#without leaning heavily into letters and correspondences | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

autumnslance · 4 years ago

Text

FFXIV Write 2021 #15: Thunderous

((A longer one. Violence, blood, and fire. Not safe for heretics or dragoons as we step back to last week and the aftermath of “Heady”...))

“There they are!” X’rhun exclaimed. “Thank the gods!”

Alberic only puffed a breath in agreement as they ran across and down the ravine to where Aeryn was tending to an ashen-faced Heustienne.

“The cavalry has arrived,” the injured dragoon said dryly, her damaged chainmail removed to allow Aeryn access to the wound. Not the worst Heustienne had ever taken, but more than bad enough.

“Thank Halone you’re safe,” Alberic said as X’rhun dropped to his knees next to the women to lend his own aid if needed. “We heard from Kal Myhk you’d tangled with a group of heretics—”

“They took us to Avengret,” Aeryn’s voice cut him off; quiet, too steady, too calm.

For a moment the world paused, until X’rhun’s tail lashed as he turned to look up at Alberic.

Aeryn wasn’t looking at him, her hands resting on her knees now, feet tucked under her. Heustienne’s gaze flicked between Aeryn and Alberic, her own questions barely held back.

“Let’s get Heustienne upright,” X’rhun said gently. “And then get back to—”

“Anyx Trine?” Aeryn interrupted. “Will they tell me the truth if I ask? They must know. If what she said is true.” She turned her head slightly toward Alberic without raising her face, looking at his boots. “She said I should ask you.”

“Aeryn…” His mouth was dry.

She looked up finally, lips parting to say more, but instead she drew in a sharp breath, eyes wide and shining silver, not seeing Alberic or anything else around her now.

He groaned, whether in fear or agony or relief, he wasn’t certain.

——

Alberic followed Corran Striker into the house. It was a pleasant little place, clean and airy. The edges of the walls were lined with brightly painted flower and vine designs, and small pieces of colored glass bordered the custom-framed windows to allow some of the light to also reflect rainbows into the rooms--that couldn’t have been cheap, Alberic thought.

“Please, leave your helm and lance by the door. I think my wife will forgive the boots this time.”

“I keep the lance close to hand, you understand,” Alberic replied as he at least set down his helm on the table by the door.

There was evidence of children; their house slippers by the door, a doll on a chair, a set of tin knights cluttering the low table in the sitting room. His heart ached. “What a lovely home,” he said. “Will the missus and children be joining us?”

Corran shook his head. “Emelia’s running some of her crafts all the way to Fallgourd in the Shroud, and took Zaine and Aeryn with her for the fun. They’ve been cooped up too long, she thought.” He smiled fondly. “It’s a way she deals with her homesickness, and shares that part of herself with our children; she grew up traveling part of the year selling wares as a girl in Thavnair.”

Relief, but also renewed wariness prickled along Alberic’s spine as he followed Corran to the kitchen, leaning his lance on the wall right behind his chair as he took the offered seat at the dining table. “Thavnair? That’s a ways away. Explains the colors though.”

“I got rather lucky,” Corran replied, his tone warm and genuine. “She misses it, but is somehow willing to stay with me.”

“Ever think of visiting?” Alberic asked casually as Corran went about the motions of preparing the lunch he had offered the tired dragoon when they had accidentally met in the treacherous priest’s chapel. Corran had seemed surprised to learn of Comfraire’s heresy, but had offered hospitality despite his own shaken state.

“If there wasn’t always so much work to do, perhaps someday we could,” Corran said quietly.

“I think I’d take the chance, perhaps even move permanently, were I a common man with a family. Get the children far from the war, among the wife’s people.”

“I won’t lie; the thought has occurred to me,” Corran said. “Though I’m surprised, Ser Azure; I’d think one like you would want to keep promising future soldiers for the war in Ishgard.”

Alberic shrugged. “As I said; were I a common man, with a foreign wife who misses her home and children with futures to think of.”

The chronometer in the hall ticked steadily as Corran worked. “Perhaps. Though much as she misses Thavnair, I’d miss Coerthas. I love my home, Ser Azure. There’s little I wouldn't do to see our homeland prosper.”

Alberic did not reply, not trusting his tongue to respond to the man’s gall.

As Corran came to the table with sandwiches and a decent-looking ale, Alberic smiled. “Then perhaps you can aid me in protecting our homeland,” he said. He hoped he was wrong about Corran. “I am tracking a dangerous creature I believe the false priest Comfraire was working with, coordinating an imminent attack from the Horde.”

Corran raised an eyebrow. “I’m but a simple farmer, Ser. I don’t know what help I could be.” He glanced down at his plate.

The chronometer in the hall continued to tick.

“Know you of anyone Comfraire spent time with, when not pretending to holy duties? Places the priest liked to go when not tending the church? I hear you were among those who escorted the fellow on his daily walks.”

“A duty many of us in the community shared,” Corran replied, tone growing strident. “Do you accuse me of heresy merely for minding an old man on his daily constitutional?”

“No of course not,” Alberic answered. He pulled the correspondence he had found in Comfraire’s hidden desk drawer from his pack. “These letters however do indicate guilt.”

“Well that is another story, isn’t it?” Corran asked, leaning back in his chair. The humble farmer demeanor fell away as he crossed his arms. “Why play along?”

“I wanted to be wrong. You seemed like a decent man with a family you love.”

“I do love them,” Corran replied, voice low and cold. “You’re very unlucky you came this day.”

“She doesn’t know what you really do, does she?”

“And once we’re rid of you, she never will,” Corran said bluntly. “Our war doesn’t concern her.”

“And the children?”

Corran’s grey eyes clouded like thunderstorms, his lips drawn into a snarl. “You’ll never touch them.”

They both leapt, chairs clattering to the ground. Alberic reached for his lance while Corran moved with preternatural speed to the sideboard, pulling a hidden blade he managed to raise in time to block Alberic’s swing.

The house was torn and broken as they fought, Alberic barely able to acknowledge the damage as they threw each other against walls and through furnishings. Corran had an advantage with his shorter blade in the cramped space, but Alberic was a far more practiced fighter. If he could get hold of a sword--or better disarm Corran of his--then the heretic would soon be at his mercy.

He finally saw his moment, spinning his lance to baffle Corran’s blade before using his more heavily armored frame to knock the taller man through a door and into what had to be the master bedroom.

The sword went sliding the opposite way down the hall, and Corran laughed bitterly.

“Give it up, Striker,” Alberic said, pointing his lance. He could see Corran’s waist and legs, but the broken door obscured his head. “Tell me about the coming attack!”

Corran's laugh only continued, growing deeper and more growling. Alberic’s eyes widened as he saw Corran’s body jerk, bones cracking and skin tearing, swelling as scales overtook skin.

He swung to drive his lance down through the man as a roar shook the windows, and through the back wall an aevis tore its way inside, the colorfully bordered window panes shattering across the bedding. The dragon leapt at Alberic, and he swung up, barely blocking the creature’s jaws from clamping onto his still helm-less head as they skid down the hall from the momentum of its impact.

Alberic managed to roll out of the way as the aevis let loose a gout of flame, the fire catching on broken furniture. It came for him again but he had made it to his feet, dashing back toward the kitchen for room to move. The aevis lunged at him as Alberic braced himself, a heel against the base of the sink.

His lance caught the beast’s chest and with a roar of his own from his Inner Dragon surging forth, he used the dragon’s momentum to pierce it deeper, throwing it over his shoulder and halfway through the large window, more bright glass breaking as the thing flailed, screaming flames across the yard as it bled out around the lance through it.

Alberic had no time to retrieve his weapon as Corran came for him, tearing apart the walls to fit his new bulk through them to get to the dragoon. He was larger than most transformations Alberic had seen, a heavy red wyvern, powerful and burning, his eyes filled with the same intelligence they had held as a man.

Alberic swore and dove out of the way of claws longer than his own hands. He managed to duck and roll under and past Corran and back into the hallway, needing the smaller space to disadvantage the dragon. Assuming said dragon didn’t just shoulder the walls out of his way, his fiery head rearing back to blast Alberic.

He barely managed to dodge, the heat unbearable as the walls with their pretty flower paint warped, melted, and crisped in the heat, flames now filling the house. He couldn’t last in here much longer, but also couldn’t let this fight further endanger the rest of the village, the commotion surely drawing attention, though any other knights would be too far away while Corran likely had more allies nearby.

His feet hit more metal that clattered, and he remembered Corran’s sword. As the beast came for him again, Alberic ducked to retrieve it, rolling in low as Corran leaped at him. With another shout, Alberic swung up, sliding along the floor on his knees as Corran passed overhead, the sword slicing down the wyvern’s side.

Corran screeched, landing heavily against the door in a tangle, blood flowing freely, wings and talons unable to get purchase in the too small space.

Alberic breathed heavily as he stood and hurried into the kitchen. The aevis was still jerking through its death throes, making a pathetic, pained cry as he yanked his lance from it, more blood pumping onto the sink and floor.

Alberic returned to the hall. Corran watched him, panting himself, lifesblood pooling around him as smoke filled the air.

“Finish me,” the dragon rumbled, in something resembling Corran’s voice. “But I want a promise first.”

“A promise?” Alberic asked. “Why should I pledge aught to a heretic?”

A weary claw gestured, holding a limp, blood-covered ragdoll. Alberic went cold. “For...them. They’re innocent. But we both know...Inquisitors….”

Alberic coughed as he shivered. They wouldn’t care that the children were only children. They wouldn’t care if Mistress Striker was Thavnairian--if anything, that would make it worse for her, no matter if she truly was unaware of her husband’s sins.

“Maybe...she’ll take them home,” Corran said. “She misses it. They could have…Not this.” His eyes met Alberic’s.

They were the grey eyes of a man.

Alberic nodded. “I promise,” he answered, as he pushed his lance through the wyvern’s heart. “Your family won’t pay for your sins.”

When he opened his smoke-stung eyes again, the dragon was gone, Corran Striker’s lifeless form before him, eyes colorless glass, smiling in relief.

Alberic considered for a moment, then drug Corran’s body toward the heaviest flames devouring the house, throwing him into the fire. With luck it would be so burned as to obscure how he had truly died, if Alberic was to keep his reckless promise.

The aevis in the kitchen was dead finally. Alberic retrieved the correspondence knocked to the floor during the scuffle, and gritting his teeth, threw all but one sheet into the flame as well; there was mention of a tower. If nothing else he could salvage something from this mess.

The heat and smoke were too much now, and people outside were shouting and trying to put out the flames, a woman screaming as she glimpsed the dragon half-hanging from the kitchen.

Alberic stumbled outside, battered and bloodied, and fell unconscious at the feet of the Strikers’ neighbors.

—————

It took only a few eye blinks before Aeryn’s groan echoed Alberic’s from a moment before. X’rhun tried to call to her, but she was on her feet in the next eye blink. She whirled in Alberic’s direction, braid whipping so quickly the end came back around to strike her cheek, unnoticed. Her eyes were a storm, lightning crackling in them.

Alberic did not move. He distantly realized that there was nothing any of the three of them could do to stop her of all people.

She flung herself forward and he took the weight of her body slamming into his, her hands gripping at his coat.

That was all.

Alberic didn’t dare move as she trembled against him, head down. X’rhun and Heustienne watched, breath held. Perhaps they had realized the same thing he had.

"I'd forgotten the windows,” Aeryn said hoarsely. “They were almost new; a Starlight gift from him, for Mama."

Alberic said nothing. What could he say?

“You didn’t tell me.”

He sighed. It took a moment to make sound. “By the time I’d realized who you were, why you were so familiar...Well, we had that mess with Estinien and neither of us were in any shape for more terrible revelations. Not the easiest thing to tell a girl you’re the man that killed her father, regardless of the why. And...If the Inquisition, the Ward, if any of them had found out…”

“I’d have handled them,” she said. Neutral, a matter of fact. She wasn’t one to boast.

“Perhaps,” he said. “I thought...Your mother took you to Thavnair. You would have a life there, away from the war. I never expected you to return. To be...this.”

“You should have told me.”

“I know. And you know I’m a sentimental, craven fool.”

She laughed, a wild, bitter noise, finally looking up. Her eyes locked with his, and he thought for as much as she looked like her mother, her eyes were too much like her father’s.

“X’rhun, can you make sure Heustienne gets back to Anyx Trine?” She said, not breaking her gaze with Alberic. The storm still rumbled in her eyes, but all he could see was old smoke.

“Of course,” the Seeker answered. “Aeryn—”

“I’m going home,” she said, shoving Alberic away. He staggered, barely managing to keep his footing. She was stronger than she looked. “I need time to think and rest.”

“You mean Revenant’s Toll, yes?” X’rhun demanded, tail still lashing.

Aeryn only nodded once as she retrieved her pack from next to Heustienne.

“Call me via ‘pearl when you arrive,” X’rhun insisted.

She paused for a moment, then nodded again, shouldering her pack and walking away.

“What the seven hells am I missing?” Heustienne asked after they watched Aeryn’s red coat vanish among the hills. “What did she see? What did you do?”

“Later,” X’rhun said, helping her to her feet. “Let’s get back to something resembling civilization first; Avengret’s heretics may still be on the trail.”

Alberic said nothing, simply following along as they made their way across the wilderness.

#FFXIVWrite2021 #Final Fantasy XIV #Lyn Writing #Backstory #Dragonsong War #Alberic Bale #X'hrun Tia #Heustienne de Vimaroix #Corran Striker #Aeryn Striker

51 notes · View notes

f0xfordcomma · 4 years ago

Text

re:union (kataang week 2021) DAY THREE

re:union

chapter three: the avatar's girl

rating: G

words: 958

summary: "He wrote love letters. He wrote a lot of love letters. He told her how much he missed her, how much he wished she was with him, how much he wished he was with her, how much, how much, how much. He never sent them."

read it on ao3

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

Three years.

They loved each other for three years after the war.

Then, for three years after that, they tried, tried, tried to stop.

The love never went anywhere, though. Not really.

He needed to go. She needed to stay.

She wanted to go with him, but the hospital needed her more.

He wanted to stay with her, but the acolytes needed him more.

Maybe this is for the best, they told each other. Maybe we both need time, space, to grow, to become ourselves. They had been young, everyone was not shy in reminding them, when they had gotten together. Perhaps, they had not yet been fully grown up. (Though, they both knew that this wasn’t true. They were young, yes, but they were grown. Had been grown. Had needed to be grown.)

He left, and she stayed, and they promised not to make any promises to one another. Not yet, not like this.

He wrote letters about his travels and the restoration process. He asked questions about irrigation and economics for Sokka to advise upon. He relayed funny anecdotes about the acolytes and the lemurs and, encouragingly, the newly discovered baby bison. He drew pictures of the views and sent along trinkets he found.

He wrote love letters. He wrote a lot of love letters. He told her how much he missed her, how much he wished she was with him, how much he wished he was with her, how much, how much, how much. He never sent them.

She answered his correspondences quickly, diligently. She’d get Sokka’s input. She’d share the stories with their friends. She’d include her own stories. Of the children she healed and the healers she trained. She pored over every word on every page he wrote. Her fingers tracing the looping scrawl of his handwriting. Wondering if the love, Aang held the multitudes that she read into it.

She went on dates. Four of them, to be precise, each one worse than the last. She was well past marrying age in the water tribes and the northern benders that came to study under her tutelage always asked about her status, seeming shocked that such a talented young woman was still single at 21. She resented the assertion that she was incomplete without a man nearly as much as she resented the fact that she felt incomplete without one, without him.

For all her great accomplishments, for all the ways that she was making a name for herself in her own right, divorcing herself from the lingering title of “the Avatar’s girl,” she knew, in the silence of the night, that it had been one of her proudest titles.

On the first date, with the shy son of a shopkeeper who worked with Lao Beifong, she had been asked about it. The night had been fine, the dinner had been fine, the conversation had been fine. “Wait! Aren’t you the Avatar’s girl?” She hadn’t said no. (It wouldn’t necessarily be the truth.) She had left soon after, citing a stomachache. (It hadn’t necessarily been a lie.)

On the second date, with a young herbalist she knew from the hospital, she had been kissed. She had let him kiss her. He was kind. He was handsome. He held her hand and listened to her speak and told good jokes. He leaned in, she didn’t lean away. It was warm and wet and nothing.

On the third date, with a warrior from the Northern Water Tribe, she had felt his hand on her backside before they had even eaten. She left him frozen in an alley. She bathed twice, trying to erase the invisible mark of him. It felt like infidelity. It felt infuriating.

On the fourth date, with an Earth Kingdom diplomat, she’d fallen asleep in her soup. To be fair, she’d received an unexpected letter from Aang the night before. He was coming back. Cranefish City was being renamed, and he had done what he had sought to do at the temples, and he was coming back.

… I can’t wait to see you. It has been too long.

Love, Aang

She couldn’t figure out if the you was singular or plural. The letter was addressed to her, but they all had been; she was the only one who checked the hawkery regularly enough to be trusted with important correspondence.

Love, Aang

She had stroked her finger over his name for three hours, feeling the indent in the paper where his quill had been. In the morning, she realized that her finger was marked black with ink, the words on the paper nearly rubbed away. She forewent her morning waterbending practice. The ink stain was still on her finger as she strolled down the wide boulevards of Cranefish City with the boring man from Ba Sing Se.

The two months felt, in some ways, longer than the three years had.

She waited. When the cicada-crickets had just started serenading the sleepy streets of the city and the water in the air thrummed heavily around her, he arrived. She was lugging a sack of produce from the market up toward the house in which she had been renting a room when she heard the groan, felt the shadow. The sack dropped from her arms, littering the ground with mangoes and cabbages.

She ran.

He was somehow taller, somehow broader. He had scruff on his face, a deeper sadness in his eyes, a stronger slant to his shoulders.

She wanted to hug him but she couldn't move from the spot.

She stared. Grey, grey, grey. Him.

Her mouth moved, her hand rose, her head was full of fog. A little wave. A little blush. “Hi, Aang.”

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

@kataang-week

thanks to my beta: @foxy-knowledgeseeker (you da best)

chapter one

chapter two

#kataang week 2021 #kataang #avatar the last airbender #aang #katara #atla #post-canon #missing moments #love letters #re:union

21 notes · View notes

another-miracle · 4 years ago

Text

#4: We slept in the same bed for space reasons but now we’re just waking up and there’s something about your bleary eyes and mussed hair

“Well then!” Obi says, arms crossed behind his head as he watches Miss pull Eisetsu to his feet. “I guess we’re all agreed to return to the estate, hm?”

Eisetsu nods solemnly. Beside him, Miss dusts off her cloak before looking at him expectantly. Obi turns to Tsuruba who clears his throat at the attention.

“It seems that returning to our place of lodging may not be the wisest decision,” Tsuruba tells them. “For all we know, the people after Eisetsu may be scouring the area in search of him. And from what you’ve shared, it seems we’ll need to make haste towards the Rugalia Estate.”

He points slightly northward, in the opposite direction from where they came from. “I saw an inn earlier while I was scouting out for your assailants. We could spend the night there.”

The journey to the inn is uneventful, Eisetsu and Obi walking quietly behind the other two. From the corner of his eye, Obi can tell that the tension from the conversation prior has not completely worn off judging by how Eisetsu’s shoulders are raised, how his arms are wrapped defensively around his body. Sighing, he grudgingly claps a hand on Eisetsu’s back. The man looks up at him, startled, and Obi attempts a kind smile - which probably ended up looking like a grimace. Nevertheless, it serves its intended purpose and Eisetsu smiles back, hands dislodging from their place at his elbows. Obi pats his back again for good measure and they continue their journey to their accommodation.

At the inn, Eisetsu and Tsuruba take the lead in speaking to the innkeeper while Obi hangs back with his Miss. She nudges him briefly, eyes sparkling. “This feels like that time when we had to stay at an inn with Zen and the gang.”

“Yeah, only now we’ll need to keep our guards up quite a lot more.” Obi thinks back to how it was unsaid for Mister to take up watch while the rest of them visited the baths. “Miss Kiki and Mister really spoiled us, didn’t they?”

Miss hums in agreement, mouth quirking to the side. She leans a little into him and Obi has to resist the urge to place a hand on her head. She must miss them, he thinks.

“-need lodging for four people,” Eisetsu’s voice rings out. “And towels and robes to spare, if you please.”

The innkeeper frowns slightly. “Ah, we’ve lodging for four - but only two rooms with a bed each. Assuredly they are large enough to hold two though! And towels and whatnot will be provided as paid.”

Their party looks at one another. Eisetsu turns back to the innkeeper.

“That’s fine,” he states. Tsuruba visibly tenses and Obi almost does a double-take. “Wait wait hold up hold up- Eisetsu-dono, let’s review the sleeping arrangements?”

Eisetsu huffs, fringe flying. “What’s the problem? Tsuruba-dono and I can share one room, and the two of you can share the other.”

“Ah,” Tsuruba starts. “Um-”

“Bahh, you saved my life,” Eisetsu states, flicking his ponytail behind him. “There’s no reason for me to remain suspicious of you.”

“And us?” Obi bites out in annoyance.

“What’s wrong? You didn’t have a problem being in the same room at the estate? If I recall, the rooms only had one bed - and assuredly, they were not meant to fit two.”

Obi feels Tsuruba’s gaze settle heavily on him and cold sweat begins to form at his brow. Ah, he thinks. He knows about the understanding between Master and Miss.

Just as Obi begins to sputter out the truth, Miss interrupts. “Y-yes! We did that! It’s fine - Obi, shall we? It’s been a long night, and-” Miss yawns, an obvious feint- “wow, I’m absolutely smashed!”

She waves them goodnight and walks off. Obi stares after her, mouth ajar. He turns back to the two, then back to his Miss’ retreating back. Caught between the need to explain everything, and following her up, he manages a, “I-need to protect- Miss!” before stumbling off after her. Obi briefly catches Tsuruba’s gaze sliding off them and Eisetsu waving his hand to shoo him off. Obi’s face feels terribly hot.

He quickly catches up with Miss and glares down at her, hoping that his eyes will communicate his absolute incredulity at the situation. What is she thinking?! Doesn’t she know the implications of what she’d suggested?

Of course, Miss remains blissfully unawares, happily stopping outside their room, unlocking the door and wandering inside. Obi takes one look into the corridor before closing the door behind them.

Turning back, Obi sees Miss taking off her robe and placing it on the back of a nearby chair. Her hair falls out of the hood to frame her face, the ends curling slightly at her chin. Obi rubs an exasperated hand down his face. God, may he survive the night here.

Throwing his hands in the air, Obi exclaims, “Miss, we’ve no need to keep up with the ruse! At this point, I’m sure we can trust Eisetsu enough with the true nature of our relationship! He probably wasn’t serious with his advances on you anyway, judging by his story.”

Miss tilts her head, a thoughtful pout on her face. “Is there a need to tell him though? I feel like it may only cause more misunderstandings.”

“More- Miss, Eisetsu thinks we’re together! You’re promised to the Second Prince of the country! How is that not already a misunderstanding!”

“Well,” Miss begins to fold her cloak. “We did stay in the same room at his estate. If anything, that whole series of events was a consequence of being promised to said-prince. And the continuation of the ruse was to also hide the fact that Zen showed up at the estate - which, Eisetsu still has no knowledge about.”

Miss turns to him then, arms crossed, and Obi does not like that look. “Are we to tell Eisetsu that the Second to the Crown was traipsing around his estate with him unawares? He’s already told us how sensitive he is about his reputation. Think about what telling him would do to the poor man.”

“But-” Obi starts. Miss raises an eyebrow.

Obi wants to scream.

“Fine,” Obi concedes. “But if we’re meant to share the bed, I’m taking the left side.”

Miss smiles, triumphant.

---

“Obi?”

“Yes, Miss?”

“Are you awake?”

A sigh- “I am now. What is it?”

Obi turns and finds Miss much closer than he anticipated. Alarmed, he shifts to the edge of his side of the bed and props his head on his hand, elbow pressing into the pillow. Miss seems to ignore his ministrations and looks deep in thought. Obi waits.

“Obi,” she calls softly. “What did you think of Eisetsu’s story about Lady Kageya?”

Humming, Obi leans back and moves his arm behind his head. He stares at the ceiling. What did he think?

“It’s...rather tragic, isn’t it?” Obi speaks slowly. He doesn’t say that their tale sounds eerily familiar. Doesn’t say that it rubs him the wrong way. Doesn’t say that it sounds an awful lot like what may happen- has happened- to his mistress and master. “Seems like Eisetsu really took a hit. Both in his relationship with Kageya and with his father.”

Obi lowers his gaze and watches as Miss’ fist clenches into the bedsheets, her face ducking behind the blankets. Staring at the crown of her head, red cascading over white, he laments at how in another life, Master and Miss may have it easier - an existence together - without all this talk of reputation, of titles, of rumors. It is a simple life he wishes for them; and it is a simple life they cannot have.

Obi offers what he can. “Miss, don’t worry,” he tells her with a soft smile. Lightly, he touches her fingers clasped tightly around white. She looks up at him, eyes teary. Obi’s heart breaks.

“Master will not forsake you like that.” His finger comes up to wipe away the tears gathering at the corners of her eyes. “You are worth- so much more than reputation. Lest he send you away with coin, perish the thought.”

Obi hears Miss breathe in shakily. A part of Obi breaks for the two; years of memories apart, and miles and miles exist between them. Yet- yet. Another part of Obi seethes. He is incensed at the insecurity spurred and left to fester in his Miss by the reality of it all, and by the lack of assurance Master gives her. It’s one thing to allow the other space to work towards their goals. It’s another to entirely ignore the other, only corresponding through a middleman (he’s seen too many letters signed off by Mister), and turning up only to jeopardize said-goal.

Miss buries her face deeper into the pillow, shoulder shaking. Exhaling heavily, Obi slots his arm under her and cradles her to him. Wet droplets immediately hit Obi’s skin at his neck and Obi tightens his hold on her.

“Shh...it’s okay. You’ll be fine.” Miss’ arms wind around his torso and she grips him hard. Obi’s hand comes up to stroke the back of her head. “Both of you will be, for sure.”

----

Dawn breaks. Obi’s eyelids are crusty and his eyes are just refusing to open. Not when it is so warm and lovely, and Obi just wants to ignore the light pouring into the room. Turning away from the window, he throws his arm over Miss, wrapping his body around hers. She whines a little, and Obi chuckles slightly behind closed lids, bending down to brush his lips against her fringe.

A few seconds pass. Immediately, Ob’s brain wakes up and he shoots himself to the edge of the bed, short of falling off. Eyes wide, he stares, affronted, at his two hands positioned awkwardly in front of him, away from what isn’t his.

Miss shifts and Obi freezes. Her eyebrows scrunch up at the sun rays and she buries her head deeper into the sheets.

