#without a good amount of starters

[tobinsonny]

happy girls!

[zwampy]

#if this is your situation you should absolutely try to figure out who is doing it though#and esp if you're following a schedule you should try to do it in pairs and keep an eye out for them#a lot of people who put up fascist stickers and flyers#are itching for a chance to do violence against the minorities they are trying to incite violence against#also. making a signal chat is good for this. if you see one sticker on the way to work someone else can come and check the area etc

tags @guildenstern

also consider that these people have to order/print these stickers or flyers, whereas we only need to remove them. kill their stride.

and most everyone knows this by now but always be careful of hidden blades.

To anyone wondering if it's worth it to tear down fascist posters or whatever. I spent a few months last year engaged in silent battle with another student at my school who was putting anti trans stickers up everywhere. I had it down to a system where every night I would walk the five block radius they went up in, and tear down all the ones I could reach, and use a stick to put duct tape over the others. Like, within hours of the stickers going up, I would have already purged the whole zone. I knew the basic schedule of whoever put them up based on when and where the stickers appeared. I probably could have found them in person if I'd wanted to. And I told all my classmates and friends what the stickers looked like and got them to rip them down too. And after a few months of this, the stickers slowed, and then stopped forever.

My point is, a lot of this fashy or right wing stuff is one local weirdo. And if you pay attention, and do a little light organizing with your friends, you can basically make their efforts into a giant sisyphisean exercise in misery. You control your streets!

[petermorwood]

More on pre-electricity lighting.

Interesting to see this one pop up again after nearly two years - courtesy of @dduane, too! :->

*****

After experiencing a couple more storm-related power cuts since my original post, as well as a couple of after-dark garden BBQs, I've come to the conclusion that C.J. Cherryh puts far too much emphasis on "how dark things were pre-electric light".

For one thing eyes adjust, dilating in dim light to gather whatever illumination is available. Okay, if there's none, there's none - but if there's some, human eyes can make use of it, some better or just faster than others. They're the ones with "good night vision".

Think, for instance, of how little you can see of your unlit bedroom just after you've turned off the lights, and how much more of it you can see if you wake up a couple of hours later.

There's also that business of feeling your way around, risking breaking your neck etc. People get used to their surroundings and, after a while, can feel their way around a familiar location even in total darkness with a fair amount of confidence.

Problems arise when Things Aren't Where They Should Be (or when New Things Arrive) and is when most trips, stumbles, hacked shins and stubbed toes happen, but usually - Lego bricks and upturned UK plugs aside - non-light domestic navigation is incident-free.

*****

Here are a couple of pics from one of those BBQs: one candle and a firepit early on, then the candle, firepit and an oil lamp much later, all much more obvious than DD's iPad screen.

Though I remain surprised at how well my phonecam was handling this low light, my own unassisted eyes were doing far better. For instance, that area between the table and the firepit wasn't such an impenetrable pool of darkness as it appears in the photo.

I see (hah!) no reason why those same Accustomed Eyes would have any more difficulty with candles or oil lamps as interior lighting, even without the mirrors or reflectors in my previous post.

With those, and with white interior walls, things would be even brighter. There's a reason why so many reconstructed period buildings in Folk Museums etc. are (authentically) whitewashed not just outside but inside as well. It was cheap, had disinfectant qualities, and was a reflective surface. Win, win and win.

*****

All right, there were no switches to turn on a light. But there was no need for what C.J. describes as stumbling about to reach the fire, because there were tinderboxes and, for many centuries before them, flint and steel. Since "firesteels" have been heraldic charges since the 1100s, the actual tool must have been in use for even longer.

Tinderboxes were fire-starter sets with flint, steel and "tinder" all packed into (surprise!) a box. The tinder was easily lit ignition material, often "charcloth", fabric baked in an airtight jar or tin which would now start to glow just from a spark.

They're mentioned in both "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings". Oddly enough, "Hobbit" mentions matches in a couple of places, but I suspect that's a carry-over from when it was just a children's story, not part of the main Legendarium.

Tinderboxes could be simple, just a basic flint-and-steel kit with some tinder for the sparks to fall on...

...or elaborate like this one, with a fancy striker, charcloth, kindling material and even wooden "spills" (long splinters) to transfer flame to a candle or the kindling...

This tinderbox even doubles as a candlestick, complete with a snuffer which would have been inside along with everything else.

Here's a close-up of the striker box with its inner and outer lids open:

What looks like a short pencil with an eraser is actually the striker. A bit of tinder or charcloth would have been pulled through that small hole in the outer lid, which was then closed.

There was a rough steel surface on the lid, and the striker was scraped along it, like so:

This was done for a TV show or film, so the tinder was probably made more flammable with, possibly, lighter fuel. That would be thoroughly appropriate, since a Zippo or similar lighter works on exactly the same principle.

A real-life version of any tinderbox would usually just produce glowing embers needing blown on to make a flame, which is shown sometimes in movies - especially as a will-it-light-or-won't-it? tension build - but is usually a bit slow and non-visual for screen work.

*****

There were even flintlock tinderboxes which worked with the same mechanism as those on firearms. Here's a pocket version:

Here are a couple of bedside versions, once again complete with a candlestick:

And here are three (for home defence?) with a spotlight candle lantern on one side and a double-trigger pistol on the other.

Pull one trigger to light the candle, pull the other trigger to fire the gun.

What could possibly go wrong? :-P

*****

Those pistol lanterns, magnified by lenses, weren't just to let their owner see what they were shooting at: they would also have dazzled whatever miscreant was sneaking around in the dark, irises dilated to make best use of available glimmer.

Swordsmen both good and bad knew this trick too, and various fight manuals taught how to manage a thumb-shuttered lamp encountered suddenly in a dark alley.

There's a sword-and-lantern combat in the 1973 "Three Musketeers" between Michael York (D'Artagnan) and Christopher Lee (Rochefort), which was a great idea.

Unfortunately it failed in execution because the "Hollywood Darkness" which let viewers see the action, wasn't dark enough to emphasise the hazards / advantages of snapping the lamps open and shut.

This TV screencap (can't get a better one, the DVD won't run in a computer drive) shows what I mean.

In fact, like the photos of the BBQ, this image - and entire fight - looks even brighter through "real eyes" than with the phonecam. Just as there can be too much dark in a night scene, there can also be too much light.

*****

One last thing I found when assembling pics for the post were Folding Candle-lanterns.

They were used from about the mid-1700s to the later 20th century (Swiss Army ca. 1978) as travel accessories and emergency equipment, and IMO - I've Made A Note - they'd fit right into a fantasy world whose tech level was able to make them.

The first and last are reproductions: this one is real, from about 1830.

The clear part was mica - a transparent mineral which can be split into thin flexible sheets - while others use horn / parchment, though both of these are translucent rather than transparent. Regardless, all were far less likely to break than glass.

One or two inner surfaces were usually tin, giving the lantern its own built-in reflector, and tech-level-wise, tin as a shiny or decorative finish has been used since Roman times.

I'm pretty sure that top-of-the-line models could also have been finished with their own matching, maybe even built-in, tinderboxes.

And if real ones didn't, fictional ones certainly could. :->

*****

Yet more period lighting stuff here, including flintlock alarm clocks (!)

[whoskimii]

I WANNA GET FREAKY ON CAMERA . . .

his favorite camgirl ft. toji !

it was ridiculous.

he was a grown man. he was supposed to be a responsible adult. but toji couldn't care less as he logged into his not-so secret account every night.

you were younger than him, maybe in your early twenties. he knew he had to save money but even with how broke he was, he managed to send you some leftovers, only to see your cute little smile when the donation popped up on the screen.

he always competes with the other viewers. you have to notice him, after all. and you do.

whenever someone else sent you money, he did the same right after. and he sent more. he had to send more. sometimes, he even cringed when he checked his bank account but the feeling was swiftly followed by a shrug.

he watched with tired but keen eyes, staring as you waved at the screen with a sweet little grin. his phone was lazily propped up on the coffee table in front of him while he held a beer on his thigh. he got comfy and spread his legs before placing his free hand behind his head.

"hi, everyone !" your voice flew from the device. "how are you ? good, i hope !" you smiled. "as for me, i'm doing fine, as always." comments began to flood in, covering half of the screen. toji, getting annoyed, groaned inaudibly. he didn't give a flying fuck about what other people said, he just wanted you. he wanted to observe his pretty baby without any unwanted distraction.

nonetheless, his emerald green orbs settled on the comment section. he read instinctively, although with a disinterested expression.

idontevenexist : is that a new shirt?? x

sexxwithken : love that shirt baby

huh ? his gaze went from the comments to your outfit. he was so focused on something that he usually didn't care about that he hadn't even noticed the new top you were wearing.

it was cute.

it fell off one of your creamy shoulders. the pink of the shirt brought out your pretty eyes and of course, he couldn't miss the painfully obvious way it exposed your generous cleavage. no one could. they were here for that, anyway. "aw, yes ! it's a new shirt i bought especially for you, guys. thank you for noticing !" you sent a flying kiss towards the camera.

you haven't even started to do anything yet and toji already sent a small amount of money. for starters.

he subconsciously chuckled when you smiled. you approached your face to the camera and waved again. his eyes drifted down and settled on your cleavage shamelessly. "oh, look, guys ! my favorite viewer is here ! hi, toj' !" you beamed happily.

he quirked an eyebrow in surprise.

favorite viewer ?

that was definitely a first. sure, he was a fervent follower and he watched you almost every evening but you never mentioned him being your favorite before. well, he figured that being your favorite wasn't so bad. he acted like he never wanted this in the first place.

comments of curious followers appeared.

akitousui07 : you have a favorite viewer?

fairyylady : favorite viewer ?

idontevenexist : i thought i was :(

hotstuffff : didn't know you had a fav viewerrrr

as toji's eyes lazily trailed over the comments, he scoffed. he was proud to be your favorite viewer. who wouldn't want to be @yourlovelycamgirl's favorite ? you were quite known on the platform.

you giggled. "oh, don't worry, i love all of my followers ! but toj' is definitely my best viewer !" he couldn't help but feel a pang of delight stir at his chest.

it was ridiculous.

he knew it was. but you were so sweet, he couldn't help it, really. you were a pretty girl. everyone wants to be loved by a pretty girl.

he also knew that for a certain price, you sent private videos. private videos with requests, private videos with a precise outfit, you name it. but of course, the price was maybe a bit too high for what it represented. it was a simple video.

but all of his rational thoughts went out the window as he clicked on your username and began to type a message.

toj1231 : you up for a private vid doll?

:3 you wanna see more ?

[aayakashii]

For seven days, I'll be posting Valentine's Day themed headcanons for each House in Tokyo Debunker!

All prompts come from this post here ♡

And dividers are from @saradika-graphics 🫶

So, for starters, we got:

Frostheim | Vagastrom | Jabberwock | Sinostra | Hotarubi | Obscuary | Mortkranken

Valentine’s Day in Frostheim

Jin

how does he show affection?

Quietly. His touches come without a warning, and he shoves gifts on your arms without ceremony. Words aren't his forte, no matter how many times he tried to put his feelings into words. So he'll show you his affection through his actions as much as possible, until there's no room left for doubt.

does he like hugs? what are his hugs like?

Likes to give them (especially when it's early morning and he's sleeping, and he just wants to cuddle with you), but loves even more to receive them from you. He holds you like you're his lifeline, as if you could escape from his hands at any given moment. Buries his face in the crook of your neck and stays there for as long as he wants.

is he good at flirting? how does he flirt?

Jin is terrible with words. So he tries to flirt with his actions: maybe he'll suddenly corner you somewhere only to give you a kiss and walk away with a smirk; or he'll circle his arm around your waist and pull you closer to him. It never fails to fluster you and leave you sputtering his name breathlessly, so that is a success in his book.

is he good at gift - giving or does he struggle to get it right?

He probably can give you anything you ask for, but you have to ask if you're thinking about something specific. If he tries to decide on your gift on his own, you'll probably get an enormous amount of all the Valentine classics: a gigantic bouquet, with an enormous teddy bear and the finest chocolate in the world. He's not very creative, but he tries to make up for it with quality and quantity.

is he quick or slow to give his heart?

Terribly slow. He will fight the feeling for as long as he can lie to himself; for as long as he can convince himself that he's not in love with you. Once he can't escape his own emotions, however, he is quick to shove his heart into your hands; and you better keep it safe and sound. It's your responsibility now.

does he find ‘i love you’ easy or hard to say?

It's extremely hard to say it out loud for the first time, but once that hurdle is crossed, those are the only three words he doesn't hesitate to say to you. He says it solemnly, looking into your eyes, with a fastened resolve to make sure that you know how he feels.

does he get jealous in a relationship?

Oh, honey. He's probably jealousy personified if we're being honest. But it's not you he doesn't trust – it's other men. He doesn't want other men's slimy, gross hands touching you, and just thinking of it makes him see red.

what is his ideal date?

His ideal date is simply having complete privacy when he's alone with you. He would love to just stay in his room, without even the slimmest possibility of being interrupted, and cuddle with you, drifting in and out of sleep. He already has all the food and beverages you two may need within his reach, so why leave and be at the mercy of irritating, prying eyes? He just wants his date to be about you and him alone.

would he ask the big question or expect their partner to?

He would ask it, without a doubt. He thinks it's his duty as your partner and the heir of an empire. He has to ask it, even if he stumbles on the words. Not to say he wouldn't be elated if you asked him first when you two are just appreciating each other's company in the quiet of a random morning. But he would make sure to ask again, with all the formality you deserve.

how does he feel about valentine’s day?

It never crossed his mind before he met you. Now, he's overthinking (and overpreparing) in order to give you the Valentine's Day anyone could only dream of. He'll still act like it isn't a big deal to him, but you know it definitely is as soon as you see a whole helicopter decorated with rose petals. And chocolate. So much chocolate.

does he get protective easily?

If he could carry you in his pocket in order to keep you safe, he probably would. Cigarettes be damned – you'd be tucked away in his vest, right over his heart. That's something he daydreams about often, but would never admit to it.

does he believe in true love?

After so much inner conflict, after fighting against his feelings for you, he begrudgingly accepted that there's no other way to describe what he feels for you in other words. So yes, now he does believe in it.

Tohma

how does he show affection?

Subtly. He's not one for huge nor public displays of affection, but he expresses his feelings through small gestures: a handwritten note; a fleeting kiss on your forehead; texts asking you how you're feeling throughout the day; but especially: dragging you with him whenever he takes a walk late at night, seizing the opportunity to finally enjoy his time with you.

does he like hugs? what are his hugs like?

He seldom gives them, but he can't deny he absolutely loves when you hug him – especially when it's by surprise. It gives him a boost of energy he desperately needed and didn't even realize. His hugs are, more than anything, grounding. You feel the solid wall of his toned body envelop you like a weighted blanket and you close your eyes. You feel safe.

is he good at flirting? how does he flirt?

Frustratingly good. He always knows what to say to make you blush, and he's fully aware of it. Doesn't hesitate to take advantage of this knowledge either. One of his favorite things to do is to whisper sweet nothings into your ear all throughout the day until you're a flustered and frustrated mess by the end of it.

is he good at gift - giving or does he struggle to get it right?

He's great at it, especially at finding small, simple but meaningful gifts. He probably has a whole file with your name in his mind palace, with all your personal information and specific tastes. He knows what you'll like, and he makes sure he'll give you something unique.

is he quick or slow to give his heart?

He goes at a normal pace, mostly. But as soon as he realizes he has been nurturing feelings for you, he will IMMEDIATELY give you his heart whether you like it or not. And you will like it. He'll make sure it.

does he find ‘i love you’ easy or hard to say?

It doesn't really come naturally to him. He probably can't even remember the last time he felt anything akin to love. The word "love" sounds foreign in his tongue. He would rather show you his love through his actions, but he might try to tell you he loves you if he notices that you need that confirmation. Just go easy on him.

does he get jealous in a relationship?

Not really. He pretty much trusts you, your relationship with him and himself. He knows all too well that you wouldn't leave him for someone else, and that you wouldn’t try to play the jealousy game with him. He wouldn’t be dating you if you did. He can only laugh at the sad attempts of other students to woo you because he knows you'll go back to him every single time.

what is his ideal date?

A picnic in a clearing, some hidden, beautiful place he found while he was out on his walks. He wants privacy, of course, but he also wants to share with you the very few secret places he likes to call his own.

would he ask the big question or expect their partner to?

He would love to be the one to ask first, but if you end up beating him to it, he won't complain either. The order of factors doesn't affect the result – he already knows he will say yes, and so will you.

how does he feel about valentine’s day?

Honestly, Tohma didn't care about it, but ever since he realized it was important to you, he made a conscious effort to be as present and loving as you wanted him to be. He still thinks it's kind of a silly date... but he'll indulge you, gladly.

does he get protective easily?

Yes, but he also trusts your strength. He'll always be ready to shield you whenever you need, but he knows you're not some pushover. He loves to watch you stick up for yourself, filled with pride and satisfaction. However, if you look at him for support, he'll be breaking anyone's bones in the blink of an eye.

does he believe in true love?

With you as his partner? Undoubtedly.

Kaito

how does he show affection?

Kaito yells about his feelings for you at anyone who can hear. He's unabashedly loud, parading you as his partner wherever he goes. Sometimes you have to nudge him and tell him to calm down just a little bit so no one will feel too bothered by his noisy declarations of love.

does he like hugs? what are his hugs like?

Loves hugs and loves to throw himself into your arms. He will spontaneously combust if you do the same to him and tearfully thank all the heavens above for your existence. His hugs are soft but tight, as if a part of him is still trying to make sure you're real and not a cruel joke someone's playing on him.

is he good at flirting? how does he flirt?

He's awful, but he tries so hard. His voice drops down a few octaves, and he tries to be as suave as possible, but he just ends up with his tongue tied and a blush on his cheek. And you don't say a thing, because you still find his embarrassment endearing, no matter how long you two have been together

is he good at gift - giving or does he struggle to get it right?

He's actually great at giving gifts! He knows everything that's trending, and if there's anything he thinks you might like, he gets it for you. He has literally all of your likes and dislikes on the tip of his tongue, so that's easy for him. Sometimes you have to stop him from spending too much money, though.

is he quick or slow to give his heart?

Very quick. It actually took some time for you to believe his feelings, what with how fast he confessed to you. He's intense. As soon as he saw you, he had to make sure no one would steal you away from him.

does he find ‘i love you’ easy or hard to say?

Easy! He would tell you he loves you every single second if he could.

does he get jealous in a relationship?

Very much so, but his jealousy comes from a place of insecurity. He's afraid you might find someone better, no matter how much you try to reassure him. Sometimes it's tiring, but he's doing his best to try to prove to you that he trusts you. It's just... old habits die hard.

what is his ideal date?

Any cliche, movie-esque date is perfect for him, but his first thought goes to an amusement park date. He wants to win a plushie for you at the carnival; he wants to share a huge cotton candy; and, more than anything, he wants to ride on the ferris wheel during the sunset and watch the city lights with you by his side.

would he ask the big question or expect their partner to?

He would love to ask first, but having you beat him to it would make him even happier – it would be like a confirmation of your feelings for him: the ultimate reassurance that you don't plan on leaving him at all.

how does he feel about valentine’s day?

Oh, he loves it. Since middle school, he has waited and waited to receive chocolates from his crush. The fact that he finally has a partner with whom he can celebrate the date is a dream come true. And he WILL drop some very obvious hints that he really wants to make homemade chocolate you during Valentine's Day. Wink wonk.

does he get protective easily?

Yes, and he dreams of being your knight in shining armor, always ready to protect you no matter the occasion. His legs may still tremble a little bit, but he will fight his fears so he can keep you safe.

does he believe in true love?

YES. Sometimes he would doubt it would ever come to him, but now that he has you, his belief has never been stronger.

Luca

how does he show affection?

Luca genuinely treats you like royalty. It feels like he has come straight out of a book sometimes – some fairytale about a chivalrous knight. He holds your hand everywhere and looks into your eyes as if you have personally placed each star in his sky.

does he like hugs? what are his hugs like?

He likes hugs but doesn't give them that much. He's always concerned about disrespecting you or crossing your boundaries. But he loves it when you catch him by surprise and engulf him in a hug (even if he feels embarrassed when you do it in public). His hugs feel like the safety and comfort of a bed. The scent of fabric softener of his clothes lulling you even deeper into a calm state of mind.

is he good at flirting? how does he flirt?

Luca doesn't have the slightest clue in regards to what flirting entails, but he usually, unintentionally, says lovely comments about you that leave you completely dumbfounded. And he doesn't even know what he did.

is he good at gift - giving or does he struggle to get it right?

He tries his best but, in his mind, gifts are only truly good when they're practical. So he might give you new books to help you study or stationery. If you want different gifts during Valentine's Day, you have to explicitly tell him. He might not understand what's the big deal, but he'll do his best. Be patient with him he's autistic

is he quick or slow to give his heart?

He goes at a natural pace and genuinely will only realize he wants to give you his heart when you already have it in your hands.

does he find ‘i love you’ easy or hard to say?

Once he realizes he loves you, he says it quite easily. It might even be a bit jarring, how casual he is with it. You two could be at the canteen, waiting to buy lunch, and he'll straight up tell you he loves you as matter of factly as possible. Whenever he has the itch to reassure you of his feelings, he will say it right away.

does he get jealous in a relationship?

Honestly, not really. He doesn't believe you could ever do something bad, like cheating on him. He put you in a little bit of a pedestal, but he's also pretty sure he's the only one that can reach it.

what is his ideal date?

Again, he likes practicality, so he would love a study date in which he's able to help you with absolutely everything you might need. Maybe it's not the most romantic thing, but to Luca, there's nothing more important than being helpful to you – it's his way of proving himself to you.

would he ask the big question or expect their partner to?

He wants to ask because he feels like it's a way to make an oath to you, akin to a knight serving his majesty. He might pout and sulk if you end up asking first, because he wants to propose with all the solemnity of a paladin bending his knee.

how does he feel about valentine’s day?

Never really thought about and still doesn't care much, but he will do his best if it means it'll make you happy. You might need to give him a nudge and tell him that the date is coming around.

does he get protective easily?

He's always extremely protective. Your safety is, quite literally, his biggest concern. While he might not be jealous, he's overprotective to a fault. Anyone can be a threat to your well being until proven otherwise. Sometimes you have to tell him to calm down before he tries slashing some random student that approached you a bit too rudely.

does he believe in true love?

He never truly thought about it, too absorbed in his personal tasks. But when making you happy became one of his most important goals in life, he realized that it couldn't be anything else but true love.

[gallusrostromegalus]

Hi Gallus, I'm doing some worldbuilding and you seem like you could be connected enough for me to find an answer to the problem of dwarven agriculture. Many problems are created by the requirement of no sunlight, as even the common response of mushrooms still need light to break down decomposing matter as a primary energy source. Currently, we're thinking that they use a special type of mushroom that breaks down rocks in an energy-producing reaction, giving them enough energy to absorb nutrients and grow - this would serve a second purpose in explaining why building a massive hollowed-out mountain fortress doesn't produce an equally large amount of gravel.

Any thoughts? We're grasping at straws kinda lol

Well, some thoughts:

There's plenty of cave systems (especially Karst Systems) that are at least partially open to Sunlight- especially the kind that have rivers running through them, which is something else that's really helpful for agriculture.

For Example: This Cool AF Sinkhole cave in china that has an entire Forest in it

Now There's a view to put outside the city Gates!

Karst specifically is a landscape where underground rivers hollow out the limestone underground and then the cave roofs fall in. This kind of landscape answers your gravel question nicely: the hollowed out mountain does produce an equal amount of gravel, but the gravel turns up as the sandy banks of the river system hundreds of miles away.

So, there's your sunlight that can be used directly, or reflected or magically transferred deeper into the cave system.

Or they just put more holes in the roof! Unless your dwarves are also vampires, there's no reason for them to not hollow out a few Skylights into the mountain too.

But let's talk some other cave ecology and agriculture!

For starters, your dwarves could be sitting on top of a literal gold mine that would allow them to trade for a lot of needed materials and crops.

And by gold mine, I mean Salt Mine.

Historically, salt comes out of hollowed-out mountains and is worth more than gold.

Also something the humans have historically fought a bunch of wars over, so there's some free political tensions if you needed that!

I can also mean the possible fucking enormous piles of bat guano that accumulates in Karst caves, which is the world's most insanely good fertilizer, and ALSO something that has been worth more than it's weight in gold.

