#wonder if I can find a way to make the leather on the hilt look like it's wrapped instead of stretched over it... hmm...

[phoenixiancrystallist]

Month 9, day 28

Sila sword progress! Almost done with the setup, just gotta make the braziers I plan to put in and either make or remake the materials I need because the ones I have aren't actually what I had in mind lol

Still might remake the pommel, too, tbh, I still haven't decided

[elronds-meleth-nin]

Ancient Script

This is for my dear friend @bigblissandlove1! Thank you so much for putting up with me screaming about this brainrot! I hope you enjoy this fic, my friend.

I'm not tagging anyone else in this, because the taglist I set up was for a whole other fic outside of RoP. If anyone wants to be tagged in future fics from The Hobbit, LotR, or RoP, please let me know! This is an AU fic in 2 regards: 1.) Soulmate AU 2.) it's set in the early Third Age - Adar is presumed dead by Sauron who has taken control of the Uruks, and he's biding his time in a small village while he concocts a plan.

Cross-posted to AO3 here.

~*~

Adar (RoP) x Reader

[A/N: This is fluff with a couple of mentions of violence, but nothing graphic.]

Warnings: Soulmate AU, Uruk/Human romance, kissing, soulmarks are your soulmate's name in their handwriting, he falls first, he kills a man to protect her but it's not graphic.

~*~

The shop selling arms and armor had been around in our village longer than I'd been alive, and certainly longer than the seven years I'd lived there. The shop owner, a rather private Ellon, wasn't exactly outgoing, at least, not to most people in the village.

But me...he would actively ask how I was when I passed each morning on my delivery route from the baker's shop. Perhaps it was because the scent of freshly baked bread was irresistible. Or maybe his lack of conversation with the others had made him lonely and desperate enough to try and interact with the one person who had never been rude to him.

The others seemed to find it acceptable to be less courteous just because he was different. I never did, though. My parents had taught me to be kind to all, even before we'd picked up and moved from the next village over for an opportunity for my father's business to grow.

So, every morning as I made deliveries up and down the main road, I eagerly looked forward to the moment when he'd open the door to his shop and allow me a brief conversation - that was more than most people got when they weren't discussing the particulars of a transaction with him.

This morning was only slightly different. Usually, I delivered to his end of the road first, but today I needed to make sure I ended there, instead. So, in reverse order, I made my way steadily toward his shop, breathing a sigh of relief when I saw his door open as usual when I was only a few steps away.

"There you are," he rasped as a small smile stretched his lips. "I had begun to wonder if you had forgotten me this morning."

"Oh, no! Never, sir," I said as I pulled his usual weekly order out of my basket, neatly wrapped in baker's cloth and tied with a little string. His fingertips brushed mine as he took it, and I let out a huff of nervous laughter. "Actually, I had a reason to save you for last, today. Assuming that your shop is already open, of course. If not, I can always come back later."

"For you, my door is always open, my lady," he said taking a step back and gesturing for me to come inside. I'd never actually been in his shop before.

"Thank you, sir," I murmured slipping in and trying to stay out of his way.

The scent of leather and metal, polish and grit permeated the air within the store, giving the whole place the feeling of an army at rest. Gleaming plate armor, razor-sharp swords, knives of nearly-infinite variety, and bows that looked lethal even at a glance were all neatly arranged on shelves and wall hooks.

I should've come here sooner.

"Now, what was so important that you felt you must rearrange your entire morning?" The Ellon asked as he laid the wrapped loaf of bread on the desk where he changed coin and made trades.

"Ah, 'tis twofold," I said as I opened my bag and pulled out my small, sheathed dagger. The shimmering blue stone laid into the hilt glinted as brightly in the morning light as it did the day my grandfather had given it to me. "The lower priority of the two would be my dagger. I lent it to one of my neighbors, and, well..."

Carefully unsheathing it, I showed him the now-split blade.

"If it is beyond repair, I certainly understand, but..." I shrugged, and he lifted the blade, inspecting its surface with his experienced eye.

"Not at all. This is easily fixed. I can have it for you by tomorrow morning," he murmured, laying it gently - almost reverently - on his desk and looking at me curiously. "And the second of your needs, my lady?"

Subconsciously, I ran my thumb over the cloth that covered my illegible soulmark. I knew whoever it was likely couldn't be entirely certain that I truly existed or, like me, could not read my name where it was inked upon their skin, but touching it even indirectly was still a comfort.

"I need to find a gift for my father. His birthday is in a fortnight, and I was wondering if, perhaps, I could examine your bows?"

He smiled at that.

"Certainly. Come with me." The Ellon led me to one of the large displays at the side, adjusting the sleeve of his tunic as he did so. When we reached the long line of curved and carved wood, I felt an answering touch through my soulmark - something so delicate that I could never be certain if I was just imagining things or if it was real. "If you already have a particular style in mind, then pay me no attention, but I must admit I am familiar with your father's current - let us say 'well-loved' - weapon. This, perhaps, might suit his needs and accommodate his firing style."

Lifting an intricately-carved bow from the rack, he strung it in one much-too-smooth movement that made my breath hitch. Clearly Elvish in design, that bow was finer than any that either my father or I owned.

"I know that you are an archer yourself, my lady. Come, feel the flex," he said moving around me and coaxing the carved grip into my hand. His chest pressed lightly against my back as I gave the string a pull mimicking aiming an arrow. His breath fanned lightly over my scalp, and when he spoke again, I fought not to blush. "You have excellent form. Anyone who opposed you would be doomed from the beginning."

His voice was low and gentle...intimate, in a way. I tried not to think about how luxuriant it would be to hear that soft, raspy voice murmur my name on a cold winter's night when we were curled up in front of a crackling fire.

A familiar shard of guilt wound through me. What would my soulmate, whoever they were, think of me fantasizing about someone else?

Slowly releasing the bowstring, I tried to tamp down my thoughts.

"This will be perfect." Thankfully, my voice betrayed none of my internal conflict, and I was gifted a small, pleased smile as he led me back to his desk. I'd never seen him smile at anyone else. Solemn yet polite, the Ellon before me seemed rather detached from everything in the village save his work, as if he was waiting for something...as if we were a mere respite from a path he must sooner or later traverse.

Fifty years was a long time to wait, but to him, I supposed, it must be a mere blink. Lives like those around him in the village must be barely worthy of his attention.

I'd be forgotten as quickly as wind whispered through the trees.

What must it be like to be significant enough to warrant even half that recognition in the eyes of one as long-lived as he? I heard my father and one of his business associates discussing the topic over mugs of ale one night in the tavern. Each believed he was several hundreds of years old. My father with all his knowledge of Elves had mused aloud after his friend left that he would not be surprised to find that our resident Ellon merchant had accrued over a thousand years of life.

"Scars like that," he'd said, "are the kind one gets in great wars. The last of which was a very long time ago, indeed."

I was inclined to agree, but where others saw a fearsome, intimidating being not to be approached unless necessity demanded it, I'd found a kindred spirit. He might not be outgoing and overly cheerful, but he was kind. His strength was beyond that of a mortal's, yet he could hold freshly-baked bread so gently that his fingers left no impression.

Even as he wrapped my father's new bow, including a few extra neatly-coiled bowstrings, I couldn't help but wonder how many people had judged him so harshly over the years? How many had feared him so severely that nobody even knew his name? It was true that I knew it not, but that came rather from a sense of embarrassment than fear. After all, what is a tactful way of asking a person's name after years of trying to be respectful without prying into his business? Admitting that nobody in the village knew it would only emphasize how different he was...how lonesome and separate he appeared compared to everyone else.

Oh, damn my fears! I was going to ask him, even if it took all my courage. He deserved to be called by his name as was respectful. For the moment, though, I drew my attention back to the present.

"What do I owe you, sir?" I asked as I reached in my satchel for my little drawstring bag of coins. I'd saved up for long weeks. A quality bow like the one he'd shown me could easily cost fifteen gold pieces. Taking on extra work and small tasks outside of the bakery, I'd managed to save seventeen gold pieces and a few silvers - enough for the bow and repairs for my dagger.

As he tied the wrapping with thick twine, he glanced up at me and, with an entirely straight face, muttered "three gold pieces."

I froze. That couldn't be correct!

"Forgive me, sir, I...I believe I misheard you–" I stammered, but he cut me off.

"No, indeed, my lady. You heard correctly." He looked as serene as the morning dew, green eyes giving away nothing.

"B-But, sir, if I paid such a low price, that would be tantamount to theft! I could not possibly abuse you so!"

He lifted an eyebrow at my assertion.

"Have you, or have you not been instructing the baker to take half of the price of my regular order of bread out of your wages for the last seven years, my lady?"

I blinked, and words failed me for a long beat.

"How did you...?" He gave me a knowing look even as my tongue trailed uselessly off into silence.

"Did you think I would not notice that the price I'd been paying for years was cut in half after a mere week of your employment?"

As a matter of fact, I'd hoped he would assume it was a mere coincidence.

"I have been, but–"

"Then, my lady, please allow me this small liberty," he said walking around his desk to stand before me. "You surely have paid for this bow several times over by now."

My cheeks burned under the intensity of his gaze, but I persisted.

"I did not do so with the expectation of repayment–"

"Very well, then," he murmured, "two gold pieces."

My lips parted in surprise.

"Sir–" Silencing me with a raised hand, he smirked.

"The more you argue, the lower my price. I believe we are currently at one gold piece. Shall we descend into silvers?" Mischief danced in his eyes, but he was serious in his assertion.

"Why are you doing this?" I asked before I could think better of it.

"Because it pleases me," he said looking at me with a steady, constant expression. "Does one need a reason to be kind?"

I felt as though I'd been struck. I'd asked him the same question less than a month after beginning my job with the baker. He'd remembered! I'd thought it was a trivial sort of question at the time, but I suppose if he'd remembered it, I must've struck a chord within him.

"But I don't even know your name," I stammered in a last ditch effort to convince him I wasn't worth his losing so much money.

"Do you think I am unaware of that fact? I have not told it to anyone in decades. None here know it, yet you are the only one who cares that you do not know." He brushed an errant strand of hair behind my ear with the sort of delicacy that one would not expect a weapons merchant to possess. "You see me. That is why it pleases me to make this easier for you."

It took every ounce of self-control within me not to tilt my head and lean into his touch. His gaze dropped to my lips, and he licked his own - a barely-there flick of his tongue that I would've missed had I blinked but an instant earlier.

"If...you still wish to know my name when you retrieve your dagger in the morning, I shall tell it to you, my lady," he murmured even quieter than before.

"Surely you will allow me to pay the correct price for that, sir?" I asked, and a measure of mirth flickered across his expression as he lowered his hand.

"The correct price for you, my lady, would be absolutely nothing. In that regard, yes, I will be charging you the correct price," he stated in a tone that brooked no argument. "I look forward to seeing you come the morn. You may wish to take your father's gift home before he returns so that it might remain a secret."

Nodding silently, I laid three gold pieces on the desk and picked up the wrapped package. Thanking him, I made for the door, hoping that he would not notice the extra coins - surely he knew I couldn't allow him to undercharge me so severely? Before I'd made it more than two steps, however, one of his arms slid around my waist, stopping me in my tracks like a bar of steel.

"Not so fast, meleth," he breathed against the shell of my ear, and I heard the clinking of two coins as they dropped back into my bag. "A valiant attempt, I must admit. I shall see you on the morrow."

Throughout the long walk home, I could not rid myself of the sensation of his lips brushing against my ear nor his breath slightly stirring the hair upon my scalp. The ghostly memory of his arm catching my waist stayed with me until I fell asleep at nearly midnight.

--

Adar could remember the day her name appeared on his arm more clearly than almost any other - a feat for a being with many thousands of years under his belt. He'd been preparing to open his shop for the day when pain lanced across the inside of his forearm. His scars ached occasionally, but this pain was so sharp and different that he'd nearly dropped the newly-forged sword he was preparing to put on display.

Tugging his sleeve back, there it was: her name written in curling, shaky, yet careful font - the way her handwriting would look. He'd been so amazed that he had been given a soulmate after so long that he'd simply dropped onto a stool and stared at his arm for a time. Before her name appeared, he hadn't even been certain that his heavily scarred skin would allow him to see a name should one choose to appear, but now that he had his answer, he faced a new problem.

Should his soulmate have to face the burden of his existence when he was so twisted and broken? Morgoth's scars marred nearly every inch of his body, his face inspired fear in everyone he encountered, and he'd even failed his children. They'd fallen under Sauron's control again, and as they believed him dead, there was no chance they'd listen to him. They'd sooner believe he was a fraud than their father.

For several years, he'd covered the mark, barely daring to check if it was still there when he washed himself. Eventually though, as the years passed, he noticed that his soulmate would touch her own mark almost compulsively. Perhaps she was nervous and simply attempting to calm herself...

The first few times it happened, he ignored it, believing the gentle touch to be no more than a figment of his imagination, but after a while, he ached with the thought that she might believe that she was not wanted. He began following her caresses with a gentle one of his own. He hoped that it was enough that she would not give in to that fear.

Her existence was a miracle to him, even if she could not read his name. He knew she would be unable to, for the language to which he was accustomed had not been written in many thousands of years.

The day he first saw her, too, was vividly embedded in his mind.

A knock had sounded at the door to his shop. He'd ignored it the first time. The baker's delivery boy - unreliable as he was - typically knocked, leaving his wrapped bread upon the doorstep before scurrying away from his threshold as if it was diseased. Adar assumed that it was he who knocked that morning, so he went on as usual. After a few seconds, however, a second knock sounded, accompanied by a feminine voice.

"Delivery from the baker," came the call though the wooden door. Adar had been so surprised that he laid aside his work and opened the door without any further hesitation.

She was beautiful. The early morning sun illuminated her kind, smiling face in a manner befitting one of the Valar. Expecting her to flee upon her first glance at his face, the Uruk was stunned when her nervous smile widened a fraction.

"Good morning, sir," she chirped happily as she pulled his wrapped loaf of bread from her little basket. "I kept everything well-covered, so it should still be warm from the oven."

Accepting the bundle from her with a quiet, stunned rasp of 'thank you, my lady,' Adar couldn't help but watch as she gave a little curtsy and headed on toward the next shop. The cool, gentle breeze had teased her hair and skirt, and he wanted nothing more than to wrap her up in his softest blanket so that she would not feel the chill.

One as radiant and lovely as she did not deserve to live in anything less than the most luxurious sort of comfort. His heart had not stirred like that in...he could not remember the last time it had.

He'd heard someone call her name that afternoon - the same name that was etched indelibly on his forearm - and that had startled him more than anything ever had before. This warm ray of light was his soulmate? What had he done to deserve her? He, who was cracked and broken, scarred and burned...none could ever be worthy of her, most especially not him.

A servant of darkness, one marred and twisted by its shadows, should have nothing to do with such a being of light and joy.

Merely a week later, he'd placed his usual order with the baker, and he'd been asked for half of what he usually owed. At his own prodding confusion, the rotund little Man behind the counter had told him with a mischievous twinkle in his eye that someone thought kindly of him. It was not difficult to guess who it was. With all of her smiles and kind words, her unfailingly cheerful greetings whenever she saw him, Adar knew at once that it was her.

She tried to keep it secret, never once bringing up the topic, but he tried to repay her kindness with conversation. He'd been rusty, at first - he still was - but he didn't know how else to show her his gratitude.

Then, one day, he was afforded an opportunity to do so. Traders came through periodically, both seeking and offering wares. Most were well-behaved, exhausted people who wanted no more than to earn a living, but occasionally, there was an outlier among them. A trouble-maker.

One such passed through barely a year hence, and Adar had not liked the way his gaze lingered upon his lady as she made her morning rounds. He watched her too intently and for too long a duration for one with innocent thoughts in mind. No, the Uruk had seen too many over the years with such a glint in their dark, soulless eyes.

When she reached Adar's shop that morning, he'd glared at her evil shadow before gently grasping her hand and suggesting in a low voice that she keep her dagger handy until that particular caravan had left. She'd given him a reassuring smile and pulled the edge of her shawl back just far enough to show him the hilt where it was already strapped at her waist.

He'd never been so proud in all his life, but that didn't stop him from keeping a close eye on her for the rest of the day. None had noticed that his shop was closed with freshly-scattered alfirin seeds before it that afternoon, nor had the filth watching her seen that he was being followed by death's ruined right hand. The trader had followed her halfway back to her home and had begun to catch up with her when a flash of black and silver tugged him silently behind a tree.

The only sound that heralded the scum's death was a snap. She'd turned to look for what had made the noise, believing it to be a branch, and when she found nothing, she made her way safely home.

Her Uruk protector had disposed of the body beside a field where wild horses grazed, laying an empty bottle of spirits beside him. The next morning when the corpse was found, it was obvious to all that he'd gotten drunk, tried to ride one of the beasts, and had been thrown to his death. Adar guarded her door each night until the caravan left. The alfirin seeds had sprouted within mere days, and if any in the village had known their true meaning, the white blooms would have screamed his deed to the world.

But none were the wiser, and his lady was safe. That was all that mattered to him.

Fixing her dagger now was nothing less than a privilege. He'd told her it was easily repaired. In truth, it needed to be reforged. He'd shut his shop for the day and rolled up his sleeves to begin the work.

In the morning, after sharpening the blade's edge, he unlocked his shop door and awaited her arrival. He'd told her that she'd have his name today if she was still interested, but...he was tempted to give her more than that...to show her his mark. His self-indulgent moments when he showed her the bow and when he'd returned her coins had carved themselves upon his heart, stirring within him the desire to hold her again and never let go.

He'd been alone for so long that he now felt like a drowning man each time her eyes met his. She was so close, yet just out of reach. Could she see how much she meant to him? Could she tell that he would save, burn, or change the world entirely at her behest?

The door creaked inward, drawing him out of his thoughts. She was back. He stood straighter as she approached.

"Good morning, my lady." The tentative smile she gave him showed him all that he needed to know. It was time that he told her everything. If she rejected him, well...he'd come to expect pain. It would not surprise him, though, it would be worse than anything he'd yet experienced.

--

"Good morning," I murmured in return. My heart raced in my chest, and I hoped that my voice didn't sound as nervous as I felt. Smoothing my dress a bit further, I approached his desk. "I hope I haven't put you to any trouble."

"Not at all," he answered with a small smile as he lifted my dagger from his desk. "Come, let me show you what I have done."

I did as he asked, moving closer and paying entirely too much attention to the way his large hands dwarfed my little blade. He pulled it carefully from the sheath, showing me his handiwork. He'd polished it, too. The scent floated through the air in a familiar curl.

"Oh, it looks as good as new!" I exclaimed as he handed it carefully to me. The leather grip on the hilt had been replaced and even the balance had improved! "I cannot thank you enough, sir, truly."

"It was my honor, my lady," he said as I passed the blade back. He slid it neatly into its sheath. "Do be cautious. I gave it a quick pass over the whetstone this morning. 'Tis sharper than before."

"Are you sure you won't accept at least some sort of payment?" I asked, and he gave me a mock-stern look. I raised my hands in surrender. "My apologies."

"Gladly accepted."

After a long pause, I finally asked what I'd wanted to.

"May I still ask your name, sir? If your mind has changed, or if you simply do not wish to reveal it, I swear I will not press you on the matter."

He was quiet for a long enough moment that I nearly began pouring forth apologies.

"You are the only one I have wished to tell," he admitted. "You may call me Adar."

Adar. I knew that word from somewhere, but I couldn't quite place it.

"Thank you, Adar. I shan't tell a soul without your permission," I promised, and with an appreciative nod, he held out my sheathed dagger.

"Tell me," he rasped, not relinquishing his hold on my weapon quite yet, "why do you keep your forearm covered?"

I gave a nervous laugh, unable to maintain eye contact with him.

"I...My soulmark is there. I can't read it. Never have I encountered a language quite like it...whatever it might be."

He gave a small smile.

"I can read it." Adar's assertion snapped my gaze up to meet his once more.

"Sir?"

"If you would prefer that I not, that is entirely your prerogative, but I can almost guarantee you that I will be able to read it." When I hesitated, he lowered his voice to a whisper. "Let me help you, my lady."

Quickly stowing my blade in my bag, I began to unwrap the fabric I kept tied over my arm. As I did so, the need to explain myself pulled a flood of words from me.

"I'm not ashamed of my soulmate, whoever they might be, but after a while, the looks I got when people glimpsed the writing...the pity, the confusion...the explanations became a bit tiresome. Besides, it is nobody's business save me and my soulmate," I murmured as the last bit of the cloth came free and fell away revealing the stark, black marks on my arm. Adar moved just a bit closer, a small smile stretching his lips as he caught my arm gently in his grasp. "Can...? Do you recognize it?"

For a moment, he was silent, only nodding his head in response, but that was enough to send my heart racing in my chest. That was more than anyone had told me about my mark in all my years.

"I have not seen this language written in an Age," he breathed, and after a long moment, his eyes met mine. "I am certain that if you knew the answer, you would regret inquiring about your soulmate's identity."

I couldn't hide my confusion.

"What do you mean? No matter who they are, if the marks are any indication, I can handle it. I have never known them to be wrong," I said, and he looked back down at my arm. "Please. You are the only hope I have of ever being able to read it."

His grip on my arm loosened somewhat, as if he was expecting me to tear myself from his grasp.

"I...have not used this name in thousands of years," he whispered tracing the first half of the dark runes, "but it was still mine. I prefer Adar, now, but...your mark seems to have taken that into account."

My lips parted in surprise, but I was frozen as he traced his fingertips lightly, carefully over the rest of the marks near my wrist.

"Just after that slight separation is the name you would now recognize as mine," he murmured, then he lifted my wrist and placed a kiss onto my mark, reverent and affectionate. The ancient writing tingled and sparked over and beneath my skin, sending a wave of pleasure through me.

He released my arm and tugged back his own sleeve, showing me my scrawled name on his scarred forearm. Carefully, afraid that he'd disappear, that this would turn out to have just been a dream, I touched him just as he'd done.

"For whole Ages, my arm was blank. There were others whose marks were slow to appear, but those whom I knew waited mere centuries. I was convinced that I was not destined for that fate," Adar admitted as I touched the first letter of my name. "I wondered...if I would even be able to read a name should it appear on my skin, or if it would appear as twisted as my scars."

As a tear slipped down my cheek, I kissed his arm as he'd done to mine. The slight gasp that escaped him was like ambrosia for my soul.

"I'm so sorry. You waited for so long, and all you got for your trouble was a mortal with terrible penmanship..." I trailed off with a sniffle, but he tilted my chin up with his free hand and shook his head.

"It is beautiful, because it is yours. It tethered me to you. This mark meant that I was no longer alone." His soft, rasping voice was filled with emotion. "Do not apologize for giving me hope when I'd dared not cling to it for such a long time. I should be begging your forgiveness, my lady. You do not deserve one as unworthy as I."

I shook my head in protest.

"Only I decide what I deserve. If anything, it is I who does not deserve you," I murmured. "You who have lived so many lives...having seen and experienced things I could scarcely imagine..."

I reached up slowly so that he could stop me if he wished, but he made no move to do so. My fingertips brushed his cheeks as lightly as was physically possible.

"I could want no other but you. I have felt guilt for so long. I could not read my mark, but I felt when my soulmate touched his. And yet, I knew that I had lost my heart to you the day we met." My confession felt like the sweetest relief. "If that name had belonged to any other, I would have been distraught."

Adar leaned into my touch, closing his eyes and drawing a slow breath. Twin tears escaped, dripping down his face in an asynchronous race.

"Now that I have you, I cannot give you back, meleth," he warned as he stepped closer and rested his forehead against mine.

"Then, keep me," I whispered, and his lips finally, finally met mine.

