest.

I thought you died a horrible, gruesome death at the hands of your power while I hid helplessly behind mine.

A deep inhale filled his lungs with her scent once again as he urged himself to calm. Still, he stumbled over his words. “How are you alive? How are you here?”

“I escaped,” she breathed.

Kaito pulled back just enough to see her properly, arms still holding her tight, afraid that if he let go, she would vanish. Tears welled, but her cheeks were dry. The blast and subsequent collapse had been too destructive for anyone to survive. And Amara’s magic…it had eaten her alive. Had consumed every muscle and bone. At first, he hadn’t believed it. Denial had consumed him so thoroughly he insisted on confirming it himself. Leg broken and hardly mobile, he had sat on the ground and sifted through rubble until his fingers bled. “How?”

“I skirted the hills,” she said. “Avoided cities the best I could. When the forest grew thick, I knew I’d passed into Erie.” At once, Kaito’s mind emptied. As if she’d dumped a bucket of freezing water over his head and now his entire body stuttered. She’d traveled to Erie on purpose. “And you? Your shields, they kept you safe?”

Blink after blink, his vision remained blurred. “Safe enough,” he replied, grip loosening. It had taken hours for rescuers to unbury him. By the time they had, he had grown tired, weak, and had pulled his power back to protect only himself for as long as possible. Until he failed at that, too. “You’ve been here all this time?”

  Amara nodded stiffly. His vision cleared in time to watch the tears in her eyes be replaced with uncertainty. “I was fortunate to have found this house.”

Fortunate? What was fortunate about leaving him behind? He wanted to scream it at her, to shake her and demand why? Was it so easy to leave him behind? Had she not spent the past five years grieving as he had?

Suddenly guarded, she stepped back. Kaito let her, arms falling uselessly to his sides. Much needed air filled the space between them, tinged with a cold that shocked him after such a warm embrace. Fresh air filled his lungs, diluting the overwhelming scent of moss and vanilla in his lungs. It was dreadfully refreshing.

“You’re working with the Arcani?” It was more of an accusation than a question.

Kaito followed her line of sight to his torso, covered in black wool embroidered with intricate swirls of green and gold, now creased by where she had pressed against him. Signature colors of Tyrzia. He straightened, chest puffing. “I’m a scholar now.”

As if he’d slapped her, Amara flinched and stepped back, hand covering her mouth. Tears shined in her eyes again. “I can’t believe you stayed.”

She can’t believe him? He spent five years mourning, blaming himself for her death, crushed beneath the weight of her destruction, and she had the nerve to judge the group who took him in and cared for him? While she was hiding among The Giants? The very woods in which he would never be welcome again despite being born among them.

“You ran!” His voice echoed, but it wasn’t loud enough. No words could cover the amount of damage she caused him. The cracks the Arcani tried to repair still cut deep.

Amara’s tears disappeared with a blink, features shifting into something cruel and foreign.  “You should have, too.”

“Where should I have gone, Amara? Home?” An ugly scoff sent spit flying from his lips. “Erie shut its borders to magic soon after you destroyed Cormmond Tower.”

“Anywhere would be better than Tyrzia. The Arcani are­—”

“The Arcani saved my life!” Kaito hated that he was yelling, that he could feel the muscles straining in his neck as he lost control of his emotions. Power sparked at his fingertips, blue energy sizzling across his skin. “You are the one who nearly killed me. You killed everyone.”

Amara was an ice sculpture. So cold the heat of his anger couldn’t penetrate, couldn’t even melt a centimeter. Her face remained schooled in that same dead expression as she asked, “are you going to arrest me?”

Now it was he who felt as if he’d been slapped. This woman might have Amara’s body, but she did not have her soul. Magic crackled in the air as his shields slipped into place over his body. In the same instant, he retrieved his sword from the ground and pointed it at her. Amara didn’t so much as flinch. He wished she had. “Open the cellar.”

“Why?”

“Because I gave you an order,” he snapped.

After a moment’s hesitation, Amara obliged. Kaito watched her closely, muscles taut and ready to act if she called her power. Not so much as a flicker of her magic tingled the air. As if it was dormant. Or gone. Could her explosion have drained her power rather than her life? Is that why she’d run and hid?

With a heavy groan, the door lifted and revealed a worn wooden ladder descending into darkness. Amara stepped back and crossed her arms. “Knock yourself out.”

In the distance, a voice called, “Kaito!”

Both of their heads snapped to the side toward the direction of the voice. “Shit,” Kaito muttered. Amara still didn’t look startled or phased, but she should. He shouldn’t care, but he did. “Get in.”

“Are those hunters?” Her expression didn’t shift, but her stare was filled with malice. With judgement.

“Yes,” he answered. “Now get in. And do not come out until we are gone.”

She shifted her jaw, clenched it tight. “You mean to trap me.”

“I mean to hide you,” he said, his voice tight, as he stepped closer and aimed his sword at her chest. “Out of respect for our past, I will not arrest you today. But if you insist on obstinance and the other hunters see you, I will not stop them. Get in.”

“Kaito!”

“I think he’s over here!”

“Now,” he ordered.

Amara moved slowly. He kept his sword trained on her, and she kept her eyes on him until she reached the ladder and had to settle on the ground to climb into the cellar. Once on the ladder, she looked up at him. “Don’t come looking for me after this, Kaito. I won’t be here.”

Kaito hardened his shields. “Stay hidden.”

[eirasummersart]

General info:

Here's my notes on how the relationship starts and develops! C: I did this mostly for myself so it might not be too prettily written, but I think it's still understandable! I hope you enjoy!

Big text under the cut~

He’s friends with Sebek since their first class day. Dillon tried to sit next to him and Sebek really rudely tried to make him leave. He started a rant about lowly humans and rambled on until he started praising his Waka-sama. Dillon only heard the last part and just answered with “Waka-sama is super cool, isn’t he??”. Since that day, Sebek made sure to always have a seat next to him for Dillon.

And little by little, the sitting next to each other at class became a “You’re a mess, Dillon, let’s study together, I’ll explain it to you”, and they started to hang out outside class for studying. (Dillon’s grades also got somewhat better). And then eventually they started to hang out aside from studying too.

Sebek is usually busy with one thing or another, and Dillon is always going around the campus doing who knows what (stalking people, foraging for food, just exploring…). But when they do see each other, Dillon runs to him and gives him a big hug (Since he’s the one to spot Sebek first 90% of the time). After that, they’d hang out if it’s possible or just exchange a few words and part ways again~ (Dillon would probably hang around Sebek if he’s patrolling and leaves once he gets bored or Sebek tells him he’s being a bother hahah He’s good at surveillance tho, so he’s usually allowed to stay~)

Aside from that, Dillon would sometimes drag him to bask under the sun (“We need to get some sun or we’ll grow weak!!”) and get him to sit on the grass with him for a bit while Dillon lays down (he still hasn’t gotten Sebek to lay down as well, he tries hahah). They just kinda relax a bit at those times :D

As for how the dynamic itself is, Sebek would usually be talking about something or the other for a long while, and Dillon would listen closely to every word and would be really impressed and praise him by the end (although he always praises the weirdest thing because that’s what grabs his attention hahaha).

On the other hand, Dillon would bring back lots of snacks or small trinkets for Sebek. He always shares his stuff with people he cares about and Sebek is one of the few in NRC he gives the most to (kinda as much as he does with Ruggie). Partially because they’re together a lot and partially because he’s just close to him~

They do sit together to eat more often than not in the cafeteria. They’re a sight to behold. Table full of dishes and dishes of food and they just inhale it all. The first time Dillon stole something from Sebek’s plate, he got mad and threatened to steal food from Dillon’s plate next if he did it again. But Dillon just smiled brightly and said “Of course! You can always take half of my food if you want to :D” and Sebek was stunned and quite moved so he did not complain ever again about the food stealing (he gets some from Dillon’s plates too).

—

After some time with this comfortable dynamic, there’s a day when there’s just no place to sit down to study together, and they can’t sit outside that day (too cold). And so, Sebek just says “let’s go to my room, we won’t be bothered there” and Dillon obviously just agrees happily like he always does with everything Sebek says.

And the first thing he sees as he enters the room: Waka-sama’s big portrait, proudly hanging from the wall. Seeing his fixed gaze, Sebek just casually mentions that it's a portrait of Waka-sama while leaving his bag and stuff. Dillon just looks at it intently for a bit and in the end he just goes “That’s Waka-sama-senpai? I’ve never seen him before. What an amazing portrait, you’re so lucky! :D” and Sebek is so moved by his appreciation that he tears up just a tiny bit, and genuinely suggests Dillon should just move to Diasomnia with them. Dillon just takes that as a joke and playfully rejects the offer like “of course not, silly! Why would I change dorms lmao” and Sebek was just a tiny bit disappointed hahahaha

But well, after that they do end up always going to Sebek’s room to study. And then they hang out there if they have time afterwards. And bond more, and get closer….

—

And after a while of that, Dillon starts to have… weird feelings around Sebek. He’s not sure what’s wrong? But he gets a bit nervous, he really enjoys hearing his loud as heck voice (even if it hurts his ears a bit), he wants to hug him more, wants to give him more gifts, share with him all he finds, tell him all that happens during his day…

He does all that unconsciously, and when he realizes it’s gotten out of hand, he just pulls away. Completely. He still sits next to him in class, but pulls his chair a bit farther away. He uses excuses to not study together. And just goes to the club activities or to the forest more and more to get his mind out of it. Why can’t he just enjoy his company as he always did??

Sebek is quite confused and a little bit hurt, but aside from trying to just do things as normal and still ask to hang out or study, he does not push more. He does not know what to do, to be honest.

But other people do notice this big sudden shift, and the first year group gets together for an intervention. So they all (minus Sebek, obviously) gang on to Dillon, with a lot of difficulty they manage to trap him to talk, and try and figure out what the heck happened. There’s a lot of non concrete answers from Dillon and they’re not going anywhere until Ace just teasingly says “What, you have a crush on him or something? lol” and Dillon has the sudden realization that… yeah. That’s it, that’s what it is. And with his realization, everyone realizes too and they all just mentally facepalm a bit. 

After a long talk of “If you like him, why do you avoid him???” and lots of “I don’t know, I don’t know!!” he puts his feelings a bit in order and is now able to process it by himself for a few more days.

And after that, with no change from Sebek’s perspective, but seeing that the other first years know something they’re not telling him, he ends up going to confront Dillon.

So, he goes all stern and angry, expecting another excuse from Dillon to leave but determined to not let him get away. But Dillon actually accepted talking with him without putting up any fight. And when Sebek asks “What’s wrong with you lately?” Dillon just directly and with no hesitation just tells him “I have a crush on you”. Before Sebek can even answer him, blushing and in quite a shock, Dillon just continues “It’s ok, though. Don’t worry, you don’t have to change anything. I’m used to it now, it won’t be a problem” and just like that he leaves him there. Sebek is quite stunned there for a bit until he goes “WHAAAT??!” (and everyone turns to look at him confused kalsfhalksf).

The awkwardness doesn’t completely disappear, but they start hanging out again normally. But Dillon keeps his distance a bit more, and doesn't hug him as much. He keeps giving him stuff, as much as before he pulled away, and he’s as attentive with him as always, still praising him all the time. Sebek was determined to do as Dillon had said, not change anything and just go back to normal. But something is different… and he can’t just leave it be…

He ends up so distracted and quite visibly distraught that the others in Diasomnia notice. Even Malleus comments on it once. Lilia does figure it out quite easily and teases him here and there without revealing he does now. Until the day Sebek just can’t take it anymore and asks for help. And so Lilia gives him the worst advice ever, as if it were really serious. Silver tries to help him too (mainly telling him what advice from Lilia he shouldn't follow) but Sebek dismisses him every time.

—

Sebek has so many plans about what he should do, so many mental notes from all that Lilia has told him. But he just can’t find the right time to put them into action. It’s so difficult! 

But then one day, Dillon pulls away from him, they weren’t even sitting that close, but he still pulls away… and Sebek just has the impulse to get him closer again. So he pulls him towards him and hugs him tight. Dillon awkwardly laughs and tries to pull away without making a fuss, but Sebek will NOT let him go, not anymore, he wants him right here. And Dillon starts to get really nervous and embarrassed, and he’s feeling things he said he wouldn’t anymore, and he tries to pull away more forcefully and asks “What are you doing?”.

Sebek had all these plans ready, but at that moment he could only answer “I want you close, don’t pull away from me anymore!!”. Dillon stops struggling after that, and a second later he wraps his arms and legs around Sebek and squeeeeezes really tight. He missed this so much, he loves having him close, he just wanted to be closer and closer….

After sitting in silence like that, just hugging each other tight, Dillon says in a quiet voice “Do you understand what this means? If you do this I’ll want you closer and closer… I like you so much…” and Sebek answers in a uncharastically low voice “That’s what I want to… I like you too…”

After that Dillon pulls away just so he can look at him and beams with a “You do?” with a big smile, before going back to hugging him EVEN TIGHTER all happy and laughing. Right then, Sebek just feels like everything is how it should be “this is what I was missing, this is what I want”.

—

After that, Dillon gets clingier than before. Sebek did not think that possible, but Dillon finds even more occasions to give him a hug and looks for him even more often, even if it’s not to stay for a long time (Usually he just gives him a cute trinket or food and leaves). But that's all. If they’re alone sometimes Dillon would cling to his arm or hold his hand too. But not too much. He seems to just stop himself at tight hugs. So Sebek starts to keep him closer even after hugs, so they can cuddle when sitting together. And holds his hand more, and pats his hair (Dillon really likes when he does it, turns to mush in his arms). But only when they’re completely alone, they don’t like this sort of thing in public (aside from what Dillon already shamelessly did as just friends).

Dillon also praises him even more than before, and with more loving words as well, much more endearing and awed by Sebek. And Sebek drinks on that SO MUCH, he starts to boast even more, tries to do stuff just for his praise, and he gets it, so he just keeps doing it. Dillon just genuinely thinks he’s amazing and that’s why he says it. But one day he actually praises him but ends it with a “This is why I love you so much <3” for the first time, Sebek’s brain just short circuits and holds him close and gives him a big kiss (an awkward one though, he has absolutely 0 prior experience). He gets really embarrassed when he realizes he just gave him their first kiss just like that, oh no! But Dillon just smiles brightly and goes in for another one and Sebek forgets all about his panic. So the kisses end up a regular occurrence from then on, only when they’re completely alone, though. They really want their privacy for that. (Although Dillon does sometimeeees give Sebek kisses on the cheek as a goodbye when he feels like it and Sebek is happy but stunned every time).

---

That's all in this one! Some more future stuff and some other things in the next post tomorrow, with the ship questions~

If you read all this, thank you so much for your interest! I hope you liked it 👉👈

[panticwritten]

re: iwilleatyourenglish’s response. that cyberphuck person you reblogged from clarified thats not what they ment. They proudly ID as an asshole and have a history of harassing ppl. their also a pedo and when called out for having an account dedicated to writing csa porn they described in graphic detail how they wanted to turn their critics into kids and SA them. its all on their blog rn. ur on the wrong side

I reblogged a post and left tags with my own experience and agreeing with BOTH people on the post (meanness is necessary, but some people take it too far. Like you, right now, for example). I’m not on any side, you’re yelling at people who do not care. There are not sides here, and if there were I’m not going to side with the person who either is okay with their followers stalking and wishing harm on others on her behalf or is just doing it herself behind the anon mask.

Bc I’m assuming that you ARE iwilleatyourenglish considering the self congratulatory anon conversations on your own blog. So, I’m going forward with that assumption. So long as you’re on anon, that’s gonna be who I’m taking to, since even if you aren’t you’re speaking on her behalf.

Cyberphuck (whose ao3 is actually pretty tame??) was very obviously not responding genuinely and was VERY OBVIOUSLY making fun of you to get a rise out of you. They shouldn’t have bothered since you immediately jumped to telling me to eat glass just because I disagreed with your take and didn’t need the extra prodding to get there. Seemed like you had that in the barrel ready for any response other than ‘I’m so sorry, you’re right, you reaching out with this overly condescending message really changed my mind that being a bitch isn’t good 😌’.

Also, you said it yourself that they proudly identify as an asshole. Did you expect them… not to respond like an asshole?

I want to reiterate that you have to not be paying attention or willfully not see it to think they were being genuine. Which makes you either not as much of a critical thinker as you think you are or you’re just being disingenuous. I’d put money on the latter, since it’s so much more convenient for your smear tactics to take their responses at face value.

Also, I thought tumblr collectively got past this argument a long time ago: people can write things without wanting those things to happen in real life. Writing about csa doesn’t make someone a pedo, and pretending it does dilutes the word and makes it easier for real pedophiles to make space online so literally shut the fuck up. It’s called fiction and the characters are not real. I write about and from the point of view of murderers and genocidal maniacs from time to time and, shockingly, do not want either of those things to happen in real life. Harassing writers because of their subject matter that has nothing to do with an argument that YOU manufactured makes YOU the asshole.

Please go outside and touch some grass, iwilleatyourenglish. You’re throwing a massive fit over a one line tag disagreeing with you, and you’re accusing people of shit that isn’t as big of a sin as you seem to think it is.

Any further anon asks on this topic will be deleted. People who genuinely wish harm on others and go after people just for reblogging a post are not welcome on this blog, especially if they’re too cowardly to say it off anon.

[scentedchildnacho]

It was a very violent stalker morning to me....city of San diego trucks were trying to stalk all I do and hit me.....so that is why if in california I have to have strict schedules all the time or the personal injury isn't very very clear.....

Because she had to drive up onto the pavement in a pedestrian only space with no necessary activity......to finally put through the terrorism helter skelter lawsuit

Then city of San diego trucks kept driving up to restrooms and picnic tables around Gods kitchen and expecting people to talk to them in friendly ways after trying to hit them with vehicles......

He finally had to drive up onto the grass from the curb so there finally can be clear terrorism charges though it was obvious stalking of pedestrians the whole time

Uhm people like me are scared of police....they are a large organized entity.......and people like them told them their too disabled to park the truck normally and walk up to space with normal tools so if cops have to tolerate anything that claims it's that sick and unable they will just kill it .....

That's why I don't report to police...it's sense of created agency looks for people who are able to direct an urban combative situation and I'm not qualified for that....post structurally they have a strategy and I don't get involved or tell superiors what to do.....

The police do have firing ranges and consider conceptual philosophy the anthropocene so if terrorists are just subversive helter skelters then the cops don't see nothing but defective species get it off scarcity.....

If that's how they treat me mayan apocalypse throw it in the pit then that's what the government is they have to be just thrown in the pit for it scarcity is what's going on.....

Anyway after a very long walk with all my stuff and several attempted vehicular slaughters........i asked an African I guess black because if unidentified everyone assumes their black.....if I could stand by her in the food line as I had been waiting to eat since seven in the morning and didn't see the line form and she said sure and this man behind her screamed at me that I had to get to the back of the line

So i warned him that he doesn't recite the basics every asshole comforts themselves with to.justifiably avoid combat

If you expect woman to be an ass to eat then you wouldn't stop stealing women's food you made women after poverty now conflict ever feed you....and people who expect caged femmes to ass to eat are now nothing but a created knife pussy that will have to ass to have anything in life

That's why many cultures don't like being around white even it's privilege is well aware of street rules and much tougher then you

That man talked back to me when I followed the rules...and now it's a pussy ass ho cutter

I don't know if they were threatening the black woman I talked to....I am just foolish not really brave I just wanted to get my food and go but I suspect they were threatening her and I was told their creepy ugly acid hick dudes so go talk to them for her ...

Every asshole knows a good job asserts their rights within community and boss gives stuff in that situation if you take a plate there an impoverished woman wont have anything

Every asshole knows war man is more peaceful then peace man and you have to do your good job for the commander and integrate into community or your defective species he has to give guns to and war man does not enjoy having to

I had to realize tommy boy is what I was saying to him....the situation around other meal lines.....was very polarized if you call women puppet and envy the female power that much then the aa group will call ya pussy a nasty smoke....etc ..

The police do act Russian and people who attack russia charges in on a very large entity so...Putin scares me....and now that you finally were stupid and openly and confidently attacked me....now you you now not me are the puppet

I asked a man sitting at a picnic bench because they smoke heavily to heavily to move or care if san Diego trucks drive at them......

What type of terrorists the San Diego trucks are the Mexican indigenous teens warned me their zapatistas and when their pay for schooling comes in they try to bomb their busses......and others warn me their Muslim cults that were told to car bomb mommy and me and couldn't quite bring themselves to do that so target alone adults like they aren't integral to community or cared about...Muslims don't actually understand social issues here

So he subtly told me women in government right now are hated and much worse then common men with mafia indoctrination....their just repulsive trash dudes....

People did like Gwen Moore and africanism if it's fair bitch like kamela or new Mexico they hate them....

If Gwen a lot of violence stopped if kamela and all they do is embarrass her for not being male

Their just trash dudes ...metropolis

No father you would not send me to the underground...wealthy people give their identities away so you can't really say the terrorist cliche did it

Uhm my mother sent me to sal army so I admit giving my identity to a homeless person so I don't have to be some bleach bitch whore in and out of jail all the time....no mother not me in my London fashions me.....I am pretty and good

Jobs do not protect from the street most waitresses here appear to get pimped and jailed a lot....no mother you would obviously give me civility for my soul mother......

I don't know if I'm going to live ..the African jail issues in documentary explained if their jail one equitable pay rights the cops went and got illegal weapons and killed them all so I suspect that sense I have been made aware of white as indigenous rights issues that if I could come into landscaping pay the Mexican mafia will try to kill me like Selena ....