Speaking of Gold, another thing that often lives in sinkhole caves in abundance is BEES. turns out, limestone stalactites are a terrific place to build a hive that is difficult for predators to reach, stays dry and the stone substrate means the hives can reach many tons in weight before they start having structural issues. That sweet, sweet insect-derived liquid gold is already important to Dwarves in a lot of folklore- it's really hard to have a Traditional Dwarven Mead Hall without the honey to make the mead, you know?

So you got your mushrooms, you got your sunlight-grown sinkhole crops, you got your traded goods and you got your source of alcohol- the only thing really missing from an ancient food pyramid here is a staple carbohydrate. To that end, may I propose our good Peruvian Friend: The Potato.

Grain crops aren't actually all that nutritious and were kept around in ancient societies more as legal tender that kept the peasants busy, because wheat or rice takes months to grow, an enormous amount of labor to harvest, and wheat also needs to be milled before it can be turned into food- all enormously time-consuming processes that keep peasants busy and easy to rule tyranically over.

Potatoes though? Pop one in the ground in spring and you can dig up fingerlings all summer, and if you make potato towers, you can harvest up to 40lbs of delicious, easy-to-prepare-and-store carb out of a single plant- a real space-saver for the limited sinkhole skyspace.

If your dwarves have cheese, the potato makes even more sense, because Potato+dairy is the easiest, most nutritionally complete survival food there is.

Finally, consider: Dwarven Vodka.

This post is open for anyone to comment suggestions on, but that's my take: put your dwarves in a Karst-sinkhole cave system, give them a highly in demand resource like salt or guano, bees, and taters. Boom. Whole agriculture, economy and political scheme starters.

[anim-ttrpgs]

I’m making this a separate post because the original is funniest without context, but for real you have no idea how stressful this is. The reason why relates to this post

As independent artists making a living from our art, it isn’t enough to just make good art, especially when that art is a TTRPG. TTRPGs are not a respected artform, not even by the primary consumerbase. It’s so dire that it takes us making a lot of long posts just to convince people that TTRPG game design is real at all, that a TTRPG’s rules can be written a certain way on purpose to have intended results.

Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy has good game mechanics, on purpose, but having good game mechanics is only actually a selling point to a shockingly small percentage of people who play TTRPGs, so those good game mechanics won’t sell the game, at least not as much as we need to continue operations.

But no matter how good your art is or how respected your artistic medium is, just making good art is not enough to make a living. Because the truth is, art doesn’t make money at all, social media does. The best, most overtly good art in the world only makes as much money as the number of paying customers that you can reach. All the money we make through Eureka is because I’m out here on tumblr busting my ass to get these notes, followers, etc.

Money is tight, we need to finish Eureka, and we need a new release like Silk & Dagger and Death Bed to get multiple major revenue streams and diversify our market reach in order to make more money and, like, pay my bills, but I can’t work on either of those right now, because I have to spend at least one work day a week entirely focused on social media or else no amount of progress on our real projects means anything, because otherwise they won’t sell.

It’s a little bit like being disabled - or rather kind of an extension of being disabled, since if I was more able-bodied I could work a “real” job that has a steady paycheck - my actual survival depends on other people liking me more than anything else, it’s a popularity contest, and not only I’m particularly strong in, as an uncharismatic, abrasive aspie with strong opinions about the very medium art that I work in, in an environment where openly disliking an element of the art that someone else engages with is considered not just a personal, but moral attack.

If you think this actually does make reblogging hot goth elves on tumblr sound pretty stressful, and want me to make enough money to continue to make TTRPGs for a living, there's a bunch that you can do to help even without spending a dime.

Follow us on tumblr and bluesky

Reblogging/retweeting/whatever our posts on these sites, even if you don't have many followers, makes a huge difference and is actually how we get most of our new fans and patreon subscribers.

Talk about us!

Play our games, tell your friends about them, make posts about your adventures or characters from our games, make homebrew stuff, etc. Like with the social media posts, this is the only way the word gets out about who we are and what we do! Without word-of-mouth, we're dead in the water.

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You get monthly rewards such as Eureka updates, adventure modules, short stories, previews of new games, etc. It also gets you into our patron-exclusive discord server!

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Money helps a lot, but even just downloading them for free gives us a boost in the algorithm and gets more eyes on us!

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We only get a small cut of this, but the stuff is pretty cool, and they're good conversation starters!

[aventurineswife]

Paint the World Pink and Blue

Summary: In the chaotic streets of Zaun, you encounter Jinx, the enigmatic and wild inventor with a penchant for explosions and mischief. What starts as a chance meeting quickly turns into an adventure as Jinx pulls you into her unpredictable world of fireworks, inventions, and chaos. Amidst the noise and danger, a connection sparks between the two of you that might just be the most exciting—and dangerous—thing you’ve ever experienced.

Tags: Jinx x Reader, Fluff and Chaos, Slow Burn (implied potential), Found Family Vibes, Mischief, Humor, Explosions, Mutual Pining (?).

Warnings: Mild descriptions of explosives and chaotic behavior, Slightly reckless actions (typical Jinx behavior), Brief mentions of fear/danger due to Jinx's unpredictable nature.

A/N: first time writing this, I have no idea what I did...🧍‍♀️uhhh, bit ooc ig since I have never watched Arcane... yeah, enjoy.

The chaos of Zaun's night market had never felt more alive. Steam hissed from broken pipes, neon lights flickered like desperate fireflies, and the hum of low chatter merged with the occasional boom from distant experiments gone awry. You weaved your way through the crowd, looking for anything resembling stability in this whirlwind city.

And then there she was.

Jinx stood atop a pile of crates, her eyes alight with excitement as she lit another firework. Her braids whipped around her, the perfect complement to the wild grin plastered across her face. It was hard not to stare. She was mesmerizing in the way that storms are—chaotic, destructive, but impossible to look away from.

You didn’t expect her to notice you, but she did.

“Oi, you!” she called, pointing her oversized flare gun at you, though her tone was more playful than threatening. “You’ve got the face of someone who needs a little more boom in their life.”

Your heart jumped, whether from fear or something else, you couldn’t tell. “I’m good without explosions, thanks...” you replied, hoping humor might save you from whatever chaos she was planning.

Jinx hopped down, her boots landing with a thud against the floor. She closed the distance between you with a few skips, her grin only widening. “Boring answer, cupcake. Lucky for you, I don’t take no for an answer.”

Before you could protest, she grabbed your hand and dragged you off toward a secluded corner of the market. The people around you didn’t even blink; they knew better than to get involved when Jinx was in the mix.

She led you to a makeshift workshop cluttered with half-assembled gadgets, jars of brightly colored powders, and an unsettling amount of explosives. She finally let go of your hand, spinning around to face you. “Alright, here’s the deal: I’m working on something big. Huge. Monumental! But I need a second opinion.”

You raised an eyebrow, glancing at the haphazard pile of mechanical parts and volatile materials. “And you picked me because…?”

“Because you don’t run away screaming when I look at you,” she said, tilting her head with a mock-serious expression. “Plus, you’ve got good vibes. I like vibes.”

Before you could decide whether to be flattered or terrified, she thrust a strange device into your hands. It looked like a cross between a grenade and a music box.

“What… is this?” you asked cautiously.

“A party starter!” she exclaimed, leaning closer until her face was inches from yours. “Pull the pin, and it’s fireworks. For, like, five seconds. Then—BOOM! Confetti. Brilliant, right?”

Her enthusiasm was infectious. You couldn’t help but smile, despite your better judgment. “You’re absolutely out of your mind.”

She laughed, the sound bright and wild. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.” Her gaze softened slightly, the chaos in her eyes dimming just a fraction. “You’re fun. I like fun.”

The moment lingered, her usual frenetic energy giving way to something quieter. Then, just as quickly, she snapped back to her usual self. “Okay, enough mushy stuff! Test it out!”

You hesitated but pulled the pin. The device whirred to life, shooting out a spray of vibrant fireworks that lit up the dim workshop. True to her word, it ended with a shower of confetti and a loud pop. You couldn’t help but laugh.

“See? Told you it’s a hit!” she said, her grin triumphant. “Stick with me, cupcake, and you’ll never be bored again.”

You weren’t sure what you’d just signed up for, but as she grabbed your hand again and pulled you toward her next adventure, you realized you didn’t care. Chaos had never looked so good.

Should I post the Ekko, Isha and Caitlyn fic too...? Hmmm 🤔🫣👀

[pelova4president]

Shadows are to protect I

Alessia Russo x Putellas!Reader

shadows are to protect II, III, IV

summary~ You just moved to Arsenal and everything was unknown to you but now you had Alessia. Your situationship with Alessia was everything but perfect but at least she was there, sometimes.

this is pure angst

Alessia is your whole heart. You could tell her that a thousand times and she still wouldn’t leave her boyfriend.

He doesn’t even get her, not like you do. He doesn’t appreciate her like you do. It should be you holding her hand on the streets. It should be you kissing her in the bars of London.

You didn’t really know when you started to feel that way. You’d just moved to England, a very scary move from your comfortable and warm Spain. Spain and Barcelona was all you’ve even known. Expending your world was just as terrifying as you’d ever believed.

The welcome was cold, very cold. It was the completely opposite of what you were used to, it was quite literally what you were petrified of. You left the warm sun kissing the dark little freckles on your face and exchanged the English rain dropping down on your hair. You weren’t even sure what to call it, not in English and not in Spanish either.

But even now you weren’t sure if you’d go back and stay in Barcelona. The sun might shine there most hours of the working days but you’d always be in the shadows. In the shadows of La Reina, Alexia Putellas, your sister.

The two coloured club had offered you a contract extension where you’d get paid twice the amount you did last year. You’d driven to the club like you did most days but this time you had one thing in mind, or so you thought. Signing for another three years and being the average defender in the team for whenever one of the original starters couldn’t participate.

A red and blue pen rested between your thumb and point fingers as you listened to your manager talk about the future. But most of it fell to deaf ears. “Alexia and you would be the head of the Champions League campaign. Imagine this, the Putellas hermanas on top of Europe.” he said full excitement. It wasn’t the whole campaign that set you off but how he began his sentence, ‘Alexia and you’.

You were sitting here, ready to sign your contract, for your future. They wanted you to sign and still their first thought was Alexia.

Without saying a word you stormed off. You were not doing this again for three more years.

You had spiked interest from multiple clubs, not only Europe but America too. But when Arsenal let your agency know that they wanted you, you knew that that was it. From now on you’ll be a gunner, through and through.

You got picked up from the Airport. With a sign reading ‘Putellas’. It felt good. They didn’t have to clarify which Putellas sister they were picking up, there was only one in London now, you. The bigger man, he might’ve even be twice the height of you introduced himself. And with the little English you had in store you thanked him and told him your name.

The man you now knew as Keith was a simple man. He opened the door for you and didn’t say much. You liked it that way, the silence was fine by you. You liked that the intimidating car you were sat in had tinted windows. Not so you couldn’t be seen but because it gave you some sort of comfort. When you were younger and Alexia was a rising star she had you sit in the backseat, where nobody could see you and where you’d be safe she’d say.

The little droplets of rain were doing races and you had lost for about the twentieth time when the car came to a stop. Keith grumbled something about being there and got out. You didn’t really know what to do and what they expected of you so you opened the car door. Picking your bags up you placed your right foot outside and your left followed.

It all went too fast, Jonas showed almost all the rooms in the building and the wet pitches that were not in any state to be used. You had to film a few shots for your signing announcement, get through a few medical test and finally got to go home.

Keith drove you to your temporary apartment just a few minutes away from the training ground. You had a streak of almost one hundred days of English on Duolingo so you thanked the tall man in the few words you had learned to say and got out of the black Range Rover.

You were home. You were home, you kept repeating those words but you didn’t believe it. You were home.

This is it now. North London is your new home.

The appartement was empty except for the blank furniture, it had no personality and it was hard to think there ever would be. Four white walls, a grey couch, a black kitchen and an all white bed in the middle of your bedroom. They didn’t even tell you that the kitchen would be just as empty as the apartment.

The sound of a notification alarmed you out of your emotionless state. You forgot to put your phone on do not disturb. ‘Where are you?’ it read. Alexia knew you didn’t sign for Barca the day before but she didn’t know you’d be gone by the morning. Tapping on the do not disturb mode you traveled to your all white bed.

And that is how it went, do not disturb mode on. You we there, at the training ground and the games but not really there. You weren’t in the right mindset to talk to anyone yet and that’s why it was so goddamn frustrating when McCabe or Mead tried to get you to talk.

You sat alone at lunch, didn’t go out with your teammates and barely stayed in contact with your sister. That was until Alessia Russo came into your life.

You didn’t mean to let her in. You decided early on that you were at Arsenal for your career and career only. But she changed that, so quick. And before you knew it you were falling for her.

She came into Arsenal and everyone was a fan of her. It seemed like she was friends with everyone instantly and it made you curious.

Alessia had been a gunner for almost a week when you realised she lived across from your apartment. She came knocking on your door one evening, offering you some of het pasta since she had made too much. You knew that she’d been searching for an opportunity to get you to talk to her but you didn’t expect her to come knocking at your door like that.

You let her in and she started to talk to you. You couldn’t exactly call it a conversation since she did all the talking and you muttered out some broken English once in a while. But even though you hated to admit it, she was nice company. It made you feel less lonely, she made you feel less empty.

You’d told Alexia about your move to Arsenal before it officially came out and she wasn’t pleased, at all. She was mad, mad that you didn’t tell her earlier. You told her what had happened and what was racing through your mind when you made the decision but she just couldn’t fathom out the thought of you feeling that way. And that made you feel even less understood, it felt like your life was slipping away from you and you only made it worse with every next move you made.

But Alessia made you feel like you were okay for a moment. After the first day of eating together she offered you food almost everyday and after a month it became a tradition, you would diner together every single day and she even learned you English. You didn’t really progress in your Duolingo streak and didn’t talk much either so the help was very much needed.

It wasn’t until the first half of the season had been played that you realised you had other feelings for her. You saw her as more than just a friend. It was all going very fast and the feelings intensified by the day, that may be because she was the only one you really could talk to. It hurt you to even think about living without her and that might’ve the first warning you should’ve seen but you didn’t.

It was Alessia who kissed you first. You both had been drinking and the two empty bottles of red wine next to your grey couch were the evidence of that. Alessia was a touchy person, just like everyone in Spain so you didn’t mind. She was giggly and teasing you relentlessly.

“I bet you think about me hmm?” she hummed and started to climb on top of you. Taken aback by the movement you didn’t really react to anything she had just said. “I want to kiss you.” she whispered into your ear that was tinted red by now. You didn’t answer. “I’m gonna kiss you now, okay.” she leaned in, placing her pink lips on your red ones. It was sweet but turned desperate very quickly.

The blonde slept sweetly beside you that evening. The thoughts raced through your mind and none of them were making any sense. It was hard to think straight with Alessia next to you, that was what made things so complicated. But now that she was laying in your bed you couldn’t not have her there, you needed her.

Alessia started to stay over more and more, it became your new normal. Half of her closet was laying in yours and she even brought her favourite mug with her. You bought all her favourite foods so she would feel comfortable and she appreciated it, just not enough to stay with you.

You came home on a Thursday evening one day but Alessia was nowhere to be found. Normally she would be laying on your couch, watching some sappy Netflix show you refused to watch with her. A bowl of nuts in her hands she didn’t really like but it was a healthy snack so it would do. But the only thing you found on your couch was her blue hoodie. Well it was yours originally but she basically claimed it as hers now.

Putting your cold groceries away you walked towards Alessia’s front door. She had given you her spare key after leaving hers in her home, locking herself out for the second time. She had bought a keychain with it, a little Barca jersey with your name and number on it. You smiled down at the colourful jersey and opened the door.

Walking in you heard some laughter coming from the living room that you could describe in detail. It was a light living room with two big windows that were open at all times, she liked it that way. She bought a brown couch after you broke her beige one. You had gifted her a few plants to make the room a real living space but knew she didn’t really care for them so you’d come in and give them water.

The photo’s in her hallway were those of her mom, dad and brothers, who she adored so much. And even though she didn’t like to have pictures of herself in her home she had one of her and her best friend Ella after winning the Euros.

When you stepped into the living area you were a bit taken aback by the man sitting next to your Alessia. His left hand was draped over her shoulder, like it was the most normal thing. His right was resting on her thigh. Who was he?

You stood still, watching the pair until Alessia noticed you. Her eyes had gone wide. “Hey, what’re you doing here?” she asked carefully. You didn’t answer. “Luke, this is my teammate, and well, this is my boyfriend Luke.” she introduced you and stalked towards your frozen form.

Boyfriend? You thought..

Alessia gave her boyfriend some weak excuse and walked you back to your apartment. You were in your own home again, a safe place. When Alessia started to talk again you cut her off. “I- you have a boyfriend? I thought we had.. something?” you looked almost lost to her. “Well, you thought wrong. Whatever you thought we had, we didn’t.” she said without any emotion behind her eyes, like she hadn’t spent the whole of last week in your house, in your bed, wearing your hoodie.

She left your house like nothing had happened.

Were you really that stupid, did you really think she’d like you. You had created this whole other reality, one where she’d actually like you and wanted to be with you.

You kept to yourself even more now. Alessia had gotten you out of your shell to some extent but now you had crawled back in again. Every moment you weren’t training or playing football you were at home but it didn’t feel like home anymore. It wasn’t as empty as it was when it arrived but it felt like it. The life had gone away and that’s not something you can fix with a few overpriced paintings and some weird cactus.

You couldn’t eat dinner without Alessia, you couldn’t watch horrible movies without Alessia and you just couldn’t sleep in a bed without Alessia.

It was the one time you decided to go out and drink that she came over to talk to you again. She acted like nothing had ever happend, like it was back to normal again, like she had slept in your bed the day before. But you liked it, craved it even. You had longed for Alessia to come back again and save you from yourself.

So she ended up in your bed and stayed long enough for you to fall asleep. But not long enough for you to wake up to her scent or her sleepy blue eyes and messy blonde hair.

It went on like that, she came home with you for the night and you forgot about all the things she had done to you and you woke up to an empty bed. You did feel bad for the Luke guy, well you did in the beginning but somewhere along the way you started to lose that sympathy.

You were mad. Angry. He could drive her to training and hold her hand out in public. He could kiss her on the streets and wake up to her snuggled next to him. He could have all those domestic little moments and gestures you longed for. It wasn’t fair.

Alessia had prepared dinner for the both of you and you were watching a movie when you felt the need to talk to her about this whole situation. “Lessi, i really like you. I want you and i to be together because i love you.” there, you said it. Alessia didn’t look at you, she stared blankly at the movie infront of her. You reached for the distraction playing on the television and paused it but she still wouldn’t look you in the eyes.

“I love you.” you repeated again, hoping for a response. She sighed, “Look, i don’t know what you think we are but we aren’t that. I don’t know how many times i have to tell you this but i have a boyfriend and you’re just there for a quick fuck. That’s all. You’re not special just because your sister has won a few trophies. I can’t do anything about the fact that you’re fucking lonely but leave me out of it.” she hissed.

You just said you loved her, for the first time. You handed her your fucking heart and she stomped on it like it was nothing. Alesia knew your relationship with your sister was complicated and being in her shadows was something that hurt you the most in this world, but yet she brought it up. You’d told her everything you never dared to say out loud and she used it to damage you even more. She is your whole world but to her you’re a ‘quick fuck’.

You were hers but she’d never be yours

“Please go away.” you asked her, tears threatening to escape your tired glossy eyes.

You were left alone in your apartment and the loneliness was more torturous than ever. The fucking lasagna Alessia had made you had turned cold and you looked at the wooden table infront of you. There was a picture of you and Alexia framed, Alessia had printed it out to make you feel more like home but it only made you miss it more, especially now.

Looking at your phone you opened your chat with your sister. You hadn’t texted her in about a month, the last text being about your mothers birthday that you couldn’t attend.

You needed her, you needed you sister to protect you. You needed her to protect you from the sun and to place you in her shadows again. For once it was all you desired.

A/N let me know what you think of the fic!! Also, i don’t know if i should write a second part and if or how i should end up Alessia and R together. I could make R fall in love with someone else too??

[scrompsautobotsrchives]

Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee

Part 1 of the many more rewrites to come, This will allow me to make them the very best that they can be. Word count:1.5K

It's official !! You walked out of the DMV as proud as you can, you had officially gotten your license to drive. Your dad was super duper proud of you. He knew you would ace it after a few goes. Soon the day after your 16th birthday, he kept a deal with you, If you managed to get good grades before the summer started. He would help you get your first car.

You made it to the used car dealership. God, there are so many options to choose from. What do you pick first?

"Hello welcome to mirage automotives !!" The dealer greeted you and your dad.

"Hi, What would be the best starter car for a kiddo that had just gotten their license ??" He smirked at you playfully.

"Dad" You grumbled, turning slight pink.

"That's perfect. We do have some very good Toyota Corolla's..." The dealer tried to sweeten the deal.

But they didn't quite scream take me home, They were all pretty av. But as you walked by, you came across a bright yellow colour. It pierced the side of your eye. Looking over your eyes were in a little state of wonder, A 1977 Chevrolet Camaro.

You went over and got a proper look on the inside, this was almost practically in mint condition, How long has it been in here ??

Your dad saw you and slightly grimaced, he would know these types of cars would be super expensive.

"Y/n ?? You sure you don't want to look at some of the Ford's ??"

"Could we take a look at this ??" You looked up at him with soft pleading eyes.

"You sure ?? I know you kids want cool cars but... Don't you want something sturdy ??"

"I know But it's just a look"

So he let you do your own thing, Wow the being inside the car was even better than the outside. Oh this was talking your language.

The dealer saw you two and strutted over. "She's a beaut ain't it ??"

"She is" You smiled

"Tell you what, cause you gotten your license, $2000" He offered.

You looked at the dealer and your dad, Please !!!!!!

Your dad could only chuckle, oh alright, for his kiddo.

Once the paperwork was all sorted, he happily handed you the keys and you were officially on your way.

"Thank you Dad... thank you so much !!" You had a beaming smile.

"You better not ding this car up" He playfully chuckled and ruffled your head.

"I won't"

You soon began the drive out of the parking lot, making your way back home. The drive was as smooth as butter. You then reached over and tried to turn on the radio, but it started to act strange... it whirred and scratched, jumping stations.

"Weird" You turned it off.

"If that guy ripped me off..." Your dad frowned slightly.

"I'm sure he didn't, It might just need to be upgraded. Besides the car works is what matters the most" You smiled, trying to reassure him.

He smiled a little. "You're right, it is, thank goodness for that"

And so over the summer, you began to perform various upgrades and much-needed maintenance to the car. It was honestly so much fun. Your whole summer was practically this car, and soon you put the final piece to the puzzle. A brand new radio, hopefully, it'll work... But even when school finally started, you were puzzled by the radio still scratching and whirring all over the place. Not only that, new problems started to arise, The pedals would sometimes not work, gears would change, and even the speedometer was all over the place.

So before school, you took it back to the dealership to ask some questions.

"Hey hi, umm I bought this car last summer and I've done a good amount of upgrades to it, but it seems to be having some issues ??"

"What seems to be the issue ??" The mechanic wiped his hand and looked over the car.

"The radio is just jumping without me turning the dial, The pedals get stuck, Gears change and the speedometer just goes..." You mimicked how it went.

"I'll take a look at it"

You handed him the keys and waited outside the shop, about half an hour later he came back to you with your car.

"Everything looks fine on our end." he handed you back the keys.

Over time, you were just getting more and more frustrated, more problems were starting to arise and you were on the brink, One afternoon, you came back to the car after school and turned the ignition to start it. Nothing... again... nothing, third times a charm, it worked but the speedometer was wonky yet again.

You groaned and began to bang on the dashboard in frustration. "What's wrong with you !!!" You shouted at the top of your lungs.

But then... the engine stopped.

Wait... hang on... cars were not meant to do that.

You frowned as you watched the radio begin to flick a few stations before playing a snippet of a song. "It's nothing wrong with me..."

"What the..." Your car was haunted.

The radio scratched again, playing more strung-together dialogue. Was it... Trying to talk to you ??

Not bad kid..." It said once you figured it out.

You tried to calm yourself and looked around, before back at the radio. "What are you ??" You spoke hesitantly.

"I am... from space !!" It scratched again.

"An alien ??"

An audio of applause was playing. Holy shit... an alien car.

"Why are you here..."

But before the alien car could answer that, you jolted at the sound of something hitting the windscreen, a cup of not-so-nice liquid. Courtesy of your bully.