~*~

Taglist:

@bigblissandlove1

[shhh-secret-time]

A Land Born Twice

"Don't take your eyes off me. You'll miss what I can do."

Prologue

The land known to man was born twice: first, as a spectacle performed by the Gods. Then once again by mortal men who sought fit to mold the precious gift into a wonder. Historians have long dedicated whole lifetimes to trying to figure out where it all started really, could something so enormous, so beyond our understanding really be told through script and tongue?

Maybe, but that wasn't your area of expertise.

No, you were not sent from your home amongst the humans to the Elven capital to talk about history, debating the existence of such Gods or ancient spirits. You were not dressed in the finest silks and cloths that coin could buy, just so you could sit in some lesson on the makings of the world. You were sent across this vast land for one job.

To make history remember you.

With your head held high you make your way across the silvery floors of the castle, each step you took aligned with the string instrument that echoed down the halls. A click of your heels, another note. The men who followed you did so in silence, the plate and chain of the armor threatened to drown out the sound of the peaceful lullaby.

Knights from the human kingdom tend to sport the colors of earthy browns and shades of red. The lower ranking knights were restricted to browns, it was only when they climbed the ranks that they got to don the splashes of red. So, when the King sent you out in the company of the only knight in the kingdom to wear a red cloak, it put into a grander perspective just how important this meeting was.

Ser Clyde Dovakin, the only man in the kingdom to be seen sporting the red cloak, walked by your side with a lazy arm thrown onto the hilt of his sword. His steel knight’s helmet tucked under his other arm. Perhaps it was the amity, showing the Elven people that he meant no harm. Or it could be the fact that despite his rank as Knight Commander, Ser Clyde had a reputation for slacking off.

One look at him and it was easy to tell. From the way his hair remained unkept, despite never wearing the helmet designed to protect him, to the way he carried himself with such carefree steps. The lazy smile on his face would have just about anyone fooled. That he was the most talented swordsman of this age.

But you knew better, you were trained to know better. That's why you were requested by name to be sent to this meeting. Just beyond the great wooden doors that rest at the end of the hall lies the very thing that will decide the relations between your people and the elven people going forward.

Past those great doors sat a council of women and men alike, pointed ears and fair skin that ranged from different shades. Timeless wonders made of flesh surrounding a thick oak table, whispering amongst themselves. A few dressed in similar silks and garments to yours, others equipped with leather armor; weapons resting behind their chairs.

Ivory tiles long forgotten in the hallway, instead the flooring turns to the brown soil that the castle rests on. Four walls in the room covered with various plants, parts of great trees that seem to stretch on forever, and dim firefly lights that help illuminate the chambers. Quills and parchment papers glide across the room, fluttering and weaving between soft whispers until they find home on the great oak table that stretches across the room. The table was set with intrigant cups, chalices made of frosted glass sat in front of each chair untouched by those who sit by them. It and the chairs that accompany it sprout from the soil, twisting roots and vines make up the furniture. A beautiful blend of nature working in harmony with the castle.

An elven man with platinum blond hair breaks the peaceful murmurs of the room. He rises to his feet in a surge of emotion, the thick tension in the air being cut by his words. "Your highness, must this meeting truly take place? Would it not be in our best interest to align ourselves with the Shield Maidens to end this war before it begins! The entire kingdom can sense that tension is rising, why not give the humans what they want?! Clearly a decade of peace was far too long!”

His shouts echo through the court room’s elaborate walls, the slam of his fist on the thick oak table follows shortly after.  Other members, around the table watched in silence, some with furrowed brows and lips pressed so thin they almost disappear.

To the far eastern part of the room lies a throne, and like everything else in the room it stood as an attest to the relationship between Elven kind and Nature. In it, a man raises his hand and with a simple gesture the eyes of every person in the room falls to him.

With fiery red hair that almost looks like licks of flame coming off each curl, twisted golden branches rest on top of his head carefully woven into the locks. Deep green eyes that hold the secrets of the forest that surrounds the land. Pale untouched skin, except for the cluster of freckles that dust his cheeks and across the bridge of his nose. Each small dot resembles the inside of a sunflower, spots where the sun has kissed his face over and over again. The red gloves on his hand were embroidered with a gorgeous pattern that matched the look of his robes. A tapestry of golden swirls that decorated the material, ones that meld into the giant wings that sprout from his back. Wings that flutter with each breath, shimmering light fall from either side.

"I understand the devotion that burns inside you Ser Donnel,” He takes a moment to lower his hand, “but you will remember proper etiquette in my courtroom. Should you take that tone in front of my honored guests, I'll ask that you step outside and remember yourself." His tone was not one of anger, but it held the authority one should have in his position. Behind the glints of his eyes were silent warnings. The guarantee that he would not get a second chance.

A second passes and the blond dips his head down, returning to his seat. “My apologies your Highness, I meant no offence.” His eyes now fixated on the table before him.

Just before the conversation in the room could pick up, the great doors were pushed open; Ser Clyde using both arms to do so. There at the doorway you stood, a smile on your face found only in portraits. Still, calculated, perfect. Eyes fall upon you, some mixed with curiosity and others mixed with loathing. Whatever emotion they held in the variety of colors didn't seem to matter to you. What mattered was that they were on you. And as the bard inhales getting ready to speak, you bow low. Your hands by your side, outstretched just enough to show the palms.

History would remember you.

Prologue | 1 | 2

[gornackeaterofworlds]

April looks at the weapons on the wall, expression tight. They say that they aren’t assassins, but she knows that they hurt others. She likes them a lot. The journalist in her can’t help but wonder, though: what else doesn’t she know yet?

She reaches up and touches the hilt of one of the katanas. The leather is soft with use. April runs her finger along it, just feeling the texture. She can tell where he puts his hands.

It is quiet in the lab that she has come to think of as their lair. Very carefully, she lifts the katana off the wall. It is heavy, and she wonders briefly if he still feels that weight.

Almost without thinking, April lifts up one finger and taps the blade. She can feel how sharp it is. Honed. Lethal. Ready to kill. Ready to protect.

“Don’t touch that-” Startled, April turns, katana first. The figure behind her grabs her wrists and backs her into the wall, arms above her head. The katana hangs threateningly above her head as his brother’s weapons rattle at the impact. “-unless you know how to use it.”

Adrenaline floods April’s body, and she breathes hard as her hand tightens on the katana. She can feel something wet making its way down her other hand, but she doesn’t take her eyes off of him. Or, well. His eyeholes.

Annoyance follows the adrenaline rush. Here she is, exposed to everything, while he hides behind a mask, behind darkness and secret. She wants to tear that mask off of him, to ferret out every secret and expose him to the light.

His hold is tight when she tests it, and she bares her teeth at him in frustration. “Let me go.”

He stares her down. Or at least she assumes he does. Who knows what he’s actually doing. His hold tightens as April continues to try and escape his grasp without dropping the katana on her head.

“Do you have any idea what you’re doing? What kind of danger is hanging over your head?” April stills, narrowing her eyes as she assesses him.

“I’ll find out, won’t I?” His mask twitches as she stares defiantly into his eyes. Eyeholes. Whatever.

“Tch.” He lets her go, and April almost drops the katana on her head. He stops it at the last second, disarming her and placing the katana back in its spot on the wall in one smooth move. He turns to leave, tossing something over his shoulder. “For the blood.”

April catches the cloth and looks down at it in confusion. Something red drips down her left forearm, and she turns her hand to discover that she cut her finger when he startled her. She presses the cloth to the wound and looks up to find him gone.

Her lips twitch. If he intended to warn her off, he’d definitely gone about it the wrong way.

(🎶happy birthday to you🎶)

OHHHH MY GOD???? HELLO?????

[ehlnofay]

Summerfest Day 7 - SWORD

“Shut up,” Efri whispers loudly, fitting as much venomous demand into it as she can while still keeping quiet. “They’ll hear you.”

Kazari flicks an ear and trills good, one of about ten of their motions Efri’s been able to memorise so far, but she doesn’t think they mean it; if they did, they wouldn’t be helping her lift the sword in the first place.

It’s a cool sword. The blade is silver – Efri’s seen it – though right now it’s hidden in a dark leather scabbard lashed to a back frog. The guard is silver, too, with corners so neat it looks like it wouldn’t need the blade to cut someone. The hilt is wrapped in black leather. And it’s huge – standing up it’s probably about the same height as her and what must be at least ten times as heavy. She had to beg Kazari to help her sneak it out from where it was left near the tent – she couldn’t have hoped to move it otherwise. She’s still trying to figure out the trick of it, the scabbard resting on the back of Kazari’s neck, the stitching caught in her hair. She’s not impressed. Sissel is more enthusiastic, though pretty obviously only because Efri is – but she keeps getting nervous, because they’re not supposed to borrow the sword, and she’s always a stickler for these things.

J’matha, Efri thinks, will understand. It’s such a cool sword! And he’s pretty cool, most of the time – lets her stand on his shoulders, sometimes, and plays games with her that most of the others in the caravan don’t have the patience for. Lets her do almost anything except hold his sword. But he’s not using it now, and no-one’s going to tell him, so –

There is a trembling in the snowy underbrush. A shaking of bushes, a snapping of twigs. And then, because Efri has the worst luck in the entire world, J’matha steps out, squeezing between a rimy tree trunk and the quivering leaves of what might be a bare snowberry bush. “There you are,” he says, pauses; smiles, Efri thinks, though it’s a bit hard to tell with him. He doesn’t make faces quite like the other Khajiit do but he can’t make them like humans do, either. “And there’s my claymore. I was wondering where that got to.”

It's not very feasible to try to hide it behind her back, for multiple reasons; Efri squints at him from across the clearing and chooses redirection. “What are you doing here?”

“Khasir sent me to tell you the farmers have finally come out to trade,” J’matha replies, squinting back. “He wants to know what you want. Tsradaro’s angling for scallions and I think Shirri-la was insisting on beef. What are you doing?”

Efri – had not prepared an excuse, actually; J’matha wasn’t supposed to find them. She can practically feel Sissel’s anxiety emanating from the space behind her, even though Sissel knows that J’matha won’t be angry (probably), and it’s throwing her off a bit. She says, “I needed to cut my hair.”

There is a momentary pause. Kazari looks at her with what she suspects is incredulity; she can hear Sissel making an odd little breathy noise, and normally she’d suspect it’s crying or something close, because Sissel does that quite a bit – but Sissel’s been doing well with it all, lately, getting chatty with the caravan and helping with cooking and letting them buy her new clothes and once Efri showed her a weird slug and made her squeal and then she didn’t cry about waking them all up after, so Efri doesn’t think she’s crying now. Which is quite annoying. Because it means she’s laughing at her, which is just mean.

It's not even a lie. Efri does need to cut her hair. It’s gotten to a silly length where it brushes her shoulders if she hunches them, and she likes to keep it just below the chin. That just isn’t the reason she borrowed the sword.

Judging by how J’matha’s staring at her – forehead wrinkled up in a way she can see even through his stripes, one ear flicked forward, pupils dark in the round yellow-gold of his irises – he knows that that’s not the reason, too. He doesn’t smile with his eyes like Kazari or Tsradaro or Khasir or Shirri-la do – he curls the edge of his mouth, bright and toothy, and says, “Try again, kid.”

Efri sticks up her chin. “There’s monsters,” she tells him, “in the forest. Really scary ones. Spiders big as a house. We need to kill them. To protect you.”

J’matha, one of the caravan’s two ridiculously huge bodyguards, only grins wider. He gestures at Sissel. “Your friend there,” he says, “makes lightning with her hands. Your other friend lights our campfire with a breath. I don’t think you need my sword.”

“I can’t do any of that, and I need to help them,” Efri argues. She is gripping the hilt of the sword very hard; her hair is falling in her face. (Definitely needs a cut.) She tosses her head to get it out of her eyes. “Come on,” she says after a moment, boots sinking into the snow. “Please?”

Kazari chuffs something that, considering the look on her face, Efri thinks she is glad not to understand. J’matha cants his head and says, “Efri. My sword is heavy for me. You can’t use it – it’s not safe.”

“I can,” Efri insists, because she resents the implications of that argument; if he’d only give her time to figure it out, she’d be able to manage holding it on her own, probably. Maybe. It is very heavy, but so’s a lot of things. She’s strong.

(Although. Efri has learned a lot these last couple weeks, not least about Khajiit and how they work and all the cool shapes they can come in – from Kazari who’s bigger than a sabre cat to Shirri-la who looks, to an unaware eye at least, extremely similar to the cats that used to sleep in Ennis’ shed and catch the rats in the inn, to two-legged cat-folk like Tsradaro, or even apparently some that look a lot like elves, though Efri hasn’t met any of them yet. The twins are what’s called Cathay-raht, which means they are big. Efri doesn’t think she’d be able to clear their height if she stood on Sissel’s shoulders. She could probably fit her whole body into one of J’matha’s trouser legs, though she hasn’t been able to test this, because Sissel didn’t want to go along with her prank to make it look like his pants were walking around on their own and it wouldn’t have worked with just her. The point is, J’matha is huge, and he’s strong, because he has to be to help carry stuff and defend the caravan if they need it. So if his sword is heavy to him, then logically, Efri is facing pretty bad odds.)

(She still thinks she can make it work, though. Probably.)

“Kazari,” J’matha says. His rounded Pale accent leans a bit on the vowels; it’s one Efri’s becoming more and more familiar with as they wend their way up north to Danstrar. His teeth dig awkwardly into his lip. “Would you mind, eh –”

With a chirp of assent, Kazari nimbly steps away (and Efri’s forever in awe of how spry she can be when she’s so big, it’s always incredible), letting the scabbard end of the sword thunk into the snow. The tug of it on the hilt nearly yanks Efri’s arm out its sockets. She glares at J’matha across the clearing and drags at it as best she can.

She’s heaving and hauling and hoisting. It’s not doing too much good. The scabbard slides a scant few centimetres through the snow.

“I don’t think it’s working,” Sissel says, and she definitely sounds like she’s been laughing. Efri throws a scrunched-up face over her shoulder at her.

The weight of the blade runs into a root hidden under the blanket of snow and the jerk of it being stopped short nearly tears it from her fingers altogether. Efri turns to glare at the sword frog.

“This sword’s stupid,” she says petulantly. (She doesn’t mean it. It’s still very cool.) She kind of wants to drop it on the ground, but that would be very rude to do to someone’s prized belongings, especially when that someone is part of a group that just bought her new shoes and dress and mantle half a week ago. She holds it out as best she can to J’matha instead, and sulkily ignores the way his eyes glitter as he crosses the clearing to take it.

Kazari jostles her teasingly and she nearly drops it again.

“Thank you,” J’matha says, so jaunty she feels she almost can’t be sullen, and takes the broadsword out of her hands. (If it is heavy to him, too, he doesn’t show it.) He doesn’t bother to buckle the frog on properly, just holds it awkward in his arms; asks, “Why do you want to nick my sword so bad, anyway?”

Efri shrugs. “Just seems like it would be fun to use.”

Swords are cool. This is an objective fact. And it would be nice to have a more concrete skill, out here where she’s no help for navigating and all she can do is wrangle her friends and sneak Shirri-la into shops to get them better trading goods. If she had a big sword, nothing could ever touch them.

J’matha’s tail lashes, the white tip trailing in the snow. (That must be cold.) “Sword’s not the only weapon in the world,” he says, hefting it in his arms. “Taz uses an axe and all. You ever heard of quarterstaffs? You’ve got your stick.” He jerks his chin at the stick lying in the snow for emphasis.

“Course I’ve heard of a staff,” Efri tells him. She wriggles out her fingers – they kind of ache, now, after clinging to the hilt so long. “But it’s for herding, not hitting.”

The trees around them look very dark and leafless, snow streaking along the tops of their branches. J’matha says, “Why not both?”

Efri considers this.

Her old flock is out in the Whiterun plains, about now. Efri hopes they’re eating loads of grass. Above, the sky is dimming; the first star is out.

“I want turnips,” Efri decides, “if they have them.” She doesn’t know if turnips grow this far north, or if Rorikstead’s climate is about their limit. She likes turnips, though. They’re good for eating raw, like apples, cold and crisp and sweet if they’re young enough.

J’matha grins. “Go ask,” he says, the Pale accent pulling on the a again. Then he makes a face. “Hopefully they’re still trading by now.”

[feyresdaughter]

A Court of Wings and Ruin, chapter 69:

Thehehe

Elain … She’d taken one look at us in the swaying grasses outside that wagon, the legs and assets on display, and turned crimson. Viviane stepped in, offering a Winter Court fashion that was far less scandalous: leather pants, but paired with a thigh-length blue surcoat, white fur trimming the collar.

Azriel, still limping, merely nudged aside Cassian and extended another option. “This is Truth-Teller,” he told her softly. “I won’t be using it today— so I want you to.”

The shadowsinger said, the midday sun devoured by the dark blade. “Some people say it is magic and will always strike true.” He gently took her hand and pressed the hilt of the legendary blade into it. “It will serve you well.” - “I— I don’t know how to use it—” - “I’ll make sure you don’t have to,” I said, grass crunching as I stepped closer.

Cassian gawked at Azriel, and I wondered how often Azriel had lent out that blade— "Never," Rhys said from where he finished buckling on his own weapons against the side of the wagon. "I have never once seen Azriel let another person touch that knife."

And I realized … I would not get that last night with him. Last night—that had been the final night. We’d spent it winnowing— "Don’t think like that. Don’t go into this battle thinking you won’t walk off again." His gaze was sharp. Unyielding. Breathing became difficult. "This break is the last time we’ll all be here—" talking. For this final leg of the march we were about to embark on … It would take us right to the battlefield. Rhys lifted a brow. "Would you like to go into that wagon for a few minutes, then? It’s a little cramped between the weapons and supplies, but I can make it work."

Amren … Amren was in Illyrian leathers, too. So small— they must have been built for a child. "Don’t tell her, but they were."

“Do you want the inspiring talk or the bleak one?” he asked. “We want the real one,” Amren said.

Rhys pushed his shoulders back, elegantly folding his wings behind him. “I believe everything happens for a reason. Whether it is decided by the Mother, or the Cauldron, or some sort of tapestry of Fate, I don’t know. I don’t really care. But I am grateful for it, whatever it is. Grateful that it brought you all into my life. If it hadn’t …I might have become as awful as that prick we’re going to face today. If I had not met an Illyrian warrior-in-training,”he said to Cassian, “I would not have known the true depths of strength, of resilience, of honor and loyalty.”Cassian’s eyes gleamed bright. Rhys said to Azriel, “If I had not met a shadowsinger, I would not have known that it is the family you make, not the one you are born into, that matters. I would not have known what it is to truly hope, even when the world tells you to despair.”Azriel bowed his head in thanks. Mor was already crying when Rhys spoke to her. “If I had not met my cousin, I would never have learned that light can be found in even the darkest of hells. That kindness can thrive even amongst cruelty.”She wiped away her tears as she nodded. I waited for Amren to offer a retort. But she was only waiting. Rhys bowed his head to her. “If I had not met a tiny monster who hoards jewels more fiercely than a firedrake …”A quiet laugh from all of us at that. Rhys smiled softly. “My own power would have consumed me long ago.”Rhys squeezed my hand as he looked to me at last. “And if I had not met my mate …”His words failed him as silver lined his eyes. He said down the bond, "I would have waited five hundred more years for you. A thousand years. And if this was all the time we were allowed to have …The wait was worth it." He wiped away the tears sliding down my face. “I believe that everything happened, exactly the way it had to …so I could find you.”He kissed another tear away.

Rhys said, “We will walk onto that field and only accept Death when it comes to haul us away to the Otherworld. We will fight for life, for survival, for our futures. But if it is decided by that tapestry of Fate or the Cauldron or the Mother that we do not walk off that field today …” His chin lifted . “The great joy and honor of my life has been to know you. To call you my family. And I am grateful— more than I can possibly say—that I was given this time with you all.” - “We are grateful, Rhysand,” Amren said quietly. “More than you know.” Rhys gave her a small smile as the others murmured their agreement. He squeezed my hand again as he said, “Then let’s go make Hybern very ungrateful to have known us, too.”

Rhys said into my mind, "If Hybern has a lock on my power, he will sense me sneaking across the battlefield." I knew what he was implying. You’re needed here. If we both disappear, he’ll know. A pause. "Are you afraid?" - "Are you?" His violet eyes caught mine. So few stars now shone within them. “Yes,” he breathed. "Not for myself. For all of you."

“I never got you a mating present,”I said. Rhys monitored the battle ahead. His power rumbled beneath us, surging from the shadowy heart of the world.

“I’ve been thinking and thinking,” I went on, “about what to get you.” Slowly, so slowly, Rhys’s eyes slid to mine. Only a chasm of power lay within them— blotting out those stars. I smiled at him, bathing in that power, and sent an image into his mind. Of the column of my spine, now inked from my base to my nape with four phases of the moon. And a small star in the middle of them. “But, I’ll admit,” I said as his eyes flared, “this mating gift is probably for both of us.” Hybern’s shield came crashing down. My magic snapped from me, cleaving through the world. Revealing the glamour I’d had in place for hours. Before our front line … A cloud of darkness appeared, writhing and whirling on itself. “Mother above,” Azriel breathed. Right as a male figure appeared beside that swirling ebony smoke. Both armies seemed to pause with surprise. “You retrieved the Ouroboros,” Rhys whispered. For standing before Hybern were the Bone Carver and the living nest of shadows that was Bryaxis, the former contained and freed in a Fae body by myself last night.

He scanned me from head to toe, the wind stirring his blue-black hair as he asked softly, “What did you see?” - “Myself,” I said at last. “I saw myself.”

“And what I saw,” I said quietly to him as the Carver raised a hand. “I think— I think I loved it. Forgave it— me . All of it.” It was only in that moment when I knew— I’d understood what the Suriel had meant. Only I could allow the bad to break me. Only I could own it, embrace it. And when I’d learned that … the Ouroboros had yielded to me. Rhys arched a brow, even as awe crept across his face. “You loved all of it —the good and the bad?” I smiled a bit. “Especially the bad.”

“Here’s to a long, happy mating, Rhys.” - “Seems like you beat me to it.” - “To what?” With a wink, Rhys pointed toward Bryaxis and the Carver. Another figure appeared. The Carver stumbled back a step. And I knew—from the slim, female figure, the dark, flowing hair, the once-again beautiful face …I knew who she was. Stryga—the Weaver. And atop the Weaver’s dark hair …A pale blue jewel glittered. Ianthe’s jewel. He angled his neck, revealing a small, curling tattoo behind his ear. “I sent Helion to bargain on my behalf— that was why he was in the Middle that day he found you. To offer to break the containment spell on the Weaver … in exchange for her services today.” I blinked at my mate. Then grinned, not bothering to hide the savagery within it. “Hybern has no idea about the hell that’s about to rain down upon them, do they.” - “Here’s to family reunions,” was all Rhys said. Then the Weaver, the Carver, and Bryaxis unleashed themselves upon Hybern.

[echotzzz]

Elriel Mate Behaviour

1. So after reread some of acotar past book and some of others post lately about elriel mate behaviour and parallel, i am really convince that elriel are mates and the second mate thing is real. Sjm said that if there are two mate bonds only one will be activate and in elriel situation this explain why Azriel couldn’t be in the same room with Elain and Lucien because of the mating bond scent. Elriel bond are not activate but the uncontrollable instinct as a mate eg.to eliminate any threats and protective towards their mates are there.

“ Lucien as Beron’s son, has the right to demand it (blood duel) of you.”. “ I’ll defeat him with little effort.” Pure arrogance laced with every words, But it was true.

Azriel only said coldly, “If Lucien kills Graysen, then good riddance.”