Selena as tejanos was The Icon of latin birthing

The native minorities are sovereignty their best to socialize so many women did like look to her for pop fresh nice advise

The lady driving the San Diego truck by the Pacific beach library this morning was more wirth and simm....she more looked like a one of em Mexican not native but tried to kill me for what does a native look like....if they may not steal all of a native foundation then

No I think someone native like Lauren is around me and that creepy Mexican tried to kill the natives also.....the oglala use to be the Santee and they were told it's whole foundation is for superficial ideas of Disney she has black straight hair whole native foundation hers

What does a native look like....truthfully they called natives r complex carryovers and people may not think humans can significantly aggrandize themselves past the white standard...like grow their hands as women larger and vainer or how all issues become one the natives look like dauchau concentration camp and that lady looked like creepy no one vain whore

Aldous Huxley...whites may carry certain lakota features and manners but to truly be a surgeon you have to believe in Spanish mannerist fantasies like Picasso's blue guitarist

There were nuclear attacks all over the United States like white sands.......and fair populations were bred back from small populations manju and narin...

I really don't like swearing or hey he is an Aries from new York but attackers won't sit stay and take their mouth bit to not talk back till people are scared of Aries

[amilst]

Hordeum vulgare, Barley. Here’s a strange one. Growing in the patio garden are four stalks of barley. I had to use my plant finder app to figure out what this beautiful flowering grass was. I can’t imagine where the nearest barley field is that would allow a bird or the wind to spread its seed to our modest home.

The flower really is striking, particularly when it catches the rays of the early morning sun like in the bottom photo. A sparsely leafed stalk rises first, then the flowers appear with each kernel sending high in the air a thin wiry strand to wave in the wind with its companions. I might grow some every year.

Barley was one of the first crops domesticated by humans about 10,000 years ago when farming first began. The name comes from the Scottish “bere” which dates from the Latin for “grain.” The word itself is the source for the word “barn” which meant barley shed.

Barley was the grain of the common folk who used it make not just bread but beer, a word that comes from the German word for “barley.” You can discern its commoner roots from the numerous references to barley in the Bible such as this verse from Kings:

“A man came from Baal Shalishah, bringing the man of God twenty loaves of barley bread baked from the first ripe grain, along with some heads of new grain. “Give it to the people to eat,” Elisha said.  “How can I set this before a hundred men?” his servant asked. But Elisha answered, “Give it to the people to eat. For this is what the LORD says: ‘They will eat and have some left over.’ ”

Barley was so essential to ancient daily life that it was used to measure size and weight. A “barleycorn” or one grain of barley was equal to 1/3 of an inch; 36 barleycorns made a foot. And a carat, used to measure the weight of stones and gems, was the equivalent of three barleycorns.

The old Scottish song, adapted by Steve Winwood, personifies the growing and harvesting of Barley. I played the song repeatedly my freshman year of college.

https://www.google.com/search?q=john+barleycornmust+die&client=safari&rls=en&ei=IkOPZO_aCYme5NoPtZK4wA4&ved=0ahUKEwjv8_-QsM3_AhUJD1kFHTUJDugQ4dUDCBA&uact=5&oq=john+barleycornmust+die&gs_lcp=Cgxnd3Mtd2l6LXNlcnAQAzIKCC4QDRDUAhCABDIHCAAQDRCABDIHCAAQDRCABDIHCAAQDRCABDIHCAAQDRCABDIKCC4QDRDUAhCABDIHCAAQDRCABDIHCC4QDRCABDIHCAAQDRCABDIHCAAQDRCABDIYCC4QDRDUAhCABBCXBRDcBBDeBBDgBBgBOgoIABBHENYEELADOhYILhANEIAEELEDEIMBELEDEIMBENQCOhAILhANEIMBENQCELEDEIAEOg0ILhANEIAEEMcBEK8BSgQIQRgASgUIQBIBMVDUBFjZEGDAFWgBcAB4AIABaYgB_QWSAQM4LjGYAQCgAQHAAQHIAQjaAQYIARABGBQ&sclient=gws-wiz-serp#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:2e2b79a2,vid:t8878chOvfI

Here are the lyrics to the old folksong:

There were three men come from the West Their fortunes for to try, And these three made a solemn vow: "John Barleycorn must die."

They plowed, they sowed, they harrowed him in, Threw clods upon his head, 'Til these three men were satisfied John Barleycorn was dead.

They let him lie for a very long time, 'Til the rains from heaven did fall, When little Sir John raised up his head And so amazed them all.

They let him stand 'til Mid-Summer's Day When he looked both pale and wan; Then little Sir John grew a long, long beard And so became a man.

They hired men with their scythes so sharp To cut him off at the knee; They rolled him and tied him around the waist, And served him barbarously.

They hired men with their sharp pitchforks To pierce him to the heart, But the loader did serve him worse than that, For he bound him to the cart.

They wheeled him 'round and around the field 'Til they came unto a barn, And there they took a solemn oath On poor John Barleycorn.

They hired men with their crab-tree sticks To split him skin from bone, But the miller did serve him worse than that, For he ground him between two stones.

There's little Sir John in the nut-brown bowl, And there's brandy in the glass, And little Sir John in the nut-brown bowl Proved the strongest man at last.

The huntsman cannot hunt the fox Nor loudly blow his horn And the tinker cannot mend his pots Without John Barleycorn.

[jonnysinsectcatalogue]

Two-Striped Planthopper - Acanalonia bivittata

Before we look into today’s insect, I want to extend a happy hello to all the new followers of this blog. There was a recent surge over the last days, and I’d like to welcome you all to the blog! Happy to have you all here to enjoy the many insects of Ontario (and beyond)! Secondly, I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas weekend and is staying warm. Ontario’s cold winds have been rather merciless the last few days, but that’s winter I suppose. We have our houses, but insects tough it out by overwintering, whether as eggs, adults or all forms in between. Right now these insects wait for the warm weather so they can leap around across plants or hold still and camouflage by pretending to be a small leaf. They have both of the main colors of Christmas, depending on which form you find in the wild. The green form (show in the pictures) is what most people would recognize. However, as mentioned in an earlier post, this insect can also appear with a rarer, more pink color due to increased more red pigmentation. Whether this is truly erythrism or not, consider yourself luck if you find yourself a “shiny” pink Two-Striped Planthopper.

As for the common green form: against the backdrop of a leaved stalk and hidden by shadows, it would take a very discerning eye to spot this Hopper while at rest. Predatory insects probably have more luck catching this insect mind flight (or mid hop?), assuming they have already spotted it. While plants with leaves would be best, from some of these pictures it looks very out of place against long grass blades and dried vegetation. While staying hidden is ideal, this insect has to venture out and find sources of food to stay strong. And unlike its time in the nymph stages, it doesn’t rely on nearby Ants for protection. Fortunately, this specie is a polyphagous generalist and isn’t too picky on what it eats so long as it doesn’t disagree with the insect’s digestive system or otherwise poison it. I was a bit concerned that milkweed may not be the best choice as a food source since the milky sap has toxic properties, but nymphs have been observed aggregating on milkweed stems. Without wings to carry them, the search for suitable plants needs to be very certain, but if you can hop around, finding food becomes that much easier. Just ask the Grasshoppers...who aren’t related to these Hemipterans; they are entirely separate orders. 

Pictures were taken on July 28, 2018 with a Samsung Galaxy S4 and August 16, 2019 with a Google Pixel 4.

[no-droids]

Home

gif credit: @javier-pena

Part Eighteen of the Rough Day Series

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 19.5K

Warnings: SMUT, religion kink (maybe?), squirting, consensual stalking/pursuing, canon-typical violence, mention of underage drinking, uhh I believe that’s it but as always, let me know if I’ve forgotten anything please!

A/N: Hey yall!!!  So I know this chapter has been a long time coming and though I’m not completely satisfied with it, I hope it brings a little happiness to you for an hour or two while you read!  School has been kicking my ass and I’ve been in a bit of an emotional slump recently, but I pulled a few all-nighters to post this on time and it’s finally finished!  Thank you to everyone who has stuck with me and sent me encouraging words over the past month or so, I hope you enjoy the end of the Sanctuary arc💕

Also like last time, part 2 of my collaboration with @followwhereshegoes will be posted after the chapter!!  As a reminder, sweet girl is a reader insert and every imagining of her will be different—this is Lisa’s interpretation of her and her artwork is absolutely gorgeous, so please go give her a follow!

Day 5–11:13am:

You zone out again in the early morning, but that happens a lot.  Din always keeps you up so late, all the time, and without any caf here, the rising sun just makes your eyes droop instead of flutter brighter and wider.  You helped a bunch of younglings find their way into their robes when it was still dark out, tying sashes and fitting masks while holding back your yawns.  The walk into Nariss is close to three hours, probably more with all these tiny little legs, and you almost forget to change into your new digs before everyone grabs breakfast.

Even though your ragtag entourage leaves for Nariss just as soon as everyone finishes eating, you don’t reach the city until nearly lunchtime.  Mostly because the kids walk about as fast as the elderly holy women chaperoning the trip.  You and Naydee lag behind the group, forcing yourself to meander slow as fuck when you nearly sprinted this same exact path just a few days ago.  On the way there, you listen to children of all sorts sing happily as they walk, chatter about their excitement for the parade, complain about wearing the fabric mask they made themselves, and more than once, somebody takes a tumble onto the ground and is left in teary sniffles and dirt stained clothes.  Likely for this reason, the robes are designed to be two pieces—a long tunic with a hood and a separate pants portion to prevent tripping instead of a draping skirt, but the smallest ones are clumsy and find a way to fall anyways.

It’s a colorful bunch—a chaotic rainbow of babies running around, and you share easy conversation with your new friend about the plans for the day until she asks something that makes you nearly trip and join the dirty robe club.

“Sister Drya said your family is meeting you in the city,” she tells you, ignoring your immediate subtle toe stub and the awkward shuffle you have to do to make up for it.  “There’s going to be lots of people downtown, I’m worried it might be hard for them to find you.”

Your heart thuds in your chest and you feel a bit short of breath at being abruptly confronted with the need to lie, but at the same time, you kind of love it.  Having a secret, hiding the truth from others, and just the reminder that you’re almost guaranteed to see Din and the baby before midnight pours warmth and tingles through your tummy.  Everything together is a hit of spice, filling you with a kind of excitement that used to be foreign to you.  Having fun, experiencing new things isn’t quite over yet, but home is calling and you miss it with every fiber of your being.

“I don’t think so,” you eventually respond, hoping she can see your kind smile and the sentiment it carries even as light, shimmery fabric wraps right around your mouth.  “If I disappear, you’ll know why.”

Naydee’s eyes crinkle in the corners to match yours.  “Hopefully you’ll be able to see the fireworks first,” she nudges you, her skin glowing against the pale cream fabric she has wrapped around her own mouth and the hood laying delicately over her braids.  “They start at eight.”

The fireworks, you almost forgot.  You know what?  Today is a good day.  You hear yourself think the full sentence multiple times, and the words put a spring in your step after every single one.  The road gradually becomes wider and filled with more travelers, and you feel safe in the back.  Like some kind of sheepdog bringing up the rear of this migrating cluster of children, making sure none of them drift off by themselves and start eating grass or something.

Surprisingly, the kids manage to be relatively patient and well-behaved once they’re in line at the gates.  The Sisters shuffle them along one by one as everyone moves up slowly, taking even longer to get into the city than it did a few days ago.  The entrance is packed already—so many people visiting for the festival, and they’re all dressed in costumes or robes of sorts, or at least a mask.  Most are beautifully crafted, but some manage to look slightly scary even with the soft springtime color schemes.  It’s a completely different world, a different life for each person as you pass them by.  Your stomach is starting to growl by the time you finally make it to the front, and luckily the guards just let the kids through without any ceremony.  Just you and the rest of the caretakers in light robes need to hold still for the retinal scan, matching each other perfectly except for differing shades of fabric, skin, and eye color.  Once the gates open for you and you step through, though… it’s… Maker.

Extravagant, magnificent are both words.  Floral is another.

It’s like they hung up bouquets wherever they could think to fit them, and this is just the edge of the city.  As the group moves through the streets and closer to downtown, it becomes more and more overwhelming.  The air itself is a warm fragrance wafting all around you, sunshiney and breezy and perfect, flowers of all kinds lining the modern buildings and archways like they were planted there from the very beginning and it just took this long to bloom between the cracks in the concrete.  You wish you had names for all of them so you could list them—the only thing you can offer is the color and vague descriptions of the ones that stick out to you.  Tiny yellow ones that are so small, they need to be bunched all together in massive quantities to even resemble normal flowers.  Up overhead, elaborate arrangements of enormous blue and purple and pink ones, wrapping around each other and hanging down from rooftops.  Some don’t even have petals, it’s like they’re big green cups that are big enough to hold things inside them.  You’re fascinated by every single one, wanting to stop and smell them all individually but needing to keep up with the large group and not allow any stragglers to be left behind, including yourself.

About an hour later, when you’re almost in the middle of the city and there are people everywhere, it’s time to eat lunch.  There isn’t much to it because of how expensive it is, and you’d normally feel bad for accepting the small meal each one of the children gets, but you donated all of your credits to the Keja and left absolutely zero for yourself.  Good intentions, terrible idea.  Still, you pull your mask down and snack on some deliciously fried food, trying not to eye anyone else’s platter after you finish yours.  It’s so good and it’s gone in an instant; you couldn’t even say what exactly it was besides which stall you got it at.  Whether it’s just the brilliant atmosphere or if the food on this moon is really just that good, you’re not really sure, but you’re still slightly hungry afterwards with no extra money to sneak a snack.

Soon after, the kids all line up to get their faces painted, or whatever portion of their face is visible behind the cloth masks and hoods they’ve got on, and music blares from at least four different directions and none of the songs are even in the same language.  Depending on the part of town, it seems like the celebrations are all different.  It makes sense, considering most if not all of these individuals were victims of the Empire’s wrath, spread far and wide across the galaxy.  Here, they’re free, and they want everyone to know it.  Spring festivals of some sort are likely common for most cultures, at least those from planets with seasons, not like Arvala-7 where it was arid and hot year-round, and you’re assuming there are multiple things being celebrated today depending on which street you live on.  There’s chanting in different tongues, dancing and drums, outfits and masks from different cultures every single time you look.

At some point, the children spot a crowded street with flowery rails set up all along them, and you stand behind the tiny heads while everyone waits for the parade to begin.  You think your heart has just been beating slightly faster than normal all day today, but when you finally hear the sound of sirens blaring in the distance and cheers begin to pour out from the gathered crowd, it kicks up and you feel like you’re just as wide eyed at the spectacle as the waist-high babies all huddled together up against the railing.

A flurry of people and things pass in slow succession.  First, New Republic officers with their blaring holobikes, bright orange as always.  Then come large groups of people walking behind banners in languages you can’t read, some of them waving, some of them making different sounds and songs.  Bands marching in formation, dancers in dresses and masks and gorgeous flowers in their hair like crowns, and then brilliant hovering vehicles decorated in bright colors and festive depictions.  The craftsmanship and cultural significance is stunning to witness, it’s so insanely loud, there’s so much going on, and yet…

Through it all, you think of Din.  No matter the faces, the sights you see.  There’s someone juggling.  There’s either a very tall man and woman walking together or they’re both on stilts.  There are enormous balloons being led through the air, people are riding atop an assortment of animals you’ve never seen before, there are traditional costumes and spectacular stunts being performed.  Stalls with games and prizes line the stretches of concrete on the cross streets, people are laughing and celebrating and drinking in equal parts, everything is so lively and festive and fun, and yet, though it all, you think of Din.  Him and the baby, they’re always in the forefront of your mind, occupying your thoughts and making your tummy stir more and more as the time passes like the parade in front of you.  You don’t think this environment would ever be his favorite, and in some far away galaxy, perhaps if you lived other lives together and called a beautiful moon exactly like this home, then you might have to drag him out to see all the with you and the kid every year.  You’d have to bat your eyelashes and kiss his cheek and snuggle up to him all nice and pretty like, and he’d probably grumble and complain about it while wrapping his arms around you—all the people and the noise, sweet girl—but he’d go.  For you, he’d go.

Your thoughts suddenly stop short and you blink for a second.  Why… Why was that scene so vivid?  So wistful?  You used to preoccupy yourself with fantasies about Din all the time, back before you even knew him as Din.  But in every single one, it was sexual and likely came from a place of boredom, a lack of external stimulation.  Here you are amidst bustling surroundings, and you’re daydreaming about domesticity with him.  Why?  You want to travel the galaxy, right?  You want to see things you’ve never seen before, right?

For some reason, you think of the floor, and you miss it.

***

Day 5—5:04pm:

It’s late afternoon at this point and nobody can find the teens.

More people have made their way into the city and it’s starting to get extremely fucking crowded, especially where you are downtown, and the handful of them must’ve slipped away with all the excitement happening and how difficult it is to keep the young ones together now that the parade is over.  You don’t know how long they’ve been gone—one second they were walking around just slightly detached from the rest of you, you assumed because the boisterous younglings fucked with their cool vibe, and then the next Naydee is gasping out to you that they’re gone.

“Sister Drya is going to kill me,” she hisses, her dark eyebrows furrowed in self-admonishment and stress.  So many fucking people here, you know her pain.  “I was supposed to be chaperoning them, they were just here—”

She shakes her head under the loose, cream-colored hood, groaning and then speeding up her gait to catch up with the woman in charge, but you decide to grab her wrist before she can relay the bad news.  

“I can go find them,” you offer, speaking as low as you can with the blaring noise surrounding you.  “Before anyone knows they’re missing.  Is there a way to convince everybody to stay in one spot for a little while?  You won’t get in trouble, but I need to know how to find you again.”

Naydee’s eyes widen in surprise, and even though it’s likely a bit out of character for you, you have a feeling it’ll be a deceptively easy task.  Even with the masses right now and how atrociously big this city is, you already have a general idea of where they’re likely to be.  Besides, you’re not even sure your absence will be noticed if Naydee is the only one who figured out the teens were gone—the other Sisters can thrive without you while missing anyone else would be noticeable, and you owe your new friend a thousand favors for helping you out these past few days.  The least you can do is save her from the scolding of one of the scariest old ladies you've ever met.

“Be as quick as you can,” she finally agrees.  It’s a lot of trust to put into you, but you’ve had experience in reading the most unreadable man in the entire galaxy, some teenagers shouldn’t pose too much of a problem.  “If you’re not back in thirty minutes or somebody notices, I’ll have to say something.”

You nod, silently breaking away from the group without another word.  You think you can hear her announce to everyone that it might be best to eat dinner now to skip any long lines later—smart—but you’re out of their hearing range and line of sight almost immediately.

***

Day 5–5:17pm:

“Really?”  You raise an eyebrow since they won’t be able to see the way your mouth is twisted up underneath your mask, crossing your arms and tapping your foot against the ground to further illustrate just how not fucking impressed you are.

Seven teenagers freeze, and slowly—depending on how much bravery they can individually muster—they turn around on their stools to face you.  The atmosphere in the tavern is bustling and cheery, booze being passed around a large crowd that laughs and mingles, but your vibe is stone cold and quiet.  The contrast doesn’t feel wrong on you like it normally would; the negative and disapproving energy you’re emitting makes you feel powerful, untouchable, armored and strong.

“How did you find us so fast?”  One of the twin boys squeaks out behind a light blue robe, sounding worried.

“Had a hunch,” you grumble, glaring sternly at each of them in turn.  Your tone is dry, your voice sits lower in your throat when you’re pissed off.  All you had to do was look for the closest bar that doesn’t have any orange jumpsuits poking around waiting to card underage younglings, it wasn’t that difficult.  “You’re not exactly unpredictable.”

“Are you gonna rat us out?”  The other twin asks you, in a voice that’s oddly deep compared to his brother.

“I should,” you snap, quickly reaching out to push their drinks away.  “I should let Sister Drya rain down her holy fury on your asses, got good people all twisted up over you for nothing and I’m missing dinn—”

You don’t know why, but you suddenly cut yourself off and jerk upright, spinning around.

The sounds of glasses clinking and boisterous voices fill the bar, but they seem to fade out for a second.  Your eyes fly around the crowded space, your heart lodged in your throat and looking for anything reflective.  Every flash you see is a false alarm—belt buckle, wristwatch, cocktail shaker—

He’s here… isn’t he?

Only, there’s nothing.  Nothing is out of place, nothing jumps out at you the way you’re assuming it will.  You’re braced taut and ready to bolt at the first sign of a chase, but it never comes.

It’s so… unexpected, this feeling.  It’s not like you’re being hunted anymore, but instead, you’re the hunter.  You’re feeling the weight of him from this far away and it’s like he’s calling for you to come find him, teasing the wild adrenaline rush you get from just feeling his presence, as if he absolutely knows it happens.  Whispering soft in your ear and then vanishing the second you’re able to turn around, like he’s here but he’s not.  Playing with you from so far away.

This… this is a taunt.  

The whole thing at the inn was leagues below this, that was rudimentary.  Teasing, getting even, having fun with each other, whatever you want to call that, that’s what it was.  This is scarily sophisticated.  Fluid and practiced and the best kind of frightening, stark and dangerous compared to the carefree and upbeat setting surrounding you.  You’re not making it up, it’s not just you being paranoid.  You know him with your eyes closed.  You know he’s here somewhere watching you, just like you know the starlight that streaks across the pitch black horizon of hyperspace.  Not because you can see it, not really, not directly.  But because by it, even in the vastest and darkest and emptiest of voids, you’re suddenly able to see everything else.

“You okay, Nerida?”

The volume gradually comes back up and you blink, suddenly remembering where you are, who else is with you.  The chatter becomes slightly louder than it seemed before.