"Missed a spot L/n" He laughed as he fist bumped his friends.

You growled and flipped him off before the radio began to scratch and play an audio from over the summer, it was your voice telling them off... what in the Ai is this !!

But this riled the bully up, and he walked over to try and get you out, before the car soon began to start and drive on its own, revving out of the parking lot and on the road.

"Shit shit !!!!!!" You tried to hang on from all the drifts and turns as the bully and his friends chased you. Ok, you were gonna be sick. Soon you arrived at an abandoned building after making a different turn, hopefully, they wouldn't find you... oh, come on !!

His friends quickly got you out before you could do anything and sealed off any exits. "You think you're a tough one aren't you l/n ??" Your bully smirked before punching you in the gut.

This went on for a little while, and the alien car saw this time after time after time since school started, he was saddened that no one stood up for you, hence why he did what he did earlier.

So It revved its engine super loudly, scaring the bullies. He went over to the car and ripped the door open, only to find no one inside it... then how...

Suddenly the door slammed shut on his fingers, making him scream out. "Goddamn it !!"

You watched as his friends tried to get his fingers out of the door but it didn't seem to budge until the door swung open knocking them back. But then came the most strange thing of all. The car soon began to shift and transform, massive hands pushing against the ground, it's body rearranging and coupling to stand tall in a new format.

Your bullies friends soon bolted, fuck this shit, they didn't sign up for it.

The alien soon then shifted his arm into what looked like an arm canon. Aiming it at the bully who was now crying.

"Leave... them... alone..." It talked through the radio.

"Screw you !!" It yelled at the alien before it revved up, the arm cannon soon began to hum and glow. "Alright alright !! I'll leave them alone !!"

The arm cannon soon stopped and shifted back into a hand, But just for good measure, you saw the oil filter lid open up and pop out, soon spraying oil all over your bully. He had enough, soon he ran back to his car and drove off.

"Hasta lavista baby" The radio scratched the familiar Arnie dialogue.

You got up slowly and looked up at it... this was crazy... and it stood up for you... It soon looked at you, making you stand back... but it was a more soft look, like it was happy to see you.

"Who are you ??"

It's radio scratched. "My name... is... bumblebee" He whirred softly after.

"Bumblebee..." You started to twitch a smile.

He then did a few boxing punches while the radio scratched "I float like a butterfly and sting like a bee" He smiled at you again.

"Thank you..."

You reached out your hand, to which he responded by placing his palm over your hand, In this moment... a friendship was secured.

Taglist: @callofdudes

[toasty-coconut]

I wanted to put together some thoughts that I have regarding the passage of time in Pokemon Horizons. I'm a writer by nature who likes to pick out tiny details and examine them to the fullest. Horizons has thrown hints at us multiple times to suggest that time has been passing within the series. And now with a solidly defined time skip having happened, I thought it would be fun to look back and piece together how much time has passed until now!

Before I do that though, I want to preface with a few things:

All of this is purely speculation based on loose evidence provided to us throughout the series. I'm not claiming anything I say as definitive fact. This is merely for fun. Everything I say could be completely wrong.

The passage of time in the Pokemon anime is a tricky topic. After all, time "passed" in Ash's series without ever really passing; weeks or months would be stated to have gone by, but Ash himself was explicitly stated to be forever-10-years-old and on an eternal summer vacation. Despite that, growth and the passage of time seem to be important themes at the base of Horizons (i.e. the 100-year tale of Lucius, the generational parallels between Amethio and Liko and their ancestors, how time has impacted Gibeon, etc.). These themes weren't relevant in Ash's series (at least, not in the same way), which is why time was never a focus. That's not true of Horizons though, and that's why I think it's at least worth discussing.

I understand that the characters don't seem to grow/mature much physically throughout the series—even after the time skip. Realistically, if a significant amount of time has passed then the characters should be physically aging more than they are. My argument to that is that this is a long-running anime that's ultimately a marketing tool for the most successful multi-media franchise in the world. They likely want to keep character designs consistent for as long as possible so they can market them on products, goods, and in advertising. If their designs gradually changed every 20 episodes or so to signify physical growth, that would be much harder to accomplish.

With those things in mind, let's get to it! Note: This post is very long and contains spoilers for Pokemon Horizons episodes 001 - 089!

I want to start by addressing Liko's age, because that's what we'll be using as a base for this rough timeline. The tera leaks that came out regarding the development of Horizons stated that Liko was meant to be 13-years-old. I take most things in the tera leaks with a grain of salt; however, I'm going to agree that I do think Liko is meant to be 13 at the start of her journey. My reasoning for that is I believe Indigo Academy is meant to be the equivalent of a Japanese middle school (grades 7, 8, and 9). The average Japanese 7th grader is 12 going on 13. The average Japanese 8th grader is 13 going on 14. And the average Japanese 9th grader is 14 going on 15. (While I understand Liko herself is Paldean, it's stated Indigo Academy is within Kanto--a Japan-based region).

If Liko is 13 then she fits squarely within the box of being a first-year middle schooler. This lines up with Liko being a new student at her school and attending an entrance ceremony with the rest of her class.

Note that everyone at the entrance ceremony is wearing a leaf pin on their uniform. This is probably an indicator that they're all in the same graduating class (everyone in Liko's classroom is also wearing a grass pin). We also see students with fire pins walking around the academy, and as a result we can assume there are students wearing water pins around somewhere, too (though we never see them). I'm going to guess the fire pin students are the second-year students, while the water pin students are the third-year students (following the Poke Dex starter pattern of grass = 1, fire = 2, and water = 3) . It's common practice in Japanese schools for uniforms to have class indicators on them, so this makes sense. Typically they'll change with each year; however, Liko still has the grass pin even after the time skip. Because of that, we can assume the pins are cycled out with each graduating class (meaning, when the current third years graduate, the new incoming first-years will become the "water" class, while the "grass" class becomes second-years, and the "fire" class becomes third years, etc.).

Now that we've established Liko is a first year middle schooler, let's get back to the timeline. The traditional Japanese school year begins on April 1st. With that knowledge, we can assume that the start of episode 1 happens on April 1st of Year 1 of Liko's journey. Going forward, I'm going to be referring to sections of this timeline as "Year 1", "Year 2", and "Year 3", with each year spanning from April to March to reflect the Japanese school year (rather than January to December).

In the first episode, we see Liko arrive at her new school, attend an entrance ceremony, go to class, receive Sprigatito, bond/train with Sprigatito, and then ultimately get confronted by Amethio at the end of the episode after Ann leaves for break. Within this episode alone, there is already a notable time jump. I believe episode 1 starts on April 1st of Year 1 and then ends around July 20th of Year 1. Ann going home for break mid-episode is the giveaway for me. The first extended break in the Japanese school year typically starts around July 20th and ends around September 1st (about six weeks).

A quick aside: I want to caveat all of this by saying if Liko is the equivalent of a first-year middle-schooler, then she would have needed to start the school year at the age of 12. We've already established that she's 13 though, and I personally believe she's meant to be 13 at the start of her journey with the Rising Volt Tacklers. That being said, I'm going to say that Liko is 12-years-old at the start of episode 1, but is 13-years-old by the end of episode 1. That would mean she celebrated her 13th birthday at some point between April 1st and July 20th of Year 1. Take that as you will! My personal headcanon is that her birthday is on April 14th (the day Horizons aired for the first time ❤️). That being said, that's just my personal opinion. Liko's age/when exactly she turns 13 doesn't matter too much.

Back to our timeline - something else of note happens around July of Year 1: Hamber reaching out to Diana. While there's no definitive proof that this absolutely happened in July of Year 1, we can assume it most likely did. We know that Diana was immediately suspicious of Hamber and she knew that he wanted her pendant, which was already in possession of Liko at that point. We also know she reached out to Lucca, who then reached out to Friede to bring Liko home. I can't imagine why Diana would wait to tell Lucca that Liko was in danger, nor can I imagine why Lucca would wait to reach out to Friede to protect Liko. That's why I believe Hamber reaching out to Diana couldn't have happened any more than a week or so before Liko's first confrontation with Amethio.

With all of that in mind, we know Amethio showed up at Indigo Academy under Hamber's orders on the same day that Ann left for summer break. Friede came to rescue Liko that same evening, and took her aboard the Brave Olivine. Liko herself even says in HZ074 that this event marked "the start of her adventures". So we can fairly conclusively put this event as happening right around July 20th of Year 1.

After boarding the Brave Olivine for the first time, Liko experiences a small stint with the Explorers before the Rising Volt Tacklers ultimately stop at Roy's island. The black Rayquaza emerges from the Ancient Poke Ball and Roy joins the crew. We don't have anything to indicate how much time has passed again for a while. That being said, I'm going to assume that approximately six weeks pass between the end of HZ001 and HZ008, putting us at around September of Year 1. My only reason for saying that is because HZ008 is the first time where we see Liko taking classes again, which would indicate that her summer break is over.

It is worth noting that we do see Roy taking classes remotely in HZ004. That being said, HZ004 seems to happen relatively close to the start of Liko's summer break, so we could assume Roy's summer break hasn't started yet. Alternatively, we could assume the school he attends doesn't follow the standard schedule that Liko's seems to. It honestly doesn't matter too much considering it's the only time we see Roy actively taking classes. I just thought it was worth noting.

Back to the point - the next time the passage of time is mentioned is in HZ024, when Liko and co. meet up with Diana. During their meet-up, Diana claims that she met up with Hamber "a couple of months back". It's not a very clear indicator of the exact amount of time that's gone by, but we at least know Liko's journey began a couple of months prior. "A couple months" doesn't imply a significant amount of time, though. That's why I think we can assume this episode happens somewhere around the October/November mark of Year 1, meaning approximately 3-4 months have gone by since the start of Liko's journey.

It's going to be a while before we get any super clear mentions of time again, but I like to think we can use context clues to fill in some of the blanks before then and get a rough idea of when things happen. Liko, Roy, and Dot enroll in Naranja Academy and start undergoing tera training in HZ046. While there's no definitive evidence, I'd like to think that they're starting this training at the beginning of the school's winter trimester. I think we can back this theory up with the evidence of Ann, Coral, and Sidian (and seemingly other background characters) all starting the course at the same time, too. So many trainers starting together makes me think it must be the start of a new trimester.

If true, then I think we can say Liko was on her winter break between HZ045 and HZ046. There does seem to be a small gap in time between those two episodes, so I feel like that would make sense. She probably spent that time (about a week or two) at home with her parents. It would also mean that HZ046 (and thus, the start of Arc III) takes place in early January of Year 1. It's also worth noting that Liko's mother states she seems to have gotten taller at the start of HZ046! (Her character model seems the same to me though, tbh lol But it is a cool indicator that she's growing and time has been moving.)

If we follow the logic that Arc III takes up an entire school trimester, then that would mean HZ046 through HZ067 happen from the beginning of January to the end of March of Year 1. The arc itself breaks time up pretty nicely for us, too. I we assume the tag battles against the Elite 4 are the equivalent of a mid-term exam, then we can place HZ054 and HZ055 at around mid-February of Year 1. Likewise, if we consider the trainer battles at the end of the arc to be the equivalent of a final exam, then that means HZ066 and HZ067 happen in late March of Year 1.

With that being said, that means that HZ067 marks the end of Year 1 of Liko's journey. I feel like it's a pretty appropriate end to her first year as a trainer. It goes off with a bang in her battle against Roy and is ultimately an accumulation of everything that she learned in that year. It's poetic in a lot of ways. Plus, as a writer, I like when things bookend nicely like that haha

That brings us into Year 2 at the start of Arc IV (in other words, the start of Liko's second year of middle school). This arc is a little weird because a lot happens in a relatively short span of time. The first mention we get of time passing is in HZ074 when Diana visits the Brave Olivine. During her visit, Diana clearly states that it has been one year since her last meet-up with Hamber. That's noticeably different from the couple of months that she mentioned before!

This means it has now officially been one year since Liko set off on her adventures with the Rising Volt Tacklers. That puts HZ074 at July of Year 2. That also means HZ068 - HZ074 happened over a span of approximately three months. That certainly feels like a lot, though I suppose they did travel a fair amount in that time.

It's a little bit difficult to tell how much time passes between HZ074 and HZ084, but I would imagine at least a month or so. That would put the climax at Laqua around August or September of Year 2. HZ084 through HZ089 happen over a span of approximately 48 hours, with there ultimately being a one-year time skip at the very end.

It's worth noting that the time skip is said to have happened one year after the events at Laqua. So, with that in mind, that puts the beginning of Arc V around August/September of Year 3.

I think that breaks down... pretty much everything haha I don't have any spectacular thoughts to end on, so I'm not sure how to wrap this up. But I do want to add that I find it interesting that when you combine the time Liko spent traveling with the Rising Volt Tacklers along with the time skip, that would mean two years have now passed since the events of HZ001. It's very likely that the remainder of the story will happen over the course of another year, making for a grand total of three years. Also, if you subscribe to the belief that Liko is 13 at the start of her journey, then that means she was 14 during the events at Laqua, is 15 post-time skip, and will probably be 16 at the end of the series.

Not only would Liko's journey lasting for three years align with the viewers watching the series for approximately three years, but it would also be reflective of the three-year middle school experience. So, at the end of her journey, Liko and the viewer will be "graduating" from the series, essentially. I Just Think That's Neat.

[hermit-lover]

Hello! I love your writing so keep up the good work :D

I would like to request Ren, Doc and Scar (Separate or not) with a ftm reader, preferably platonic.

It's completely fine if you don't want to though!

(Also if you end up doing it, may I please be ✨️ anon?)

A Moment Of Calm

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

Character: DocM77 x Reader, Rendog x Reader

Type: Blurb (1.8k)

Theme: Platonic, Comfort

Summary: The grind of Season 8 and The Octagon have been wearing you thin, so you take a moment to recuperate after a great success.

TW: Dysphoria

A/N: Welcome ✨(Sparkle) Anon! Sorry it took so long, but I hope you enjoy. :)

It’s been a loooooooong couple of weeks, and that's almost an understatement. You thought joining in on Doc and Ren’s shenanigans this season would be entertaining, but didn't account for Doc’s affinity for shooting for the moon (heh). Seeing his projects in seasons past you should’ve guessed it would be equally as crazy, but something in you rationed that maybe he would take it easy. Big mistake. Considering it started with somehow creating a super-chunk of a horrifying amount of spawners. You have been endlessly grinding copper and logs to fuel the shops, hearing shulkers grumble in your sleep, and building up the centre of your new base of operations. The Octagon. It was honestly huge, with complex corners and shape lending to the mechanical aesthetic you’ve leant into this season. It wasn't one you typically built in, unlike the mad scientist, and you’d be lying if you said you didn't miss the ease of terraforming. Soft dirt and plants under palm instead of gritty redstone that has long since dyed your nails. But being part of this team was rewarding in its own right.

You settle into the wooden seat sat on the floor, grunting as your knees crack with effort, and your ribs protest. How long has it been since you’ve taken off your binder?- ah no matter. A sigh pulls from your lips at the chance to relax, a crackling campfire soothing your nerves. The seat isn't necessarily the most comfortable, but after a long day's work you were looking forward to the staple of your meetings. A barbeque. Stretching your shoulders against the tight fabric under your shirt, you look to your teammates as they arrive, chattering animatedly. Ren’s voice carries first, agreeing enthusiastically to something Doc was explaining. Ever the enabler, or hype man as he would prefer. An arm is strung across the goat-hybrid's shoulders, half tugging him into a hug. Doc responds, waving his prosthetic hand to help visualize the words- a habit of his you noticed finally being close to him this season.

“Then if we attach the redstone to the power core as shown in the blueprints-” Upon coming to the crest of the hill, Ren’s gaze catches your own, and his grin widens.

“Hey dude!” The werewolf waves exaggeratedly with his free arm, completely interrupting Doc mid-sentence. He sputters out something about manners, but rolls his eyes and nods in greeting. A rush of warmth splits your own face into a grin. It was nice to have them as friends.

“Took you long enough. I was about to dig in without you.” You tease, earning a playful swat from Doc as he moves to settle in the seat beside you, Ren already taking his place as ‘the meat master’ as he would insist the title be. Laying perfectly seasoned steaks on the grill over the fire.

“You say that as if you weren't late to our last meeting.” Doc grumbles, unable to hide his smug smirk at being able to hold it over your head. Groaning dramatically you flop further into your chair.

“It was one time! You try being on time when Scar has filled your starter base with pandas-” Ren snorts, and you shoot him a glare. Doc hums in debate, he of all people understands Scar’s menace. Doesn’t mean he won't find it funny. “We still have to enact revenge for that.” You remind the pair, causing Ren to perk. A dangerous glint in his eye.

“We should infest Boatem with those bot guys Doc designed.” He suggests, “Cover their landscape with mite-bots!” Arms swooping in a wide arc, you can picture it vividly; The tailored landscape of the builders covered in clicking, scurrying bots. Like chickens but harder to kill. Not a bad idea at all. Your so caught up in the visual it takes a second for it to click what exactly Ren has just called the bots-

“Mite-bots?”

“MITE-BOTS?!” Doc’s cry overlaps your own, so suddenly all you can do is blink. “They aren’t mites! I’ll have you know I modeled them after viruses- which happen to look very cool.” The goat’s instant defense of the odd robots makes you stifle a chuckle, especially when Ren simply flicks his tail sassily. Void, they were so childish sometimes. For as much as Doc tries to seem mature and scary, it wasn't hard to wind him up.

“Mites-viruses same thing my dude. ” The werewolf shrugs, flipping a steak casually with his bare hands. It sizzles loudly and your stomach clenches with hunger, gurgling in protest. The scent of cooking meat making your mouth water. Doc grumbles unintelligibly under his breath- but you get the gist of his complaints for ‘respect’. A common thing he insists upon, despite secretly enjoying the banter. Glancing back to Ren, his gaze is already on you, smiling slightly in knowing. “Hungry?” He asks gently, eyes twinkling with affection despite the bags. He was so chipper it was hard to tell he was as tired as you are. You’d guess having his body be mostly robotic this season meant he likely felt the effects less, but there was still evidence of wear-and-tear. His metal body was scuffed and dirty, not being polished like it should be, pale skin also covered in a thin layer of grime. The evidence of hard work across the three of you is a testament to how hard you were working to complete the project before the end of the season. It was a grind, all hands on deck as you all knew it would be a shorter one.

Blinking back to reality, you realize you’ve simply been staring back at him, neglecting to actually answer the question. You stumble to answer quickly-

“Ah- yea, it smells good.” You manage out, smiling sheepishly back to his patient look. For a brief moment Ren accepts your answer, and you all lapse into peaceful silence. The crackling of fire and sizzling meat overlaid the chirping of crickets and waves lapping on the shore as the sun descended over the horizon. You truly think you can be happy here- friends, good food, enjoyable projects- and then Ren clears his throat.

“I don't mean to nag at all my dude, but I’ve gotta ask…How long have you been wearing your binder?” You inhale sharply, suddenly aware again of your aching ribs and strained breathing. Ah, shit. Of course he would notice-

“Mm Ren’s right, I haven’t noticed you without it- or taking enough breaks for me to assume you’ve removed it.” Doc agrees, sitting up a little further to watch you carefully. The pressure from both of their gazes is almost a physical weight on your skin, prickling an embarrassed heat on your face. Deep down you knew they only cared about your well-being, but the thought of being without it- “Breathe. We wont force you to change if you truly don't want to, but it isn't safe to wear it for so long.” Doc’s reassuring rumble soothes your nerves a tad, as a clawed hand rests gently on your shoulder. Lingering just-barely there as to not spook you, but there enough to ground back to your body. Realistically you know you should change, but the thought of having to exist looking so unlike your true self-

“Here.” You tune back into the present, face-to-face with a plaid ball of fabric. There's a moment of silence as your brain lags behind- then it dawns on you what it is.

“Your shirt??” You glance mildly horrified at Ren- and see much to your relief he is still currently wearing clothing. He chuckles, waggling the shirt ball enticingly.

“You wish I was showing off my abs, baby” He teases, not taking to heart the disgust you can't stop from flashing across your face. Doc huffs a laugh at your reaction, squeezing your shoulder reassuringly. “But I don’t want to attempt to out-man the ultimate man, my dude.”

It's clear he's trying to flatter you, but you let yourself take the compliment. After all, it was clear he simply cared deeply. Finally reaching out, you grab the flannel being dangled in your face. It's impossibly soft and plush, clearly well loved. The deep red fading away slightly with how many washes it's been through. Ren smiles at that, placing both hands on his hips. “It’s even oversized on me, so I figured it would be comfortable for you to lounge in- if you want.” The offer makes your heart clench- they notice, and more importantly they care enough to try and find a solution where you can all be happy. This server is going to be the death of you- and you already feel a little choked up with emotion. After a moment of debate you nod, and Doc gently removes his hand. You miss the warmth of it, but he smiles reassuringly.

“You can change in the van, we’ll save you a steak.” He jokes lightly, and you scoff.

“You better!” Pointing a finger accusatorily at him, you rise from your seat. “This better not be a ploy to eat my share of the food.” Doc chuckles deeply, choosing to not answer as Ren pretends to look guilty. Feigning annoyance at their lack of an answer, you stalk to the van, nerves building with every step took away from them.

Stepping into the rocket-van the door clicks shut behind you, plunging you into an eerie silence. If you listened closely you could hear the fire- and the low voices of your friends just outside. If you truly wanted, you could just leave now and not change-and they would ignore it because of your emotional comfort- even if they did worry. Or…you could be comfortable physically with minor emotional discomfort. And they would be happy.

… That doesn't make it fair, huh? You pull off your shirt quickly, opting to rip it off like a band-aid. The struggle out of your binder was always a little embarrassing- but you shrug on the soft flannel in no time. It hangs on your frame, doing its job at hiding any shape of body beneath. Instead creating the illusion of one solid shape. You still knew your body was under there- but…it was as comfortable as you could get. Taking a deep breath, you step out of the van and trail back towards the campfire. Doc and Ren are talking in-between bites of food, both their gazes flicking to you at your approach.

You brace for a comment, of any mention of you wearing the flannel and accepting their offer- but Ren simply extends a hand out, holding a steak.

“Dig in! It's not getting any fresher.”

It's that simple moment of acceptance that solidifies it for you; Doc and Ren are true friends.

[cottonlemonade]

First Date

word count: 1180 || avg. reading time: 5 mins.

pairing: University AU!Hinata x chubby!Reader

genre: fluff

warnings: a whole lot of awkwardness, also a lot of focus on hands 🧐

request: hello, I'l be getting a 15 and 25 for me and... Hinata Shoyo! it's our breakfast while we study 🥰 (i hope i ordered right 😅) || fluffy, members of the same club, first date with crush Hinata

After days and weeks and months of dancing around each other, trying to see who could blush harder and exasperating the entire volleyball club with your awkwardness towards one another, Hinata had finally worked up the courage to mumble and stutter, in an almost inaudible whisper, an invitation to a late night movie. Said invitation had been accepted immediately, a little too loudly, because the pounding of your heart had drowned out any surrounding noises and you wanted to make damn sure he heard your answer.

So he had picked you up at 9 pm the following night, trying to swallow the lump in his throat when he saw the little skirt and cozy sweater you had decided to put on for the occasion. It was already hard enough during practice to not just squish you at every opportunity. Your round cheeks and tummy always looked so inviting.

You had smiled at each other, croaking out shy hellos, and made your way to the movie theater. The streets surrounding campus were mercifully empty, a few strolling couples here and there or someone going one last round with their dog for the night.

Not knowing what to do with your hands, you had one clutching your scarf at your chest, the other on the strap of your purse. Hinata was equally nervous, first swinging his arms stiffly on either side, then settling for putting his gloved hands in the pockets of his jacket.

After about 15 minutes of silent walking in which you tried to find a good conversation starter, Hinata said “I’m glad it’s not raining.”, which made you laugh and him look at you a little alarmed.

“I’m sorry, I was just really trying to come up with anything to say, and I think I completely forgot how to talk to people.”

He let out a breath, a small cloud forming before him in the cold air, and gave you his signature sunshine smile.

“I have been trying for the past three blocks to think of anything that wasn’t weather-related!”, he confessed.

“No, weather is genius. So simple, so elegant!”

You both burst into slightly hysterical laughter, letting out some of the nervous tension you had been feeling.

From there on out talking came pretty easily, covering such topics as traffic and tomorrow’s weather and even daring into such juicy material as studying, and in no time you arrived at the movie theater.