2. Next are the parallel of elriel between Feysand and Nessian regarding mate behaviour are also undeniable

Elain just linked her arm through Nesta’s and led her toward the family room, where Azriel stood in the doorway, monitoring them. As if he’d heard Elain’s sharp laugh and wondered what had caused it.

Just staring—and listening to that beautiful laugh. My mate’s laugh. I rubbed a hand over my chest at that sound—the joy in it.[...] I smiled. Smiled wider as Feyre’s laugh sounded again—as I felt it down the bond, sparkling brighter than the entirety of Starfall.

So Azriel search for the cause of Elain laugh because maybe he felt it same as Rhys when he heard Feyre laugh. And the laugh that they made are not like any laugh but the genuine laugh that comes with joy that even the bond could capture.

They were speaking, Azriel with some urgency, but Cassian didn’t hear him, heard nothing but the roaring in his head before he said to no one in particular, “I’m going after them.”[...] “Winnow me to her. Az, you find Emerie and Gwyn.”

From the shadows near the entrance to the tent, Azriel said, as if in answer to some unspoken debate, “I’m getting her back.” Nesta slid her gaze to the shadowsinger. Azriel’s hazel eyes glowed golden in the shadows. Nesta said, “Then you will die.” Azriel only repeated, rage glazing that stare, “I’m getting her back.”

The similarities of this two situation is that both male are ready to sacrifies their lives and they aware of the repurcussions. Cassian knew the rule of the blood rite that he would be hunt down and executed if he retrieved Nesta while Az would die (nearly die) if enter the Hybern camp that even his shadow recoil. Eventhough Cassian decided not to rescue Nesta he still feels worried and restless for four days and just hope that she survives.

“You’d know if she’d died,” Azriel said, pausing his work and looking up at Cassian. He tapped his brother’s chest with a scarred hand. “Right here—you’d know, Cass.”

I don’t know but this feels like that Azriel has the same understanding and have been through it to said it to cassian like that🤷🏼‍♀️

“How can I possibly be his mate?” Mates were equals—matched, at least in some ways. “He is the most powerful High Lord to ever walk this earth. You are … new. You are made of all seven High Lords. Unlike anything. Are you two not similar in that? Are you not matched?”

3. So to be mates you must somehow match, equal and complement each other. We know that Azriel are one of the most deadliest Illyrian ever lived and his siphon contains only the killing power of an Illyrian and his shadowsinging ability was developed and feared by enemies. As for Elain we know that she is a seer can see vision and future and a lot many more that would be discover in her book but same as Nesta and Feyre she was made by the Cauldron and it turns out Cauldron likes her to purr at her presence and found her so lovely. At this point Elain could regard as powerful for the Cauldon itself blessed her with a seer gifts. And to add to the mix, Elain also practise stealth and maybe some spy stuff.

She scanned Elain from head to toe, wondering if she’d been taking lessons in stealth either from Azriel or the two half-wraiths she called friends.

Elain stepped out of a shadow behind him, and rammed Truth-Teller to the hilt through the back of the king’s neck as she snarled in his ear, “Don’t you touch my sister.”

I am not saying that Lucien is weak but in terms of powermatch and similarities between elriel it seems to make them as equal and best partner especially doing mission that giving good cause to save Prythian and Cauldron seems to play match maker in this👀

From Amren: an illuminated manuscript, ancient and beautiful. From Azriel: rare, vibrant paint from the continent. From Cassian: a proper leather sheath for a blade, to be set down the groove of my spine like a true Illyrian warrior. From Elain: fine brushes monogrammed with my initials and the Night Court insignia on the handles. And from Mor: a pair of fleece-lined slippers. Bright pink, fleece-lined slippers.

Okay this may be nothing but i can’t help myself to point out that even in present buying Elriel are buying the best gift and complementing each other ( what are the odds that Az bought paint and Elain gave brushes).

4. The last one i want to point out is Mor. So Mor have the power of truth right and she always there in mate situation. What if she could know a mating bond because of her power truth and reveal secrets ( A thing of secret, lovely, beauty)👀

Mor stayed overnight, even going so far as to paint some rudimentary stick figures on the wall beside the storeroom door. Three females with absurdly long, flowing hair that all resembled hers; and three winged males, who she somehow managed to make look puffed up on their own sense of importance. I laughed every time I saw it.

This scene was Mor painting in the wall during Feyre retreat after her mate revelation and before the sisters were made. At first i thought that the three female were mor, feyre and amren but amren has short hair👀. Maybe this is a forshadowing of the three brothers and three sisters🤷🏼‍♀️

Mor leaned back against the steps, utterly unrepentant. “Let him live with his Band of Exiles. Let him deal with Tamlin in his own way. Let him figure out where he wants to be. Who he wants to be. The same goes with her.” She was right. [...] Mor continued, “Just be patient. It’ll sort itself out. It always does.” Another kernel of truth.[...] “I want them to be happy. All of them.” “They will be.”

At this point Elucian will not be endgame okay i truly believe so and sjm said it is OBVIOUS (elriel👀) and it seems like Mor also thinks the same. She knew something we dont.

He was still happy to be Mor’s buffer with Azriel, but there’d been a change lately. In both of them. Mor no longer sat beside Cassian, draped herself over him, and Azriel..

So Cassian said that not only Azriel somehow gave up on Mor but Mor also stop to make Azriel jelly maybe because she sees there is no need to do it any longer. Maybe she knew abt Az feelings towards Elain.

But I strode to my seat—nestled between Amren and Mor—in time to see Elain say to Azriel, “Hello.” Az said nothing. No, he just moved toward her. Mor tensed beside me.

I think this when Mor started to see the truth between elriel feelings?? mating bond?? i just found it weird why she have a certain reaction towards them and maybe it has something to do with her truth power.

I just want to say that if elriel are not mates than it is fine too but the parallel and the crumbs really make me thinks the second mate are real. Lucien action towards Elain also show mate behaviour but much weaker?? compare to Azriel reaction. i dont know will find out in the next book to confirm. just sharing my two cents😘

[laketaj24]

Roses and Iron: Geralt

Author’s Note: Alright here is the winner of the Poll fic form yesterday! Hope you enjoy!! Thank you so much for reading!! Let me know what you think!! Requests are open but I am slow! Shout out to @demivampirew for the gif!!

Pairings: Young!Geralt X Reader

Warnings: Smut

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You paced your room, your hands shook uneasily, and it was accompanied by the beat of your heart. Tonight was the night, the betrothal to a Witcher from the academy had been arranged from your father months ago, and tonight was the wedding. But, per his request, the affair was not grand, and the only people in attendance were the two of you.

“You will do well; this alliance is needed.” Your mother entered your room dressed in her gown. The roses garnished her black dress; the attire was typical for a family of your ranking—high Majesties of the Northern Realm. Black and red were the family’s colors. “There is worry on your face.”

“How will I know I am what he wants?’

“Men do not know what they desire until they have it. Turn.” She directed. Your mother resembled you; her strong features were all you, a soft jawline and almond-shaped eyes that spoke even when she didn’t. Her soft ochre skin balanced the depth of the black dress. She started to pull at your corset drawing it tighter.

“I do not understand why this alliance is even needed.”

“It is not for you to understand; it is only your path to do as you are directed and marry the young Witcher. Let us dress you and meet him.”

It didn’t take long for you to dress and enter the great hall. The Witchers had made their way into the hall and so had Geralt. Geralt stood in front of you with a poised demeanor and a smile. It looked genuine, and he looked nothing of The Witcher’s that stood behind him. His hair in dark curls that hit his back and his eyes crystal blue that only tinged with the amber of his kinsman. “High Majesty.” He said, bowing to you. “It is an honor to meet you.”

“And you.” You bowed, looking at him through the sheer red veil. “Geralt of Kaer Morhen.”

“Geralt is fine.”

“Are you both ready for the union.” The mage looked impatient; the incongruous pair was a waste of her time, you knew it, and she did as well. “Come forth.”

The low rumble of murmurs ceased as you two met the mage. Your heart no longer felt heavy; it pattered lightly against your chest as Geralt took your hand in his and walked you towards the mage. “Today, we are here join The Majestic High Elven Court of the North with Kaer Morhen. Before me stands Geralt, the youngest Witcher of Kaer Morhen and The high Majesty Y/N.” She pauses and takes your hand and his, placing them in the wooden bowl. “We dip their hands in the water, this ceremonial. This act washes away any disputes, bad blood, or malicious intent. This makes the union pure.”

The water was calm; you sloshed your fingers around it for a second and removed it, the trickles hit the wooden floor. “Nice.”

“You are a pure elf.” She smiled. “Your heart has good intentions, and surprisingly, so does the Witcher’s heart.” The mage exhaled. “Present the rings,” She pointed to her apprentices, and they came bearing the brilliantly silver rings. “Place these rings on the proper finger, as tradition would see fit the pearl in yours in white. Once defloration has occurred, the pearl will turn the color of roses, and this union shall be complete, and the alliance shall be recognized. May the spirits guide you.” She turned, and the murmurs reconvened.

Your mother appeared at your side. “It will be done by morning.” She smiled and turned to Geralt. “You two are free to leave. The ceremony has ended.”

It had no splendor like your brothers, no trumpets played, or flowers fell. They just dispersed, and you stood alone in the Great Hall with Geralt at your side. “Shall we retire?”

“So eager?’

“I have traveled for ten days.” Geralt added. “We can only sleep if you would like; I have no intentions of rushing you in this matter. It is your decision, but I am exhausted.” He stretched his hand to you, and you took it. “Our chambers are on the east end, from what I am told. Are you familiar?”

“I shall lead the way.”

The East End chambers had been yours before your brother had married, but when he deserted his position as King, he’d lost this wing, and it had become yours once more. You lead the way up the winding steps. The East Wing had been decorated for the event, rose petals sprinkled along the steps leading to the bedroom, and you did not want to sleep. You’d heard the tales of sex, how it could make a woman feel powerful or loved. You wanted both; you wanted to be worshipped even if you did not know what you were walking into.

Geralt looked at the bed; a smile covered his face as he unbuttoned the stuffy leather jacket he’d worn and shrugged out of it, hanging it on the bedpost and then taking a seat. “It is wonderful here; I slept on a stone bed at Kaer Morhen; anything is better than that.”

“I suppose.” You closed the door and looked at him. “Will you assist in undressing me.”

“It would be an honor.” He motioned you over to the bed with an amused smile on his face. Once in front of you, he started untying the corset and gently tugging the heavy dress down your body. “I find it odd that women go through such lengths.”

“You did not like my dress.”

“I loved it.” He rebutted. “But, does one really have to dress a rose to acknowledge its beauty? It is at its finest bare.”

“Perhaps that’s how I should present myself to you, like the rose I am.” It was a relief to feel the dress and the undergarments fall to the floor. You stepped out of the pool of clothing at your feet and then turned to face Geralt. “

Geralt’s eyes locked on you, “You’re a virgin.”

“I am.”

“So here you are before me, bare, beautiful, fragile. What am I to do with you?”

“Your worse.” You answered, placing your hands on his shoulders. “Please.”

Geralt is hesitant, moving you towards him, resting his hands on the nape of your ass. The pads of his fingers were rough, proof of his training he had yet to complete. “I do not know how to be gentle.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to.”

Geralt had not kissed you the entire evening; you hadn’t expected him to beings that you had only met a few hours prior. But right now, you craved for him to touch you, kiss you, and most importantly fuck you. He didn’t need you to vocalize your request, he met your lips with haste pulling you on top of him, allowing you to take the lead, and you did so eagerly. He positioned the two of you in the middle of the bed, and you started slow. You kissed his jawline, the one thing you had been looking at the entire day; you peppered the kisses until you met his soft lips, and then you bit him playfully.

Geralt reacted, nipping you back and cupping your mound; his fingers danced at the pillowed lips pushing them back, exposing the glistening pink flesh beneath the ochre brown. “Have you ever cum on your own fingers?”

“Every night this week.” You admitted.

“You have no need for that anymore.” Geralt’s index finger dipped into you, curling before it slipped out and then back in again. You were wet for him. He started to fuck with that finger, and then he added another, and you inhaled sharply. “Did it feel like this?”

“No,” You breathed.

“Better?”

You shook your head, and the small spasms started around his fingers. It never happened that quick for you. But usually, after it did, you were ready to sleep. You rested on his chest as the small orgasm took over. “That was great.”

Geralt chuckled and rolled you onto the bed. He stood up and began to shed the rest of his clothes, revealing the chiseled, lean body you knew was under the clothes. “We have only started, my dear rose.”

Geralt climber back on the bed and hovered over you. He was hard already, but curiosity got the best of you. You reached between his legs and gripped the thick shaft. He jumped in your hands. You were beneath him, adjusting the sizeable man atop of you and the feeling of his warm cock, stroking at your entrance. “Brace yourself.” He smiled as the tip slid into your entrance. “I swear I will not hurt you.”

It was pointless to respond to him, you spread your legs wider for him, and he took the queue and slowly pushed into you. The slight sting was tolerable at first, his girth stretched you for an inch, and he halted. “Keep going.” You wriggled beneath him.

“Impatient.” He laughed. He pulled out, leaving you empty, and then he pushed into you deeper. Your eyes snapped shut, and he kissed your lips, moving slowly and then pausing, allowing you to feel him once more. He was thick, and your body was adjusting, your pussy slickened, and you wanted him to not be gentle.

“Geralt.” You whined.

“I will give you what you want,” He groaned, pulling out and then back in nearly hilt deep this time.

Your breath was knocked from you for a second once he genuinely started to fuck you. Geralt’s strokes were deliberately planned for you to feel every inch of him, and at first, they were uncomfortable, bordering painful. However, the curve of his dick hit the right spot each time he pushed into you, and though it had the potential to feel great, you couldn’t help but focus on the pain of it all.

Your nails raked down his arms as your legs quivered around him, but Geralt did not stop. His hips clapped against yours, drilling you into the bed until you began to shake. Your eyes fluttered. What the fuck was happening? Still pain, but if he stopped, you felt you might perish. Your moans replaced the pained hisses from earlier. Mewls filled the room, and Geralt had found a pace that both suited you and allowed him to fuck you the way you both wanted. He lifted your body from the mattress bring your hips closer as he fucked into you, and then placed you on his thighs. You were upright, and he was deeper, still pounding into you.

“Can you take it like this?” He whispered in your ear.

The words were sensual; you answered with your body. You started to meet Geralt’s thrust, fuck pain, pain is what you wanted. You wrapped your arms around his neck and locked eyes with him once more. And then your body erupted in pleasure, your pussy spasmed, and he was soaked with a grin. “Fuck.” Your cum had gushed out on him, soaking the bed and shocking the hell out of you.

“You feel like fucking silk.” He growled. You shook, halting your movements and Geralt continued to fuck into you until you landed back on your back, almost hanging off the bed. His hips met yours over and over, and you continued to mewl. He lasted a few more strokes, spilling into you with a shutter and a cathartic moan that only made you want to again.

 Henry Cavill Taglist: @oddsnendsfanfics @my-rosegold-soul @fallslikefeather @iloveyouyen @honeydulcewrites @thickemadame @taytayize123 @blackmissfrizzle @isthat-tyra98 @titty-teetee @yeet-me-out-tonight @inforapound @supernaturalvikingwhore  @l-auteuse @alwaysadreamingoptimist @chaneajoyyy @october505 @boomhauer @sciapod @abrokencondomiswhyimalive @littlefreya @bianaguipa @therandomthoughtsofmsparker @therealcalicali @twistedcharismaaa @singeramg @angreav @magdelen69 @madbaddic7ed @pocimaginesaesthetics @ajspencer1892 @jovanaprime @zejess93 @sapphirescrolls @sparklemichele @justgrits @persephones24 @ieshaa96 @dangerous-like-a-loaded-pistol @mereka18 @cass-the-mess @angelic-kisses13 @sprinklesandsugarcubes @two-unbeatable-beaters @peakygroupie @sincerelysinister @rhys108   @madbaddic7ed @utterlyhopeful-fics @theemelanintrappp @ysmmsy​ @zealoushound​ @fandomfic-galore @a-dlv  @littlebvbie @hellshedevil @kebabgirl67 @frozen-nipples @xxxkatxo @bichibibi @thecurlyintrovert @tigerlillyscorner @chiddybangchiddy @keiva1000 @namjoonswifeyy​ @amorestevens​ @sohoseb​ @amberangel112​ @moonlacebeam​

[saturnsstufff]

The Empress (pt.II)

Hello again! I hope your having an amazing day, night, or morning! Don't forget to drink water!

Warnings: mention of Alcohol, swearing

Words: 5,951

   The time spent on the ship was long, tiring and freezing. The weather danced between rain, sleet, snow, and hail. Complete opposite of what conditions you were used to. But thankfully land was just up ahead. The ever changing weather shifting finally for snow. As the snow danced in the sky you couldn't help notice the beauty, back at your village snow was basically never seen. unless you went to the higher elevations that is.

   As you approached the tiny harbor the captain made it very clear he would not be staying. He was here to drop you off and leave, not wanting to stay long at the Empire. This had you chewing your lip, finding your way home would be up to you at the end of this. Which wouldn't be so bad usually, but you didn't know anyone. So it was bad.

   When they docked you took your things. The sword carefully wrapped up and strapped to your back, your bag sitting atop it. you'd be damned if your going to loose that blade now that you were finally at your destination. You carefully got off the boat with a little help from a crew member. Trying not to fall from the ice already forming.

   The first thing you could notice about the land was the unfamiliar sharp smell in the air of winter. It was absolutely freezing. You pulled your cloak around you more, slowly making your way to the small village. The land definitely wasn't welcoming. Besides the village there was just plain barren land, draped with light fluffy snow. The village was however quaint. Logged cabins stood as a contrast against the white snow. Smoke rose up into the air by winding, and straight chimneys. Looking around at the village almost looked like a nice painting. But when you look up you realize the quaint little village was surrounded by ice spikes. They looked as if the gods had thrown them as spears, impaling the earth. Although beautiful, the thought of one of them crashing down on you, had you weary.

   The people were the second thing you noticed. They were mostly hybrids, but humans were also seen wondering about. As you walked away from the harbor more people came into view. The people were so beautiful, it almost took you by surprise. Tucked beneath large fur lined cloaks you could see a similarly of sharp featured faces. Even the human hybrids looked ethereal, ranging from tall divine Enderman, Piglins, animals, your sure you even saw a Shulkerbox.

   The once quiet humming streets were soon differentiated by a loud buzzing noise that shook you from your admiring state, your turned to see rather large... things? The things you were looking at were made out of metal, that much you could easily see. A bright blue painted sun sat on the side. The signa of the Antarctic Empire. On the top of the metal contraption there were wings. Two of them, spanning way out on the sides. The things slowly circled until they landed in the barren field. There were four of them, all of them slowly landing one at a time. Slowly they moving to the village edge. You sat and watched with curiosity until the buzzing had stopped.

   At this point you realized how cold you were. You tore your eyes away from the metal contraptions. Looking around for a place to seek warmth. You saw a Bar up ahead and instantly knew that would be the best place to start. Walking over, minding the large banks of snow, you pushed the door open. Instantly you met with a rush of warm air. A smile fell on your lips, man you missed that feeling. Being on the boat they only had lanterns, and you better believe that did not keep you warm. You pushed in further. Looking around for a seat, the only ones you could find were at the Bar it self. Setting your bag by your feet, sword still strapped to your back you climbed onto the stool. You couldn't help but look around at the décor. Behind the bar, the shelfs were covered with random bottles and bottles of liquor. Some almost gone and some not even opened yet. The walls were lined with mounts from hunts, elk, deer, the occasional game animals. The one that shocked you was the bear. Back at your village bear was not local, so seeing a mount of one, and the sheer size they were was kind of terrifying.

   The bar it self was mostly filled with men and the occasional women. Some people were gambling, but most were just drinking and laughing. Enjoying each others company. After summing the atmosphere up you turned to the bartender and offered a shy smile.

   "Wha'd you like?" He asked, his voice was deep and gruff. He was dressed very nice, a vest with a white button up. His hair combed back, he looked like he was ready for a date with someone. He had a hard face, but did offer a smile.

   "Whatever you recommend?..." You asked a bit sheepishly. He smiled wider, nodding before he turned his back. Starting to prepare your drink. You took your time to look around more. The wood of the bar under your hands was nice, kinda reminded you of sitting back at the kitchen table with your family. Your family. The thought of them pained you. After being away for a bit you came to see how much of a homebody you really were. Your mothers kind smile, morning coffee with your father, the roosters crowing to alert the farmers of morn. The smell of dew on the grass. The sigh that escaped your lips was one of lonesome.

   Unbeknownst to you, a stranger had entered the bar. The quiet chatter soon died down to nothing. A few groups of people even decided to leave the bar as a whole. The strange man, a tall one for sure, pulled out the stool and sat next to you. With him came three men as well. All were dressed in high ranking military attire. Combat boots adorned there feet well heavy cloaks draped there shoulders. Beneath the cloaks something was definitely poking up towards the ceiling. The fur that lined the cloaks was not mere rabbit or minx. It was big, and definitely fluffy. But oh so warm. The fourth man, the strange tall man, stood out. He was in a heavy cloak as well, but also in robes of green instead of blues. He wore a white hat with green stripes. His face had a bit of stubble, but it looked nice. His hair was sandy blonde, with fairly straight locks. It was a tad on the longer side, but he had it pulled into the hat mostly. Only a braid and a bit of bangs poped out the front. Besides the normality of his appearance, the thing that stuck out were his Great wings. There were the color of a raven, but on a much greater scale.

   "Hello" His voice rang though as he addressed the bartender. This caught your attention, pulling you from your thoughts of your parents. Looking to the men you had immediately noticed the military attire, it was unsettling to say the least. You glanced away, feeling like you shouldn't be looking at them. The atmosphere had grown tense. Deciding to face down instead of the new company, you noticed the bartender had set a drink in front of you. The liquid was clear, unsure if it was water however due to a weird strong burning smell.

   Your attention was drawn back to the man again, he whispered something to the three military men before they left with a swift nod. for some reason the military men were more terrifying than the man next to you. At there leave, the blonde gentleman was alone at the bar. His gaze met with your curious one.

   "Hello there little one" he said gently. His voice was kind, and light hearted. The smile that laced his lips was nothing near malicious.

   "Hello" with your reply you gave a light nod. Still a little unsure.

   "You don't look like your from around here" He must have known, or judged your lack of warmer heavier clothes. You could only nod in agreement. "What brings you to the Empire? You hav'ta be fucking stupid to come here for a vacation" he mused, his sight chuckle was warm to hear. You couldn't help but smile a bit at his contagious one.

   "I actually came to deliver this sword to the Empire.. I'm just uncertain how to get to the capital" his interest almost visibly double.

   "Really now" He removed his hat. Setting it aside, you could see a hanging emerald from his ear. "Did you make the sword yourself?" He took his drink and easily downed the whole thing, facing you for curiosity. Wherever he came from he was obviously very thirsty.

   "I did actually, I'm quite proud of it too.. i believe its the best one ive made yet" your smile grew wider. He hummed as he set the glass down with a light 'tink'. He shrugged his outer cloak off. You took note of how the slits were made to form around the massive wings.

   "Not many women smith's out there, if your blade is chosen i hav'ta think its a pretty damn good one. Do you have your letter?" He inquired. You nodded. Leaning down, sifting through your things. Pulling out the neatly folded letter. You gently handed it to him. His hands were gloved with thick black leather, guarding what you assume is his hands from the climate. He opened the letter and glanced it over, his eyes lingering the seal. "Well I'll be damned. Alrighty then. Do you need a ride by chance?" You tilted your head a bit. Taking the letter back.

   "A ride?" He chuckled, Nodding to you.