“Yeah,” you eventually say, slightly airy while continuing to stare emptily at the crowded room.  He’s not here, you don’t think, not anymore at least.  But you’re not stupid, you know what this means.  You’re already caught, there’s nothing you can conceivably do that will delay the reunion for the next—you look down and pull the loose sleeve up to check your communicator—seven fucking hours, there’s no way.  He’ll pull back and follow you, keep up with you from a distance and then snatch you away right when you let your guard down.  You at least need to get the kids back to their guardians before that can happen, though.

“Let’s go,” you quietly tell the group of foundlings, grabbing elbows and hauling them out of their stools.  “Naydee was the only one who knew that you were gone when I left.  Here’s to hoping she managed to keep it that way.”

***

Day 5–5:32pm:

Against all odds, you’re able to rally the wayward teens and successfully lead them through shoulders that are beginning to move closer together as the crowd grows and grows.  You stay towards the back and don’t look behind you once—not only do you not want to give the younglings an unnecessary reason to become paranoid or to question your actions, but you can still feel Din lingering.  Moving like a shadow, probably fitting in perfectly with the masked festival-goers, nothing drawing any attention to him with all the spectacular sights and noise occurring.

Soon you return to the same spot from before, and you and the teenagers seamlessly integrate yourselves back into the rest of the group without anyone noticing a thing is out of place.  When you move to stand beside her, Naydee’s bone-deep sigh of relief is palpable even behind the concealing fabric; she squeezes your hand incredibly tight in a silent gesture of thanks, and then pulls something from the deep pockets of her robe and passes it to you sneakily.  A purple fruit.  She must’ve saved it for you.

Maker, fuck yes.  It’s not much but it’s more dinner than any of the seven troublemakers get, but Naydee quietly assures you they’ll be able to eat something once they return to the Keja around midnight, just not the tasty expensive treats they’re selling at the vendors.  As the sun goes down, you try not to stain your pretty fabric a deep maroon as you chomp and feel your lips start to curl upwards.  It sounds so fucking stupid when you put it like this, but you keep going back to Din and revelling in knowing that he’s so close, like you’re just mentally checking in on him.  You don’t get the sensation by thinking, though—more like you just focus really hard on your heart and feel him there just a second afterwards.

Is that how pure, stupid, shameless love feels when you’re completely entrenched in it?  It’s not like it’s surrounding you, it’s not suffocating you or making you float.  It’s just a thing.  Like… a thing inside your chest, a physical thing you can search for and find, something you can point to on your body and say it’s right here, this is where my love for him lives.  Right at the bottom of your heart, right where it curves and beats strong when other hearts meet flat at sharp angles.  You do it over and over again, reconfirming its existence every single time.  You don’t know what else you’d call it.  Love is the only word.  To love, to know.  To hold in the heart.

Soon, you start to notice that people are slowly moving around your stationary group.  You look up and watch the crowd begin to walk, some of them giving soft smiles to the cute children as they pass by, but all of them following the same unspoken direction.

“Where is everyone going?”  You ask Naydee, standing on your tiptoes to watch the crowd migrate like a giant system, an organism or mechanism of thousands (or tens of thousands?) of smaller moving parts all traveling in tandem.  It’s fascinating—you’ve been to crowded places, you know what it looks like when a lot of people are packed into one area, but you’ve never seen what it looks like when they all move together.  They would normally be bumping into each other, slipping in between, fighting and never really getting anywhere, interacting individually and thinking separately.  Now they’re progressing in one single direction, so many with the same mindset and understanding of what comes next.  A second parade, almost, with New Republic officers directing the flow of pedestrians as they pass.

“The eastern part of the city!”  Naydee yells over the noise and points, and beyond her extended finger, you can barely see the light of a dusky body of water in the distance beyond the buildings.  “The fireworks are going to go off over the bay, but it takes awhile to get there!”

“Is…”  You blink for a second, suddenly caught off guard, trying to think back to the holomap the concierge pulled up at the front desk of the inn.  Surely you would’ve noticed it, but your sudden childlike hope makes you ask anyway.  “Is it part of an ocean?”

Naydee shakes her head.  “A really big lake!”

Your shoulders drop just the slightest bit in disappointment but still, you ache to see it.  You can’t even imagine—the fireworks are likely going to reflect across the water, giving everyone double the view.  And luckily, after all the children and caretakers are individually accounted for, you start to behind the slow-moving crowd towards the docks you know lie beyond.  

Naydee scurries ahead to keep the kids together, ushering them forward and preventing any drunk passer-bys from accidentally stepping on them, and you quietly bring up the very rear of the entourage.  You take the time to observe more than anything, walk in the back and experience instead of trailblaze.  So many people, so many stories to be told, so many differences and diversity around you.  Your face is partially concealed and you don’t move your head too much, just your eyes.  They flick around to take in everything, the crowd thinning little by little as you make it out of the confined space downtown.  You’re able to make out full bodies and outfits again instead of just heads and shoulders, allowing you to breathe just a bit easier under your mask.

And then at one point—and it’s almost a little startling because it happens all at once—the organizers must decide that the sun has officially gone down, because the lights come on.  All of a sudden, paper lanterns and bulbs flicker into existence all around you and the world decides it wants to glow, glint and twinkle from the inside out.  They’re everywhere, draping across rooftops and tangled around street signs and stuffed into the flower bouquets overhead, raining soft colors down on everything.  You’re in complete awe, trying to keep walking but also needing to look at as much as fucking possible in the suddenly luminescent city.  It’s so colorful, so vernal and warm and you feel like you’re… Like when you took a shower on the Crest for the first time and spent a few happy moments just playing with the water and soap for your own enjoyment, it’s as if all the brilliant rainbow of colors the bubbles would make under the fluorescent light decided to surround you at the same time.  You’re inside stained glass, blinking at the flowers and wondering if Din can even smell the air or if it’s filtered, processed and reduced to nothing under the helmet.

And that’s when you see him.

But with the way your chest rapidly constricts and you can count your heart beats as they pound, blaring white noise through your ears and adrenaline through your veins, it’s like he's just allowing it to happen.  You immediately understand that you don’t have fucking anything the second your eyes land on him; this isn’t a heads up that you caught wind of early, it’s not a gift or an advantage you’ve incidentally gained over him that you should be thankful for.  Being able to see him directly like this, being able to make out all these fucking details from this far away…  This just feels like you’re being informed of the endgame right before it comes.  If you were anyone else, if you were a real bounty and this was a real hunt, his armor glinting and reflecting the lanterns overhead would feel like a knife you're about to be on the wrong side of.

You have a decision to make, very quickly.  Either keep in this same direction, head straight towards him and just pretend like you are who you’re dressed as, a random caretaker for a bunch of rowdy foundlings during a spring festival on Nariss, or disappear.  Drop back, move through the crowd and use the distance you have between you right now as your only hope of getting away in time.  Neither one gives you a particular advantage—your chances of being caught have already skyrocketed exponentially just being able to see the reflection in his armor, the hovering shield at his side with big black eyes… staring directly at you.

You almost trip over your pantlegs, gasping.  Baby.  He beams at you and you think he calls out through the passing crowd, his tiny arms extending out, and your chest feels like you’re pulling organs as if they were muscles, cramping up and seizing with emotion.  You want to run to them even though you’re meant to be running from them, call out over the noise and wave even though you’re not supposed to.  You want to hold the kid again, squish his little forehead with kisses, walk around with Din’s hand pressed against your lower back and see the fireworks with him.

Your hands clutch at the draping fabric covering your chest, pulling and twisting it uncertainly.  What do you do, what do you do?

No matter what, you know it’s over.  Keep your head down and try to move past him, or break away from your group and try to escape—both are different paths that lead to the same result.  What’s the point of running when he’s the one chasing you?  The heart-pounding thrill is the only reason you’re even considering it, but his body stands so tall amongst the crowd, not moving while people ebb and flow like a river passing around him.

Except then you can hear his voice repeat the last thing he said to you in person as if he says it directly into the comm in your ear.  When you do see me… try to outrun.

You should run—run, it’s better than just hoping he doesn’t see you when you already know he does.

Unless…

Out of a trillion different possibilities, you soon realize that there is exactly one situation in which this could turn out in your favor.  You can immediately picture the scenario in your mind, but there’s just too many variables to conceivably rely on getting them all right.  This maybe has a… two percent chance of working?  Maybe?  Everything would have to go perfectly, just fucking flawlessly, but what other choice do you have?  Two percent is better than whatever odds you’re dealing with now.

You walk silently behind the group of foundlings as you approach closer and closer, keeping your head purposefully down as they skip and giggle and dance ahead.  He knows you’re here—he has to know, you’re counting on him knowing.  Walk right in front of him, pretend like you don’t see, make sure you keep left.  Keep left, keep left, keep your head down, keep your head down—

A leather glove suddenly catches hold of your wrist hard enough to tug you backwards.

Your gasp is audible over the sound of the crowd and you spin around, jerking your head up to look at him in fear.  Your heart slams as the beskar reflects your mask and hood back at you—you’re terrified and it shows, you can see it in your eyes.

You quickly try to yank your hand away, even as your index finger stretches up towards the communicator around his wrist.

“Miss Nerida?”  A child’s voice cries, and then small hands grab at you from behind as you bury the urge to actually fight him.  Your instincts are demanding you attack when his grip is this strong, but you just whine and struggle, slapping weakly at him with your free hand and feeling more of the younglings begin to pull at you, their high pitched voices calling more and more attention to the scene.

Your gaze flicks to the side, suddenly landing on a pair of New Republic officers helping direct the thousands of moving bodies from the closest street corner.  They’re looking at you, pointing and beginning to speak into their own comm units.  Din’s helmet snaps sideways to follow your gaze, and then he’s immediately dropping your wrist and stepping back, retreating as quickly as he caught you.  Though you don’t want to—though you don’t want to give yourself away even more, you want to pretend fully that he was a complete stranger and the children were right to try to help you get away—your eyes fall to your son in the hovering crib by his side and you feel yourself crumble just a bit.

Just a few more hours, kid.  A few more hours.

Children pull you away while your pursuers both disappear into the crowd, and you quickly turn to soothe the tiny babies instead of chasing after the one you miss so terribly.

“I’m alright,” you tell them, scooting them up and encouraging them to continue walking.  Blend in, blend in, don’t let anybody think anything is wrong.  “Come on, we’re fine, come on, we have to catch up.”

They take your lead as soon as one of the caretakers turns around and sees the small group crowding around you.  You think she asks what happened, but you just tell her a man mistook you for someone else and nothing more comes of it.  She’s able to settle the chaos better than you are, and by the time you’re continuing to travel forwards once more like nothing happened, the communicator suddenly flicks on in your ear.

“What did you do?”  He breathes out, his footsteps moving fast through his voice.  He’s traveling much quicker than you expected—is he still being followed?  The officers are gone from your sight, they might be going after him right now, weaving between bodies and calling out to the perpetually vanishing glint of armor as he navigates his way out of danger.

You look down at the comm on your wrist and your heart nearly soars with victory.  It worked.  It worked.  You just have to outlast a bit longer, don’t draw any extra attention to it—he’s preoccupied and he certainly doesn’t sound happy, but you hope that’ll be enough to make him slip.  Use his frustration to your advantage, let him think the only thing you were successful at was momentarily escaping him.

“The cops weren’t part of the plan,” you admit quietly, keeping your head down as your loose hood billows in the twilight breeze.  “Don’t get caught.”

There’s a few moments of just his breathing, his footsteps, and the noise floor humming through the comm, before he finally responds.  “You look beautiful.”

You stare unseeingly down at the concrete under your feet, still feeling your hand tingle from where he caught you.  The line abruptly mutes on his end and you just keep moving forward, onward, wanting to look back but knowing he’s already long gone.

***

Day 5–5:24pm:

Din is fucking furious.

He had you.  You were right there, right in front of him, and even if he hadn’t been subtly trailing you all day, seeing the red footsteps get covered and flicker out of existence just a few moments after you make them, he would’ve recognized you anywhere.  In black and white, in the fading light, with your face covered, children calling you by a different name and attaching themselves to you like they’ve known you forever—doesn’t matter, he would’ve known you.  Your eyes have always given you away, always so expressive and starry and soft, but able to see right through solid steel whenever you look at him.

But then you slipped from his grasp, and then more guards pushed him further and further away from you.  They must all be in constant communication, because every single jumpsuit he sees immediately spots him and starts following.  It’s fucking exhausting, and he thinks of you the whole time.

He waits in a dark alley with the kid and taps the side of the helmet a few times to bring up the time on his comm, but then relaxes just slightly when he sees the hour.  It’s earlier than he thought it was, he’ll be able to find you again.

Though, something tugs at him while he’s looking at the clock ticking away in front of his eyes, counting down each second that passes.  There was… a moment.  Back in the square, when he was holding onto you again, when you were looking directly into his once more—everything in his helmet— 

No, he shakes his head while the kid looks up at him curiously, it can’t be.  It was just a split second, it was gone so fast.

But he can’t get rid of it.  Though there’s no explanation, he thinks the display screen flickered.  The sky behind you looked different for a single frame, your footsteps weren’t bright red and visible anymore, your eyes weren’t grey and he stopped wondering what shade of fabric you and your friend decided to choose for you to wear.  It was silvery, he’s almost certain.  Like his armor, it only reflected the color of everything around it.

Color.  Everywhere.  Bursting for a blink of an eye, and then gone just as quick, before he could actually figure out what it really meant.

***

Day 5–6:59pm:

This water is quiet here, but it sparkles.

It doesn’t ever really get truly dark thanks to the enormous hanging moon and ringed gas giant dancing with Sanctuary II, constantly reflecting light back onto the surface and reacting with some of the trace chemicals up above the atmosphere, and you think the sky just might be the prettiest you’ve ever seen it.  Must have something to do with the equinox, the glimmering angles of light being played with by celestial bodies in this stunning system, but it’s a dream.  The Maker apparently couldn’t decide which colors he wanted tonight so he just splashed all of them together all at once, let them run and blend like ink in the gentle water below, like the various people who call this moon home.

That view in front of you, coupled with all the flowers and lanterns lining the streets behind you, and you’ve lost track of time the exact same way you hoped Din would.  You think you’ve stood for about an hour or so in this one spot, half-listening to excited chatter from the babies, mostly just gazing across the stretch of water and being able to just barely spot the docks in the distance, but it feels like it’s only been minutes.

You check your watch—the fireworks should be starting any second now.  You don’t know what to expect, just that in your experience, explosions tend to be loud.  You've decided you’re not going to plug your ears, though.  Tummy twisting with nerves and another inexplicable feeling you can’t quite put your finger on, you resolve to experience the unknown exactly the way it’s meant to be.  Fully, without worry or fear.

Then, lacking any warning or ceremony whatsoever, a single flare launches silent and high from one of the small boats skimming the bay, and the crowd seems to hold its collective breath as the dim light disappears into thin air for a split second, before—

It’s… quite possibly the most dazzling thing you think you’ve ever seen.  So shamelessly decorative just for the sake of it, not serving any other practical purpose besides celebration and visual spectacle, and you’ll probably never know another extravagance like it.  You grew up with dust pelting against tired eyes, you never thought they’d get to reflect such gorgeous bursts of color back up at the sky, glassy and childlike amongst a group of equally wide-eyed children.

As expected, a deafening boom follows closely behind the singular display, but just witnessing it is incredible enough to make you forget to brace yourself for the sound and you jump almost violently in response.  There comes a loud cheer from the people standing around you, a few delighted gasps and children who decide now is the best time to start crying, but then more flares begin to launch from the boats and the subsequent show will sear itself into your memory to replay over and over again.

Still, you think the endless sky and dark water below would have to light on fire to stop him from coming to mind.

Din.

You click the comm on, continuing to stare in stunned awe but wanting nothing more than to hear his voice right now, feel his hand rest on your lower back and the kid’s three fingers squeezing one of yours while the stars rain down from above.  You’re only continuing to run from him because it’s expected of you, that’s the reason you’re here, but it’s becoming harder and harder to argue with yourself.  “Do you always see in black and white?”

It takes him just a few seconds to respond, but he always does.  “Only when I’m tracking someone.”

The loud booms can be heard over the earpiece, happening maybe a second after they crack and sparkle above you.  You can’t tell if the latency is due to the electronics or if he’s just that far away from the source of the sound itself, but… you don’t think he is.  He feels close again, like he could just walk up right next to you any second, or maybe that’s just how he always feels now.

“Does that mean you haven’t seen the sky here?”  You ask after a moment.  This whole time, everything has been grey for him?

“I saw it,” Din murmurs, and even though it’s quiet and explosions are thundering loud enough to deafen more sensitive ears, his quiet voice somehow breaks through it all.  “When you left the Crest, I saw it behind you.”

For some reason, you suddenly feel like crying.  Whether it’s the way he phrases it or the sentiment in the words, you’re close to tears without even knowing why, looking up at the sky illuminating spectacularly.  He says it like he wasn’t the one who parked on this moon and told you to go on without him.  “Can you… turn it off for just a second?”

He takes a second, before clarifying for you.  “I turn it off and I lose your footprints.”

So that was the ultimatum.  He doesn’t want to turn it off until you’re back with him again.  Does he not understand?  Does he not know what you know?  Maybe you just happened to feel it first, this overwhelming physical sensation inside you whenever you think about him.  It’s like the exact opposite of a hole in your chest.  And it’s so odd, so counterintuitive.  Being comforted in his absence, feeling him with you when he isn’t.  Falling in love in the dark, knowing him without ever seeing him.

“You never needed them,” you say, reaching up to pull your mask down under your jaw and chin for a moment, wanting to freely breathe the freshwater and flowers while stars explode and fracture across the sky.  It’s a truth you’re acknowledging, something you’ll carry with you, something you fundamentally own at this point.  “You’d find me without the helmet.  And I’d find you.”

The fireworks continue to bleed into the water beneath them, multicolor splashes rippling into existence and disappearing just as quick.  You could’ve never imagined a more colorful, magnificent landscape—besides your waterfall on Naboo, of course.  That was a pure product of nature though, a place hidden away and untouched by people, completely sacred.  Light refracting against mist, natural glass that would shatter under your weight.  This is a celebration of life and family.  Loud in a different way, affecting you in a different way, but just as wonderful and touching.  A cultivated paradise, designed to be beautiful and safe only because they wanted it to be.

“Think so?”  He asks softly.  He sounds so deep and warm, but… a little distant.  You’re able to hear it in his words.  You don’t know why, though.  Doesn’t he believe you?  Perhaps… perhaps this isn’t The Way.  Perhaps this is part of a completely different oath, one where knowing and loving somebody isn’t the same thing as looking at their face, not at all.  Where you can have them exist entirely separate from each other, because this is love.  This is real, enduring, bone-deep love, and you haven’t ever seen his face, so how would he explain that?  How would the Mandalorians reconcile that?  You bear the mark of the mudhorn, you’ve moved through time and space with him, you’re a mother to his son, and you’ve never seen his face.  It defies both the Mandalorian oath and traditional understandings of love, or it meets them right in the middle, depending on how you look at it.

“I know so.”  For the first time, you think you might sound more confident and certain than he does.  Maybe he doesn’t fully get it yet, but then you suppose he’ll just have to trust you.  “Will you look at the sky?”

“I see it,” Din tells you, but you know he doesn’t.  Not the way you want him to.  And stars, you just want so many things for him, don’t you?  The sky, fresh air, water, light, food, rest.  You want him to see the galaxy the way you do—have a new appreciation for the gifts that are given just because you’re alive to experience them.  All the physics and mathematics aligned perfectly for it to happen—all the chemistry, the systems, the dynamics that dictate the universe, they all got together and crafted a world where you, him, and the kid all exist together at the same time.  You want him to know the significance of that.

“With color?”  You ask, knowing his answer before he seems to.

“I…”  Din wants to argue, or at least say it again.  He can’t or he’ll lose you, he already told you he doesn’t want to turn the setting off.  It’s such an unnecessary conflict, but you want to respect it so much that you’re willing to give up things of your own to make it happen.

“How do I fix it then?”  You whisper, so desperately wanting this one thing for him, this one grandeur to behold.  How do you fix this problem?  How do you convince him to look with you?  You’d offer to just go and find him instead of continuing to run away for the next few hours, but you know the show will be over soon and you don’t have much time left.  “Do you want me to come look for you?  It’ll be too late by then, you’re too far away.  Look at the sky.”

It’s silent for a moment—truly silent, even though colorful bombs are going off above the bay.  You don’t know why you’ve attached yourself to this so strongly, but it’s almost devastating when you don’t get a response.  You look away from the spectacle for the first time in an eternity, gazing unseeingly into the crowd of onlookers with a sudden sadness taking hold of you.  He won’t look, he’s too stubborn, he holds onto things too tightly.

But then, a flurry of flares start launching in rapid succession from the distant boats, screaming and crying on their way up and then igniting into showers of light, and the abrupt increase in activity manages to catch your attention once again.  This must be the end, they saved the best for last.  Every corner of the horizon flashes and sparks, and you’re mesmerized at how bright it is, how many colors they’ve managed to fit into one single frame.

“It’s beautiful,” comes his voice, and the smile that you break into feels just right for the brilliance of the view above you.  Maker, it is, isn’t it?  Now you can hear it—he sounds like he’s looking at it too, with color, in all its breathtaking glory, and you feel like you’re flying.  Like he picked you up and let you watch up close, like you can feel his armor under your fingers right now as he carries you through the sky.

It swells up inside you, a rising wave similar to the ones you can see in the distance, and you know you probably shouldn’t say it because it’s not in your best interest to say it right now, but you have to say it anyways.  It’s an unknowable compulsion, a need to connect and communicate directly with him but for your sake, not presently, not at this exact moment in time.

Luckily, you mute your comm just in time and simply give the words to him from very far away.