“Too bright,” she whines. Obi’s arms fall back onto the bed and he laughs. He pulls slightly at the blanket to reveal Miss pouting cutely, hair mussed in different directions. Suddenly, Obi’s chest feels too tight.

“Good morning, Miss,” Obi says, too soft.

Miss whines again and cracks open one eye to stare him unamused. Obi huffs out a laugh. She exhales roughly and props herself up with two hands on the pillow. Obi looks up at her as she rubs a fist over her eye, hand then stretching back behind her with a yawn. Her entire body slumps and she looks down at him again. With bleary eyes, she smiles down at him, dimples and all.

“Good morning, Obi,” Miss greets him, just as soft.

Obi’s legs immediately hit the floor. He turns away so fast he almost has whiplash. Something like this - this soft, vulnerable thing - isn’t meant for his eyes, isn’t meant for people like him.

With his back to her, Obi states mechanically, “We should start getting ready. If it’s already this bright, Eisetsu and Tsuruba would be waiti-”

A touch at his hand and Obi pauses. Warily, he turns to Miss and is anguish to note that Miss looks as wonderful and angelic as she did moments ago. She tugs slightly at his wrist and Obi just follows, facing her fully. Her fingers play with his, intertwining and brushing against his palm, and Obi is just- burning. Soaking up all the warmth she offers, but just- incinerating on the inside.

“Thank you,” she tells him, squeezing gently. “For being here. With me.”

Obi’s heart lurches. His face has never felt so hot. Play it off, his mind screams. Play it off, play it off, play it off! And desperate, Obi completely bypasses the voice in his head and brings her fingers to his lips. He looks up at his Miss’ face, as red as her hair, and sees her lips forming into a pleased smile. Inch by inch, Obi reels back his heart, offered on a platter for the taking, and swallows down his unadulterated adoration for the woman in front of him. He sets her hand down, smiles, and finally pays heed to the shouting in his mind.

“For you and Master,” he says. For you, he doesn’t say. “Anytime.”

#obiyuki #akagami no shirayukihime #yixin's fic #and there was only oNE BED #it's about time to be honest

50 notes · View notes

kitaychan · 4 years ago

Text

White Flame

Chapter 17

Rating M

Warnings: Blood, Psychological horror

General Summary: As their two Kingdoms get closer to a war, the past keeps on hovering around their choices. Prince Ivan has a hard time controlling his magical powers while being tormented by a mysterious ghost and Prince Alfred embarcs in seeking a revenge that might cost more than it’s worth it.

Preview: Arthur paused, pondering on the seriousness of the reply and shaking his head. “Why did you support her request? Alfred is weary of Ivan and his sister, he’ll throw a tantrum. Not even Madeline will be able to calm him.” he said, returning to his pacing. “He’ll put the blame on me.”

“One would think you are afraid of the boy. Is he giving you a hard time?” A sly smile appeared on Francis’ face as he left the papers on the desk. “I advised Madeline to travel, it’d be good for her to strengthen ties with others. If Alfred brings demise upon himself, she won’t be dragged by him.”

“Nonsense, Alfred only needs to understand how this works, it’s my fault for not paying more attention to him and his learning.”

“He is aware of how this works.” Francis stated, crossing his arms and laying back on the chair. “You need to take him seriously.”

Chapter 17: Arrangements

Arthur paced around the room, the polished floor reflecting his tired silhouette. Papers shuffled behind his back, his eyes traveling slowly across the room, faltering at the sight of the long and delicate fingers that held the stock of papers, too close.

He stumbled back, to regain the distance the other man had stolen from his personal space.

He prefered it that way, distant, he was able to observe without the snarky remarks or the flirtatious glances. Reiterating over and over again that Francis was like that with everyone, that it was his way of behaving: eccentric, yet, accurate to the artistic circles he frequented, but when they were alone, Arthur was sure he was repeating the thought to convince himself, to believe that his nervousness and hesitancy were side effects of annoyance

A soft voice spoke. “I don’t see why you are so worried” a lone, red ruby glinted on the ring of the approaching hand, until it settled, resting on his shoulder. Blonde hair tossed to the side, barely visible as a page of paper was held hiding the face of the man speaking. “Everything is in order, I assure you that it will go down smoothly. Just a couple of weeks and I will return to you.”

Moving the hand away, Arthur huffed. “I only worry about Madeline, if you were to prolong your stay there, I’d gladly provide the means for that.”

Lowering the pages, Francis frowned, his voice dry and plain. “You wound me, Arthur. Why must you be so harsh?”

Arthur paused, pondering on the seriousness of the reply and shaking his head. “Why did you support her request? Alfred is weary of Ivan and his sister, he’ll throw a tantrum. Not even Madeline will be able to calm him.” he said, returning to his pacing. “He’ll put the blame on me.”

“Nonsense, Alfred only needs to understand how this works, it’s my fault for not paying more attention to him and his learning.”

“He is aware of how this works.” Francis stated, crossing his arms and laying back on the chair. “You need to take him seriously.”

Fighting the urge to argue with him, Arthur glared, leaning his hands on the desk, there was no use in following Francis’ game, though, what was the fun in speaking with him if he didn’t? He lowered his voice. “He’s plotting again, isn��t he? Is there something you want to tell me?”

A pause, Francis chuckled, averting his gaze. “A lot of things actually,” Clearing his throat, he continued. “Regarding this matter, there is nothing to tell, Alfred is pretty straightforward.”

Arthur sighed, organizing the papers on the desk, hesitantly taking the seal. “You’ll write to me as soon as you can.” he said, a small nod from Francis gave him the reassurance he needed. He signed, a sense of dread falling over him. After all, he had to inform the siblings of the arrangements he had made.

----

The curtains swayed with the wind, a cold breeze entering the room through the opened window, Natalya shivered, tossing the book on her bed and closing the window with a grunt.

The mirror, instead of reflecting her pale face and the shadows under her eyes, was filled with scattered pages, either full of annotations or depicting the same scenery over and over again.

That gloomy forest was imprinted on the back of Natalya’s mind, the book was filled with those sketches. There were crumbled papers laying on the floor, on top of her nightstand a messy, scratched letter.

Natalya frowned at the sight, no matter how many times she sent letters, they went unanswered. Perhaps there was a delay, a bitter taste crawled on her mouth as she remembered her father’s correspondence, the letters had arrived, Ivan was not replying to her.

A soft knock on the door took her out of her thoughts. “What do you want?” she asked, her voice sharp and loud.

The door opened and Feliks stepped in casually. Looking around, pausing at the mirror and kicking some of the papers on the ground. “Your father wants to see you.”

Natalya observed him intensely, her hand clenching on the curtain. “Get out, I’ll go with him in a moment.”

She kept her glare but Feliks didn’t move, he held his stare, a smile forming on his lips as he pointed at the nightstand. “Natalya, you are not approaching him correctly. Ivan is not an usual royal, he is more of a soldier than a prince. If you want to gain his attention, you have to provide him useful information.”

“What would that information be according to you?” she chuckled dryly, retrieving the book from her bed and placing it on the small table.

Feliks shrugged, pacing towards the door. “What meetings are being held here, your father’s opinions and of course, updates on how the territory is progressing. I can help you with that if you want.”

“I do not want your help, I am perfectly fine on my own.” She fumed, her hand reaching for the door.

He chuckled, standing in the doorway. “So, he replied to your love letters, right?”

Natalya’s face grew hot with anger, her voice raising. “Leave me alone! I will tell my father of your insolence.”

Feliks stepped back, taking distance from her, a sheepish smile on his face. “I will help you, I can assign you a scholar, he will accompany you and clarify the meetings to you and you will introduce him to the proper etiquette and such. Does the exchange sound appealing to you?”

Natalya glared, pushing the door to close it. “I won’t babysit any schoolboy.”

“Did I mention that he comes from a family of sorcerers? He might have magical knowledge too.” Feliks blurted out, holding the door open. “Yekaterina’s exchange idea was brilliant, we get to share with so many foreigners, it is certainly enriching our culture. I see you are interested in our forest so you could participate too, you are a foreigner here.”

Natalya retreated from the door, letting Feliks stumble forward. “Make the arrangements, I will see if I can make time for that.” She huffed, walking past him.

Feliks approached her in the corridor again. “I will certainly arrange a trip to the forest but you’ll have to convince Ivan about the scholar. You see, someone in my position cannot request anything to him but you surely could.”

She knitted her eyebrows, turning towards the staircase. “Nonsense, why do you offer something you cannot provide?”

Following on the steps, Feliks pressed. “It’s not a secret that your fiancé dislikes me, rightfully so, I shouldn’t have behaved like that at the feast. I know people, unlike you or your cousin, I mean, his majesty, I have a wide network of acquaintances.” He smiled. “You only have to persuade him, the person I’m talking about is one Tino’s trusted advisors, safer than bringing the western kingdom’ princess.”

Natalya stopped in the last step, arching her eyebrow. “What do you mean with that?”

“You do not know? Yekaterina arranged princess Madeleine to visit the firebird, that’s why your father is so busy these days. Personally, I think that’s a poor choice from her but who am I to judge Yekaterina’s administration.”

“I don’t care about your opinions, my father can provide me with advisors if I ask, a scholar is not necessary and I won’t talk ill about Katya if that’s what you want.” Natalya clenched her hands on her dress, why would they hide something so important from her?

Feliks shook his head, lowering his voice. “You could inform yourself about a distant principality through said scholar and advise Ivan on how to rule it.” he shrugged. ”Of course, I’d never wish for you to engage in aversion with your cousin and soon to be, sister in law.”

Resuming her steps, Natalya argued. “Stop mentioning our familiar ties, it’s unnecessary.”

“You are right, it is” He hummed, waving his hand and dismissing the men waiting by the office’s door. “I just think it’s strange that Yekaterina brings another princess here, taking into account the rumors about the prince.”

Knocking on the door, she growled. “Get out of my sight. I recognize a snake when I see one. I’ll make my father behead you.”

As the door opened, Feliks straightened his posture, his smile vanished and he lowered his head.

Natalya smirked at the change of attitude, perhaps she could scare him a bit more with her threats, her joy soon vanished as she saw Tolys was the one holding the door open, she scrunched her nose and walked past him.

When the door closed, Natalya sat heavily, her brow furrowed, she opened her mouth to speak but her father held a hand.

“I know, I should have told you before but we weren’t sure if they would accept Katya’s invitation, I was hoping they didn’t.” he paused, observing her. “You look tired.”

“I’m fine.” She pouted, reminding herself that her discontent should be directed towards Feliks and not her father, there wasn’t much he could do about it if Yekaterina requested it. “What is Tolys doing here?”

At the question, his face lit up, he ushered her to approach, showing her a delicate box. “A gift was sent. He said you’d requested it.”

Natalya took the box, it was wrapped with blue silk, a platinum ribbon adorning the top of it. It was a bit heavy but not much, she arched an inquiring eyebrow at her father.

He shrugged, handling her a letter. “I’m sorry, I was wondering what the fuss was about, please, tell me that's a dress.”

She took the open letter with trembling hands, reading over it quickly.

It’s light enough for you to wear it everyday if you want, and ornate enough for it to be a sight to behold.

Another one was requested for the day of the ceremony.

I hope it’s to your liking.

Ivan.

Natalya beamed, laughing lightly. With a sing-song voice she said. “It’s not a dress!” Leaving her father with a dumbfounded expression, not hiding the smile on her face, she took the box and hurried to her room. Her steps felt lighter, the day was brighter and her heart was fluttering with excitement.

She pulled the bow apart, opening the box slowly, the silver crown was indeed beautiful, blue sapphires adorning it. Natalya gasped, this was not a tiara, it was a crown, to think that she’d have another, perhaps more beautiful and majestic was beyond her dreams.

She moved away the papers from her mirror, taking off the white ribbon from her hair and folding it. She lifted the crown slowly, placing it on her head, the window opened with a thud, a cold wind entering, moving the curtain and twirling the lone pages, her tiredness vanished and she could swear her reflection was smiling back at her.

Natalya was exceeding the fantasies of her treasured fairytales.

---

The market was a picturesque place, crowded with people, offering a variety of products, some children running around as their mothers sold the goods, results of their labor.

There were a few harsh glances thrown in their direction, seeing soldiers from the royal army around the firebird was offensive to the inhabitants, Tolys couldn’t blame them, nor was he surprised by the quantity of women in the place, he had frequented the market long before and most of the sellers were men. Now, the few men left were elders or young boys helping their mothers.

Feliks guided them into a small bakery, gaining confused glances from the soldiers, the woman attending was busy, bargaining with another in the entrance. Tolys avoided their gaze as they approached, not wanting to draw attention. His attempt was in vain, even if he was no soldier, he looked like a prince in comparison to the villagers.

Feliks looked around, staying by the door, ushering to take a look. Tolys approached, the interior of the bakery was dull but he could notice the restaurations, they were odd looking. The firebird used to be adorned with warm tones, the blue banners and the white paint was not the inhabitants doing.

One of the soldiers entered, his eyes fixed on the wooden counter, more exactly on the pastries exhibited.

Feliks approached him, greeting the man warmly. Tolys saw the confusion in the man’s eyes, but what caught his attention was a scar on the man’s hand.

Feliks glanced around, standing beside the man. “Are you a soldier?”

The man shook his head. “No, sir. I am a farmer.”

The other soldiers chuckled. Tolys observed quietly, as Feliks frowned, his voice acquiring an annoyed tone. “That injury doesn’t look too old, did you participate in the conquest?”

“I did, the circumstances required all available men to join the army.”

“How unfair of the King to ask the civilians such sacrifice.” Feliks huffed, motioning the woman to pack some pastries, her hands curling the hem of the white apron she wore.

Tolys glanced back at the entrance, the other soldiers were watching them with suspicion. A tired voice replied. “It is part of our duty as subdits of our King.”

Feliks nodded, “What do you think of the prince? wasn’t he drunk a few days ago?”

“Drunk is an exaggeration.” one of them said. “To see him in the winter festival was a strange happening, but maybe he’ll be a better ruler. Not secluded in that palace, maybe he’ll be more lenient with us.”

“Royalty doesn’t care about any of us unless we are useful to them.They only take our work, our men and sometimes our women.” The woman huffed, glaring at Feliks and placing a small box on the counter. “Though that’s more of a soldiers’ tradition, isn’t it?”

“Such a thing hasn’t happened in a long time.” The soldier next to Feliks shifted on his feet. “The prince was with our regiment when the Firebird was taken, I thought royalty didn’t engage in the conflicts, you know? I wonder if your prince was watching from afar, comfortable and hidden. Our King was with us, and his son, I think we owe him the return, he took that decision after all.”

The woman’s face grew red, she raised her voice. “I don’t owe him anything, your king and your soldiers own us for the spilled blood of our families. I don’t have to welcome you, I merely tolerate you.”

Tolys eyes widened, he stepped back, motioning the soldiers to do the same, unluckily for him, they didn’t comply.

Feliks dragged him out of the bakery by the arm, chuckling softly. “It’s so easy to set them up.”

Toly’s glanced warily at the woman arguing with them. “We should-”

“Quick, what news do you have.” Feliks interrupted him, his voice hushed.

“Vladimir resigned, he said it was a foolish plan. Ivan is busy flirting with a maid and Yekaterina is focused on the exchanges, they suspect nothing.”

“A maid?” Feliks laughed. “I can’t wait to rub that in Natalya’s face, she’s hard to persuade, isn’t she?”

“Lady Natalya has a sharp vision, don’t taunt her.” Tolys’ frowned, fidgeting with his hands. “I suspect Vladimir might tell.”

“Natalya is busy daydreaming about her wedding, as for Vladimir, he won’t speak, that would cause him trouble with Tino or worse.”

Tolys paused, shaking Feliks shoulder. “Tell me you haven’t spoken with Ludwig? You know very well that Gilbert will not provide aid just because, what are we supposed to give them in return?”

Feliks lowered his eyes, his eyebrows knitted. “I’d never ask that devil for help, trust me. Tino refuses to back us up but he might change his opinion if we pull the right strings, I’m working on it.”

“Give me more time. Vladimir said there was something off, let me find out what he was talking about and I’ll convince him.”

“Alfred already spoke with Lukas, if the middle kingdom gets involved Alfred will mediate, I trust his word.” Feliks smirked, pointing at the bakery. “Ivan will be trapped, he can’t attack the firebird as his father did. Yekaterina is digging her brother’s grave without knowing but if she sees you too close with Vladimir she might suspect something.”

Tolys nodded slowly, his eyes trailing to the firebird, that tall and lone fortress looked grim. He wondered, after all this was over, would he have to live in there? Was this worth the trouble? A glance at the bakery made him recompose his thoughts, the woman was showing those soldiers the way out of her bakery, her head was high and a small smile settled on her face.

He wanted that, the satisfaction that was ripped from him, the autonomy, no, the dignity that the horrid blue and silver banners had stolen from him.

#hetalia fanfiction #hws england #hws france #hws belarus #hws poland #hws lithuania #hws russia #hws america #hws nyo china #hws ukraine #rochu #hetalia #axis powers hetalia #hws fanfiction #hws rochu #hws finland #I am so happy with this update #writers block is horrid #my writing

15 notes · View notes

ghoste-catte · 3 years ago

Note

3, 4, 7, 19, 20! if that's too much then any of those are fine lol

Thanks for the asks!!

3. What is that one scene that you’ve always wanted to write but can’t be arsed to write all of the set-up and context it would need? (consider this permission to write it and/or share it anyway)

I have a couple of canon-divergence fic ideas that would require, not so much setup as ... a lot of research into canon and re-reading? This is probably obvious but I have but the faintest grasp of Naruto canon beyond the stuff my faves did. Often I'll be talking to someone and they'll bring up some point of Lore (TM) and I'm like "Oh, I genuinely never knew that." Like I don't know shit about dick about Konoha's founding, because I straight up didn't care and didn't read/watch a bunch of canon.

Anyway, one of the ideas that I've had on my ideas list for a long time is a fic where the chuunin exams go quite differently and basically neither Gaara or Lee are able to continue on as ninjas. Lee because he never attempts the surgery and Gaara because he sustains internal injuries that heal imprecisely due to the nature of Shukaku's healing factor and basically physically limit him beyond the point where he can function as a shinobi (I sort of played around with this idea a bit in 'A Personal Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows' but this case is a bit more fleshed out and plot-essential). Basically the concept is that while jinchuuriki have a healing factor, the Beast chakra doesn't 'care' that much about anything other than having a functional vessel, so it sort of patches all of his organs from where Lee beat his ass (and where he throws himself out of the hospital window) but without much thought to adequate healing beyond 'he needs to stay alive'. And then the Council gets involved and tries to extract Shukaku and place him in someone else and ~additional plot stuff I would need to reread the manga to figure out~.

The scene that I actually want to write from this is the one where Gaara and Lee reunite after having been on these very divergent paths for years but still having corresponded by letters, and Gaara hasn't really reformed or gotten over his feral nature, and he's living out in basically a hut in the desert, and then he eats a live lizard in front of Lee's horrified face but Lee falls in love with him anyway.

4. Share a sentence or paragraph from your writing that you’re really proud of (explain why, if you like)

Haaaahaha, I've gotten this question several times in this meme and I genuinely never know what to point to? I forget a lot of things as soon as I've written them. So it's less what writing am I proud of, and more what writing did I really enjoy doing?

One thing I did have a lot of fun with recently was coming up with everyone's dragon mounts in 'Dragonhearted', so here's a little snippet from that, about Team 8:

The square-headed one with the long, furry tail gamboling out front had to be Akamaru, with Kiba riding atop. Kiba’s family had been dragon tamers since before there was even a word for it. The first woman to raise her hand to a dragon’s snout, bond with it, and bring it to heel was said to be an Inuzuka matriarch. Lee could believe it; Inuzuka women were even more ferocious than their mounts.

Behind them came a creature with two flat-faced, whiskered heads on snaking necks, a single rider straddling the broad back. Hinata must have left Neji at home—he hated getting up early in the morning—and commandeered Shisa and Komainu for herself. Their twin mounts were elegant in the style of all Hyuuga mounts, but terribly impetuous. Even now the two heads were snapping at one another mid-air, snarling.

And finally came the clicking and snapping of hundreds of sets of wings, shiny black and translucent; and the snorting of air through snouts that looked like the forks of a rhinoceros beetle’s proboscis. The dangling feet borne aloft by the swarm of tiny dragons could be no one other than Shino. His mounts couldn’t even be properly called mounts—none of them was large enough to carry a human on their own—but they worked like a hive of insects with just one mind to keep him aloft.

7. What do you think are the characteristics of your personal writing style? Would others agree?

I genuinely don't know if others would agree, but I think my stuff tends to be quite plot-light and quite emotion-heavy. I like a lot of physical descriptions and a little bit of purple prose. I tend to lean on the little details of people - microexpressions, the motions of hair, what their fingers and eyes are doing. I don't think I'm especially strong at developing a plot with actual beats and following it to a conclusion; even stories that have some 'adventure' to them tend to be less about the Things the characters are doing and more about Who they're doing it with. There's a lot of times I feel I've set something up and don't have the chops to pay it off, or that I simply don't want to write a climactic battle or bit of ninja intrigue because what I'm really here for is the relationships. I hate writing fight scenes, and I'm not really intelligent enough to do the political machinations and inference stuff that Naruto as a canon relies on, so there's a lot of times where I write 'the characters go on a mission but nothing very important happens, because I want them to smooch'. I lean heavily on dialogue as a hook, but I don't actually have the characters speak much or say much of consequence; much of what's 'happening' is internal narration, memory, and scene description.

19. Is there something you always find yourself repeating in your writing? (favourite verb, something you describe ‘too often’, trope you can’t get enough of?

Answered here!

20. Tell us the meta about your writing that you really want to ramble to people about (symbolism you’ve included, character or relationship development that you love, hidden references, callbacks or clues for future scenes?)

This is more trivia than anything, but Lee's genin team in Chapter 6 of 'On My Way Home' are named after some of my favorite Japanese sportclimbers: Tomoa Narasaki, Akiyo Noguchi, and Miho Nonaka. Ai Mori is actually my top fave but it's beyond cliche to have an anime OC named 'Ai', so unfortunately she got left out. I think I've talked about this a bit before, but I'm like really into semi-obscure sports, and I love watching climbing competitions.

Fun Meta Asks for Writers

#answered #requirings #ask meme

6 notes · View notes

hoodwinkd1 · 4 years ago

Text

Your Eyes Whispered Ch 11-13

Ch 8 - 10 here. Ch 14 here.

Chapter 11: morning, her place

Eris jumped out of sleep the next morning, waking suddenly to the pressure of someone attempting to break down his wards. His body tensed immediately, an instinctual growl rising in his throat at the perceived threat. His mind reacted a moment later, recognizing the scent currently trying to break down the front door.

“RHIANNON HARMONY OPEN THE DAMN DOOR.” Interesting. Eris had made it this far without ever asking Rhia for her last name.

He waved a hand, removing the additional wards he had placed on the house last night. Grabbing his tunic from the chair and throwing it over his head, Eris strode downstairs just in time to watch Sofine burst into the front room.

She gave him such a ferocious glare that he froze in place without meaning to. “I suppose you’re the reason Rhia left town mysteriously for two days?”

“I, uh, yes.” Eris really wasn’t used to anyone scolding him. “Rhia helped me out with a...situation at the palace. Coffee?”

He vaguely remembered Rhia owed him a thought from last night. All this relaxation and peace had done some damage on his sharp, cunning mind.

Sofine’s eyes widened momentarily. Whether she was surprised at the gesture or suddenly remembering who she was scolding, her tone calmed considerably. “She keeps the beans above the stove, if you didn’t know.”

Eris nodded, accepting the small olive branch she offered. He lit the front burner with a flick of his pointer finger while filling the kettle under the tap with a flex of his other hand. The movements came quickly, naturally, and some of the tension left his body at the small expulsions of magic.

Quick footsteps skittered to a stop at the bottom of the stairs as the love of his life took in the scene in front of her. Shit. Eris’ thoughts had become pathetic and obsessive without his permission. He would have scowled if the sight of Rhia treading into the kitchen nervously hadn’t been so damn endearing.

“Shit, Sofi, I’m sorry.” Rhia embraced her friend tightly. “I didn’t mean to leave so abruptly; you must have been so worried.”

Sofine laughed softly, kissing the top of her head. “Oh I was very calm. Other than yelling at the High Lord first thing this morning.”

“I’m sure he deserved it,” Rhia hummed. She then made her way towards Eris, who finished steeping the beans at exactly the right second, handing her a steaming cup of coffee as she reached him. “What did you do?”

“Other than drag you into my mess?” Eris inquired, repressing the bolt of guilt that shot through him at the idea of Rhia in danger at the palace. “I placed additional wards up last night.” He looked over her head at Sofine. “I’ll make sure to include you in them next time.”

Rhia raised an eyebrow. “Who gave you permission to place them in the first place?”

Eris noted her light tone and twinkling eyes. “You tried to break into the most heavily guarded building in the Autumn Court yesterday and branded yourself as an enemy to the crown. What if someone tries to arrest you for that again?”

“Rhia,” Sofine gasped. “You tried to break into the palace?” Swiveling her glare to Eris, she demanded: “Why didn’t you let her in?”

At least she was scolding them both now. Eris held his hands up in surrender. “I didn’t know she was there!”

“And I didn’t try to break in, I actually did break in,” Rhia grumbled. “You should really upgrade the security on the eastern external wall.”

Sofine huffed. “Will you both disagree on every little detail? I want the full story.” She sat herself down at the kitchen table, making a big show of getting comfortably situated. “I have time.”

Eris sensed that now would be a lovely time to retreat and leave Rhia to her own devices. “I have to return to the palace and the horrors of bureaucracy.” He leaned forward, giving Rhia half a second to adjust to his closeness, before placing a chaste kiss on her lips. Her mouth upturned into a small smile, one he wished he could spend hours exploring. “I’ll come back when I can, good?”

“Very good,” she replied. “I expect a full report of our Court’s political situation when you return.”

Eris sighed dramatically. “If you insist.” He waved to Sofine. “I hope you won’t be too disappointed in my abilities after hearing the full story.”

“To be determined.” Her face flushed lightly, a female still unused to the High Lord’s presence, but he only felt gratitude at her attempts to treat him as normal as possible.

Eris blinked and appeared in his chambers, taking a minute to change his clothing and wash his face. He uttered some choice words at the pile of paperwork littering his desk, rifling through the to-do lists, save-the-dates, business contracts, and personal correspondences to see if any of it required his immediate attention.

One of his spies, Jyn, had sent him a list of potential candidates to fill the vacant adviser roles that Eris skimmed quickly. He had a half-baked plan forming in his mind to let people vote on the Fae listed on the sheet, maybe even ensuring that each region had specific representation. Gerwin had helped him draft a few new pieces of legislation that Eris would announce during the Autumnal Equinox ball, so one more shouldn’t cause any additional havoc.