Hinata, ever the gentleman, paid for the tickets, while you offered to pay for drinks and popcorn.

You settled into two empty seats somewhat near the back. Nervously, you looked around. There were a surprising amount of couples here at this hour, all of them, without exception, busy staring annoyingly dazed into each other’s eyes.

When the movie finally started, you had no idea what kind of protocol to follow. Should you lean against his shoulder? Was that too familiar? Should you keep your hand on the armrest for him to make his move? Should you take the initiative and take his hand?

When your fingers accidentally touched while you were going for popcorn, you both flinched away, blush thankfully hidden in the dark auditorium.

The couple on screen just went through their second easily avoidable misunderstanding when you heard a small intake of breath next to you like someone bracing themselves, and a moment later you felt Hinata’s fingers boldly touching yours. You looked over at him and even though you couldn’t make out much, you saw that his posture had gone stiff as if he was actually holding his breath. He gave you a small side glance, to check if he had really touched your hand and not a piece of chair. When you slowly snaked your fingers along his palm, he seemed to relax again and closed his hand around yours. This way you sat for the rest of the movie, now ignoring the popcorn and drinks. Neither of you wanted to let go, in case it would be too difficult to recreate.

When the main characters finally kissed, you could have sworn his thumb drew a gentle circle on your skin.

Neither of you dared to move as the credits started rolling. Should you keep your hand in his while you stood up? Should you put on your scarf one-handed? What were the logistics here, dammit!?

Your phone buzzed in your bag and on instinct you went to check, maybe it was urgent. But it was just a stupid spam notification, and now you had let go of his hand and the spell was broken. Your fingers felt cold without his.

He cleared his throat and got up. “Everything okay?”, he asked.

You offered a bready smile and nodded.

Stepping out of a movie theater on any day was always an unpleasant experience. Tonight an icy breeze was dancing around your legs, only protected by pantyhose and thick socks, making you shiver. Your jacket was more fashionable than warming and to make up for it, you pulled your scarf tighter, almost cutting off your air supply and then struggling to make it even. But in the next moment Hinata grabbed the ends to fix it, double wrapping it around you twice, his ears very pink.

“Thank you.” With an internal deep breath, you took his hand, decisively entwining your fingers with his, a tingling sensation burning where you touched.

He laughed nervously, adjusting the adorable baby blue wool hat on his fiery hair.

With every step he took, holding your hand, he seemed to gain more confidence, getting even a little giddy. “You know, I was so distracted by our talk about the weather that I haven’t even told you how pretty you look tonight.”

Your cheeks hurt from grinning, and you looked away. “You don’t look too bad yourself.”

He squeezed your hand. The sensation of his touch, mixed with the scent of peppermint emanating from his jacket, made you feel dizzy again. How did normal people deal with this?

Wrapped in a conversation about the movie, you didn’t even notice how far you had walked already. The closer you came to your dorm, the more you both slowed your pace, wanting to draw out the night as much as possible.

Coming to a halt in front of your door, he turned to you. “I could really get used to this.” He looked down at your hands, and so did you, now witnessing him drawing slow patterns where his thumb rested. You drank in every new prickle, every new shiver and thrill it was sending down your spine.

You felt your mouth getting dry, “So could I.”.

He took half a step closer.

“I had a super awkward but great time tonight.”

Your mind went fuzzy. And you giggled again. Get it together!

“Me too. I would love to do it again.”, your voice sounded dry and scratchy in your ears.

For a moment you both just stared at each other, unsure, weighing the situation. Again you could hear that slight intake of breath before he leaned in to kiss you.

art: ＠赤慵灯 on douyin.com

a/n: thank you so much to the anon who request this soft prompt with our favorite tangerine! I hope you enjoyed it and don’t worry, you did everything right 🙂‍↕️🌟

[callmeby-mylastname]

shattered glass

warnings:angst,Mindy being silly, not entirely proof read(sorry guys)

summary:a beautifully blissful relation quickly ruined by five words.

A/N:oh boy has it been wild, i am sorry for not being able to do any requests but i should be back now. Apologies if you don’t even want this anymore but i’ll be putting out fics little by little however all requests will be done soon, once again sorry guys.

________________________________________

Three months. Three months of sneaky touches,secret kisses,lousy excuses to get some privacy. And yet no one knows that you and Tara have been in love the whole time.

“I know your secret Y/N.”

Or maybe they do.

The group are currently at Tara and sams apartment having their weekly movie marathon. And here you are under the shadow of Mindy Meeks as she is currently confronting you on a ‘secret’.

“Wha-what? Secret?pfffft. I Have absolutely no secrets, i am a very honest woman.” You awakardly giggled as Mindy was sill glaring into your soul.

“Oh?so we’re playing dumb? Let me sign it out”

“You, plus, woman-“ you already hated where this was going and so did Tara by the worried glances she kept sending you and her fidgeting hands.

Of course you loved Tara but there are countless reasons why no one can know. For starters, sam does not like you and you are terrified of sam.

“Admit it Y/L/N, you used my excellent movies knowledge to flirt with blonde in film”

Wait.what.

To say a confusing amount of emotions were running through you would be an understatement. On one hand you are overjoyed she infect does not know about you and Tara, however… you would debate your film skills are better than Mindy and of course most importantly you did NOT flirt with the girl in your film class.

“I-im-.what?’ You rather smoothly stuttered out.”Clara? You know one of the prettiest girls in school, not to mention BIG crush on you’

You take a quick glance over at Tara who does not look like the happiest girl in the world with this information.brilliant.

“Please the day Y/N gets a girlfriend is the day the word ends” sam ever so handsomely chimes in, shes sat over near the kitchen island sipping a glass of water.

“Oh no, you’d be surprised Y/N may be a nerd but she actually bags” chad continues, if you do say so yourself make the matter so much better.

You feel Tara’s jealousy radiate off her like she was just hit by a nuke and you were the giga counter.

“I left my phone in my room” without another word Tara stands up from the settee and beelines towards her room.

The group share their looks of concerned glances.

sighing you stand up “ill go check on her” and with that you’re walking right after Tara. blissfuly missing the switch from confusion to the most grinch looking grin coming from Mindy as she watches your figure walk after her.

You softly knock three times, Tara swiftly opens the door locking eyes with you.”hey”you sheepishly slime. “’bags’ huh?” She quotes.

“My love you know how chad is, i only have eyes for you i promise.” You cup her cheeks.

“Ill make sure of it” she grins pulling you into her room, making sure to close the door behind you.

It had been hours since you’ve been able to kiss eachother and it shows because neither of you realised Mindy standing at the door absolutely gobsmacked.

“Oh my actual like god,like jesus can strike me down i Knew it.” hearing Mindys voice you and Tara immediately pulled away. “Mindy listen you cant tell anyone please i-“ and abruptly Tara was cut off with Mindy running to tattle to the rest of the group.

“Woah Mindy you good?’ Sam questions noticing the girl.

“Y/N and Tara are dating” she blurts out just in time for you and Tara to run into the room.

Remember that nice,cold refreshing glass of after sam was drinking? Well it’s currently shattered on the floor landing right beside her jaw.

“Tara.room.now” and she’s storming off. Tara give you a gentle squeeze and runs off fete er sister.

“Ill,just ehm. Ill clean the glass” chad awkwardly runs off. Mindy is facing you, a look of concern mixed with regret, “hey,im sorry i didnt think-“ “no. no you didnt Mindy,im going home”

And with that you’re gone.

It had been weeks since then,chad keeps telling you how sorry Mindy is and Tara has ben completely avoiding you.and trust you were feeling the effects of her absence, you had tried your best to talk to her.

Walking up to her in school?walked past. texting?.ignored. calling?blocked,

It was gone,the most beautiful thing you both had tried desperately to protect ripped away because of a silly mistake.

taglist

request by - @ijustlovemaths (i know it’s been months i’m so sorry bro💀)

[minkdelovely]

love and power

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chapter six

“the more that you give away the more that you have.”

Alastor x Fem!Reader ; MDNI 18+ ; [y/n] used sparingly ; Alias in Hell is Sylvie

tags/warnings: diet codependency (doesn’t quench the thirst), mentions: blood play; biting, slow burn eventual: smut

word count: 3.2k

author’s note: don’t get too excited over the tags lol but we’re kicking things into gear cherished ones. i’m unsure how many chapters are left but i’d like to aim for ten (total; i’m low-key flying by the seat of my pants) but fire is starting to catch as we close in on our journey. thank you for sticking with me on this, i hope it’s been as fun for you as it has been for me and that my gratitude is properly conveyed in this chapter ❤️‍🔥

prelude ; chapter one ; chapter two ; chapter three ; chapter four ; chapter five ; chapter six ; chapter seven ; chapter eight ; chapter nine ; chapter ten: part one ; chapter ten: part two

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Watching Alastor leave the hotel without you felt… strange. When he passed through the door you half expected to feel that invisible tugging at your neck, beckoning you to follow, but it never came. Leaving you unsure how to deal with the level of disappointment you felt at its absence. All you hoped was that he couldn’t see it in your eyes when he turned to give you a final smile before walking down the entrance stairs.

It had turned out to be quite the morning, just not in the way you had expected. Alastor told you about how your afternoons were to be spent over his breakfast, not the least bit apologetic for springing it on you at the last minute in spite of knowing since yesterday. A couple things clicked into place with this knowledge, like your conversation at the cafe. Just as you had suspected, what you had ended up talking about had nothing to do with the important things he had sat you down for.

That’s what he meant when he said he had a busy morning, you thought as you watched him pick at his food, looking less and less like the wraith you had seen the night before. You had used the phrase duality of man as a joke in your mortal life, but Alastor set quite a bar for it. Despite the short amount of time you’ve spent with him, you really had managed to learn a lot about him. A goal of yours that seemed to be… shifting.

What had been born from a place of survival was now skirting the lines of fascination. A discomfort settled in you as you realized this, knowing that you were drifting into dangerous territory. Developing a fascination — you couldn’t admit to another word yet — with Alastor wasn’t smart for a lot of reasons. He owned you, for starters. Not that you’d have ever been on even ground with someone of his status, but knowing you were literally at his beck and call… It was hard grappling with that. 

Your grandmother had been such a terror, the expectations she had of you impossible to obtain. Whether she blamed you for your mother’s death or if she would have treated you the way she did regardless was something you’d never know. But you thought you were done being pushed around and forced into boxes you didn’t fit when you went through with your plan to murder her. Turned a new leaf, as they say. 

Yet here you were, with not even a little bit of resentment towards your keeper. He annoyed you with his antics, sure, but you found yourself to be more fond of him than you had expected to be. Hell, you even took extra care making his bed every day despite knowing he didn’t sleep in it — it would’ve done no good to have him catching on that you knew he was just messing up the sheets. You were surprisingly reluctant to put his bed back in order this morning, wanting to preserve its state for as long as you could, burning the image of it to your memory. Even though they were still relatively neat, the slept-in sheets were a peek behind the curtain; another facet of him for you to collect.

The seemingly ever-present lump in your throat creeped up again, sending a tingling jolt through your body at this thought. Fondness, fascination. It had been a very long time since you had attached words like these to someone, and even then it wasn’t something you felt very often applied to anything past friendship. What little friends you had, anyway, preferring a small circle over a plethora.

You had experienced some romance in your life, but nothing longstanding. Flings might be a better word, comprised mostly of the usual dinner and a movie followed by some backseat fumbling. Living with your grandmother didn’t exactly present the option of bringing someone back to your room. And it was fun while it lasted but the payoff had never felt worth it in the end. You were more grateful for the distraction it provided from home than anything else. A lot of the time it just felt like another personality to juggle that you simply hadn’t the energy for.

But was this really something you were beginning to feel towards the Radio Demon? Or were you merely clinging to the twisted sense of stability he represented? Wanting to struggle against him to maintain as much autonomy as you could, or surrender? 

The memory of how Alastor had held your face in his hand surfaced then. How his eyes had been heavy with a desire you couldn’t pinpoint, the way your skin burned under the pad of his thumb. How, somewhere under the fear and exhaustion, you had been thrilled watching him taste the blood off your face. Your chest was tight again, breath shallow as your fingertips ghosted over that spot on your cheek.

Fuck.

You wanted to rip your hair out, the desire to run after him growing stronger with every step you saw him taking towards the city battling against your own self-worth. You wouldn’t go after him of course, not only because it would be pathetic but you knew he would be disappointed and quite possibly repulsed if you did. Neither were things you wished to be associated with in his opinion of you or yourself. Though in this moment, all you could feel in regard to yourself was disgrace. 

If someone had told you any of this a week ago, you would’ve balked at the idea. Actually wanting to please and follow Alastor around like a well-trained dog? Until quite recently you had looked forward to any time you could finally spend alone, but here you were, apparently counting the seconds until he returned home. 

Get a fucking grip, you scolded yourself, inhaling deeply through your nose as you forced yourself to make your way back upstairs to change clothes.

Group activities would be starting in an hour, and it wouldn’t do any good to be fretting over whatever Alastor was up to. Above your pay grade, remember? Remembering what a snide bitch he could be soothed you, the irritation you felt towards his words from earlier reassuring. Though your meaning couldn’t be more different from his, you wanted to believe that you weren’t totally hopeless. The erratic heartbeat under your ribcage begged to differ.

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Alastor never imagined that he’d be sick of heading to Cannibal Town, but there was a first time for everything. It was a novelty he might have actually appreciated under different circumstances. Valentino aside, his days were beginning to feel a bit too repetitive for his liking. Perhaps this meeting could end up being a blessing in disguise, a way for him to defuse some of the restlessness he was feeling.

He had to admit, your absence was… noticeable. Not that you could ever take its place, but having the option to take your arm had been a nice substitute for his microphone when his hand was feeling empty. As if to taunt him, his fist clenched with a nervous twitch, reminding him there was nothing to do with it other than keep it behind his back. Irksome.

The way you lingered around him before his departure hadn’t gone unnoticed, either, something he was unsure you wanted him to know or not. Though there was nothing you could really hide from him, not anymore. Alastor was now very in tune with the way your scent changed based on how you were feeling. It had been particularly strong and floral today, to the point where it still burned his nostrils with a pleasant ache. A keepsake, of sorts. How generous.

Even without that, it was obvious you had wanted to join him on this excursion. There was a sincerity in your ever-pouty face that was actually quite endearing. Still not a fan of frowns, Alastor was beginning to understand that it was your mask, intentional or otherwise, just as the smile was his. His original goal to strip it from you would probably never come to fruition with this revelation and he sighed, though not from disappointment. It was nice to be kept on one’s toes, after all, and he had already made the decision to find new ways to provoke you.

That’s not to say that he didn’t still wish to see what was hiding underneath that gray cloud you took shelter under. The few breakthroughs he’d glimpsed so far had been delightful. Getting you to murder someone wouldn’t work… though that wasn’t off the table. He’d just prefer you to want it; force wasn’t a measure he was willing to take in that regard, there was no satisfaction to be found in it that way. And so by extension, was getting you to indulge in a new eating habit. He hadn’t given up on that, either; he wasn’t lying when he said he thought you’d enjoy it under the right circumstance. 

Something came to mind and passed as quickly as it appeared, shocking him despite coming from some recess of his own imagination. The taste of blood was on his tongue from where he bit the inside of his own lip, and he relished the coppery tang, delight coating him thick as honey as he tentatively explored the thought. His ears twitched low as his horns grew just the smallest bit and he cleared his throat to calm down. Alastor wasn’t one to just lose his composure on the sidewalk.

Perhaps, he thought to himself, though with some hesitance. Alastor was always taken by surprise whenever his mind conjured up anything he considered to be salacious. But this sudden inspiration fell under same qualifications as his previous idea, if not under an even stricter sense. That was something you definitively needed to want, being it was something he very, very rarely desired to give. 

And what was it about you that made him want to? Clearly, some small part of him did. Had it just been too long and you happened to be an option now that this feeling was rearing its ugly head again? No. Alastor was too… picky to just choose someone out of convenience. He was unashamed to admit he had standards when it came to this. In fact, he felt the real issue at hand was that too many sinners didn’t, fucking anything that breathed with abandon.

His pulse jumped at the word: fucking. Was that even what he wanted? It would be enough just to have you taste him, bite into the flesh of his wrist and lap away at the blood that eagerly pooled to the surface. If you earned it, of course. As mentioned, his body wasn’t something he offered up on a whim to just anyone. But the thought of you enjoying it, unraveling at the feeling he hoped to inspire in you, your sullen face relaxed in the throes of pleasure in the taboo. His mind was racing now, running away with the fantasy as it so often did in these uncommon moments. 

What sounds could he illicit from you? He nearly bit through his tongue, thinking on the satisfaction it would bring to hear your voice, normally tinged with some level of sass, pleading and heady in his ears. How would you taste in his mouth — clean and tart, rich and sweet? What would you smell like, blooming under the touch of his mouth and hands? 

It wasn’t prudent of him to get swept up in this daydream, knowing the caveat to any of it being your willingness to partake. And he’d sooner face Adam’s axe again than ask, at least not without the inclination of acquiescence, which at this point was unknown to him. Uncharted waters.

Alastor hadn’t noticed that there was a sizable diameter of empty space between him and any other demon who happened to be walking by; rightfully threatened by the hungry look in his eyes, the tautness of his fanged smile, and the static that was crackling in the air around him as he approached the dry cleaners.

Thankfully he still had a bit of time to kill before Valentino arrived, needing every second he could get to center himself before their meeting. Were it not for his gloves, his clawed fingers would’ve easily punctured the soft skin of his palms, he was so wound up. But it was invigorating, this little idea of his, already feeling the ache ebb away as he shelved it for safe keeping. Only time would tell when he could dust it off.

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The afternoon had actually been… fun.

It had been a long time since you had experienced that, feeling a little ridiculous now as you lounged on your bed, thinking back on how nervous you had been to be roped into the daily activity with everyone. Charlie had obviously lead the charge, but the whole group had made you feel very welcome. Niffty had even sat next to you the entire time, her approval something you were unaware you were even wanting but now grateful to have. She was actually really charming.

Since it was your first time, it was mostly story-telling and introductions for your sake. It was clear they were a tight-knit bunch, and you found yourself hoping to find a place in their little circle. That seemed to be your theme for the day; seeing where you stand, fitting in. But it felt nice to open up, divulging bits and pieces of yourself to your housemates. You hadn’t realized how much you missed being part of a group, gossiping and sharing anecdotes. 

You told them about the accounting job you had, well-paying but boring all the same, which you didn’t think you minded at the time. Looking back, it really was just for a paycheck. There was no passion in your heart for it, and it was downright mayhem during tax season. Vaggie joked that she would be keeping this in mind when the need arose for bookkeeping, with you quipping back about cruel and unusual punishment.

A knock at the door interrupted your reverie, and you got up to answer it, opening your door to Alastor’s smiling face. The brief moment of butterflies you felt faded when you noticed the tired look in his eyes. You weren’t sure what mood you were expecting him to come back in, but you knew he had something on his mind. Beyond fetching you to perform chores — which he rarely did anyway, preferring that you came to him — what else would he stop by your room for than to deliver some kind of news?

He swept over you, no doubt picking your outfit apart all the way down to your bare feet. You were well aware that the cardigan and slip dress didn’t exactly fit into his definition of put together. Frankly, you were surprised Alastor didn’t force you to wear a corset under your uniform, a complaint you wisely kept to yourself for fear of giving him ideas. But for this, you couldn’t bring yourself to care, relishing the sparse opportunities you had to be in your own comfortable clothes; the v-shaped neckline of the dress allowing your poor décolletage to get some much-needed air. Besides, what could he really say? You were technically off the clock.

“May I come in?” he asked with a jarring sobriety, the absence of his radio filter giving you a chill. This wouldn’t be like the tête-à-tête you had this morning on the balcony. 

You simply moved out of the way, giving him the space to enter your room before closing the door behind you, keeping your attention on him as he stood with his back to you. Alastor’s shoulders moved as he took a breath, his expression concealed as his head fell back, looking to the ceiling as he exhaled.

He maintained this position as he spoke. “I’m afraid I must ask something of you, Sylvie. It won’t be dangerous, but it won’t be pleasant, either.”

There it was again, the illusion of choice. Why did he keep presenting things to you this way when he didn’t need to? Not that it upset you, it was a polite gesture after all, but well… He beckoned, you came running. Was it smart to be so willing to do his bidding? No. But after Angel talked a little about the way Valentino treats him — which he seemed to handle with a bravery you could only hope to have a portion of — you knew there was a level of safety that came with belonging to Alastor. Certain lines he simply wouldn’t cross out of duty to himself, resulting in a strange benevolence for you.

“What is it?” You were surprised at the calm in your voice. 

Alastor seemed to be too, his ear flicking at the sound before finally turning to look at you. The soft expression on his face sent blood rushing to your cheeks. You could almost mistake it for pride. Toward you. A burden you weren’t prepared to handle, apparently. A small sigh escaped him as he closed the gap between you and he absently picked at the shoulder of your cardigan, pinching the soft fabric in his fingers as he worked through what he was going to say next. For your part, you just tried to keep your breathing even and your hands to yourself. 

He released you, smirking without his usual venom but still with that strained look in his eye. The fraction of instinct you had that still worked told you that this wasn’t good, but you had a hard time letting that sink in the way it should, too distracted by the charge in the air between you.

“I met with Valentino today,” he said quietly, giving you a small, knowing smile as your brows knit together in concern. “He wants to meet you, in two days. As of right now that’s all it is but he’s reserved the right to make a final decision on what he wants once he speaks with you,” he practically choked on the words, anger nipping at the edge of his voice as he continued, “And there were certain… concessions that had to be made, given the circumstances. Proud as I am at what you did, I can also appreciate certain aspects of Valentino wanting reparation.”

You felt like a toddler being scolded for acting up in front of company, unable to stop yourself from looking away from him, embarrassment blending into your fear. He wasn’t wrong though, and you always had a feeling you would need to make up for what you did to Donny somehow. Meeting with Valentino was the least you could do, guilt already eating away at you for the position you had put Alastor in. No wonder he had been so upset last night…

“Will you be with me, at least?”

The question was out before you could stop it, the blush on your cheeks threatening to melt your face it was so hot with shame. Alastor huffed a laugh, the mischief returning to his eyes in a way that made you feel dizzy. 

“I’m afraid I don’t elaborate on stupid questions.”

Maybe it was the low timbre of his voice, or the familiarity of his smug grin when he knew he had denied you something. But the irritation you typically felt when he spoke to you this way was nowhere to be found, your brain practically empty with the exception of one thing. 

I’m so… fucked.

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tag list: @fairyv-ice, @wat4r, @midorichoco, @raynerrold, @krak-jj, @tremendoushearttaco

[magicalbats]

Sanctuary Part 2 (Childe/Foul Legacy x reader)

Rating: R-18+

Word Count: 22,687

Warnings: afab!reader, nun!reader, monster fucking, vaginal fingering, cunnilingus, piv sex, sex outdoors (in a graveyard), creampie, breeding, sacrilegious content, demonic possession, ritual magic, mentioned age gap, mentioned wlw

A/N: Phew! This ones a doozy. I had SO much fun not only revisiting this narrative but also getting to work with the same commissioner again, and I hope ya'll end up enjoying it too! I really channeled my inner Mary Shelley for this one (iykyk) haha. They wanted to remain anonymous again so without further ado ... enjoy! ❤️

⭐

I call upon you who are in the empty air, 

You who are terrible, 

Invisible, almighty, a god of gods

You who cause destruction and desolation, 

You who were driven out of Teyvat and have roamed foreign lands, 

You who shatter everything and are not defeated, 

I call upon you …

*~*

It is a rare day when the permanent Snezhnayan chill is not so great that you can take solace out in the courtyard amongst the barren limbed trees and the hardy snow ferns that dot the ground. You are not entirely alone though as people mill about between the gated entrance at the front of the compound and the looming stoic facade of the ancient church but it’s the nearest thing to privacy you can find. And they leave you alone, thankfully, as most unsuspecting passersby would not think to assume interrupting a nun and her reading was in good taste or appropriate given the hallowed surroundings. 

Of course that might change if they so much as even suspected what you were reading was hardly of a pious nature, but you try not to linger on that thought for very long. 

Consideringly, you glance over the passage at the bottom of the page again. It almost sounded like an incantation to summon rather than to cast out demonic forces and their ilk despite the text clearly indicating that it was supposed to be an exorcism manual. You had some understandable doubts about it. 