“Hurry up,” you say, sending the sentiment into the sky with all your love, and the conflicting hope that he won’t take the advice until a bit later on.  “Come and find me.”

***

Day 5–7:37pm:

After the fireworks are over, people start to drift off in separate directions, clearing the traffic and congestion from the streets around you.  Someone puts their hand on your shoulder and you blink a few times, spinning around and almost stepping on a bunch of tiny little feet by accident.

Stars, that’s a lot of children.  They’re all crowded around Naydee, who pats a few heads and almost buckles under the younglings clinging to her leg.

“Figured you would be long gone by now,” she grins at you from behind her mask, and you’re reminded to pull yours up over your face just from looking at her.  “It’s late—we’re going back to the Keja.”

“Oh, shit,” you breathe in surprise, but the noise of the gradually dispersing crowd manages to cover it up.  At least from younger, more easily distracted ears, but you think Naydee hears you.  Her dark eyes roll good-naturedly, looking happy but exhausted from the long day.  You’re going to have to say goodbye now.

“What happened to your family?”  She asks after a moment, and you think she’s being careful with the way she says it, likely because family is a difficult topic to navigate in general around some of the children hanging on her and begging for her attention.  “Have you been in touch with them?  If not, I’m sure you can come back with us.  It’ll be late by the time we get there, but at least you’ll be safe.”

You open your mouth to automatically decline her offer, knowing Din is still in the crowded city looking for you and wanting to stay where there’s lots of people.

But then… well, he would expect you to do that, wouldn’t he?

There’s more people here.  More danger, but better places to hide.  It’s the obvious choice, it’s the one that makes the most logical sense.  But you’d also be completely alone and you’re assuming the only reason he hasn’t snatched you up yet—which you know he could’ve done multiple times by now, is likely because you’re with a group of innocent foundlings, moody teenagers, and very stern older women.  He probably doesn’t realize you’ve told them about him and the kid, though you were slightly vague on the details.

It’s also a little over three hours to get back, but you’re banking on it being closer to four with how whiney and tired some of the small voices sound, others sounding like they’re an enormous sugar rush contained into a tiny little capsule.  Would he have the gall to try and get you right from under their noses?  Will he even know you left the city, or will he assume you made the smartest decision possible and simply account for it ahead of time?  No, you're overthinking it, just make a decision and stick with it.

“There’s also free food,” Naydee shrugs while you’re still considering, but… well, that settles that.  Almost three days of friendship and she already knows exactly how to win you over in the end.  Sustenance for your empty tummy, an escort the entire way there, and heavily guarded walls beyond.  Din will have to get creative in response—you flaunted your imagination for days, coming up with dozens of evasion tactics to outlast him, but this one just seems… incredibly practical.  Exploiting a weakness of his—isolating it, having it be reinforced by precedent, and then taking advantage of it.  You bet he’ll catch on, but still, it’ll make it more difficult for him, and you’re grasping at straws to hang on just a little longer.

“I…”  Quick, come up with something.  You clear your throat.  “The city is too crowded, I haven’t been able to find them.  I could just… tell them where I’m headed and see if they can find me along the way?”

Naydee smiles and nods.  “Sounds perfect.”

Yet, the entire walk back… you keep thinking you’re going to feel Din trailing behind you, waiting to feel the nerves twist in your tummy and your palms to sweat, but you don’t.  You keep glancing over your shoulder and then down at your wrist, needing to talk yourself out of addressing him through the comm to let him know exactly what the plan is.  You like maintaining a sense of secrecy from the new characters you’ve met on your adventures—Naydee, Karga, Peli—almost everyone you’ve been introduced to, you found a way to find a subtle enjoyment in hiding certain things from them.  But with Din, you don’t have any walls.  They crumbled nearly a full year ago when he silently pushed a cauterizer in your hand and took his armor off for you, and you’ve felt the inexplicable need to bare yourself to him in return ever since.  It would be to your extreme detriment to do it now, but you still have to fight the urge.

Even if you don’t feel him following, you still find yourself acting like he is.  Constantly turning back to double check the road behind you, drifting off in the middle of shallow, distant conversations with tiny foundlings who can’t tell the difference, keeping towards the middle of the pack this time to avoid being picked off towards the back.  The belltower at the orphanage is loud and will ring for quite a distance, so your timing has to be utterly pristine for this to all work out.  You eye your comm the entire way there, trying to stall just the right amount to avoid any realizations or fall into any traps he may be setting for you.

You eventually leave the city walls far behind you, and now you have no clue where he is.  You lost him, and maybe that’s why you feel your heart beat insanely fast the whole time.  He could be anywhere now.  Behind you, adjacent, parallel—you can’t decide where to look, but it keeps you wide awake and focused while the group tiredly travels back to the temple.

***

Day 5–11:32pm:

You can see it in the distance, the brick buildings slowly coming into view.  One might think your stress would have worked itself out by now, been brought back to a manageable level after four hours of walking, but you’ve been on red alert for the past hour or so.  Any movement or rustle that doesn’t come from the sleepy children or exhausted caretakers, you’re on top of it, snapping your attention to the offending tree or animal and not being able to relax even after affirming it’s just nature, it’s not shiny metal bounding after you in the darkness, ready to take you down.

The infants are all likely snoozing away in the nursery, and the Sister who volunteered to stay behind and look after them comes to greet the group at the gate as you approach.  Like always, two Brothers open the iron bars to allow you inside, and you feel the anxiety dig its claws into your tummy.  If Din is going to get you, this is the very last moment to do it.  These walls are guarded and you’re nervous for him, you’re nervous for yourself—you’re just fucking nervous.  Jumpy and worried, not being able to pinpoint him anymore and feeling all the more anxious because of it.

It doesn’t feel right.  Nothing feels right about this, but you can’t figure out specifically what’s wrong.  This was the exact plan, this was a way for you to just survive these last few hours and yet, it doesn’t feel right that you actually succeeded in doing so.  It doesn’t make sense that he’d allow you to return all the way here, especially when he was close enough to touch you earlier.  Din has had so much time to snatch you up, so many opportunities to lure you away, confront you—anything to catch you, and he hasn’t done it yet.  Why?  Either you truly did escape and he has no idea where you are, which doesn’t feel right, or he’s choosing not to get you for whatever reason, which also doesn’t feel right.  What’s he waiting for?  You can’t have won.  It was all too fucking easy, you’re expecting to see him around every single corner because he should be there, he shouldn’t have allowed this to happen.

When someone gently touches your elbow, you’re so on edge that you nearly whip around in surprise.

“Sorry!”  Naydee immediately apologizes, taking her hand back to lift her hood and remove the mask covering her face.  “Didn’t mean to scare you!  I was just going to say that the commissary is still open,” she offers, and you watch the small group of hungry teenagers break off from the group to make their way there.  “It’s going to take awhile to get the children ready for bed, so we’ll be in the dormitories if you need to sleep.  Otherwise, I’m not sure I’ll see you again.”

You stare at her and blink a few times, trying to readjust your focus.  She’s your new friend, she just said this was likely the last time you’ll see each other, but you can’t stop thinking about Din.  Imagine he’s hours away in the city right now, still looking for you.  You’re trying to evaluate your priorities here, but you truthfully never expected to get this far.  Inside the gates, surrounded by brick buildings and silent guards.  You know your way around here, you know hiding spots, you know how to outlast—it’s incredibly advantageous for you to be inside these walls.  What is he doing?

Shaking your head to clear your thoughts, you give Naydee a quick hug and she happily accepts it.  “I’m sure we’ll meet again at some point.”

She smiles and nods, pulling back and letting a couple grumpy foundlings catch her robes and yank on them impatiently.  The loud group eventually disappears into the dorms, and the door shutting behind them cuts off the tired crying and chatty voices determined to stay awake, leaving you in silence that feels slightly unfamiliar after going without it for so long.

Fuck, you just need to breathe.  As soon as the dead quiet grips the air around you, you realize you need to relax.  You’re way too fucking wound up; you want to bolt at the smallest thing and the sudden silence of being alone multiplies it to the point where you have to remind yourself of its importance.  Breathe.  Focus.  There’s about fifteen minutes before the bells ring, fifteen more minutes and the chase will be all over.

Can you eat?  You thought you’d want to, but you think you’re too fucking antsy.  You can’t stay here alone, that’s for sure, but you also don’t want to be around all the children right now.  The commissary will have a handful of people wandering around, teens snacking and maybe a Brother or two standing guard.  It’s the best place to wait the clock out, so you make your way there.  The gentle breeze billows around your loose robes, your pantlegs swishing as you walk.

A few minutes later, you’ve got a plate of food in front of you but your mask is still up, and you’re just sitting there.  Towards the back of the large room, sitting by yourself at one of the tables and staring down at your communicator.  Five minutes.  You have five fucking minutes left before he finds you.  Can you feel him?  Is he closing in?

You sit up a bit straighter, taking a deep breath.  Focus on that feeling from earlier.  The presence in your chest, the weight that didn’t used to be there months ago—focus on that feeling and branch it outwards.  Can you feel him?

Something catches your eye.

Or no… it doesn’t, does it?  Nothing is out of place here, nothing is visibly wrong or amiss.  The only thing that’s changed from all the times before is how dark it is through the windows, and how there are only a few kids in here grabbing a midnight snack instead of being packed like usual.  Nothing else.

But there’s… there’s an acolyte in the far corner, standing guard with his back to the wall.  It’s not his presence that gives you pause—you expected him to be here, there’s always been at least one present whenever you’ve sat down to eat.  He doesn’t look any different from the rest of the Brothers you’ve passed by this evening or the days before—tall, silent, dark brown robes, hooded and mysterious—so why do you suddenly feel yourself break out into a cold sweat as soon as your eyes land on him?

Bubbling laughter and chatter echoes through the large room from one of the tables near the entrance—seven teenagers stuffing their faces with food and sharing animated conversation with each other now that it’s late and they’re alone—but your stomach twists and your fingers start to tremble as you slowly rise from your seat in the back.  You want to keep your head down and be casual but it’s impossible, you desperately need to keep looking at that silent guard in particular and your heart kicks up in your chest—

—and then it wrenches sideways when you’re carefully backing away from the table and the offending acolyte takes a single step forwards.

Run.  Everything in you screams for you to run, and it’s rarely done that before, but you can’t.  Not yet, you don’t want to draw attention, and the logical part of your mind rages against your gut instinct to haul ass.  He’s here—of course he is, the thought screams through your veins as you try to weave quickly in between tables, feeling light on your toes and readying yourself to run as soon as you can.  The dark figure seems to find a careful pace behind you, staying just far enough behind and walking in perfect silence, and you have so many fucking questions but you can’t even think a single thing beyond run away, run away.  Where’s the kid?  How did he get those robes?  Did he actually take his helmet off just to get to you in a room where anyone could confront him?

Your feet propel you forward as soon as you make it out of the door, you break out into a sprint—just flat out bolting because you know how fucking fast he is and you need as big a headstart as you can get.

You race down the stairs and through the courtyard, the beautiful surroundings contrasting drastically with the way you’re running for your fucking life through them.  It’s not beautiful to you right now; you feel clumsy and physically unable to move fast enough no matter how quick you go, your eyes are wide and every nerve is on fire and you can’t even tell if he’s behind you anymore with how silently he moves, but you just trust that he is and keep barreling forward.  Your breath puffs against the clinging fabric of your mask as you keep sprinting, willing your legs to pump faster.  Get to the belltower at least, get to where you have the smallest chance of being caught by the people who guard this place.

As soon as you allow yourself to even conceive the possibility, two Brothers in dark hooded robes suddenly turn the corner a little ways in front of you and your reaction time is perfect—you jerk to a halt and take a single step forward as soon as they spot you.  Since your momentum already committed you to it, you just have to walk, keep your head down, move directly past them and hope Din disappeared from behind you in time.

Step, step, step—keep going, control your breathing, you’re okay, you’re allowed to be up late tonight and they shouldn’t stop you.  Walk right by…  Stars, you feel their silent stares as you casually pass, and it just feels so cold and analytical compared to the kind of danger Din is gives off when dressed in the exact same clothing.  He’s hard and tangible and an unrelenting force, where they just feel like ghosts that haunt this place.  The threat they present is impersonal and detached, but the terror currently chasing after you is so real that he can read your mind.

You wipe the sweat from your brow as soon as you turn the corner, and your feet are already starting to speed up on their own knowing you’re out of their sight.  Run, get to the belltower before Din does, you can see it standing tall about a hundred feet away.  The stairs leading to the door come closer and closer, but you hear something behind you and it propels you faster.  It’s like you can feel him right at your heels even though you haven’t seen him, snapping at your ankles even though your footsteps are the only ones you can hear anymore.

You scramble up the stairs and close the door behind you, spinning around and facing it even as you slowly retreat backwards into the moonlit tower, trying to stay quiet.  Breathing through your nose, eyes shifting around the enclosed space, continuing to back up and away from the door.  Where is he?  There are so many windows that allow you to look outside, but why can’t you spot his movement through them?  Wasn’t he right behind you?

Behind you.

There’s no reason or logic at all to it; you just react.  Spinning around and throwing a mean punch.

Din jerks back just in time to miss it, twisting and dodging at the very last second to avoid your next few hits—but… things seem to slow down, even if they’re happening so fast.  The moonlight cascades through the dozens of windows lining the circular walls and it shines just enough to reveal small glimpses of him.  With every aggressive strike from you, you see something else—you see a flash of his chin when you try to uppercut, you aim for his chest and you see a bit of his jaw.  When you go for his jaw, he steps sideways and catches your wrist, and you see the bend of his nose catch the light this time.

But then it’s like he finally figures out that you’re actually fighting him, and now he’s coming for you.  Trained and ruthless, not weighed down by any armor and lightning quick, launching perfectly aimed attacks that you’re only able to avoid from reaction and muscle memory alone.  You block or move whenever he strikes, you attack whenever you see an opening, you sidestep at the same time he does—

Until you land a spin kick directly to the center of his chest and snap your leg to shove him back, your heel smashing into that soft spot right above his stomach with dead precision and brute force.  He exhales sharply and takes a few more steps back to steady himself while you pause to catch your breath.

Din abruptly comes back and you fall into it with him again, keeping a sharp rhythm with each other that’s faster, harder, and way more real than any sparring match you’ve ever shared.  The hours and days in hyperspace you spent practicing with him are but a fraction of what he’s throwing at you right now, the combinations so rapid and blurred that you just have to trust your knowledge of him and his movement through the dark.

But then, your downfall.  Bells begin ringing an earsplittingly familiar melody above you, and it shatters your concentration—you falter just as he grabs you and sweeps your feet out, and though you know how to get out of that, you’re not quick enough on the jump nor counterswing to prevent it.  He takes you to the ground, hard, and then your wrists are being pinned together above your head and your mask is being tugged down.

Din’s mouth on yours makes you want to cry.

The whole thing is like coming home.  You spent a week surrounded by strangers and having them call you by a name not given to you, fending for yourself, and now here he is.  Someone who knows who you really are, someone that wants to care for you.  Tears come to your eyes even as they're pressed tightly shut, and Din kisses you like he’s never known anything else.  His mouth fits to yours as if the Maker made your lips before ever considering the rest of you, his bare hand clutching your jaw and forcing you to open for him, letting him lick deep inside after going so many days without it.  It might feel dominant and overwhelming if it happened to any other person, but through it, you can also taste his desperation and weakness, how soft he is even when he’s squeezing your jaw and squishing your wrists together too tightly.

Rigid steel that bends only for your touch.

He pulls back and your heart throbs at how moonlight continues to bathe just the smallest glimpses of him under the hood—never the full thing, never the whole face, but enough.  The quiet light that brushes the arch of his nose, how it bathes the hard line of his jaw so that you can barely see his scruff when he turns his head the right way.  His eyes are hidden in near darkness but there’s the faintest glimmer where they should be, and it’s the closest you’ve ever been to looking at him without the helmet.  You can see him, you can see shadows of his chin, his neck—dear stars, his fucking neck.  You’re pinned and paralyzed under him and the ringing bells, yet you feel like you just might float if he wasn’t holding you so tight to the floor.

“Where’s the baby?”  You finally lift your chin and ask, needing to raise your voice over the melody clanging loud throughout the tower.

“Making friends,” Din pants back down at you, and… stars, then you just start giggling.  Adrenaline turning into pure joy, imagining the kid wreaking havoc with all the other babies in the nursery right now.  It feels more light and airy than anything your body should know.

“What are you so happy about?” He asks, swallowing and then continuing on with the same quick gasps.  “You lost, I caught you in time.”

“Did you?”  You drop your head to the brick floor and ask, biting your lip as he stares back down at you.  Suddenly—

—Bong—

Din holds utterly still over you while you take a quick breath and wait for the next eleven bells… 

…but then break into a slow grin up at him when nothing but utter silence follows.

There’s a moment.  Just a single moment where the cogs turn rapidly under that shadowy hood, one where the faint reflection of light in his eyes flickers down to the communicator on your wrist that says midnight and back to you, one that solidifies the longer it takes for another bell to ring.  It’s not going to.

One o’clock.

You think he puts it together.  The one moment he was never able to figure you out—when you tried reprogramming the comms just a few days ago.  The one trick up your sleeve that you resigned to throw away and almost forget about because the circumstances for pulling it off were never realistic.  Fuck with the electronics and set the clock back just one hour—all you’d need to do is reset his communicator, the timecode is synced together.  He told you before that it’s connected to his helmet, but all the buttons still work.  Rapid, panicky thinking and a wild surge of bravery in the face of certain downfall is the only reason you were able to pull it off, and you’re perfectly willing to admit you just got lucky… especially when he’s still holding dead still over you.

But then Din moves so suddenly.  You can’t account for it because there’s no build-up whatsoever—it’s so fast, you yelp while he grabs your knees and throws them both to one side.  You flop over sideways and large hands reach up under the draping length of your tunic to yank your pants down over the curve of your ass, before he’s fitting his palm up between your legs and pushing two thick fingers inside you.

Your head thunks back against brick with how unexpected and merciless it is, but his other hand is grabbing your jaw and twisting, forcing you to look up, stare right into the dark shadow under the loose cowl.  The whole thing is too overwhelming—you’re trying to keep quiet but your breathing feels like thunder crashing inside this tall, echoing chamber.  He’s touched you so many times, he knows exactly how to do it by now, but it feels like so much more than that.  Probably because you can see the way Din’s mouth silently falls open as he feels you, stretching his fingers up and hooking them tight inside.  You can tell when he closes his eyes, the smallest glint slowly disappearing into nothingness while the hand around your jaw blindly moves up.  It catches your chin and lips, and then two fingers push over the bottom edge of your teeth to slip into your mouth.

Your entire leg twitches and jerks while you lay sideways on the ground and open up for him, your neck twisted at a sharp angle to keep your eyes on him and his fingers in your mouth, giving you something to bite to stop making noise.  Din makes room for himself inside you two different ways, and you just choke on his fingers and try to stay quiet, praying he’ll go deeper.

But then you’re not expecting his whole fucking arm to start moving the way it does—oh fuck, what is that?  First you just feel jostled and displaced, but then suddenly a wicked, deep, burning pleasure starts to roar through you, radiating outwards from the rapid motion of just two fingers inside you.  It’s not in and out, it’s up and down so hard and quick against your g-spot that your eyes cross and your hands go numb.

You think you grab at him, clutch onto his arm or chest and open your mouth to moan at the new and overwhelming sensation, but his hand pushes up against your chin and closes it for you, the bend of his fingers caught hard between your teeth but you don’t think he cares.

“Quiet,” Din hisses the word down at you while his arm continues to work, your toes starting to curl as the feeling overwhelms you.  Fuck, what is happening, what is happening?  It’s like he’s just shoving unfamiliar sensation at you so forcefully that you can’t even think straight anymore, not even ten seconds in.  You can only feel the pleasure, fire blurring hot and shapeless through your entire body as your eyes clamp shut, his fingers isolating that perfect spot and stimulating it directly, relentlessly.

Something dull and white hot presses up tight against all the muscles you have down there and you’re almost afraid of how strong it is.  You gasp and choke and he has to take his fingers out of your mouth and just clamp down around your entire jaw, sealing the whole thing shut with his large hand.  And then Din’s fingers leave your pussy too—and stars, you should be embarrassed by how desperately it clamps around nothing for as long as it does.  He’s not even inside you anymore but your body is on such a delay from the hot, twisting pleasure, and he doesn’t put them back in until your muscles are finished spasming.

Everything comes back full force as soon as he starts moving again.  Noise starts to come from your throat, humming in your vocal cords to deal with the arcing, swirling build, and so Din just moves his hand there instead.  He finds where it’s vibrating from your neck and he pushes up against it, trapping the sound right at the source.  He’s fucking perfect at it for some reason… how many times must he have done this to know how to cut noise out without stopping airflow?  You clutch at his wrist and silently mouth his name, feeling his arm work between your legs—faster, faster, harder, pushing you higher, higher—

Din pulls his fingers out again and this time, one of your thighs suddenly feels warm and wet while you spasm and you hear him growl out a ragged, “Fuck yes.”  Everything is sparks zapping through you long after his touch is gone, you cry out but it’s all trapped under Din’s expert grip.  His fingers soon push back inside you and you dig your nails into his forearm, your sounds muffled and quiet enough to hear his raspy groan.  

“Let me see it again,” Din breathes, his arm starting to work up and down once more, and you don’t even know what he’s talking about anymore.  What does he want to see?  You losing your mind again?  Being reduced to an utter mess in front of his shadowy but unobstructed gaze just because you managed to pull one over on him?