“Fuck,” Eris swore again, remembering that his Court’s largest annual celebration was only a fortnight away and he had no idea what the hell was going on with the event.

He already wanted to check on his mother and Liang would know the most about the upcoming celebrations. Two birds, one awkward acknowledgement that they shared a bedroom.

Eris walked down the corridor, stopping to chat with one of the servants to make sure everyone on staff last night had received additional pay for working through an attempted coup. The slender male named Yuri had confirmed that the throne room was completely cleaned of any body parts and that to his knowledge, everyone had gotten the money before heading home.

The Lady of the Autumn Court lived in a different wing of the palace than her husband and sons had, a different wing than where Eris now lived basically alone. As he approached the white double doors, he ignored the urge to open the door automatically and knocked instead.

“Yes?” His mother’s tone was curious and wary, until she laid eyes on him. “Oh, darling! Come in, come in.”

Eris followed her inside, observing how much lighter and joyful she seemed in the glow of day. Her decorations had always used softer colors and more patterns than typical Autumn design; even the gold that adorned the soft blue curtains looked brighter than the gold that detailed his traditional red decor.

“How are you?” he inquired. “Did the healers take a look at you last night?”

She herded him over to the seating area. “Yes, and you have nothing to worry about. I wasn’t harmed by the Night Court.” Eris let out a deep exhale. He hadn’t known how to delicately ask what she’d experienced in captivity, and her warm gaze confirmed that she hadn’t been tortured. “I might not be feared or even respected by the other Courts, but Keir knows exactly who my allies are. And who my family is.”

“If Rhysand hadn’t finally taken care of the trash ruining his terrority, there would have been a list of us ready to kill Keir for him,” Liang grumbled, joining them from the bedroom. “Eris.”

He returned her nod. “Thank you for insisting on the healers.” Eris turned his body to face her more directly. “I actually had a question for you, as well. The Autumnal Ball is supposed to be in two weeks and I--”

“Hadn’t planned anything for it?” Liang teased. “Not to worry. The High Lord typically shows little to no interest in the event planning.” Her words had a bitter edge to them, and Eris knew he wasn’t the High Lord she spoke of. “I can send details to your rooms later today for your approval.”

Eris held his hands up. “I trust your judgement much more than my own. I would be interested in seeing the plans, though, just for my own knowledge.”

“Of course. I’ll at least want your opinion on the guest list, make sure I didn't’ miss anyone important.” Liang sat next to his mother, who raised an eyebrow.

“Is there anyone she wouldn’t have thought to invite, darling?” she asked innocently. “Do you have any new friends we don’t know about?”

Her words made him feel like an adolescent. “You know I don’t have friends. But I might send invitations to the other High Lords; see if they’d like to send a delegation.”

“Just let me or my assistant know if anyone needs to be seated separately to avoid a fight,” Liang offered. “We have over a thousand guests confirmed, so a few more won’t require much adjustment.”

Eris’ eyes bulged out of his head. “A thousand? Where did you find that many fucking people?”

“Language,” his mother admonished. “And we’ve always had a large attendance, though never quite this large.” She grinned at him. “I believe the host might be a bit more popular this year than in previous years.”

He fell into his thoughts as the two females ordered tea and went through some of the other details with him over the next hour. The annual ball was one of the only events that sent out a certain number of tickets to each regional capital, instead of inviting specific Fae individually. During Beron’s reign, only the required attendees who sat in governing roles showed up, but almost all of the optional invitations had been reserved this year with family members, friends, and colleagues. Eris hoped that meant his Court felt more comfortable with him than his father, and not that they all wanted a front-row seat to his inevitable failure or demise.

Liang sent him off with a few blank invitations, spelled to deliver themselves immediately after being addressed. He stopped by his rooms and scrawled out all the High Lords’ names, except for the Night Court’s which he addressed to Carina. She probably wouldn’t throw his letter directly in the fire. He also added a personal note, letting her know that he still owed her a very fancy dress for her help in finding his mother, offering to send his best tailor her measurements if she wanted to call in that deal.

Either through a simple mistake or a stroke of ingenuity, Liang had handed him 7 invitations, leaving Eris an extra blank one. Inspiration hit him like a brick. Rhia.

Would she want to come? See him in his role? Watch the entire fucking island scrutinize him? Normally, Eris would have let his thoughts swirl in a self-deprecating river until he’d talked himself out of the idea. He chose to stop himself this time, however, and practice healthy communication by just asking her.

Would they be able to hide their bond at such a large event? Any daemati would know, if they didn’t maintain their mental shields perfectly the entire time. The thought of hiding his feelings for Rhia, avoiding her gaze and looking at anyone else when perfection was right in front of him, drew a low growl from his lips. For her safety, though, he would do anything. Even if acting like he didn’t care felt so uniquely miserable.

Carina’s response drew him out of his thoughts. Cauldron, he was getting irrationally dismal in his old age. Maybe that was a side effect of patricide.

He snorted internally at the bleak joke.

Of course I’ll be there, idiot. Bryce is coming too. Something about how I never have any regard for my own safety blah blah blah. I’ve attached detailed instructions for your tailor, and I’ll be bringing a backup gown in case it’s not up to my standard. I have a reputation to uphold.

Eris let relief wash over him that he’d have at least one ally present. At the mention of Carina’s mate, he considered asking her for help with the whole mess of emotions that he went through daily. At the very least, she was one of the very few people in Prythian who understood the dangers of power, the sharpness of panic that came with putting loved ones in danger from enemies that normally wouldn’t spare them a second glance.

Hours of meetings and too many decisions stood between Eris and sitting in his favorite chair in a too-small kitchen. He gave himself one minute to hope that the violent chapters of his life had closed permanently, gave himself one minute to dream of what happiness and peace might actually look like, before re-entering his role as High Lord.

Chapter 12: spent their whole lives trying to put it into words

One small TW for abuse (past, nothing graphic). I've put the usually XXX before and after, but as always please let me know if I can make these warnings better and if you want a summary of that section.

“Hold that position. Yes! Exactly like that!” Rhia gasped. Her cheeks were flushed with excitement

Her student’s tiny arms began to tremble slightly at the exertion. Aliar’s face remained focused, however, as he used his leg muscles to push the wave of water higher and higher, until it touched the ceiling.

He dropped it suddenly. “Was that good?”

Rhia grinned. “That was wonderful . Did you see how much higher you raised it using your entire body instead of just your arms?”

He nodded quickly, a slow smile building on his face. Much quieter than the other two students he trained with, Aliar’s smile was equivalent to jumping with joy.

“Go grab some water, then you all can stretch and go home.” Rhia herded the trio of younglings toward the counter dividing the studio and her kitchen, where she always laid out a pitcher and cups. Raquel immediately stole Aliar’s attention, bestowing compliments and advice all in the same breath, at a speed too fast for anyone to follow along. They had a few more weeks before they would master water, all three of them did, but had made good progress nonetheless.

Rhia shuffled past Leyora carefully, from where the female had begun stretching in the most inconvenient spot, towards the dining room table. She eyed the blank parchment sitting there. The memory of the last time she had been waiting for a message from Eris while teaching this same trio hurt to recall, but she shook off any negative thoughts. Today had been good, her sleep undisturbed and her breathing easy.

It’s only been a day, she chided herself mentally. Give him time to respond, you needy wench.

“What is that?” Raquel demanded. Rhia barely stopped herself from jumping at their voice and shoved her hand away from the parchment. “Are you being sneaky with something?”

“What?” Rhia replied. “I’m an adult. I don’t have to sneak anything.”

Leyora raised her eyebrows. “Sounds like something a sneaky person would say.” Alair humphed in agreement.

“You’re all menaces. Raquel, finish your water.” Children could be eerily perceptive when they wanted to, usually when adults didn’t want them to.

As they grabbed their coats and ambled out, weather already turning gloomy before the Solstice, Rhia watched them go with a strange bittersweet feeling. Would she continue teaching if she became Lady--

Shit. That was not a road she had ever gone down and certainly didn’t need to go down. As if she would ever officially court Eris, nonetheless marry him when they hadn’t done anything more than kissing yet. When they still hadn’t talked through their pasts, their hopes, their darknesses.

Still, the thought lingered.

Rhia busied herself with making dinner as the sun set, drawing graceful golden designs on the walls. She sensed Sofine coming up to her door, grabbing two wine glasses as the Fae burst into the room.

“You read my mind,” she purred. Her gaze turned flirtatious as she noticed the wine Rhia had selected. “Feeling fancy tonight, are we? Expecting special guests?”

Rhia clicked her tongue. “You’re special enough for a nice bottle of wine. Sit, sit.”

Telling Sofi the full story, including how the mating bond had shared the agony of Eris’ stab wound, hadn’t been fun. Rhia had let her friend scold her, had let Sofi get out all of the frustration and worry she felt. Of course they both hoped that being Eris’ mate wouldn’t put Rhia in harm again, but the ordeal had created an entirely new set of anxieties.

So tonight, they stuck to pleasant topics. Rhia’s students, Sofine’s attempts to make a new kind of bread (Rhia secretly wondered how one could create a new kind of bread, but didn’t question it). The roasted vegetables turned out perfectly, a lucky feat when one’s best friend could cook better than anyone for miles.

And of course, the parchment glowed at exactly the wrong moment when Rhia had turned her back to bring the dishes to the sink. She heard Sofi’s gasp and whipped her head around, groaning when she saw her reading whatever message Eris had just sent.

“I’m a bit scandalized.” Sofi winked. “Is he always this dirty?”

Rhia gaped. “What the fuck? Give me that!” She moved at the speed of light, snatching the paper.

May I stop by tonight?

“Ugh, you’re such a bitch,” Rhia grumbled.

Sofine shrugged. “You should’ve seen your face. Maybe you wanted it to be a dirty message.”

That was the problem. Rhia would have loved a dirty message. Or she would have run screaming for the hills and never spoken to anyone ever again. It was a toss up.

“Do you mind if he crashes our plans?” she asked, stopping her perilous thoughts once more. Eris had never looked at her that way, at least not that she had noticed.

Sofi waved her glass of wine like a queen would her scepter. “Please. We hang out every other night. The male presence spices up the evening.”

If you don’t mind Sofi and I after two glasses of wine, Rhia wrote back.

Excellent. Shall I bring something from the royal cellar or do you have more than enough alcohol?

Oh definitely bring something. A fruity red, if you really want to win her over.

She couldn’t have counted to thirty in the time it took for Eris to appear in the kitchen.

“How did you possibly grab wine and winnow here that quickly?” Rhia demanded.

Eris shrugged. “I’m incredible like that.”

“Or he was sitting in the wine cellar, waiting to drown his sorrows if you said no,” Sofine piped up. Her cheeks flushed. “Sorry, I’m still not sure if I’m allowed to treat you normally and such.”

“Please,” Eris smiled. “Put me through all the shit you would normally put a male through.” With a mischievous look at Rhia, he added: “And feel free to tell me about those males while you’re at it.”

Rhia snatched the bottle from him. “Absolutely not.” She checked the label. “Cauldron damn me, this is 600 years old! Wait -- Eris, when exactly were you born?”

“I will not be age-shamed after procuring some of the finest wine in Autumn tonight,” he growled. “You know damn well how old I am.”

Sofine sighed. “I hope I’m not that grumpy in four hundred years.” She raised her now-empty glass up to Rhia, who gladly filled it.

---

Eris flicked his wrist and pulled out a glass for himself, then threw his body into the unoccupied chair. He let out a mock sigh at the females’ teasing, hiding his genuine joy at the playful conversation and quick remarks that flew across the room.

XXX

“I’m never throwing myself a birthday party again,” he insisted. “It’s just depressing at this point. I would’ve stopped throwing them years ago, if we hadn’t been...required to.” Eris trailed off. He’d almost shared the darling fact that Beron had forced all of his sons to host birthday galas, as an excuse to demand gifts and promises from various lords and nobility. Beron also loved nothing more than to use the annual occurrence as an excuse to run through the boys’ failures that year. The harsh words stung, but the sharp blows that followed drew a special kind of agony.

XXX

Rhia’s brow furrowed slightly at his sudden change in tone. “I throw too many birthdays for my students anyway.” He appreciated her attempt to lighten the mood, and appreciated the warmth of her hand on his that followed.

“That reminds me.” Eris squeezed her hand quickly, the other darting into his jacket pocket. “I have something for you. Both of you.” Inspiration struck as he handed the ball invitation to Rhia.

Her eyes danced across the sturdy parchment. “The Autumn Solstice Ball? In two weeks?”

Sofine jumped up. “What? Give me that!” She squealed as she read what Rhia had just spoken. “By the Mother, Eris!! Oh, you are such an improvement on anyone Rhia’s brought home.”

“Sofi’s always wanted to attend a ball,” Rhia shared. Eris tried to judge her expression, but he couldn’t figure out what she was thinking.

“And you? Would you be interested in attending?” he probed. “I, I know it might be complicated for you to attend with the whole...situation.” He gestured between the two of them. “We can do this any way you’d like.”

Rhia worked her bottom lip between her teeth. “I want to, I really do.” Eris had to restrain himself from running his thumb over her forehead until the skin relaxed. “I’m worried people will know, but I’m also exhausted already at the thought of hiding it all night, but I know it’d be strange for you to pop up with a mate randomly, and I--”

“I have an idea,” Sofine interrupted. Her eyes narrowed as her brain doubtlessly worked out some scheme that Eris would either detest or fancy. “It would save you both some trouble. You wouldn’t have to hide your feelings, but you wouldn’t have to come up with a backstory about how you met.”

Oh, Eris would definitely love or hate this.

Sofine took a sip of her wine. “Spit it out, you dramatic tart,” Rhia complained after a moment.

“Write your own fairytale.” Sofi let a smirk play on her lips. “Pretend like you’ve never met, as if Rhia and I just received the invitations through some mistake or some administrative process. And then at the ball, poof! The bond.”

Eris let her words run through his mind once, twice. “You think we should act like the bond clicked into place...at the ball?”

Shrugging, she defended her plan. “I can’t say whether or not you both want to bring your relationship into the public domain, but it would be wonderful, wouldn’t it?” Eris would have snorted at the dreamy look in her eyes if he hadn’t gotten the same look whenever he thought about a future with Rhia. “The new High Lord...hosting an extravagant ball...seeing the most beautiful woman grace his presence...falling love with her-”

“Cauldron, Sofi, are you a writer now?” Rhia stopped her friend from writing an entire novel aloud. Her gaze darted to Eris. “It feels a bit over-the-top, though.”

“I hate to even say this, because you know it isn’t a priority for me, but Gerwin would murder me if I didn’t consider how good of a public relations boost this could be.” Eris winced. It felt unbelievably shallow and inconsiderate to worry about his reputation while discussing his most intimate relationship.

Luckily, Rhia waved off his concerns with a hand on his arm. “Well maybe that’s something I care about.” She turned to her friend. “Do you mind giving us a moment?”

“I’ll give you all night,” Sofi smirked. “Take all the time you need to...talk. Bye!”

Her joke left them both groaning. However, Eris did take advantage of Sofi’s absence to pull Rhia away from the table and towards the much comfier couch across the room. She sat facing him, tucking her legs underneath her as she always did.

“Can I?” Eris stretched out his arm. Rhia gave him the softest smile and nodded, pulling herself closer until they were properly cuddled up next to each other.

“We obviously don’t have to this,” Eris began. “There’s ten other ways you could attend, not attend, whatever you want.”

She scrunched up her face. “Don’t ever repeat this, especially not to Sofi, but I’m completely in love with the idea,’ Rhia confessed. “It’s so silly, I know, but it feels nice to create some fake story. We could keep everything else private.”

Eris loved the idea for entirely different reasons, pretty much of all of them that he would get to dance with the most delightful Fae in this world in front of everyone without having to explain himself to anyone. However, he could work with this.

“So then? Should we do this?”

Rhia rolled her eyes. “Why does it feel like I’m signing my life away to some top-secret mission? Yes, let’s do it.”

He stayed over again that night, except this time they stayed awake talking until an obscene hour. Eris fell asleep with images of their future lulling him into peace.

Chapter 13: your eyes whispered (have we met) take 2

Eris threw himself on his bed, letting out a dramatic sigh that no one could hear. It had been a week and a half of pure stress that saw every kind of crisis, from interviewing potential advisers that ended up having criminal backgrounds to finding out the ballroom floor had somehow deteriorated and needed a fix immediately. Now, the day before the Solstice, Eris found himself wishing Auster had succeeded in his coup, if only for the fact that dealing with these logistics seemed a fitting punishment for treason.

His thoughts, as always, drifted to Rhia. They’d only had a couple nights together since, and Eris had to run back to the palace both times after a couple hours. The last interruption came at a particularly inopportune moment, right as he finished telling her the story of his darkest moment.

“Fuck,” Eris swore. Gerwin’s note made it clear, in no uncertain terms, that he had to come deal with a fight that broke out between some of his people. “I--”

“Go deal with it,” Rhia commanded, her voice unnaturally calm.

Eris let out a loose breath. He had literally just told her about Mor, about leaving a dying woman alone in the woods rather than offer her any aid because she had dared defy their fathers. “I don’t want to leave like this.”

Rhia hadn’t dropped her gaze at any point during the conversation and held his stare even now. “Are you worried that you’ve upset me beyond reproach? That this conversation is my breaking point?”

“Maybe.” He broke first, using the excuse of throwing on his coat to look away. “It’s what isolated the Autumn and Night Court permanently; why the precious Inner Circle will never tolerate me beyond my usefulness as an ally.”

Rhia snorted. “If we had more time, I’d spend all of it convincing you that this most certainly is not my breaking point. But we don’t.” She moved closer into his personal space. “So go deal with your drama and I’ll prove to you that the bridge between us is unbreakable another time.”

She always complained about his cheesy one-liners, but that sentence had carried him through the entire evening and subsequent morning. It wasn’t until that night, until he lay in his bed alone, that doubt began creeping in.

Eris’s mind raged a violent battle. The logical, rational part of him argued that Rhia had insisted they were fine, insisted she wasn’t upset at him. The dark, twisted part of him sneered at that optimism, insisted that she would never look at him again. Why would she, after hearing about his tragic engagement? After all, Rhia looked up to the Inner Circle as if they were deities, the same people who declared Eris a mortal enemy.

Sleep finally stole him from his painful journey through his memories, but his dreams offered little comfort. They swept him from memories of kisses and laughter to visions of tragedy and heartbreak at terrifying speeds.

---

Rhia finished her cup of tea. Sofi stood in front of her, buzzing with excitement, as they both eyed the sheer bags in front of them.

“I can’t stand it anymore,” Sofi declared, throwing her hands up in an overly dramatic gesture. “I’m opening them.”

She untied the lovely ribbon keeping their gowns wrapped in the protective shields before Rhia could protest. “Oh my goodness, Rhia, look .”

“Treya outdid herself,” Rhia agreed. One of her student’s guardians had offered to make them dresses for the Ball for a heavily discounted price, claiming that she had overstocked on specialty fabrics that weren’t selling.

She ran a hand softly over the gold silk. It felt luxurious, obscenely so, and Rhia found herself questioning if she deserved this. Not just the dress, but the entire situation. After so many years stuck in one place, doing one job, with basically one friend, the thought of changing her life overnight seemed beyond daunting. For Eris, though, she would try to step out of her comfort zone.

If only I could step far enough out of my comfort zone to jump his bones, Rhia thought to herself, half-humorously and half-miserable.

Sofi played with the straps of her sparkling red gown. “Where did you go just now?”

“Just wondering how the hell I got here,” Rhia answered. They played this game whenever either drifted too far into their own heads, a way to mindfully reenter the present. “It’s like a fantasy, isn’t it? Finding true love and prince overnight.”

Her tone must have struck bitter, because Sofi stopped admiring the fabric and looked her dead in the eye. “What are you worried about? That you don’t deserve this?”

“Yes, but it’s not...” Rhia fiddled with her gown once more. “We’ve talked a lot about what our life after tonight will look like, and it’s not like we’re about to get married or anything, but is it strange that I wish we were further along in our relationship? How can we just declare ourselves to the entire damn continent at this point?”

Sofi raised an eyebrow. “I would say this is a completely normal stage to tell your circle of people about a relationship. Eris’ circle just happens to include the general public.” She refilled her own mug, then froze. “When you say further along, you don’t mean sex, do you?”

“And what if I do?” Rhia challenged. Her cheeks flushed a bit. It’s not as if Sofi hadn’t seen her at her worst moments and through every failed relationship since, but this admission felt more embarrassing, for some reason. “I’m about to meet his mother and we’ve barely felt each other up.”

One beat of silence, then:

“I’m sorry,” Sofi cackled. “What is your logic here?” Her laughter grew as Rhia frowned, making her words difficult to decipher. “‘Hey Eris! I know everything’s just peachy emotionally, but I can’t go public with you until we’ve fucked!’ Rhia, you’re smarter than this.”

Rhia was smarter than this. “It sounds worse when you say it like that! I just...I’ve never waited this long before and it feels like I’m failing somehow.”

Sofi stopped giggling. “Hey,” she said softly. “You can’t compare relationships, or males, or even yourself in different situations. You’re happier than I’ve ever seen you, and that’s all that matters.”

“I am,” Rhia agreed. She took a deep breath, letting her thoughts settle. “I am, and you’re right.” Saying it out loud had helped calm the tornado of insecurities, helped her realize the fallacy of her worries. “Honestly, I think it’s a good sign we both overthink every tiny thing. As if we’re both terrified to damage what we have.”

Her friend clicked her tongue. “As long as that overthinking doesn’t create any damages itself.”

---

Eris was definitely overthinking their plan. Rhia had written him a short note about an hour ago, letting him know that her gown was perfect and she couldn’t wait. Somehow, her simple positivity had sent Eris into a swirl of anxiety that led him to interrogate Liang about every last logistical element.

“You’re hovering,” she snapped, as he followed her down the hallway. “Why are you asking me about the greeting line? You’ve done it a hundred times.”

Eris usually found her temper refreshing. Not today, though. “Yes, but we don’t normally greet everyone. How long will I be in line?”

Liang gave him a bemused look. “I don’t know, thirty minutes? How chatty do you plan to be? And it’s only for the appointed representatives from each village, like every single other time.” She turned sharply, narrowly avoiding a group of Fae carrying large trays of food to the main hall.

“Don’t follow me,” she called out, not bothering to turn her head to look back at her High Lord. Eris stopped walking, but still heard her mumble several profanities under her breath.

He ran a hand through his hair. Somehow, he had to conclude official introductions and make it into the main party before Rhia showed up, so their “first-glance” would seem authentic, without offending any local politicians by cutting their discussions short. If dinner began too soon, they’d have to wait for dancing, but would it even make sense to lock eyes after two hours at the Ball?

“Pull yourself together,” he mumbled to himself. Eris hated feeling out of control, but he simply couldn’t force a thousand people to move exactly how he wanted.

The plan stressed him out immensely, yet would provide political protection for their relationship. Technically, the law required Eris to disclose any “personal liaisons” to the palace staff and advisers, for security reasons and to allow advisers to approve any potential marriages. He obviously hadn’t done that under Beron to protect his lovers, and really didn’t want anyone saying a damn thing about his future spouse. Luckily, Prythian held mating bonds in the highest regard, and no one would dare say shit about him and Rhia, especially if the bond seemed to appear at an auspicious time of year.

“Talking to yourself now? I heard that’s a sign of mental exhaustion.” Eris turned to face his brother. “Why aren’t you up in your chambers getting pampered and prepared?” Lucien asked.

“I’m going there now,” Eris grumbled. “I was checking on any last minute issues.”

Lucien placed a hand on his shoulder. “How dedicated. Funny story, though, I had only just stepped into the entrance hall when Mother accosted me and demanded I send you back to your chambers.” He let out a small chuckle. “I believe the words ‘nuisance’ and ‘in the way’ were used.”

“It’s my party. I think I’m allowed to help out-”

“You don’t give a shit about event planning,” Lucien interrupted. “Go do your hair and make yourself pretty for your...special guest.”

Eris started. He hadn’t mentioned anything to his brother about Rhia. “What are you talking about?”

Lucien stepped back and put his hands in his pockets. The prick had spent way too much time in the Night Court. “Only that Carina seemed a little too excited for you. Anyways.”

Eris watched him walk away. Of course she had blabbed to his brother, probably immediately after Eris had confided in her last week. She was dogmatically good at keeping secrets when necessary, but notoriously good at gossiping about personal matters.

Still, he winnowed to his chambers and started a bath. His hair did look a bit a shabby, now that Lucien mentioned it.

----

The trees lining the cobblestone path twinkled with golden light, leading the way to the palace. Rhia and Sofi did their best not to gape at the scenery, at everything from the decorations to the masses of people. While they both had visited cities before Amarantha’s reign, the influx of sounds and sights overwhelmed their small-town sensibilities.

Rhia craned her neck to observe the massive double doors that were flung open to allow entrance. “Do they truly leave the doors open all night? Seems dangerous with all these crowds.”

“The only Fae who might break in has an invitation tonight,” Sofi snorted. She nodded at the thick parchment in Rhia’s hand. “Don’t even think about scaling the west wall.”

“East wall,” Rhia corrected automatically. Her heart had begun to race as they neared the doors, the entrance hall now visible over the other guests’ heads. The guards worked efficiently, splitting the crowd into three lines to check their invitations and scan for weapons.

The duo exchanged no further words until they reached the checkpoint. The guard let them through with no hassle, and Rhia let out a small breath. She didn’t expect to be denied entry or thrown in a prison cell, but her last encounter with palace guards had tainted her memory. Hopefully none of the members on staff tonight had arrested her previously.

“He certainly has taste, you think?” Sofi commented as they swept down the spacious hallway. Rhia nodded, enjoying the bright colors of the Autumn Court represented on ornate curtains, plush carpet, and detailed murals. On another occasion, she might have taken her time to admire the artwork like the other guests, but Rhia dragged Sofi quickly through them, with only one beautiful thing on her mind.

An extremely tall Fae stood at the end of the hall, in front of another set of large doors. Unfortunately, these were closed shut.

Rhia frowned at the sight. “Did we have the time wrong?”

“Oh, they just have to finish up the greeting line.” Rhia and Sofi jumped at the sudden comment. “They should open them shortly.”

Rhia grinned when she recognized the Fae next to her. “Gerwin! What are you doing out here with the rabble?” She placed a hand on Sofi’s wrist. “This is my dearest friend, Sofi. Sofi, this is Eris’ weapon master and all-around savior, Gerwin.”

He bowed slightly. “May I get that glowing compliment in writing? Pleased to meet you.”

Sofi laughed. “Likewise. I always think it’s good to know someone who knows where all the weapons are, in case of emergency.”

“The doors are now open,” droned the lanky Fae. Indeed, they swung open slowly behind him, revealing orchestral music and overlapping conversation. Gerwin shot them a quick wink and entered first, careful to act like a friendly stranger rather than an insider on the biggest secret of the year.