What you held in your hands was not the sanctified and holy instruction of the church though, but rather the sort of trite pulp the common man peddled in the streets. It was not your first or even second choice to seek guidance from such unreliable sources and yet you’d been left with very little choice in the matter. They wouldn’t let you into the restricted section of the church’s library, for starters. Father Sluhovsky also wouldn’t divulge any pertinent information no matter how much you pestered him about the topics of bedevilment and spiritual possession, for another. Finding yourself essentially backed into a corner, you were left with no other option than to search for your own answers. 

Unfortunately those much sought after answers still evaded you and time was quickly running out. That horrid beast, that Foul Legacy as it liked to call itself, had been clear that you retained your freedom only until the next new moon which steadily approached ever closer even now. There were but a handful of days left until the fated hour struck yet you were no closer to ridding yourself of its presence than when you’d started. Nothing you’ve tried as of yet has worked, and all the while that horned fiend has only continued to throw salt in the wound with its clockwork nightly appearances in your dreams, mocking you with its mere existence. 

Your singular point of consolation over the last month has been that it no longer tears the clothes from your body as it first did and instead undresses you with an exceeding amount of slow care, and yet … 

Distracted by the buzzing memory, you don’t notice someone is reaching for your book until they’ve already plucked it right out of your lax fingers. You startle and snap your attention up at the thief, only to feel your stomach immediately plummet into the bowels of the earth. Yes, there would certainly be no forgetting your daytime burden either. 

“Lieutenant Ajax.” 

“Sister.” He shoots right back, grinning in his usual boyish way. 

The glare of the afternoon sun makes his coppery brown hair look aflame as he moves to sit beside you on the iron wrought bench seat with an accompanying crunch of his boots in the snow. Drawing yourself up to full height, you pin the rascal with an unamused look of warning that would have sent lesser men running for safety but of course that doesn’t work on him. It never does, you’ve quickly come to find. 

“Your manners are as lacking as ever, I see.” You snipe at him, your temper flaring while he settles in next to you. Perfectly sedate and casual about it, like he had all the time in the world to bother you. “I haven’t asked you to join me, if you’ll notice. It’s usually customary to wait for an invitation to be extended before you sit down.” 

“Would you have if I’d asked?” 

“No.” You hiss. “And for good reason. What do you think anyone who sees us will say about us sitting together like this? There are already more rumors than you can count floating around the church, and I don’t even want to think about what’s being said in town. And all because you don’t know how to quit. It’s shameful!” 

Looking really quite amused, Ajax reclines back against the bench and slips into a comfortable slouch with your stolen book resting across his thigh. “Aw, let them talk. What does it truly matter, after all?”

“What does it matter?” You echo him, incredulous. 

“Sure. My feelings for you are sincere enough and I’m confident that in due time you’ll even come to like me too, so what’s the problem? It’s not so unheard of for a sister of the faith to be courted by an overly ambitious man, is it? Besides … I wouldn’t be sitting here with you right now if I was in the habit of quitting. It’s not really my style.” 

“So I’ve noticed.” You cross your arms with a deeply bothered huff. Oh, how he grated on your very last nerve. Your initial impression of him had proven to be spot on, and in record time at that. He was trouble through and through. “Although it’s not unheard of, that doesn’t change the fact that these are unwanted advances, Lieutenant. I do not wish to be courted by the likes of you or anyone else for that matter. I’ve told you this before.” 

“Perhaps,” He draws that single word out like an oath, putting far too much sly emphasis on it for your liking. “But that doesn’t mean you won’t change your mind. I’m not intimidated by a little challenge, you know. I can keep trying.” 

Your numb cheeks start to warm, and the sensation is instantly mirrored low in your gut. This hot pulse within your womb whenever you find yourself standing in his presence has become a dreadfully common occurrence ever since that demon left its tattooed mark on you weeks ago. It feels like an eternity has gone by in that time, an entire lifespan gone over such a short interval, but you’ve found no answer for this either. You were trapped with nowhere to go, no one to turn to, and the undeniable fact that Ajax had no clue about any of it doesn’t do much to lessen the sting to your soul. Knowingly or unknowingly, he was still responsible for this torment in some way. 

And you knew not how he could be so completely unaware of the evil lurking within him, but you’d tested it again and again to no avail. Not only did he not realize he was housing some one-eyed abomination on the spiritual level, he also didn’t even seem to believe that such things were real or that they posed any tangible threat to those in the physical realm. 

That probably explained why he’d donned a soldier's accoutrement rather than a priest's robes, and that is ever more apparent when he lifts your book from his lap to look at the cover. Brow drawing inward, he gives it a perplexed grimace. 

“Protection against demons and witches? What are you reading this for? Seems a little out there if you ask me.” 

“I didn’t ask.” You remind him, reaching over to primly pluck it from his hand but he’s quick to move it away. His arms are much longer than yours and, having no interest in wrestling it back from him, you give up and merely fold your hands in your lap with another sigh. “If it does not interest you then please be so kind as to give it back. Taking someone else’s belongings is a sin, Ajax.” 

“Much like lust is, no?” He shoots you a cheeky grin, one that stops you in your tracks and drains the blood from your face. You take a moment to nervously turn your head this way and then that way to check if anyone was standing close enough to have overheard that pointed barb while he busies himself with impatiently flipping through the pages. “Lifting curses? Tests to find out if someone is a witch? Look, I know it’s not really my place to pry but what are you doing with something like this?” 

“Keep your voice down! And if you must know, it’s because of you.” 

His head comes up immediately at that. “Me? You must be joking. I am neither witch nor curse.”

Ajax’s boyish laughter only serves to further irritate you. Quickly deciding you don’t care what any potential onlookers might say about it, you climb to your feet before turning on him with an aggressive flutter of your skirts. “Perhaps not, Lieutenant, but you are most certainly a demon of the highest order. Ever since we met that fateful day you have been nothing but a thorn in my side. You haunt me at all hours like some kind of ghoulish wraith and I can’t seem to escape your presence no matter how often I remind you that I am not interested. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have other matters to attend to.” 

Decisively snatching your book from him, you spin on your heel and make a purposeful beeline towards the nearest corridor entrance. That you hear his boots quickly trailing after you through the snow doesn’t come as a great surprise but it does make you gnash your teeth in annoyance. 

“Come on. There’s no reason to be like that.” 

“To be like what? Tired of your nonsense?” You breeze through the open doorway into the ground level of the monastery’s outbuilding with him hot on your heels, his long gangly limbs once again proving themselves a troublesome advantage he held over you. A few people glance up at your entrance but quickly turn away when they spot the scowl on your face. They would be of no help to you but they also wouldn’t dare to question you about it later when it was so plainly obvious that you weren’t happy with the attention you were receiving. 

Clutching the book to your breast, you march past the workbenches and the raging hearth so you can slip down the long stone lined pathway that would take you to the bell tower if you managed to make it that far. With him doggedly nipping at your heels every step of the way, the odds weren’t exactly looking good. 

“All I’m asking for is a chance. Surely that’s not so unreasonable?” 

“It is when it’s coming from you. Forgive me for saying so, Lieutenant, but I don’t think you know what the meaning of the word ‘no’ is.” You call back over your shoulder, the smart click of your boots on carefully laid and polished stones echoing down the hall. 

“Would that you’d actually said such to me, dear Sister, but I have yet to hear a proper rejection from you.” 

Footsteps faltering in surprise, you fumble for a response to that very incorrect assertion. It felt like you’d done nothing but tell Ajax how uninterested you were in pursuing a relationship with him over the last few weeks and little else. “That is simply not true. You know I - -“

His gloved hand abruptly grabs onto your upper arm, pulling you to a complete halt so he can then spin you around to face him. Breath catching in your throat, you peer up at him with widened eyes. His expression reads of determination and grim intent as he steps into you, backing you up against the wall that looks out over the private cemetery reserved for congregants of the church. There’s an open window built into the slate gray facade right next to your head, letting in the warming rays of the sun as much as the icy breeze that never quite seemed to lessen in Snezhnaya. You knew if you turned your head and glanced through it, you’d see the unmistakable silhouettes of grave markers in the near distance watching you in their silent condemnation. 

All at once you’re suddenly keenly aware of just how alone the two of you are in this largely isolated wing of the compound. There weren’t many who would have any need to visit the bell tower at midday, and although there were a handful of your fellow Sisters just down the hall back the way you came you hesitate to call out to them. This would look bad, wouldn’t it? They’d misunderstand the situation and assume you were toying with the young man’s heart on purpose, that you were some kind of cock tease. What if your vows were called into question because of this? You couldn’t bear the thought. 

“What do you think you’re doing?” You finally dare to ask in a small, uncertain voice. 

“I’m trying to talk to you. Don’t tell me you can’t stand my presence enough to even do that much.” 

Working to reorient yourself, you pin Ajax with a sharp look of warning. “And what makes you think I owe you that when I - -“

“You accepted my flowers that day, didn’t you?” 

That stops you in your tracks. “I … I did, yes, but - -“

“Why?” He presses you, the fathomless blue of his eyes searching your face for an answer. It’s like he just couldn’t conceive any reason why you wouldn’t find him charming and agreeable, or why none of his gentlemanly attempts to court you have worked. By all accounts they should have. You know that as well as he does. 

Because Ajax was young and handsome in the way most men could only dream of being, and he was exceptionally talented too. He may have come from a base born family with only a small plot of land to their name and no real standing in the courts, but he was quickly making a reputation for himself in the military. Even you who usually ignored such gossip had caught the whisperings of people talking about the soldier with the burnished hair, both the good and the bad. He was known for being reckless but still getting things done as her Majesty decreed it and much to the chagrin of his senior officers. It wasn’t hard to imagine someone like that moving up in the ranks straight to the top. He might even one day be granted a title of nobility if he kept on the track he was currently on. 

Frankly the young man standing before you in all the folly of his youth was by every account a prize to be won and a very promising prospect for marriage. Any girl would have been lucky to find themselves betrothed to him. 

But you were not just any girl and you already knew the evil that lurks within him far too well to pretend otherwise. If he was similarly aware of the demon he never would have pushed you the way he does, nor would he look so much like a lost and confused pup that doesn’t understand why it was being denied the reciprocal affection it craved so much. It would have been a difficult thing to maintain your stance of disinterest had the situation been at all different, but the existence of that one-eyed monster ensured you would never be able to accept him as he was. Not now and, in all likelihood, not ever. No matter how much the mark tried to compel you otherwise there would be no reconciliation here. 

At last breathing out a terse sigh through your nose, you brace for what you were about to say next. “Do you truly wish to know why I accepted your flowers, Ajax?” 

“I do.” He insists. “Please tell me so that I can put whatever concerns you to rest. You don’t need to fear what I offer you. I swear it.” 

Oh, if he only knew the half of it. 

“Listen to me carefully. It’s not so much that I fear you, Lieutenant, but rather a part of you … I accepted your gift that day because I didn’t really have much choice, did I? When you make such a spectacle in front of the whole church, even the archbishop himself, what else was I to do? You forced my hand back then but I’ve told you many times since that I have no intention of lying with you. Flowers aren’t a marriage proposal, to be clear.” 

Ajax scoffs a mirthless laugh at that, flipping his messy bangs with a nudge of his head. It was a habit you’d noticed he usually only did when he was feeling particularly antsy about something. That often meant he was itching for action, his seemingly endless surplus of energy having reached its maximum capacity and thus urging him to go expend some of it in the boxing ring against his fellow soldiers. You could understand his frustration with you, of course, but you sorely hoped he didn’t think you were going to exchange blows with him to let off some steam!

“And what’s with that reaction?” You demand, expectantly lifting your brows in clear challenge. 

“I just think it’s funny, that’s all. You insist up and down that you’re a good, devoted, pious little nun but I see the way you look at me when you think I’m not paying attention. Sure, you may not like it but that doesn’t change the fact that you find me attractive. Or at least some part of you does? Either way, it may not be love you feel for me right now but lust I’m just as happy to accept from you. We don’t have to keep pretending like we’re at odds with each other. Despite what your books tell you, wanting someone isn’t a sin.” 

Embarrassed heat quickly marches across your face. So that’s what he’d meant with that earlier jab at you out in the courtyard. “You presume too much, Ajax.” 

“And you’re not a very good liar.” 

Your mouth flies open to spit venom at him, what little patience you had left for his antics thoroughly used up. But those slicing words catch in your throat when he reaches between you to place his gloved hand over your lower stomach. The gesture itself is possessive, demanding, and your knees instantly threaten to buckle right out from under you. Foul Legacy’s mark gives a warm pulse under Ajax’s palm to send simmering static electricity shooting through your extremities, lighting up every nerve along the way. It seems to pool deep inside your womb where it triggers some sort of primal reflex in your body that makes your cunt positively flood with slick. 

Seething at the throb, you look up at him in question. His face registers surprise for all of a single heartbeat and then shifts towards smug victory, sharpening to something mean in just the time it takes you to blink. 

“I knew it.” He whispers, squeezing your belly tighter. “You do want me. Want to feel me moving right here in your guts, don’t you?”

“N - no.” You wheeze even as myriad flashes of your nightly dreams that aren’t really dreams assault you in a dizzying rush. Foul Legacy had tasted you more times than you could count over the last handful of weeks, always taking that monstrous tongue to your cunt until you couldn’t conceivably take any more. Even when your menses came it hadn’t been enough to deter it from its goal of turning your body against you. 

Worst of all, it was working. Even before Ajax had put his hands on you you’d felt the distant stirrings of hunger curling between your legs. That’s why you’d tried to flee from his presence, to seek refuge in the silent bell tower where the general public was prohibited from entry. It wouldn’t have stopped any of the other church staff but it should have stopped him. 

He was apparently willing to follow you anywhere you might tread though, your constant shadow that took advantage of every chance he got to slip away from his duties in Her Majesty’s army just to track you down. 

And now that he was touching you, his broad palm resting unknowingly over the demonic tattoo etched into the skin just below your navel, you were flooded with phantom sensations and remembered pleasure. The flick of a wet, drooling tongue lapping over the seam of your cunt, the slow stretch of it entering you one mind numbing inch at a time and the roiling friction that soon followed while it fucked you senseless with it. But most of all you recalled that blinding rush of release, the soaring buzz of dopamine that shook you straight down to the core with each and every shuddering orgasm it managed to pull from you. It was exquisite. You might have even called it heavenly, were you not so loath to associate Foul Legacy and what it did to you as anything even remotely positive or good. 

Blessed Mother, your pussy suddenly felt so terribly empty. 

Panting softly under your breath, you drop your book and carefully reach up to twist your fingers into the front of his stately jacket. He releases a slow, audibly tense exhale as he bows his head close, giving your veil a brief nudge with his nose before breathing in deep the scent of you. A low groan rattles out of him and the masculine sound of it nearly makes you go cross eyed from how violently your body seizes up in response. You were beyond mortified to realize that you actually did want him. What he could give you. How he could make you feel. 

Knowing these thoughts are not your own but rather the suggestion of the demon mark isn’t enough to deter you, and you hesitantly turn your face into the bent line of his throat. “Please.” You whisper so quietly it barely registers in the chilly air. “Can you help me, Ajax? I - I don’t know what’s happening to me - -“

“Shh. It’s okay, sweetheart. I promise.” Nudging somehow even closer, pinning you fully against the wall now, he presses his lips to the crown of your head in an unexpectedly gentle and chaste kiss. At the same time his hand drags further down your belly to slip between your thighs, and you outright gasp when he cups you through the layers of your clothes. 

Just that is enough to make your cunt pulse, trembling wildly when he grinds the heel of his palm into you. The intensity of it makes you sway unsteadily on your feet but he keeps you upright where he’s got you pinned, sinuously curling his larger frame around yours even as he works to nuzzle his mouth across your cheek one coaxing peck at a time. 

You hesitate to do it but the compulsion is much too strong for you to fight it anymore, and you cautiously angle your face up to meet him. You’d been struggling against this tooth and nail for nearly a whole month now and the immediate burst of white hot static when he kisses you almost makes you regret your reticence. It was like the whole world had suddenly opened up to you in a rush of pure, unfiltered ecstasy, so sharp and overwhelmingly potent that you were feeling sensations you didn’t even know existed. 

And the way he groans into your mouth, hot and indescribably heavy, would seem to suggest that he was experiencing a similar awakening of the carnal persuasion. What was initially a tentative, guarded exchange, a first kiss borne from less than ideal circumstances, instantly morphs into something wild and voracious. 

Now Ajax kisses you like he’s trying to devour you whole, his breath coming out in quick, stuttering gasps while he fumbles to get your skirt hiked up. Your hands fly into his hair to tug and pull him in closer, and you go onto the tips of your toes to better accommodate the height difference. He doesn’t seem to particularly mind it either way though, and he just lets you eagerly writhe against him as he shoves your cloak out of the way. The hand not currently trying to worm its way into your bloomers gropes at your breast with a tight, pinching squeeze that makes you arch against him in mindless, hungry search for more. 

You’d known it was a dangerous game to humor his advances in any way but the reality of it is much worse than you could have ever imagined it to be. Your body is so fine tuned to his very existence, the smell of him, his touch, that by the time he finally manages to get his hand in your stockings you’re already soaking wet. Drenched, by all accounts, and he gasps in almost perfect unison with you when his finger takes a first swipe through your pussy lips. The copious slick is obvious even through his glove and you shudder at the press of chilled leather against your throbbing clit. You felt like you were going to implode in the most literal sense. 

“Nnghn, Ah - Ajax …!” 

Coming up from your mouth where he’d been mindlessly kissing at the corner of your lips, he now looks into your face with no shortage of awe and reverence. “Oh, lovely girl. You really wanted this that badly? You should have said something sooner.” 

You petulantly turn your head away, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of seeing the fluster that creeps across your expression. “I didn’t say you could call me that.” 

“Must we really fight right now? Hm?” Letting out a slow breath, Ajax once again bends close to press another kiss to your temple. He stays like that, content to be still against you save his hand which starts to work careful circles into your slit. It instantly steals the oxygen from your lungs and you issue a faltering mewl into the otherwise silent corridor, rocking desperately against the wall. 

How you wanted to curse him and the demon you knew he was harboring. Even if you’d had doubts prior to this, unsure if it was really him who was responsible for the nightmare you were being forced to live, this would have dispelled any such uncertainty. All he need but do was touch you and it instantly had you dissolving into sensitive shudders while your cunt continues to excessively drool all over his hand. It didn’t make sense otherwise. You were much too proud, far too sensible and level headed to give yourself over to someone like this just because. No one else made you feel this way, the mark didn’t respond to any other men you interacted with. It was only him. Him, him, him! 

“Oh!” You toss your head back, hardly even registering the scrape of your skull against the cut stone behind you as starbursts erupt across your vision. The intense throb within your cunt mirrored that of your heartbeat, wild and erratic, and incomprehensibly thunderous. Blindly, you reach up to fist one of your hands in the shoulder of his military jacket, fitfully yanking on the material when the cresting waves of pleasure climb that little bit higher. 

Your release was already fast approaching, an inevitability you wouldn’t have been able to stop even if you’d wanted to. But Ajax must on some level recognize the stricken look on your face, or the wheezing gasps that make your breasts heave under your frock, because he abruptly abandons your clit in favor of working his fingers further back. He follows the messy line of your cunt, slipping and sliding straight to your entrance where he unceremoniously dips two long digits up into your body, curling them inward as he goes. 

The sudden stretch accompanied with the internal increase of pressure sends you careening right over the edge almost immediately. You manage to let out one single, half stifled squeal of pleasure seconds before his mouth descends upon yours again, swallowing the sound and muffling your wordless cries while you shake and judder through your orgasm. The weighty presence of his fingers inside you seems to milk your squeezing cunt for all its worth, dragging out the spasms far beyond what it should have, and you issue a plaintive, dire tinged whimper against his lips as your eyes roll up to stare unseeing at the ceiling. Distantly, you can even feel the numbed sensation of tears tracking hot streaks down your face. Oh, what a shameless mess you must look right now. 

One piece at a time, you slowly start to come down from it some indeterminable amount of time later and he finally pulls away from your mouth when the shuddering waves gradually start to subside. Struggling to fill your lungs with enough oxygen, you weakly push at his arm. You’re quite relieved when he takes the hint and gently withdraws his fingers from your body before disengaging completely, slipping out of your bloomers and allowing your skirt to fall back into place. Bonelessly sagging there against the wall, you frantically try to make sense of what just happened. 

How had you allowed yourself to fall so fully under the mark's compulsion that you’d let him do that to you right here, out in the open where anyone could have happened upon such an unseemly sight? It was inconceivable and absurd. It was — 

You stare in fast mounting horror as Ajax lifts his hand and pops the gloved digits into his mouth, sucking the leather clean of sticky slick. A part of you almost doesn’t believe it, that he would be so crass and unapologetic about such a thing but it’s clear he has no propriety to speak of. More disconcerting, however, is the fact that it doesn’t repulse you half as much as you think it should. If anything watching him savor the taste of you actually has the opposite effect and your cunt gives a sharp, muted throb of interest. 

It wasn’t enough. You still wanted more. 

No, it’s not as simple as that. You needed it. 

“Ajax …” You practically wheeze, mechanically reaching for him with both hands now. “Take off your pants.” 

He goes stock still for a long moment, just standing there with his fingers half in his mouth. It makes him look even more boyish than usual, like a precocious child enjoying a treat of sweet batter he pilfered from his mothers mixing bowl when she wasn’t looking. But when he lowers his hand and peers into your face, it’s all man you see staring back at you. There’s a hunger, primal and timeless, reflected in the depthless blue of his eyes, and it just makes your pussy ache all the more for something of greater substance than a few fingers or a tongue stretching you open. You felt like you were going mad. 

“Please.” Seething at the intense pulse inside your guts, you grab at the front of his uniform. Shove the long drape of the jacket out of the way and set your sights on his belt buckle. Your hands shake uncontrollably while you fumble with the suddenly complicated latch but he quickly brings his own down to help you with it. 

“Are you sure? Right here?” 

The note of uncertainty in his voice doesn’t seem to align with the eager way he gets his trousers unfastened, in too much of a hurry to do anything else except yank at the placket to get it open, so you don’t bother with a response. You were far too frenzied to think straight anymore, regardless. All you knew with any certainty was that you were close, so close to absolution you could practically taste it on the back of your tongue. If you didn’t fulfill your purpose and take him into your body as soon as possible you’d — 

Voices at the end of the hall suddenly alert you and you yank yourself from him as though you’d been burnt. Someone was coming. That knowledge chills you down to the bone and sobriety crashes you into with all the destructive force of a battle ax, leaving you standing there breathlessly gaping up at him in disbelief. Surely you weren’t … you wouldn’t have actually gone through with it just now, would you? 

“Sister?” He asks, worry flashing across his face. 

Drawing a deep breath to ground your shaken nerves, you let it out on a faltering, deeply unnerved exhale. “Make yourself proper, Ajax. Quickly. Before someone sees you.” 

Hesitating, he surreptitiously glances down the hall where the voices and the sound of shuffling footsteps was coming from but his attention immediately swivels back around to you. Brows knitting, he distractedly starts to get his pants fastened up again. “We can go somewhere else. I could take you into town and rent us a room at the inn. No one would disturb us there and - -“

“No.” You hold up a hand to stop him from going on even as you struggle against the insidious tug of the mark on your stomach. Your womb felt like it was on fire, pulsing so hotly inside your body you almost worried that something was wrong. But you knew better than that. It just wanted you to give in and accept his offer without a second thought. You couldn’t afford to do that though. Even if it killed you in the process, you had to fight it. “I’m sorry, Lieutenant. Really, I am. I don’t know what came over me, just … please leave me at once. I can’t bear this another moment longer.” 

“But - -“ 

“I said no!” 

His mouth settling into a grumpy line, Ajax stands there and just stares at you another moment longer. You look away, refusing to meet his eyes now when you were overcome with some confusing amalgamation of guilt and shame, but that doesn’t seem to be enough to deter him either. He quickly finishes sorting out his clothes before stiffly bending to retrieve your fallen book from the floor which he holds out to you when he straightens up again. 

“Here. Take it.” 

Hesitating, you cautiously accept the offering and he breathes out a terse sigh when you still refuse to look up at him. 

“I hope you find what you’re looking for, Sister. If you ever decide you want my help, you know how to find me.” 

Clutching the cheap manual to your chest, you listen to him turn to greet whoever was approaching the two of you, pausing only long enough to give a respectful bow before taking his leave. The sound of his footsteps on the stone walkway seem to echo in the space between your ears as you glance up to find Sister Darya and one of the parish priests sending you quizzical, if not vaguely disapproving looks. 