Fucking… apparently.  It’s what happens, after all.  You’ve never seen him like this before; whenever he’s worked up and taking it out on you, there was always something in it for him, too.  He’d hammer into you and rock your world until his eventually shattered, and then you’d both lay exhausted afterwards, equally affected and satisfied.  This isn’t like that—this is just cruel, targeted retribution on his behalf, coaxing the molten pleasure out of you with his fingers and keeping his other hand locked around your throat.  You blink helplessly up at him, your vision starting to blur by the time he leans down to whisper to you.

“I missed you, sweet girl.  Did you miss me?”  It’s so soft and quiet compared to the strength and relentlessness of his movements.  You can’t speak even if you wanted to, but when he finally pulls away to yank his hand out and you feel all your muscles automatically flex outwards and push against the sudden emptiness inside you, his voice groans long and satisfied while your thighs get wet again  “Yeah you did,” he breathes, pushing your shaky legs to the brick with his hand and watching you struggle through the aftershocks.

Did you just cum?  You don’t even know, that’s how fucked up you are right now.  The whole thing felt like an orgasm from the very beginning, just a boiling hot tornado ripping through every single cell in your body, never really having a peak.  If you didn’t cum, then why do you feel so weak?  You feel heavy, your limbs don’t work properly, and you barely even register Din pulling at the fabric of his own robes until he fits himself up against your entrance.

When you do realize it, though… your body burns with it, wrecked already but wanting him to take what he wants from you.

“Oh, plea—” you gasp but you don’t even have enough time to get the full sentence out.  He’s already pushing his hips forward, pressing you tight into the ground and opening you up after what feels like a fucking eternity without him.  It’s the hottest, slickest welcome you could give him, you hear it in the whispered curse his lips brush up under your ear, the wet noises your body makes that get louder the longer you hold the moan in your throat and bury your head into his shoulder.  He throbs thick and perfect inside your tight, spasming cunt, stretching you and smacking the rough ground near your head with how fucking good it is to be back, finally, finally—

Your hands grab uselessly at his chest while you try to acclimate, try to breathe while you’re blind with sensation.  It’s so fitting for him, isn’t it?  That your reunion should be just as physically debilitating as it is mentally.  Din’s voice scrapes on a groan like he’s dragging it across the brick ground as quiet as he can, catching when you clamp down on him and shuddering when you clamp down harder.  That’s just it—you don’t ever loosen, you just keep tightening and tightening around him, threatening to break and cum again.

This feels different from before, though.  It’s deep, purposefully so.  His hand reaches up to push the fabric of your hood back, lifting himself up over your body and wanting to start as deep as he can.  You feel him in a place you’d never be able to reach and that’s just the beginning—that’s before he starts thrusting into you, hitting a dull sensation at the apex of each movement so hard that it becomes sharp.  His hips don’t make practically any sound smacking into you because they don’t really smack, they just rock downwards and fuck you into the floor without needing to pull out really at all.  You know he’s just trying to keep it as quiet as possible, but what he lacks in speed and agility he makes up in power.

You don’t even realize you’re making too much noise until a palm wraps tight around your mouth and the room gets a little emptier.  Din keeps you all to himself on the floor, silencing as much as he’s working you up, smothering as much as he’s freeing you.  There’s no easing up, no dragging it out, no gradual build or climb—it’s just there all of a sudden, pleasure and pain pummeling you all at once, engulfing you in flames.

You reach up to grab at the loose fabric of the hood over his face, catching a fistful of it before his hand suddenly snatches your shaky wrist and pins it back to the ground.

Maker, you forgot—oh, you completely forgot about how many people could find you right now if they ever decided to look in the right place.  You’re not in hyperspace; your body is rocking against rough brick, you’re probably going to have a lump on the back of your head from how terrible you are at trying to map out heaven while holding still.  He’s pinned down what he can with one hand; your fingers are the only things that can move besides how tight you can curl your toes, but you feel your moans turn into words against his palm.  They garble indistinctly and you’re not really even sure what you’re saying, but Din decides it’s worth hearing.

“Shh,” he whispers, slowly lifting his hand from your mouth.  “Shh, tell me—”

“W-wanna look,” you hear yourself whimper, trying your best to keep quiet but wanting to scream it while he fucks you hard and slow on the ground, “—I wanna see, I wanna look at you—”

“Fuck,” Din gasps, and though his grip tightens on your wrist and you know he can’t do it right this second, the words seem like they shatter something inside him, “Keep—oh fuck, please, k-keep saying…”

“I want to marry you,” you nearly whine for him, feeling his hips kick up rapidly and start hammering in and out, in and out, in and—“I want to see your face, I wanna be yours, I don’t want anyone else to know you the way I-I—”

You think he drops his head into your neck to muffle his own sounds.  Though they start out rough and quiet and indiscernible, but they gradually become louder as he repeats himself over and over again, growling and fucking you rough.  You only catch it on the peak, when he pulls his mouth away from your skin and gasps them raggedly one last time.

“—ve you—I l-love y—”

He kisses you to stop himself.  But it’s not really a kiss, it’s more desperate than that.  Though it’s beautiful, it’s beautiful in a different light.  It’s not rejoicing at having you back with him once again; it’s a last prayer begging you to stay by his side forever.  He loves you.  He gives it everything—it feels even more concrete and simple than taking the hood off him and revealing his face would.  You told you that you'd know him without ever seeing him, and you did.  You picked him out and found him when absolutely nothing was giving him away, and this feels like a manifestation of that.  Even if you’re not in a place where he can show you his face, his beautiful brown eyes, something still feels like it changes.  He loves you.  You gasp into his mouth and his tongue sinks deep into yours, tenacious and brave and unyielding.  

When you finally cum, you almost bite him on accident.  

Everything surges hot and molten while he pulls back and keeps fucking you through it, and you can’t tell where you’re touching him anymore, just that his skin is blazing hot under your hand and he feels like everything the armor isn’t.  He loves you.  You’re looking into his eyes right now.  You can’t see any of the details, not really, but the moonlight flickers like silent stars moving through dark depths, staring right back at you and giving you an anchor for the euphoria rocketing through you.  He loves you.  Your nails dig in sharp and slowly drag downwards, scratching hard red lines into whatever thick muscle that is—

The back of his neck, making his hips stutter and when he cums for you, he does bite.

You lift your head just in time to feel his teeth catch your chin instead of your mouth, and his entire body shakes while you keep dragging your nails down the side of his neck and his throat.  Din fucking lives for it, he releases you and arches into the pain and owns your marks like he wishes you made them deeper, stretching his neck and lifting his chin into the moonlight and—

Maker.  You can see it, with direct light, you can see more of it than ever before.  You can see his soft lips and white teeth gritting the sound of your name as quietly as he can, the dark facial hair dusting across the lower half of his face.  A fucking gorgeous jawline and throat extended long over you, flexing hard with his cock pulsing inside you.  You can just barely see the bottom of his nose from under the brown hood, the dark curls brushing up under his ears.

Stars, you still never see his eyes, the fabric of his hood acts like a blindfold draped over them, but you think you cum again.  Even if it’s on accident, it’s mean—Din tries to keep from squishing you and his hand pushes down hard against your lower tummy while he shoves his hips deep one last time, and you cum while staring at half of his face in the moonlight.  Completely lovestruck.

How can he be this beautiful when you’ve only seen fractions of him?  You have everything but the eyes now, everything but the most mysterious thing about him, the reflection into his deepest self, but you feel like you’re hypnotized by every single feature you do see.  His tongue coming out to wet his lips, the vein pulling under his sharp jaw—he’s gorgeous, he’s gorgeous, and your body agrees.  It shakes and shudders under him and eventually, Din finishes and you keep looking as his chin slowly lowers, face disappearing into the shadow once more.

Stars.  He’s so handsome and no one has ever told him, fucking dreamy and the biggest grump you’ve ever met.  Without being able to see him, you already want to reach your hands out and touch him, drag your nails through his scruff and force him to extend outwards into the moonlight again for you.  Whenever he does end up showing you his face, you know right fucking now that you’ll never be able to look away.  For the rest of your life, you’ll be staring at him, apologizing blankly for your rudeness but not feeling sorry at all.

Din leans down and gives you a slow, gentle kiss, finally relaxing into a slouch and breathing hard with the effort it took to shatter you with pleasure.

“The kid is with the other foundlings,” he whispers against your lips.  “You… you’ll have to go get him, I need to grab my armor.”

You squeeze around his cock, pulling at the fabric of his robes and ignoring him for just a second.  He fucked you in robes belonging to one of the guards and nobody has mentioned it, you need to say something.  “Where did you get this?”

“I found it,” he tells you after a moment, kissing up under your jaw.  Oh fucking Maker, he feels so good and perfect inside you, shoulders so broad and crowding you on the floor, and his lips are plush and hot, brushing and fitting your skin like it’s just an extension of his own.  “Some guy was wearing it.”

It takes you a second.

“Mando,” you suddenly gasp in quiet horror, pushing at his chest and trying your best to detach his mouth from your throat.  It’s so much more difficult than it needs to be, but you eventually succeed.  “What did you do to him?  Where is he?”

He lifts his neck up just the tiniest bit, turning his face towards yours under the hood and holding still for way too fucking long.  He’s too close to see the expression he’s making, but you know the tone of his silence.  He’s in trouble and he knows it before you do.

“Ma—”

“They’re in a closet,” he admits at the very same time, completely monotone.

You don’t know which word to emphasize.  A fucking closet?  They’re?  Plural?  Instead of stressing any particular word, you decide not to do it at all and it ends up just coming out in the same exact blank tone as him.  “They're in a closet.”

“Inside the Temple,” Din continues on when you lay still as a statue underneath him.  His head slowly dips down once more, pushing his hips against you just the slightest bit to make you remember the cock still inside you instead.  Your eyelashes flutter with it—fuck, focus—“I didn’t know there’d be more than two.”  He kisses your neck so gently.  “It was an accident.”

You don’t say anything at all, your mouth pinching down at the corners because it should but your heartbeat galloping with how… fucking sexy he is.  You shouldn’t encourage this, this horrible behavior just to get close enough to catch you, but your curiosity overtakes you and you ask a question you’ve asked yourself before.  “Did they put up a fight?”

“Mm,” he whispers noncommittally, rocking his hips down once more.  “You did.”  Your nails dig into his chest, making him falter just slightly before slowly kissing your neck again.  “Did so good.  Fought hard, outsmarted me.  Pretty fucking girl.”

And then your eyes pop open as you feel it.  His cock suddenly beginning to harden once again inside you, twitching and gradually gaining a thicker shape, and for a moment, you actually fucking consider it.  He’s the only one in this galaxy that could not only ruin you on these sacred grounds, but then coax you into doing it more than once—stars, are you actually considering it?

“We can’t,” you automatically tell him, but it’s fucking pitiful.  Zero effort, absolutely no umph behind it, leaving it entirely up to him and how much he wants it.  Your logic reminds you that the kid is probably wreaking havoc in the nursery and there are tied up guards in the fucking temple that could be discovered any second.  You shouldn’t have even let him fuck you here in the first place, but…  “Mando, we can’t—”

His mouth opens against the crook of your neck and his tongue brushes velvet hot on your skin, tasting the glistening sweat there and not moving his broad figure a single inch over you besides getting closer, deeper.  Your nails dig into his collarbone, aiming for reason one last time.  It’s apparent that you’d be better off rephrasing, knowing the challenging streak in him and how much telling him what to do doesn't help.

“It’s not a good idea,” you attempt instead, breathless and trying not to move under his mouth and lazy hips.  “Not smart.  Bad idea to fuck again.”

Din’s body stops moving, even though he keeps getting harder.  His jaw opens and then his teeth scrape softly against your flesh, making you tilt your neck back and gasp.

“Later,” he lifts his head to state aloud, committing it to truth now that it’s been spoken and heard by another person.  “Later, I’ll fuck you on the ship, in our bed, when I can get you naked and have your taste in my mouth.”

Tingles rock through your body and you squeeze around his cock just as he pulls it out and tucks it back into his pants.  Your lungs quiver when you inhale—it’s shaky, but it reminds you of how long it’s been since you’ve been able to breathe correctly.

“Later,” you finally agree, combing your fingers through your hair and glad you have this hood to cover your freshly fucked dishevelment.  He came inside you and you don’t want to be leaking and getting your nice pretty robes all wet and stained, but then of course, without any prompting, Din quickly scoots back on his knees and drops his head down to take care of it for you.

***

Commotion.

After Din helped you clean up the way he sometimes likes and then disappeared to change back into his armor, you put your mask and hood back on and tried to look as casual as possible walking to the nursery.  Your knees wobbled slightly and you couldn’t stop smiling under the mask the entire walk there, but when you arrived, you just saw a dim room with sleeping infants—not what you were expecting.  Soon, however, you hear it: down the hall, distant and coming from the dormitories, you hear a loud commotion.

Fuck, you’re nearly wincing with every step you take now, and not because you’re sore.  Well, you… are, a little bit, but in a great way.  No, you’re just dreading the ridiculous shinanigans you already know are well underway, wondering if Din actually dropped the kid off in the dorms from the beginning or if he somehow migrated his way there to cause trouble.

When you walk inside, the first thing you see is a handful of crying and shouting toddlers, and while you can’t immediately spot your favorite floppy-eared monster, you don’t have to see him to know he’s probably standing tiny directly in the middle of this tense showdown.  Automatically, you’re taking a few steps forward to rescue him, but then you stop as soon as you see what the other babies are so mad about.  A large piece of chocolate leftover from the festival levitating just beyond their pitiful little reaches.

Hm.  Who could possibly be responsible for using demon powers to steal snacks and hold them hostage from a sizeable group of hostile children.  A mystery that may never be solved.

It makes you take a second.  The sheer… the… stars, you can’t even think straight—how fucking typical it is just hits you right in the chest, sends your heart into orbit.  Of course.  Of course this is what he’s gotten himself into without immediate supervision, of course this is the shipwreck you’d walk into, and you’re holding back a chuckle before making a single move to intervene.  In the midst of everything, you can hear adults approaching distantly from behind you.

“—don’t know where it came from, I was helping the younglings into bed when I heard the ruckus and I—”

The voices gradually grow louder, and you snatch the floating piece of candy out of thin air and whip around right before Sister Drya and Naydee walk in.  Their hushed, concerned conversation is cut to an abrupt end, and you clear your throat as they take you in, standing in front of chaos central continuing to go off behind you.  Do you… look as freshly disheveled as you are?  You’re not supposed to be here, you know, but hopefully the only strange thing is your presence itself and not anything concerning your appearance.

“Nerida,” the older lady suddenly announces, the name alone holding so much expectation, and the younglings missing their candy have now turned their ire towards you and the crinkly food wrapper hidden in your fist.  “What is the meaning of this?”

“Ah, yeah,” you stand up a little straighter, letting the chocolate casually fall out of your grip behind you, and a stampede of feet suddenly kick up to recover it.  It’s fine, nobody will know, it’s fine.  “It’s just…”  Your head tips behind you to the cause of the uproar, feeling a bit sheepish yet so incredibly fond.  “My… kid.”

Sister Drya stares at you for a few seconds, before tipping sideways and staring at the culprit.  “That is your child?”

You turn around just in time to see him, now abandoned by the angry mob of children, finally notice you.  All of a sudden, his pitch black eyes light up something bright and sunshiney, and you just start beaming in return.  What an adorable little creature, apple of your eye and pain of your ass.

“Yep,” you sigh, dropping into a squat and watching him barrel towards you, catching him right before he can trip over his brown potato sack and scooping him up into your arms.  “Hiya, bug,” you murmur with a grin, lifting back up and plopping him in his favorite spot in the universe—your left hip.  “You making friends?”

He giggles and it’s like sparkles and bubbles fill the room instead, wrapping tiny arms around the largest surface area he can get and clinging.  He laughs with a tiny open mouth, bless him, clearly not understanding the sarcasm, and suddenly your eyes feel just the slightest bit wet.  No, you’re not crying, don’t be fucking ridiculous, but you missed him like hell and he’s just the cutest fucking thing—why do you feel like crying?

“Sorry about that,” you apologize to the two women while slowly turning around, brushing your thumb over one of his cheeks and smiling as it squishes.  “He’s… uh.  Not great at sharing.  We’ll work on it.”

Takes after his dad, you purposefully leave out, just a different kind of sharing.  Din hasn’t shown you his full face yet and the kid performs magic tricks to taunt a roomful of children a fraction of his age for a single piece of chocolate, completely different kind of sharing.

Sister Drya says something in response, but when you look up to address her, all you see is Din standing silently behind her and Naydee, slowly dropping his hand from his helmet to his side.  They don’t seem to notice he’s there and you automatically try your best to pay attention to the Sister speaking to you, but your eyes get caught on the silver reflecting in the dim light beyond.  Fuck, he’s a presence.  An immediate distraction, taking all your focus with a single glimpse.  Seeing him fully armored again, staring at you from the silent shadows behind everything… you melt a little bit, knowing that you’ve seen more of what’s underneath than anyone.  Your shoulders settle and your entire body burns warm, wobbly like the air around a fire, and one of the kid’s hands leaves you to reach out towards his dad.

You watch the metallic helmet tilt sideways after a moment, saying everything without saying anything.  Come on, make up an excuse, let’s get out of here.

Looking at him in the quiet shadows, you’re reminded once again about how much you love him, how much softness you have inside you for a man so hard, so guarded.  And, for the first time, a voice in your head finishes a poem you didn’t realize you were writing, adding its own verse and bringing everything back around to the beginning.  He loves you, too.  How much he lets his guard down for you, the way he’s revealed more of his face to you than not.  You love each other.  You’re family.

So, all at once, you decide to mess with him, because that’s what family does best.

“Don’t be shy, come say hello,” you suddenly urge his silent figure, taking a step forward and speaking directly to him.  “Sister Drya, Naydee, I’d like to introduce you to my—”

It’s remarkable, you see it happen in front of you.  Like he has powers of his own, Din just literally fucking disappears.  Like magic, he’s nowhere to be found within a blink of an eye.  You know he’s capable of it; he’s done it plenty of times during the chase just to fuck with your head, but you’re staring straight at him when it happens this time and it might just be the funniest fucking thing you’ve ever seen him do.

Sister Drya and Naydee both turn around to an empty hallway bathed in shadows and you laugh.  A deep, shameless, loud belly laugh.  Where the fuck did he go so quick?  You were staring straight at him and you have no fucking clue.  He’s just out, and you’re left alone with his child and the unspoken understanding that he’ll just catch up with you later.

You’re giggling even as you shake your head and give the women your genuine thanks for keeping you and feeding you these past few days, grabbing your backpack with all your belongings and eventually using three green fingers to wave goodbye to them.  The very first thing Din says when he seamlessly joins you outside the Keja later is, “That wasn’t funny,” which just makes you laugh harder.

***

About a half hour has passed, and you’re walking along a dirt road, cradling a very happy baby in your arms and giving the grown man next to you an incredibly hard time.

“You’re unbelievable,” you mutter, your back twinging slightly at the way you’re leaning about as sideways as you can get without falling over.  You think you’re basically just the hypotenuse between the ground and Din, who easily supports almost your entire weight with your backpack slung around his far shoulder and readily allows you to rest against him.

“They’re fine,” he grumbles in response, squeezing you tight to his side.  You just have to focus on moving your feet; it’s like he’s practically carrying your upper-half anyways.  “I gave them the night off.”

“You stuffed them in a closet,” you hiss, feeling his shoulder shrug under your cheek.

“I gave them the robe back,” he says, not really defending himself and more just throwing it out there to see if it helps any.  “I’m sure someone’s found them by now, they’re fine.”

Your eyes suddenly go wide, absolutely mortified at the thought.  “Wait.  What do you mean you gave the robe back?”

He shrugs once more, apparently not seeing the problem yet.  “I borrowed it, so I gave it back after I put my armor back on.”

If you could plant your feet on the dirt road and screech to a halt, you would, but all your weight is already resting on him and you’re working solely off his forward movement.  You just hope your tone holds the same amount of shocked disapproval your body language would’ve conveyed if you weren’t so completely attached to his hip like a parasite he adores.

“You fucked me wearing it, though.”  Your voice is strangely flat, so fucking confused and horrified by the mental image of him just tossing the soiled garments haphazardly somewhere in the temple behind you, or even worse, leaving them somewhere respectful, and Din soon stops in the middle of the deserted road.

“Oh,” is all he says, emotionless and blank through the modulator.  Did he not even consider this?

“I had to promise them I was a virgin just to sleep there, you know,” you admit, and you can tell that’s brand new information to him with how still he goes as you continue to lean against him.  You’re getting the feeling that he probably knows a lot more about your experiences on this moon than you think he does, but can tell that this is brand new information to him.  “And you locked three of their holy men in a closet, chased me across the temple grounds, fucked me in one of their robes, and then.  You gave it.  Back.”

Din stays perfectly silent for quite some time.  You can never go back to that place, you know this for a fact.  You’re banned forever now, it’s what you deserve.

Never one to be outdone but not actually having anything to say for himself, Din suddenly decides to just scoop you into his arms and boost up into the sky without a single word like an actual fucking maniac.

You squeal and damn near drop the baby because of it, but he cinches you tight to his chest and refuses to loosen with your struggle.  Eventually, after you realize he’s completely locked you in and you won’t fall to your death with this poor innocent child in your arms, you glance over the shiny pauldron on his shoulder and watch the kid’s crib disappear by the abandoned road as Din takes you higher and higher.