“Are you ready?” Sofi whispered under her breath. She slid her hand into Rhia’s, giving it a quick squeeze. “Last chance to run for the hills.”

Rhia scoffed. “Keep walking.” She forced her breath to come out evenly, slowly, hoping her body wouldn’t betray her by fainting before she even saw him.

The lights seemed even brighter, the music swelling to unprecedented volume, as she took those final steps into the ballroom, her eyes darting across all the irrelevant people and things. She only wanted to look at one person, only wanted to think of one thing tonight.

And then her eyes met his.

---

“Do you think you’ll make a trip to the Southern cities this winter? I spoke with the company maintaining your Milton estate, and it couldn’t be in better condition.” The dark-skinned representative beamed.

Eris attempted to return his enthusiasm. “Possibly. There’s still quite a bit of work to do around here. Thank you for coming.”

“Of course, my Lord. Have a wonderful evening.” As the Fae moved towards the dance floor, Eris dared to look back at the closed doors behind him. The official representatives had been let in forty minutes ago, and finally, he could see the end of the greeting line. If he could get through the next two conversations without screaming in frustration, he’d treat himself to the largest drink he could physically hold. Unless she arrived before he made it to the bar, then he’d settle on treating himself with a dance with the love of his life.

“The doors are now open.” The doormale’s voice sent a shot of adrenaline through Eris’ blood, grabbing his attention from the last group of dignitaries from the Dawn Court. His mother’s smile tightened, but her face remained diplomatic as she took over the greeting from her distracted son.

Eris strode away from the politicians and foreigners, away from his role as High Lord. As he walked, his prior thoughts and insecurities rose like a cloud of poison, choking him with doubt. This was the last time he could dream about what would happen when they saw each other’s faces again, the last time he could wonder if she’d come to brighten up his dull palatial life. The last time he could hate himself for offering her a choice to stand by him publicly, as if that wouldn’t put her in danger of scorn and harm.

Eris could barely breathe as he approached the edge of the dance floor. The string octet transitioned to louder music, meant to pull the crowds to their feet and into the arms of a partner. The first line of general guests darted in, chatting excitedly about the extravagance and the notable Fae already in the room.

He truly did stop breathing the moment he saw the tail of a silk golden gown. His eyes raked up the flowing skirt, small sections twisted into rose-like shapes until they reached the tight bodice. Then, his eyes devoured the low neckline and bare shoulders, stopping to note the one sleeve slipping down a smooth, brown arm, mocking the hand he wished to brush down that same arm.

Finally, after several seconds or an eternity, his eyes locked in on the most beautiful face he would ever see. Eris prayed to the Mother that he wouldn’t slip out of consciousness in that moment, when he looked his unbelievably perfect mate in the eye.

Rhia offered him the smallest smile, her hands rising to sit delicately at her stomach. She took a step towards him and--

Eris held back a snarl when he felt a hand on his shoulder. Gerwin mumbled an apology.

“You were standing so still that even I believe this was the moment the bond clicked in,” the weapons master remarked. “I think about half the room has noticed so far.”

“Good.” Eris turned back towards her, towards the angel he would never deserve. And yet, his doubts had completely vanished in her presence, leaving behind only the desire to hold her immediately. “I want them all to see this.”

With a final grin to his best friend, Eris walked across the floor. Fae jumped out of his way, and the gossip increased by a tenfold at his determined pace.

Sofi stood proudly next to her, failing to hold back her grin. She leaned over to whisper something in Rhia’s ear that Eris barely managed to catch. “I think you’ve caught someone’s attention.”

He was now close enough to inhale her scent. Cauldron, he must look like a besotted fool. Luckily, that was his role to play.

“My Lord.” Sofi bowed. Eris shot her a glance that might have appeared disdained to onlookers. She pursed her lips to hold back laughter.

“Have we met?” Eris asked. His tone came off light, casual, hiding the turmoil of love and desire flooding him. “You are absolutely enchanting.”

Rhia blushed and he almost gave in, almost kissed that blush right off her cheeks. “I haven’t had the honor, my Lord.”

“Eris,” he breathed. “To you, always Eris.”

“Rhiannon,” she countered. “Rhia, if you’d like.”

He held out a hand. “Will you do me the honor?”

She took it, and the warmth of her skin blazed across his body. Eris led them out to the dance floor, which had emptied in his journey across it.

The musicians changed their tune mid-note, slowing the tune down until a sweet, romantic song claimed the room. A few cautious couples stepped out from the edges of the crowd, but most of the room stood completely still and held their breaths, straining to figure out who had stolen their High Lord so abruptly.

Eris pulled Rhia close with one hand on her waist, keeping the touch gentle for her comfort. Their intertwined hands rose as their feet moved.

“Why aren’t they dancing?” she asked nervously.

“Don’t look at them. Look at me,” Eris urged. “It’s an old Court tradition, letting the highest ranking nobles have the first dance. They’ll join soon.”

“Why did you ask me to dance?”

He smiled at the question. She was still playing the game. “You must know that you’re the most flawless person in this room. I was wonderstruck.”

That beautiful blush appeared again. “I’ll guess you didn’t pass any mirrors on the way down here, then. I can’t take my eyes off of you.” The hand on his shoulder flexed as Rhia dared to let one finger brush his neck. He shivered.

“Please tell me you felt it too.” Eris’ instincts kept them from crashing into other dancers, since his eyes couldn’t be bothered to leave her face. “Tell me I’m not alone here.”

Passerbyers heard that one. His words spread across the crowd, the gossip faster than his flames ever could.

“Everything vanished when I saw your face,” Rhia replied. Her tone softened, her head tilted. “Yes, I felt it.” She leaned in, lips brushing his ear. “You’ll never be alone again, my love.” The words were murmured too softly for anyone else, an admission that was for him alone.

Gerwin would never let him forget it if he cried in front of everyone, so Eris swallowed back the rage of emotions in his throat. “Thank the Cauldron. Literally, since you’re my-”

A roar of thunder shattered the room, followed by a flash of darkness right in the center of the floor, several feet from where they stood. Some guests screamed, and the guards surged, but Eris merely sighed and held up a hand.

The night black vanished, leaving behind an unfairly attractive couple. The female waved to the crowd, flipping a lock of her raven hair over her shoulder. Her partner stood impassively next to her, his Illyrian wings marking him as obviously other.

Eris inclined his head. “Thank you for coming, Carina.”

#acotar #sjm #eris #eris vanserra #acosf #autumn court #ballgowns #dancing #all the good stuff

15 notes · View notes

toloveawarlord · 4 years ago

Text

Black Army Mischief Maker (Ch. 4)

You can find my masterlist in my bio!

Characters: Finley Godspeed, Sirius Oswald, Ray Blackwell, Kyle Ash, Fenrir Godspeed, Dalim Tweedle

Tagging: @plumpblueberry @christmaswarlock @starry-starry-night24 @youreawizardharr @thetwinkims

A/N: Finley is back!

No sooner had the mysterious new woman arrived, she was gone. A soldier reported that Alice had been detained by the Red Army. The young Godspeed sported a frown as she tilted the watering can forward to dampen the soil of the plants.

“You’ll drown that poor tulip.” Sirius’s voice snapped the girl out of daze. He smiled softly as she yanked the can upright and bent down to spread around the sopping soil. “What’s with that disappointed expression?”

Finley lifted her mud-caked hand and wiggled her fingers to let drops of the dirt fall. A whine passed her lips. “It’s not fair. Alice only just got here and now she’s gone. We had a big party and everything. The Red Army shouldn’t have stolen her away with their fancy foods that are hard to pronounce and my adorable Eden.”

The Queen of Spades chuckled at her. It came as no surprise that she brought in the Jack of Heart’s daughter to the conversation. She was quite smitten with the little lady. “We’ll get her back here where she belongs.” Who knew what kind of danger awaited Alice at the hands of the proud Red Army?

“Hey, Fin, wanna tag along to the hideout?” Ray asked, not sporting his usual army attire. He’d been watching her out of the office window with that sad expression on her features. A trip out would be good for the both of them.

Finley held her hands out to Sirius, letting him pour water from the can to clean them. “Yeah, I wanna go. It might make me feel better.” Her sluggish steps showing how down she was. “Whoa-”

Ray spun her around before plucking the girl up and placing her on his shoulders. Her hands settled on his head, lacing through raven locks. “I know you’re upset about Alice, but we’ll see her again really soon.”

His words didn’t lift her mood. The whole walk to Central Quarter was in a comfortable silence. She needed some time to process all those emotions. In the alley, all the cats were waiting.

“They’re so soft... like Alice.” Finley sighed heavily, practically covered in cats. They all vied for her attention, purring and meowing as they rubbed against her body when her hands were occupied.

It wasn’t strange for the young Godspeed to get attached to someone so quickly, but this was something else entirely. Maybe a little bit of jealousy that she didn’t understand as such. “How about we go eat our feelings?” Ray suggested, patting her on the head as he cradled a white cat in his arms.

“Okay!” Finley jumped up, startling the cats that scattered in various directions.

The pair went to every cafe and food stall that they could, snacking on savory and sweet items, drinking more hot chocolate than one should in a single outing. A stall owner called to Ray, having a complaint that he believed only the King of Spades could remedy.

To the girl, it seemed like it would take a while... long enough to visit one nearby building.

When the sun went down, this establishment got quite lively. Finley didn’t sneak in here often, unless it was before opening, but on occasion, she disregarded all the rules. Eyes followed her, some already intoxicated enough that they believed they must be hallucinating.

A towel fell over her head. “You can’t be here, kid.”

“Hey!” Finley protested, balling it up and tossing it back to Dum, who leaned over the counter to catch it. “Is Kyle here yet?”

The bar owner found it odd that she’d come here in search of the Red Army doctor, but he noted that she wasn’t as perky as usual. “If I show you where he is, will you leave?” He didn’t mind her visits, but not when he had patrons, many of whom were uncomfortable with a child in the building.

“I promise! I just need to see him.”

It must be important, he imagined. Normally, she’d be playful and be begging for free food. Leaving the bar counter, he made a path through the crowd to a table near the back. “You have a visitor.” At least the good doctor wasn’t totally drunk yet. “Five minutes and then you’re out, kid.”

“You’re the Ace of Spades daughter, uh, Finley, right?” Kyle had bumped into her a hand full of times with a certain Cheshire Cat, and Eden talked about her often when she was in the infirmary.

“Yeah, I am.” Awkwardly, the girl climbed onto the stool beside him and managed not to fall off. He’d treated her a few times for scrapes and bruises, but she always knew he worked for the army. “Does Alice really want to stay away from us?”

What a question. He couldn’t possibly give her the real reason, otherwise it would undo Lancelot’s plan. Plus, he wasn’t sure how she would react. “I think Alice is going to... uh-- help us-- with some stuff.” He struggled to put a coherent sentence together.

“Oh.”

Kyle internally groaned at her pitiful expression. He was not good with upset kids, always throwing them back to their parent to deal with the crying and the moodiness. Downing a gulp of beer to calm his nerves, he thankfully didn’t have to continue to lie to her.

“Hey, bug. It’s time to go home,” Fenrir said, accompanied by Kyle’s typical drinking buddies. He crouched by the stool, brushing his hand through her short hair.

“Okay.” She didn’t argue, climbing down and taking her dad’s hand. They only made it a few steps when she stopped, turning back to the Seven of Hearts. “Tell Alice I miss her, and... she has to come visit soon.”

After he’d agreed, the pair left the bar and returned to headquarters. Bathed and dressed in her pajamas, Finley sat on Fenrir’s bed, absentmindedly petting ShuShu and humming a lullaby.

“Ya gonna sleep with me, bug?” He chuckled as her body rocked slightly as she fought falling asleep. Although she hadn’t done a lot today, he imagined her disappointment of Alice leaving had taken a toll on her. Even the girl knew something about it wasn’t right, but she couldn’t figure out what.

But no one would tell her. War with Reds hadn’t been announced yet, and it would only upset her more. Finley could befriend anyone, and she adored many of the Red Army officers.

Finley wiggled under the covers until she’d successfully cuddled up against him, rubbing her forehead against his chest. “Why did Alice leave without saying goodbye?”

“I heard that she ran into some trouble and the Jack of Hearts helped her out. She didn’t have time to come back with the bad men after her. I’m sure she’ll write ya a letter when she gets settled.” Fenrir knew that she wouldn’t get one. It’d be unlikely that any correspondence from Alice would actually be from her.

“But Ray promised that we’d protect her.”

Fenrir rubbed her back, soothing her to fall asleep. He wished he had an answer that she would understand, but that would require breaking her fantasies about the Red Army.

But with war already declared, it was only a matter of time.

#ikemen revolution #ikerev #ikerev next gen #fenrir godspeed #finley godspeed #sirius oswald #ray blackwell #dalim tweedle #kyle ash #next chapter will feature Finley and Lancelot #and soon #war

22 notes · View notes

snusbandxknifewife · 5 years ago

Text

Sticky ficky 7!

Have some Oak angst, some Vivi angst, and some Cardan angst feat. Bomb help! I actually made myself sad with this one so I hope y’all enjoy it!

~~~~~~~

Dear High King Uncle Cardan Sir,

It is with a heavy heart that I write to inform you I can no longer engage in correspondence with you, nor can I continue to be your sticky hand supplier. While my alliances were with you throughout this long and trying war, I cannot side with you anymore, given the recent turn of events.

I don’t know what happened with Jude, or why she’s staying in our guest room, but I do know that she suffers. When she saw my green sticky hand in the living room her first night here, she broke down sobbing.

Uncle Cardan, I confess I have never seen my sister cry.

So I send this letter to inform you that I have washed my hands of The Great Sticky Hand War, as I now wash my hands of you. I wanted to be friends, but I must stand by my sister now, as I know she would stand by me.

Why did you have to hurt her?

With disdain,

Oak

Little Oak closed his thesaurus and put down his mechanical pencil, handing the letter to Vivi to proofread. Vivienne Duarte, for her part, had no idea why Oak had decided to stake his honor upon something as trivial as a sticky hand, but she dutifully read over his letter, correcting any spelling mistakes before sealing it in an envelope and promising to send it to Faerie.

If Oak was to become High King one day, he would need to learn diplomacy, this was as good a place as any to start.

So Vivi watched with raised brows as Oak gathered up all his sticky hand memorabilia, his collection and the propaganda posters he’d made for the war, and threw it in the trash without a second glance. His bottom lip wavered and tears seemed ready to spill from his eyes.

Vivi took him out for pizza that night, leaving Jude alone in her room, crying like usual.

~~~~~~

Two weeks had passed since the night Vivi took Oak for pizza, and while she had been confused then, she was now severely worried.

Jude Duarte was a shell of a person. She’d get up to go to the bathroom, but she had yet to take a shower or even brush her hair. She barely ate, and what she ate was anything but nutritious. She denied herself water to the point that her head pounded, and only then would she sneak into her sister’s supply of alcohol, leaving her to wake the next day with a headache already formed.

Vivi didn’t know what the hell to do. She couldn’t handled a normal breakup, one where her sister cried if a certain song came on or because her boyfriend had cheated on her. But how was she supposed to handle a newlywed, exiled from her home and throne? Especially when even the thought of a sticky hand or nerf gun sent her over the edge?

Honestly, Vivi didn’t know what kind of set up those two had had when Jude was still in Elfhame, and she didn’t ever intend to learn. The likelihood of some weird sex thing being involved was way too high for her to even consider asking, not when she already shuddered every time she passed a sticky hand in the toy aisle of the local Dollar Tree.

“Jude?” Vivi called out, knocking on the doorframe of her guest room and staring into the darkness, towards the pile of covers that shielded her sister from the rest of society. “I ordered Chinese food, it should be here in forty-five minutes. I made sure to get sweet and sour chicken, I know it’s your favorite!”

Her fake upbeat tone echoed back to her, but Jude refused to move. With a heavy sigh, Vivi walked forward and sat on the edge of her sister’s bed.

The girl looked like a ghost, her eyes staring blankly ahead and her cheeks stained with tears.

“Jude, honey, you know I love you,” she sighed, patting Jude’s hip. “But you smell like a dumpster. Please come shower in my bathroom.”

Jude, her mouth covered by her duvet, mumbled something Vivi couldn’t understand. Then, after prompting, she spoke again.

“Need help,” she whispered, the most pitiful noise Vivienne had ever heard in her—admittedly short—life. Jude Duarte, asking for help? Fuck.

She decided not to say anything, opting to just pull down the blankets and allow Jude to use her shoulders as support to sit up.

Jude’s time in the Undersea had been tough on her body, and her wallowing in the mortal world had worked overtime to rob her of whatever muscle and fat she had left. Starving oneself and laying in bed at all hours of the day was a terrible recovery strategy, but Vivienne couldn’t really bring herself to berate her sister.

Jude leaned heavily against her sister’s side and together they stumbled through the hall and into Vivi’s bathroom.

Vivi turned on the water, ready to leave to give Jude some privacy, and stopped when she saw the way her sister’s fingers shook. She knew then and there that Jude wouldn’t be able to undress herself, so she did it for her.

Just like when they were children, after Madoc had murdered their parents and spirited them away to Faerie, Vivienne Duarte helped her sister out of her clothes. When they were little, Vivi had been in charge of bathing the twins and helping with their hair. It’s been years since she’s had to do this, but she put Jude in the shower and washed her hair as the young woman sat, face first in the blasting water.

Vivi grit her teeth in anger as she took in the poking bones and concave stomach of her little sister, the girl who had always been full-figured and strong. Her body, her tenacity, her will to live, all taken from her so quickly. Jude Duarte looked broken as Vivi washed her hair, pulling fingers through tangles that had long formed into clumps the size of her palm.

Jude should’ve been safe, she should’ve been ruling in Elfhame, where food and wine abounded and excess was the name of the game. She shouldn’t be wasting away to nothing in a world she never claimed as her own. Cardan, who, by Vivi’s own observation, cared for Jude, should’ve known what banishment would do to her.

No matter what happened, no matter why she’d angered him, he should’ve never banished her. Not then, not so soon after she’d been tortured.

Vivi helped Jude out of the shower and helped her dress before steering her towards the living room, where Oak was waiting with the Chinese food, Teen Titans playing on the old tv.

Vivi took her food into her room and sat down with a pencil and paper.

Cardan Greenbriar, you worm-eaten husk of a man,

I don’t care who you are or what you are, I don’t care about curses or crowns or kingdoms or fate, I care about family. And, right now, mine is hurting. Fix things with my sister, or, so help me gods, you’ll be fucking mincemeat.

Sincerely,

Vivienne Duarte

The paper ripped in some places she was pushing so hard, but she figured that would help get the message across.

She sent it directly to the High King of Elfhame.

~~~~

The scent of smoke hung thick in the air of the unnaturally quiet room. The birds outside the open window knew to stay silent as the man on the floor threw a second crumpled up paper into the crackling fire.

The High King of Elfhame’s rooms were in shambles; furniture broken in rage, tapestries form down by hands with nails bitten down to the quick, books toppled from precarious places on overfilled shelves.

One man, the king himself, sat in the center of the carnage, his back pressed to the foot of his grand bed and his legs stretched out towards the fire roaring in the corner of his bedchamber.

His eyes were wide but unseeing, tears cutting ragged trails through the dirt smudged across his cheeks and his hands shaking in his lap. His tail, freed from his breeches, was the only part of him smart enough to try and hide from the flames. It stuck out behind him like a sore thumb, cowering under the bed in a way that he wished he was small enough to do.

What had he done to his Jude?

He’d thought for sure she would’ve put two and two together, would’ve figured out his riddle. She’d already announced herself to be the High Queen if Elfhame, all she had to do was say she pardoned herself!

He’d considered that maybe she had been to tired from her ordeal the day of her banishment to decode his words, but he was positive she would’ve been recovered enough to come back and claim her throne by now.

His Jude, his darling god, should’ve been by his side already.

When he’d received Oak’s letter a fortnight ago, his very heart, as scabrous and small as it may be, had felt like it was ripped from his chest. His nephew, his only family left—save his mother—so recently introduced and so quickly ripped away from him. He had to admit that one day Oak would make a fantastic diplomat, he was already capable of getting his point across with scathingly few words.

But when he’d gotten Vivienne’s letter, that’s when he began to realize he’d truly fucked up.

His head pounded and his stomach was in knots as he wondered what had happened to his wife in the past two weeks, what had warranted such strong words from his sister-in-law and former friend. Was Jude sick? Had she hurt herself? Was she refusing to eat?

Would she recover? He couldn’t even begin to picture a world where Jude didn’t recover, where she wasn’t fighting tooth and nail to better herself, where she wasn’t the powerhouse he always saw her as.

Deep down in his heart he knew that he’d done the one thing that all the torture in the Undersea wasn’t able to do: he’d broken his wife’s spirit.

He’d never forgive himself.

“Your Majesty!”

Cardan didn’t so much as blink as the Bomb screamed, entering the disaster of her king’s rooms and likely expecting to find his dead body on the floor.

When she saw the fire, she gasped in horror and grabbed Cardan by the shoulders, throwing him as far away from the fire as she was capable of.

The fire had reached halfway up the wall and was dangerously close to engulfing the bookshelf closest to the window. Anyone with a brain knew that, if she left to get buckets of water, the whole room would be up in flames by the time she returned. So, she made the executive decision to sacrifice his duvet—the duvet that he’d pulled up over his sleeping wife only two weeks and a day prior.

She threw the duvet over the fire and began to stomp on it, her thick rubber-soled boots making a hollow THUNK every time she brought her foot down.

When the fire finally stopped trying to fight back and the room was full of cloying black smoke, she pulled the remains of the duvet up.

And it stuck to the floor.

The Bomb furrowed her brow in confusion and pulled harder, bracing her feet against the stone floor and yanking with all her might until the duvet finally gave up and she went flying backwards, landing harshly on her butt with the ruined duvet in her hands.

The underside of the duvet was covered in black scorch marks and some strange, multicolored substance that she can’t quite place.

But Cardan knows what it is, and he reached for the duvet; his fingers running through the molten hot rubbery liquid, tears springing to his eyes once more.

“Your Majesty?” Bomb’s voice was quiet, confused as she watched the boy king spread boiling hot goop between his nimble fingers.

“I couldn’t look at them anymore,” he whispered back and Bomb put two and two together.

He’d started the fire to melt all his sticky hands. The gifts from his nephew, the game he’d played for weeks with Jude. All up in flames in the blink of an eye.

“Why hasn’t she come back?”

Bomb winced, reaching to try and pull his hand back. She could see boils starting to form on his fingers and she knew that if she didn’t get the melted sticky hand off him soon, his skin would burn so badly that it fell off.

“If you were her, would you?” Bomb asked, succeeding in grabbing his hand and worrying at her bottom lip as she saw the blood red burn marks on his hand.

He ripped his hand back from her, forcing her to look him in the eye, to see the wild devotion in his face and the desperation dripping from each tear.

“I’d always come back for Jude. Do you understand that?” He sounded ragged, broken and robbed of comfort. “Always. Not a day goes by that I don’t think of going after her, Liliver. Please, you must know that. You have to know that.”

The Bomb had never seen anything like this, not from Cardan, not from another faerie, not from anyone. This kind of pure, unrestrained pain reached out from every facet of the king’s being and grabbed her heart with a grip of cold iron, throttling her as she watched him suffer.

“Liliver I did it for her! Everything I did was for her, she has to know that. She can’t not know that!” He’d reached the point of sobbing, his burned hand hanging limply at his chest and starting to well blood from where the burns broke his skin.

“They would’ve killed her, Liliver, we both know it!” Cardan’s voice cracked and he folded over himself. “You saw what she looked like, she was wasting away! No mortal should ever be that thin, Liliver, certainly not Jude!”

“Your Majesty, please.” Bomb didn’t know what to do beyond grab his injured hand once more. She pulled him to his feet and hauled him over to the bathing chamber, but he stopped in the doorway. He refused to go in, refused to hard that brambles grew over the entrance and stopped the Bomb from trying again.

So she moved him to his desk and she sat him down. It took about a half an hour of work, but she was able to pull the ruined sticky hand mash off his hand, burned skin and blood falling away with every movement. The whole time he sobbed, he lamented, he worried. Cardan Greenbriar, High King of Elfhame, told her every word from the two letters he’d received because he’d memorized them both in his pain. He told her of his fears for his wife and he asked for her advice and she didn’t know what to tell him.

She didn’t know what she would’ve done if she’d been Jude and Van had been Cardan. She didn’t know how to come back from a betrayal like that.

“Write back,” she finally offered as she bound his hand. Around them ash was still falling and his room was still a disaster, but at least Cardan seemed to have recovered some of his composure; sewn together just like his ruined hand. “Write Jude, tell her what you meant. You can’t leave Faerie to go get her, not with Madoc on the prowl, but that doesn’t mean you can’t speak to her in your own way.”

He froze, his hand throbbing against the confines of his bandages as he looked at the Bomb. She was right. She was seldom wrong.

Liliver figured that she wouldn’t get his dismissal, not with the way his gaze had gone so distant so suddenly, so she excused herself. She arranged for the rest of the Court of Shadows to clean his rooms, ensuring that she was the one cleaning his bedchamber.

She watched as he wrote and wrote and wrote and she said nothing, not that he would’ve heard her anyway. He was way too far in his own head.

She found herself grabbing his jacket off the floor—no doubt thrown in a fit of anger earlier during the night—and she found herself walking towards his closet.

Cardan Greenbriar hadn’t gone into his closet since that night, his wedding night. Not since he’d been with his wife, his darling.

So it was Liliver who found the discarded blue sticky hand with the broken ring finger, the only sticky hand saved from the great sticky hand fire.

She didn’t even think as she grabbed it and hid it in her trouser pocket, slyfooting away and out into the hall. She didn’t think as she snuck into a back tunnel and worked her way up to the room that Jude had kept as Seneschal. She didn’t think as she opened Jude’s bedside drawer.

And when she was met with a pink glittery sticky hand, she smiled. When she set the blue hand next to the pink one, she thought that maybe, just maybe, these two would have a chance.

She hoped they’d have a chance.

~~~~~~~

Hope y’all don’t hate me yikes lol

Tag list: @cardan-greenbriar-tcp @hizqueen4life @slightlyrebelliouswriter23 @thewickedkings @aelin-queen-of-terrasen @cheekycheekycheeks @queen-of-glass @b00kworm @doingmyrainbow @andromeddea @jurdanhell

#jurdan #jude duarte #cardan greenbriar #tfota #tfota fic #sticky ficky #tyrannosaurus lex writes #the great sticky hand war #oak #vivi #vivienne duarte

111 notes · View notes

cupofteaguk · 5 years ago

Text

what you want

pairing: jungkook x fem!reader

genre: post breakup au | fluff

warnings: depictions of alcohol consumption

word count: 5k

a/n: taken from “things you said while we were driving” on my old blog

In a way, Jungkook knows you’re on the other side of the line even before he answers the phone. One could argue that it’s because he remembers your strange and cute and endearing habit of always calling him at ungodly hours of the evening for absolutely no reason at all, or how its been a few months since things ended between the two of you and he still jumps at the notification of text messages and still catches glimpses of you on the street.