Oh, how could this day possibly get any worse than it already was? 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

The now familiar sense of dreamy weightlessness clues you in on what’s happening long before you actually open your eyes to peer around. And when you do you’re greeted by a world flipped topsy turvy, with the far distant floor in place of where the ceiling should have been high over your head, and when you glance just to your left … 

A gasp rattles in your chest when you find yourself standing next to the giant brass bell in the tower. The mere sight of it standing straight up in the air in defiance of all logic and reason fills you with an immediate, sickening sense of vertigo inducing dread. Nervously, you turn your head in search of a way to get down — or up, as it were, but you don’t see anything at all that might be of help to you. Even knowing that this is beyond any shadow of doubt a dream doesn’t do much to dispel your fear of falling and you just stand there for a long time, too scared to move. 

Thankfully you were alone for the moment while you tried to sort through your available options, limited though they were, but you knew it wouldn’t last long. It never did, unfortunately. 

At first you’d tried to avoid sleeping at all in an attempt to escape the demonic presence that always seemed to lurk just at the edges of your consciousness, waiting patiently for you to drift off so it could make its move. It had worked for all of two days until you’d found yourself too tired to keep your eyes open any longer and you’d dozed off in the middle of morning service. That had earned you more than a few odd looks from the other nuns after they’d managed to rouse you again and, feeling deeply embarrassed at having been caught lacking in such a public way, you’d promptly given up on the idea altogether. At least like this you could meet Foul Legacy on your own terms, when you were good and ready to see its horrid face, and not a moment before. Or so you'd tried to tell yourself. 

But sometimes it liked to play these kinds of games with you. Much like that first fateful dream encounter some weeks ago, it appeared to be partial to hide and seek. You were always ‘it’ though, and you never got the chance to hide from it when its presence was all around you and it seemed to implicitly know exactly where you were within the dreamscape of its creation. This was, presumably, no different, but there wasn’t any conceivable place here where it could have been lurking around. What should have been the ceiling was decidedly void of anything at all save the bell and you certainly weren’t going to stick your head in there to check for any signs of a demon. 

Trying valiantly to calm your nerves, you suck in a deep breath and tilt your head back to peer up at the floor. There was a small hearth crackling in the corner, a steaming cup of tea set out on the low modest wood table as if the young bell ringer had only just stepped out for a moment. It was incredibly disconcerting to say the very least, the total lack of the foul entity further picking away at your already frayed nerves. 

You decide to pray about it and bring your hands together in front of your chest. This never did you any good either but the repetitive mantra does wonders to ground you, steeling your resolve for the nightmare you were about to endure. 

Just as you start in on the third reprisal, you hear it. A low chuckling laughter that sounds like it’s coming from all around you and nowhere at the same time. Your heartbeat picks up when it gradually rises in volume, like it was getting closer, before abruptly materializing into something tangible and real. Giving a small jolt of surprise, you bring your head up to look over at the bell. 

Foul Legacy steps out from the other side of it at an unhurried gait, monstrous head tipped back with the laughter that shakes through its unnatural form in rolling waves. Coming to a stop, it slowly glances over at you when the peels start to die down, fixing that unblinking eye upon you. The predator once again face to face with its favorite prey. 

“How quaint. I thought you would’ve given up on that by now.” 

“I don’t give up so easily.” You snip back, lowering your folded hands to rest against your stomach. The brief nudge over the tattooed mark makes you twitch, reminded of your earlier impropriety with its host, and it offers up another low chuckle as if it were privy to your thoughts. 

Pivoting on its heel, Foul Legacy starts to step around the bell to approach you. “Lovely girl, huh? I didn’t expect you to respond to such a cute nickname. My little bride-to-be is just full of surprises, isn’t she?” 

“I didn’t respond to anything of the sort.” You hiss, narrowing your eyes at it dangerously. 

Giving its head a brief shake, the demon comes to a stop in front of you where it bends at the waist to put its face right in yours. You hold its stare even when you internally quake at its close proximity, its hulking frame so much larger than yours even when it was folding itself in half to meet you on an even level. 

“You’re welcome to keep trying if it pleases you, little nun, but you should realize by now that you can’t hide anything from me. You have my mark. I can feel all that you feel, and know all that you know. There isn’t anything you can keep from me.” 

Its clawed hand comes up to sedately reach for you and, your uncertainty growing by the second, you slowly let your hands fall to your sides. With a truly surprising amount of gentleness, it presses one blocky knuckle into your lower belly where it nudges just so to make your breath hitch. A low simmering heat immediately starts up, making your loins curl tight in anticipation, and you shoot it a deeply frazzled look. 

“You wanted that boy.” It goes on, the sinister rumble in its voice making goosebumps erupt all over your skin to accompany your spiking body temperature. “You wanted him a great deal, didn’t you? So why do you still deny yourself the pleasures of the flesh even now, after all that I’ve taught you about what it means to feel good? Don’t tell me you doubted his virility and prowess.” 

Your face warms at its snickering laugh, and you proudly jut your chin up in defiance. “Mock me all you like, wretched beast. I won’t give you what you want.” 

“Oh? And what is it you think I want from you, sweet girl?” Straightening up, it starts to pace a slow, predatory circle around you. “If it’s your body, I believe I already have that. You wear my mark and in three days time the ritual will be complete. We’ll get to spend an eternity together. Just you and I, and that boy you like so much.” 

You draw a quick breath to insist that you don’t like him, an instinctive reflex when you were so unaccustomed to liking anyone at all, but the words catch in your throat. Was it saying that Ajax was actually included in this little love triangle and not a necessary interloper as you’d once assumed? 

“Ah, did that pique your interest? You’re so easy to read, love, even if I didn’t have a front row seat to every thought that crosses your mind.” 

Rounding your shoulders, you flick your gaze up to look at the horned fiend when it reappears on your opposite side. “You can read my thoughts?” 

“In a sense. But it would probably be more accurate to say that your feelings are transmitted to me through our bond and I get to interpret them from there.” Pausing in front of you, it once again reaches out to nudge at the spot just under your navel with a massive hand. “It’s not hard to guess though. You’re surprisingly sincere for someone who tries so hard to protect their heart with barbed wire and fortified walls. Subterfuge is not one of your strong suits, I’m afraid.” 

This time when it laughs at your expense you can’t quite stop the urge to lash out and smack its hand off of you, and you do so with an exceeding amount of satisfaction. Foul Legacy doesn’t seem at all bothered by it though, and merely lets its arm drop back to its side before resuming its earlier pacing. 

“I don’t understand why you and Ajax both are so preoccupied with my stomach.” You hiss, turning your head to track its movement and watch it step behind you again.  

“Oh, you’ll understand soon enough, my dear bride. You could have found out earlier today but you decided to deny the poor boy even when he was willing to do anything at all you asked of him. Not to worry though. I’ll personally show you just how much power you wield in that fragile little body of yours on the night of the new moon. Don’t forget. Time is ticking even now.” 

Something suddenly clicks into place in your mind, a missing puzzle piece you hadn’t seen before but which you now had no choice but to acknowledge. Idly, your hand slips around to protectively curve over your belly. “The ritual you keep talking about … it has something to do with my womb, doesn’t it?” 

Standing directly behind you now, Foul Legacy hunches close to practically fold itself over your much smaller frame and your eyes grow big at the abrupt nearness. You can feel the displacement in the air, the hot breath it sends racing down the side of your neck. It’s stiflingly warm, too. Unbelievably so for something that shouldn’t exist at all, a wraith without physical form. But where was that heat coming from if it had no flesh and blood body, no heartbeat in its broad barrel chest? Unless … 

“Mmm, are you finally starting to realize? That bittersweet tinge of terror you just felt was delicious. Go on, girl. Say it.” 

You swallow hard, practically choking on your frazzled nerves. “You … y - you share a bond with Ajax too. You’re sustaining yourself through his life force, not just using him as a vessel. Isn’t that right?” 

Another low, gravelly chuckle escapes it, except this time it’s right up against the side of your face. The sound of it seems to vibrate through you on an endless, looping echo and you violently shudder when you feel its tongue slip out to curl over your shoulder. Snaking through the static charged air, it tauntingly comes up under your chin and flicks a wet stripe over your pulse to leave you bristling in disgust. 

“Smart girl. I chose you to be my bride for a reason, you know. I was sure you’d start to piece everything together once you got over your initial … panic at the situation. Now I wonder what you’ll do about it?” 

“What is there to do?” You ask, hands clenching into tight, helpless fists. “It sounds like the ritual is already a bygone conclusion and I’m sure it’s much too late for Ajax too. What would you have of me, o great demon lord?” 

Humming a thoughtful, vibrating sound, Foul Legacy retracts its tongue and straightens up to its full towering height once again. Coming up alongside you, it rather ceremoniously holds out its open hand to you in offering. Like a stately gentleman extending invitation at a ball. 

“Come. I wish to show you something.” 

You hesitate, understandably wary of the monster and anything it said to you but there was no denying a certain curiosity pinging in the back of your mind. If you were truly already bound to it and had no way out then, you tried to reason, it probably wouldn’t hurt to at least have a better understanding of what was happening before the marriage rite commenced. Even putting that aside, it had never hurt you before. Not really, anyway. You’d feared for your life and your soul alike many times at the start of this ordeal, yes, but it never took those sharp talons to vulnerable flesh. Had never forced your body to accept anything beyond what it could comfortably accommodate. It wasn’t always easy but, if nothing else, you consistently came out on the other side in one piece, relatively speaking. 

If this was a trap of some kind, you were at least certain that your folly wouldn’t see you dead for it. 

So you reach out to slip your hand into its waiting palm, and its massive fingers slowly curl into place over yours. It’s almost comical, how greatly it dwarves you. But then the scenery around you starts to shift, blurring into an unrecognizable rush of movement that makes your stomach lurch up into your throat. You quickly squeeze your eyes shut to block it out, fighting down the bile that threatens to choke you up at the nauseating lurch. 

It’s over in an instant though, and you cautiously crack your eyes back open to look around. You’re more than just a little surprised to find yourself standing on the raised dais in the chapel, everything so still and dark without any of the candelabra lit that for a prolonged moment you think the two of you are alone. As if in some endless, sprawling cave with the high vaulted ceiling overhead and the rows upon rows of polished wood pews stretching endlessly off into the dark void before you, it had never been quite so apparent how vastly empty this space actually was. 

But then you hear a soft shuffle just behind you and you turn, half expecting to find a scrawny rat scuttling around in search of food or somewhere to burrow into for shelter. But what actually greets you is so alarming that it startles a surprised cry out of your mouth, and you quickly bring your free hand up to slap it over the lower half of your face to quiet the reaction even when you knew it was much too late for that. You were already as good as caught. 

“Do not fret, Sister.” Foul Legacy coos another soft laugh, giving your trapped fingers a brief squeeze. “We are invisible to the human eye like this so we can freely spectate to our hearts content. They can’t hear us either. Go ahead and see for yourself.” 

At its encouraging nudge, you cautiously step forward to get a better look at the sight playing out in front of you. It’s almost inconceivable and you have to struggle to wrap your head around what your eyes are telling you — but no matter how much you hesitate to believe it, the truth of the matter is staring you right in the face. 

It’s Father Sluhovsky greeting a female parishioner with heated, impatient kisses and the kind of intimate petting that makes you flush red hot in secondhand shame. Even more alarming, the woman in question was young enough to be his daughter! Maybe even his granddaughter. Try as you might, you just couldn’t make any sense of what you were seeing and you immediately reel back from the pair in abject disgust. 

“What in the world …” 

The demon steps up beside you, not quite touching but still close enough that you can feel the heat coming off it again. “You’re surprised?” 

“I’m shocked! This is … it’s reprehensible, isn’t it? Father Sluhovsky swore an oath, the same as any priest or nun. The same one I did! And that girl — I know her!” Feeling frantic and jittery, you spin around to look up at the monster looming over you. You couldn’t rationalize this, couldn’t conceive of any logical reason behind what you’ve been made to witness, and that leaves you with no choice but to look towards the bane of your very existence for answers. “Her name is Marnie. She’s around the same age as me. Why would she do something like this with the archbishop when he’s so … old?” 

Foul Legacy cocks its head to one side as if in thought. “Hmm. I’m afraid I don’t have the answer to that specific question, but I might be able to answer another one if you’d like to try again.” 

Eyes narrowing, you shoot daggers at that horrible beast. “I have no interest in your games, fiend. Tell me what’s going on here! Now!”  

“It’s obvious enough, isn’t it? These two seem to be in some sort of relationship by the looks of it. I can’t say I understand it any more than you do, but who am I to judge? After all, I’m just a fiend, isn’t that right?” 

You sputter indignantly, floundering for the right words when you wanted to say so very much in that moment. Finally you settle on, “I don’t believe you. This is a trick, a - a hallucination of some kind. You’ve got me under your thrall and - -“

“Ah, ah. Don’t be so hasty to jump to conclusions. It’s not very becoming of such a righteous Sister, is it?” Foul Legacy purrs, meaningfully gesturing towards the pair with a nudge of its chin. “Tell me, what do you see when you look at them? Are you appalled because of the inherent imbalance of power between these two humans or … does it unsettle you so much because he presents himself as someone good and holy? Someone who should be above such base acts?” 

Hesitating, you turn that over in your head with no shortage of skepticism. The two were part and parcel, weren’t they? One couldn’t exist without the other. The archbishop only wielded the kind of power he did in the community because he was a devout follower of the belief and had been deemed someone of authority on matters of morality. He wouldn’t be wearing his exalted robes right now if he wasn’t a good person … would he? 

You can feel the blood draining from your face now as you turn to glance at the pair again. Father Sluhovsky had Marnie backed up and pinned against the side of the great, hulking frame of the organ that occupied the back of the dais in almost its full entirety. One hand was busy between her legs, reminiscent of the way Ajax had pleasured you earlier in the bell tower corridor, while the other eagerly toyed with an exposed breast that was spilling from her open blouse. It was a lurid scene, not to mention a highly inappropriate one for the chapel, and yet neither of them seemed to show any amount of disinclination towards their surroundings. 

Almost as if they’d done this before, and it was not their first time rendezvousing in the church late at night when no one was likely to stumble upon them. They were comfortable, not only with each other but also their shared secret. The familiarity in their body language and the ardent way he kisses her chills you straight down to the bone. 

“Why are you showing this to me?” You ask on a hushed whisper, so faint even your ears strain to hear it. 

Foul Legacy doesn’t seem to have any problem hearing you though, and it sidles up right next to you with a nearly imperceptible brush of its heavy frame against yours. “I merely wish to highlight some things you seem to be unaware of, that’s all. Tell me, girl. Why do you think I wanted to show you what your beloved priest is up to when nobody is looking?” 

You can’t speak it. The reality of it was too dark, too disappointing for you to utter it aloud. Doing so would only cement the horrible thoughts into existence and make them real whereas if you kept your silence they would forever remain intangible ‘what ifs’. 

Seeing you start to chew on your inner cheek, the demon issues another low rumble as it holds out its hand again. “Then come. There’s still more to see that should help you make up your mind.” 

Your head slowly lifts at that. You were relatively certain you didn’t want to see anything else if it was half as devastating as this but a certain curiosity in the back of your mind urges you on. Was there truly something more damning than seeing Father Sluhovsky so unapologetically shirking his vows in favor of indulging in the young flesh of one of his congregants? It seemed unlikely, inconceivable even, and yet the beast looked so sure of itself. In as much as its stoic, uncanny mask with its singular unblinking eye could look like anything. 

Feeling numb, you carefully reach out to slip your hand into its waiting palm again. The scenery immediately starts to shift and rush past you in a blur as soon as it closes its fingers around yours, but you force yourself to keep your eyes open this time. If there was some sort of trick or illusion it was pulling over your sleeping consciousness you wanted to catch it in the act if you could. 

All you earn for your efforts is a nauseating rush of motion sickness though, and you sway unsteadily on your feet when the world around you reforms itself into one of the many identical dorm rooms that occupy the monastery. It’s an almost perfect mirror to your own, you quickly realize, and you warily bring your attention up at the sound of a shuddering, feminine exhale. 

The sight of Sister Darya spread out naked on the bed while one of your fellow Sisters kneels between her parted legs, mouthing at her cunt, startles you so much you feel suddenly faint. Perhaps you’d just been more apt to accept that Father Sluhovsky was not as he seemed because he was a man, and the easily swayed faculties of men were no mystery to even someone such as you, but for Sister Darya of all people to neglect her vows … 

Reeling with disbelief, you stumble back a step and half collapse against Foul Legacy’s side for support. It was the only thing keeping you upright and off the floor when it felt like everything you believed in and thought you understood was crashing down around you in quick succession. You couldn’t believe it. 

“This doesn’t make any sense,” You rattle, the horror in your voice almost palpable. “It is one thing for the archbishop to sneak around behind everyone’s back but - but Sister Darya is such a stickler for the rules. She enforces them more than anyone else here. Her vow of celibacy isn’t some kind of joke or unimportant matter that she would just shrug off like this … or so I thought.” 

Sedately, Foul Legacy reaches up to nudge a thick finger under your trembling chin. So confused and upset by the things you’ve witnessed, you don’t even think to fight it when the monster tips your head back to make you look into its horrible face. 

“Are you starting to see it now? Those vows you put so much stock and weight in are nothing but lip service. Oh, don’t look at me like that, little love. I’ll admit that there are a few adherents of the faith who believe in what they preach almost as wholeheartedly as you do, but you’re in the minority I’m afraid. Poor thing. What must it feel like to realize that everyone around you doesn’t keep the same adamant pledge that you do?” 

It takes a great deal of effort on your part but you manage to stir from your shell shocked stupor enough to pin the demon with a heated glare. “Is that what this is about? You’re trying to convince me into giving myself over to you willingly just because everyone else is indulging in mortal pleasures?” 

“Not quite that, but I suppose it’s not far from the truth either. Just look at your Sister. Look at her and tell me what’s going on here.” 

You blanch at that, scrunching up your face. “I think I’ve already played the role of voyeur enough for one night, don’t you?” 

With a gentle hum, Foul Legacy slips from you to step around the cramped room made all the more claustrophobic with so many people taking up space within its four walls, least of all the hulking ghoul who’s fiery burst of red hair brushes against the ceiling when it moves. You watch it walk over to stand at the foot of the occupied bed and, anxiously fisting your hands in the front of your dress, you slowly trail after it to join in its vigil. 

Luckily you find that looking down at the scene from this angle prevents you from catching a glimpse of anything too embarrassing when the other Sister was positioned between her legs, and you’re exceedingly grateful for that. Your eyes do linger briefly on her bare breasts though, heavy with weight and with age, and starting to migrate towards the pits of her arms. But she looks all the more voluptuous for it, like some erotic rendition of a matronly saint come to life. 

You’re distantly aware of a brief pang of self consciousness, wondering how your own body looked by comparison. If you still seemed immature and undeveloped in contrast to her motherly curves. But then you drag your attention up to her face. 

So accustomed to Sister Darya scowling in varying degrees of disapproval whenever you chanced to look upon her, you’re more than a little surprised now to find her expression completely relaxed and at ease. Blissful, even. It’s as if in this one moment in time she’s allowed herself to simply exist and to feel that which she routinely denies herself in her day to day. Intimacy. Closeness with another. Was there perhaps even love between the two Sisters? 

“That’s it.” Foul Legacy purrs, directly against the side of your face now. Startling with a jolt, you whip your head around to find it crouched down on your level again and staring right into your very soul from just a scant few inches away, misting hot breath across your face when it lets out a faintly shuddering exhale. “You recognize it for what it is don’t you? The human need for companionship. It’s an integral part of you even if you try to reject it at every turn. You’ve felt those pangs of longing too, haven’t you?” 

“Not until you branded me with your mark, cursed beast.” You grumble back but it just snickers another soft, taunting laugh. 

“You have no need for reticence with me. I did not implant those feelings in you, little nun. My presence can only amplify what is already there, not create something out of nothing.” Slowly, it reaches out for you and you think to pull away, to slap at its massive hand to dissuade it from touching you so casually. But you can’t quite find the wherewithal or energy to do so, simply sucking in a stifled breath when it palms over your stomach for the upteenth time with that same possessive gesture as before. “Sooner or later you wouldn’t have been able to fight it any longer and you would have sought out intimacy from somewhere. Your kind always does. No matter how pious or righteous, or pure of heart and mind you claim yourselves to be, there is no getting around these baser needs you harbor. I just sped up the process, that’s all.” 

“But why?” 

“Is it really some great mystery?” It asks, tilting its head to one side. The sound of cresting pleasure that promptly sounds from the bed only serves to further highlight the poignancy of the moment, what it’s saying to you and the way it looks at you. 

“Tell me.” You whisper under the heaving sighs and groans of Sister Darya finding release on the other Sister’s mouth. “Tell me in your own words, demon.” 

“I want you. Just as he wants you. And both of us shall have you, rest assured.” 

Foul Legacy squeezes you then, not unlike the way Ajax has earlier that afternoon, except this time sharp talons dig into the vulnerable flesh of your belly through layers of clothes. You seethe between your teeth and tears spring up in your eyes as you jerk your hands down to grab at the foul thing and force it off you but it’s already too late. Whatever it had triggered was already in motion and there was nothing you could do to stop it. 

All at once the world dissolves around you, fading into mere memory, and you’re suddenly falling through a pitch black eternity of nothingness. Everything is gone, even the demon. You try to scream but nothing comes out. It’s impossible to even draw breath here, like some kind of void completely bereft of oxygen. Your chest wrenches in panic and your heart slams wildly against the interior of your ribcage, but there’s nothing you can grab onto to stop your downward descent. You just keep falling, falling, falling — 

Straight into your flesh and blood body. 

Your lungs abruptly expand with the wild, frantic breath you suck in and you bolt upright in your bed so violently you almost lurch right over the edge of it. Wheezing uncontrollably and drenched in sweat, you force yourself to go still so you can try to take stock of your surroundings. 

You were back in your dorm, you’re more than a bit relieved to find. Blissfully alone and, judging by the softening iridescence of the sky you can glimpse through your window, still a few hours from daybreak. But that didn’t make any sense though. Foul Legacy never let you return to the real world without first taking its monstrous tongue to you until you came shuddering and fitfully jerking in pleasure. Why would it send you back so suddenly? And with only three days left until the new moon you would have thought … 

Feeling like you were going to be sick all over the rumpled sheets, you cautiously reach down to curl a protective hand over your lower stomach. The responding dull pulse of the mark makes you wince but nothing beyond that happens. You’re ashamed at the sense of disappointment that quickly rushes in to overshadow the mindless panic you’d felt when you first woke up, threatening to suffocate and choke you in its potency. 

Surely you weren’t so weak, so irreparably addicted to the pleasure that monster gave you, that you could no longer return to your normal life without lamenting its absence, were you? 

Oh, how far the righteous fall. 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

The next two nights pass by uneventful and the horned demon does not make another appearance in that time, leaving you to a fitful sleep free of its persistent harassment. You almost feel more tired for it, less rested than if it had taken you on another nocturnal goose chase through the dreamscape. Even so you knew you should have been glad for the reprieve. It’s what you’d been praying and hoping for throughout this entire ordeal, wasn’t it? 

But somehow it feels like anything but a victory, especially when it just leaves you with your own thoughts for company and little else. You had a lot to think about, after all, and none of it was good. 

And at last the final day arrives without ceremony or consequence, but you can’t quite decide if you should peacefully say your goodbyes to the world as you know it or if it was better to simply carry on as if nothing were out of the ordinary. It didn’t exactly feel any different from what you were accustomed to, save the vague sense of anxiety thrumming in the back of your mind like a livewire. There were no ominous thunderbolts flashing in the charcoal gray clouds overhead, no fire and brimstone raining down upon the earth. It wasn’t even snowing, the sky as clear as it ever seemed to get in Snezhnaya. 

You’d think it rather anticlimactic had it not been for the resounding absence of the fiend’s host on top of everything else. Something about him disappearing filled you with unease and uncertainty for what the night held in store for you more than anything else did, and it didn’t exactly bode well.  

But Ajax had not paid you a visit in over forty-eight hours now which was a new record for him and decidedly strange, so it was no wonder it would make you nervous. Since you’d first met some weeks ago, it felt like he popped in just to say hello at every opportunity he was afforded — either in the natural lulls of his daily workload or intentionally manufactured by his desire to see you — and his frequent daily appearances had become something of a routine at a certain point as a result. You’d thought you would have been glad to be rid of him too but in truth you feel anything but relief. 