   "You don't have a idea where the capital is do you?" You shook your head slowly. Feeling a little foolish now. "Hey, hey. I didn't mean it rudely. Your not familiar around here. I gotta swing by the capital after this stop. I could give you a ride if you would like. Save ya' a lot of trudging in the snow.".

   "Oh! R-right!" You nodded. "Please id actually really like that".

   "Perfect, we can leave whenever you'd like. Although I recommend we leave soon. Flying at night is a fuckin' nightmare" he stated.

   Your brow furrowed. "Flying? You mean with your wings?".

   "No mate, I mean with the plane". He leaned in his chair. Folding his hands on his lap. His strong blue eyes never waved away from yours. When he leaned back you noticed a long hilt attached to his hip. Your eyes flickered from his eyes to the hilt.

   "What's a plane?" You asked curiosity lingering your voice. He laughed a deep chested laugh. Only making you feel a bit stupid at your question now. When he noticed you weren't joking he went surprised.

   "Oh your actually serious. Erm.." he paused a bit. Trying to think. "Where exactly do you come from?" He asked. Leaning closer to you now. His brows were slightly knit together in confusion.

   "Oh.. I uhm. came from a small village out in Madagascar." You watched him as you moved your hands to your lap.

   "You haven't seen a plane?" He asked again. Almost just to clarify that if you were joking, this would be the time to out yourself. You shook your head. "Hunh. Well then.." he said Shrugging. "Fair enough. Here come with me." He said as he stood, brushing his hair back before placing his cap on. He patted his coat a bit. You watched. Assuming he meant for you to stand was well. "Shit.." he mumbled. You realized he was looking for money.

   "Oh- here I got it" you dug in your pocket and handed a few coins over to the bartender. The blonde watched. Almost mentally taking note. The bartender gave you a weird look when you handed the money over.

   "You didn't drink your glass miss" you looked down and realized. You took it and took a sip expecting water. It wasn't water. You nearly spit it out. But swallowed instead to spare the embarrassment. The blonde man laughed at your face as it contorted into disgust. It burned the whole way down your throat, filling your body with a quick glow of warmth. The stranger took the glass from you and took a wif, laughing more before easily downing it.

   "Good to know vodka doesn't agree with you" he said still laughing. You watched as he set the glass down, pulling his cloak on. Well you grabbed your things you looked up and noticed he had a signa of the empire on it.

   "Why does it burn so much?.." you asked, wishing you never took that sip. He mused at you well you two walked side by side together.

   "Ah, don't worry so much on it. I have actual water in the plane you can have" he walked towards the metal contraption with you. At this you assumed this was a 'plane'. Gods was it big.

   "How does it fly?" You asked looking it over in curiosity. He only hummed before answering.

   "Its actually really simple. The propeller in the front will spin and gets air going. Once there's enough momentum it will pull the plane forward, i just steer it up and we will glide." He explained as if it was the simplest thing in the world. You didn't quite fully understand. But something told you he didn't expect you too. He climbed up and asked for your bag. Placing it in the plane where there were two seats. After your bag was situated he offered you a heavy cloak. It was lined with thick fur. "Your going to want this. It gets cold in flight. You nodded and pulled it on your shoulders. Instantly feeling the warmth and heaviness the cloak brought. You saw his hand come down reaching for yours. "Here let me help you up" his hand was firm and definitely a strong one. Pulling you up like it was nothing. Once you were on the wing of the plane he helped you steady yourself. He grabbed your waist without warning and lifted you up like a child. "Go ahead and step in- Mind your feet though, step on the seat and then sit" you fallowed his instructions. Feeling his grip slip from your waist as you sunk into the cockpit. You took note at how low you sat in the seat, there were buttons and two weird looking things beside you. They were long and bulky, you wouldn't touch them since you obviously had no idea what they did. He easily hopped into the front seat well he folded his wings carefully. Being mindful of the limited space the seats offered.

   "I never caught your name" you said looking up to the back of the man.

   "Oh that's right, I'm Philza. What's your name?" He asked as he turned his head towards you a bit.

   "Nice to meet you Philza, I'm (y/n)" he smiled more fallowing it up with him being pleased to meet you. "If I can ask. What are these?" You inquired. Pointing to the bulky long things next to you.

   "Oh those are my rifles'" he stated simply. You blinked in slight confusion. 'Rifles? The hell's a Rifle?' Your silence gave away your confusion. "Its a Gun. A type of weapon. Its faster than a bow and just as dangerous" you gave a little 'oh' in response. "The safety is on. It cant hurt you, I promise" he stated as he started up the plane. The loud buzzing starting up. "I usually fly alone, unless I'm with Tech. This should he interesting" he said with a wide smile. You felt the plane lurch before it moved. On instinct you gripped your seat. You were forced back as the plane lifted up from the ground. You couldn't help but watch as the little village grew smaller. You soon got awfully high, it was frightening to say the least. But something told you the man driving wouldn't let anything hurt you. Philza carefully maneuvered around the giant ice spikes. Flying with ease like a bird. "Go ahead and get comfortable. We'll be a slight bit" you saw him adjust in his seat, presumably getting more comfortable. You glanced the ground again before sinking into your seat yourself. Pulling the cloak around you more, enjoying the warmth it brought you. The loud buzz made you realize you were honestly quite tired. Well you were on the ship you worked from dawn until past dusk. Feeling no forceful urge to do anything currently, you let the gentle rock of the plane lull you to sleep.

   "Aye, kiddo?" You herd someone call, nudging you a slight bit. You shifted, realizing you were in a seat. Memories from before your nap rushed forward as you opened your eyes, wiping the sleep from them. Phil sat with a smile as he stood on the wing of the plane. "Took a nap i see. Don't blame you, c'mon lets get you inside." Your eyes flickered around, sleep still lingering making your eyes heavy. It was now nighttime, and Phil was right the temperature does drop when the sun goes down. "Were at the palace" he said as he took your shoulders. Lifting you up like a child again. Setting you on the wing of the plane. You held onto his arm to steady yourself.

   "Palace?" You mumbled. Still trying to wake up more. Phil just gave a hum and a firm nod before handing you your bag, and the blade. He stepped off the wing and helped you down. You thanked him and looked around in awe. You were in a large open room. Planes were lined up everywhere, it honestly was amazing.

   "Fallow me" he stated. Smiling at you as he made his way across the floor. You fallowed, walking around the lined up planes. Soon you two found a corridor. The walls were made of whites, greys, blues and the occasional green-blue-ish tint. Pillars lined the corridors, as small candle lit chandeliers illuminated them. Shadows dancing with the flick of the flame. The floors were carpeted down the middle. White marble on the outsides. The dark oak details contrasted all the white so beautifully.

   "Dadza!!" You herd a child yell. You turned with Phil to see a boy no older than 12 with brown hair running to phil. His curls bounced as he ran, his wide smile shining. The child, was more than beaming with love as he threw himself into Philza's arms.

   "Hi bud" Phil had bended down to the Childs size. Hugging him close to his chest. As he smiled back at the child before he explained to you. "(Y/n), this is my son Wilbur" you gave a nod as Wilbur waved cheerfully. Hugging tightly to his father. Phil rested his hand on top of Wilbur’s head, ruffling the curls. You didn't think he was a father, but somehow now that you see him with a child- his son to be exact. How he treated you now, and back at the bar, makes sense now.

   "Tech, said you wouldn't be here until tomorrow!" Wil said cheerfully, having a awful lot of energy for the time of night. Wil was honestly an adorable child. He was tall, thin, but very well dressed. Golden glasses rested on his nose, his attire consisted of a white button down, and simple black pants. his sleeves were rolled up slightly, showing he was working. happy enough to say, you could tell he was well taken care of. You herd the name 'Tech' get thrown around again. You herd Phil mention that name before you fell asleep, but it never really stuck out.

   "Did he now" the boy hummed in agreement. "Did he also scold you for being out of bed?" Phil lifted a brow challengingly to Wil. His tone taking on a more strict role. In response Wil merely shrugged. 

“He may have mentioned it.” Wil’s tone was casual, it also showed that he didn't take Phil’s tone too seriously. Phil in turn just rolled his eyes with a sigh.

   We came to two tall wooden doors. A guard opening one at the sight of Phil, and Wilbur. You still weren't sure how, or why, you were in the palace. Nor how no one questioned your presence. You didn't feel like questioning much. Feeling like you were far out of the loop quite honestly.

   Past the doors was a medium sized circular room. In the center stood a tall man. His shoulders were wide and brawn. He had a boar's skull as a mask. The tusk's adorned with jewelry. His ears were well pierced with golden chains and tiny diamonds. You caught that like Phil, the man had a single emerald earring. He definitely stood out to say the least. He had pink hair, neatly pulled into a ponytail. Braids shown through his hair, offering a contrast to the soft flowing pink. On one braid he had a black feather attached. His clothes shown a higher status. He had a white button down that was slightly undone at the top, you saw reading glasses attached on a chain that hung around his neck. A red sash sat wrapped around his waist, pulling together the white and black he wore. He had a larger sword strapped to his waist, the hilt of the sword was long and adorned with gold. His black pants were neatly tucked into his boots. He stood arms crossed. Almost like he was expecting Phil.

   "Eh?.." was all he said when he saw you and phil.

   "Ah Techno. I see your still awake too" the man called 'Techno' gave a nod to phil. "(Y/n), this is my other son, Technoblade" you looked from Phil, to Wil, and then to techno. There was a age gap between the boys, but you couldn't tell the exact age. Techno’s stature made you assume he was much older. since he was taller than Phil, not by much however."(Y/n) is here for the weapon call. She has her letter if you would like to see" Phil explained to techno. Instead of a response techno merely faced you. You were not able to see his eyes or much of a expression. Only his jaw was seen since the boar skull had no lower jaw. Techno's jaw however sat in a stoic, locked placement. Soon his monotone voice came through. It was low, smooth and captivating.

   "You came for the weapon call?" He questioned, his voice, nor his stance wavered. the closer you got to Techno you saw how broad he was built. His shoulders looked as if he could have supported anvil’s on them. His stature and his voice made him very menacing. You gave a slight nod. Techno only faced you shortly before he faced Phil again. "I'll test the weapon tomorrow." He stated plainly. You saw Phil nod his head in agreement.

   Phil faced you next "We have a spare room you can stay in" he flashed you a warm smile. Techno stood beside him, contrasting the warmth you felt from Phil. Techno however, did step back to allow you to fallow Phil. Techno never looked away from you. He was facing you well you passed. It unnerved you a little, you couldn't see his eyes, but man you could tell he was staring at you. The thought of how one man could have a happy smiling boy, and then one that stuck fear into you for simply breathing his air didn't make a lick of sense. Scary or not you would give it to Techno. He made terrifying look nice.

   The palace was larger than you expected, but still beyond elegant. Wil wondered beside Phil casually. Thinking on the ‘Weapon Call’ you decided now was a good time to bring it up. well fallowing Phil down the beautiful corridors you spoke up.

   “is there anyone else here?” you watched Phil’s back. Well walking the halls he had removed his cap, so you were at least able to see his expression a bit. from what you could see he was pondering his answer.

   “Yeah.. Yeah, no we’ve had others here for it” the suggestion of ‘had’ made your brows knit together. Wil shot a glance back to you before glancing his father. Phil must have took this as a chance to explain. “we had a few people show, they couldn't beat the test however.” his tone was casual. the idea of a test made your stomach drop. ‘what kind of test?’, ‘what will they do to the blade?’, ‘what happens if I fail?’, questions raced your mind. 

   “t...test?” you worded it hesitantly, only earning a hum of agreement. 

   “techno is very peculiar on what he wants in a sword. it has to fit to his strength and his taste.” Phil paused briefly, “Sadly no sword so far, has been strong enough to withstand his strength.”. oh you could have died on the spot at that. that was the equivalent of ‘Oh yeah, thanks for coming thousands of miles. here's your participation ribbon’. the only response you could muster was a simple ‘Oh’. At your response Wil turned to face you, walking backwards. 

   “Don't feel discouraged, techno can be a mighty dick when he wants to be-” at that you stifled a laugh as he was swatted upside the head by Phil.

    after the light comment from Wil, the three of you fell into silence. occasionally you saw a painting or two, one did stand out though upon passing. There was a beautiful woman, she looked kinder than any woman you’ve seen to be honest. In her arms was a baby, wrapped up and peacefully asleep. By her arms stood Phil, he had a kind, warm smile. Your eyes moved down the painting. in between the couple stood a young child, he had pink hair and a shy smile. he looked like a sweet kid, you could automatically assume who the family was just from the child and Phil.

   Soon the room came to view. it was at the end of the corridor, which honestly didn't bother you. The thought of a comfortable bed  had you more excited than you cared to admit. Phil opened the door for you. “Go ahead and make yourself comfortable. breakfast is around six to ten.” Phil and Wil watched you walk in, looking around in awe at the glorious room. “I’ll have a maid get you some warmer clothes too. If your staying for a bit I can promise you will want something heavier than what you have.” You turned back to face him a thankful smile on your lips.

   “Thank you...” you were so thankful. You knew you would have to find a way to make it up to them for letting you stay. Especially without the permission of the Emperor. Phil nodded and bid a goodnight with Wil at his side. When you herd the door ‘click’ shut you couldn't help but look around again. So much had happened in under 24 hours that processing it all was hard. What started as meeting a strange man in a bar, turned into staying at the palace. talk about right time, right place. You smiled at the thought, you hoped that whatever was guiding you would continue.

   You set your bag down at the foot of the bed. taking the blade off your back. it was heavy, feeling the weight lifted off was a blessing all by itself. you carefully set the blade on the ottoman at the end of your bed. you turned your head towards the window. when you approached you didn't expect to see much, but oh you should have. outside was a view worth a million words. It wasn't a village, it was a prosperous city. Massive didn't even begin to explain the size. You couldn't even fathom how many people lived here. the city could have held your small village twenty times over. you knew the Antarctica Empire was large and powerful. but you never expected this. Your smile fell slowly.

   At that though you looked away from the city, facing back into your room. the four post bed was calling your name. Grabbing your clothes from your bag you changed into something you could comfortably sleep in. well changing new thoughts raced your mind. you knew the empire was known for being harsh and dangerous. yet so far all you have seen is beauty and kindness. this made you weary ‘was this all a painted face?’, ‘was this what they wanted you to see?’ ‘under this, is the whole country suffering under dictatorship?’. you thought back to Phil's face, the smiles he offered you. The Painting of the family. nothing said they were malicious. But nothing cemented that they were also kind people. you were a traveler. a foreigner, you didn't belong here. Your only here because your bringing a ‘gift’. When the gift looses its price then what? What will happen to you? What happened to those who gave blades previously?

   You didn't want to think anymore. You simply wanted to sleep. Pushing the heavy covers back you crawled into the unfamiliar bed. You pulled and pushed pillows until you could find a comfortable spot. You adjusted your head a bit and slowly fell into the embrace of a deep sleep. 

   Morning came faster than you anticipated. There were no birds chirping or the sound of deep waves rolling. Instead it was a warm fireplace. You rolled over, rubbing your eyes before arching your back in a stretch. The bed was warm and pleasant. You rolled your head and saw a pair of blue toned clothes at the foot of the bed. Those must have been the clothes that Phil mentioned last night. you found a old grandfathers clock in the corner. The hands pointed at 8:26. Thinking over what may await today you pushed yourself up. Gently running your fingers over the material, you were genuinely surprised. it was heavy and from what you would gage, warm. a sweet smell lingered, looking about you saw there was a bathroom connected. walking closer the smell of Chai grew. there was a bath prepared for you. you glanced the time, the clothes and then the bath again. ‘I mean it wouldn't hurt’.

   You cleaned yourself, the water wasn't scalding hot, but it was just enough. It was welcoming. The baths on the ship were nothing to this, the ones on the sea were often cold and nothing you wanted to linger in. Where here you could stay in the warm water all day, if you thought you could get away with it. You didn't linger though. You simply cleaned up and stepped out. letting the water out. Stepping out of the bathroom was horrible. The steam had tricked you into a false security of warmth. The room was cold, goosebumps ran your skin making you hurry to dress. The clothes were made incredibly well. Nothing from what you had back at your village. The base of the clothes consisted of a long black shirt and simple black pants. After that it was simple layering. You had a jacket similar to a cloak almost, over that a simple blue cape to drape over your shoulders. you assumed it had no signa to show you were not one of the empires people. There were gold as accents on the sleeves of the jacket, and on the cape itself. the whole fit was elegant. you saw your old shoes next to boots. slipping the boots on you wondered out. to find something to eat. your stomach turning in knots from the lack of food. 

   when you turned the corner you saw Phil. he smiled at you “Ah, just  came to see if you were up” he was dressed similar to last night. only instead he had no fluffy cloak or hat atop is head, he only had simple blue robes. his wings were spread slightly. but he payed no mind to them. he offered you a arm. “Ready for food? hope we have somthi’n you like” you smiled kindly.

   “I'm sure anything you offer I will be ok with, I still owe you for letting me stay” you said, looking out the windows of the corridor. the day was brilliant. blue skies and a bright sun. the sun came through the windows. warming you more when you passed through it’s rays.

   “awh, I wouldn't think too much on it. after all you came all this way on your own” he was right, you did make this trip all by yourself. something you were proud to say you did. Phil opened a dark oak door to show a nice table. Techno sat at the head of the table, Wilbur sitting to the left of him. There were two empty prepared seats to his right you assumed this was for Phil and you. 

   Wilbur was already digging into his breakfast like it was his last meal. God forbid if anyone put there hand between his food and his mouth, they may have lost it. he was dressed up a bit more than you recall previously. his white button down now had a jacket overtop, with a few draping pendants. his elegant clothes contrasted his hair that was still a wild curly mess. 

   Unlike last night Techno was dressed even more extravagant. instead of his white button down, he was in a military's uniform. A cape adorned his sturdy shoulders draping elegantly on him. unlike yesterday he did not have his reading glasses, instead it was replaced by golden chains and pendants. his hair was similar to yesterday, only instead it was braided back, tinier braids were swept into the main braid. one of them having the feather. not a strand of hair fell out of place. beneath the pink you could see the emerald earing he wore. the same one Phil wore. the thing that stuck out the most was the golden crown that adorned his head. His hands were folded, his chin resting on them. his face was still hidden by the Boar skull. but that didn't stop you from seeing all the rings that he wore.

“mornin’ Tech, Wil” Phil said casually. he only had a response from techno, but even then it was monotone. your eyes watched the crown on Techno's head. after seeing all the signs you now realized that you were staying with the royal family. Where Phil took his seat you had stopped mid tracks. ‘could you even eat with them?’ Phil gave you a weird look. “somthin’ wrong (y/n)?” 

   “Can I eat with you?” they way you said that made you sound childish, but in fact it was a genuine question. At your words Phil get out a laugh.

   “Of course you can, what’d you think we’d do? eat in front of you?” he was amused at you. His smile wide as Wil stopped eating to look up at you. “what makes you think your not welcome to eat with us?” he questioned, his tone shifting softer.

   “Your the Royal family. I didn't think...” you trailed off as techno spoke. 

   “A Emperor is simply a title. If he cannot break bread with others, he has no right to claim the throne that he sits on. You and I are humans. let us break bread” he said simply. 

[no-droids]

Dove

Part 2 of 2 of The Locked Door Series

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 19.7K i apologize for NOTHING

Warnings: DUBCON ELEMENTS, SMUUUUUUT, religion kink, virgin kink, authority kink, degradation kink, praise kink, age gap, ohhhhh the list goes on y’all been here long enough

A/N: I have nothing to say for myself this time im sorry

***

Obi-Wan feels like he’s going to be sick.

Dinner in the grand hall was difficult enough, forking down mouthfuls of expensive food he’s sure was absolutely marvelous, if he could’ve tasted it.  The s’Ziscari clearly splurged on the celebrations—expensive food, expensive decor, expensive everything, down to the silk napkin he studied and fiddled with under the table as he awkwardly waited for you to finish your plate.

He felt uncomfortable, absolutely.  He’s felt uncomfortable ever since he shuffled into this blasted, Maker forsaken robe not long after he left your quarters earlier.

Not black, no.  Not like yours.  Not like what appears to be an overwhelmingly vast majority of the people he’s encountered so far this dreadful evening.

No, his robes are blue.

A strong, eye-catching royal blue, covering his body in waves of fabric—softer than anything he’s ever worn before and leaving him feeling incredibly exposed.  The far more practical robes he traded for these atrocious garments are made of a thick, scratchy wool, a testament to the Jedi’s philosophical rejection of fine or expensive materials.  And, against all logic—to somehow make matters even worse, the sash tying this uncomfortable piece of attire closed has no place to clip his saber, unlike the leather belt he usually wears.  As a consequence, he’s left simply carrying it around by his side.

Granted, for some unknown reason, his robes are still far thicker and longer and more protective than the… stars, the ultra-thin black silk wrapped around your body, but Obi-Wan is so self-conscious about his appearance that he’s not even allowing himself to look at you.  Obviously that doesn’t stop him from refusing to leave your side the entire night, and he finds himself rather grateful that only a very few number of s’Ziscari are fluent in Basic, if only to provide him with a valid excuse to socially detach.

Of the very few people he’s noticed wearing robes resembling his, they’re all far younger than him—much closer to your age than Obi-Wan’s, and stars, everything about this celebration is unbelievably unnerving to him—including, if not most of all, your response to it.  One of the reasons he knows the food was grand, apart from the immaculate plating and lavish dinnerware of course, is because you momentarily excused yourself from the seat next to him to dish yourself out a second helping.

Even now, even in the skybox seats of this distressingly packed arena, Obi-Wan struggles to keep down what little food he could eat while you stand tall next to him and seem completely unbothered by the situation—and by the Maker, it bothers him.  He isn’t used to this.  He’s used to you being the emotionally turbulent one, the one whom he has to pacify, and it twists his stomach with the way the roles have suddenly found themselves reversed.

“I think the blue looks nice, by the way,” you lean sideways to mention casually to him, and he knows.  He knows you’re just jesting, just trying to lighten the mood, but he feels the bile rising up his throat at the fact that you even commented on it aloud.  “Fitting.  Matches your saber.  Your face, though.”  The smallest hint of a smile tugs at your cheeks.  “It’s beginning to match the color of mine.”

“Thank you for that, young one; your sense of humor is positively delightful,” Obi-Wan gripes, clutching the metal hilt tightly in front of him with both hands while he gazes out at the stadium before him, bustling with black hooded figures and a rare flash of blue.  It does not escape his notice that in complete contrast, your arms are loosely meeting behind your back, your saber dangling in one hand while the other lazily holds your wrist.  Your body is… open.  Draped in garments somehow equally as opaque as they are revealing, presented to the wide panoramic view of the audience and stage with no qualms whatsoever.

“Wonder who I got it from,” you ponder with a tilt of your head, and… fair point.  “How long is this thing supposed to last anyways?”

“Stars—‘this thing’ can’t get over with soon enough,” Obi-Wan grumbles, his eyes anxiously flicking down at the empty stage in the center of the audience.  He’s struggling with butterflies and nausea like he himself is meant to have a starring role in this debauchery.  “They’ll have… acts.  Plural.”

“Heavens,” you sigh under your breath, and oh yes.  He agrees.

He’s also painfully aware that he should be using this free time to continue contemplating his decision about… matters concerning later this evening with you, but he’s already feeling massively overwhelmed as it is.  Right now, it’s all he can do to just breathe and attempt to face one trial at a time.

But then, as if the Maker is feeling just particularly malicious this evening, Obi-Wan’s stomach drops when something quiet flashes in the Force and the roar of the enormous crowd instantly falls to dead silence.  The ominous sign rockets through him and while a Jedi should not know fear, this might be the closest he’s ever felt to truly terrified.