While all those things are true, he probably knows it’s you because he has yet to change the ringtone on his phone that corresponds to your calls. That way, his action of leaping off the couch and making a dive for his phone is slightly more justified as he slides the answer button and presses the device to his ear. “Hello?” He exclaims breathlessly, cursing himself out just a moment later because he didn’t even think to cover up the eager quality in his tone and probably sounds like he had been waiting around for your call—which he has but you didn’t need to know that.

“Hey! Jungkook!” You exclaim from the other end, a concerning amount of time between his question and your response that he can already feel his eyes narrowing and can already feel a little voice in the back of his head telling him that it doesn’t matter how he reacts to your call.

You’re likely way too drunk at this point to notice.

Jungkook furrows his eyebrows, bringing a finger up to tap at the crease as not just a means to calm himself but also a means to give himself a better handle on the situation. You were never the heavy drinker, especially when the pair of you were dating, so he doesn’t have any sort of default speech or words of caution to throw at you during this kind of specific predicament. From that, the only thing he can properly manage to say back to you is: “Are you drunk?”

A pause. “No of course not!” You shout back over the line and Jungkook sighs because the pieces are just beginning to connect in his mind. You only ever shouted when you were drunk, when your mind and vocal chords couldn’t process the depth or volume of your tone. “Why would I do that?!”

“Y/N, you’re shouting,” He points out, looking down and despite everything, despite the fact that he should really be pissed at you for disrupting his evening, despite the fact that your wellbeing shouldn’t be a priority in his life anymore—he can’t help but allow the corner of his lips to quirk up in the smallest smile. A smile of relief that you’re here and well and talking, a smile of relief that stops the flood of questions from escaping his lips.

Another pause, and he imagines you tilting your head to the side, imagines the drunk gears turning like a wheel over and over again in your mind as you comprehend his words and attempt to adjust your own lifestyle accordingly. “I am?” You return, but your voice has lowered significantly from grand yelling to soft whispering.

Jungkook can’t help it. A noise of laughter escapes from the back of his throat. “You’re insane,” He speaks without an ounce of remorse in his tone as he straightens up and off the floor, continuing to unconsciously cradle the phone against his ear, pressing it closer as if pulled by a desire to hear every curve of your voice. “Though I didn’t know you were the type to drunk dial…”

“M’not drunk dialing,” You point out, your voice still retaining that hushed quality but there’s something different about it, something sensual and vulnerable and it only captures Jungkook’s attention more. “Jungkook, I need you.”

The statement forces Jungkook into an immediate frenzy as he allows himself one second of completely disregard for the situation, for the fact that you were drunk and likely just spewing nonsense, the fact that the pair of you weren’t dating anymore, the fact that it has been months since your last conversation—all thoughts seems to fling itself out of the window. This leaves Jungkook alone in the living room, choking on his words. He swallows thickly because drunk words were sober thoughts, were they not? “Y-You need me,” He repeats back slowly.

You whine at that, a vulnerable noise Jungkook hasn’t heard in so long that it makes his heart tighten slightly in his chest. It’s not a reaction that comes out of need or physical desire, but more so as a deep unconditional sort of longing. He misses you, misses you definitely a lot more than he should be missing an ex-partner but he can’t help it.

“I need you for a ride,” You reply back, the addition of those last three words to that sentence doing little to diminish Jungkook’s attention on your voice. It doesn’t matter that you seem to have only called him for your own personal reason. “Karly dragged’m to this party and I don’t trust anyone else to pick me up.”

“So you need me… to pick you up from a party?” Jungkook echoes, gradually lowering himself onto the couch. He doesn’t know the protocol of open lines of communication between someone who use to (and still does, but people didn’t need to know that) mean the world to him. He doesn’t know if he should be more watchful, more careful, more aware of its hidden implications or if he should take situations like these with a grain of salt.

His genuine cluelessness about relationship norms has come to bite him back in the ass, yet he’s not too sure if it’s a bad thing or a good thing.

However, his restating of your request seems to click something in your mind because you let out a groan. “Oh god,” You say, letting out a big sigh. “I can’t ask you to pick me up.” It’s hard to tell if you’re talking to Jungkook or convincing yourself otherwise.

So Jungkook just leans against the couch, continuing to press the phone against his ear, closing his eyes just enough to the sound of you breathing lightly on the other side because holy shit it feels like lifetimes. “Well, why not?” He asks, lowering his gaze to stare down at his leg, the texture of his jeans. His finger comes out to trace at the denim mindlessly, desperate to keep you on the phone partially because he’s long since forgotten the lapsed sound of your breathing but also because that part of himself that’s always been protective over you longs to ensure your safety.

“You must be busy, right?” You grumble, voice slightly muffled and he imagines you leaning heavily against a wall to maintain your balance. “I don’t want to bother you… I just need to figure out how to get home.”

“N-No, it’s okay,” Jungkook reassures, pushing himself off the couch and already starting to rummage around for the important belongings such as his wallet and his keys. “Do you think you could drop a pin for me? I need to know where you are so I can come get you.”

You hum. “R-Really?” You manage. “You would do that?”

He swallows down the part of himself that almost admits he would do anything for you, not because he fears you retaining that statement but because he knows that speaking the words out loud would mean facing the truth he’s spent months trying to bury away.

So he reaches over to lightly scratch the back of his neck. “Yeah, I mean…” He starts, biting his lip, trying to find the right words that don’t give away too much of his feelings yet can still convey his desire to look after you. “I still care about you.”

He closes his eyes after the words escape, a wave of curses and frenzy and something akin to smashed keyboard lettering piling up in his mind. Fuck, fuck, that was definitely not what he was trying to go for.

Yet on the other side of the phone, you laugh softly and quietly and it sounds more tired than anything else which only gives Jungkook a greater incentive to go out and find you. “You’re too good for me Jungkook. I don’t know how I can return the favor.”

He feels himself practically melting at your words, at your ability to say the right thing without even having to try and it makes him wonder. His mind wanders to where it all went wrong, what happened between the two of you, why he’s here on the other side of the phone line in an apartment that feels much too empty and lonely rather than at that party with you and hearing your voice directly in his ear and not through some hazy reception. Or even better, just spending the time alone within each other’s company—playing video games or watching movies or cooking meals or just anything in general that involved being within each other’s company. Those things, once so common and mundane to the average day-by-day playback of his life, have quickly become his favorite things to reflect upon in his spare time. At least, until the realization of his lingering feelings for you and the fact that a breakup didn’t equate to breaking apart the remnants of his emotional connection.

He simply smiles. “Text me where you are. At least drop a pin.”

“Okay,” You manage and he can practically hear you nodding your head furiously to showcase the depth of how hard you were going to work to ensure that would happen. “I will. I really will.”

The pair of you hang up shortly after, and Jungkook finds himself letting out a breath. He hadn’t realized how nervous he would be at getting to converse with you after so many long months of silence; just a proof of testament to how you still had the full capability of continuously inching yourself underneath his skin.

His phone buzzes, capturing his attention as he reaches the device to his line of sight and sees the text message from you.

from you: [PINNED LOCATION]

from you: did tiowork

from you: jgnkook plaes tell me oyou got htaht

from Jungkook: I got it, just stay where you are okay?

from you: holy sih t did i use tehncaoloy coreectly im ga fucking genius

from you: jungkok guhryy up im tured i mgith

from you: fall sasleep

from Jungkook: DON’T

from you: jungkook ure too godoo for me

from you: what did ideo to derserve you

He pockets his phone after that, because although your messages are more than enough to send him into another burst of uncontrollable emotions, he knows immediately that his absolute first priority is to get to the party before you dropped your guard even more. He can’t even begin to imagine what would happen—his thoughts getting the best of him given that Jungkook doesn’t trust a little more than half of the overall human population and those fragments of alternative realities is what forces his feet to slam on the gas pedal and his eyes to frantically scan back and forth on the street to ensure that he would most definitely not miss the house.

He doesn’t. He gets the house right, and luckily doesn’t need to be double checking his work because not only are there long rows of cars parked along the sidewalk, but also a handful of people are littered outside along the porch. Given the quiet neighbor, their hushed voices make sense, but they’re all holding bottles and cups that leaves little to the imagination. Jungkook parks, steps out of his car, shuffles towards the house and his approaching figure is barely spared a glance as he makes his way up the steps and into the house.

Inside, the conversations are a little louder, a little more rowdy—the laughter is freer, a mixture of different voices are heard ringing down the hallway and the rooms that individuals have gathered in. But none of those things matter to Jungkook. He doesn’t care about the prospect of drinking with strangers, the typically alluring temptation of free alcohol. The only thing he cares about it—!

“Jungkook?” A voice sounds from one of the couches in the empty living room, the familiarity of the tone forcing him to stop completely in his tracks as he whirls around towards the source of the noise. His heart does that painful stuttering thing it always does when he sees you and he can practically feel the desperation and overwhelming swell of emotions erupting throughout his body—like that time you stepped out his bathroom for the first time in his clothes or the first time he woke up next you and saw the golden rays of morning light hitting all the curves and angles of your face. Or one instance post-coitus tangled with one another atop the mattress, deep breath matched into the evening, his fingers and eyes developing an intense fixation on your lips; that was the moment he realized he was in love with you.

And now those emotions seem to be hitting him like a wave the longer he stands there staring at you, taking you in because even though you are curled up on the couch half asleep, you’ve never looked more beautiful and months apart definitely does not change that.

“H-Hey,” Jungkook manages, taking the few steps towards you, quickening his pace slightly when he notices you struggling to sit yourself up on the couch. “Wait, don’t do that, you’ll hurt yourself,” He instructs lightly, kneeling before you yet you still attempt to pull yourself up. You are somehow able to get your arm underneath yourself, using your strength to push your body. Your head almost falls to the side but Jungkook starts forward to hold the side.

Your eyes slowly find his, flickering upwards until they land upon his face and the corner of your lips quirk up in a tired yet gorgeous smile. “Hi Jungkook,” You whisper, your voice that low huskiness that always takes form when you’ve drank too much and yelled too much. He remembers bits and pieces of your drunken facade and knows this particular one to be your tired and exhausted shell. “It’s been awhile.”

You sound significantly less drunk than you had been over the phone, which he takes to be a good sign and that you’ve spent the few minutes it has taken Jungkook to drive from his house to this to sober up and start the process of trying to make yourself as well as you possibly could be in this state.

“I know,” He returns back.

You laugh, a mere exhale through your nose, eyes drifting close for a second before they open again. “This is’not how I wanted you to see me after all this time.”

He smiles softly. “Pretty sure I’ve seen you through worse.” And it’s true. He definitely has. “C’mon, my car is right outside.”

For a second, Jungkook is not entirely sure what to do with his hands. Under normal circumstances he would have no doubts about gathering you in his arms and leading you to his car himself, but these are not normal circumstances so he just settles with bringing a hand down to the curve of your waist.

“Can you stand up for me?”

Keeping both hands on his shoulders, it helps propel you upwards and although you aren’t completely uncoordinated, you still cling to him and Jungkook allows you to lean on him heavily as he holds you close in order to guide you out of the house and down the lawn.

You hum quietly under your breath, eyes fixated downwards to watch your footing. “Do you remember…” You start slowly, the exhaustion from the alcohol starts to eat away at your system. “Do you remember my house… like, where it is?”

“Yeah, yeah I remember where it is,” He answers, slowly open the passenger door and leaning over to help you sit down. You practically slump against on the seat, providing the further fluidity of your bones and muscles, still doing enough in dragging out the sheepish laugh from Jungkook. As if by instinct, he reaches over to tug the seat belt over your frame, crossing over your body to lock the buckle in place. This forces himself closer to you, forces him within such a close proximity to your frame that he can smell the lingering after effects of alcohol fill up his nose. But underneath that, he can still smell your perfume and the lavender scent of your shampoo. He clears his throat. “Uh, you good?”

You nod slowly, gaze unwavering from his face as he pulls away far enough to meet your eyes. You are unwavering, orbs flickering back and forth with a scary intensity that he momentarily questions the level of intoxication you are under. The only way he can know for sure is through the glassy complexion of your eyes.

“What?” He speaks, feeling too self-conscious to ignore the look across your features.

You inhale slowly. “You smell the same.” There is a sense of longing in your voice that Jungkook is almost sure is just the alcohol talking.

Almost.

He takes in a breath. “Y/N, you’re drunk,” He says, not sure if he’s trying to convince himself or you more. “Just try to get some rest, okay?” You look like you’re about to open your mouth to further explain your situation—because a tired you equates to a rambling you—but he pulls back and slams the car door shut without a word.

Not for long though, because he reappears on the driver’s side, sliding into place and sliding the key into the ignition to start the car up.

“Being drunk has nothing to do with how you smell the same,” You note quietly, shifting to stare longingly out of the window.

“Being drunk means everything,” He returns, making sure to keep his grip tight on the steering wheel keep himself focused on the road rather than you. “It means you’ll say something you’ll probably regret in the morning.”

“I highly doubt that,” You say, but he doesn’t believe you. Even when you readjust yourself once more to stare at his side profile. “Jungkook, I missed you,” You start. “So, so, so much.”

Despite his increasing heart rate, he manages a weak laugh. “You’re just saying that because I’m picking you up from a party.”

“No, no, no,” You protest, shaking your head. “Not true. I mean it. I missed you so much.”

That statement forces his mind into a complete 180 rotation as Jungkook is so startled at your confession that his foot accidentally slams down on the gas, forcing the pair of you to dart forward at such a speed that both heads slam against the back of the seats. Jungkook curses loudly, managing a right turn just before the overhead light turns red.

Jungkook’s breathing picks up as he tightens his grip on on the wheel. “Fucking hell—Y/N don’t say things like that!”

“Why not?” You protest, leaning back against the headrest of the seat. Your eyes slide shut and stay closed for a few seconds. “It’s true…” You let out a gentle sigh from between your lips, grumbling something that he can’t make out and Jungkook decides to take advantage of your incoherent nature to just fix the rest of his attention back on the road. Seriously, if you could keep your mouth shut for the next five minutes, he could actually maintain some semblance of his sanity to prevent any further potential accidents.

Luckily, aside from the occasional hum that leaves your lips, you are quiet which allows Jungkook to carefully navigate the streets before finally pulling up to the curbside in front of your apartment complex. The sight definitely brings back memories, but he swallows them down long enough to take himself out of the driver side and make his way back around to your side of the vehicle.

You’re still hunched against the seat when Jungkook opens the door, eyes closed and lips parted and bombarding him with memories of good times, better times, that he almost doesn’t reach him to shake you awake.

Key word: almost.

He leans in to gently grip your shoulder. “Y/N, we’re here.”

You open your eyes just as he’s reaching over to unbuckle your seatbelt, but Jungkook doesn’t get far because just as he’s about to pull back, your hands dart out to grasp at the hem of his jacket. Despite your sleepy facade, your grip is surprisingly strong and it keeps Jungkook within a close distance to your face.

He swallows down his heart threatening to crawl its way out of his throat.

“I’m not… fucking around Jungkook,” You insist. “The months when you’re not with me suck. They really fucking suck and…” You aren’t drunk but you definitely still are battling with the remnants of alcohol clouding your mind and judgment and Jungkook wants you to stop, wants you to put a halt to something you will surely regret in the morning, but he also knows that you would chew him out for continuously trying to interrupt you. Even if it’s for your own personal benefit. You’re funny and stubborn and adorable and endearing in this sense.

Back to reality. He blinks, biting his lip, hoping you cannot hear his rapidly increasing pulse drumming underneath the skin. Rather than put a stop to it, he can’t help himself this time around. He encourages your drunken mind. ��What are you trying to say?”

Your gaze dances across his face, eyes still glazed and shimmering underneath the light of the car and the lights from the building behind the pair of you.

Then, without a warning, you lean forward and dust your lips against his.

For a moment, everything seems to leave Jungkook. Everything: from his sanity to his state of mind to the ground behind his feet to his sense of balance and belonging, leaving him alone with his raw and infinite love for you and a desire for more more more. He barely processes the way your hands move up from the hem of his shirt to the collar until you’re luring him in again for another kiss, one a little bit more firm and a little bit more intoxicating.

Jungkook practically whimpers at the kiss, a little noise of desire escaping from the back of his throat, because holy fucking shit, it may just be because he hasn’t kissed anyone over the past few months or maybe just because he hasn’t kissed you that’s making him feel this way, making him realize just how much he really fucking misses you and how perhaps breaking up wasn’t the best idea. For a split second, he longs to forget that you’re drunk, that you’re definitely not in your right state of mind, that you broke up for a valid (unfortunate) reason, that this is wrong. So very absolutely wrong.

Although it hurts every bone in his body, Jungkook has to force himself to turn away and pull back from you. “W-Wait,” He manages, processing the fact that his voice is low from the events that have just happened. His cheeks feel warm and he feels lightheaded, but he forces himself to stay focused on what is the right thing to do and definitely not trying to notice the way you look: from the flushed cheeks to the darkened lips to the distracted eyes. “We shouldn’t do this. It’s not right.”

The light once flickering so hopefully in your gaze dies down at his firm words, as you cast your head downwards in a mixture of utter shame and embarrassment. He can hear the gears turning frantically in your mind, can feel the way your hands pull away from his frame to settle tightly on your lap, can see the way you press your lips together as if you’re trying to keep yourself from saying anything further.

But his eyes widen as you inhale sharply before a heart-wrenching sob tears itself from your throat. Your hand flies up to cover your mouth, but it does little to stop the hiccups and Jungkook can only watch helplessly as you crumble apart right before his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” You admit quietly, such a soft whisper that he almost doesn’t hear you but he does and you are so broken that Jungkook’s own heart cannot be protected as he kneels down with eyes like a deer caught in the headlights. Questions swarm around his mind, desperately trying to figure out what to say because he should have known this would happen. He should have remembered that at the end of the day, after the laughter and the exhaustion have taken their phase in your identity like passage of the moon—it all ends with this. It all ends with the emotional part of you, when the alcohol gets to your head and leaves nothing but a sobbing mess behind over anything and everything. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry…” You start to ramble, each word broken up by a sharp inhale for air like your tears are drowning you. “I’m so sorry Jungkook, I’m so stupid, I’m so sorry…”

“Hey,” Jungkook starts. “Hey, stop apologizing. Why are you apologizing? Why are you crying?”

The questions do little but prompt further crying as another strangled sob escapes your throat and you turn your head with a refusal to even look in his general direction. Your jaw is clenched together, your hand is still at your mouth as if attempting to muffle your whimpers to little success.

“B-Because,” You stammer, your whole body shaking with the effort to contain the wave of your sufferings. Jungkook’s heart stutters painfully in his chest, sinking down to his stomach, as the words of how this was all his fault ring like a bell in his mind. “Because you probably hate me. You hate me, d-don’t you?”

He scoots a little closer. “No, no, of course I don’t. Y/N, where did you get that idea?”

You shake your head, eyes slamming shut. “H-How could you not hate me? I just kissed you and we’re not even together anymore, we haven’t been together for months and it just hurts so so much because I’m stupid, I’m so stupid…”

“Y/N, take a breath, you have to calm down,” Jungkook speaks gently, bravely reaching over to rest his hand on your knee, attempting to draw soothing patterns over the denim and hoping more than anything that you can feel the warmth and reassurance of his touch against your skin. “You aren’t making any sense. Why would you call yourself stupid?”

You pull your hand away from your mouth and you glare at him through your tears. Your face is bright red and wet with tears, but still so beautiful it really hurts. “Because I’m still in love with you,” You speak, swallowing down your uneven breathes and forcing yourself to make the statement as clearly as possible. “Because I’m still in love with you, and I’ve been trying to get over you this entire time to no luck. A-And I thought going to that dumb party would help me, but I-I guess not because I’m here being an asshole and trying to kiss you even though you hate me…” Your face crumbles and you look like you’re on the verge of tears all over again.

“Y/N,” Jungkook speaks up, leaning forward. “Y/N, please, stop beating yourself up for this. I don’t hate you. I could never hate you—you were the most important person in my life. I mean… you still are.”

You sniff, reaching up to wipe at your nose. “What are you trying to say?”

“I miss you too,” He replies quietly, gazing down for a moment to study the rest of your body. “I miss you so much all the time it hurts. If I had to give up a penny for every time I wanted to call you or text you… well, I’d probably be broke.”

You blink away the layer of tears clouding your vision. “D-Do you mean that?”

“I would never lie to you,” He admits, looking down and gently reaching over to grasp your hand. He runs his thumb over your skin, momentarily basking in the skin-on-skin contact with you.

Your body jolts with the occasional hiccup as you quietly try to let the previous wave of sobbing pass over you. “I’m sorry,” You whisper again. “I probably made a mess of your evening.”

He shakes his head before he even realizes what he’s doing. “No, it’s okay, I’m just glad to see you home safely.”

You look down at your joined hands. “S-Since you miss me, and I miss you,” You start, biting on your lip. “Can we start over?”

He gazes up at you. Every nerve in his body screams YES, because goddamn, it has been too long and he’s sure that if the universe was willing to give the pair of you another chance, you both would do anything and everything to make it work and not fall into those same traps that broke you apart last time. He has wanted a lot of things, but never has badly as this and he wants to hold you tightly and crush you to his chest and inhale your lavender—and yet.

The sinking sensation seems to hit him in that moment that you’re still drunk and under the influence and thus, not in your right state of mind. He doesn’t want to get his hopes up. He doesn’t think he can handle that.

He lets out a sigh. “If you remember this tomorrow,” He says. “Then we can.”

You start fading again as he takes you out of his car and helps you up the stairs to the correct floor of your apartment, helps your roommate in guiding you into your bedroom, and leaves with a prompt ‘just… take care of her, please…’ with such a sad edge to his voice that Karly gives him a sympathetic pat on the back and a request to drive home safely.

He does, but there is a longing in his chest, a doubt, a warning not to expect too much from this situation.

He loves you too much for the disappointment.

The next morning, he wakes up to surprisingly sunny skies, golden rays, and a text.

from you [7,18am]: Since you miss me and I miss you, can we start over?

He doesn’t think he’ll ever get use to your unpredictability, your determination—and for the first time in months, his smile is brighter than the outside.

#bangtan bookclub #bts writing cafe #jungkook x you #jungkook x reader #jungkook scenarios #jungkook fluff #bts scenario #bts fluff #bts x reader #traci writes

907 notes · View notes

darkficsyouneveraskedfor · 5 years ago

Text

Subterfuge

Part 8/finale in Getaway Series

Warnings: nonconsensual sex (vaginal ntercourse, violence), angst, general assholery.

This is dark!(nomad)Steve and explicit. 18+ only. PLEASE HEED THE WARNINGS. I mean it, I’m not gonna tell you again.

Summary: The reader makes her move.

Note: Alright, so this is the final part of this series and I’m shocked that I’ve finished it bc I was struggling boo. But here ya go. I hope you all are ready and I dunno if you’ll like it, but this is the end.

Anyways, let me know what you think as always with a reblog and/or some feedback. Love ya <3

...

You watched your mother as she set the casserole dish in the middle of the table. She hadn’t said much to you since your arrival. She avoided it as she distracted herself with the family dinner. Your sister sat across from you, she meant to say something but had yet to find the gull.

Your father was the only who was unfazed by your presence. Never the talkative type, he at least looked away from his book for more than two seconds to acknowledge you. He greeted you with a hug and asked after your day.

The tension of thoughts unspoken kept you silent too. You waited at the table and resisted the habitual urge to take your phone out. That would only be a reminder. Of how terribly everything could go. Your last hope were the texts you quickly erased upon reading. The emails deleted within minutes of receiving them.

Tony Stark had a plan and it all hinged on you. And Steve. Agents were in place to descend on your apartment the moment you sent the code word but their target had been absent for almost five days. Just like his presence, it made you anxious. He had been away for longer before. You should be relieved to be free of him, but you knew it was only temporary.

Your mother served everyone before she sat. You twirled your fork but even the savoury aroma of her family recipe couldn’t rile your appetite. You may not know when Steve would show up next, but you knew the end was imminent. All you had to do was send the word. One word and he was done.

“So, honey,” Your mother’s voice was hesitant. “How have you been?”

“Working,” You replied. “You know, the same old.”

The sound of cutlery against the plates filled the silence that followed.

“And how’s Nick?” Gia asked suddenly. You looked up to her grin and narrowed your eyes.

“I wouldn’t know,” You said.

“Gia,” Your mom warned.

“Oh come on, the last time we saw her, her ex was tryna fight her new boytoy.” Gia trilled. “Our family can be dramatic but that was--”

“He’s not--Nick is just...Nick.” You interjected. “Jesus, I came here to be with all of you and you’re treating me like some...pariah. Should I have worn a scarlet letter for our dinner?”

“We’re worried,” Your mother intoned. “We don’t know this Nick very well and after what happened with Ethan--”

“Ethan hates me. He has every right to.” You snarled. “What do you want me to say? He was right, I’m a slut.”

“Language,” Your mother reproached.

“I’m an adult! I’ll use whatever language suited to the situation.” You dropped your fork and crossed your arms. “Why aren’t you saying anything to Gia as she dates a man nearly two decades older than her, hmm?”

“We love you, we just want to make sure you’re okay,” Your mother protested.

“Then leave her alone,” Your father spoke up as he swallowed a mouthful of casserole. “Pete’s sake, she’s told you a dozen times. Let her make her own mistakes. Judgin’ her’s not gonna do her any favours.”

You blinked and looked to your dad as he leaned back in his chair.

“This Nick boy causes any trouble, I’ll deal with him myself.” He shook his head. “Just like I dealt with Ethan.”

“What?” You lifted a brow. “What does that mean?”

“I had a talk with him after the barbecue. Told him to leave you alone. He’s angry. Hurt. But I told him it’s no sense hounding you and making you both more miserable than you already are.” He sighed. “It will pass. All of it.” He looked to your mother pointedly. “So let it pass and be nice.”

You mother sniffed and stared at the table. Gia glared at you over her plate and you tapped your fingers along the wood. You nodded and slowly stood.

“I’m not hungry.” You said. “Besides, I didn’t come here to eat. I came here to spend time with you. I thought, stupidly, that we could be friendly.” You stepped out from between the chair and table. “I love you. All of you. I just think I need some time.”

“Honey,” Your mother stood, “Please--”

“I’ve got work tomorrow,” You neared her and forced your arms around her. “I’ll see you.”

You let go of her and patted your sister’s arm as she sulked in her chair. Your father stood and hugged you in turn. He clung to you a moment before he held you at arm’s length. His wrinkles deepened as he considered you.