The crib—he forgot the crib—

“D-Din,” you stammer out through the whistling air, stiff as a board.  Stars, you have such a different sense of adventure than him; an explorer and a daredevil, one who gets a thrill from discovering the existence of the edge of a cliff and one who’ll take a running dive off of it without thinking twice.  He’s hit with blaster fire some days, he faces down death completely fearless like it owes him one every single time, and you’re stiff as a fucking board while he carries you through the sky.  It’s stunning up here, it’s exciting and wonderful, but you’re so scared that you can barely even look.  He’s giving you the most fantastical view, everything your budding adventurous streak could ever ask for, and your terror is crushing.  It would be different if you could hold on, but you’re responsible for not letting the baby slip through your arms and you just have to trust that he won’t let you slip through his.

You raise your voice.  “Din?!”

“I won’t drop you,” he automatically reassures, and well you sure as fuck hope not, but there’s something else.

“What about the crib?”  You call out over the wind whipping, tucking the baby tight to your chest and settling your hands over his ears to avoid them flapping and whacking you repeatedly in the chin.

“We’ll come back for it,” he responds, just as easily.  Maker, you wish decision-making came that easy to you, that commitment and choice should be so simple as to just fly away from things on the ground and promise out loud to come back for them.  You know he will, but still, his spontaneity shocks you after spending the past week thinking every decision through meticulously, and you’re taken aback by the casualness of it all while soaring through the sky, committing such spectacular feats without a single thought beyond it.

Soon—incredibly soon, which honestly kind of blows your mind—you spot Nariss glowing in the distance and then you’re flying overtop of the city, slowly dropping altitude in the middle of a quiet little side street.

Din carefully allows your feet to settle on the ground before letting go, but you still stumble a bit stupidly after flying so high without any sort of safety measure besides him, prioritizing the steadiness of the baby in your arms instead of your feet underneath you.  His gloves catch at your clumsy body and pull you along with him without another word, leading you out of the quiet alley and into the middle of a beautiful, luminescent street.

What’s he doing?  He seems slightly hurried, and you’re clueless but you go with it, clamoring along behind him to wherever he’s leading you.

Though, you suddenly remember one of the very last things you told him last night right before he steps up in front of a vendor.

“Caf,” Din grunts, sliding a few credits towards the man standing behind the counter. “The… biggest one you have.”

Okay, well.  You could just about fucking cry.

“Y’sure?” The vendor asks skeptically, jerking his head at the large thermos behind him.  He’s balding, wearing a white outfit with his eyes scrunched up and forehead sweaty, likely working all day.  “It ain’t fresh.  Closin’ up soon, was just about to trash it and go home.”

The helmet turns to gauge your response to the news, the sharp angles and contours looking so sleek and dangerous as they reflect the colorful lamplights, but just filling you with comfort beyond anything in the entire galaxy.  He’ll take that armor off for you tonight and you’ll sleep next to him.  He’ll call you by your given name, or the fond name he’s given you, and you’ll cuddle your baby on a metal floor in hyperspace with him, and all will be well.  Even if he needs to leave again soon—even if you don’t get to go with him, you’ll always have these small eternities with each other, and that’s more enough for you now.

You’re completely zoned out while staring at him, and Din turns back to the vendor before you can even remember the conflict he was attempting to defer to you.

“Yeah, just empty the whole thing in there for her,” he mutters, and you want to marry him.  It’s been a long week, and in your haze and delight of being with him in this gorgeous setting, your brain turns to cavewoman mush.  Big man, makes me happy.  Strong man, loves me, knows me.  Provider, makes me feel good, protector, loves me.

Din hands you the large cup of steaming caffeine, clueless to your grunted inner monologue but knowing better than to reach out and grab the kid from your other arm.  You’re just fine like this, hands full, the little frog snuggled up against your side and blinking up at your face instead of any of the shiny or glowing things around you.  When you look down at him, you can see the world through his eyes—quite literally, they’re reflective and gigantic—and his father’s hand quickly finds its preferred spot on your lower back.

“Try to drink it quick,” Din advises you gruffly, pulling you snug into his side and sloshing the big cupful of piping hot liquid in your hand.

“It’s a thousand degrees,” you protest, trying to balance your three favorite things in the universe all begging for your direct attention at once.  “It has to cool down.”

He gives a dismissive hm in response, and you frown even as your heart soars with how tightly he’s gripping you, how little leeway you have to even move without him.  Part of you is so thrilled at being reunited with him that you consider snarking something back at him, excitement making you brave.  He could probably chug boiling hot liquid in thirty seconds and doesn’t see the point in letting it sit any longer, and you could make some stupid joke about filtering it through his helmet or having a built in bendy straw but you decide to keep it to yourself.

So then you just stand there together, under stringed lights and flowers everywhere, and he waits.  Holding you glued to his side, completely silent and clearly just waiting for your caf to stop steaming so threateningly in your hand so you can drink it.  For some reason, the fact that he’s wanted by the New Republic doesn’t really register at this second—you’re not looking for cops, though he may be.  You’re just lost in this beautiful, fancy city that’s on the edge of finally quieting down after a long day, and you’d like to see more of it with him next to you.

“Well, do you wanna just…”  You ask, tilting your head around at all the vendors.  “Shop around for a bit?”

“Shop… around,” Din repeats slowly, sounding the words out like they’re not common Basic.  Admittedly, they do sit a bit awkward in his voice when put together like that, describing a phenomena he’s likely never even considered a thing before, but it’s so fucking pretty here and you’d like to show him something this time instead of the other way around.

“Yeah, like,” you shrug a shoulder, tipping your head in a random direction.  Anywhere, you’ll go literally anywhere with him, the three of you can go explore.  “Just wander around, and look at all the pretty things.”

From where you’re standing right now, you can already see glittering crystals and jewels being sold at the tent across the street, there’s a booth dedicated entirely to floral arrangements and crowns next to it, you can hear a distant quartet playing melodically in the distance and a couple is being painted by an artist on the corner.  Bars are in full swing at this point, as if they weren’t all day, and even though the merchandise is all different, the multicolored tents look slightly similar when they’re underlit with multicolored lights.  It’s less slightly lively than it was in the daytime, but also… more beautiful, in a sense.  Muted, softer, more romantic.

“I don’t have any more credits,” Din admits casually, finally turning to look around at everything.  You get the feeling that he’s just now seeing it, even after spending the entire day here.  “That stale caf was the last of it.”

Money well fucking spent, you can assure him of that.

“It’s okay,” you tell him automatically, gently bumping your hip into his.  “We don’t need credits, we can just look.”

So that’s what you do.  Even though it’s completely not his fucking style, for the next hour or so, you just walk around downtown with him and sip your caf, looking at anything and everything new and experiencing it with him.  At first, you think he’s just entertaining you, following you while you discover new streets and attractions, but then he points out different things and you know he's looking, too.  There are large animals harnessed up and pulling carts for people to ride, there's an enormous spinning wheel set up in the distance, its colorful lights flickering out as soon as you ask what the fuck that is and why anyone would ever get inside one.

You eventually end up finishing your caf around the time he’s leading you back through a quiet, abandoned alleyway, and you hand him the empty cup to throw away in one of the trash cans on the corner.  The conversation has faded to a comfortable quiet and you don’t really need to ask—you go willingly, not requiring anything beyond his hands on you and the baby dozing in your arms.

“Come on, sweet girl,” he murmurs, gently sweeping you up into his.  You sigh, glad he’s giving you a moment to prepare yourself this time, holding the sleeping kid securely to your chest and resting your head on his shoulder.  “Let’s go home.”

After you’re comfortable, Din rockets up from the ground and climbs high up into the canvas sky.  He disappears with you and the baby into the pastel clouds above, making it back to the Razor Crest in probably about an hour, maybe less.  You and the baby do nothing more than climb into the comfy floor blankets while Din starts up the engines, and you think you’re dozing off together by the time he makes the pit stop to collect the crib and the jump into hyperspace.

You think he might shower?  You’re not sure—you just know he moves up behind you in bed at one point without any armor, burying his face in your hair while you cuddle the sleepy kid to your chest.  It’s dark in the hull, Din’s palms are bare and warm as they slide around the front of your body and he breathes you in, and there isn’t a single place that can touch you here, not a single place you’d rather be.

Home.

***

@followwhereshegoes​ Thank you for the stunning artwork! 💕To anyone interested in possibly doing an art collab in the future, please message me!!

[stromuprisahat]

Shadow and Bone- Chapter 8 (Leigh Bardugo)

Just how little sense makes “the other Grisha” disliking Genya? Why would Second Army- one big pile of hunted outcasts- hate the only Tailor we get to know?

“Because I’m the Queen’s pet. Because they don’t consider what I do valuable. A lot of reasons.”

Explains Genya herself. Her position at court isn’t her own doing more than any other Grisha’s position at other nobles’ households. The “value” of her work also isn’t something average Grisha would probably mind. We know there are talented Grisha, but also those, who can barely light a candle, yet we don’t see anyone bullying the weak ones, do we? It’s safe to assume neither of these “reasons” trully matter.

There’s actually very simple in-universe explanation- Alina’s limited POV. Her only friends are Little Palace-raised officer brats her age. Kids, who often grew up in Little Palace’s luxury, but didn’t get to see the front yet. Special enough to forget everyday animosity of the outside world and foster their own petty squabbles.

Marie flushed. “What are you, her maid?”

“Something like that,” Genya said, and walked off to pour herself a glass of tea.

“Far above herself,” said Nadia with a little sniff.

“Worse every day,” Marie agreed.

How common is ruthless slutshaming among teens?

“Where’s Genya?” I asked Marie as I sat down at the Summoners’ table.

“She eats at the Grand Palace.”

“And sleeps there,” added Nadia. “The Queen likes to make sure she’s always available.”

“So does the King.”

“Marie!” Nadia protested, but she was snickering.

I’m not saying adults are too smart for comments like this, but look at it from present-day POV- how common is unrequired “flirting”, stalking, any form of sexual assault? Who never experienced some icky situation? Little Palace is refuge for Grisha from everywhere, there will be sex slaves and other SA victims among them. There would be people, who’d hear the rumours and know.

Even born Ravkans aren’t off the hook yet. Grisha are generally attractive and in relatively vulnerable position. They’re gonna have some amount of protection as soldiers, they know self-defense for everyday situations, but they’re still viewed as something less, inferior. Do we really believe Genya is the only beautiful Grisha 'misused' by her masters? Her situation is particularly bad, but I doubt no one else experienced anything similar.

There’s strength in numbers, but how safe are Grisha stationed further from the capital or Fold or current front? What about those living in nobles’ houses? All you need is the right ratio of contempt, envy and superiority. You can slap a drunk peasant, but not ten. You can’t slap an aristocrat without repercussion. Transfer is a long-term solution for individuals, but it doesn’t solve the problem. The Darkling's power goes only so far and he’s not omnipresent. There’s a difference between “We don’t grill Grisha.”, and “We don’t let our hands wander.”. ((S)he asked for it!)

The uppity attitude without an ounce of sympathy for Genya paints a picture of girls green as grass, who never left safety of literal palace, where they don’t even have to pull their chairs, let alone deal with unwanted attention.

On third, fourth read I’ve noticed inconsitency regarding Second Army sitting order. In first description there’s four tables and various other places to sit. Later we’re told Grisha sit according their Orders. Three Orders.

Genya led me to the same domed room where we had gathered the previous afternoon for the processional. It wasn’t nearly as crowded today, but there was still a lively buzz of conversation. In the corners, Grisha clustered around samovars and lounged on divans, warming themselves by elaborately tiled ovens. Others breakfasted at the four long tables arranged in a square at the room’s center.

Continuity error, probably, but we can use it as another piece of puzzle. Cliques are something teenagers do a lot.

She led me to one of the long tables, and as we approached, two servants stepped forward to pull out chairs for us.

“We sit here, at the right hand of the Darkling,” said Marie, pride in her voice, gesturing down the length of the table where more Grisha in blue kefta sat. “The Corporalki sit there,” she said with a disdainful glance at the table opposite ours, where a glowering Sergei and a few other red-robed figures were eating breakfast.

It occurred to me that if we were at the right hand of the Darkling, the Corporalki were just as close to him on the left, but I didn’t mention that.

The Darkling’s table was empty, the only sign of his presence a large ebony chair.

People working closely together, who had been through some shit, whose lives depend on cooperation, are more likely to break the pattern. And I highly doubt the Darkling would encourage, or even enforce dividing Grisha into smaller, hostile groups. The Orders are about practicality for teaching, and formal occasions. Normal, casual dinner is better used for mingling and strengthening the bonds of Second Army as a whole.

When average Etherealnik teen cannot stand to sit next to Materialnik, how will they treat some weirdo, who’s none of that? Add some envy, because Grand Palace, “special” treatment and ROYALS!, look at it through eyes of someone immature enough not to be able to see past that, and Genya is just some useless, stuck up, bitchy whore.

Now, Genya might not have many friends among her peers, but she isn’t completely alone. There’s the nice cook from Grand Palace, there might be some allies among other servants (It has been pointed out the King made sure there are girls that have something to bond about with her.) and she has access to Little Palace gossip:

Genya maintained a steady stream of chatter during dinner, mostly about Grisha gossip.

~

Since none of the other Grisha knew that I’d had so much trouble summoning, they were all a little baffled by the change in me. I didn’t offer any explanations, and Genya let me in on some of the more hilarious rumors.

“Marie and Ivo were speculating that the Fjerdans had infected you with some disease.”

“I thought Grisha didn’t get sick.”

“Exactly!” she said. “That’s why it was so very sinister. But apparently the Darkling cured you by feeding you his own blood and an extract of diamonds.”

“That’s disgusting,” I said, laughing.

“Oh that’s nothing. Zoya actually tried to put it around that you were possessed.”

It could be what servants overheard and told her, but the simplest explanation is Genya has friends among Grisha. Just not from Alina’s social circles.

[hansensgirl]

not all who wander are lost.

summary. | He’s got your name on his tattoo, wearing the same damn clothes since three days ago. A bottle of gin in his hand, and you’d say he’s just wandering.

warnings. | Strangers to lovers, smut, naive reader, mentions of trauma, angst, fluff, slight violence, slight dub/con, slight blasphemy, drinking, DD/LG, daddy kink, corruption kink, ring/hand kink, size kink, creampie kink, teasing, spanking, choking, spitting, manhandling, praise, male masturbation, handjob, degradation, a bit of humiliation, oral sex, virginity loss, marking, and more. 18+ MINORS DNI.

word count. | 11k

pairings. | Daddy!Destroyer!Chris x Little!Reader.

a/n. | one of the few fics inspired/based off of chemtrails over the country club. please heed the warnings and don’t forget to reblog. ily! thank you so much to @dragon-of-dreams @mypoisonedvine @tenuntilfightcall and everyone else for helping me out with some information! and thank you to my bb sara @asadmarveltrashbag for beta-ing and being there for me during this insane month, ilysm!!

The first time he laid eyes on you, was six months ago.

Meadows like the ones that surround him only exist in movies and Instagram posts. But even those need editing for perfection. Yet, the ones around him made him feel as though he has camera lenses for his eyes. Each piece of grass is a beautiful green, and some had flowers between them. His thighs may hurt but the view is a reward for all the trouble he just went through. A cute cottage lies on the hill he stands on. It resembles one from a Pinterest board but he doesn’t mind.

Birds chirp, sheep bleat, cows low and chickens cluck amongst Ella Fitzgerald's rendition of Summertime. Chris walks a few more steps and onto the porch he goes. This isn’t his destination. Well, technically, it is. But he isn’t supposed to be knocking on your door like he is now, and his heart shouldn’t be beating out of his chest. To the right of this cottage — Chris’s right — is another cottage.

It’s more modern than he’d prefer it to be. It only looks so because inside lives a drug lord who is on the run. It’s truly unfortunate his girlfriend sold him out for immunity. He knocks on the wooden door and takes a step back. Who knows what kind of person is behind it. “Coming!” your sweet voice calls. Chris doesn’t let go of his grip on his gun that’s down the waist of his pants.

Even the sweetest seeming things can always end up being sour.

You struggle not to trip over your own dress. The tail of it drags behind you and sweeps the floor, too. But it makes you feel just like a princess, so you don’t care. On your hip is a basket, and inside is Cotton. Your bunny. She’s been your company for years, and you don’t know what you’d do without her. Barely anyone visits anymore, only because cars can’t handle the long drive up and many people hate nature. But when the occasional knock on your door echoes throughout the house, you can barely keep your excitement inside.

You open the door and gasp. The man… is brooding. And he’s not the type of broody that would grumble insults under his breath or the type that would stalk people, either. He’s the dreamy type, the man your parents say is bad news when really he just needs love. You take in his form. You can tell he’s slightly tired and you just have to give him credit for walking up to your home. He has no flaws, except for the dirt that stains his clothing.

“Hi, do you live here?” the strange man asks, looking around the inside of your home. You jump and you’re not sure why but your skin raises with goosebumps. His voice is deep yet so soft-spoken. For some odd reason, his hand is reaching backwards and you assume that it’s because he has some sort of ache from the walk. You finally register his words and look up at him.

“Y- yes, do you live here?” you stupidly ask. You don’t even realize what you just said until you noticed his puzzled look. “Oh, sorry,” you look down and notice that his black boots are covered in pollen, something that can be oh so bothersome. “‘S’alright, I was hiking a- and I don’t have anywhere to go… Do you think you could let me stay here?” he asks, letting go of the gun. “Uhm, s- sure, what’s your name?” you ask him, moving out of the way.

Naive, so fucking naive.

“Chris, what’s yours?” he asks, stepping inside. You give him your name and he nods. He goes to wipe his shoes on the rug in front of the door but there is no rug. You hand him a rag and he gratefully takes him, mumbling a small ‘thank you.’ “Are you a tourist?” you ask him, setting your basket down onto the floor. Cotton hops out of it and runs off to the kitchen, probably to chew on your apron. “No…” he solemnly answers. He hands you the rag back and you shyly take it.

“O- okay… Are you a photographer? I’ll tell you God’s truth, the most beautiful photos are taken when the sun rises, when it sets and when it’s raining,” you pointedly inform him. You drop the rag into your basket and turn back around, your dress spinning in a slight swirl. His eyes rake your body up and down, taking in every inch of your body. Red cloth with white polka dots covers your body and your mushroom earrings bring the entire outfit together.  Chris has to assume that the heavens above or whatever the fuck else is there have handcrafted you to absolute perfection.

He’s never read any stories about Greek gods, but he knows that Zeus would be absolutely infatuated with you. He takes note of how your body tenses up when he makes eye contact with you, and he gives you a small smile.

“I’m not a photographer,” he clarifies, looking around. He can’t believe you let him in just like that, but the more he found, the more he understood why. A lonely, innocent little girl like you doesn’t have anyone to tell you right from wrong. “Then what are you, sir? Are you lost? I can call the Consulate if you’d like,” you offer, walking towards him. “I’m not lost… I’m a wanderer,” he whispers almost hesitatingly.

“But you only ever wander when you’re lost, no?” you confusingly ask him. He clicks his tongue and shakes his head, before peering out of the window. Luckily, he has a direct view of the other cottage. He really did hit the jackpot. “Not all who wander are lost, little girl. Now tell me, why would you let a stranger inside your home?” he asks you.

Cotton hops from the kitchen to your bedroom, and you stand in place. “I… Well, I’m not sure. You didn’t give me any reason to not let you in or to make me believe you’re dangerous, sorry…” you shyly tell him. “Don’t apologize, just know that not everyone in this world is good. There’s always going to be someone with a little more darkness than the rest of us…”

Chris unzips his duffle bag, and you let out a giggle. “Quite ominous of you, but then again, it suits your whole aesthetic. The cool, bearded man, with his cool words,” you smile at him, but it carries a bit of sadness. “Treat this place as your own, make yourself at home. And if you need anything, I’m always here.”

Chris stays at the window for most of his days. Always with a pair of binoculars and a pack of saltine crackers. Sometimes, he pulls a juice bottle out of his duffle bag, You’ve countlessly offered him something that’s actually filling, such as angel cake and sandwiches. He rejects them all, and you wonder if he’s some sort of super-human. But technology hasn’t invented wireless technology yet, so it’s impossible.

“Uhm, Mr. Chris-Sir? I don’t think those crackers are good for you, they’re all you eat…” you sheepishly admit, carrying a cup of water to him. The mug has a little frog painted on it, but the green paint has chipped away over seven years. You set it down gently, onto the table next to him and Chris just stares out at the cottage. “Bird-watching is so cool, isn’t it? If you see a robin, let me know, they’re so beautiful,” you tell him, before walking off.

At first, he doesn’t take in your words. But once they’ve settled deep in his mind and sunk in, he realizes that you assume he’s bird-watching. He’d honestly take any other assumption, but at least you don’t know he’s spying on the criminal next door. He looks down at the table with a sigh and then notices what you’ve done. Not only did you set a cup of water down, but you also gave him two slices of toast. One has strawberry jam on it, and the other has melted butter.

His mouth surprisingly salivates, but it also doesn’t shock him. Every day he sits there, basking in the beautiful smell of your food and humming. His personal favourite is the smell of focaccia bread being baked. He watches and waits until you leave the room to go tend to the chickens. Apparently, one of them laid a few eggs. He quickly shovels the two slices of toast into his mouth and downs the glass of water like a starved man. Because he is one.

Cotton hopes around once again but all Chris sees is a fluffy white blur. He recalls his memories from when he was younger. Younger him always wanted a pet. Even a fish that would die in the span of two weeks would suffice. But his mom couldn’t afford it, so he dropped the idea. Sometimes, he wishes he had dropped other ideas, as well. Like the idea that he’d enjoy life as an undercover agent, or the idea of sacrificing himself for Erin.

His fingers are sticky with jam. He hates the feeling. He spreads his fingers out and goes to get up from his seat. “Shit,” he curses, realizing that something may happen while he’s away from the window. He stands there, contemplating whether or not he should risk his mission just to wash the fucking jam off of his stupid fucking hands. He calls your name, loudly, hoping you’ll hear him all the way outside the cottage.