Instead a vague sense of guilt had slowly descended upon you, piling all the blame for his sudden disappearance on your actions when last you’d seen him, until you were left with no choice but to grudgingly admit to yourself that you missed the headstrong soldier on some level. Maybe you did like him. Maybe it was more than the mark compelling you so urgently closer to taking that final plunge with him. It was hard to say for sure when the situation was so messed up thanks to Foul Legacy and its schemes but it was starting to look like you’d soon find your answer one way or another. If the two of them really were as symbiotic as you’d started to suspect then the upcoming marriage rite would tie you to both, not just one of them. 

And you really didn’t want to examine your thoughts on that any further than you absolutely needed to. 

Eager for a distraction from what understandably seemed to be your impending doom, you bundle up in your heavy cloak and make the trip into town early in the afternoon. You alternatively considered running somewhere far away, and not for the first time, but quickly think better of it. Fleeing would clearly be an effort in futility given Foul Legacy’s unfettered access to your consciousness and you didn’t want to incur its wrath should you displease it by acting out. 

So you try to keep yourself preoccupied with strolling down the cobbled streets and greeting the people who stop to talk to you, visiting the shops you usually neglected under the belief that they were material temptations that would only lead you astray and even an indulgent stop at the popular cafe in the village. It had been a very long time since you last treated yourself to coffee and pyshka, and you savor every minute of it, unsure if it would be the last chance you ever get. 

Although Foul Legacy hadn’t said anything about the marriage rite ending with the loss of your life, a martyred sacrifice to its dark power, it also hadn’t explicitly said anything about what would happen afterward. You didn’t want to take any chances, just in case. Maybe you’d even pay a visit to your uncle's house and enjoy one last meal of home cooked bigos stew while you were at it. Surely his dutiful wife wouldn’t deny you this final request if you laid on the puppy eyed begging enough … 

A handful of hours pass you by in this manner going from shop to shop until you’re eventually roused from your thoughts of stews and baked herring by an excited shout and a rush of movement just at your peripheral. No shortage of surprised confusion rushes over you when you glance down to find a child, a young boy, eagerly running up as if to greet you. The big, broad smile on his face gives you pause and you hesitate mid step, giving him ample opportunity to latch onto your fluttering skirts. 

“Excuse me, excuse me!” He yelps, practically dancing on his toes in excitement. “Are you - you are, aren’t you? You're the Sister my big brother told me all about!” 

It feels like someone has just ripped the rug right out from under you and your stomach plummets straight into the ground with immediate, inescapable understanding. If the striking blue of his eyes hadn’t given it away, the boy's burnished red-brown hair certainly would have. Ajax had told you extensively about his siblings but you hadn’t expected him to return the favor and tell them anything about you. It seemed a little naive of him, almost, when you’d made it so abundantly clear that you had no interest in being courted and had subsequently tried to reject him at every turn. Suddenly your guilt felt ten times more crushing than before. 

“A - ah, yes. That’s me.” You school your features into a pleasant smile and bend at the waist to get closer to his level. “And let me guess. Such a handsome young man … you must be Tuecer then, if I had to guess?”

“Yep! Wow, my brother told you about me too?” 

“He told me about all of his brothers and sisters, little Tuecer. He’s very proud of you, you know. In fact I think he takes more pride in calling you his family than in any achievements he’s earned in the military. You’re very lucky to have him as your older sibling.” 

Looking incredibly happy to hear that, Tuecer rocks back on his heels to fidget. “Ajax said you were nice but you’re even kinder than I thought you’d be! And pretty too! Anton didn’t believe him but everything he told us was actually true!”  

You hesitate to ask, but ultimately can’t stop yourself. “Did he really say all that about me?” 

“Mhm!” Tuecer bobs his head in an enthusiastic nod, and you feel the knot in your stomach cinch that little bit tighter. Curse that scoundrel. 

“I see. I’m flattered he thinks so highly of me. By the way, have you seen him recently?” 

“Mmm, he just had dinner at home with us the night before last. Why? Are you looking for him, Sister?” 

“I think I probably should be.” You murmur, earning a curious look from the boy. “Ah, it’s nothing to concern yourself with, Tuecer. I’m sure I’ll find him eventually. I could always check at the outpost, right? But before that, would you like to join me for a quick bite to eat?” 

His eyes light up at the prospect, shimmering blue pools that are reminiscent of his brothers and yet simultaneously not. The color was the same but where Ajax’s were a depthless void that never seemed to reflect any light at all, Tuecer’s seemed to be lit from within. You wonder at that even as the two of you make your way down the street together towards the popular meat pie shop. Had their eyes matched at one time, as one would expect of siblings, and was it Foul Legacy who had caused the physical change in Ajax? You’d probably never know for certain, but you couldn’t shake the feeling that they were likely somehow intertwined. 

More curious, however, is that Tuecer doesn’t seem to realize that anything is at all strange or out of the ordinary about his brother. The boy has nothing but praise and good things to say about Ajax while the two of you enjoy a late snack at the little restaurant, and he divulges a great many things about his sibling in exchange for the paszteciki. That hadn’t exactly been your intention in inviting him to lunch but you still find yourself hanging off his every word with a great deal of interest. 

While some of it was clearly the exaggerated hero worship of a younger brother putting his elder on a pedestal and it quickly became apparent to you that Ajax could do no wrong in his eyes, you still learn much about him and the rest of his family. He especially adored Tonia, frequently gifting the little girl with nice dresses and shoes despite his soldiers salary, according to Tuecer. You almost resent how thoroughly that information manages to shift your opinion of the troublesome lout but there’s no denying the effect it has on you. 

At one point you’d been half convinced that his apparent kindness was an act and he was not nearly as sympathetic as he often made himself out to be. This changed things though. To be so kind and thoughtful to the needs of a little sister when he had other brothers he could just as easily dote on instead … that said something about his character, didn’t it? And in retrospect, now that you were thinking about it, he’d only ever pushed you in the playful, mischievous way boys liked to do but had never turned mean or malicious no matter how many times you rejected his advances. In truth it was only Foul Legacy who’d completely ignored your wishes in all this. Ajax, to his credit, had been surprisingly chivalrous towards you this whole time. 

How had you not seen that before now? Was it really possible that you’d unfairly conflated the two and let your experiences with the demon cloud your perception of the man? Had you ascribed Ajax with a selfish streak of entitlement that he quite simply did not have in all actuality? It was a conundrum, and a troubling one at that, but you were in no position to reconcile any of it at the current moment. Not without talking to him directly first. 

So you decide to visit the soldiers outpost at the edge of town after you part ways with Tuecer, bidding him a fond farewell and a promise of another shared treat sometime in the near future. You don’t mention the fast approaching deadline on your soul's freedom, nor do you let your thoughts linger on it for very long. It was better to keep yourself preoccupied with other matters so the suffocating dread didn’t take hold of you and never let you go, and the matter of Ajax seemed sufficiently pressing. 

But when you arrive at the cordoned off street and ask the stationed on duty guard about the singular object of your consternation, you’re promptly informed that civilians were not permitted beyond that point. And no, unfortunately, even church staff were not exempt from that rule. 

“And what if someone were in need of our services, hm? What would you do then?” You ask archly of the bewildered guard who was likely unaccustomed to seeing a nun seeking entry into the outpost without first being requested to do so. Although it was a little odd, yes, you sorely wished you could tell him that there were far stranger things afoot that deserved his scrutiny. 

“Erm, I am sorry, Sister …?” 

You huff out your name, stamping down the urge to roll your eyes at the needless rigmarole. 

“Yes, well. As much as it pains me to say it I’m afraid I just can’t let you past this point. There’s regulations to follow. You understand.” 

“I do, of course. But can’t you at least send word to the person I want to speak to so that he might meet me here at the gate?” 

“I’m afraid I can’t leave my post, Sister. It’s nothing personal, that much I can promise you, so please don’t take any offense. Even if I wanted to help you out, I’d have no way of getting a message to Lieutenant Ajax right now.” 

Shoulders slumping in defeat, you nod your head once in solemn resignation. There was nothing for it then. And you certainly didn’t want to get the young man into any trouble. It was probably best to give up now and try again later — if ‘later’ even existed for you. “You have my thanks then, sir. I won’t take up anymore of your time in that case.”

“I appreciate your understanding, Sister. Thank you for your cooperation.” 

You’re already halfway through the motion of turning away from him when a voice in the near distance abruptly squawks your name. 

Startling, you glance back to find another young man poking his head out of a nearby building. A supplies shed, by the looks of it, and your suspicions are quickly confirmed when he steps out with an arm full of heavy woolen blankets clutched to his front. 

Hurrying over to stand beside the first soldier, the newcomer gives you a quick but no less critical once over. “Yeah, you seem to fit the description alright. I think I’ve got something for you, Sister.”

“Me?” You lift your brows in surprise as you turn back around to face them head on. “I’m sorry, have we met somewhere before or …?”

“No, no. We haven’t met. If I’d known you were so lovely and fair, I never would have agreed to help the Lieutenant out so that I might try my luck instead.” The first soldier shoots the second a startled look in response, mirroring your own shock. But the newcomer just laughs it off as he shoves his armload into the other man’s chest so he can foist it off on him before digging into the deep pockets of his heavy coat. “Just a moment, I should have it on hand somewhere … ah, here we are. The Lieutenant said this was for you if you happened to stop by looking for him.” 

Warily regarding the simple white envelope he holds out in offering, you hesitate to take it. You couldn’t be sure if you could trust it or not, either the contents of the letter or this unknown soldier’s sincerity, but considering that this looked to be your only lead on the scoundrels whereabouts … 

“Thank you.” Taking the slightly wrinkled envelope from him, you flip it around to inspect the back but there was nothing written on it. Just a blot of dried creamy wax sealing it shut and nothing more. 

So you quickly take your leave of the two, wishing them both a good day and thanking them for their hard work before ducking down the first street you come to. Pausing just inside the vacant lip of an alley, you carefully rip the seal open and take out the piece of parchment you find inside. Upon unfolding it, you’re greeted by a surprisingly legible masculine scrawl that is not nearly as messy as you would have expected from someone like him. 

Brow furrowing, you settle in to read: 

Should this letter somehow find its way to you then I can only assume you’ve decided to take me up on my offer to help. I’d be lying if I said that didn’t make me happy. My feelings for you are sincere. This I can swear to you. 

Unfortunately I’ve just been informed that my presence is required out on patrol and I will be indisposed for the next two days at the time of writing this message. I hope it sees you well, and you’re not missing me too terribly. But I’ll be back soon so worry not. Let’s meet up under the new moon by the graveyard just outside the bell tower, where we were the last time. It's one of the few landmarks I recognize inside the church’s compound so it should be a good place to rendezvous. Even if I have to drag myself half dead through a raging blizzard to do it, I will be there waiting for you. I’ll wait an eternity if I have to. 

Lieutenant Ajax, Eleventh Company 

Reaching the bottom of the short missive, you slump back against the rough brick wall behind you and let out a heavy sigh of relief. He wasn’t purposely avoiding you then. 

You aren’t sure why that should fill you with such a stark sense of comfort but it does and, perhaps more importantly, it manages to successfully assuage the overpowering guilt that had fallen over your head in his absence. It felt a little silly in hindsight but watching Tuecer’s eyes sparkle and dance while he regaled you with stories of his older brother had been akin to the final nail in the coffin. Ajax at least deserved a fair chance free of Foul Legacy’s influence, of this you were now certain. He was in all likelihood a victim just as much as you were and there was solidarity to be found in the mutual sharing of such an experience, wasn’t there? 

But … rousing yourself, you peer down at the letter again. Rendezvousing under the new moon, what an implausible coincidence this was turning out to be. Was it truly happenstance, a mere stroke of serendipity, or had that demon somehow orchestrated this as well? Was it really powerful enough to influence the waking world as much as it does the sleeping? 

There was only one way to find out for sure. 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

You were not particularly well versed in the art of sneaking out of your dorm room in the middle of the night, unlike some others who shall go unnamed, and you’re understandably nervous about such a clandestine undertaking. Simply getting caught was a very real concern at the forefront of your mind but you also feared being barred from seeing Ajax should you be sent back and locked inside for the night. You’d heard that they implemented such measures on especially rebellious Sister’s who had been shipped off to the convent by families who no longer knew what to do with them. 

But by some rare stroke of luck, you manage to pull it off without a hitch. Your presence out in the hall goes just as unnoticed as your boots creeping down the staircase, floor after floor until you at last reach ground level. The foyer is just as deserted and you’re able to freely slip out into the biting cold of night with nary so much as a questioning look thrown your way. 

Standing on the front step, you take a moment to pull the hood of your cloak more securely around your head to protect you from the wind and snow flurries drifting through the air. Then you glance out over the still, quiet courtyard, taking note of the best route to slip through the largely open space undetected. 

There wasn’t much light coming down from the moon in its waned state but the faint reflection off of the snowdrifts created just enough of a glow to illuminate the path directly in front of you. The rest was shrouded in a hazy veil of darkness that seemed all at once to hold nothing at all, just a limitless void staring back at you, and every possible demon and ghoul that might ever exist at the same time. 

A frightened shudder works down your spine but you keep your chin held high as you step down to the pavers and begin to make your way across the frozen grass, taking care to avoid the brightest lit spots. You were determined to meet your fate with dignity and the sort of decorum expected of someone of the faith. Even knowing there were those living among you who did not adhere to the scriptures as strictly as you wasn't enough to completely break your resolve in their teachings. Whether it was your mortal death at the hands of clawed, monstrous intentions or the surrender of your cherished sanctity at the hands of a young soldier, you would face it unflinchingly. 

Gratefully the trek across the compound is an uneventful one, save the impromptu flight of a great owl that swoops over your head on a near silent trajectory and sends your heart racing into overdrive. Its departing hoot urges you on, and you hurry the rest of the way to the outbuilding. 

Following it around, you crunch through the snow and brittle ice until you at last come upon the small cemetery facing out over the sloping hillside, an endless stretch of pure white that disappears off into the distance. And immediately you catch the flicker of a lantern, a shift of the shadows to indicate that someone was moving about amongst the stout headstones and looming mausoleums. The realization that Ajax was really there waiting for you, just like he said he would be, makes your heartbeat quicken for an entirely different reason than the owl had. 

You clutch your cloak tightly about you as you step closer, keeping your head low until you’re standing between the first rows of stone monuments where you finally call out, “Ajax? Are you here?” 

The scoundrel appears immediately, popping out from behind a cracked granite sepulcher with a grin on his face. “Who else would be skulking about in a cemetery in the middle of the night? You weren’t expecting someone else were you, Sister?” 

“Of course not. Don’t be a fool.” Huffing, you step closer to him and accept the hand he holds out to you in offering. That you don’t even seem to give it a second thought surprises both of you, as evidenced by the lift of his brows, but he has the sense not to question it as he leads you back behind the mausoleum where he’d been hiding. 

His lantern sits atop a long frozen memorial bench, slowly melting the snow around it, and it gives a faint flicker as if in welcome when the two of you step fully into its protective circle. Your nerves almost get the better of you, standing there like that when the chance of being caught seemed so great, but you force your head up to look at him. There would be no backing out of this now. 

“I’m glad you came.” He says at length, giving you an unexpectedly tender smile while he searches your face for … what, you do not know. You think he’s checking to make sure it’s really you and not some other, less scrupulous nun looking to have a bit of fun. The notion nearly makes you laugh. 

“I must admit, I’m … I’m glad I came too. It was odd, not seeing you for so many days.”

His grin widens. “You missed me?” 

“Only in as much as I was simply used to seeing you pop in unannounced like clockwork. You set an expectation, I’m afraid.” 

Humming softly, Ajax takes a moment to simply look at you and you almost glance away from the burning spotlight of his pinpoint attention. But then he reaches up to carefully hook his thumbs under your hood, and you stare up at him in transfixed silence while he nudges it back to slip off your head. 

The fogging condensation from your breath mixes with his when he bends close to just nuzzle the tip of his cold nose against yours as if in affectionate greeting. “Then get a good look, sweetheart. I’m right here in front of you. What would you have of me now?” 

Your lungs slowly expand with the deep inhale you draw to steady yourself. You knew what you wanted from him, even if it only meant quickening your inevitable demise. Even if it meant condemning your soul to an eternity of punishment and retribution for the sins committed in this world. It was exactly as Foul Legacy claimed, exactly what it had shown you. There was a base part of the human psyche that craved intimacy no matter how much one tried to reject it and you were no better than all the rest. Just as weak and easily persuaded by the flesh as Father Sluhovsky and Sister Darya evidently were. 

And if you were truly fated to know the demon as husband and wife know each other then you wanted to at least lie with a man once before it was too late. Before the only thing you were permitted to partake in was more monster than human. This just might be the last chance you’d ever have at something close to normal. 

So you carefully tip your mouth up, rocking forward on the toes of your boots just enough to get the message across. Ajax doesn’t miss his cue, luckily, and he brings his hands up to delicately cradle your cheeks between the chilly palms of his gloves. Folding himself in half, he slots his lips into place over yours and he kisses you deeply, issuing a faint moan when that same static shock as the last time tears through both of you. 

The sharp intensity of the mark throbbing to life almost makes you too weak in the knees to stand and it must be the same for Ajax because he sways with you there in the lamplight. Shuddering from top to bottom, you eagerly bring your hands up to twist your fingers into his thick jacket but he must mistake the involuntary gesture for something it’s not, because he pulls away to look at you with a searching glance. 

“You’re cold.” He says so matter of factly it surprises a brief laugh out of you. 

“Only a little, but it’s not anything I can’t - -“ 

Softly clucking his tongue, Ajax disengages from you completely so he can reach up and unwind the red scarf from around his own neck. Numb with surprise, you just stand there and watch as he transfers the knitted fabric over to your shoulders so he can wrap it into place over your throat. The immediate rush of his scent straight into your brain, so distinct and yet clean at the same time, almost makes you dizzier than the kiss had. 

“There. That should help at least a bit.” 

You aren’t entirely sure what to say so you settle on, “Thank you, Ajax. You’re very sweet … when you want to be.” 

He snickers a quiet laugh. “Don’t tell me my charm has finally started to work.” 

“It might have.” 

“Good.” Looking really quite pleased to hear that, he slips his hands down to slide under your cloak and you startle at the cold brush of his gloves invading your warm cocoon. He doesn’t give you a chance to complain about it though, quickly finding your waist so he can back you up a step, and then another. “Don’t look so shocked. I’m just going to help you stay warm enough. Relax.” 

That was easy for him to say but much more difficult for you, especially when your backside bumps into the flat, chilly surface of a headstone, dislodging a whimper from low in your throat. Blindly reaching behind you, you brace your hand on top of the stone monument and prepare to push away from it. You weren’t feeling particularly keen about disrespecting someone’s gravesite but you don’t quite get to follow through on it. 

Without a word of warning or explanation Ajax abruptly drops to his knees in front of you, unconcerned about the snow that crunches under his weight and no doubt soaks up into his pants. Your breath catches, eyes widening to the size of dinner plates. He doesn’t so much as hesitate to do it though, and he quickly dives under your skirts with an eager flick of the heavy material to make you outright choke on anything you might have liked to say to him. All the more so when you feel the first brush of his mouth against your stockinged leg. 

White knuckled gripping the headstone with both hands now, you furtively jerk your attention around at the rest of the otherwise empty cemetery. “Have you lost your mind?” You hiss, struggling to keep your thighs closed when he leans up to try and nuzzle them apart. “This is — we’re in a graveyard, you sacreligious idiot! We can’t do this here …!” 

“Why not?” His voice drifts up through the layers of your frock, muffled and fainter than before but still damnably clear with pointed intention. “No ones going to stop us, not even the Holy Mother herself. I told you I was going to help you stay warm, didn’t I?” 

Rising up a little higher, he presses his face into the cradling cushion between your legs and breathes deep the smell of you through your bloomers. The sound of him releasing a savory exhale just a short moment later rushes straight to your cunt and makes you gasp at the intense surge of slicking heat that promptly follows. Your limbs suddenly feel like overcooked pasta as you sag there against the tombstone, struggling to keep your head on straight while Ajax slides his hands up over your stockings. Leather and nylon clash in a sensuous drag that makes your muscles twitch at the strange sensation, and it seems to rob you of all your strength to fight. 

By the time he finally reaches the top of your bloomers it’s already much too late and you can hardly even think straight anymore, the demon mark insidiously pulsing in time with your heartbeat when he starts to tug them down. This was what you wanted, yes, and you try desperately to remind yourself of that, but it was impossible to rationalize doing it here rather than anywhere else in your foggy mind. Even sneaking into the church to do it in front of the silent statue of the merciful Holy Mother would have been less disrespectful than this. 

There’s no stopping it though, and all you can do is seethe through your teeth when he manages to get your bloomers pulled off and discarded before going back for your stockings. His hands are tense with eager anticipation as he rolls them down over your hips, barely stopping long enough to get them pulled out of the way before shoving his mouth into your cunt. 

You toss your head back at the sensation of warm lips on you rather than the snake-like, crafty tongue you’d become so accustomed to. But Ajax is just as messy with it as his counterpart is, you quickly come to find, and he hungrily kisses at you with wet, smacking pecks that make your toes curl in their boots. 

Pursing your lips to stop the excited sounds that threaten to come tumbling out, you tuck your chin back down to look at him kneeling before you. It’s no use with him underneath your dress though, and all you can make out is the lumpy outline of his head and his broad shoulders, a bit of his long legs poking out from behind him. All you have to focus on is the feel him mouthing at you, taking sticky swipes at your slit to encourage the meaty folds to part for him. And they readily do, you’re almost ashamed to realize, your need so great after only just two days of neglect that your pussy quickly softens for him with the rush of blood in your veins. 

And as your body starts to open up to him, his tongue dips further in on the next flicking swipe to just get his first real taste of you. Ajax groans, hot and primal into your cunt, while you violently shudder at the brief contact to your clit. You’re immediately struck by how different it feels compared to Foul Legacy’s, how much fleshier and softer it is. Your need for him immediately ratchets up another notch and you futilely try to spread your legs further apart in invitation, impropriety and sacrilege be damned. 

But you’re stopped by the stockings still rolled down around your thighs, the stretchy nylon only allowing you so much range of motion before they begin to groan in protest. 

“Ajax -!” You mewl, writhing impotently between him and the headstone. “I — I want your mouth …!”

A low, rumbling sound rises from underneath your skirts and he restlessly shifts in place, fumbling to get the material yanked further down. “You’ll have it, sweetheart. Anything you want, anything at all. I’m going to take off one of your boots, okay?” He pauses just long enough to deliver a heated kiss to the curve of your freshly exposed knee before returning to the task at hand. “Don’t worry though. I’m not going to let you stand here in the snow and get frostbite. Just trust me.” 

Whining softly when the mark gives a demanding, attention grabbing throb, you lean further back into the grave marker to help support your weight as he works his way down to your shoes. Lifting one of your feet to cradle it in his lap, Ajax makes quick work of unlacing and tugging the boot off before letting it fall to the ground without another thought. That side of the stockings quickly follows, left to curl like a fallen drape across the snow packed earth. Then, much to your gasping surprise, he guides your leg higher still to hook it over his shoulder and lock you into place with your foot hiked up in the air. 

You almost protest, almost reconsider the wisdom in giving in to these baser urges if it meant exposing yourself like a shameless harlot to the entire world, but then he leans back into the space between your thighs and it’s like you’ve suddenly forgotten how to breathe. His mouth feels like heaven on your cunt when he presses himself flush to you and freely delves his tongue into the pudgy seam of your body. It's like he’s trying to figure out how best to devour you as he noisily sucks and licks at you from one angle and then another until he abruptly nudges into your clit with the full brunt of his tongue. 

Yelping a haggard sound of alarm, you grip the polished stone behind you so hard it makes the joints hurt. But it was the only thing keeping you upright now when it felt like you’d been robbed of all ability to do anything except feel. 

Mindlessly, you buck against his mouth and twitch through the sudden onslaught of pleasure that assaults you all at once when he zeroes in on the delicate pleasure button now that he’s found it again. He’s merciless in the way he flicks at it, incessantly nudging it back and forth even when you hiss in response. The sensation is sharp and overwhelming, and you think it’s too much for your punchdrunk senses to handle but your cunt just keeps eagerly slicking all over his face. Even when you feel close to fainting, your body can’t seem to get enough. 