“Take care of yourself, kiddo,” He said.

“I’ll try, dad,” You slowly parted from him and his hand fell from your shoulder. “Bye.”

You grabbed your coat and jacket at the door and looked back into the dining room. Your dad watched as you opened the door and disappeared out onto the street. Well, there wasn’t as much at stake as you thought.

‘Dear Mom, Dad, Gia, or whoever finds this letter,

If I'm missing or dead, I want this to be a record of why. If this man gets the best of me, I want there to be a chance that someone might get him.’

Your hand hovered over the paper as you thought. The small book light lit your words as you sat in the dark. The mattress was lumpy, its time on the floor had worsened its springs. You flicked your pen against your lip and bit the cap. Slowly, you pressed the ballpoint to the paper again.

‘It happened up north, on vacation with my friends, Kaya, Camile, Milani, and Corette, as well as my sister, Gia. They do not know what happened but they can confirm that they left me alone for several hours to visit the beach. During which I was accosted and assaulted by the fugitive known as Steve Rogers. He was bleeding and left me bleeding in turn.

I returned at the end of the week to the apartment I shared with my boyfriend, Ethan. For a few weeks, my life was the same as it was. But then he appeared again, broke into my apartment, and assaulted both me and Ethan. He made Ethan watch as he raped me and this led to the end of that relationship.

Thereafter, living on my own and without witness, I was visited almost weekly by Steve Rogers. He introduced himself to those I knew as Nick and coerced me into hiding his identity. If you capture him, you will find footage of at least one of his assaults on his phone. You will also find that he once more assaulted Ethan at one of my family’s events.

You will also note my correspondence with Stark Industries. They can provide you with a full transcript as I have erased all evidence on my end to keep myself safe. If they have failed to aid me in capturing the fugitive, then this letter will be of use to you. I only hope that he is caught before he can do this to someone else.

In the event that this letter is read, I want my family to know that I love them. I am sorry I didn’t tell them the truth but it was for their own safety.’

You leaned back against the pillow and re-read the letter. You shivered and folded it up carefully. Your last testament. All that would remain of you should this all go to shit. You got up and tucked folded the paper up so that it fit behind the upholstery of your jewelry box. When Steve arrived, you’d text your mother your hiding spot. You only prayed Steve didn’t discover it first.

It was your day off. You didn’t sleep and so you showered and dressed early. Unsure of when the bell would toll, you determined to make what could be your last day to yourself entirely self-indulgent.

You spent an hour in the bookstore. It was ages since you visited the familiar aisles, browsed old titles and new. You still hadn’t read the last haul of books you’d taken home with you. You weren’t sure you ever would but the smell of paperback comforted you. It reminded you of a time before; the alphabetized spines were the only order in your chaotic life.

You paid for a collection of Poe’s stories and made your way to the cafe next door. Many of the bookstore’s patrons ended up here. It was bustling that day but many took their coffee to go. You ordered a tea and sat in the corner, a round-backed armchair with another beside it. Empty.

It was easy to feel lonely these days. With a secret you couldn’t share with anyone; a torment you faced on your own. You left your tea to cool on the small table between the chairs and opened the book. Many of these tales you’d read before but each time you read them, they felt new again, though the sense of horror was nothing compared to that you faced outside the pages.

“You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded –with what caution –with what foresight –with what dissimulation I went to work!”

You began to slump in your chair as you read the descent into madness, the almost inhuman insanity did not seem so fantastical anymore. Perhaps, Poe’s horror wasn’t fictional, but a reflection of the depths of humanity. Of how low one could sink when their soul is corrupted.

A shadow moved beside you and a cup was placed next to yours. The book fell closed around your finger as you let it rest in your lap. You stared over at your villain. Steve sat down heavily and smirked over at you.

“Is this what you do with your free time?” He asked as he ran his hands along his thighs, smoothing the wrinkles from the worn denim.

You pulled your finger from the pages without marking your place and set the small volume behind your cup. You took your tea and sipped as you looked around the cafe. “It’s what I’m doing today.”

“It’s been a while,” He remarked as he picked up his own cup and cradled it just above his lap. “Do you think this will save you?”

You turned and squinted at him. You drank again. The tea was lukewarm and acidic. “Save me?”

“All these people,” He glanced around. “Do you think that will stop me?”

“I know it won’t,” You replied and took another gulp before setting aside the dregs to cool entirely. “So what are you waiting for?”

He laughed and raised his mug to his lips. He drank the dark coffee and placed his mug next to yours. “You don’t give up, do you?”

“And neither do you,” You countered.

“I don’t,” He said as he leaned over the arm of his chair. “And let me assure you, I’ve dealt with people far more formidable than you, girl.”

You nodded. This was what he did. He enjoyed it; taunting you. “I’m sure you have.” You examined the lines of your palm. You itched to grab your phone but could not make it so obvious. “Where have you been, anyway?”

“Doing my valiant duty. Saving the people who need saving.” He said smugly. “You know, the ones I was outlawed from helping. This world seems to have forgotten that without me, they’d be in ruins.”

“Is that how you make it okay in your head?” You looked at him. “Hmm? This?”

“This is what I’m owed. You. A single life for the millions I’ve saved.” He reached over and touched your arm, his fingers danced along your shoulder. “I’m fucking hard already.” He pulled away and pushed himself to his feet. “Meet me in the mens’.”

He turned and strutted away as you watched him. His broad shoulders disappeared down the narrow hallway that led to the facilities. You sighed and grabbed the book of horror stories from the table.

You stared at the cover, the silhouette of a raven. A bad omen; a harbinger of warfare, of death. You grabbed your purse and replaced the book on the table. You didn’t need horror stories; you were living one of your own.

The walk along the hallway seemed longer than six steps. The clinking and steaming of the cafe kitchen disguised your footsteps. You passed the ladies’ and stopped in front of the mens’. You didn’t knock but stepped inside with resignation.

Was this the climax of your story? How then should the denouement bring you lower?

Steve reached over your head and pushed the door closed as you entered. His hand slipped down and turned the lock with a loud click. He grabbed your arm and yanked you away from the door as he turned you to face the small sink. You dropped your purse as you gripped the porcelain.

You looked in the mirror at yourself as he let go and hastily undid his fly. “Come on,” He tugged your shirt up and grabbed the waist of your jeans.

You flicked open your fly as he shoved your pants past your ass. The heat of his body surrounded you. You looked up. Your eyes weren’t yours. They were dark and haunted. Your features were marred by shadows. You felt hollow as his hand brushed against you and he pushed your shoulders forward.

You closed your eyes as he entered you. It hurt. You were dry and he was impatient. It took him a few thrusts to reach his limit. His hand went to the back of your neck as you shuddered and grasped the sides of the sink. He crushed your hips against the porcelain as his hushed grunts floated above you.

“Fuck,” He swore as he slipped his hand around your front. He felt between your folds and rubbed your clit. “I should’ve come yesterday.”

You bit your lip as you hung your head forward. You kept your eyes shut as each thrust came harder than the last. The cold porcelain grew slick beneath your palms. You slid forward, your face closer to the mirror. His hand crept around your neck and your back arched as his fingers tightened at your throat.

Your breath whisked from you as the sounds of the cafe crept in beneath the door. You felt yourself slicken around his cock. Your body worked against you. His flesh slapped loudly against your ass. You couldn’t stifle the heat as it flowed through you.

You gasped as he sped up. Your hands slipped as his left your neck. He caught your arms and held them back as he fucked you.

“Open your eyes.” He growled. You shook your head and he jolted into you painfully and stopped. “I said open your eyes, girl.”

Your jaw set and you slowly opened your eyes. His blue eyes were cavernous as they stared back at you in the mirror. He began to move again. Your body rebelled and continued its ascent. You breathed through your nose, trying to muffle your pleasure as he ripped it from your flesh. You squeaked and trembled as you came. He watched, pleased at your surrender.

He pulled you away from the sink. He dropped your arms and wrapped his around your middle as he rutted into you. You reached back to touch his thighs, pleading wordlessly for him to slow down as each thrust sent a ripple through you.

He jerked against you and spasmed as he threw his head back. He hissed as he came and rocked his hips slowly as he spilled inside you. You were weak as he released you and you stumbled forward as he pulled out.

He chuckled as you caught yourself on the sink and his cum dripped down onto your panties and jeans. He edged you out of his way as he grabbed a paper towel and turned the faucet. You took some toilet paper and turned away from him as he cleaned himself up. You tried to do the same but still felt dirty when you were done.

“I’ll be out there,” He said as he zipped his fly up. “There’s an alarm on the fire escape so let’s not play games.”

“Alright,” You grumbled if only to get him to leave.

The locked clicked and the door opened and closed. You wiped off your panties and jeans as best as you could and pulled them up. You locked the door and grabbed your purse off the tile. You dug around and found your phone buried in the mess.

You leaned against the wall as you typed in the single word. You stared at it as your thumb hovered over ‘send’. Once it went through, you had less than an hour before agents descended on your apartment. You sent the second, the one for your mother and shoved your phone away.

However this ended, Steve would no longer be your personal scourge.

The car ride was silent. It always was with him. It was better that way. The only words he had for you were cruel. You kept your eyes forward and watched the road through the windshield. Play it cool. This was the hardest part. The anxiety. The impatience. For your doom or his.

Your building was a spectre against the grey sky. A storm was moving in. You got out and he followed. The usual smack on your ass. You pulled out your keys as he pushed himself against you. He was hard again.

“We’ll have some fun on your day off,” He teased as you unlocked the door. “Better than your books.”

You stayed quiet. He didn’t expect an answer. He knew you wouldn’t. This routine had become too familiar. Too rehearsed. Too easy.

You led him up the stairs. With each, your heart beat just a little quicker. The keys jingled in your hand and you realized your were shaking. You stopped in front of your door to gather yourself and find the right key on the ring. He leaned against the wall and ran a finger down your side.

“You’re...excited,” He mused. “I can hear your heart racing.”

You looked over at him, the key poised just before the lock. “You can?”

“Yeah. I hear a lot, you know? Your heart, the blood flowing through your veins, your breath before it rises,” He smirked and you slid the key into the bolt and turned. “Serum gave me a lot more than muscles, didn’t it?”

He flicked your chin playfully and drew away. You held back your retort and stepped inside. Your apartment was as you left it, not a single speck of dust missing. You blinked as you entered the small living room. A furtive glance to the windows.

Did they get your message? Were they really coming?

Steve walked around the room as he stretched his arms above him. You watched him as he strolled around the small space. He neared the window and looked out, his figure a wraith against the grim sky. He twisted the plastic rod and the blinds closed.

He turned back to you and his hands went to his hips. That classic stance you’d seen on posters. Captain America. The saviour of the world. He laughed.

“You’re heart is still going,” He slowly inched across the room. “Faster now. Fuck, you’re gonna have a fit, girl.”

You swallowed, your mouth dry as you gripped your purse. You looked down and saw your phone through the open zipper. You couldn’t just pull it out and check. You hadn’t felt a vibration.

He neared, his shoes decisive against the hardwood. He was like a hawk circling. You looked up and backed away as he came closer.

“You really think Tony Stark would believe some small town girl?” Steve grinned and your chest clenched. “Hmm? You think you’re some spy with your code words and your covert messages? Your plan to have them storm your pathetic apartment?”

Your lips parted in shock as if you’d been slapped. No… Your flesh turned to stone as you met the wall and pressed yourself to it.

“I’ve faced real spies. Let me tell you, Hydra was a lot more intimidating but I tossed them on their asses. But you, you think you can bring me down?” He chuckled as his hand came up to grip your chin. “What do you think I could do to you?”

Tears rose along your lower lids and your lip trembled. You should’ve known. It was too easy. Another trick. A bug on your phone; your computer, too. He knew it all and you were too desperate to think. Stupid.

“Think of what I’ve already done,” He leaned in so that his nose was almost touching yours. “Of what I’m going to do now.” He pressed his forehead to yours. “It’s over, girl. Just like you wanted it.”

He pulled away, his hands balled as he glared down at you. His chest rose and fell as his jaw ticked. You wiped away the tears before they could fall and sniffed. You stood straight as you looked back at him defiantly.

“Fine,” You declared. “Then end it.”

You were stunned as his fist met your jaw. Your stumbled back and your head hit the wall. You slid down slowly as your legs turned to jelly and the room faded slowly before your eyes. You gripped your pounding skull as the strength drained from you. You looked up at Steve as he loomed over you and your vision swam with stars.

“You really thought you could get away from me?” He knelt as your eyes began to roll back, his voice floated in your ears and into the void.

When you awoke, the world was moving. When you awoke, you were shocked. Were you really alive or was this the purgatory you’d always denied? Your head lolled and you stared at the driver of the car. No, you were still painfully alive.

Steve’s features were limned in sunlight. It was either a new day or a new place. His blue eyes bore into the winding highway ahead. Your jaw ached terribly and your head felt like it was full of cement. You babbled weakly.

Your hands were tied together. Your ankles too. The seat belt was buckled around you and kept you from sliding down the seat.

“I really thought I might’ve killed you,” He said. “I hit you a bit harder than I meant to.”

You grumbled. No words would come.

“That’d be too easy. I’ve been too easy on you and you didn’t appreciate it at all. I let you stay in your shit hole apartment, let you see your family, let you live your life when it’s not your life. It’s mine.” The steering wheel groaned as he gripped it tighter. “You’re mine.”

You mumbled and felt the sting of tears as the world closed in on you.

“It’s all over now, girl,” Your eyes closed again. “You don’t even know how good you had it.”

His words were scribbled across your dreams as you sank back into unconsciousness. You dozed and woke at intervals. He allowed you a drink of water from a bottle and a piss on the side of the road. You barely recalled the stops as your world was clouded in shock and pain.

You were shaken awake for the last time. Your door was open and Steve felt along your jaw roughly.

“It’s not broken.” He stated and unbuckled the seat belt. “See, another thing to be thankful for.”

“Steve,” You rasped. “Please…”

“Please, shut up,” He spat and pulled you out of the car. “Come on, hop, bunny.”

He tugged you forward and you were forced to hop on your bound feet. There was a farmhouse just ahead; long-abandoned and slanted. The fields were overgrown with weeds. This was where he’d leave you.

“Just get it over with,” Your words were clumsy through your swollen jaw.

He didn’t reply and continued to drag you towards the barn. He slid the door open enough to angle you through. He led you to the corner where a pile of rotted boards rested. He let go of you and you wobbled on your feet as he began to move the rubble.

Beneath was a small hatch. This was tornado country. These vaults were built decades ago to keep families safe when the sirens sounded. Except the hatch was more than the usual wooden door; it was metal, shiny and new, a bolt on its face.

He took a key out and unlocked the hatch. He turned and bent to pick you up. He slung you over his shoulder and your head spun. He slowly carried you down the steps. He put you back on your feet and you wavered.

The light from above lit the shadows. There were shelves along the far wall, illegible packets and cans lined the middle shelf. A bed sat a foot from the shelves against the wall; a metal frame with a thin mattress. A toilet was attached to the wall along with a small sink. A single lightbulb hung from the ceiling.

Steve untied your hands and your feet. He stood and shoved you towards the middle of the room. You caught yourself on the bed frame and turned back.

“Welcome home,” His smile was sinister in the dim.

“No,” You gasped and neared him. He pushed you back easily and you fell on your ass. “Please, don’t do this. Just kill me, please.”

“Kill you? I never wanted that,” He scoffed and turned to set his foot on the bottom step. “Don’t worry, I’ll be back to check on you. Now and then.”

He started to climb the steps and you got up unsteadily. As he reached the top, you grabbed onto the stairs and tried to come up after him.

“I’ll throw you back down,” He warned as he pulled on the steps and slowly raised them. You clung to them as he tried to wriggle them away from you. “You’ll be worse off if I break something.”

“Steve, you can’t--” Slivers embedded in your skin as he yanked the steps free from you and raised them up after him.

“Now, now, girl,” He knelt and looked through the hatch at you. “Is there anything I can’t do?” He slowly lifted the door as he spoke. “Don’t you worry, I’ll keep an eye on the family for you.” He taunted as he slowly closed the door, the light draining away inch by inch. “Be good and I’ll let you know.”

He dropped the door entirely and it clanged shut. The lock turned and you were left in darkness. Tears rolled down your eyes and light sparked in your blurred vision. The light bulb crackled to life above you, a small beacon in the pit. You could hear him moving the boards back onto the hatch.

You turned blindly and fell onto the bed. You were poked by the corner of a familiar shape. You sat up and grabbed the book from atop the thin blanket. The silhouette of the raven shone beneath the wire. The book fell open as your sight came clearer through the tears. The world clearer through the dark. The scraping and steps above faded away.

“Then silence, and stillness, and night were the universe.”

611 notes · View notes

cryxmercy · 4 years ago

Text

Backdraft || Mercy & Arthur

When: A couple of weeks before New Year’s Eve. Immediately following this. Where: Arthur’s office @ the University. Who: Mercy and @arthurjdrake

TW: one mention of preventing potential head trauma, but no actual head trauma; possible memory loss tw (for a few brief moments of confusion)

Sometimes the simplest solution is not the right one.

By the time Mercy had driven the distance from the house to the University, she’d managed to pull her scattered thoughts into some small semblance of order. She could still feel the unsettling pins and needles sensation across the skin of her arm, and her anxiety thrummed like a swarm of angry bees, but the former had at least faded a bit as she’d distanced herself from the cause. For now at least.

She didn’t linger too long in the parking lot, but also tried not to look hurried as she made her way towards Arthur’s office. As always, she entered without knocking, except this time she closed and locked the door before settling heavily into the chair opposite his desk. Mercy sat there, legs crossed, foot shaking up and down as she worried her lip with her teeth.

“How’s marking?” she asked after a bit, indicating the enormous pile of papers on his desk (and promptly avoiding the real reason for her visit). “Want some help?”

Arthur reclined in the aged leather chair a crisp winter breeze stirring some of the coursework papers stacked in piles upon his desk. His eyes tracked back and forth across each line of text as he read, still and quiet save for the lo-fi music drifting out of a bluetooth speaker on the shelf. Occasionally the stillness was broken with a reach for his fourth freshly brewed cup of coffee, a sip before its return to the ornate coffee mat off to one side of the desk.

The process was methodical, reading through the coursework before a second read through was taken with pen to paper marking addendums or eliminations of unnecessary or particularly insightful details. And then the tedious task of checking each citation list for formatting errors - the most boring part of the process admittedly.

It wasn’t surprising for Mercy to arrive unannounced and deposit herself in the chair opposite and Arthur didn’t look up initially though the click of the lock was different. A flicker of his eyes followed, a quick track from the door to Mercy and then back in a fraction of a second until he finished reading and set the paper aside. “Honestly I’m actually almost done with them,” it wasn’t entirely true but it was clear as day she was skirting around something. “I’m surprised you came down. I’m almost done for the day to be honest.”

Mercy wasn’t bothered when Arthur didn’t immediately look up from his marking. It wasn’t as if her presence was anything unusual at this point, even if her behavior was slightly out of the ordinary this time. His decline of her offer to help was acknowledged with a distracted hum instead of Mercy’s usual sarcasm or witty retort, and although the rest of what Arthur said wasn’t phrased as a question, they had known each other long enough to know when one was being asked.

This time it was Mercy’s gaze that flickered towards Arthur before sliding over the papers on his desk, and then to the other neatly stacked piles of letters and correspondence that sat here and there. She even glanced towards the rubbish bin, but there was nothing that caught her eye. Best get on with it then.

“A letter came for me today.” At first, it sounded like nothing unusual. Everyone received letters in the mail on occasion. It was the addendum to that statement that made all the difference.

“A Black Letter.”

Arthur knew it was simply a matter of time, he didn’t need to probe or ask to know that eventually an answer to why she was here would present itself. He waited, giving her time to process and search for the words she wanted to put together, and as expected it came not much later. A letter. Not all that strange but he was sure there would be something that set this mail apart.

The scratch of his fountain pen stilled with the further clarification; a dark blot staining the paper as the ink bled out his hesitation. The stark proof of his conflicted thoughts and feelings towards this revelation laid bare.

Firstly: relief over the simple fact he hadn’t received such a notification himself. Wasn’t apparently still bound to a contract he too had signed and agreed to.

Secondly: ire that Mercy was still beholden to a contract signed such a long period of time ago which was somehow being seen as something she was beholden to act upon. It was nonsensical and illogical and made his blood steam in his veins.

The ink continued to run for several long moments before Arthur finally retracted the pen and set it aside, cracking his knuckles individually as he finally looked at Mercy across the desk. “What do they want?”

A small furrow appeared in Mercy’s brow as she watched the ink blot spread across the paper. Further proof that Arthur hadn’t received a letter of his own. If he had, he would have already been aware of the fact. So she knew he had to be relieved. Why wouldn’t he be? He was a different person now, wasn’t he? The man that had signed that contract so many years ago now had long since died and been reborn. Many times over.

Unlike Mercy. Who was as she’d always been. And always would be.

But even so… surely there was a statute of limitations on such a thing? Surely she wasn’t beholden to a contract signed nearly half a millennium ago. Surely there was some mistake.

The ache in her arm told her otherwise.

So Mercy waited as Arthur absorbed the information. All the while, a voice in her head whispered ‘See? It doesn’t matter what you do… or who you try to be… how you try to live… you will never find peace… you will never be free…’

Fingers pressed against her temple as she forced the voice into silence. As she did, Arthur asked his question, to which Mercy could only shake her head. “I don’t know. I didn’t touch it yet.” Her hand flexed. “I thought you might’ve-” But she stopped short, letting out a sharp huff of air. Mercy set her jaw, her next words coming far steadier than she herself felt. “But I don’t suppose you would’ve. That’s good. That’s-” She nodded once, flexed her hand again. “- good.” And it was. She wouldn’t wish this on Arthur. Not ever.

A bit of silence followed, until finally Mercy seemed to deflate.

“I don’t want to read it. I don’t… want anything to do with it.” She looked up at him finally, her eyes full of shadows. “I’m tired, Ren. I’m just… so fucking tired…”

Absentmindedly Arthur started to lightly pull at the sleeve of his jumper, worrying the fabric in thought now that his pen was out of his hand. It was an old habit, one that seemed to transcend lifetimes. To fiddle with any one of the many little knick knacks scattered across his desk and failing that stretch the sleeves of his jumpers into paws when his brain started to work overtime.

His eyes fixed on the letter, wondering just what the contents might pertain to. What they would want after all this time. Surely their contracts were done. Null and void to the dusts of time. But apparently not. How many more times would this happen across their lives? Something from centuries past cropping up to haunt them with living nightmares. “No it isn’t,” the words came out sharper than intended and a scowl marred his expression “no it isn’t good. This” he punctuated jabbing a finger at the letter “isn’t fair.”

The silence that followed was deafening and Arthur’s scowl only deepened the more he looked at the letter.

“Then we burn it. We get rid of it. No letter no message.” It wasn’t that simple. It never was, but he had to suggest it at least.

Mercy’s eyes drifted to Arthur’s hands, watching the familiar habit with a mixture of fondness and worry. Her thoughts moved in the same vein as his: how many more times would their past come back to haunt them? How many years - how many lifetimes - would they have to live before they were allowed to simply… be? Obviously 400 years didn’t mean that particular quota.

It wasn’t until Arthur spoke that Mercy looked up again. Her frown deepened, and for just a moment she wanted to explain that she’d meant it was good that he hadn’t received a letter as well. But Mercy knew Arthur was perfectly aware of what she’d meant. So his anger wasn’t surprising. Part of Mercy was even glad for it… needed it even. But only because it solidified what she already knew: that they would find a way through this. Together.

“No. It’s not.” Mercy’s scowl grew to nearly match Arthur’s as she watched him stare at the letter.

The suggestion of simply burning the damn thing gave Mercy pause. Had they tried that before? Gods it had been so long ago… But the letter was still sealed. So whatever ‘contract’ lay inside was still inactive. Perhaps with enough of the right sort of fire, they could be shot of it.

“It’s worth a try,” Mercy said. Though it was never that simple, was it? “We should go home. The firepit on the back porch should work fine.” Mercy stood, knowing Arthur would never be able to concentrate on his marking now, and feeling a wash of guilt - and the stirring of old fears - that couldn’t be helped. “I’m sorry, Ren, I- I thought this was behind me. Behind us.”

There was something to be said about his tactile nature, a need to always have something on his person to keep his hands occupied and distracted. On the occasions he didn’t have any such object or item to fiddle or fidget, his fingers often sought out other alternatives. Such as his jumper, though it was typically the rotating dial on his iron plated watch. Today in his distraction though the cotton stretched over his fingers as he proceeded to rub his scruff lined chin idly with his thumb. “No,” he agreed, echoing her own words in his contemplation of the scenario, “no it’s not.”

He released the sleeves with a final huff and leaned forwards, snagging the letter and bringing it up to study intensely while Mercy answered. Why couldn’t they burn it? Surely that would be enough. If the letter wasn’t opened. If it simply… ceased to be. Perhaps it would buy them time to figure out what they needed to do in the interim. “Don’t be sorry,” his eyes flickered up from the intense stare he was currently directing towards the letter, the intensity of his expression easing into something softer. “You have nothing to be sorry for.”

Without another word his attention returned once again to the thick folded parchment, the wax seal pressed in to hold it shut and the intensity of his focus narrowed to a pinpoint. He imagined each particle of the paper vibrating at an infinite frequency beyond what the eye could see, gradually building in frequency. He thought of the countless firesides the two of them had sat beside, sometimes in jovial jest and others in sorrowful grief, the warmth of drink in their cups and laughter in the air. But each fire began with a spark and he willed that spark to ignite here. To burn the very paper in his hands.

What Arthur failed to notice was the creeping drop in temperature, the heat being drawn forth and consumed, much as stars are crushed in the void of space. Infinite and precise, but where typically a flame would spark, curling the edges of the paper into a burning cinder his brow furrowed.

Nothing.

No spark.

Absolutely nothing.

There were few things in the world that could unsettle Mercy quite so abruptly as a Black Letter. Once, it had been a means to an end. A way to serve a purpose. A way to put her unique ‘talents’ to good use. Or so she’d thought. So they’d both thought. Arthur had been there too, right alongside her. Looking for something to help make sense out of so many lifetimes come and gone. And they had done good things back then, thievery and subterfuge aside. They had saved lives in keeping what wasn’t meant for humans out of their hands. But the altruism had eventually turned to something else. Something greedy and wicked that she and Arthur had been bound to regardless of their personal feelings.

But they had fulfilled their contracts centuries ago. The agency was long disbanded, and the other creatures they’d worked with were long dead, barring perhaps a scant few that had been fae or undead. It simply made no sense.

Mercy was silent again as Arthur picked up the letter. She tensed, expecting something to happen, but the letter remained quiet. Only when his gaze softened as he turned it towards her did some of that tension ease. Her expression followed suit, softening the tightness around her eyes, but she remained standing once their decision had been made.