“Is everything alright?” you shout, running inside the house. He didn’t expect that reaction, but he’ll take it. You’re holding onto the corner of two walls, slightly bent over. Your chest, your beautiful chest, is the first thing Chris lays his eyes on. He nearly chokes on his saliva, and he just can’t seem to take his eyes off of you. “Uh, hi, I need help,” he gruffly says, his voice a bit deeper than usual. He clears his throat with a loud ‘ahem’ and you begin to stand up straight, much to his dismay.

But he doesn’t think the image of your tits nearly falling out of your dress will leave his mind any time soon.

“Of course… Did you enjoy the toast? I can make you some more if you’d like,” you shyly offer him. “It was good, but I’m fine, thanks though. Can you stay here, right at the window, while I go wash my hands? If anything happens, you have to tell me.” Chris doesn’t leave any room for argument, but your curiosity and naivety get the best of you as always.

“What happens if I don’t tell you?” you ask him, walking towards the window. He blocks your path and suddenly personal space is no longer a thing you need. “You don’t want to know what I’m gonna do if you don’t, little girl,” he warns with a hint of lust in his tone. You nod your head and feel tingles bloom just above your core. You’re not sure whether they’re butterflies or those tingles.

Chris walks past you and you quickly rush to the window. You never realized how beautiful this view is until now. The sun is bright, angled in the most perfect manner so that it doesn’t shine directly in your eyes. The sky is so clear, even with the occasional fluffy cloud that always manages to look like some animal. The window blows gently, shaking the sheer curtains that frame you. You sigh and fold your arms, resting them on the windowsill.

You lay your head on your arms and stare out the window with joy filling your heart.

Chris watches you as you look out the window. You’re slightly bent over, once again. Your ass sticks out, and you subconsciously sway your hips side to side, almost purposefully teasing him. Your white dress has a few strings hanging from the hem, but it doesn’t make you look any less gorgeous. He feels like he’s in a dream.

Not only because of the beautiful scenery, and the beautiful woman in front of him but also because he’s trying his hardest to wash his hands quickly, but his movements are so slow. He looks down and rubs his hands together at a furious pace. Chris hears you gasp and he looks up. “Did you see something?” he asks you, turning off the sink.

“Yeah, my neighbour! I haven’t seen him in months, I need to go say hi,” you tell Chris, before rushing out the door. He only then registers your words once you’ve run out of the house and into the unknown. “Fuck- Wait!” he yells after you. He runs behind you and is so grateful when he notices you haven’t gone too far. But you’re still running and Chris’s target is about ten meters away, so he decides to do what he does best.

He decides to save you.

Chris’s feet hit the ground harshly, crushing the flowers beneath him. Running in socks isn’t fun, but at least he has something to protect him. He calls your name and crashes into you with all the force in his body. You both go down and hit the ground from his fierce tackling technique. You go to cry out in pain and lose your mind, but Chris clams his hand over your mouth. “Shh, be quiet. You’re not hurt, okay? I’m sorry I had to do that, but you can’t go running off like that,” he lectures, throwing his right leg over your body. He frames you down, and you don’t have much room to move. You’re frozen in place, chest heaving, and you furrow your eyebrows at his words.

“Listen, I need you to listen. You may not know me and I may not know you, but when I tell you to do something, you’re going to listen. Understood?” he chastised with a harsh tone. You nod meekly, like a little kid who just got caught with their hand in the cookie jar. “And just so you know, that sweet neighbour of yours over there is wanted by the Feds.” Chris looks over his shoulder and doesn’t see the man there anymore, so he begrudgingly climbs off of your body.

You gulp thickly, out of fear and nervousness. Chris doesn’t seem to want to add on to this newfound information, so your anxiety makes work of it. For all you know, your neighbour could be a murderer. Chris senses your nervousness and gives you a pat on the head, almost as if you’re his pet.

Unbeknownst to you, the sight of you under him, helpless and with his hand clamped over your mouth is something that gets his blood (and hand) pumping. He helps you up, and you don’t even realize it until he brushes some dandelion seeds out of your hair. “Thank you… and thank you for saving me, I’m sorry I didn’t listen,” you shyly speak to him. He nods and shoves his hands into his pockets, finding an old cigarette from before he quit.

“‘S’alright, I just need a few things from you,” he gruffly reassured. “O- Of course, anything for my guest and for the man who saved my life,” you beam with a small giggle punctuating your words. He basks in it, almost as though it’s sunlight over a beach. “Ah, you flatter me. Just tell me about yourself, I’m going to be staying for a while,” he says as he turns around to walk back inside.

A bottle of gin is in Chris’s hands. The colourless yet pale yellow liquid swishes inside its rightful bottle. It’s half full, only because last night, he downed the rest. He hasn’t drunk in a while. Since he got over being left for dead. And that’s only six months ago.

He’s shirtless. Only left in his grey jeans and jewelry. His rings clink against the glass bottle and his bracelets hang a little past his wrist. The gunshot wound on his left side had a faint scar on it. He hates it. Every single time he stares in the mirror, that fucking scar just stares back at him.

His father told him it makes him seem more ‘manly’, but it just feels like a point of weakness. Maybe if he was a little quicker, he would’ve saved that bank teller. He would’ve gotten Silas behind bars. He would’ve been able to be proud of himself.

Chris groans at the memories and spins the cap off of the bottle. It flies somewhere across the room, probably hitting one of the wood walls. He mumbles a ‘fucking hell’ and brings the bottle to his lips. The last time he drank like this was three months ago, and he ended up fucking the bartender.

She was bent over the counter, her tits spilled out of her bra and his cock pummeled into her sloppily.

She ended up kicking him out after they were done.

Chris groans again and sits down on the bed, kicking his legs up. His pants are stained with the pigment of dandelions and grass. The splotchy stains are juxtaposed to the grey of his old jeans. They have wear and tear all over them, but he doesn’t care.

Every now and then, he sighs — he sighs quite deeply. The puffs of air come from deep inside his chest. He tilts his head back and stares up at the ceiling, thinking back to earlier today. He smiles to himself, recalling the way you looked so innocent beneath him.

He’s only known you for a few days, and he already has lewd thoughts for you. Fuck. He just can’t help himself, though. Especially with your innocent doe eyes and pretty little dresses. He closes his eyes slowly, using that memory to fuel his much-needed mental images.

You’re beneath him once again, but you’re naked. His hand is wrapped around your throat, and he’s naked too. His cock is slowly driving in and out of you. He’s teasing you. Your pulsating, wet walls hug his fat cock, and you’re both moaning softly.

“Daddy…” you whisper to him, clenching around his cock. “What’s wrong, baby?” he softly asks you. “Please fuck me harder, please, Daddy,” you beg to him, before biting down onto your bottom lip. “I don’t think you’ll be able to take my cock like that, baby,” he shakes his head.

“I can take it, Daddy, I’m your good girl.”

Chris opens his eyes and his right hand has found its way down his boxers. His cock is all swollen and hard, hard as a rock. He places the bottle of gin down on the bedside table and gets himself all comfortable. Chris slowly begins to stroke himself gently. He goes from the base all the way to the top, and then back down. His thumb occasionally swipes against his leaking tip and all he can think of is teaching you how to make him — your Daddy — feel good.

“Fuck, baby,” he moans, feeling a vein throat against his hand. He moans your name and speeds up his movements. His fingers are slightly sticky, but it’s the type of sticky he doesn’t mind. He begins to slow his hand down, and he sighs, not wanting to come just yet. He hasn’t been this hard in ages, and touching himself feels so fucking good.

“Did you say my name? Is everything alright?” you ask, barging into his room. He jumps and his hand flies out of his pants. You both stare at each other, not even daring to blink. You eventually break eye contact and notice the bottle of gin sitting on the bedside table. There’s only a sixth of it left, and you frown. You don’t like it when people you care about drink. “Uhm…” he awkwardly scratches the back of his neck and then takes in your form.

You’re in a nightgown, and it’s sheer as fuck. The gin gets to him and his mind has a slight buzz to it. His heart beats rapidly and his cock throbs with want and need. Chris’s eyes rake up and down your body like how they usually do whenever you’re in front of him. His mother would scold him for ogling at you, but he just doesn’t care anymore.

“I- I am so so so sorry, I should’ve knocked. I just thought you needed help with something because I heard you say my name, but sometimes I just tend to hear random things, so sorry,” you apologize in a panicking manner. You slowly walk back to the door, but you don’t turn around. Your bare feet leave a faint imprint on the floor from the cold sweats that have taken over your body.

“Come back here,” he orders, sitting up on the bed. Chris’s unbuckled belt clanks quietly, and he begins to remove it in one quick motion. You gulp thickly and exhale shakily. You slowly walk to where Chris is sitting, and he pats the spot next to him. You’ve never had such an interaction with anyone, ever. You sit down next to him, but you keep your distance.

Alcohol should not be called alcohol in Chris’s utmost humble opinion. No, it should just stick to its nickname ‘liquid courage’ because it’s more accurate than anything else. He may not seem like it, but he’s just a man who doesn’t have the heart to do much. Adrenaline doesn’t exist for him anymore, not since the incident.

Chris turns his head and stares at your pretty face. You look down, unable to make eye contact with such a God-like man. You have to assume that even Apollo is envious of Chris’s beauty. “How’d you hear me? Because I know these walls aren’t thin enough, and I know I wasn’t being loud, so tell me; How’d you hear me?” he interrogates you like one of Silas’s companions, but this time is slightly different.

Lust is what’s pumping through his veins, not rage.

“Uhm, well… My room was right there, and I wasn’t doing anything but thinking, and since your bed is against the wall, I- I heard you say my name,” you explain shyly. He hums, and you’re not sure whether it’s a hum of delight or disbelief. “Thinking of what?” he presses, inching his body closer to yours.

You continue to stare at his hand, even though you can feel his heavy breathing against your face. “I… Well- I was uh,” you stutter embarrassingly, and it makes you burn up with shame. “Spit it out, little girl, and don’t think of lying to me,” he growls, placing his hand on your thigh. Your gaze follows his movements, and you take in the set of rings that adorn his fingers.

They’re all black and of similar styles. One has a skull, one is completely plain, one has a cross on it and the last one has the word ‘Daddy’ engraved on it. His veins are so prominent. They bulge out with intensity, and you’d just love to trail your fingers along each of them. “Am I going to have to force an answer out of you?” he roughly asks. His other hand goes to the back of your head and he brings your gaze to his face.  

You quickly shake your head in objection, and he raises his eyebrows for you to spit your answer out. “I was thinking about you, and the way you tackled me…” you admit to him in a low and soft voice. “You liked the way I was on you, little girl?” he asks, moving his hand to the back of your neck. “Y- Yeah, made me feel all… Tingly…” you whisper to him.

“I want to hear you say it, little girl,” Chris ushers, squeezing the back of your neck slightly. “I liked the way you were on top of me…” you tell him breathlessly. “Good girl,” he praises in a slightly deep voice. He pulls you onto his lap and you gasp. His hard, wanting cock is right under your thighs, and you exhale nervously.

“You feel that, little girl? That’s all because of you, you did this to me. And you’re proud of it, aren’t you? Got me so fucking hard just because of you.” Chris squeezes your waist, and you really can feel it all. He’s not wrong, either. You’re so proud that you’ve made a man like him so desperate for you. “Do you know what I was doing, little girl? I was jerking off to the thought of fucking that cunny of yours until you’re begging me to stop,” he growls in your ear.

You moan softly, and the picture comes to mind, making your pussy gush with want. “Bet you’d like that, wouldn’t you?” he asks, placing his hand on your inner thigh. You nod, and he raises his eyebrows in warning again. “Yeah, I want that so bad,” you murmur to him. You and your pussy want him so bad. Chris’s hand inches further up your thighs until he’s just an inch away from your bare pussy.

Your thighs are already slightly sticky from your arousal. “Do you know what jerking off is, little girl?” he asks, pulling his hand away from your pussy. You hold back a pathetic, child-like whine, and he begins to lift up your nightgown until he sees your naked body. “Kind of… Isn’t that when a man touches himself? Like how women touch their… down there?” you innocently ask him.

Chris chuckles at how cute you are. So innocent yet oh so slutty. “Have you ever touched yourself, little girl?” he asks, lifting the nightgown over your head. It’s strewn across the floor behind you, and neither of you cares. But you quickly use your hands to cover your most precious, most private parts. “No, no, I don’t want to see any of that. You’re so beautiful, baby, you’re built like an absolute angel,” he husks, and you feel so flustered that you can’t help but giggle.

“T- Thank you… And I’ve done it a few times,” you inform him. Chris nods and smirks, catching the way your nipples have pebbled up. “Have you ever made someone feel good before?” he questions, trailing his broad hands up and down your body. “N- No, it’s pretty lonely up here…” you almost-ashamedly admit. He coos at you. “Do you want me to teach you how to make me feel good, little girl?” he questions, palming your tits.

You moan softly and rub your thighs together as he pinches and pulls at your hard nipples. You’re so small in his large hands, it makes him even harder. You nod your head fervently, wanting to make Chris feel so fucking good. Chris takes his hands away from your body and shifts you in his lap. He reaches down his pants and pulls his cock out of his boxers.

You gasp, having never seen something as big as that. He smirks and uses his right hand to grasp the base of his thick cock. Chris brings your dominant hand down to where his cock is and guides you to wrap your fingers around him. Chris shudders at your soft touch, and he moans softly. “Good girl, yeah,” he praises. “Wrap your hand around me a bit tighter, baby,” he urges, and you do exactly that.

He groans loudly and a small smile stretches across your lips. “N- Now, you’ve got to move your hand up and down. Start off slowly, go all the way to the tip, and then back down,” he instructs, even though he’s helping you out. His hand brings yours all the way to the tip, and then back down; just like he said. His hand leaves yours and goes back to feeling up your pretty body.

“Now do it by yourself, but in a twisting motion, little girl.”

You listen to his words and jerk him off, feeling yourself get wet as his cock twitches in your hand. Your clit throbs and so do the veins on the side of his shaft. Chris curses, and you bite down on your bottom lip. “Good girl, just like that. Fuck, your hand feels so good around me,” he moans, squeezing your waist. You focus on his cock, watching as pre-cum leaks from the tip and down the side of his dick.

It drips onto your slow-moving hand, and you exhale as your movements grow a bit faster. You look at him, watching as his pupils darken with lust. You can tell — it’s written on his face — he wants you to go faster. Your hand speeds up around his cock, making him a moaning mess. “Fuck, you’re such a good fucking girl. You like making me feel good, don’t you? So eager to please like the good little girl you are,” Chris husks.

His praise goes straight to your needy cunt and he knows this because he can just tell. Your thighs rub together, your breath hitches, you let out a giggle and squeeze a little tighter around his cock. Chris’s hand goes up to your head and smashes your lips against his. You both moan into the kiss, and you straddle both his thighs to get more comfortable.

You place your other hand on his cock and mimic your dominant hand’s movements. You try to keep up with the kiss, but you just can’t. Teeth clash and so do tongues as Chris moves his mouth against yours. He pants and his chest heaves as you continue to stroke him. “Go faster, baby,” he urges, and he pulls his mouth away from yours. He can feel you soaking his jeans, your wetness joining the abundant amount of rips and tears in the material.

Your hand moves faster, twisting perfectly and occasionally squeezing his most sensitive spots as well. Chris pushes your hands away abruptly, and you’re confused. Did you do something wrong? Does he not like you anymore? What happened? “Shit, wrap your mouth around the tip, little girl. Trust me, you’re gonna fucking love it,” he says, and you quickly do so.

You’ll do anything to please him. His mushroom tip is leaking and a raging red. It’s the same red as the rest of his cock, and you could swear it’s almost purplish. You can tell he’s aching because you’ve been through a similar thing. You drop down to the floor and kneel in front of Chris. Your lips smooth around the tip of his hard cock, and you can taste him as soon as he hits your tongue.

He tastes of musk and manliness, along with a hint of saltiness, and it’s oh so addicting. You keep the tip of his cock in your mouth like it’s one of your favourite lollipops and smile around him. Chris smiles and wraps his hand around himself. He jerks himself off quickly, desperate to come in your mouth. “Fucking shit– god, you’re such a good fucking girl,” Chris rasps as he reaches his climax.,

His balls tighten up and his blue eyes roll back into his skull. White, hot, thick ropes of cum shoot out of his tip and fill your mouth. You’re not sure why, but a moan escapes past your throat, and it only makes Chris’s high much better. Chris places both hands on the sides of your head and holds you there, gently. You swallow all his cum as it fills your mouth and leaks from the corners of your lips.

Chris so desperately wants to push your head farther down his cock, but he knows he shouldn’t. Plus, there’s always going to be more time for things like that. He pulls your head away from his cock and watches as a string of saliva tries to keep the two of you connected. You gently lick your lips, still savouring his taste and he smiles down at you. You can’t lie — you feel giddy. Giddy in a way in which you crave his praise and approval like no other.

“You’re such a good girl, you know that? Thank you for helping me out… I do suppose I should return the favour, right?” he teasingly says, lifting you up into his lap. You shake your head out of nervousness. “No? … Why not, baby?” Chris asks, and you gulp thickly. “Don’t wanna rush it… I- never mind, you wouldn’t understand,” you look down and fiddle with your fingers.

The grooves of your nails are smoothed over by your pointer finger. Some dips and rises make you cringe, and others satisfy you. He looks down at your hands and notices the skin picked on the sides. He knows how painful those can be, and he doesn’t want you to feel any pain at all. “I’ll try to understand, darling, but if you don’t tell me, then I’ll be completely clueless,” he speaks to you lowly. “I like the way your words make me feel…” you shyly admit to him.

“Aw, how do they make you feel, baby?” Chris presses, grasping your two hands together. “All warm and small… makes me feel like I have it all. Hey, that rhymes!” you exclaim, bubbling in the utmost adorable giggles ever. “You’re a natural poet, darling. But tell me more…” he urges, rubbing his coarse thumbs against your soft skin. “I get butterflies, and I feel all shy and safe. Your words make me so comfortable yet so vulnerable…” you describe to him even though words can’t describe what you feel.

“Is that right, baby? You’re so cute… Do you- Do you get all tingly and babyish when I use my words?” Chris hesitatingly asks. His voice is so gentle and soft, a low whisper that is so soothing to your ears and rough edges. You nod meekly and smile to yourself. Your cheeks may hurt from all the laughter he caused earlier today but that doesn’t refrain you from hiding your smile.

Now, Chris is no doctor. He’s no professional, he’s no master. He’s just a broken man, but he knows exactly what you’re talking about. But he won’t explain what it is, because he needs you to learn on your own. Maybe with some guidance from him, but he won’t trick you into thinking something completely off base.

“Let’s get cleaned up, okay? Then we’ll sleep, you need the rest. We both do.”

He’s got your name on his tattoo, wearing the same damn clothes since three days ago. A bottle of gin in his hand, and you’d say he’s just wandering. But he isn’t. He was never. The stick-and-poke tattoo may seem a bit much, but he doesn’t regret it one bit. Your name is written in your pretty handwriting. The ink is in his skin, and he’s practically marked as yours, now.

The days go by slower, much slower than he’d like them to. But it doesn’t matter now, because his mission is over, and he’ll be leaving soon. But Chris doesn’t want to leave. His wanderlust has found an end as he finally has a place where he’s meant to be. He’s found heaven in the hills, and between your legs.

“D- Daddy…” you whisper under your breath, loud enough for him to hear. Your hands are locked with his, and they rest at your sides. You’re just in a small bralette, and your hard nipples poke through the fabric. Your legs are thrown over his shoulders and your ankles lace together behind his head. Your neck aches from the angle your body is in, but the pleasure blooming from your core is much more powerful.

Chris is between your legs, and he hums against your wet, throbbing pussy. You moan loudly and squeeze your eyes shut from the feeling. He sucks on your clit harshly, and wetness seeps from your hole. “Feels so good… Oh, my…” you pant. Your hips gyrate and you subconsciously grind your wet cunt against Chris’s face. He pulls his face away from your pussy and licks a broad stripe against you.

You moan again and squeeze his hands tighter. His tongue swirls around your swollen and throbbing clit, bringing you closer and closer to your release. Your taste is addictive, and he could stay between your legs for hours on end, if not for eternities. His beautiful, lovely rings dig into the sides of your fingers, but you don’t care. Chris may treat you like a delicate doll, but he should know how much you love it when he’s rough with you.

“I think I’m gonna come, Daddy…” you cry out to him before a strangled moan leaves your mouth. Chris pulls away from your pussy once again, but this time he spits on your lips. His saliva drops down your cunt and mixes with your wetness, and he goes back to devouring you. He eats you out like a starved man, and you’re squealing at the overwhelming pleasure.

If he was on death row, he’d have your sweet pussy as his last meal.

His tongue works over your clit and brings you closer and closer to your release. It’s coming fast. A searing, heated feeling takes over your body and abdomen as your back arches off your couch. Chris is as hard as a rock, staring you directly in the eyes, and he makes you come on his mouth.

“Oh- Daddy!” you cry out loudly, your mouth falling open into a silent, voiceless scream. Your eyes roll back into your skull and in Chris’s past words, you look like a brain-dead slut. Your wetness gushes out of your drooling hole, and he laps it all up with no problem. He drinks up everything you give him, and then some. Your hands are still laced with his and your chest rises and falls at a fast pace.

“Shh… You did amazing, little one. Taste so fucking sweet, just like nectar,” he hums like a hummingbird, before smacking his lips. You slowly come down from your high as he strokes your hands with his thumbs. Your lids are slightly heavy, but you don’t want to get any shut-eye. Time away from Chris is practically a sin in your eyes. “Thank you, Daddy,” you gratefully reply.