“Ooh, dramatic,” you whisper, but regardless of your laissez-faire attitude, his heart is positively pounding as he watches the figures of robed Force sensitives slowly file out onto the stage, and everything inside him lurches at the realization that—

They’re all wearing blue.  Every single one of them is clothed in fabric that matches his current attire, the one that made him feel like a blot on the landscape the entire dinner and subsequent mass pilgrimage to the arena.  A bright splash of color in the midst of an almost inescapably giant ring of black.

You’ve stopped talking.  Truly, he has no idea if that’s a good or bad thing, not right now.  The Force sensitives join hands and create a ring in the center of the stage while every single person in the arena sits in perfect silence, and Obi-Wan feels dizzy.  He’s not getting enough air right now, but he doesn’t even want to breathe too loudly and somehow draw even more attention to himself.

Two of the blue robes break off from their fellow acolytes and meet in the middle of the circle, and to simply avoid having a heart attack, Obi-Wan very purposefully chooses to ignore—like he’s done multiple times this evening—the subtle flicker of curiosity he experiences at the significance of the color blue and what it symbolizes to the s’Ziscari.  He can’t even bear to watch the way the two of them slowly lean in and allow their lips to touch from under their hoods.

Maker, if he turned his saber on and stabbed himself with it, could he convince you it was an accident?  Probably not—no, definitely not, what a stupid thought to have—

“How does she wipe?”  He hears your voice whisper, and Obi-Wan’s facial expression immediately screws up in confusion.

He turns to you, his tone equally hushed but the bewilderment sharpening his consonants.  “How does who what—?”

Only—you’re not even looking at the scene unfolding in front of you.  Your expression is just as confused as his is, but instead of looking down, your chin is lifted and you’re staring directly across the arena at the viewing booth opposite to yours.  He still has no idea what you’re talking about though, not until he follows your line of sight and sees the way s’Zerthia has her jaw propped up in her hands on her throne, looking bored as usual, and how the length of her newly manicured fingernails curves halfway up her scalp from this angle.

“That’s dangerous,” you remark quietly.  “They’re like talons.  Gaudy little weapons she always has attached to her that she decorates, makes them seem less vicious than they actually are.  I see them.  I certainly don’t envy whoever she picks tonight to—”

You cut yourself off with a bit lip smile and turn your face away from him, and Obi-Wan is almost mystified by how casual you’re able to be about this. 

“Whomever she picks to…?”  He trails off with a sigh.  “Do I… Do I want to know?”

“Never mind,” you tell him quickly, lifting your chin once more while still clearly trying not to laugh.  You’re trying not to laugh, while… while that is happening in the center of the audience.  “It was, uh… tasteless.”

He blinks, wondering what that could possibly mean.  Everything about this is tasteless, the entire thing is just an absolute nightmare coming to life.

Though, after a moment of silence, Obi-Wan soon realizes he much prefers it when you fill the void.

“Members of the Royal Court take turns doing it for her,” he eventually replies, decidedly looking anywhere but where the man is slipping the blue robe from the woman’s body.  It takes you a second to register to what exactly he’s referring, but when you finally do, you snort.  It’s too loud.  A few heads closest to your isolated seats turn as Obi-Wan very quickly thrusts his elbow into your ribs.  “Quit being disrespectful,” he hisses under his breath.

“You just—!”  You quickly clamp your mouth shut and face forward again, trying not to smile in an appalled sort of way.  But then—“Oh,” you blurt, not loud enough for anyone else to hear in this open setting but still loud enough for him to glance around and be slightly anxious about it.  “Oh.  Wow.  I wasn’t… expecting…”

Obi-Wan’s eyes automatically flick down to the couple, only just long enough to catch a quick glimpse of stark nudity in the center of the arena before his gaze immediately bounces back up again and focuses on the incredibly interesting steel beam currently propping up the Queen’s viewing box, clearing his throat.  “I… did warn you.”

“Well, yeah, I expected them to…”  Your hushed voice trails off and you stay quiet for too long, too long to imply you’re still formulating an end to your thought.  You’re distracted by something, but then you appear to snap back to your senses and immediately clear your throat.  “I just wasn’t expecting… the, uh.  The… positioning.”

He says nothing in response.  It… it doesn’t give him great comfort, wondering how you could possibly know enough about this type of profanity to have expected a different sort of positioning.  The stark contrast between the color of his ceremonial robes and yours still remains completely unspoken, but it quietly pulls at the back of his mind nonetheless.

“What about it?”  Obi-Wan immediately hears himself prompt and oh, no, this is completely inappropriate.  Not only should he not be encouraging this kind of talk with you, but he also shouldn’t feel so… so negative, not about something so personal to you and something that’s certainly none of his business.  Regardless, he… still has this buried, unexplainable desire to know the truth about it.  Regardless of the indirect way he’s attempting to go about it, he wants to know the truth about whether or not you broke your oath, and while he recognizes it’s completely improper of him, the urge is still strong enough to manifest itself using his vocal cords.

“Oh, I don’t know, it’s just…  It’s…”  He doesn’t even have a visual reference for what you’re attempting to find the words to describe.  He doesn’t want to.  He just wants to know what you think about it.  “…Bold,” you finally settle on.

Bold.  It’s bold.  Perhaps Obi-Wan wouldn’t be analyzing your verbal responses so closely if he had something more interesting to look at besides the general coliseum-like structure of the large outdoor stadium, but there’s a certain horizon he just won’t let his eyes dip below right now and unfortunately for him, being so high up above the crowd, the upper hemisphere of his visual field remains relatively dull.

“Who would've thought,” he eventually sighs, blinking up at the star-splattered sky now and attempting to see if he can use the Force to break off a piece of a satellite and have it impale him in a tragic accident.  “Considering the s’Ziscari are such a conservative bunch.”

His eyes soon wander back to s’Zerthia, and—Obi-Wan startles to find her staring directly at him with a thin eyebrow dangerously quirked.  She motions two long fingers in a V shape at her eyes and then points down towards the stage, her expression expectant and waiting.

Obi-Wan’s teeth hurt at how hard he clenches them together, his jaw flexing but the thick blanket of his beard doing well to conceal it.  She’s playing with him, he realizes; he can see the hidden smile on her lips all the way from here.

Maker, maybe she’s right.  Maybe he’s—maybe he’s being ridiculous about this.  This is fine.  This is fine.  His stomach feels like it’s all his food might come up at any second, but he’ll do it, he’ll look.  He can at least just look, right?

His gaze slowly begins lowering, trying to take in just a few things at a time so as not to overstimulate himself.  Thousands of s’Ziscari lining the seats of the arena, almost every single one of them dressed in black.  Lower still—the platform leading up to the stage.  A perimeter of blue figures now sitting down in a circle and then, at its center, a… a naked man and woman.

Obi-Wan’s heart pounds as he struggles to comprehend the sight, never having laid eyes on a nude woman before.  She’s on her elbows and knees, forehead lowered and resting against the floor, and the man kneels behind her, one hand holding her hips and the other wrapping around his—

Stars, Obi-Wan wants to end it all.  Right here.  His aim will be true.

But then… oh, no, he’s an idiot.  He’s a complete dullard, because he forgot.  Consumed by his own sheer anxiety and unease, Obi-Wan stupidly forgot an extremely crucial detail of the incredibly little he’s been told about the Sh’inzith.

—the projecting.

All at once, he’s nearly knocked over by the strength of the two Force sensitives at the center of the arena as they deliberately cast their minds out across the entire audience, presenting every sensation and fleeting thought they’re experiencing in all its intensity.  Obi-Wan immediately works to reinforce his mental shields as soon as he feels the shockwave about to hit, but there’s thousands of Force sensitives present—all of them congregated into one relatively small area, all of them tuning into the same two signatures and then suddenly… amplifying them back until it’s impossible for him to shut out.

“Oh, uh—” he just manages to hear you mutter through the whirlwind, just the slightest hint of panic in your voice peaking through the symphony of whispered thoughts and pulsing sensations coming from the stage, “—that isn’t good—”

Obi-Wan abruptly stumbles backwards and gasps at the awful, wretched feeling of something brunt pressing up hard against somewhere elusive, somewhere he’s never felt before towards the lower part of his body, and his mind fights viciously against it as he feels you spin around and reach out for his rapidly retreating figure.

“Wait, no—it’s okay, M-Master, it’s okay, it’s—” your voice cuts off and your hands suddenly fist into the robes at his chest, your forehead dropping to his shoulder against the sharp sting just continuing to push and push and push, “—i-it’s okay, it’s oka—”

He trips over his feet in the chaos and falls back on complete instinct and you’re so tightly attached to him that you’re yanked forwards with the momentum, the two of you plunging to the ground in a clumsy heap of grunts and tangled limbs.  Obi-Wan immediately starts crawling backwards across the floor underneath you, still trying to escape the horrible, inescapable sensation digging into a part of his body that doesn’t seem to exist, but it’s like you’re of the same mind—you’re scrambling forwards in the same direction trying to get away from the same thing, frantically attempting to calm him and simultaneously deal with the agony yourself, and then suddenly—

Oh—oh, Maker—

Suddenly something gives and surges in, and then Obi-Wan gasps—his elbows buckling under him and as the both of you drop down onto the floor because stars, it’s nearly blinding with impression.  Not only the aching, hard fullness stretching sharp and deep somewhere in his lower abdomen—but now a new sensation.  A tight, wet silk he feels swallowing him between his legs, concentrated on a part of his body that… does exist, a body part that’s currently pressed up right between your spread thighs.

“Fuck,” you moan hot against his throat, trying to find somewhere to brace yourself next to his shoulders and push yourself up off him, and he tries—Maker, he tries so hard not to, but his hands shoot out to grab your hips before he even knows what he’s doing and then he’s dragging his lower body up into yours on instinct alone, clamping his eyes shut and groaning out a desperate sound he’s never heard himself make before as his head drops against the floor.

It’s staggering.  It hurts.  He can't even hear your muffled noises anymore, not over the roaring encompassing his mind and body.  All he knows is that your hips quickly jerk back and grind down into his in response, sending Obi-Wan reeling while you bury your twisted cry of pleasure and pain into his neck.

The sound of it breaks through everything else.

Obi-Wan’s hands shake violently as they suddenly release you and then frantically shove at your shoulders, trying to push you off without hurting you.  He can’t think, he can’t see, he needs to leave—

“Get away,” he rasps desperately up at the sky, blinking his eyes wide but somehow not seeing anything in front of him but blackness.  “St-stars, get away from me—”

Suddenly you’re flipping off his body and onto your back next to him, too quick for it to be a mechanical movement alone, and he doesn’t even have the space in his mind nor the processing capacity to figure out if he Force pushed you off him or if it was you who did it to yourself.  He just clambers to his feet and stumbles away in a terrified, graceless retreat, bent in half, limping and gasping and fighting for every step he takes.

***

Your Master was right to leave as soon as possible, you think.  You were wrong to linger here for just a second to try and gain your bearings, because the more you work to grasp and attempt to organize them, the more mindless and disorienting they become.

You eventually have to heave over and drag yourself after him.

The further away you get from the arena, the easier it becomes to block the projection, but Maker, it’s exhausting.  You’re resigned to start out with a crawl—one of those Jedi Core crawls you haven’t had to do since the Academy but this one exponentially slower, forehead dropped down and eyes closed, just focusing on alternating shifting your elbows and your knees forwards and dedicating the rest of your mental energy to just isolating your mind from the debilitating assault.

Consulars don’t usually see much of war—you tend to do absolutely everything in your power to avoid it.  It’s the Guardians who experience the horrors of combat most often, who deal with ambushes and onslaughts from enemies of the Republic.  But Maker above, every merciless thrust into that poor little virgin at the center of the arena is like a blaster shooting directly at you, but then couple it with the thousands of reflections and ricochets in robes lining the bleachers?  You’re in the trenches of a deadly battle you had no idea was even about to break out and you have no weapon of defense besides retreat.

When you finally get far enough away to be able to push yourself upright as much as possible and continue staggering back to the palace on two feet, you have no concept for how long it’s been.  You can still feel the projection vibrating and clawing sharply at the edges of your consciousness, but at least the majority of your thoughts are your own now, and it gradually becomes easier and easier to focus and speed up to a clumsy run.

Though, no matter how successful you eventually are at muffling the vibrant sensations and thoughts of the two Force sensitives behind you—when they cum, you stumble down to your knees again and have to bite the back of your fist to keep from screaming.

Maker, it takes you a minute to recover.  You don’t even cum, you just feel it—the burst of energy from the Force in every direction, the violent explosion from the stadium that feels like it should fracture the ground beneath you.

You’re able to get up after a moment, if only because they decide to take mercy and finally cut off the projection.  You know that it’s a temporary relief, that they’ll likely be at this all night, but you hope the palace will be far enough away from the arena to block out the sensations completely.  You wonder if Master Kenobi felt that through the Force or whether he was too determined to block it out that he was able to simply ignore the nuclear missile that just detonated less than a few miles away from him.

You force yourself forwards and you want to hurry, you do—but strangely, in your wild state of exhaustion, stark reality is almost as debilitating as swimming through that endless madness was.  It’s quiet around you but the noise of still air pulses deafeningly in your eardrums after breaking free from such a thick mental filter separating you from your surroundings.  You still have your lightsaber clutched in your hand, Maker rejoice, and your thin robes are skewed awkwardly across your body, but you eventually find your way to the doors of the palace.

Though, trying to navigate the empty halls back to your Master’s chambers takes you longer than it should.  His signature is cloaked spectacularly, concealed to a mere speck you wouldn’t even know was there if you weren’t so closely acquainted with it for more than a decade.  You follow the flickering pixel of blue light through the obstacle ridden darkness, adjusting the front of your robes with one trembling hand while you wipe your brow with the other, closing your eyes and doing your best to take deep breaths.  He’ll be spiraling right now.  He’ll need a boulder to cling to in this tsunami, solid ground to stand on while the stars are falling out of the sky.

You… find him in your quarters instead.

The door is open and his handsome profile is to you, the thick fabric stretching over his broad shoulders now an agreeable light cream, familiar and telling of his intentions.  His hands are moving.  Setting something down on your bed—your robes, you soon realize.  He’s laying out your Jedi robes neatly for you across the fur blanketing the large mattress.

Master Kenobi begins speaking as soon as you step foot into the room, the tone of his voice very clearly impatient after having waited for you for so long.

“Change out of those ridiculous garments,” he tells you hastily, neatly laying out your leather belt across your dark tunic without even turning his head to look at you properly.  “We must leave.  Quickly.  Also—tell me you didn’t forget your saber at the arena, because if so, I’m afraid it’s lost to us forever now.  Ilum is only three days from here, perhaps we can stop there on the way back to Coruscant to find you another kyber cryst—”

You drop the hilt of your lightsaber on the floor and step forward, cautiously reaching out for his figure as he continues to ramble.  “Master, I—”

Your hand is thrown to the side with a subtle flick of his wrist and you instantly jerk to an abrupt halt, holding your palms out in front of you and keeping completely still while he spins around, his jaw slack and staring at you wide-eyed.  He takes a few steps away from you in shock.

“I’m sorry—” he immediately gasps, reaching out towards you even though the rest of his body is still desperately evading yours.  “Stars, I’m so sorry—that was just… That was excruciating, young one.  Why would anyone ever willingly—?”

“It—it doesn’t always—” you cut yourself off just in time, clamping your jaw shut before you can finish your sentence.

“We must leave,” he says once more as he turns back to your mattress, not appearing to hear you at all and shaking his head, far too frantic to sound like he’s just reminding you alone.  “We can’t do that.  I can’t do that—”

“It doesn’t always have to be—”  Maker, what is wrong with you?  Your heart kicks up in your chest and somehow stutters to a halt at the same time.  It’s the lingering effects of the assault your mind just experienced coupled with your desperate urge to console him that’s making you so utterly careless, you realize, it’s making your tongue loose.

“Stars, what do you mean?”  Master Kenobi finally snaps, and your blood runs ice cold.  “How do you know that?”

It takes the sum of all your years of training to keep the raging hurricane of emotion from showing in any capacity.  You feel like he’s holding his saber to your neck with how dangerously little you’re even allowing yourself to breathe right now, how utterly and completely still you’re holding yourself in front of him.

Lie, a little voice in your mind supplies quietly, the little voice you keep locked inside an impenetrable box of everything you are but have never been allowed to confront, haven’t been allowed to openly think just in case someone is listening too closely.  Lie.  Lie, right now.  Your silence is giving you away.

Only—you can’t.  You shouldn’t.  It’s not fair to keep this from him, not when you’re asking him to do something so structurally compromising to his belief system.  If… if you tell him the truth, perhaps he won’t judge you too harshly.  Perhaps he’ll feel… reassured, knowing he’s certainly not the first Jedi to break a sacred vow when he felt times were desperate enough.

Besides.  This might be the only secret that could potentially get you kicked out of the Order, but… it still isn’t your worst one.

“Because.”  The word is out of your mouth before you can rethink it, barely above a whisper.  “I… know.”

He doesn’t respond, and no.

No, you were wrong.  You were wrong to tell him the truth, and the look on his face immediately shoots panic through your whole body.

He doesn’t look reassured.

He looks… alienated.

“‘It doesn’t always?’”  Your Master eventually repeats back to you, and fuck—the implication is instantly clear.  The implication is made so clear from the sharpness in his tone, the hard edge to it as he rounds out the vowels in the last word that makes your heart twist and throb in your ribcage.  He might as well have just asked you how many times you must’ve violated your code of honor to know the difference.

“It’s not.”  You clear your throat and flick your gaze up to the ceiling, feeling like he’s using the Force to squeeze your chest in on itself.  “That was the absolute worst possible sensation that can be felt during… It’s—it’s not like that.  It won’t… be like that.  Not.”  Are there tears coming to your eyes?  “Not… with me.”

Utter quiet.  So quiet that if you really concentrate, you can hear the distant sounds of the arena continuing on with the Ritual without you.  You bite hard at your lip and wait for him to say something, anything.  Yell at you, tell you how disgusted he is, banish you from the Order.

Instead, Master Kenobi quite suddenly… deflates.  He sighs—not a heavy, exhausted one, but a soft one.  A quiet, accepting sort of sound.

He slowly lowers himself to the edge of the mattress and closes his eyes, running both hands through his hair, and it’s just enough to give you pause.  You glance over at him, trying not to let tears fall beyond the plateau of your lower lids with the frantic downward movement of your eyes, and you’re only just barely successful at it.

“It’s alright,” he says gently.  “It’s… it’s alright, young one.  I… suppose I am in no place to judge.  Quite… quite literally,” he murmurs, gesturing to the space around him with a lazy wave of his hand.  Maker, his figure is too watery and unfocused to make out his facial expressions, but you don’t want to blink to clear your vision just in case a sudden downpour escapes.  “It’s none of my business and I shouldn’t have asked.  You’re… not my Padawan anymore.  I should have no reason to… even care at all, really.”

There’s something that feels… major in that, something monumental yet incredibly well hidden, but you’re still too full of blind panic to interpret it further.  Your breathing is shaky and you wonder, quite stupidly and not for the first time in your life, if it’s somehow possible to use the Force to evaporate the water in your eyes before it turns into tears.

“I am certain it took place in your younger years, a long time ago,” he continues calmly when you don’t immediately say anything.  “You did always have a… a rather unconventional relationship with the rules.” 

Your only response is a quick jerk of a nod.  Yes.

“Yes,” you immediately agree, hoping your tone sounds convincing enough through the lingering tremors.  “It was… a long time ago.  I’ve changed, since then.  Grown up in many ways.”

It’s his turn to nod, and you manage to calm down just slightly.  You’re still breathing too hard and you’re a bit too braced, too much of a stance to truly feel like relief, but your heart rate is beginning to settle back into a somewhat acceptable rhythm.

Master Kenobi looks over at you, and he says absolutely nothing about the traces of water still glistening along your eyelashes.  He just smiles softly and pats the space next to him.

You cautiously make your way over to him after a moment, feeling more unsure now than you’ve felt this entire mission.  You leave at least a half a foot of space separating the two of you once you carefully sit yourself down on the mattress, and you can’t even look in his general direction.  You just focus on the long, draping sleeves of your black robe as you look down at your hands and wait for him to speak first.

“Sometimes,” he eventually sighs.  “Sometimes I… feel like you’re the person I know best in the entire galaxy, you know.  I’ve… I’ve known you far longer than I ever knew my own Master, young one.  I picked you out of thousands, and I’d do it thousands of times again.  Sometimes—especially since the day of your accolade and subsequent absence, I feel like I can know exactly what you’re thinking, even from across an entire star system.  And yet somehow, you… always surprise me.  Even after all these years, I am just.  Consistently surprised by you.”

You don’t know how to take that.  You just sit there in a guilty silence, still unable to turn your head or offer any sort of response.

“I chose you as a Padawan because you surprised me, you know,” he reminds you quietly.  “I had certain expectations for you, and you did not meet those expectations.  Instead, you presented an alternative I’d never before considered, an alternative that forced me to reevaluate you—and by extension, myself—far beyond what I had previously.  That is not a bad thing.  It has never been a bad thing.  As is made blatantly obvious by the fact that I’m the one currently standing in the way of saving lives, and you’re…not.”

Maker, this is thin ice.  You don’t know what to say that’ll express hesitant agreement with his sentiment without making it sound like you’re not apologetic for breaking your oath.  You’re… well, you’re not, not really.  His response itself is causing you to feel far more turmoil than any legitimate regret for your actions.

“It was—” On instinct, you almost say it was a mistake regardless of the conflicts you’re just so happening to encounter on this mission, but something stops you.  You suddenly remember your place here, your goal.  To save the galaxy from the Separatists’ reign.  And, by extension… sleep with your Master.  You can’t call it a mistake if you’re going to ultimately try to convince him to do the same thing.  So instead, you scramble to finish your sentence with a different thought, knowing his full attention is pinned to you right now.  “…A long time ago,” is all your exhausted mind is able to come up with.

“Yes,” he gives you a small, companionable smile.  “It’s alright.  Your prior lapse—or, well… lapses in judgement… will forever be safe with me.”

And still, you don’t feel relief.  Not when Master Kenobi very quickly appears to look uncertain.

“I… apologize,” he offers after a moment, “if.  If I ever made you feel like… like you could not confide in me about any struggles or… or urges you may have been experienc—”

“Maker,” you suddenly interrupt with a frantic wave of your hands, everything cringing inside you, “Maker, we don’t have to do this.  None of it, it’s okay.  Know what?  Let’s just go home—screw the galaxy, I don’t care, just stop talking.”

He snaps his eyes over to you, a sudden bark of laughter escaping him before the rest of his face even seems to register something was funny.

It evolves.  Eventually he’s covering his face and stifling ridiculous little snorts behind his hands, trying to apologize in between the chuckles but laughing even harder.  It’s almost like… just a form of pure stress relief for him.  So far beyond traumatized that it’s revealing itself in a slightly hysterical way, even if what you said wasn’t hysterical at all.

“Now you have a mere glimpse into what my experience has been like today,” he finally tells you with a sparkling grin once he composes himself, lifting his chin as he looks at you and scratching his beard with a quiet flicking sound.  “Shall I keep going?  If this mission has taught me anything, it’s that no matter what, things can always get worse.”

“They don’t have to.”  You say it without thinking, the gentle reprieve caused by his laughter flowing through you in waves and making you throw caution to the wind.  The four words serve to shut him up quite quickly however, even though it was the opposite of your intent, and your smile drops.  Maker, just freely conversing with him about these things is navigating a minefield for his mental state.

“You… you say that, and yet even—” Master Kenobi eventually responds, cutting himself off with a cough.  “Even the things I’ve heard are meant to feel… pleasant, were just.”  He shakes his head and blinks his crystal blue eyes over at you.  “By all accounts.  Agony.”