And Ajax sounds like he’s enjoying this almost as much as you are, heavily groaning into you between ministrations. Like he’s thought of this and little else in the past few weeks. It was absurd to think both the unwitting host and the demonic entity inhabiting him would be this obsessed with licking your pussy even to the extent that he’d do it here of all places … 

That’s when it hits you. The sudden realization that the dreams were not only your dreams but Ajax’s too. He had been thinking about this the entire time because it was all Foul Legacy ever did to you when you were asleep. His subconscious was likely just as haunted by visions of you shamelessly spread out on your bed or helplessly held up in the air by huge, monstrous claws while it used its impossibly long tongue to fuck your cunt open as you were with thoughts of him. 

Of them? 

Were they closer to one and the same than you’d first thought? 

The notion makes you wheeze, your chest feeling like it’s about to cave in under the pressure. It was too late though. You were already close, your orgasm bearing down on you with enough intensity to make your eyes cross as you shudder uncontrollably towards the finish line. It felt too good, the pleasure far too intense for you to stop it even if you’d wanted to. His soft human tongue, his lips, the heavy puffs of hot air he releases against your soaked cunt. Even the dull tickle of his messy hair brushing over your pelvis. It all came together and merged into one single, blinding sensation of unadulterated pleasure and you relish in it when you start to tip over. 

All at once your pussy clamps down hard enough to bring tears to your eyes and you immediately devolve into a fit of spasms, rocking helplessly with the roiling tremors. You can hear yourself crying out for him, the sound of your own voice distant and muffled as if it was coming from the far end of some impossibly long tunnel, and just for a split second you see a starburst so bright it blinds you. You’d never cum this hard before, not even when Foul Legacy had tongue fucked you at such a sedate, leisurely pace it had seemed to last for a lifetime. 

This was different. This was flesh and blood, and two human bodies feeding seamlessly off the arousal of the other. It wasn’t a dream nor was it a demon bringing you this pleasure, and you bask in the knowledge of Ajax’s mortality even as you slowly start to come down from the soaring high some moments later. 

Still gasping for breath, you slowly manage to rouse yourself enough to stir against the headstone. “Ajax … please … take me somewhere with a bed … before it’s too late!” Time was ticking. 

But he doesn’t immediately move to oblige or even acknowledge your request, and it takes a beat for you to realize that something was not quite right now. 

Forcing your lungs to slow their rapid contractions, you carefully straighten up as much as you’re able to on one leg and reach down to tug your skirt out of the way. A startled gasp rattles through your chest when the thick fabric falls away to reveal his face slackened as if in some kind of trance. You’d been so lost in your own pleasure, so consumed by the all consuming fire burning within your loins, that you weren’t entirely sure when he’d gone so still. It frightens you though, far more than you’d ever likely admit, and you carefully try to disengage from him so you can retreat and possibly regroup. 

But you only make it so far as sliding your leg down off his shoulder before he suddenly comes alive again, and you choke on your scream of terror when he surges up to his feet in a rush. It's clear that the Ajax you know is no longer present as he grabs you around the waist and hauls you against him before turning to carry you towards the mausoleum. You realize what’s happening, what he’s aiming for, and it takes everything you have not to shriek at the top of your lungs as you blindly yank on his jacket. 

“Ajax, wait! What are you doing?” 

He doesn’t respond, of course, and you valiantly twist in his arms but it’s no use. It’s not like you would have made it far anyway, even if you could escape his clutches, when you only had one boot on. The thought of him taking you inside that long sealed sepulcher amongst all the rotten and crawling things is enough to make you try though, and you do so with fast growing desperation. 

It’s like he doesn’t even notice you struggling though, his strength so much greater than that of a normal man’s that you implicitly understand it’s Foul Legacy’s doing even as you shriek at him to stop. And at the last possible moment he does heed your frantic cries, silently angling away from the heavy stone doors to instead lay you down on top of the wide, decorative platform steps that lead up to the macabre monument. 

You let him do it, too scared to fight when you couldn’t understand what was happening or why Ajax had suddenly slipped into a comatose state, and you hardly even notice the snow melting up into you from below as you warily watch him take half a step back. His hands come up to mechanically unfasten his coat and he shrugs out of it so he can then lay it out on the frozen top step just behind you. When he reaches for you again you try to scuttle away but he’s quick to grab hold, hefting you up to sit on his jacket. It might have been a charming gesture under better circumstances. 

But the current situation is anything but that when he crawls up to hover over you, his eyes so completely void of any life in them that they almost resemble bottomless black pits. You’d thought they were uncanny and unnaturally dull before, and yet they now send terrified shudders racing up and down your spine. 

Futilely, you make an attempt to edge away from him but he just follows you until he’s got you pinned against the sealed opening of the tomb. There he reaches out to relieve you of your second shoe, and then your stockings. He goes for the scarf and your cloak next, and you try to cling to it to no avail. You realize you’re crying when he starts in on your frock, insistently tugging to get it pulled up over your head but then a strange thought occurs to you, piercing through the fog. 

You weren’t cold. 

By all accounts you certainly should have been. Freezing, in fact. But even when he relieves you of your dress to leave you sitting there among the snow and the long frozen monuments in nothing but your brassiere and your veil, you don’t even tremble at the undeniable chill you know must exist. 

Blinking through the tears now, you glance down at yourself to check if you were really naked or if you’d only imagine it but the glow of the purple mark on your stomach stops you short. You’d never seen it do that before. Like it was backlit with a fire raging so intensely, so brightly that it seemed to smolder before your very eyes. It almost makes you panic, almost makes you reach down to claw yourself open and pull out whatever was inside of you, but you suddenly find you don’t quite have the energy or the presence of mind to do any of that. 

As if somebody had slipped you a powerful sedative when you weren’t looking, you find yourself actually relaxing into the cool brush of Ajax’s hands against your skin when he takes your last piece of clothing to leave sitting bare and vulnerable on that mausoleum step. You can feel your nipples puckering into tight, pointed peaks but you recognize it as in excitement rather than in response to the icy wind. It’s as if the cold doesn’t even exist for you anymore, and you cautiously bring your attention up to regard Ajax through the flickering glow of the lantern. 

Only to jump in startelement when you find his face suddenly covered by a mask. 

This one is not the same as Foul Legacy’s ghoulish facade in that it has no mouth or eye holes to speak of and you have to fight down a nauseous shudder when he starts to undress himself. You don’t know where it materialized from, what had conjured it up, but something about this mask is incredibly disconcerting to you. It almost made him seem more like a prop in this fiendish scene, a stage assistant rather than an active participant. 

Swaying unsteadily, you try to force your mind back into the right headspace so that you might find some way out of this but it’s no use. You can scarcely lift your hand without focusing every ounce of willpower you still possess into such a simple action that should have been second nature to you. All you can do is sit there and watch as Ajax discards layer after layer, until he’s just as naked as you and his straining cock springs up into the space between you two. 

Your eyes widen when you surreptitiously take it in, noting the length of it and the girth. He was big. Sizable enough to make you afraid of having it bullied into your body, but effectively paralyzed like this there’s nothing you can do to stop it when he moves to crawl over top of you again. 

Numb with disbelief and thrumming anxiety, you passively let him guide you back to lay out on top of his jacket. Not that it really mattered when you couldn’t feel the biting cold or the melting ice anyway, but you supposed it was still a nice thought. You’re far more concerned about the cock bobbing between your legs when he hooks his hands into the bend of your knees and spreads them wide to bare your sticky cunt to him. You’d never been so acutely aware of your own nudity before; how your breasts come to lay atop your chest, the shape and size of your own nipples. The way your lower belly pudges just so when he folds your legs upward to pin them open and the meaty spread of your pussy lips that you can clearly see from this angle. It borders on obscene, debauched even, especially in comparison to Ajax’s body. 

For he was all smooth, tight lines and flat planes stretched taut over hard musculature. His chest was only as defined as one would expect a young man in his prime to be and it was clear he hadn’t yet fully grown into his own muscle mass yet. The nipples dotting the skin were petite and pale pink, with only a few faint, wispy reddish hairs bracketing the areola. His stomach showed a slight outline along his abdominals which only becomes more pronounced when the tendons flex and shift as he moves into position, settling between your spread legs with an uncannily stiff motion. 

In a distant, dreamy sort of way you realize he looked like the popular subject of the sort of paintings you’ve heard aristocrats sometimes commission from artisans to celebrate the beauty and power of the male figure. The kind that could hide their manhoods behind a tastefully placed tree leaf while the rest was all left on full display without any worry about obscenity accusations being lobbied against them. 

The only part of him that was in any way outwardly lewd or licentious truly was his cock in all its stiff, rigid glory, and it was currently aimed straight at your cunt. 

You snap out of it with a half stifled gasp, keeping your chin tucked down so you can watch Ajax nudge his narrow hips forward until you feel the brief prodding of his cockhead against your entrance. It was so hard and stiff that the foreskin had naturally drawn back enough to expose the dusty pink glans and the weeping slit in the center of it. You knew what this could mean for you, what the consequences might be, but you can’t even seem to find enough oxygen to remind him to be gentle, let alone to ask him to stop. 

So you just watch, a mute spectator to your own downfall, while he pushes and the resulting fleshy slide of him through messy slick knocks a sensitive whimper loose from you. He quickly tries again, readjusting his angle, and this time when he leans his weight into you the head catches in your pussy. He starts to slowly sink inside, one excruciating millimeter at a time, and the immediate stretch you feel to the untested muscles has you frantically gasping for air. Even the copious arousal oozing out of you isn’t enough to completely lubricate the penetration when the girthy weight of his cock was so different from the slimy tongue you’d been violated with prior to this, and you quickly start to hyperventilate. You felt like you were suffocating, being crushed under his mass even for as slight as it was. 

You couldn’t do this. 

It was going to kill you. 

“Relax, little nun. If you focus on your breathing it won’t seem so terrible.” 

Jolting in shock, you disbelievingly tip your head back to look up at Ajax’s masked face. That hadn’t been his voice though. It lacked the boyish, playful notes you’d become so familiar with and instead had carried a low rumble, a rasp. 

It was Foul Legacy speaking to you now through its host. 

“Y - you — why are you doing this?” You manage to blubber with no shortage of effort, but the thing looming over you, penetrating you, just coos a sardonic, chuckling laugh. 

“I already told you, didn’t I? You were chosen to be my bride. And now here we are. Just you, me, the human boy and …” Ajax’s cock sinks a bit deeper into you, forcing the passage to expand and accommodate his size, and you outright choke on the sharp pulse of discomfort that shoots through you. “The new moon watching on from high overhead. Do you know why the ritual could only be completed now, lovely girl? Care to take a guess?” 

“N - no ….” 

Inhaling a savory, shuddering breath, he — it leans further over you to get closer and put that horrid, featureless mask right in your face. Your chest hitches, frightened by the close proximity, but you’re helpless to do anything but stare up at it in your paralyzed state. 

”Some call it the dream seed phase. It’s the perfect time to set new intentions, decide what manifest work you want to set in motion and to work with the shadows the dark moon brings with it. New beginnings, new seeds to plant.” Pausing, it tips its head to one side almost inquisitively. “Do you know what I’m about to do to you tonight? What seeds do you think I plan to sow here with you?” 

Your stomach clenches in debilitating dread and fear, so potent you immediately start to feel sick. “No. You can’t!” 

It cackles a sharp laugh, tossing its head back up at the sky. “I not only can and will, but look around you, little nun. I’m already doing it!” 

It snaps its hips forward then, jabbing up into your guts with a quick thrust, and you gurgle on the pain that quickly follows. You felt like you were being torn apart from the inside out, grimacing when something warm and sticky runs down the seam of your body. It was no mystery what it was and you viciously seethe as you try to struggle against the invisible hands keeping you prone. 

“You sick bastard … stop it! I don’t want your seed or anything else from you!” 

“It’s too late, lovely girl. Just relax. I told you to focus on your breathing, didn’t I?” 

Now that it's managed to break through the natural barrier of your body, the rest of its cock slides in with relative ease until you feel Ajax’s pelvis press flush against yours. It finally lets up its hold on your knees, keeping you pinned down with just the weight of its human host settling on top of you so it can lay out over your heaving frame instead. You try to fight it but your limbs still don’t want to cooperate even as it wraps those long, spindly arms around you and clutches you to its front. It presses that horrible mask into your neck then, murmuring a final tender word of advice to breathe through it. 

And then it’s moving. 

Gently at first, while your cunt adjusts to being stuffed full, it rocks into you at an almost leisurely pace that leaves you grimacing at the foreign sensation and the discomfort that comes with it. This was much different from Foul Legacy’s tongue which had almost moulded itself to the natural shape of you, fitting into a predefined slot without stretching it out into a completely new shape. The flesh and blood cock currently shoving deeper and deeper into you demanded space though, forcing your insides to make room for it and seemingly rearranged your guts in the process. There was pressure in places you didn’t even know existed, your lower extremity organs screaming out in distress while your thighs fiercely ache where they’re forced into a wide spread around Ajax’s flexing waist. 

You think it excruciating and terrible, not at all what you’d expected from this ordeal, and you desperately pray for it to end. 

But then, to your great surprise, something slowly starts to shift and the pain gradually fades before receding completely. Left in its wake is a dizzying rush of endorphins, pleasure fueled adrenaline so intoxicating you cling to it in your desperation for reprieve. And it doesn’t disappoint, you’re quite glad to find, for the more you give yourself over to that fleeting pinprick of distant euphoria the better it feels. Whether by virtue of the still pulsing mark on your belly or the simple, innate programming in your human brain, the once violent act of sex soon takes a turn for the better. 

And Foul Legacy must feel the change in you on some level because it picks up its pace, thrusting in and out of you more vigorously now until the distinct plap plap plap plap of fleshy hips meeting your soft inner thighs rings out over the otherwise still and silent cemetery. It spears you on its cock, again and again, and again to carve out a space within you and claim you for itself. A low simmering heat quickly starts to build in your cunt, and it’s only further fueled by the bestial grunts and sighs it issues against your sweat dampened neck.

You were drowning in it, so many different sensations and sounds and smells assaulting you all at once that the only thing you can do is weakly cling to Ajax’s working sides for something to hold onto. He works tirelessly over you to keep his pace quick and snappy, while also maintaining the measured length of his strokes at the same time. It does wonders to feed into the flames licking just below the surface, making your cunt squeeze him and gush even more sticky slick despite your initial displeasure. You even start to think that maybe this isn’t so bad after all. 

But then something happens — a flicker just at your peripheral, a waver in your swimming vision that briefly makes his burnished red-brown hair look wild and untamed. You have no idea what to make of it at first and then it happens again, this time turning his narrow frame big and bulky, the skin darker in color and much more thickened out with muscle mass. 

You don’t even have the wherewithal to gasp, just staring in slack jawed disbelief as Ajax starts to slowly change right before your very eyes while he continues to pound you into the top step of the mausoleum. You can feel it too, you’re more than just a bit horrified to realize. The way his musculature seems to grow and reorient itself, bulging under your hands with an unnatural slithering. 

The mask is the first thing that seems to fully cement itself into reality and you stare in horrified silence as that singular, unmoving eye forms out of nothing to blink open at you. The horns come next, sprouting up out of Ajax’s head at an alarming rate and the hair quickly follows suit. It’s like being pressed up against some unfathomable, writhing mass of serpents that coil and ball themselves together to form a new shape that is not nearly as alien to you as you’d like it to be. 

You didn’t understand how it was possible but somehow, some way, Foul Legacy was forming itself into the real world using Ajax’s body as a conduit to do it. 

And you … were you the energy supply it was using to fuel its transition with? 

“Oooh,” It rumbles over top of you, shuddering like an intangible mirage while the rest of it takes shape in a roiling wave of skin and sinew. “That surge of fear you just felt … if you keep feeding me like this, I won’t be able to fuck you properly when we’re done. Surely you don’t want to go without, do you?”

“You … you’re consuming my fear? To give yourself power?” 

“I can but I much prefer the taste of pleasure, don’t you?” Breathing out a terse, shaky exhale, it tips its monstrous head back to sigh up at the gloomy night sky. “Get ready, little love. Brace yourself. It’s coming.” 

“Wha - -“ 

You cut off with a sharp, haggard gasp when you feel its hips start to widen and fill out against you. Whereas Ajax was lanky and narrow waisted, Foul Legacy was much more broad and thick, and the stark difference in their builds slowly starts to force your legs into an even wider spread until you cry out at the stretch. Jerking your attention down, you glance between your body and his to watch its stomach grow hard and chiseled, the center line of its massive, hulking frame leading straight to the spot where the two of you were connected. 

And you can feel it as soon as its cock starts to grow inside you, almost immediately pushing your inner sleeve well past the point of human adaptability. You shriek and writhe, twisting in a blind attempt to escape the inevitable, but it’s got you so thoroughly impaled that there is no getting free. It just keeps swelling and swelling until you can feel the unnaturally large head pressing uncomfortably up into your cervix, and with it comes the distention of your stomach. It’s almost too terrible to watch but you can’t quite bring yourself to tear your eyes away when the distention forms just below the skin under your navel and presses up into an alarming bulge. The demon mark gets pushed up and out in the process, further highlighting the fact that it seemed to be glowing from within. You’d never seen anything like it in your life. 

But somehow even more astounding is the fact that it doesn’t rip you clean in half. It doesn’t exactly feel good, being this stretched out on something so big, but you realize that you’re still in one piece. At least for the time being. 

“Ooh, fuck.” Foul Legacy drops its head back down to seethe into the scant space separating you from its horrid face. You realize then, as you look up at it in shell shocked disbelief, that the transformation was complete. There was no sign at all of the young soldier now, just the one-eyed wraith looming over you in all its terrible glory. It was somehow even worse than your worst nightmare. 

“Are you … are you satisfied now?” You rattle out, shuddering from the top of your head down to the tips of your toes. 

Giving its head a vicious shake as if to clear its mind of some lingering fog, Foul Legacy peers into your face, your very soul, with its singular red eye. “Impatient for that proper fucking I promised you? I always knew you had it in you, little nun. Don’t worry though. I won’t disappoint.” 

A fresh tendril of horror curls through you when it straightens up to kneel on the step of the mausoleum, taking your hips in between its massive hands to hold you in place. Bile rises in your throat and threatens to suffocate you as you snap your attention back down to watch it slowly ease its huge cock out only enough to make the bulge in your stomach recede. Then it pushes in again and you openly gape at the way it forces your stomach out to make enough room for it to fit. And that was to say nothing of the intense drag against your guts, the way your gummy inner sleeve weakly tries to cling to its shaft on the way out only to then yield under the intense pressure of the next upward plunge. 

Foul Legacy still deigns to show you some kindness though, and it fucks you at a slow, even tempoed rhythm even while you mindlessly writhe and jerk on its huge cock. But you had nowhere to go, no options except to take it, and you do so with numb tears tracking down your face. Even if this didn’t kill you, even if you didn’t break, there wasn’t a doubt in your mind that you would be forever ruined after this. The demon had taken everything from you. Your freedom, the sanctity of your virginity, even your one and only consolation prize in all this mess when it used Ajax’s body to transition to reality. Would you ever see him again, whole and the same as he was before? You weren’t so sure about that and you didn’t want to think about it too hard just yet. 

“You look so good like this … submitting to my cock like a good girl, taking it like a champ. I told you I chose you for a reason, didn’t I?” 

Stirring out of your stupor enough to glare up at the foul beast, you give it a weak look of warning. “Do not … agghhn! Do not speak to me ever again you — you wretched fiend. I’ve had … my fill of you.” 

“Ooh, don’t say that. We’re going to be together for a very long time to come. You’ll need to find some way to tolerate me for at least a little while.” Chuckling faintly, it starts to pick up the speed only enough to make your tits shift each time it thrusts into you and the soft sound of skin smacking against skin rises in the air again. “The marriage rite is almost complete. I’ve already spilled your virgin‘s blood and now all that’s left is to fill you with my seed. Once that’s done, you’ll be bound to me for an eternity, soul, body and mind. So tell me, my sweet bride. What weighs on your mind? Quickly, before it’s too late.” 

You try to speak but nothing comes out except a series of wounded little animal noises that it punches out of you with its cock. It didn’t feel good, it didn’t but … the pressure pushing in on your guts was too much, and the increased pace wasn’t helping. You could feel your eyes starting to roll back and you desperately clench your teeth in a blithe attempt to hold back the wailing shrieks trying to claw up your throat. Your stomach felt like it was being shoved up into your chest cavity! 

“Nnnngghhnnn ... Ahh, aaghhnn, A - Ajax …!” 

“Oh? You’re worried about him? Hah. I can’t say I’m surprised. I knew you liked that boy far more than you were willing to admit, even to yourself. But worry not, little love. He’s just fine. I’ll give him his body back once I’m done with it.”

Head bonelessly lolling against the step, you dazedly blink up at the sky and slur out a nearly unintelligible,“R - really?” 

“Yes. Now get ready. I’m close … gonna’ fill you up until it’s leaking out of you for days to come. Ahhh … I’ve been waiting this whole time, you know. There’s plenty stored up just for you.” 

You grimace at the thought and try desperately to rouse yourself for one last attempt to wriggle free but it’s already too late. Foul Legacy starts to huff and grunt in earnest, it's hips driving into you a little bit quicker. A little harder. Your tits bounce vigorously with each thrust now and you whimper at how every inch of your body seems to ache in protest, especially your poor stomach. 

But it quickly becomes apparent that its ordeal hasn’t quite reached its end yet when the demon finally judders with a low, seething hiss as it buries its cock as far into you as it will go. The sharp pressure right on your cervix makes your legs spasm and you cry out, struggling to breathe through it. The first searing hot pulse of thick, creamy semen shooting off right against the opening of your womb immediately robs you of all your oxygen though and you gasp like you’re drowning. The sound lodges in your throat, making you gurgle, and then the next spurt from its pumping cock floods the first. With nowhere else to go, you feel some of it seep deep into your loins, far beyond what a normal cock should reach, while the rest of it oozes out to bubble down your stretched open cunt. 

And it just keeps coming, one unbearably warm spurt after another until enough of it has forced its way into your womb that you can feel your belly bloating up under the pressure. Mewling in wordless distress, you shakily lift your head to glance down at yourself and you immediately don’t like what you see. Your stomach round and heavy, and this time it stays that way even when the demon issues a deeply satisfied breath before slowly pulling out. The bulge remains, and you feel a tiny little part of your ego die and chip away with it. 

This couldn’t be happening. It couldn’t be. 

“Don’t mourn, my lovely bride. There is a chance my seed won’t take root right away, you know.” 

Its massive cock finally slips free with an accompanying wet slurp and a fresh flood of unstoppered semen rushes out of you, thoroughly coating you in the mess. Warbling a horrified little sound, you try to push yourself up to sit but you’re so unaccustomed to your stomach being this round that you end up right back where you’d started, wetly gasping on the step of the sepulcher. 

Watching you closely, Foul Legacy gives a thoughtful tip of its head. “That seems a bit unlikely though, doesn’t it? With so much of it in your womb, surely at least one will find its mark.” 

“You … I hate you! I really do!” 

“Oh, now don’t say that. There’s still plenty of time for that further down the road, isn’t there? By the way, don’t think I’ve forgotten our little deal.”

Sniffling sadly, you look up at it with as much vitriol as you can muster. “What deal? I never agreed to anything with you!” 

“Lying is such an unbecoming habit, sweetheart. Even if it is only by omission.” 

Hunching over you like it were some hideous gargoyle poised to take off into the night, Foul Legacy reaches out for your face with its clawed hand and you quickly screw your eyes shut so you don’t have to see what it does to you next. To your reeling surprise, however, all it does is slip one long finger under your veil, peeling it back and away. 

Your eyes instantly pop back open in mute horror as your hair spills out over your shoulders. A million thoughts run through your mind at all at once, a million protests to dissuade it from looking. You couldn’t even recall the last time you’d had your hair uncovered in front of a man and it leaves you feeling strangely more naked and exposed than your actual nudity does. 

But you don’t get the chance to give voice to any of it before Foul Legacy delves its hand into your hair, taking a big tight fistful of it so it can yank your head back. Hissing like an incensed cat, you shoot daggers at the foul beast as you're made to look up at it but it just passively stares at you with that unblinking, horrible eye. You felt like you were going to be sick all over. 

“I look forward to enjoying the rest of our lives together.” It all but purrs at you, jaw hinging open to let its long, serpent-like tongue slip out to flick tauntingly at the corner of your mouth. “Together, forever. In holy, sacred matrimony … isn’t that right?”

⭐

Crossposted: here