“You’re welcome, little one. Got me so hard,” he husks as he moves to get up. He carefully handles your body and pulls out a handkerchief from the pocket of his jeans. They’ve been washed and scrubbed but there are still faint dandelion and pollen stains that he just doesn’t care enough about. Though the adorable face you were making whilst washing them is something that’ll never leave his mind.

Just like the mental image of you coming undone beneath him.

“Can I make you feel good, Daddy? Pretty please?” you ask sweetly and Chris knows he could say yes, but he doesn’t want to. Making you feel good pleases him, but he doesn’t want to sound so poetic so he chuckles. “Soon, little one, I need to clean you up properly,” he tells you and you jut your bottom lip out, pouting. He coos at you and you scrunch your nose up at the attention.

“But I’m all clean, Daddy!” you reason, reaching over to palm his hard cock through his jeans. Chris chokes on his saliva at the feeling of your touch. “In a bit, little one, you need to listen to Daddy. Okay?” he rasps with a warning in his voice. “Okay, Dada…” you trail off with a deep sigh punctuating your sentence. You fiddle with your fingers as Chris carefully cleans up your pussy.

The damp washcloth is gentle against your sensitive skin. Each movement of his is carried by gentleness and love. “I have a question, Daddy,” you hum after a few seconds of silence. “Go ahead, mushy one,” he says with a smile. You giggle at the nickname before calming yourself down. “Were you really wandering?” you bluntly ask him. Chris’s eyes nearly fall out of their sockets, and you gasp.

“What do you mean, little one?” he asks, looking up at you. “Well… You said you were a wanderer! And that’s how you found me! But you don’t seem like a wanderer, you’re too clever to be one,” you explain with a smile on your face. Chris begins to chew on the inside of his cheek, and the skin has already been filled with bite marks and scars. At this point, he should tell you, right? You already know the deepest, most darkest pieces and part of him.

You’ll love him no matter what.

“Well, I wasn’t wandering. You’re so smart, little one. The smartest baby in the world!” he cheers and moves to get up. He sits in the empty spot next to you and lifts you into his lap. You’re still naked and Chris has his shirt off (as usual), so the skin-on-skin contact has you feeling even sleepier. “Sometimes, we lie to protect people. I lied, to protect you, along with many other people. Myself included, of course,” he starts.

“I was sent here with the sole purpose of bringing in your criminal neighbour,” he pauses “and I did.” You nod along with his words, your mind only allowing the most important phrases to sink in. “I arrested him around a month ago, and I was supposed to leave three weeks ago,” he sadly sighs. You look up in a panic, and you’re in shock. “Two weeks ago, I turned in my resignation. I’m not going anywhere,” he quickly adds and your face lights up.

“I’m staying with my best girl, okay?” Chris smiles and leans in to kiss you. You let him do so because God-damn, you’d let him do anything he wants to you. “T- Thank you so much, Daddy!” you squeal and hug him tightly. He laughs in a beautiful cacophony of sounds, and it’s right in your ear.

Chris feels a weight being lifted off his shoulders as you writhe around in his arms. You wiggle around on his hard cock and Chris suppresses a groan. His hands trail from your shoulders to your waist, down to your hips. Goosebumps erupt on your skin and excitement runs in your veins at his touch. Your head rolls back and you exhale shakily. He grips your hips tightly, and you involuntarily buck your hips against his crotch.

Both you and Chris moan before he moves both his hands to your ass. He gropes you roughly, feeling a bit of your wetness on his fingers. “Oh, baby… What’s all that for? Hm? Didn’t Daddy just eat your sweet little pussy out?” he asks in a slightly worried tone. “Y- Yeah… But I can’t help it, Daddy, you always make me so tingly…” you admit to him, shyly.

“Mmm, I like knowing I do this to you. Gets me so fucking hard,” he groans, slapping your ass. You yelp in surprise, but it gets cut off by a whimper. Chris caresses the hit skin and soothes you down from the shock. He smiles at you and then lands another hit. Then another, and then another.

The sting is addictive, just like he is. It leaves you writhing in both pain and pleasure and yet you still want more. “M- more, please,” you quietly beg and Chris coos at you as if you're a pet. And the truth isn’t far off. The coolness of his rings is both brutal and comforting. It soothes you yet acts as if they didn’t just hurt you. “You want more, baby?” he asks in that sweet yet sultry condescending tone of his.

You nod your head and chew on your bottom lip. “‘S too bad you’re gonna have to take what I give you and keep quiet, baby,” he husks, and you whine loudly. Chris flips your bodies around and suddenly you’re on your back, and he’s leaning over you. He locks lips with you and you try your hardest to keep up with the kiss.

His lips move sloppily against yours, but you don’t mind because you’ll take anything he gives you. You moan into true kiss and Chris wedges his knee between your legs. You’d hump him like a bunny because that’s what the demon on your shoulder is telling you to do. But the last time you did something without his permission, you weren’t allowed to make him come for a week.

You just know you’re soaking his jeans but neither of you cares. Chris kisses the corner of your mouth and trails down to your neck, peppering kisses behind as if he’s leaving a trail on your body for when he’s going to explore you later. The stubble on his cheeks and jaw tickles you and Chris falls even more in love with you as your laughter fills the air.

“D- Dada…” you whisper to him as you tilt your head back. His lips land on that sweet spot of yours and your back arches off the couch. Chris smiles against your skin and begins to suck on that sweet spot. Your breath hitches as he bites, licks and sucks on your skin. He marks you up like no other, and you know how much he loves to know that you’re all his.

“Dada… No teasing, please,” you sweetly ask in your soft tone. And how can he turn you down? “In a bit, little girl, be patient for Daddy.” Chris continues to mark you up until he’s satisfied. The feeling of his teeth against your neck and collar bones makes you even wetter than you already are. Possessiveness is carried in his movements, and it only drives you to be needier.

Chris moves further down from your collar bones to the valley of your breasts. Each curve of yours makes him want to sin without any repentance afterwards. He places a kiss there and then looks up at you. “Please, Daddy,” you whisper so quietly it takes him a few seconds to realize what you’ve said. Chris’s hand wraps around your body to your back.

He slowly unclasps your bralette and drags it away from your body at the same pace. You both maintain eye contact all whilst he undresses you to your vulnerability. Chris throws your bra somewhere behind him and places his hands on your body. “Aw, baby… You’re so cute and small,” he sweetly says in an almost shocking manner. Almost as if he doesn't use the size difference as a weapon to make you all soft and mushy.

“Hm, thank you, Daddy,” you tell him because good girls always have manners. “So good, using your manners for Daddy,” he praises, and you wonder if he can read your mind. Your Daddy can do anything, so it would be no surprise if he can. Chris sits upon his knees, but he remains in his towering position. Gently, and with care, he spreads your legs open until he’s satisfied.

He watches as you clench your needy pussy. He just knows your clit is throbbing, and you’re tingly because he just has that effect on you. “Poor baby… Is this all for Daddy?” he asks, and you quickly nod. “Say it, tell me it’s all because of me,” he growls placing his hands on your thighs. Chris slowly moves his hands further down your thighs. His touch is gentle, and he can feel the goosebumps on your thighs beginning to raise.

“‘S all yours, daddy. It’s all because of you,” you tell him breathlessly. “And this pussy is all mine, isn’t it, little girl?” he asks, inching closer to your wet pussy. “Mhm, only yours, Daddy!” you happily assure him, and he smirks at you. “That’s right, little girl. And since it’s all mine, doesn’t that mean I can do whatever I want with it?” he questions, and you nod with no hesitance at all.

Chris traces your wet pussy with his ring-donned pointer finger. “Oh my…” you gasp at the feeling. It may not be much, but your sensitive little pussy struggles to handle it. You clench around nothing again, and he watches, before chuckling at you. “Such a pretty pussy you have, baby, I can’t fucking wait to ruin it,” Chris growls, and you whimper. “Gonna fill you up with my cum after I fuck you, little girl,” he promises, and you never wanted to be fucked so badly until now.

He wonders if his cock could even fit inside you. Usually, he’d want to eat you out and finger you to prepare you. But he’s now thinking with what’s between his legs, and not what’s between his ears. He trails that same pointer finger on your pussy, and becomes mesmerized with the sight. Chris watches as your hole drools with want and need, whilst you watch him.

His already dark eyes are blown out with lust, and it only turns you on even more. Chris knows you’re watching him. He’s not one of the best agents in the FBI for no reason. He looks up at you, and you lock eyes with each other. He smirks and pulls his hand away from your pussy. You hold back a whine, but you still pout in disappointment. Chris begins to unbuckle his pants, and you’re filled with eagerness.

You smile widely, and he coos. “Aw, you’re such a desperate little slut, it’s adorable,” he chuckles, and you shy away. He pulls down his jeans along with his boxers slowly. Chris takes off his jeans and boxers completely, and throws them somewhere around the house. You watch as his cock bounces up and leaks with pre-cum. You just know he’s aching because of how red his cock is.

He’s big, and you already know that. But seeing him in all his naked glory is just something else. The simple yet not so simple idea of Chris’s cock being inside of you is electrifying. It’s both terrifying and exciting. He grabs the base of his cock and the prickly hair pokes the soft skin of his hands, but he doesn’t care. His left hand goes back to your pussy, and begins to rub circles on your clit.

“Oh… Daddy,” you moan quietly. The pleasure is almost overwhelming, so you involuntarily try to shut your legs and keep Chris out. Your knees touch for a brief moment, and he’s having none of that. He separates your legs and climbs on top of you, all while staring you directly in the eyes. His cock drags against your inner thigh. “Oh, is it too much for you, little one?” he asks with faux pity in his tone. You nod and clench your fists to control yourself.

“Too fucking bad, you’re gonna take whatever I give you, and you’re not gonna complain. Isn’t that right, little girl?” he sneers, and you gasp. Usually, you can’t handle someone who raises their voice in the slightest. But hearing Chris do it makes the butterflies in your stomach fly. “Yes, Daddy,” you hum delightfully, and he smiles. “Good girl,” he praises. Chris presses harder on your sensitive pearl of nerves and rubs you in faster circles.

“Daddy…” You moan and it goes straight to his cock. He looks up at you and just knows you’re beginning to drive up that cliff. He slows down his ministrations on your nub, and you bite back a loud whine. “You’re so needy, baby… Already so close to coming, it’s kind of pathetic…” he trails off and more wetness leaks out of you. You’re absolutely soaked and are a little bit ashamed of it.

“Please, Daddy! I’m so close, I’ll do anything,” you beg, but he just doesn’t buy it. “You’ll already do anything I tell you, baby, begging is so useless,” Chris chortles. You let out a small huff and move your hips in a circle, grinding against his thumb. In a flash of blurry moments, Chris pulls his hand away from your pussy and wraps around your neck. He squeezes the sides of your throat, and you gasp quite loudly.

He raises his eyebrow in warning, and you nod in understanding. “Good girl, I don’t want to put you over my knee when I’m feeling so gracious,” he assures, and you smile. Chris brings the tip of his cock to your swollen, needy clit and his pre-cum begins to mix with your wetness. You both moan softly as he rubs his tip on your clit. Your bottom lip finds a home between your teeth and Chris’s tongue swipes over his.

The sight and feeling of his cock on your silky pussy make him so weak in the knees. “Fuck, baby, do you like that? You like it when Daddy makes you feel good with his cock?” Chris asks in a deep, gravelly voice. “Yeah, Daddy… love it so much…” you tell him through a mushy haze of pleasure.

“You’re getting all dumb and stupid already? You’re so cute, little one,” he purrs, and you giggle at his words even though there’s nothing funny about them. “Do you want my cock, little baby? Say it, tell Daddy you want his cock,” he urges, and you look down to where you’re both nearly connected.

“I wan’ your cock, Daddy. Want it so bad, I need it, Daddy,” you beg, and Chris hums. “Just a little more, little girl, it’s like music to my ears,” he smirks, and you bite your bottom lip. “Sing for me, hummingbird,” he pushes, and you just go with whatever your neediness tells you to do.

“I wanna feel your cock deep inside me, Daddy. I want your cum to fill me up until I’m leaking and all stupid. Please, Daddy, please fuck me. I really want your cock, I need it,” you beg and blood rushes to his face and cock. “Fuck, yeah, I’ll give you my fucking cock, and you better take it like the good girl you are,” he growls, and you whimper. Chris slowly drags the fat tip of his shaft down to your drooling, slutty hole.

You whimper loudly, and he looks back at you. Fear is written all over that pretty face of yours, and Chris knows the exact reason why. “Don’t worry, baby, I’ll be gentle, okay? If you want to stop just say so, and I’ll listen. I won’t hurt you, darling. I promise,” he gently reassures you. You sigh with an almost heavy yet full heart.

You then nod and Chris thanks you for allowing him to fully make you his. “Wanna hold your hand, Dada… Please,” you ask pleasantly, and he nods. “In a bit, little girl, I just need to be careful,” he whispers. Chris slowly begins to push into your wet, tight cunt. You swallow him slowly, and the sight is mesmerizing.

The tightness of your cunt squeezes him in a strong hug, and he wishes he could be buried deep inside you for the rest of his life. “Fuck- Baby, you feeling so fucking good,” he moans while trying to compose himself. You’re still whimpering from the pain, and your chest is rising and falling at a fast pace.

“C- Can I push all the way in, little one? It’ll only hurt for a bit,” he asks, and he looks deep into your eyes. “Mhm… Wanna feel your cock deep inside me, Daddy, please,” you beg, and Chris tries his hardest not to come right here, right now. He thrusts his hips forward, and bottoms out inside you completely.

Your mouth falls open, and you’re silently screaming. The pain isn’t too much, but you feel as though the wind is being knocked out of you. Chris shifts a bit, and that’s when you start to feel it more. He’s so deep inside you, and he’s splitting you in two. “Breathe, baby, breathe,” he says.

You realize you’re holding your breath and it’s no wonder why your heart was beating out of your chest. “You’re doing so- so well, darling. Your little cunny looks so nice when it’s stuffed full with my cock,” he groans, and you whimper. “Dada, is hurtin’...” you whisper, and Chris wants to pull out because he can’t stand the thought of his little girl being hurt.

“Do you want me to stop, little one?” he asks, but you quickly shake your head in objection. Even though the pressure in your core is dwindling, and even though you feel a little too full, you don’t want him to stop. “No stopping, Daddy, please,” you whine and flail your arms towards him. He shushes you soothingly, and you calm down as soon as he flashes a stern look.

The pain soon burns away into nothing but dust and ash, and you finally see why he was so desperate to shove his cock inside of your cunt. It turns into pleasure and your pussy leaks around him. You’re soaking Chris’s cock with no shame at all. “Oh, fuck, baby… You feel so fucking good,” he moans, and you follow with a gasp. “I like the way y- you feel inside me, Daddy, makes me all tingly…” you admit shyly, and Chris chuckles.

“Yeah? Bet it makes you want to be fucked stupid, right, baby?” he questions with a playful smirk on his face. “Yes, Daddy,” you moan. You’re never aware of your surroundings because you’re too caught up in the moments. It’s something Chris scolds you for, but you never learn. But in this moment, you can feel everything. The veins on his cock throb against your silky walls, and you can feel his balls against your ass. His hot breath fans over you as Chris struggles to compose himself.

He slowly drags his hips backwards, pulling out of your pussy until his tip is the only thing in your cunt. The sudden almost-emptiness is surprising, but you quickly get used to it. Chris then pushes back into your pussy, and you moan loudly. “Fucking hell, little one,” he curses under his breath as he bottoms out again. He begins to fuck into you slowly and gently, careful to not hurt you. Even if he wants to fuck you until you’re crying.

The sound of skin on skin is quiet and almost unintelligible. The squelching sounds from your wet pussy and moans fill the room. Chris gently grips your hips and watches as your face contorts into a frown of pleasure and not pain. “Daddy…” you pant softly as you look up at Chris. “Yeah, baby? Am I hurting you?” he asks out of worry. “N-No, it feels so good…” you trail off as one particular thrust lands near your g-spot. And he knows that.

“Wan’ you to fuck me hard, wan’ you to destroy me, Daddy. Please fuck me like the slut I am…” you gently beg and Chris halts his thrusts. His cock twitches inside of you because of your words. Only he can corrupt an innocent angel such as yourself. “Shit- Little one, I don’t want to hurt you, that’s why I’m being so gentle,” Chris explains, but you shake your head. “You could never hurt me, Daddy. Please, I need you,” you beg for one last time, unaware of what you’ve done to him.

Chris roughly pushes his cock back into your cunt without warning. “Awe, I see. My little princess wants to be fucked like the whore she is, hm? Well, whatever princess wants, she gets,” he growls because beginning to fuck you roughly. You moan loudly at the feeling as with each thrust, his cock pummels against your sweet spot roughly. His pelvic bone rubs against your swollen clit and his grip on your hips tightens.

“Daddy!” you cry out as Chris pounds into your poor pussy. The room fills with moans, groans, curse words and wet sounds that all come from the art you two are making. “Aw, what’s wrong, little girl? Can’t take daddy’s cock anymore? Hm? Well, I don’t really give a fuck, you’re just gonna lie there, and take what I give you like a good fucking girl,” he sneers, and you push at his chest.

“It’s so sensitive!” you wail like a little bitch in heat. “But I bet you don’t want me to stop, do you?” Chris asks as a moan bleeds past his plump lips. “Uh-uh, please don’t stop, Daddy!” you squeal after a harsh thrust. The stretch of Chris’s cock is amazing, and you never want the feeling to stop. Chris’s hand leaves your hip and crawls all the way up to your neck. He wraps his fingers around your throat, and squeezes the sides, making you clench tightly around his big, thick cock.

He lowers his face to yours and watches as you react to the way he’s being rough with you. “Oh, God!” you cry out as he makes his thrusts more powerful. “Actually, it’s just ‘Daddy’, but I’m fine with that too,” he slyly smirks. You’re too fucked out to even laugh at his joke. Your eyes roll back into your skull and your back begins to arch off of the couch.  “Awe, are you gonna come around my big fat cock already, slut? How cute,” Chris mocks.

You nod your head and begin babbling like a baby. “But remember, little girl, I have to give you permission to come, okay?” he reminds you, and you whine. Chris’s hand around your throat moves up to grab your jaw, and he stops thrusting into you. “None of that is allowed. Don’t forget your place, little girl,” Chris warns with fury seething through his words. You mumble an apology, trying to formulate the proper words to speak.

“Seems like I really did fuck you stupid,” he chuckles, and you moan at his words. You clamp down on his cock, tempting him to do what you want, like a siren using her voice to lure men into the sea. “Open your mouth up first, little girl,” he orders, and you obediently listen. The searing arousal in your core begins to fade away, and you feel a panic beginning to rise inside you.

Chris drags his hand back down to your throat and rests it there. You watch as he puckers his lips up, and suddenly, he spits into your mouth. You open your mouth even wider and stretch your tongue out. His saliva lands directly on your tongue, and you wait for further instructions before you give in to your desires.

“Swallow it, little girl,” he instructs, and you do exactly so. You open your mouth back up just to earn some praise. “Good fucking girl. The best baby ever,” he smiles and presses a kiss to your forehead. “Thank you, Daddy! … Can I have cummies now?” you lovingly ask your Daddy.

“Of course, little one,” he says as he smiles down at you. Chris begins to fuck into you again, deep and hard. With each thrust, he pounds your g-spot and his balls slap against your ass. His remaining hand on your hip moves down to your clit, rubbing your little button with rough circles.

“Daddy… ‘m gonna come!” you moan loudly and Chris fucks you harder. “Come one, baby, come all over my big cock like the good girl you are,” he urges. The building feeling inside you increases, and you feel yourself getting closer to your release. “Fucking come, little girl, wanna hear you sing for me,” he growls. And with one specific thrust, you find yourself coming undone beneath him.

The sight is so fucking beautiful. Watching you as your eyes turn up, your mouth falls open and your cunt hugging his cock just gets him going, and he wishes he could take a picture of you right now. “D- Daddy! Oh, my-” You cut yourself off with a loud moan and Chris keeps on rubbing your clit and fucking you through your orgasm.

You soak his cock until it’s dripping and even then you’re still coming. You moan loudly and Chris can feel himself getting closer to his orgasm. His balls begin to tighten up and a droplet of sweat drips from his neck down to his chest. “Daddy, are you gonna come?” you sweetly ask as he fucks you through your orgasm whilst chasing his own.

“Yeah, baby, Daddy’s gonna fill you up with his cum. I’m gonna leave you leaking with my seed,” Chris growls as he fucks you faster. “Please, Daddy… Please, I want your cum so badly! Please fill me up with your cum, Daddy,” you beg and Chris tosses his head back.

“Fuck, yes, yes yes,” he shouts as his balls tighten up again. He quickens his pace until white, hot, thick ropes of cum spurts out from his aching tip. He fulfills his promise and your wish, filling you up with his cum until there’s nothing left. His cum mixes with your juices as he paints your walls with no expertise whatsoever. Chris slumps on top of your body, engulfing you in a bear hug as his cock remains buried inside of you.

You’re both panting and struggling to come down from the euphoric feelings. You look up at Chris make lock eyes with him for the nth time. There’ll never be a day where you don’t get lost in his eyes. They’re beautiful, absolutely beautiful. “You did so fucking good, little one,” he praises, pressing a kiss to the side of your head.

“Thank you very, very much, Daddy,” you slur, feeling yourself beginning to sleep into little space. “Daddy?” you call out, tapping his bicep after a few seconds. “Yeah, baby?” he asks, lifting himself up to get a better view of your face. “Will you really stay?” you ask with a bit of worry in your voice. He sighs with a full heart.

“Always.”