“I know,” you nod.  “I know.  Projecting that specific situation was… sadistic of them.  A distortion of the truth.  Probably rooted in deep tradition, but also a great scare tactic if I ever saw one, playing with us by presenting the absolute worst of it before anything else.  It won’t hurt.  At all.  I promise.  In fact—I-I can make it feel—”

Maker, you don’t even finish your sentence, but you must think the general idea loud enough for him to understand.  You don’t actually have a specific word in mind—good, great, amazing, euphoric?—and yet, something quiet settles over you two at the silent implication, the mere whisper of the possibility of you pleasuring him.

And him… allowing it.

“Master, I—”

“Don’t,” he quickly tells you.  “Don’t call—You don’t have to… call me that.  Just for right now, it’s.  I don’t—” he takes a breath that sounds shakier than it looks, and then he paints an easy, fake smile on his face following the exhale.  You recognize that smile anywhere, though.  While you’ve never seen him wear it before, it’s the smile that politicians make when they’re about to present a lesser truth to you, a smile shown to you in negotiations all the time that signifies something… hidden.  He’s hiding something, something important, and you have no idea what it could possibly be.  “I don’t feel like I even deserve to be called that right now, young one.  Perhaps you should be the Master, and I the learner.”

“Ah yes, the circle is now complete,” you can’t help but jest in return, wanting to keep the tone light even though the subject matter is heavy.  “Is now when we trade lightsabers?”

“Indeed,” he smiles, this time more sincere, and… you can’t pinpoint when exactly it happened, but it appears you’re physically closer to each other now than you were when you first sat down.

“Do they, uh… actually expect us to…”  You clear your throat and wave a hand around, “…Project the entire time like that?”

Master Kenobi quickly shakes his head.  “No.  s’Zer—Queen s’Zerthia informed me that.  Ah.  For us, projection will only be necessary during the… well, she called it the ‘closing ceremonies.’”

Your eyebrows shoot up and you nod.  “I… see.”

It’s like you can physically feel his body start to break out into a cold sweat next to you at the sudden… realness of it all, the realization that it has to be getting late.  Close to midnight, if you’re not already pushing it.  It’s come time to make a final decision, you both know it.  You want to console him, offer him some kind of solace or reprieve, but stars, you just don’t know how, not when you’re this much of a mess about this, too, but for entirely different reasons.  You don’t have a single clue how to make him feel better about any of this.

“I just,” you rush before you lose the nerve, “I want you to know that—e-even if you feel like you’re somehow alone in this, you’re not.  Okay?  I’m… I’m really nervous, too.  I don’t… I don’t actually know what to do at all right now.  I don’t know whether to respect your apprehension or tell you it’s unfounded.  I don’t know if I should remind you what’s at stake here or whether I should avoid mentioning it at all costs.  I have no idea what position I should take, but I’ll—I’ll take whichever one you want me to.”

And it’s odd, because when you first launched into your confession, Master Kenobi gradually began to look more and more relieved, but at a certain point, something just goes horribly wrong.  You don’t know what you said, but whatever it was, it seems to rocket through your Master and suddenly his breathing stutters.

For a moment, you think he’s going to reach back, yank your neatly folded Jedi robes up from the mattress and push the dark fabric into your hands.  Tell you he’ll meet you at the docking bay posthaste, tell you not to linger, tell you that the mission was a failure.  But then—

“Before,” he suddenly says, the word almost startling you with how abrupt it comes out sounding.  Almost like he wasn’t quite expecting himself to say it either.  “Earlier today, you asked… you asked if there was anything you could do to… make this easier.”

“Yes,” you prompt immediately.  He won’t look at you, and for some reason your heart begins beating faster and the inside of your thighs are getting warm.

“I… I’m not sure I’ll be able to go through with this,” he admits with a whisper, his voice sounding so quietly reluctant, like he doesn’t want to say the words aloud but is forcing himself to.  “But… the Council put you in charge of negotiations.”

Your eyebrows furrow, trying to understand his implication.  What does that have to do with anything?  Is he saying that you’re supposed to be in charge, and therefore he’s defaulting to you?  “I’m not sure I—”

“The Galactic Republic…”  Master Kenobi enunciates very, very pointedly, still unable to look at you, “…put you in charge of negotiations.”

Specifying—or in this case, generalizing—doesn’t help much.  “I’m still not—”

“Maker, for—for the good of the Republic, young one,” he presses under his breath and finally flicks his gaze up to meet yours, sounding urgent and torn in equal parts.  “Negotiate.”

Stars, negotiate with who?  With—with him?  For the good of the…?  Is he asking you to somehow reason with him beyond what you’ve attempted to do already, or persuade him to do what’s right for—?

Maker—Master Kenobi is asking you to seduce him.

Shock paints your expression blank and his eyes instantly evade yours once more.  You have to sit there for just a second and double-check that you’re not dreaming.  None of this seems real.  All of it seems like an incredibly elaborate illusion of the Force, ever since you first laid eyes on him at the start of this mission.  You know you missed him but stars, did you truly miss him this terribly?  Your longing must rival something fierce to unconsciously conjure this wild of a scenario.  Is he actually here right now?  Have you been speaking to a ghost?  Are you actually here right now?  Are you going to wake up any second and remember he’s thousands of lightyears away and has been for years, risking his life on the front lines of galactic war while you’re left to play politics and negotiate treaties behind the scenes?

These thoughts aren’t safe to have in normal interactions with him, but nothing about this situation is normal, and while you know Master Kenobi has years of experience reading your signature, he most likely won’t be able to gauge the specific details of your thoughts when you can sense how intensely he’s focused on guarding his own chaotic mind from you.

So you let yourself think.  If only for a second, you sit next to him and allow yourself to just… think about him.  About how much you care for him, how desperately you ache for him—you let all these improper longings finally have their moment with you.  You let yourself confront it, crack the lid of the hidden box tucked away behind your consciousness and brave it, because if there was ever a moment to do so, it’s right now.

Your heart starts slamming up against your ribcage and your hands feel like they’re tingling.  He wants you to convince him to have sex with you.  He’s asking you to corrupt him.  He wants you to negotiate the galaxy’s survival with the last man standing in the way of its prosperity—a good man with strong, immovable morals, a man who understands the consequences that follow integrity around and won’t be easy to tempt.

“This was a bad idea,” suddenly comes Master Kenobi’s voice, quickly backpedaling after too long of a silence.  “I shouldn’t have said that.  Forget I said that, we should just g—”

“Would you like to meditate?”  You immediately ask him on a complete whim, shuffling back towards the middle of the mattress for the second time today.  You’re careful to make sure he doesn’t see you carelessly flick your neat robes to the floor with the Force, clearing the top of the large mattress.  “Let’s meditate.”

“Stars,” he breathes, shyly his head turning to follow you, “I’d love nothing more, but there truly just isn’t any time—”

You find it easier than you thought it’d be to pull a playful face at him, crossing your legs and straightening your spine.  “Please, you’re a Guardian.  You blue sabers practically invented battle meditation, did you not?”

He looks skeptical for a moment, as he has a valid right to be.  “Is this a battle?”  He eventually asks over his shoulder.

You say nothing in response to that, instead using the Force with a flex of your finger to tug at the loose cream fabric of his robe at his elbow.  “Come on, it’ll do us good.”

He looks conflicted for a second, but then ultimately decides to humor you.  “Alright,” Master Kenobi finally agrees, turning around and crawling towards you on the mattress, and you’re just quick enough to stamp down a flicker of arousal at the mere sight of it.  “It won’t hurt.”

“Of course it won’t,” you agree with just a bit too much air in your voice, but he doesn’t seem to notice it.  He just seats himself directly in front of you, facing you, crossing his legs close enough to yours that your knees barely touch, and—

—Maker, he’s lovely.

You purposefully let yourself think it as his eyes slowly fall closed and he takes a deep breath, beginning to tame the wild tempest of his mind.  You let the word flitter around your thoughts without instantly repressing it like you always do, and just the mere act of allowing yourself to acknowledge the truth is freeing.  He’s lovely.  He’s lovely.  You could scream it.

Your eyes trail down the lines of his ever softening, tranquil expression, not even bothering to pretend to meditate for his benefit this time.  Your gaze roams shamelessly across his face, the way his hair is combed back away from it.  The sandy, masculine beard leading down to the thick column of his throat, the broad lines of his shoulders draped in pale fabric, the way his chest slowly moves as he breathes.  Lovely.  Lovely.

And then you go… lower.

His abdomen is stretched long with how upright he’s sitting, his flawless meditation posture.  His thighs are spread wide in this position, pants stretched tight into an elusive drum over his crotch and preventing you from truly seeing anything—but stars is it a thrill even just letting yourself look. 

Especially knowing that the more his mind works to compose itself, the easier it’ll be for him to hear you.

You keep thinking, growing bolder the more you’re left alone with this box wide open.  You think about how lithe and strong his body is, how it would feel under your hands.  You think about all the different things you want to show him, all the… the mind shattering pleasure you can give him if he’ll allow y—

Master Kenobi says your name without opening his eyes.

It doesn’t sound the way you expect, though you don’t really know what you expected it to sound like.  A sharp, frustrated bark?  An exasperated, pleading attempt to get you to stop?

No—none of those.  It’s a quiet, low growl of a sound, and the clear warning in it absolutely burns a hole through you like he picked up his lightsaber and used it instead.

You take practiced breaths, trying to calm yourself down.  Stars, he just said your name, he’s said it so many times before, and yet hearing it in his mouth with that tone in this context feels like he just strapped rockets to your ankles and told you to stay put.  You’re impatient.  You’re turning yourself on, working yourself up, trying to get to where you can actually make a move on him after dedicating so many years to desperately repressing the longing to do so.  Once he told you to negotiate this deal with him, however, it’s as if every ounce of the impeccable self control you’ve practiced so spectacularly throughout most of your life slowly started to unravel.

Reaching out tentatively so as not to startle him, you wrap both of your palms around the bend of his knees and squeeze gently.  Master Kenobi displays no physical signs of—well, anything really, keeping his body completely rigid under your hands with no noticeable alterations in his breathing pattern.  Biting your lip, you begin to slowly rotate your thumbs, making sure to keep your movements slow and perfectly symmetrical.  Complete relaxation is your ultimate goal here—coaxing your Master into a serene state where physical contact is desired, not obligatory.  He's so uncomfortable with the concept of intimacy in and of itself though, from the way his eyebrows start to furrow and his spine begins gradually tilting back and away from you, it's almost as if your ministrations are dampening rather than fueling.

“Relax,” you murmur, and stars, even though you make it sound quiet and gentle, it’s like the melodic lull of your voice appears to startle him more than if you’d just spoken normally.  Maker—it’s counterintuitive; how are you supposed to turn someone on when the mere state of being turned on turns them off?  “Relax with me, it’s okay—”

“But I just can't, young one,” he suddenly implores, his voice pressed up tight in his throat, his cerulean eyes popping open in frustration and something else—an honest, heartfelt emotion that's strikingly less familiar to you, even after years spent by his side: deep, hot, stomach-wrenching guilt.  You watch your Master’s palms run the length of his thighs; back and forth, back and forth—almost like a nervous tick, you think—and it’s oddly endearing, if not increasingly concerning.  “I just can't, this is all so wrong.  Don't you understand?  E-Even if the Council did provide a—well, a rather admittedly ineluctable blessing for this downright ludicrous endeavor, i-it’s… I don't…”  He takes a deep breath, and visually, it looks like he's attempting to collect his thoughts and composure, but you know your Master all too well.  You know what he's really doing, and at this point, it's almost… frustrating.

“What are you so afraid of?”  You clutch his knees and whisper quietly, interrupting him before he can verbalize whatever perfectly logical reason he's trying to formulate as to why you both should leave the planet immediately, what he's going to say to the Council if they ever inquire as to why negotiations ultimately failed.  He jerks his head up sharply to look at you.

“The Jedi fear nothing,” is his automatic response, though his previously intense gaze strays slightly from yours after a second of too much eye contact.  “Fear is the path to the Dark Side, you know this.”

“And yet you are afraid,” you remark calmly, studying the way he’s turned his face away from you completely now, how you can still see his jaw clench under the thick beard with his profile shown to you like this.  “I—I’m trying to understand, Master, but I—I don’t.  Even if this mission were half as important as it is, your loyalty to the Order would follow you right into an early grave.  But this?”  You remove a palm from his knee to gesture between the two of you, the mattress beneath the both of you, “fulfilling this mission and these terms to save the entire galaxy is too ‘downright ludicrous’ for the Great Negotiator?  I don’t believe it.  Tell me what you’re really afraid of.”

Only, he’s suddenly moving—away from you.  Turning and planting his palms to fur, beginning to climb to the edge of the bed and sweep his legs around under him, and your voice has an unintentional edge to it when you address his back.

“Do you know how many lives over I owe you?”  You ask, and he jerks to an abrupt halt, feet just shy of stepping on the floor.  “Do you have any idea the stockpile of mortal gratitude you’ve amassed from me?  How many times you’ve risked your death to save me from mine over the years—can you count them?  I have.  I know my debt to you, I know the weight of my life piled on top of itself over and over again.  I remember each and every one of them like they happened yesterday, and not once did you hesitate even slightly, let alone the way you’ve hesitated today.”

”And?”  Master Kenobi quite suddenly snaps over his shoulder as he grips the edge of the mattress, sounding sharp but not necessarily directed towards you.  “What is your point?”

“My point is that if you’d so readily trade your death time and time again to prevent that of even one other person, let alone a difficult Padawan who caused the Order nothing but grief for years, then what is it that makes the deaths of trillions—” you nearly say preferable to bedding me before you realize how incredibly harsh that would sound, but something about the way he seems to tense his shoulders and curl inwards implies he was following the general cadence of your agitated signature more than the specific content of your words.

He says absolutely nothing, but he doesn’t move to drop his feet to the floor, either.  If only you could punch a proverbial hole through his practically indestructible mental barriers, you'd see the real reason he's so flustered, why he's purposely attempting to deceive you.  Unfortunately for you though, they feel like they're made of triple-reinforced beskar, a countermeasure gradually increasing in strength the more you try to probe.

But then—all at once, something clicks.  Something… fundamental.  An understanding. 

Your Master is a gifted negotiator, yes.  But more than that.

He wields a blue saber.  Not a green one.

He’s a Guardian.  A warrior.  He fights.  It’s something that has never truly been part of your nature, no matter how much you struggled with it over the years—but it is a part of his, no matter how exceptionally he’s been able to mask it for even longer.

So, all at once, you stop pushing.  Your signature abruptly pulls away from him, gives him room to breathe and simply hovers within your own personal space, unassuming and careful not to disturb him.  You see your Master lift his chin and straighten his spine slightly, immediately noticing your absence and the constant pressure you’d been applying, and you honestly can’t tell if he relaxes or tenses up even more because of it.

Finally, when you feel like it’s been long enough, you slowly reach out and gently place your hand on his arm.  This time, there’s no underlying motivation attached, no inherent desire for him to fulfill any sort of obligation.  Just a warm, companionable gesture to reinforce the simple knowledge that you’re both in this together, for better or worse.

Please tell me, Obi-Wan, you quietly whisper to him through the Force, allowing your tone and energy to transfer through your open palm and into his troubled spirit as softly and gently as you possibly can—a caress more than anything even close to a sentence or inquiry.  Your usage of his first name is entirely unprecedented however, and your Master sucks in a sharp breath in response.

I don't… But then the subconscious, half-formed thought fades away almost as quickly as it’s offered to you from behind the solid, unyielding fortress of his mind.  “W-what are you doing?”

You bite your lip, wondering how honest you should be with him right now.  Though, you suppose, if you truly want him to confide in you, you should at least meet him halfway.

“You’re the locked door,” you finally settle on.  “This is me knocking.”

Obi-Wan turns around and blinks at you, looking for all the stars in this galaxy like that was quite possibly the last thing he expected you to say.  You can see the frantic thoughts pass through his eyes almost as if the clear blue was completely transparent, likely remembering all the times you’ve leaned on him for guidance, listened intently and learned from his wisdom and experience.  And now you’re a fully grown woman patiently offering him your ear, wondering if you’ve earned enough of his trust for him to do the same.

“I’m afraid I’ll form an attachment to you.”  The words tumble from his mouth even though his body all but whips away from you in the process.  “It’s unreasonable for the Council to expect this from me.  From us.  I’m afraid our relationship will forever be tarnished from this, that neither of us will ever be able to go back to the way things were before.  I’m afraid that regardless of whatever decision I make, I won’t be able to carry the guilt on my conscience and continue to call myself a Jedi and Guardian of the Republic.  But mostly, I just—I-I—”

Your heart is pounding as Obi-Wan buries his face into his hands and his muffled voice groans raggedly, “—I’m afraid I’ll like it.  I’m afraid I’ll want it again, and again.  I’m afraid it’ll follow me back to Coruscant, that I’ll save the galaxy but spend the rest of my days aching for something I’ll never be able to keep, and that’s petrifying.  Desire, passion, selfishness, possession; all of them lead to Darkness, and I can—I can feel it right now.  Your soul is so gentle, so peaceful, and yet you… you inspire such Darkness in me, dove.”

Maker, you’re trying so hard.  So hard to keep your legs from clenching together at the utter desperation in his tone, how his breathing has picked up now that the words have ripped themselves out of his throat, like the whole thing was physical agony even just to say.  You have to take a second.  You’ve been so patient this entire time, but stars—this one makes you need a moment.  You’re so glad his eyes are clamped shut behind his fingers right now because yours lose focus trying to mask the absolutely debilitating wave of arousal that sinks down hot through your stomach.

Even when you regain the ability to speak, the ability to form a safe and proper response to the bombshell he just dropped on you completely evades you.

You purposefully don't say that you're already helplessly attached to him, that the colors of the galaxy somehow lost their brilliance the day you graduated to Knight, the day you left his side.  You don't say that you want this so badly you can feel it in your neck, that it would probably break you in half if he said no to this now.  Though it's the honest-to-Maker truth, you know discovering this information will only cause your Master to further distance himself from you, and somehow that thought alone is a million times worse than being denied the opportunity to be this close to him.  Even… even if what you end up sharing is more emotional than physical.

So you take a deep breath to center yourself, and choose your words very carefully.

“A compromise, then.”

Obi-Wan suddenly raises his head, turning around to look at you and blinking twice.  “A what?”

“You told me to negotiate.  What do we do as negotiators, hm?”  You raise an eyebrow, giving him a gentle smile and trying not to curl your fingers into the fur underneath you with how hard it is to conceal your burning arousal.  Do it for him.  Do it for your Master, you’re in l—you… care about him, and you care about the things he cares about, even if doing so feels like it’ll rip you apart.  “We compromise.  Yes?  So, let’s find one.”

He shakes his head.  “I don’t see h—”

“If you were to…”  You cut him off and look down, trying to find the most delicate way to phrase this.  “If you were to… find other means to bring yourself to completion, would you be able to convince anyone listening that I was the one doing it?”

Obi-Wan doesn’t even blink this time.  He just stares at you, holding himself like a statue in front of you.  Finally, he seems to find himself.  “I… I don’t—I don’t know if I can.”

“You’re stronger in the Force than anyone on this planet, Master,” you encourage softly, placing a hand back on his arm and squeezing this time.  “I’ve felt it.”

“N-No,” he practically hiccups.  “No, I mean I-I… I don’t know if… if I can.”

Your eyebrows narrow, a mixture of confusion and concern coloring your expression.  “If you can…?”

He looks back at you almost desperately, his eyes practically begging you to figure it out so he doesn’t have to say it.  Finally, Obi-Wan sighs, seeming to collapse in on himself with its intensity.  “I—I’ve never… purposefully reached completion before,” he admits.  “I’m—I’m not sure how to.”

Your eyes widen, wanting to kick yourself for making assumptions.  Of course.  Of course he’d follow his oath to its strictest interpretation, why would you ever think otherwise?  “Oh, y-yes, of course not,” you stutter, sounding incredibly stupid and perfectly mirroring the embarrassed flush also painting your Master’s cheeks, “I didn’t mean to imply—”

“It’s alright,” he holds up a hand.  “We simply… view such things differently.  So long as you do not pass judgment, then neither shall I.”

You nod and look down at your hands, wondering how else you can attempt to tackle this predicament.  “What if I…”  You blink slowly, almost wanting to keep your eyes closed in case he’s offended by the idea but figuring you should have them open to read his responses.  “What if I… don’t touch you?”

Now he just looks confused.  “I’m sorry?”

You blush and clear your throat, obviously phrasing this wrong.  “If you can modify the context of your projection, then I can… get you there.  Without touching you.”

“How could you accomplish such a thing without tou—” Obi-Wan immediately cuts himself off when you lift your hand and close your eyes.

His thigh.  The right one—you focus on it.  There.  Right above the bend of his knee folding over the edge of the mattress, you concentrate all the energy from your fingertips and reach out, connecting the two together.  And then you take a deep breath and begin to draw your attention slowly upwards.

Your Master’s breath catches in his throat as you use the Force to delicately trail further up his leg, not laying a single hand on him as his muscles start to visibly tighten and quiver.

“Young one, I—”  His breathing stutters when you keep your hand raised but let your head tilt and drop down towards your shoulder with your energy, slinking down the inside of his thigh like water and getting dangerously close to his— “Stars, hang on—”

You blink your eyes open at him and continue concentrating right there, letting your focus melt warm and thick along the muscle and squeeze it—

“Maker—”  Obi-Wan gasps and drops his head back, his legs nearly spasming apart.  “Maker, hang on, I…”

“Do you…” You breathe tightly, flicking your eyes down to the way he’s fisting the fur under his hands and subconsciously flexing his hips up just the slightest bit.  Even though the Force, his body feels good.  Strong, sturdy, and braced tight under your attention.  “Do you want me to keep doing this?  I can… go higher.”

“You can…?  The—the Force isn’t—” Obi-Wan groans, his eyes clamping shut, “—isn’t meant to be used in such… in such… If I’m to break my oath, young one, it needn’t be so… so blasphemous—”

Trying to conceal the hot sparks of arousal deep in your stomach, you simply allow your metaphysical hand to continue resting right at the juncture of his hip and thigh, waiting for a real answer.  You bite your lip and wait for him to tell you to either cut it out or to keep going.  He doesn’t even have to say it out loud if he doesn’t want to—he can just slide it under the impassable door still separating him from you, the door you’re eventually going to get him to unlock himself.

His back is to you, so you can only see a bit of his face from this angle, but you can hear him loud and clear when he opens his mouth and whispers to you, barely louder than a breath.  “Go higher.”

Adrenaline rockets through your veins and slowly, your fingers curl in thin air while your gentle energy wraps itself around his cock.

Both of Obi-Wan’s hands instantly fly up to his face and he releases a tight, longing whimper into his palms, and you feel almost as desperate as he sounds.  You can sense the ghost of his thickness in your hand, and the way he’s already throbbing for it is like pure spice to you.

You can’t stop your crossed legs from shuffling and rotating your body to face his hunched spine more directly, just taking a second and allowing him to adjust to the sensation of you just holding him between his legs like this.  Your fingers rest gently along his pulsing skin while he hides from you, and if only to get a little bit more of a reaction for your own sake, your thumb just barely angles to delicately brush up under his frenulum.  

Obi-Wan shudders and makes a choking noise behind his palms, and oh good Maker, you really want to see his face.  You know it’ll probably never happen unless you take your own initiative, but you also don’t want to overstep and snap him out of this blissful reverie.  Still, something compels you to be so gentle about it that he hopefully won’t even notice. 