She’d seen Arthur do this thousands of times, and it still never ceased to amaze her. Yet in the countless lifetimes they’d spent together, Mercy had never seen him call forth the flames… and fail. Until today. The thought rested on her tongue that perhaps the letter simply couldn’t be burned. That perhaps whoever was sending it knew Arthur was with her and that he would try to destroy the letter. Perhaps it was simply charmed against phoenix fire.

But Mercy never got the chance.

The air she sucked into her lungs burned. Not with fire, but with ice. Mercy frowned deeply at the sensation, but it was so sudden and so frigid that it set off a violent coughing spell that left Mercy gasping for air - both hands braced against Arthur’s desk - before her healing factor kicked in. “Arthur, what -” She coughed again, and her breath rose in a white cloud as the temperature continued to drop. “- what’s happening?”

It was sudden and without warning that the snap-frost hit; sucking the very essence of warmth from the room and layering the windows in a thin striated pattern of ice crystals. It was a blast of energy, too much for his body to cope with and where typically he might’ve been able to absorb it at present it was too much. The overload caused a wrack of shivers to shudder through his frame where he sat his senses fried from the force of sudden adjustment.

The soft flutter of paper falling through the air broke the silence, brushing the wooden floor and vanishing under the desk forgotten for the moment and rather unimportant by most accounts in the moment. These strange bouts of power fluctuations had been growing increasingly more sporadic, first around the house but now any attempt to summon a flame practically short-circuited him for several hours at a time leaving him weak and so very cold.

He shuddered unable to support himself even sitting as he was and half slipped out of the chair, a rag-doll without a spine. Dark eyes slipped shut, eyelashes fluttering in sync with the chatter of his teeth and the rattle of his fingers “I- I-” but nothing more came, dissolving in a short cloud of cold breath.

The sluggish attempt of his supernatural constitution did little to help while attempting to pull himself back into the chair, trying to kickstart an engine that had presently flooded itself. All Arthur could groan, in a deep, grating rasp is “fuck.”

The black letter was all but forgotten as Mercy watched Arthur start to crumple under the magical blowback of whatever had just gone horribly wrong. Her own breath still rose in a white cloud, but her supernatural healing factor was quickly pushing back at the cold. The same should have happened to Arthur, faster than Mercy honestly, but to her horror, it didn’t.

“Arthur- Woah! Hey…” She bolted around the desk, trying to catch him before he could crack his skull open. He was trembling so badly that for a moment Mercy thought he was having a seizure. “Sshhh, it’s alright… don’t try to talk...” Then his eyes started to close. “No… no, hey. Ren… Hey! Stay awake…” she said, taking his face in her hands. Gods above, but he was so cold. “Just… don’t move, okay? I’ve got you.”

She held him close, trying to warm him as best she could until whatever the hell this was passed. She tucked his arms beneath her jacket and sweater as best as she could manage with Arthur barely able to help. Then she pressed her palms to the sides of Arthur’s neck, over the great arteries that pulsed just beneath his half-frozen skin, in an attempt to keep the blood flowing to his head warm. She was shivering a bit herself, but she was still far warmer than Arthur. Though for how long?

Having spent the majority of her 1200 years with Arthur, Mercy knew how to care for all manner of things that had afflicted him over the years. But this was a first. So Mercy was at a loss. Other than trying to keep him warm. She would have to call for help if this didn’t let up. But the list of people she trusted was short. It contained two, maybe three people. Thank the gods she’d locked the door earlier. The last thing they needed was someone walking in right now. Arthur groaned, and Mercy rubbed a hand down his back.

“Where does it hurt?” she asked gently, hoping to keep him focused on staying awake if nothing else.

As a general rule of thumb, Arthur prided himself on his resilience. The ability to withstand bad things when they happened; riding them out until they reached the other side or at least long enough until a semblance of light shone through. Right now there was naught save the bone-deep chill that had shot through his body in an instant. One moment he could recall being sat at the desk and the next he’d felt so tired and then there was a voice. Familiar yet distant.

The hands felt like searing points of heat against his skin; which itself was covered in a sheen of cold sweat. Too hot. It was too hot and frantically he attempted to push her hands away, writhing and fighting between tremors of his muscles.

Arthur could swear the room was closing in on him, the walls growing increasingly confined and constricting. Or maybe that was just his airway, it was hard to tell in the mounting panic that was sinking into his current state of consciousness. The air rushing in and out, faster and faster until his head began to spin, every frantic blink causing the room to shift first to an office, then a library, a bar and eventually a dark cell. The sudden shock to his system had him scrambling, reaching for whatever was nearest (Frey’s arm if he had any recollection or understanding in his panic).

Each breath felt more laboured than the last, struggling to fill his lungs as he clawed and gasped. Please. Please. Oh Gods make it stop.

Mercy didn’t understand. She didn’t understand any of it. Other than it was all wrong. Terribly, terribly wrong. Only the scar on her hand throbbed and flared as it always did when Arthur was in distress, though the fact brought little comfort.

She didn’t know her touch was hurting him, and could only assume that in his bleariness he was confused and frightened as he seemed to fight against her hold. But then as suddenly as he’d been trying to push her away, something shifted, and he was grasping for purchase instead. His clawing, scrambling hands seeking anything to hold onto, anything that would hold him steady as the world spun out of control and he started to panic. Sucking in lungfuls of air that would never be enough to satiate his shell-shocked body’s desperate need for oxygen.

“Breathe, Aren…” Mercy said, holding onto him as best she could without making anything worse. “Breathe for me…” She clasped his hands and pressed them to her chest as she spoke, hoping the deliberately slow rise and fall of her breathing would help him slow his own. “Breathe in…” Inhale. “Breathe out…” Exhale. Mercy would’ve used her power to try and influence his psychological state, but her Fury magic had never affected him. So she didn’t waste her energy. “Breathe in… breathe out… I’ve got you… you’re safe…” Mercy would repeat the mantra as long as she needed to. As long as it took to bring him back to right.

The panic was instantaneous as shock began to set in, bewilderment at his own sheer inability to control himself. The room dropped several more degrees as Arthur’s body shuddered. He was left gasping to try and draw in much needed air while utterly unable to stabilise its core temperature that was steadily beginning to creep higher and higher steam rising in the cold air of the room before it would plummet just as quickly as a candle being snuffed out. “W-What’s g-going on?”

In an instant he was plunged into the memories of a similar time of panic, an alternate dreamscape, a different time - in aid of a friend that had ultimately been for naught. For that friend was long since gone. Yet it was a time that he’d felt water for the very first time without pain, only to realise his inability to swim and almost drowned in the process.

So he clawed and grasped at the only anchor that existed in the moment, the only anchor that had ever existed across all of time until with time his mind began to quieten once more and the white noise began to fade into the rhythmic instructions of a familiar voice.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Breathe.

Several more minutes passed until the room gradually warmed, Arthur’s breathing growing calmer until he could turn his face into her arm. Another full minute came and went before he was wracked with another bout of shivers before weakly attempting to push himself back into a sitting position. “What happened?”

Mercy opened her mouth to tell him… something… anything… that might explain what was happening. But the truth was, Mercy had no idea. As long as they’d known one another, something like this had never happened. Was it the letter? Had trying to burn it caused some… critical disruption of Arthur’s magic? But no… there had been episodes of his powers malfunctioning - for lack of a better term - for a bit now. Whatever it was, it couldn’t continue indefinitely. Mercy’s breath shuddered as the temperature dropped again, but she ignored it. She would be alright, despite the way the cold made the few scars she had ache miserably. As for his question… “We’ll figure it out, I promise… but right now you have to try and breathe, okay?”

The minutes seemed to stretch into hours until Arthur finally seemed to stabilize. When he was breathing normally again - or as close as he was likely to get at the moment - Mercy fell quiet. She stayed by his side, gently stroking his hair and then pressing a hand to his forehead to check his temperature when he shivered. When he tried to sit up, she gave him a bit of space, but kept a hand on his shoulder to steady him. Again, came his question. This time, Mercy was honest. “I don’t know. You tried to burn the letter, and then...” She frowned, but eventually relayed the short version of what had happened.

“How d’you feel?” she asked, though it was clear he did not feel great. Not one bit. “Does anything hurt?”

Arthur blinked slowly, his head throbbing with each breath he took to fill his lungs and he rolled his tongue across his teeth, the parchment dry space of his mouth an uncomfortable sensation as he listened to Mercy talk. He wanted a drink and yet the very thought of having anything made him feel like his stomach would turn over on itself. There was little else he could do but sit and try to do as instructed.

“No,” he answered the question after a few moments of silence, his voice cracking when he chose to speak and he had to close his eyes for a moment to fight against the wave of sudden nausea that overcame him. “I-” he shivered again pulling his jacket tighter around his body “cold and sick.” Certainly not fit to stay here, eventually he opened his eyes looking tiredly at Freyja. “can we go home, please?”

Mercy frowned, unable to keep the concern from her expression. That nothing pained him was a small blessing at least. But the fact did nothing for the tight knot of fear that twisted in her gut. Or the helplessness she felt as Arthur shivered, his normally heated skin terrifyingly cold and pale. It wasn’t the first time she’d seen him sick or hurt, but this was different. “Of course…” She took off her scarf and tucked it gently around his neck. “Of course we can go home.”

As she buttoned his jacket so it wouldn’t slip loose, Mercy refused to think about what might happen if he had another episode like this. Or gods forbid… one that was worse. Instead, she turned all her attention to the here and now. To taking Arthur home and making him better. Everything else - the letter, Arthur’s marking, and the growing ache in Mercy’s arm - could wait.

#wickedswriting #chatzy #p: arthur #p: backdraft

7 notes · View notes

silverlysilence · 5 years ago

Text

Hidden at Hogwarts

So @fabllama02 recently reblogged a post about how the RotBTD Hogwarts AUs got their Houses all wrong (though it does mention how Hiccup was sorted correctly in Ravenclaw and I was like, WTF?! Most of the art I see is with Hiccup as Hufflepuff, which is believable, but Ravenclaw is obviously the right choice there, but I’m digressing).

Anyways, it points out how Jack Frost should be in Hufflepuff and that got me thinking...

Jackson Overland was by no means the best student to ever walk the halls of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. He probably would have been sorted into Ravenclaw House if that were the case but neither had he received a Troll or Dreadful on his any of his O.W.L.s. The worst he got was a Poor in History of Magic but he blamed having a ghost for a professor for that one. The rest of his O.W.L. were Acceptable or Exceeds Expectations with an Outstanding in Transfiguration that surprised even himself.

Still, despite it being only a few weeks into his sixth year, Jackson was already counting down the days until the end of the term. Most students would balk at wanting to leave Hogwarts—well, at least when it wasn’t exam time—because it was the best school in all of Europe. However, the majority of the school had something he didn’t.

Friends.

Oh, don’t get him wrong, Jackson did have friends. A lot of them if he was being honest but none of them went to Hogwarts. They either attended regular school or went to one of the other two prestigious European schools of magic. He was fine with that, in the beginning, since he received acceptance letters from both Durmstrang and Beauxbatons as well and could have followed his friends if he desired to.

But Jackson Overland was stubborn and he wanted to attend the alma mater he read about from his mother’s schoolgirl diary. The young ten-year-old him believed he would make new lifelong friends at Hogwarts and then he’d wouldn’t be sad his other friends weren’t there with him. The train ride had been a great start, he’d bounced around from compartment to compartment, talking with anyone willing and learning a fair share of Hogwarts outside of what he’d learned from books and secondhand accounts.

Then his Sorting took place.

Ravenclaw was the first to be discarded for the simple reason that he didn’t seek knowledge for the joy of knowing as many of the House so often did and he wasn’t one to believe intelligence was everything. Knowing didn’t matter when one didn’t have the courage or drive to do something with it. He was sad, though. Sad that Ravenclaw was immediately taken off the table when air was their element, that stung since he did so love being up in the air, surrounded by the winds.

He wasn’t surprised that Gryffindor was the next House to be rejected. Jackson could be brave and daring when he needed too, but only when it involved others. Not only that, but fire wasn’t his thing and with it being Gryfindor’s corresponding element, he could live without being a member of the House.

That left two options that the Hat painstakingly struggled with: Hufflepuff and Slytherin.

Hufflepuffs were hard-working, dedicate, patience, and loyalty. All of which could describe Jackson to the letter, when he felt like it. He could be dedicated and hard-working if that meant more time for fun. He had patience—how else could he survive year from year at Hogwarts without being patient?—and was fiercely loyal. Even better, earth was the element for Hufflepuff.

Before he could get too excited over that fact, the Hat began considering the last option.

Slytherin House.

Jackson actually knew more about the House than any of the others. His mother’s diary described many of late nights sitting under one of the silver lamps hanging from the ceiling in the Slytherin’s cold common room. Cold because the common room lies beneath the element of their House, water from the Black Lake, but the warmth of her words spoke of fondness for her House. He might not have the same ambition to become the world’s youngest Potion Mistress as his mother, but his determination and need to toe the line in regards to the rules—he was testing their elasticity—was something they both had in common. Add in his cunningness and resourcefulness nature when pulling off a prank that even impressed the sole portrait—hidden in an antechamber of one of the countless secret passageways Jackson passed his time searching—of a younger Salazar Slytherin and he could very well fit in with people of similiar values.

In the end, the Hat had allowed him to choose and he’d chosen loyalty. Loyalty to a mother he had vague memories of and a diary full of stories he often dreamed about.

Jackson Overland was draped in the silver and greens of the Slytherin House that night sealing his fate.

The next morning, as he giddily bounced through the halls, cheerfully greeting anyone he passed, he noticed the change. Where the same students had been happy to help and answer his exuberant questions on the train, they took one look at the colors of his tie and turned up their noses, ignoring him. It soon became apparent by choosing Slytherin, he had effectively alienated the other three-fourths of Hogwarts. It was disheartening and had him dragging his feet as he tried again and again with other members of the various Houses only to be met with the same result.

At least he had his own House. The House his mother loved so dearly. There was just one problem. A small difference between his mother and him.

Phoebe Black was as Pure-blood as they came and from The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black before she’d been struck off the tapestry.

Jackson Overland was a Half-blood.

Nothing more than a Mudblood in the eyes of his Housemates.

He quickly learned none of them would approach him outside the confines of the dormitories in fear of another student of a different House or teacher seeing them and tarnishing the reputation of Slytherin, inside was another matter. His homework would always disappear, ink bottles shattered and quills snapped. None of his school robes were destroyed as that would reflect badly on the House and possibly lose them points, his muggle clothes, on the other hand, were mere rags. Worse was their constant taunts and name-calling.

It was no wonder Jackson had taken to hiding away in Hogwarts as much as possible. When he wasn’t in class or sleeping behind heavily warded curtains, he was invisible. Practically a ghost. For Merlin’s sake, Profession Binns routinely forgot he was a student and would give him Ghost Letters as reading material.

Thankfully, The Grey Lady caught him attempting to decipher the ghostly writing to no avail one day and kindly read the translucent notes out loud for him to copy down on a sheet of parchment. He thanked her by placing a single lily flower in the small niche window seat she so often haunted. Since then, it had become a tradition, when Jackson received Ghost Letters, the Grey Lady would read them aloud for him, and a lily would be put in place the next day.

A process he was repeating once more, gently tucking the Moonbeam Lily that in no way shape or form came from the Forbidden Forest next to the blue and silver pillow. Making sure flower was visible and would be easily spotted, he quickly retreated to one of the hidden passages Salazar informed him of and waited. He didn’t have to wait too long for the Grey Lady to float down the hallway, passing his hiding spot, where she came to a halt next to the window.

Amber eyes gleamed in happiness when he saw lips forever in a grim expression tilt upwards. Jackson didn’t know if she knew he always stuck around long enough—sometimes hours—just to see her reaction. To him, it was the best part, because if it made the usual solemn ghost happy for a small moment and that made him happy.

He was just about to take a step back and head down the path at his back when a polite nasally voice drifted down the hall, rooting the brunet to the spot. He couldn’t see the person but the distinguishable clinking of metal against stone every other step was a dead giveaway. Amber eyes immediately caught sight as tall auburn-haired wearing the same blue and bronze ties as the bulky blond at his side as they made their way pasted his hiding place, animatedly discussing the Triwizard Tournament announcement. Undoubtedly on their way to their common room to get quills and ink to submit their names into the Goblet of Fire.

It was only after they were long gone, voices but a distant memory that Jackson let out his breath.

“Why do you not talk to him?”

Jackson didn’t jump, but it was a near thing. Instead, he leaned up against the wall and allowed himself to slide down, sitting in the darkness with only the silvery-grey light cast from the Grey Lady for light. Drawing his knees to himself, he rested his arms on top and buried his head as if that would further hide him from the world.

“I’d rather not,” the brunet shrugged languidly.

“I do not understand. You often stare at him, and speak fondly of his deeds, but you never approach him,” the Grey Lady glided over towards the teenager. “Why is that?”

“Because Hiccup bloody Haddock doesn’t know I existed despite having the biggest crush on him?” Jackson mumbled into his arms.

“Yet I have heard you fondly speak of the first time you saw him on multiple occasions.”

“Again, he didn’t know I was there,” Jackson hummed, the memory of his fourth year unbiddenly rise to the surface.

He had just fled Charms class, slipping into the nearest hidden passageway leading to the kitchens for some lunch away from the Great Hall when he heard the deep nasally voice doing a poor imitation of a Scottish accent. Normally, he would have kept on walking, the prospect of learning a few new recipes from the eager House Elves more of a lure, but the laughter of children had his curiosity peeked.

Following the laughter led him to a brick wall, but a tap from his wand on an indented stone had the brick sliding back, giving him a glimpse inside the usually unused classroom currently filled with a group first and second years—ties of all colors sans the stark greens and silver of his own—sitting in a circle as a teenager—lacking the telltale tie and all important crest emblazoned robes—read from a book in one hand while waving his wand about in the other hand as he paced inside the circle.

The floating veils above the auburn hair swirled before one floated down, passing by another heading upwards to rejoin the group. The teenager began reading again as the veil floated around the circle for all the children to get a good look at and when he was finished describing the properties, he asked the group for the name of the plant. One of the Hufflepuff offered up a name but the teen’s voice took on the horrible Scottish accent once more as he listed how her answer was wrong in a humorous, fun way as to not embarrass her.

It was in that moment, watching the unknown teen spend his lunch hour teaching the younger students about the various potion ingredients and their properties their Potions Master should have taught them—the bastard hadn’t, Jackson knew that from his experience dealing with the man in his capacity as both a professor and Head of House Slytherin—in preparation for the upcoming exams that his interest in the teen grew.

From then on, Jackson kept an eye out for the auburn-haired teen and observed. The next time amber eyes caught a glimpse of him it was with him fumbling with his blue and bronze tie as he hurried into the fifth year’s Defense Against the Dark Arts class a few seconds before the bell rang. Jackson was a bit surprised that the unknown teen was a year ahead of him, instead of behind as he initially thought, but he wasn’t surprised to find out he was a Ravenclaw. A week later, the Slytherin learn his name from his hefty blonde Housemate shouting it from across the courtyard as he pulled the notorious Thorston twins from House Hufflepuff after.

Amber eyes had dimmed upon seeing the Ravenclaw walking towards the trio of blondes with a Gryffindor on either side of him. The small fledgling of hope worming its way into his heart quickly shattered. There was no way he could become friends with the kind-hearted auburn-haired teen. Not with two Gryffindors as friends—best of friends from the looks of how they hung off of each other and a little more on the blonde’s part if he had to guess—because while members of Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff could be friendly and open with their childhood Slytherins friends and family, Gryffindor and Slytherins did not mix.

At all.

The two Houses always thought the worst of each other, blaming them for everything and since Jackson was lumped together with the other Slytherins, he received more than his fair share of accusations by the House. Another reason he tried so hard to be invisible inside the wall of Hogwarts and stay invisible he would continue to do. Jackson let the hope die and kept his distance. He could not, keep himself from watching over Hiccup though, and with each new thing he learned about the loyal, intelligent, brave Ravenclaw, the larger his crush grew.

“I could speak to him for you; if you so wish?” the Grey Lady offered.

“Milady, I appreciate you’re offer, but Hiccup Haddock is better off not knowing Jackson Overland.”

#Hogwarts #The Grey Lady #I'm Sorry #SilverlySilence's Fanfics #fanfic #Hiccup Haddock #Jack Frost #Jackson Overland #HiJack #Hidden at Hogwarts

103 notes · View notes

grapefruitsketches · 5 years ago

Text

Untamed Spring Fest - Day 17: Rest

1,652 Words

Lan Sizhui & Wei Wuxian & Lan Wangji, post canon, canon compliant, basically just fluff with some feelings, Wangxian being husbands & fathers

“Ah, A-Yuan. Make sure you try some of the noodles at Master Zhao’s while you’re in Qinghe. The number 5 is the best.” Wei Wuxian sighed dreamily, thinking of dinners past as he twirled Chenqing lazily in his hand. He was sitting on the bed, leaning casually against the pillows.

“Master Zhao’s. Number 5.” Lan Sizhui nodded with determination, “I will try it.”

“Order the number 2.” Lan Wangji recommended, sweeping his sleeves back as he sat at his guqin table.

“Ah, you’ve been there too Hanguang-Jun?” Sizhui asked, “What’s the…?”

“You’ve been there too…who?” Wei Wuxian interrupted, raising an eyebrow at Sizhui. had crossed his arms and sat up straighter as he faced his son.

Sizhui blushed, “You’re been there too, father?” Wei Wuxian smiled in approval and resumed his lounging.

“Mn,” Hanguang-Jun nodded.

Sizhui still wasn’t quite used to being able to openly call either of them “father” so openly (though in Hanguang-Jun’s case, he was more than used to calling him that in his head.) After Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji had shocked the cultivation world (or at least the part of it that didn’t know either of them well, so shocking all but about eight people) on returning from their elopement and once even Lan Qiren seemed to grudgingly accept that the Yiling Patriarch lived in Cloud Recesses now, Wei Wuxian had insisted that Sizhui called them both father, not just in family settings, but in public as well. He was very serious about enforcing this - and seemingly only this - rule.

Lan Sizhui had hesitated when Wei Wuxian had first asked, worried that this was some elaborate attempt at teasing Lan Wangji - something he very much did not want to be a part of. But Sizhui had finally given in, with Wei Wuxian hiding and watching from behind a wall. “Do you know a good score for easing pain, f-father?” he had asked. The look Hanguang-Jun had given him, the corners of his lips upturned nearly imperceptibly with a slight raise in his eyebrows, the movements minor shifting his whole expression, had made Sizhui sorry he hadn’t tried it sooner. Hanguang-Jun had been pleased.

Sizhui still slipped up sometimes, just like he still failed to respond to A-Yuan sometimes, a name that had been almost entirely avoided during his childhood in the Cloud Recesses, but he was always happy to fix the mistake, trying to make up for lost time.

“But why the number 2?” Sizhui pressed, his original question still having gone unasked. He was unused to Hanguang-Jun having such strong opinions on anything as trivial and basic as food.

“The number 2 is more suitable for… “ a brief sideways look at his husband, “someone used to Lan diets.”

“Lan Zhaaan” Wei Wuxian groaned, “You’re no fun.” Wei Wuxian rolled his eyes at Sizhui, gesturing at his son’s other father with a thumb, “He forgets. I was the one who fed you when you were a baby, A-Yuan. I know the proper Yunmeng tastebuds are in you somewhere, even after my dear husband tried to ruin you.”

Sizhui frowned, “I thought I heard Uncle Ning mention once that he did all the cooking?”

A sharp huff and a smirk from the guqin table indicated Lan Wangji’s version of uproarious laughter. Wei Wuxian pouted, “And who do you think grew and paid for all that food? So ungrateful. I’m hurt, A-Yuan,” he clutched his chest dramatically.

Sizhui laughed, “Sorry, sorry. I’ll try a bit of both 2 and 5, and let you know which one I liked when I get back?”

Wei Wuxian grinned, “You hear that Lan Zhan? Our son is going to come back a true, Yunmeng, spice-loving man.”

Lan Wangji ignored hi, instead he started plucking the guqin strings, warming up. Sizhui, understanding the signal, sat down by his own guqin, set up on the smaller table next to Hanguang-Jun’s, designed for just this purpose though for a much younger and smaller Sizhui.

Sizhui leaned closer to his Lan father and whispered, “As long as it’s better than the congee he made in Yi City, I’ll be fine.” A smile curled on Hanguang-Jun’s face, but he remained silent.

“What? What was that?” Wei Wuxian leapt off of the bed, he shook Chenqing at them in an accusatory manner, “You two can’t be sharing jokes behind my back. Sizhui, you know better, if you only test your sense of humour on Hanguang-Jun, you’ll end up a very boring person.” Wei Wuxian cast a sidelong glance at his husband, grinning at some private joke.

Sizhui chuckled, and closed his eyes as he tried to calm his breath, to concentrate on the guqin strings.

Wei Wuxian put Chenqing to his lips and looked expectantly to his husband. While the three often spent evenings together, tonight had a special purpose. Tomorrow, Lan Sizhui would leave for Qinghe. Lan Jingyi would join him, as would Clan Leader Jin, Ouyang Zizhen, and a handful of other young cultivators from the Jiang and, once they arrived, Nie Sects.

It had all been arranged by Jin Ling. Since leaving Guanyin Temple, Clan Leader Jin had apparently been corresponding heavily with Jiang Cheng and Nie Huaisang, seeking advice and permission on how the clans might work together to properly deal with, not just suppress, the dangerous saber spirits remaining in Qinghe. Nie Huaisang had initially been resistant to letting other clans interfere with Nie affairs. Jiang Cheng had thought that the whole idea was far too dangerous. Eventually, Jin Ling had gotten his way, including his demands that young cultivators from each of the major clans be invited to join, and that the leader of the investigation should be a cultivator from his own generation. This leader would have to be approved by all four clans. Lan Sizhui had been easily suggested and approved as the cultivator receiving this honour.

When Lan Sizhui had first heard about all this, he couldn’t help but remember how Jin Ling’s voice shook whenever he described the moment Wen Ning had burst into the Temple, barely able to control the spirit even while the Twin Jades both sought to suppress it. He was not surprised that Jin Ling had gone to such lengths to establish a plan to prevent this from happening again, and was proud to be his friend.

Wei Wuxian had remarked to Lan Wangji how much he had underestimated Jin Ling’s political prowess. Assembling a group composed of and lead exclusively by cultivators around his age for such a difficult and noble purpose would help solidify his generation as ready to take on their own responsibilities, no longer the Juniors of their respective clans. This would probably quiet some of the remaining whispers about Jin Ling’s age in Lanling.