You start to slowly work the length of him and squeeze his cock a bit more firmly, but a tendril of your energy slowly slithers upwards, so quiet and full of caution that it hardly even counts.  Very carefully, you start to flatten the lifeforce from your other palm over his stomach and trail it up, gradually urging him to stretch his slouched figure upright and then eventually start to tip backwards, never once letting your focus on his throbbing erection falter.

Your courageous efforts bestow prosperous rewards.  Obi-Wan’s hands drag down the length of his face and he makes it almost too easy to keep pressing him back—back back back until his muscles give up what little fight they were putting up against it and his shoulders are dropping down to the mattress, his head falling into your lap.

“There we go,” you whisper under your breath, just loud enough to softly encourage him if he’s listening but avoiding a break in his focus if he’s not.  “That’s not so bad.”

“It isn’t,” Obi-Wan gasps up at you, his eyes tightly closed but his jaw slack and his handsome features screwed up in rapture.  “Oh, no, it’s… it’s really… rea—good.”

You bite your lip and your cunt flexes hard between your legs without your permission, feeling so empty.  If you’re being honest, only touching him through the Force causes your hand to become increasingly bold, also feeling too empty.  Obi-Wan’s head rolls to the side and he pants hot air against the thin black fabric covering your thighs as you tighten your hold around him just slightly and start to move up and down his cock in earnest.

“Fuck,” he whispers, the dirty word and rasp in his voice contrasting brilliantly with the proper Coruscanti accent and the crisp enunciation behind it.  “Fuck, this feels so good, I—”

His fingers grab at the fur covering the mattress top and pull at it, his adam’s apple bobbing sharp along the arching column of his throat as he groans and twists his head around in your lap.  He confesses it like it’s so wrong, but it can’t be wrong when he fits so perfectly in your hand?  How can this be wrong when it’s the only pleasure you can possibly give him that’s anywhere near close enough to match the way you feel when he’s around?  Even then, it’s but a fraction.

Your gaze flickers briefly from his face to check your progress with his body, and—stars, there’s a startling wet spot staining the front of his pale trousers, his cock tenting up shameless and needy for you to ache and throb just as desperately for in return.  Fuck, he deserves this, he deserves more—

“I can—I can make it better—” you can’t help but gasp, your eyebrows slanting upwards with need.  “Oh fuck, I can make it so much better than this for you, Obi-Wan—”

“You…?”  He blinks his stormy eyes open and sounds like he’s about to explode.  “This can be—” he chokes out, “—better?”

You can’t stop yourself.  Your pussy is clamped up so tight between your legs and Maker, you want to reward him for being so good to you, give him true adoration instead of phantom touches.  You don’t think before you’re moving out from under him and slinking down onto the floor, slipping in between his spread thighs.  You use the Force with a bend of your finger to tug his pants down just enough, just enough to let the swollen tip of his cock peak through the waistband, and then your head is dropping into his lap as you let it slide into your hot mouth.

Obi-Wan lifts his head and snarls at you—and something across the room shatters as you widen your throat for him and slowly sink down his length, curling your finger to stretch his hemline further as you go.  His fingers aren’t gentle when they fist into your hair and neither is the way he immediately twists it sideways, feeling like he’s trying to pull you off and shove you down on him at the same time.

You’re stuck between going as slow as you physically can to drag this out and giving him the best oral you’ve ever given to make him dream about this for the rest of his life.  You want him to want this as badly as you have for so many years.  You want him to fall into this Darkness with you, to crave you and what you can give to him so much that he’ll never want to leave you again.

So you make it wet.  You make it soft and slow and wet, switching between sucking gently at the tip and swirling your tongue around it, and then inching his length down your throat and swallowing around the thick girth of it once you can’t fit anymore in your mouth.  Obi-Wan is just an absolute mess about it—he can’t sit still, he’s tugging uselessly on your hair, whimpering out his bliss into the quiet room while you close your eyes and ignore his squirming, just taking your sweet time enjoying him and the way he feels.

He tastes exquisite.  Maybe it’s just because all your broken, stupid brain can think right now is slightly varying forms of my Master’s cock is in my mouth and it’s fucking leaking while you slowly nurse from it with your tongue, but stars—he tastes exquisite.

He’s swollen.  Throbbing.  Aching for you.  Releasing precum from the tip like his body is producing way too much of it after decades of neglect and just needs to get it all out at once.  Shifting and writhing underneath you but managing to never move his hips or cock a single inch away from the soft attention you’re giving him.  You can feel his smooth skin pulse against your tongue as you continue your lazy pleasuring, finally giving him what you’ve both been denied for so long and steadily swallowing down the spoils of your endeavors.

“—Wait, wait, Maker—stop,” you faintly hear gasped from above you not long after you even begin, and it takes the sum of all your efforts to unlodge his throbbing cock from your throat and pull away from him.

“I’m sorry,” you exhale automatically, trying not to slur your words as a bit of drool slides down your chin.  “I’m s’sorry, Obi, I should’ve asked before I—”

“Something’s… n-not right,” Obi-Wan interrupts you and lifts himself up to his elbows, his abdominal muscles heaving and a wild, frenzied look in his startlingly bright eyes.  “My stomach was—I-I felt—”

Heat blooms through you along with a realization, and your eyelids begin to droop slightly at just how sexy it is—the fact that this man, this fully grown, red-blooded, warrior of a man is currently teetering on the precipice of his very first ever orgasm, and you’re the only one with the power to give it to him.

You shuffle backwards slightly, grabbing hold of his thighs and squeezing to get his attention.  “Hey.  It’s okay, relax.”

Obi-Wan nods his head vigorously down at you, the exact opposite of relaxed.

“Listen to me,” you urge quietly, trying to ignore the sight of his thick, swollen cock twitching restlessly against his abdomen, precum still steadily dribbling at the tip.  Is your mouth watering?  “This is it.  You’ll need to start projecting when you’re ready.  It’ll be tricky, but not impossible.  You’ll just have to imagine you’re inside me when it happens.”

Obi-Wan shakes his head vigorously from side to side, vehemently opposed.

“No, I don’t—” He croaks, “—I don’t know what it’s like, I won’t be able to—”

“Doesn’t my mouth feel similar at least?”  You ask, looking down at his cock once more.

“I-I—” Obi-Wan sputters, “I don’t know, young one—you tell me!”

Okay, well.  He… makes a valid point.

You settle back on your knees even further, gazing at your Master thoughtfully.  His chest continues to rise and fall with heavy breaths, a thin sheen of sweat coating his temples and a mild flush high in his cheeks, but his eyes have regained a bit of their focus.  “You can just try to imagine the, uh,” you try, your cunt nearly convulsing with burning need at the mere sight of him, “the same positioning and sensation from… earlier?”

“Alright, I can…”  Obi-Wan nods, though his hands are shaking.  “I’ll do the best I…”

You can’t help but lean forward to press a soft, encouraging kiss to his thigh, and he jerks under your touch.  You try it again, receiving the same result, and it makes you pause for just a minute longer.

“I’m nervous,” he blurts unceremoniously after a moment of stillness, as if you hadn’t noticed.  “Oh stars, I’m nervous, I—”

“Obi-Wan,” you let your voice lull, your hands squeezing gently around the bend of his knees once more.  “Calm down.  Clear your mind.”

He hiccups and you wait.  You wait with your mouth a few inches away from his cock, waiting for his breathing to slow and for him to follow your lead.

Can you hear me?  You murmur through the Force, and he quickly whimpers and nods.  Focus your thoughts.

You gently kiss at his tensing thighs once again, and he doesn’t flinch away from you this time.  His breathing slows into a calmer, steadier rhythm, letting you trail your lips gently along the curve of his leg.

Will you let me try something?  You ask after a moment, opening your mouth just the slightest bit to brush your tongue out and taste his skin.

“Y-Yes,” Obi-Wan says quietly, his breath stuttering through the word.

And—perhaps you shouldn’t have, but you give him something; a suggestion, more than anything else.  You give him a… visual.  A reference to guide his mind through the Force.

You, still in your black robe, slowly standing up from between his legs.  Widening your stance to straddle his lap, pull you robes up just enough, and then adjust your hips just slightly over the head of his cock.

Obi-Wan inhales sharply at the vision, his eyes clamping tightly shut against it in vain.  He can close his eyes, turn away, hide his face all he wants—he can’t escape the way your body looks as it slowly begins to sink down on his.

At the exact same time, you lower your mouth around his cock once more, and you try to make it as close to the sensation as possible.  You don’t even move your tongue, you simply lift your soft palate and close your lips around his girth, beginning to carefully bob up and down along his length in time to the image you’re conjuring of you riding him.

Only, you already feel his balls tightening up and his body starting to go rigid with tension once again, and you can sense him still wanting to resist his approaching orgasm.  It’s okay, Master, you encourage quietly through the vision, it’s okay, just let it come easy.

“I—I’m not—” he shakes his head back and forth against the bed frantically, his breathing getting shallower and almost immediately picking back up to where it was before you stopped.  “I d-don’t want—”

Stop fighting, you tell him, continuing to mimic the sensation of him thrusting into your aching, neglected cunt with slow and steady movements of your throat.  Don’t run from it, let it take you.

He grits your name tightly in response and subconsciously begins to rock his hips up to match your unhurried pace, his ragged breathing gasping out into the quiet room and gradually increasing in volume and desperation the longer he stubbornly tries to hold out against it.

You know not strong enough to use the Force to coax it out of him.  You can’t alter your technique and break the illusion, either.  So you have to resort to desperate measures.

There’s enough remaining wherewithal to your mind that prevents you from permanently damaging his clothing when you tear his robes open with the Force and allow the metaphysical image of yourself to rip them apart with your hands.  Obi-Wan gasps when both versions of you reach up his bare torso at the same time and dig your nails into his chest.

Master—you demand, taking his cock down your throat as far as you can go and then clawing hard down his stomach—cum.

And thank everything good and right in the universe that he remembers at the very last second to start projecting, because being this close to someone as strong in the Force as Obi-Wan when he finally succumbs to his first taste of the Dark Side is just a fucking atomic missile straight to your nervous system.

It’s all you can do to just remember to keep swallowing.

The projection he casts out through the shockwave is utterly flawless—brilliantly composed, looking and feeling so authentic and overwhelming even from this distance that there should be no issue at all convincing any s’Ziscari in the wide vicinity who are tuning in right now.

Except—then you hear it.  Through the roaring pleasure of his thoughts, a flicker of his subconscious he’s unable to mask through the mind blowing bliss.

Is she…? Maker above, she’s drinking it—

A ragged groan tears through the silence of the room, his cock pulsing spectacularly on your tongue.  He just keeps cumming, and cumming, and so you just have to keep swallowing, and swallowing.  You suppose you should’ve expected this from a fully grown man who lived a life of celibacy, but what would typically be a rather short moment with anyone else subsequently goes on long enough to where Obi-Wan is actually able to lazily raise his head up from the mattress and simply watch you continue to swallow his load, dazed and reverent in his stare, glassy blue eyes trained on the hypnotic movements your jaw and throat make around him.  The remaining traces of whatever visual he attempted to maintain immediately flicker out of existence, replaced instead by the sight of your mouth around his cock, diligently taking down each rope of cum he gives you.

When he finally stops throbbing, you reluctantly let his cock fall from your mouth and slowly stand up as the botched projection fizzles out completely.  His gaze eventually follows the movement like he’s on a five second delay.

“So, uh…”  Your voice is hoarse.  “We… need to have sex.”

“Alright,” he agrees dreamily, his eyes lazily dragging down your body.  “Alright, we can have… I… Wait, what?”

“You, uh.  I know it wasn’t intentional, but you might’ve, uh…”  You  shuffle awkwardly from side to side, wondering why you’ve chosen now of all moments to become shy with him.  You’re literally still savoring the taste of his release in your mouth.  “You might’ve accidentally projected a very specific thought towards the end there and let everyone know that we weren’t actually doing what we’re technically supposed to be doing.”

“What did… what did I think?”  The question would likely be nonsense in literally any other situation, but you understand.  And truthfully, for the life of you, you can’t find it within yourself to feel even a little bit mad about it, not when it means you can continue doing this together.  You can’t even conjure up a single shred of disappointment in his failure, it’d just be a lie.

“Doesn’t matter,” you assure him, your heart continuing to pound.  You know you should make your next move now while he’s still so loopy, the post-orgasm bliss causing his signature to vibrate with pulsing endorphins as he blinks up at you slowly from the bed.  “Though we won’t be able to do it for a little bit, just uh.  Just for general… anatomical reasons.  But that should’ve at least counted for… initiating the Ritual, so I don’t think we have to worry about time anymore.”

Obi-Wan just stares at you, his Force signature feeling more serene and spaced out than you’ve ever sensed before.  Oh Maker, how you wish you felt the same.  You swallow thickly, still tasting his hard orgasm on your tongue, and then try not to clamp your thighs together with how embarrassingly turned on you are.  Anyone with any experience whatsoever would know exactly what you’re going through with just a mere glance—you’re biting your lip with your entire body is subtly crumpled in towards your swollen, neglected pussy—and your Master has been watching you struggle through it this entire time.

“Are you alright?”  He asks dumbly, finally managing to at least push himself upright, still completely unaware or unconcerned at his softening cock on full display for you and your starving libido.  “You’re… shaking.”

“I—won’t die,” is the only serious assurance you can make to both him and yourself right now that’ll ease your suffering the smallest bit.  The last thing you want right now is to come on too strong and snap him back to his senses, bringing everything back to square one.  “Just, uh… r-really worked—worked up.  Trying to just.  C-Cool it?”

Your fingers flex at your sides because no matter what you try, you just can’t stop thinking about his.  They’re right there.  They’re so close, so strong and thick and—

“Aren’t you…”  He trails off, letting his head tilt and then drop to his shoulder with a combination of confusion and exhaustion.  “Aren’t you going to…?”

“To what?”  You prompt shortly, your hands suddenly clenching into fists to deal with another violent wave of arousal at how unbelievably drunk he still looks.  Maker, you did that.  That’s all you.

“s’Zerthia said all—” Obi-Wan murmurs, blinking long lashes lazily up at you, “—all Jedi must… participate.”

Fuck. Just hearing him provide you an excuse to give into the boiling arousal causes you to suddenly break out into a sweat.  You don’t know if he wants you to get yourself off or if he’s indirectly implying he wants to help, but you’re so far beyond desperate that you jump at the chance as soon as he so much as hints at the opportunity.

Very slowly, you move forward and lift one trembling knee to brace next to his thigh on the mattress, and then carefully swing your other leg over his lap, lowering yourself into a straddle in the same exact position he attempted to project earlier.  You’re so unbelievably cautious about his cock, making sure you don’t accidentally touch it and jolt him awake.  Instead of your newfound proximity scaring him away like you feared though, he stays so… docile.  Still so relaxed from his very first orgasm that he even rests his large palms over the thin fabric covering your thighs, letting the loose silk drape and fold over his hands as he drags them up and down.

His eyes follow your trembling fingers as you work at the knot tying the material around your body, your cunt throbbing between your legs at how he’s just… staring.  His eyelids are dipped slightly, breathing so calm and slouched under you, pliant and waiting.

The thin fabric slowly parts only enough to reveal the valley between your bare chest to him, and you watch his eyes fall down the thin strip of skin and catch on the dark line of your panties riding low on your hips.  Maker, you can’t help but remember his terror at even glimpsing the two acolytes taking off their robes earlier—the way his eyes bounced around and how his cheeks lost whatever color they had left to them as soon as he finally made himself look.  Now, though.  Now he can’t seem to drag his eyes away from the soft flesh of your tummy, the way your nipples are still covered by the thin fabric of your slightly parted robe but are impossible to miss while your breasts subtly move with your breathing.

You gently call one of his wrists to your hand with the Force and Obi-Wan is either mentally or physically too weak to resist your will.  He allows you to catch his hand and slowly lead it downwards with both of your smaller ones to the part of your body that’s longed for his attention for years, though now it’s absolutely weeping for it.

You don’t want to scare him.  You don’t want to scare him.  Oh Maker, you need him to be brave for you right now, or at least just continue to be stupefied.  You can work with stupefied, but you cannot work with panic, especially when you feel your own wanting to rise up the more you drag this out.

When the tips of his fingers brush against the waistband of your panties, Obi-Wan’s hand pushes under it without your guidance.

You’re throbbing.  It’s been years in the making.  Unable to stop the way your thighs contract and you lift your hips against his palm as it steadily curves down the slope of your soft curls, the sight of the finish line so within reach makes you reckless and too quick.  You can’t help it.  When he gets hesitant and eventually slows down to a halt right above your slit, you don’t even think before you’re suddenly giving his wrist an abrupt shove with the Force, pulling his hand down before he’s ready and forcing his middle finger deep through the soaking cleft of your pussy.

Your shameless moan of his name comes out sounding so grateful—you pour everything you have into it and sag into Obi-Wan’s chest at the feeling, but he startles and all but rips his hand out of your underwear before you can stop him.  He was a hair’s breadth from touching your clit and the denial of it—the sudden turnaround from your goal is just so massively overwhelming that tears suddenly spring to your eyes.

You can just barely make out the sight of him staring down at his trembling hand between the two of you, your slick shining wet and hot along the length of his finger. 

“Stars,” he rasps, blinking his wide, sapphire gaze up to yours—and then he quite suddenly looks alarmed.  “Did I—Did I hurt you?”  Obi-Wan gasps, his energy beginning to outright seize with distress while you blink rapidly and try not to crumble on his lap.

“No—I’m sorry, it’s just—I’m just… oh, fuck, I n-need it,” you stammer.  “Oh fuck, I need it Master, I’m so sorry—I’m trying to be calm but—”

“What is it, little dove?”  He urges, reaching his hand up to your face and flicking his eyes back and forth between yours, sounding almost as panicked as you do from your desperation.  “What do you need?”

“Oh stars, Obi-Wan, I need you to just—” You can’t fit anything into words, a tear finally making its way down your cheek when you clamp your eyes shut in frustration.  You just need him to understand, to give you what you’ve been craving for so long—but when you blink your eyes back open, his troubled expression has suddenly resolved itself.

Your Master’s hands immediately grab tight to your hips and twist you around, easily tossing you back up onto the mattress.  The jostle of bouncing back into the soft fur startles you, but not nearly as much as when he climbs over your body and braces an elbow next to your head, gently placing the tips of his fingers to your temple.

He pushes carefully but firmly against your natural mental barriers, flexing the energy shields inwards gently enough to not hurt you but with enough force to let you know he’s entirely capable of breaking through should you refuse to let him in.

So you do.  You let him in without a single thought, never mind a second one.  Obi-Wan gasps as your shields all but collapse for him that easily, and then he’s finally breaching the surface of your thoughts.

“Oh—Maker above, little one,” he grits almost immediately, his forehead dropping to your shoulder and his other hand wrapping tight around your arm as he struggles to acclimate to the blinding distress you’re experiencing.  “Collect—” he groans as your cunt clamps down at the rasp of his broken voice, “—collect yourself.  I can’t—can’t think—”

Oh, no, it’s too much.  It’s way too much, even just having him inside your head without being able to read him in return—it’s too much for you.  You start hyperventilating and instead of wanting him out, you just want to drown out the sensation of everything else.  The endlessly pulsing, aching throb between your legs that you’ve been dealing with for so long, the way you can feel his cock dragging against your tummy from this angle and how much you already want it in your mouth again, the way your nipples are so hard right now that even this soft fabric feels so rough and sharp against—

Your robe suddenly rips itself off your chest, and you whimper up at the ceiling as you dig your fingers into thick fur and writhe under him, almost completely naked and just desperate for him to do something, to at least just use his hands or his mouth to make you feel bet—

Obi-Wan’s head drops and his blazing mouth opens hot around your nipple, his tongue rolling soft and slick up under the hard bud.

You choke out the first part of his name and you barely even have a flicker of a thought—a brief flash of a rabid, baser desire you’re not even able to consciously recognize before you feel his jaw opening and his teeth closing gently around it, biting down just hard enough to make you spasm bright and urgent between your legs.  “Oh, fuck—”

As soon as you feel the pleasure and twisting ache spark deep in your core, Obi-Wan flutters his eyes shut and wedges his hand back into your panties, humming low in his throat when your legs jerk apart for him.

This time, your clit is the very first thing he touches.

He zeroes in on it.  The tip of his finger starts to rub it exactly how you’d do it to yourself, exactly the right angle and speed and pressure that your body suddenly feels massively overheated and dizzy from it.  It blindsides you.  It makes sense he’d be able to do this, after all, but for some reason, the whole thing just absolutely blindsides you.

“Maker,” you whimper at the ceiling, soft and pitched high in your throat, eyes rolling back when Obi-Wan gently bites down on your nipple again and continues to work to relieve you even as every muscle in your body feels like it’s tightening up.

“Stars—” he whispers when he pulls away, “This—this feels incredible, Padawan.”

You moan and roll your hips against his hand, on cloud nine at just how he’s slowly allowing himself to become filthier with you, to lower himself in all his righteous beliefs and descend into delicious sin with you, and—

—wait, did he just…?

Your cunt clamps down hard with realization as he continues massaging your clit better than you’ve ever even done it yourself.  Maker, it shouldn’t turn you on so much but it does, hearing that word in this context.  Padawan.  Padawan, holding her legs open while her Master explores her pussy.  Padawan, moaning desperately as her orgasm buzzes deep down inside with a rising, threatening resonance.  Padawan, Padawan, Padawan—

“Oh, you liked that,” Obi-Wan remarks tightly, taking a second to tug on your clit.  You nearly start to cry again, your insides pulling up and going rigid at the sensation.  “I heard it, little one.  You like it when I call you that?”

“Oh I like it when you do f-fucking anything,” you choke out helplessly, your words starting to slur together.  “Oh fuck, you’re so amazing, you’re so good at everything, you’re the best Jedi in the whole entire galaxy Master, you’re so much better th—”

“My, you’re agreeable like this, aren’t you?”  Obi-Wan grits, his touches growing stronger and quicker and rocketing you straight to the edge of madness.  “Shall I take that to heart, my darling little Padawan?  Or did you say such flattering things to the oth—”

“Wait!”  You suddenly exclaim, desperately trying to push his hands away.  “Oh, nonononono—wait, wait, wait, I—I-I’m about to cum—I need to—”

His hand yanks itself out of your underwear once more and you take giant, gasping breaths and try to compose yourself at least somewhat, but then your Master is quickly scrambling down your body and using the Force to rip your panties down your hips—

“Obi-Wan, wait—” you choke out, “that isn’t—you don’t… h-have to…”

He looks up at you, dark brows furrowed in confusion.

“I’ll be able to—y-you don’t—”  You have to take a few gasping breaths and remember how to speak Basic.  “I used my mouth on you before because I… I wanted to.  If—If you don’t want to do that, you don’t have to.  It’s not… oh fucking stars above, it’s not n-necessary.”

“Are you telling me this because you don’t want me to?”  He immediately asks, though you both already clearly know the answer to that considering how exposed your wild thoughts are to him right now.

“Ah, no I, uh… I just.”  You try to clear the thickness from your throat and you feel your body tremble while you focus as much effort as possible into trying to explain.  “I just want to be sure I’m not taking advantage of you, that’s all, I—I want you to know the truth about these things.  It’s not… necessary, b-but.”

“But.”  He repeats the word meaningfully as he glances back down at your weeping cunt, nodding slowly to himself.

And then your Master leans in, flutters his eyes shut, and slides his warm tongue deep into the seam of your pussy with absolutely no hesitation whatsoever.

“Obi—Wan—!?”  You gasp, somewhere between a squeak and a squeal, your entire upper body launching upwards around his head as your clit is immediately enveloped into a slick, dexterous furnace.