Regardless of Jin Ling’s motivations, this was a deep honour for Sizhui. A well-deserved one, as his fathers, Jingyi, and Zizhen (in a very flowery letter) had not failed to tell him, repeatedly. Sizhui had been nervous though. He had been on night hunts without back up before, but never for something as significant to the cultivation world as this. Still, he was excited, and had spent almost every waking hour in the library over the last few months, researching anything he could about the Nie Sect’s history, the suppression and redirection of resentful energy (with the help of one father), and various musical scores that might come in handy (with the help of his other father). Tonight was the culmination of all this study. He would play the guqin with his fathers one last time before departing. Any remaining corrections would be made, any final suggestions given, but most importantly, Sizhui would spend his last night in the Cloud Recesses under his parents’ roof, a last moment of childhood before the journey that would designate him as an adult, a leader in the eyes of the cultivation world. Safe, loved, and supported.

They played. Soft melodies. Harsh melodies. Healing melodies. At 8:45 precisely, Sizhui yawned, trying and failing to hide this from his fathers. He played through the rest of the melody anyway, but as he raised his hands to begin one more piece, Wei Wuxian lowered his flute and put a hand on his son’s shoulder.

“Why don’t you rest your eyes for a moment? Just a moment,” the Yiling Patriarch suggested gently, living up to his title in a way never contemplated by those who had given it, but in the way it had always suited him best.

Sizhui opened his mouth to protest, but only blinked slowly and yawned more widely. He looked to Lan Wangji, who nodded in agreement, and began to play the soothing melody Lan Sizhui had fallen asleep to so often and so easily over his life. His blinks grew longer with each passing moment until his head was drawn gently to the table, resting on his arms.

He was fast asleep by 8:55.

The two fathers watched their son for a few moments, waiting for his breathing to slow, making sure he was truly asleep, after his long evening of playing the guqin so well even the guqin Wangji might have been jealous. Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji exchanged a look over their son’s head, one so tender and proud that even the most stubborn skeptics of their little family could not have doubted if they had seen it. One at a time, they kissed their son’s sleeping head, Wei Wuxian pulling a blanket over him and pulling the tail of Sizhui’s headband out of his face, Lan Wangji readjusting the blanket and lifting Sizhui’s head to place a pillow underneath.

They would worry, they would be anxious for his return from the moment he left. But he was ready. He was their son, and soon the whole world would understand why they both felt so lucky that he called them his fathers.

#untamed spring fest #the untamed #lan sizhui #wei wuxian #lan wangji #wangxian #my writing #this is intended as a oneshot for now but I might give the Qinghe adventure some more thought...#I'd love an excuse to write more juniors

61 notes · View notes

ashleyswrittenwords · 5 years ago

Text

How to be a Queen [Part 25]

Summary: Princess Zelda is at a loss. Her handed royal responsibilities have begun to weigh heavily on her and she is eventually backed into a corner. Live a life she loathes or run away from everything she’s ever known? Navigating life is hard, and Link forces her to learn that she doesn’t have to do it alone.

Part 1

How To Be A Queen

I’m afraid your apologies fall upon blind eyes. The fact that you were able to sneak three letters was a surprise in itself. Please do not believe you have the power to bring your queen to her knees by missing your imaginary quota. We have a mutual understanding of priorities.

Remember, your safety is my everything.

No matter how you prefer it not to be.

Days folded into weeks and I was tied fast to the rolling waves.

The goddesses willed today to be kind. The skies were clear and though summer was coming to an end, the breeze that rustled the trees was still warm. Hyrule Castle’s grounds are expansive and stretch into densely wooded forests owned exclusively by the Crown. Birds chirped sweet songs from the tall branches alongside the distant hum of the royal apiaries.

I shrieked. A clank of metal cut through the peacefulness.

My thin blade raked against the ground before its little momentum made it favor one side and hit the clay lamely. The backside of my hand burned an angry red and I pressed my lips together to hold a curse. The attacker, who I tossed an evil glare at, laughed gutturally.

“Infirmi vehvi.”

The passing glance turned into a scowl. I straightened, shooting a pointed accusation at Urbosa. “I am not weak.”

The corner of her mouth hiked upward. She even bent down to grab my weapon for me, tossing it my way instead of handing it over. I let out a short gasp as my fumbling hands took hold of the hilt.

“Oh, you’ve been studying!” Urbosa clapped mockingly with her own blade. “A shame your swordplay doesn’t match your academia.”

The sword was heavy in my hand, almost weighty enough that I needed to use both arms. My biceps burned and breath didn’t come to me easily. I let the weapon droop, a particularly undignified stance. “Impa, I implore you to reconsider.”

A tea table with two petite chairs sat at the edge of the copse. It didn’t belong with the scenery and had been drug from the castle several weeks ago. Impa looked up, languish in her movements as she pulled down her spectacles – another quality to her that made her seem so much older than she was. Odd rocks acted as paperweights to hold down the documents before her.

“Certainly, Your Majesty,” she said, dryly. “Inform me of which physical activity you prefer.”

I almost whined. “None. This is counterintuitive.”

“And wasting away in your office is better? No, don’t say your bedchambers because I have caught you time and time against sneaking letters out in the middle of the night,” Urbosa leaned on one hip.

Honestly? Even when I stamped my foot on the dirt and made a child of myself in front of the royal guard, I couldn’t completely disagree. It was mid-August in central Hyrule and for weeks at a time I would go without seeing the sun. Urbosa and Impa had been scheming for this together; forcing me outdoors to play petty games and when I vehemently worked against them under the guise of productivity, they played a hand I hadn’t seen coming.

“Ah, well,” my advisor sat back in her garden chair, towards her work. “I ponder how I should word a castle report to General Forester now that our Queen has given up swordplay.”

“Impa!” I met Anju who nervously shrugged from across the table.

As much as I hated it, Link didn’t need another disappointment. No matter how inferior, especially as of late. The supply line had been established by the time any skirmishes began. Though, from the coming reports, it was a project that was started far too late. Our strength out bested Gerudo forces as they were largely unorganized – at first. The following battles showed their adaptiveness and exposed our own faults.

It seemed that no matter how fortified the supply line grew, there would always be an attempted attack. Seasoned travelers were growing rightfully paranoid and provisions couldn’t be sent in large quantities, which burdened both the army and Gerudo Town.

And worse, the usurper was gaining ground.

Refugees were pouring from the Gerudo capital and, to my horror, learned that they attacked groups with small children. In our correspondences, I had to plead with Link to force one of his admirals to send men to sponsor their treks. There wasn’t opposition in his letters, but the strain in sparing troops was evident.

If they take the capital, then it will give reason to fear they will be able to travel north, Link had written. Fierlin has already proposed to establish a temporary camp by the Great Plateau, but I can’t do that to them now. Not this early on.

By them he meant his admirals, his captains, his men. I understood why Whitehurst had stopped me one day in the halls, admitting something he would never tell his counterpart.

“If you ever doubt our choice,” he had said with an uncharacteristically sound smile. “Nathaniel spoke of him several times after he pushed for replacement hearings.”

Urbosa attempted to bait me into swinging blindly again by lightly touching her blade to mine. Instead of loosening myself to anticipate her attacks, I tensed at the threat of suffering another rude smack to my wrist. The sight made her reprimand me.

“Feet parted!” she shouted, swiping at my feet. I gave a pathetic hop out of an irrational fear that my ankles would be cut through. She would never do anything to hurt me and the action was mostly born of annoyance: I haven’t been the ideal student she had been hoping for.

“Truly, Urbosa.” My voice was shaking more than I needed it to. “This is very harsh on a beginner!”

“Forgive me, my Queen,” Urbosa said without a drop of sorrow. Then, she smiled with a measure of mischievous. “Although you did have the advantage of Hyrule’s most renowned swordsman as your knight attendant.”

“Renowned?” I yelped as her sword clashed against mine. She was holding back, I knew, but my arm wavered under the kickback. “I had no idea that standing beside a person warrants a personal gain of their skill.”

Her response was in Gerudo and I paused our circling to process the words. I had been studying the language during my downtime. Since the Gerudo aristocracy was being housed within the castle, there was no shortage of conversation partners. Some words I couldn’t make out yet the little I could made my face catch a rosy red beyond the sweat that caught my forehead.

“That is entirely unwarranted!”

I swung back against her sword with the strength she had been vying for. It made me curse myself when the pride in her face swelled. Urbosa harked out her triumph, “Translate your emotions into force. Even the most beautiful of desert flowers bare thorns.”

A strand of hair had loosened from my braid and in grew matted against my damp forehead. “Some find my words to be prickly, but my bite has no comparison.”

“Depending on your opponent,” Urbosa nodded as I mirrored her footwork. I was a little shaky, my feet stuttering to match her own while keeping in mind where her eyes were. “Words with a sharp tongue can strike deeper than any blade. However, I think we can both agree that action has more immediate results.”

Our sparring went on until my muscles trembled and the soles of my feet were sore. We weren’t alone either. The notion of a group of noblewomen seeking solitude amidst wartime was laughable at best, outright reckless at worse. The ten men that surrounded us were once apart of my father’s personnel, an inner circle of knights who were both experienced and battle hardened. They were at ease, much to my preference, taking turns scouting the area and sharing a basket of foodstuffs. At one point I had suggested they be allowed to join in the war effort but I was told that my general wouldn’t even entertain the notion when it presented itself.

Still, I did my best to converse with those within the King’s Guard (a name I hadn’t had the energy to bother with changing). They were typically older men with families of their own presiding within the capital; each a story of their own that I would think of in the night when news trickled in riddled with death and carnage.

The victories, despite being so sparse, hadn’t allowed me any reprieve. My whereabouts were a constant reminder of my privileges, luxuries I didn’t feel fit for. Guilt – or was it shame? – made a home in the back of my mind when I would yearn for more than what my power could afford. As with my materials, I was rich in company to dine with. Platters that would never grow scant and goblets that would never run dry.

My father, Impa, Urbosa, and an army of advisors were dazzled by my smiles and ability to save face in adversary. There would always be those against war and my court was not without; all I could do was take it in strides with each evening I entertained the court.

“Any news?” I said to Impa as I maintained a neutral expression. Courtiers twirled about the floor, most were newly returned from the summer harvests and ready to gain favor with their still-new Queen. Little factions of particular lords and ladies clung to the borders of the throne room, gossiping or scheming, I couldn’t tell. But, really, was there a difference?

It almost made me regret not socializing with these people in my youth. Not that Father would permit such free time.

Without turning my head, I heard her make a noise of acknowledgment. “Nothing of consequence, dear.”

Exhaustion was heavy in her murmur. The real question was if that exhaustion was born of current events and from me. I kept the inquiry on my tongue.

“If there is,” I kept my voice low. “Please send them to my room.”

She didn’t need to respond. I stood, acting indifferent to the hundreds of eyes watching me and made my own way to the door. The upside to power was the lack of need to request an exit. Outside the doors was a man of the Knight’s Guard taking leave of another who he was talking to. I nearly felt bad for abruptly ending their conversation.

The knight bowed to someone behind me and Urbosa made herself known in a formal Gerudo fitting; glittering gold that would look odd on anyone that wasn’t her.

“Do you need accompaniment?”

I didn’t need to downplay the tiredness in my movements for her. “No, enjoy the reveling without me. I know how much you like the festivities and all too well of our aristocratic visitor’s tendencies to celebrate nothing until dawn.”

There was a critical look in her eye before it fell to a degree of understanding. We bid one another an uneventful goodnight with a short hug and I made my way towards the spiraling staircases without a care if there was anyone following.

My rooms were a bit tidier than I had left them. The bed was made with fresh linen and my night dress was spread over the covers neatly. Silently, I thanked myself for having Anju teach me how to lace a front-facing corset and let the drapes of fabric fall around my feet. Not long after, I was between the covers already half-way into sleep.

My mind clung onto the little consciousness I had left and I began to feel as if I were missing something. I tensed, the attempt to fall asleep slightly dashed.

He’s not here, I told myself, he’s not here and there is nothing I can do in this moment nor the next. The thought swirled like a mantra, but even then the coldness of the pillow beside me left no aid. A silly notion to miss a moment you felt only once in your life.

Step… two-three. Step.. two-three. Step… two-three.

A waltz, or at least a whisper of one, danced through me and into the movements that were both mine and not. My recollection didn’t come from seeing but knowing that I was in the throne room. It was much different from tonight, emptied and desolate.

“Do I humor you?”

The man with striking eyes was here, the charm of before now replaced with an intimidating seriousness. I wanted to spit venom at this nightmare and tell him he hadn’t broken me after all, but just like last time I wasn’t here to do that. His gaze was glowering, heated with all intentions that dream me ignored.

We took a turn about the room. I tilted my head and blinked up at him, “Only in the ways you hate.”

The words were backed by the knowledge of who he was. Knowledge I desperately tried to learn as I searched his vague outline.

Who are you? Tell me.

There was little response to my utterance aside from the slight pressure on my waist, which only caused a smile to form on my lips – barely there at all. I was teasing.

The pressure disappeared instantly. “You have met him.”

I watched him carefully now, feeling suspicious of his tone.

“We will always meet.”

The man’s chest heaved in laughter. “Yes,” he harked, “Indeed we will, but that was not in the way you and I shall. Never in the manner that he dallies in. We have an… inclination to put aside petty discrepancies, wouldn’t you agree?”

Confusion soured me. It was odd to feel like a third wheel in a conversation I was meant to be partaking in. Words bubbled in my chest yet I seemed to decide otherwise. He made a sound.

“Alas, you need not to tell me. Your ways speak clear that the mortal walks in your steps. Worshipping you like the dog you’ve made him.”

“You have come to mock me. Nothing more? As my children starve under your thumb?” I scowled, itching to say more but biting down on my urge. Already, I had said to much.

“Oh, no, my love,” he spat, “I have come to sing you sweet songs of our future.”

Suddenly, I was taken by scenes from far places. The heat was stifling, so hot I could hardly breath under the blaring sun. There was commotion around me and noise of huffing horses as wagons of supplies were being carried away. A quick glance at myself in my night gown said that no one could see me when they walked passed.

I breathed in the dry air, turning when I heard a particular conversation.

“The transport cases are too heavy for the mules to pull at once.”

It came from a large tent, the opening flap fluttering in a breeze that was just as hot as the air around it. This was unmistakably the Gerudo Desert and my chest grew wanton at the thought of who was inside. The business around me toned down and I took my first steps towards the tent.

My breath rattled uneven in my chest as my thoughts were spoken without the shapes of my lips.

“Why are you showing me this?”

Soft dissuasions beat vaguely against my urge to continue on, but my newfound control of my body and piqued curiosity were overwhelming. I pushed back the tent opening to see a dimmer setting. Light filtered through the canvas and persisted enough to void the need for lanterns. A large table sat in the middle of the space, littered with books and loose papers. Unpacked boxes coincided with the miscellaneous items and at the table, bending over to speak, was a man in uniform.

However, I didn’t pay much attention to him. The one in the chair held me rapt. I was unable to feel the carpet under my feet as I walked further within the tent, not particularly caring about much else.

“Then let’s pull them one by one.”

He was seated with his back to me and now I could make out the unmistakable wheat-blond hair. The man, officer, he spoke to sagged slightly in posture. “But, sir, by then-”

“Burn them,” my general said chastely, “Unless you plan to leave them as a gift to the our Gerudo friends, we either take our supplies with us or burn it. I have no intention of assisting in even the smallest stick of firewood. Is that clear, Captain?”

The tone he employed was foreign to me. Link sat up, looking at him where I could a glimpse of his side profile. My heart ached in a way I hadn’t expected. The man gave a silent sigh.

“Yes sir.”

Without another word, the captain stood straight and walked by me without an ounce of awareness. I swallowed, watching Link lean over what he was working on. Warily, I approached him and studied the way his appearance had changed.

How many months has it been already? Four, almost five months since his departure.

More importantly, how was this possible?

His hair was hardly tamed and seemed to had been shorn with a blunt tool – probably a knife. Ruminants from the vast sands clung from his cheeks to his hands, a testament to his time out here. It was obvious that he wasn’t happy and studied the pages of a book with heavy eyes that hadn’t closed for sleep in far longer than I cared to examine. One of his hands thumbed the next page while the other braced the side of his face as he slumped over the table, a straight seat long abandoned after the captain left.

Link looked far older than he was.

I watched his eyes skim the words and whispered uselessly, “I wish I could help you.”

Blue eyes wandered astray in my direction. I thought they would see right through me as all the others but instead…

“Zelda?”

A breath caught in my throat as his expression of distress morphed from shock to disbelief to a certain relief. “Goddess, Zelda… what are you… what are you doing here?”

Link stood to his full height, clad in uniform and every emotion flashing over him.

“This is a dream,” I immediately said, staggering back. His confusion followed me.

“What do you mean?”

He began taking steps toward me.

“This is a dream,” I repeated, this time more persistent.

It barely occurred to me that we weren’t in the tent anymore. We weren’t anywhere. Link didn’t seem to care. He smiled, reaching towards me.

“I don’t understand,” he shook his head. “I don’t understand, but I don’t have to. I missed you, Zelda. More than anything.”

Link’s eyes held an adoration that I had always yearned for… and yet it was out of place. His hands shook as they closed around my shoulders. “I thought about you every night, Zelda. I crave only you and your light. Your love and pity. I have prayed for a moment like this and here you are!”

“Link-”

“Don’t you get it?” his volume raised sharply. “I do this all for you. I slave for you, I plead for you, I kill for you!”

Then a sickening wet sound cut through his speech. He looked down first and I followed to where his gaze stopped.

Red coated his uniform, staining the midnight blue darker around the tear. Protruding from his abdomen was a silver blade tinged in his blood. I think I might have screamed. He looked back up at me with blank eyes and made a choking sound. Link’s lips formed a word.

I wasn’t in a tent with my dying general. I wasn’t anywhere, but I could still see the image of him dying in my arms with overpouring blood running from his stomach. I wanted to scream. I wanted to sob. Only tears ran from my eyes as the man of my nightmares swung me through our dance.

“A reminder of what I’ve done in the past. A warning of what I’ll do in the future.”

---

I had awoken in a sheet of sweat and tears. My throat was scratchy from the sobs of my sleep and I didn’t move to begin my day immediately. I spent the early morning hours curled in a ball on my bed without the energy to cry more nor the exhaustion to fall back to slumber.

Anju found me staring into the shadows of my room and decided to fetch my breakfast from the kitchen for me. While she sat with me, stirring a cup of strong tea in her hands, I didn’t talk about my dream and allowed her to tell me all the silly rumors the castle maids push around. Gratefulness ebbed at me with every smile she pulled from my lips. I still don’t think I deserve her loyalty and friendship.

“Any decent ones about me?”

She took a long sip of her tea, rolling her eyes. “Some ladies of the court fancy a royal wedding. They don’t have much care for wars.”

I hummed my understanding and took my time spreading strawberry jam on toast. “Predictable. I don’t blame them for looking for distraction. I’m sure the bordering lands have heightened concerns with quartering troops.”

My maid paused. “Quartering troops?”

I blinked. It was a dream, I thought harshly. It was a dream and nothing more. Why am I scaring her by thinking it was true?

“I meant for the injured,” I mended hastily. “Transport isn’t so secure until you cross Lake Hylia and some feel more comfortable healing in the towns than traveling all the way here.”

“Ah,” she nodded, “I suppose they aren’t as patriotic as I thought. I get it, though, I would be uncomfortable by the idea too. You know how Kafei and my father feel about taking holiday away from here.”

I breathed a breath of relief.

The remainder of the morning went without a hitch. I hadn’t received any intel overnight and despite my increased pestering, my inbox lacked anything regarding the war to the southwest. It seemed that my mind had fled any sense of reason regarding the mythos of premonitions. I jumped at any counsel about the conflict or how Admiral Byron’s spies should proceed.

I frowned at the sound of another unsuccessful mission. “I want eyes on him.”

“We have been monitoring their encampments for months,” Byron gestured to the war room’s map. “All aspects of their movements are accurate to the square footage.”

Half of the admirals, including Whitehurst and Fierlin, had taken leave early this month while the other end of the cabinet returned to Hyrule Castle.

“That’s not what I meant,” I watched the short man carefully. “General Forester has written that the war prisoners regard him with a reverence of a king. Please recall to me one specification he has recalled for us.”

He rustled through his papers before coming upon one and folded his arms over it. “The one true King of the Gerudo, Your Majesty,” he exhaled, then looked at me with tired eyes. “He is nothing but a usurper, a traitor, of the aristocracy.”

“How am I to react when I have no description of this man? When our men only hear of him as this… fabled legend? I will not accept the prolonging of that,” I sighed. “Do you see where my plight is coming from, Admiral Byron? I realize you’re without a doubt an accomplished man and leader within my army, however this problem still pesters me.”

The man pressed his mouth into a fine line, looking down. “I do. Moving forward I will follow through with this issue and provide you with results. Though I assure you that this Ganondorf is only below you, I will unmask him all the same.”

I bent my head towards him with a smile. “You are will met, sir. Thank you.”

The meeting in the war room was productive and filled appropriate guidelines to send Link’s way. I was pleased to see a familiar face.

“Sir Elian!” I grinned when he approached me after the meeting. “What a pleasant surprise!”

The knight took a short bow with a muddied helmet cradled under the crook of his arm. He must have just arrived in time for the next set of deliverables. I had seen him every now and again lately; his visitations becoming scarce as the war drew on and more precautions were put into place on the road.

“Queen Zelda,” Elian acknowledged kindly. “It seems the news hadn’t arrived yet. I was recently handed down a promotion.”

A conservative smile graced him as he sat on his heels, making the extra stripe on his uniform more pronounced. I clapped my hands together at his bravado.

“My apologies, Captain,” I laughed and voiced my congratulations. He deserved it, after all. There weren’t many that are up to the task of supervising shipments in this climate. “I must attend to Lady Urbosa in the gardens, however you’re more than welcome to accompany me.”

“Why, I could never turn you down,” he acquiesced.

The path from the war room was winding if one wanted to go to the gardens and I was happy to have a companion. I learned from our conversation that the roads were steadily becoming less fraught with ambush but it did little to calm the nerves of anyone who travelled.

“The Rito are slowly warming up to the idea of aerial surveyance. Especially now that we’ve proven to uphold our trade agreements,” I told him. “Their ambassador and Lady Urbosa butt heads constantly during court. It hardly helps.”

Elian chuckled. “I wonder if the threat is the reason why they’re barely trying to thwart us.”

That made me turn to him with concern. “Do you think they monitor that?”

“If the walls have ears, I wonder how they use our secrets?”

I was about to ask him to elaborate when a strangled noise of a shout cut me off. The gardens were around the corner when we heard it.

“Where is she?” a voice boomed down the hall. “Relinquish me and tell me where she is!”

When I realized that Urbosa was shouting over the demanding voice, I gathered my skirts to avoid falling on my face and ignored Elian’s warnings. Once I rounded the corner I saw Lord Ibauna staring down Urbosa’s sword. Guards stood around them, unsure of what to do.

“What is the meaning of this?” I said about their shouting match. Ibauna twisted to me with eyes full of malice.

His fists clenched tightly. “It’s your fault! My brother is dead and it is your fault!”

Lord Ibauna began towards me with a heavy foot, fury red in his face and step. Elian blocked his path with a heavy pull of his sword from its sheath. Two guards wrangled him to a stop before he made it to us and made him kneel. One of the man looked up with question.

“Lady Urbosa?” I asked, looking between her and Ibauna with growing worry.

“He approached me in the gardens looking for you,” she sniffed in his direction, “I wouldn’t tell him where you were because I’ve heard tales of his insolence… then he began insulting your honor, Your Grace.”

“Because you are leading a losing war!” Ibauna yelled, struggling against his binds. “We’re being slaughtered. Don’t pretend, Princess! I have seen the reports and the dead eyes of my family. Give up the aristocracy to Ganondorf!”

I stared, words refusing to surface on my lips.

“Apologies, Your Majesty,” a guard said, pulling the lord harshly back to his feet. “We should lead him to the dungeons for his sharp tongue. At your word, of course.”

I pulled at my fingers and couldn’t look away from his anger. Thankfully, my voice found me. “Who is it you speak of? How do you know that name?”

Lord Ibauna seemed to sober up and watched me with suspicion. “Consider it, Zelda. The very basis of this war is within an area that does not affect us. Send the aristocracy back and let them handle their own mess.”

I considered him coldly and nodded at the guards. He struggled against their hold, “I know who you are, girl! You’re meant to be a goddess among men yet you lead us towards tyranny and death!”

His screams haunted down the hall and I startled when Urbosa sheathed her sword. She gave me a look of concern.

“I suppose our teatime is cancelled?”

“Yes, I – um – I feel a little faint and I should retire,” I said, frowning. My mind worked through his words and felt a feeling I hadn’t since I was a girl. An impossible responsibility setting itself on my shoulders. A crown too heavy to bear. I turned to Elian, “I have another message for you if you wouldn’t mind.”

How did he know that name? The same way Link had learned of it?

Lord Ibauna came from money nearly older than the Crown. His silver spoon kept him from any type of military service that may be passed to an ordinary man. Very much like his family, he sought to gain favor in court circles through ways of blackmail and empty promises; a prime example was his attempted seduction of me at the ball. Everything he did was a double edged sword and when his first plan is rejected, another more devious execution settles into place – that being my subsequent judgement from my father.

The only regret I have now was not wearing more rings on my fingers when I hit him.

My hands were shaking when I reached my quarters. Despite my reassurances that I was fine, both the captain and Urbosa followed me. I asked them to wait outside as I scrambled through my desk drawers for my ink pot and pen.

I was going to write to Link to go through with moving resources back behind our lines. If he didn’t want to transition his men there immediately, fine, but I wasn’t about to let pride put anyone at risk. He wasn’t going to be happy… though there would be a good chance he would understand.

A flash of yellow out of the corner of my eye made me freeze. My desk was cluttered already but the yellow yarn was unmistakable. I forced myself to look at the black button eyes and the mouth the formed a slight frown. My mind tried to process when I had taken it from my drawers. Surely, I hadn’t forgotten. In reality, I had gone out of my way not to see it at all and briefly contemplated discarding it. I rose to my feet and swallowed my nerves, almost completely collected when I saw what the doll laid upon.

An envelope, sealed by red wax, was positioned on the side of my desk. It was in a place I knew for certain had been empty this morning.

Tentatively, I skipped the letter opener and ripped an opening with my hands. The doll fell to the floor. My movements were frantic, shaking, as I scanned the words within.

Someone had broken into the castle to place this in my room.

Someone had access to this wing of the grounds and placed this in my room.

Someone had been in my room.

With my introduction having been made, I patiently await yours.

Ganondorf, King of the Gerudo

#sorry this took so long #i was making money #and crying bc i wanted to fight my boss but i can't bc assault is illegal #anyway #htbaq #how to be a queen #loz #zelink #zelda #link #ashleyswrittenwords #zelink fanfiction

22 notes · View notes