Hold still, you hear his voice warn through the Force, sounding so much closer than you’ve ever heard him before.  Whether that can be attributed to the fact that the command came directly from wherever he is inside your head or whether it’s simply because his tongue is now tracing gentle circles around your clit as you whimper pitifully into the quiet of the dimly lit room, you’re not sure.  All you know is that his mouth feels like velvet between your legs and his beard is scraping across your thighs and your fingers have buried themselves in his hair without your conscious permission.

Hold still, young one, he urges once more, but you just close your eyes and moan shamelessly at it this time, opening your legs wider for him.  His voice, it’s… it’s maddening like this, coming directly from your own thoughts.  Deep, precise, somehow sounding so true, so much clearer and full-bodied without your pesky ears in the way.  Your hips are subconsciously rolling slowly against the lower half of his face when Obi-Wan apparently decides he’s had enough.

An invisible energy wraps around each of your individual limbs and snaps them against the mattress without any warning.  You whimper high in your throat, arms and legs held so firmly against the bed with the Force that your internal struggles aren’t able to be translated outwardly; he doesn’t allow your body a single centimeter to move under him, no matter how hard you fight it.  Which means you have to lay there and just take the way Obi-Wan’s hot mouth continues to lick and kiss at your clit slowly, taking all the time in the universe to properly explore you between the legs he’s forced apart.

“Obi—” you croak breathlessly at the ceiling, feeling a familiar heat start to burn hot and tight through your core, “Obi, I—I have to p-project—before I—ah!—before you—before you ma-make me cu—ugh, f-fuck—I have t-to—”

Then project, he encourages simply, gently fluttering his tongue over your clit.  You gasp and he hums, murmuring through the Force once more to you.  We’re not hiding anymore.  They’ll all know I’m using my mouth on you like this.  It’s alright.  Let them know.

You realize you’re going to cum the second you hear your Master’s voice say the words using my mouth on you like this while he slowly sucks on your clit, and you barely have enough wherewithal to gulp in a giant breath and begin projecting your signature as far across the palace and surrounding city as physically possible before your body shatters hot into searing euphoria under him.

Obi-Wan groans deep in his throat and holds you perfectly still under him as you cum with a ragged, hoarse wail of his name, giant waves of white hot bliss beginning to radiate through the Force from you with spectacular power.  The contractions are so much more pronounced when it’s one of the only sets of muscles in your body he’s granted permission to move.  It’s like everything is concentrated and multiplied there because of it.  You can feel each individual spasm your floor muscles make as they convulse against his tongue, how each blazing shot of ecstasy that shatters through your body wrings more and more wetness from your cunt into your Master’s mouth.

Never.  Ever ever ever.  Has anyone done something so mind blowingly sexy to you.  Nobody.  Ever.  He’s a virgin, you frantically remember as Obi-Wan purrs softly into the folds of your pussy while it cums all over him.

Your thoughts, young one, you can just barely make out his voice remind you gently, just as gently as he sucks on your clit through the aftershocks, somehow sounding even more aroused than he did before.

After allowing your projection to flicker out of existence with a putter, you’re completely dazed.  Incapable of moving regardless of the way he keeps you pinned with the Force long after he pulls away, slowly moves back up your body and waits while you work to regain your bearings.  You don’t even want to open your eyes right now, knowing he’s looking down at your peaceful expression while you work to catch your breath.  You’re too stupid with pleasure you almost don’t even process the soft touch of something against your lips.

You’re lovely.

The thought is so quiet you don’t even recognize it isn’t your own.  Not until he keeps pressing his lips to yours so sweetly, not knowing to do anything else when your mind is too fractured with ecstasy to unconsciously act as his compass like before.  Everything is innocent and gentle and not reminiscent of the fact that the robes you’re both wearing are wide open and your mouths tasted of each other even before he kissed you.

Instead of melting into the soft touches, though, they just start to burn you alive, the thick fog of your orgasm clearing more and more with each gentle press of his lips and your need for him steadily growing.  He’s kissing you.  Master Kenobi is kissing you for a few precious, heart stopping seconds at a time before pulling away, pausing to look at your face each time to make sure your eyes are still closed, before leaning down and carefully pressing his lips to yours again.

The only part you can’t stand is that he won’t even let you move your jaw to kiss him back.

Kiss me, Obi-Wan, you urge desperately through the Force, not wanting to interrupt to speak.

“I am, little one,” he replies between kisses, and the sincerity in his tone tells you he’s not purposefully teasing you.  No, this is him kissing you, genuinely, the only way he knows how to.

Let me— you start to struggle in earnest against his hold on you, —please, let me—

The warm breath from his nose puffs softly against your cheek with a quiet little sound from far back in his throat, and then you suddenly gain the ability to move from the neck up.

You immediately part his lips with yours and Obi-Wan pulls back just the slightest bit in response, but your neck lifts up to compensate as you lick deep into his warm mouth.  He gasps at the foreign sensation and loses his concentration for a split second, enough for you to break free of it completely.  Your hands quickly fly up to cradle his face as soon as they can move and your fingers hook around the thick beard blanketing his sharp jawline, urging him back down into you.

Your legs come up to wrap around his lower back and he sags against your strong will with a needy groan, dropping down closer and obediently keeping his mouth open for you to taste.  As soon as he presses his body into yours, his cock strains and drags against your lower stomach, already throbbing hot and leaking precum along the soft hills of your skin.

Maker, you want it but somehow you… you don’t.  You just want to savor tonight as long as you physically can, keep holding him and kissing him like this for another few hours at least before you try to take his cock, but he’s unintentionally grinding it against you while his tongue shyly dances with yours, needy and already raring to go in his own timid way.

Do you want it, Master?  You finally murmur to him, running your fingers through his hair and gently biting his bottom lip, scooting your hips up to let him rub himself against something better than your tummy.  You feel… ready.

The only response you get from him is a shuddering, helpless moan into your mouth and you hold him tighter to you, grinding your still sensitive cunt up against his cock while he pulls hard at the soft fur next to your head.  Your feel your soaking pussy lips part around the solid curve of his length and gradually coat the underside of him in slick with every gentle circle and roll your hips make, and Obi-Wan finally pulls away from your mouth to drop his forehead to your neck.

“Yes, I—” he moans into you skin, “Oh stars, I want it.”

With a gentle wave of your hand, you use the Force to drop his hips down to the proper angle and tilt the head of his cock to line him up perfectly.

And now this is the part you don’t want to rush.  This is when you take Obi-Wan Kenobi’s virginity.  You’ll savor just being able to remember this for the rest of your fucking life.  You’ll see him in Council meetings years from now and be reminded that you’re the only person in the galaxy to know the thickness of him as he rests heavy up against your entrance, the way his voice presses deliciously tight in his throat as he gasps out into the quiet room.  You’re the only one who will know that sound, that sound is yours, that sound belongs to—

“Padawan,” he grits, hips stuttering into you while you wrap your arms around his shoulders, “your thoughts—”

You groan up at the ceiling and your pussy tightens at the reminder that he can still hear you, but your body is just too bold and desperate for it.  Your thoughts begin to flare bright, growing more possessive by the second, and you can’t even wait for him this time.  Every single muscle in Obi-Wan’s body goes rigid when you tighten your grip around him and roll your hips up into his cock, letting it break you open nice and slow.

It stretches you wide with a deliciously sharp fullness and pleasure rips through you as Obi-Wan instinctively tries to lift off you and away from it, but you’re clinging too tightly to him.  Your whole body hovers off the mattress to stay with him. 

“You said—” he gasps, “—it wouldn’t h-hurt—oh—”

“It doesn’t,” you groan, continuing to tighten your legs and hoist yourself up, lifting your hips to take his cock deeper inside you.  “Oh, Maker, it feels so fucking good, Obi—feel it—”

His elbows shake where they’re locked and braced against the mattress but he drops his head and holds strong like this while you work your muscles to take him as far as you can from this shameful angle.  Your body feels like it’s on fire while you desperately cling to him and the length of your robe brushes against the mattress while you just keep trying to get him deeper inside you—

Suddenly something grabs hard at your hips and tries shoves you downwards and off his cock, but you want it too badly.  You summon the hidden strength of your energy and then channel it into your legs where they’re hooked around the curve of his lower back.

Obi-Wan chokes at the unexpected resistance and his elbows buckle, dropping you both down to his forearms with a jolt, but you’re too busy mentally clashing with each other for it.  The result is… well, it’s maddening.

Every time your pussy is able to swallow him more than halfway, you pull back and let his energy shove you down his length—but then dig back in right before you drop completely and use the Force to bend your legs and fight the uphill battle to his cock once more.  Your Master gasps, beads of sweat gathering at his temples while you fight him with every ragged breath in your body to keep fucking him.

Except—he’s the fighter.  And you should’ve known.

You’re no match for the sudden blast of energy from him, easily hinging your legs apart from around his back and then ripping you down off his cock with a wet sound, bouncing back down into the mattress once more.

In order to stop the desperate tears of defeat from coming to your eyes, you immediately clamp them shut and twist your face away from Obi-Wan’s, but he makes a low growl and uses the same ferocious royal blue energy to keep your knees pinned open and wide against the bed. 

And then drops his hips and rocks back into you, giving you those last few precious inches of his thickness you weren’t able to get at before.  It hits sharp nirvana up inside you with his thighs pressed tight to your hips like this.  His name rips itself from your throat while Obi-Wan clenches his jaw and starts to lose himself in the pleasure, holding you down into the bed with the Force while he allows your desperation to guide him to the perfect angle and speed to sate you. 

He’s so gifted, so strong in the Force, he’s able to use your mind as his anchor and give you pleasure beyond anything you’ve ever experienced.  And in return, you want to do the same to him.  You want to read his thoughts, instantly be able to give him everything he never knew he needed—

“You do,” your Master chokes out, “darling, you already—”

Everything inside you surges up at the admission, aching that much harder to hear him, to hear everything the way he can hear you.  The tips of your fingers find his temple, slick with sweat, and you press just hard enough to tell him your intent.

“Let me in,” you whisper, wicked arousal swirling tight in your lower muscles as they start to bear down on his cock.

“I—I can’t—” Obi-Wan gasps breathlessly, “I can’t—”

“Open—open the door, Master,” you beg, “please, open th—”

“Fuck,” he cuts you off, his voice rising in pitch while his his hips snap just a little harder against yours and his rhythm falters, “—It’s too good, Padaw—I’m going t-to—stars, are you—are you r-ready?”

Some terrifying, swirling darkness manifests itself deep in your thoughts.  It rises up, part of the desperate, hidden subconscious that you’re typically capable of stifling.  No, it says, don’t let this be over.  Not yet.  You don’t want to go to sleep alone, wake up and remember you’ll never have this again.  You need there to be a next time, and a time after it.

You try your hardest to push the longing downwards when you recognize it, but your Master is too quick, too talented to deceive when he’s this close to you.  He easily plucks it from your mind and expands it, enlarges the chaotic string of thoughts until you feel them pulsing at the edges of your consciousness.

And then Obi-Wan sees it all, immediately playing out in your memories as you helplessly watch on.  Every desire you buried for him unearthed, every whimper you stifled with the back of your hand when you touched yourself at night and thought of him amplified.  The years of repression, the blind hope that simply ignoring it would make it go away.  How hard you worked to deaden the burst of affection that radiated through the Force when you finally saw him after two years apart.  The circumstances behind the night you lost your virginity—not a long time ago, as he suggested before, but only just last year.  So desperate in your loneliness and longing for his presence that you began routinely sneaking around and fucking other Knights—Guardians with blue sabers whose souls were just marginally close enough to Obi-Wan’s, and you thought of him the whole time.  Every time.

But, perhaps, worst of all.  The… fantasies.

He sees himself dropping to his knees and congratulating you for passing your trials by burying his tongue inside your warmth and telling you how proud of you he is.  He sees you opening his trousers and slowly licking his cock while he meditates, trying to get him to break his concentration.  He watches the two of you fucking in every conceivable position, how incredibly ready you always are to take him when he needs it.  Most importantly, he recognizes your inherent, blazing desire to drag this out as long as physically possible, to permanently brand every moment in your memory to get you through his impending absence.

And then… then Obi-Wan does something unexpected.  Something incredibly uncharacteristic.

You watch as he morphs the fantasies right before your eyes.  He's still on his knees with his head between your legs, but now he’s telling you how proud he is of you for negotiating the mysterious, confidential deal that ended the Clone Wars.  You’re licking his cock as the ship autopilots itself through the week-long journey back to Coruscant from s’Ziscari, letting him slowly cum in your mouth as he sprawls lazily in the captain’s chair.  He’s taking you against the wall of your quarters after a mindless and dull Council meeting; you’re riding him quietly in his bed after lights-out at the temple; he’s rubbing your clit while he sits behind you and advises you on matters concerning your own Padawan you’ll be choosing sometime soon, two fingers deep and squeezing a bared nipple when he whispers in your ear how much he absolutely adores you.

Thoughts that aren’t your own begin to fill the empty spaces of your mind, a lovely pale blue tenor to harmonize gorgeously with the soft green alto of your own consciousness.  The resulting color of your combined energies fills your soul with Light, a stunning turquoise of a color you’ve never loved more, one you wish you could live in for the rest of your life.

For every debased thought of yours he sees, he shows you one even more revealing.  The way he used to dream of you at night, especially after a close battle where many Jedi and Clones fell, and then he’d wake up in a cold sweat with an erection pulsing feverish and so terribly shameful between his legs.  How he tried to shove a pillow down there once to somehow relieve himself of the aching hardness, and then had to rip it away and launch it across the room with the Force when he realized he’d been dragging himself against it and thinking of you.

“I’m gonna—cum—” your voice scrapes across your throat, and you can already sense him throwing his beautiful consciousness out like a net.  You match him with what little mental strength you have remaining, wrapping your arms around his shoulders and your ankles around his lower back and pulling him down into you.

Obi-Wan’s energy keeps swirling a brilliant aquamarine with yours, presenting his every subconscious thought to you, one right after another, so quick you can barely keep up.  How he’ll always be with you, no matter what.  How the Maker himself won’t be able to drag him away from you now.  How quiet jealousy still tugs at his heart just thinking about the fact that you broke your oath—before you both could do it together.

Everything swells up inside you and you scream when it finally crashes over, your blended signatures sealing themselves together permanently and then detonating in a debilitating shockwave that ripples the air around you.  You’re blinded and deafened by its vivid energy, powerful and dazzling every shade between blue and green and Light and Dark, all balanced perfectly together.

You lay there in the gentle afterglow afterwards and feel your pussy still clamping tight to him, pulsing in random intervals while Obi-Wan slouches into you and every muscle in his body trembles with the comedown.  Everything is right.  Everything in you sparkles.

“Stars, Obi,” you start chuckling up at the ceiling, the sheer joy overwhelming you and bringing tears to your eyes.  “Stars, did we just—”

“We just won the Clone Wars, my dear,” he slurs into the crook of your neck while his cock still throbs inside you, and you can feel the exhaustion creeping up his spine, every single thought in his mind completely dead at the moment.

“How long do you… do you think it’ll take before it’s over?”  You ask quietly, brushing your fingers through his hair.  Obi-Wan groans and buries his face deeper into your neck.

“Few months, maybe.  Time for s’Ziscari…”

He stays like that for just a second, and you press your nose to him and breathe him in, marveling at how utterly gorgeous his signature is right now.  Clear blue with the lightest touch of teal, rippling like quiet water in a crystal calm riverbed.

Lovely.

You keep softly playing with the hair at his nape, and then quickly wrap your arms around him when he goes to try to brace his forearms next to your shoulders and lift up just the slightest bit.

“Wait, don’t—it’s—”  You bite your lip and feel him sink back down into your body without another word, clearly having only attempted it for appearances.  “This is good, let’s just… stay for a second.” 

He doesn’t respond, he doesn’t even move, and—a few months, you think.  A few months of his absence, of wondering where he is but never being able to ask.  It burdens your heart, but you understand it’s necessary.

The Council may… grant me a position with a more permanent location after this mission, he responds quietly to your dip in the Force after a moment, too tired to even talk anymore and exhaustion weaving his every thought.  On Coruscant.

Your heart pangs with sudden hope, and you know he can feel it.  “They would do that?”

I could ask to oversee the s’Ziscari’s assimilation into our ranks, he offers alongside a stifled yawn into your collarbone.

He’d… request that?  To be closer to you?  But why?

He doesn’t hesitate before offering the words to you simply, not even considering them before they’re the only thought in his mind.  Because I care for you more than there are stars in the sky.  I always have.

Lovely.

No, no, not even, that’s just.  Love.  By itself.

“Yes,” Obi-Wan murmurs softly into your neck, and your soul feels like it grows wings.

You both lay there in silence for a long time after that, and it takes you even longer to realize he hasn’t succumbed to sleep yet, even as the aching fatigue weighs heavy on his back.  He’s resisting it, keeping his eyes purposefully open against your neck while yours are blissfully shut.

“Master,” you eventually whisper up at the ceiling, and his cock twitches inside you.  Oh stars, you’ll have to remember that.  “Go to sleep.”

I have one more confession.  The thoughts are slurred and distorted, barely conscious as he desperately tries to outlast the sleep trying to pull him under.  I didn’t even want to mention it before because I didn’t know how this was all going to go, but…  He blinks slowly against your neck even as his eyes droop, only just a few seconds from passing out with exertion.  The Sh’inzith lasts six days, dove.

Your eyes pop open in shock just as his finally fall shut, and Obi-Wan stops fighting.

[wri0thesley]

hi nat!! i noticed requests were open and remembered “randomlyncrying during/after sex” angst being mentioned and i just👀😳🙏

ive had personal experience with that (mostly bc being vulnerable and intimate is scary yet cathartic for me, its not even necessarily sad crying or happy crying its just Strong Emotions) and i was wondering if u could do some like smut to hurt/comfort kinda with that specific scenario please🤭 maybe with risotto or abba bc i just want to be fucked AND comforted by a big strong goth man!!😩🙏

overwhelming - risotto x reader (2k)

warnings: crying during sex. afab reader. neutral pronouns. 

Everything about Risotto is overwhelming. The way he looks at you; the colours of his eyes. The low, gravel voice – the way he speaks only when he thinks he has something worth hearing. The touch of his hot, large hands on your skin – his width, his height, the knowledge of what he could do to you--

It’s even more overwhelming when you are beneath him in bed.

His body caging yours; the scarred, muscled chest and how it seems to heave in and out as he breathes. The scent of him – leather and iron and smoke – wrapping all around you, until he is everywhere. In your nose, in your mouth, his face flashing across your head as you pull him down into another kiss and he worries at your bottom lip, insistent and hot and needy.

Big hands run all over your form; taking his time to enjoy the way you feel, the curves and divots of your figure, the softness of you beneath his own calloused, work-weary hands. You feel like you fit into his grip perfectly – like you were made for him. You inhale sharply as his hands spread your legs apart, exposing the heated, slick valley of your sex to the warm air of the bedroom.

It always seems to be warm when Risotto is around. He kicks out heat merely by existing; and you cling to him in bed for it, grateful to be reminded of his presence.

“You’re so beautiful,” he dips his head to murmur, his voice deep and dark. Whenever he speaks, you feel a rush of desire go through you to pool at the apex of your thighs; there is something about the sonorous bass of his voice that makes your toes curl and that echoes through you, making you feel as though you are the only person in the world. “Look at yourself, tesoro.”

You do not see what he sees – but you do see the worship in his eyes. The hunger as he presses your legs further apart and leans into you, as you feel his hard cock press against your thigh insistently.

He is a careful man, despite his profession, and he knows that what he has between his thighs is too much for many people. He never sheaths himself inside of you straight away; even now, when you are fair pooling slick on his already messy sheets, one of his big hands is cupping your mound.

Calloused thumb rubbing over your clit, coaxing heat and sighs and little rocks of your hips. One large, lone finger – sliding inside of you, rubbing against your walls with the practise of a man who knows your body as intimately as he knows his own. Your head rolls back and you display your neck for him; vulnerable, and needy, and utterly his. He does not leave your neck unmarked – his lips are on you in moments, sucking love-bites, nipping bruises, his finger still pumping in and out of you.

Two fingers. You tangle your own grip into his silvery pale hair and pull his mouth to yours so that you may kiss him – he tastes like iron, always. You do not find it unpleasant; blood is a taste that you have grown to appreciate, because it reminds you of him. Three fingers, and you hear the wet squelch of your arousal, feel it dripping out of you with every rock of his hand. His thumb has stopped teasing your clit, but the rough heel of his hand is now continuing the onslaught of pleasure. With every thrust, it rubs against the swollen bud, and you feel your stomach begin to tie itself in knots.

He pulls them out of you with a slick gush, the hand formerly buried inside of you coming to lift your leg so he can slot his hips in between you. His fingers are dripping wet, but he has eyes for nothing but you beneath him. Rose-red irises meet your own, as if to ask you; ‘is this alright? Do you need me to stop?’

For an assassin – for a man feared around Italy, though they do not know his name – Risotto is never anything but gentlemanly with you. He asks your permission, holds you afterwards, kisses you and soothes you and murmurs your name filled with affection even when you are around the other members of your team.

“Special treatment,” some of them huff, rolling their eyes – but they shoot you sly smirks. They do not begrudge their capo his happiness – not in such a business as theirs.

“Risotto,” you breathe, looking up at him. “Please—”

The please is enough. Your other leg is lifted gently, hitched up so he can press your knees to your chest. You’ve had to experiment with positions plenty, in order to find things that are comfortable with Risotto’s height and his size and your own limitations – but this one always makes him seem to hit you deeper, further. His cock head pushes against the tight ring of your entrance, catching on you--

And his eyes meet yours as he begins to press himself inside of you. There is so much tenderness contained within them that you are almost lost for words. You would not think that eyes like that could make you feel so utterly adored – when you had first met Risotto, they had filled you with fear. Now, though, you look at them and you see all of the things that Risotto is too afraid to say out loud, contained within their multitudes.

He’s slow as he hilts himself, letting you feel the stretch of your walls around him. He’s always slow with you – like he’s afraid you will break. People who see him out and about, you know, never imagine how careful or tender he is.

Your head tips back again, into the pillow, as you see stars. He always fills you up. It’s indescribable, how right that he feels inside of you. You feel like he was made to slot inside of you – every time this happens, you don’t feel quite right until his heavy balls slap against your sex and he has bottomed out, filled you up, and the two of you are as connected as it is possible for two human beings to be.

Your breath catches as he pulls out, as he seeks to find a rhythm that works for both of you. In this position, you cannot quite get purchase on his shoulders – but Risotto sees to that himself, his big hands entangling and entwining with your fingers to press your held hands either side of your head.

The position is intimate, his eyes staying glued to yours even as he slips into a rhythm. His face is softer than you usually see it as he looks down at you; his sculpted lips tilted at the corners in a way that makes your breath feel like it doesn’t fit properly in your lungs.

You adore him so much.

Everything about him makes you feel like you are free-falling through a summer sky. You are, you’re sure, not supposed to be so deliriously happy with anybody, when you’re in a career such as your own. You should not be allowed to love him so freely and deeply – but the world has said you are. The world has dropped Risotto Nero into your lap in all of his occasionally awkward, stoic, handsome glory.

His hips flex in and out. He slides easily, through the slick glide of your sex – stoking up hunger and need, the tight little ball of tension inside of you that signifies your release. You hear the sound of him fucking you, the slap of him bottoming out, and you lose yourself entirely in the sensation of Risotto filling you up.

The world seems to fade into nothing but the place where the two of you are joined; nothing else important, aside from Risotto inside of and above you, his breath unsteady in his chest. The heat that’s gathering low in your belly, as he chases your release along with his own--

After his earlier ministrations, it’s no wonder that yours creeps up on you faster. Your ball of tension is the first one to take too much pressure, to be unable to do anything but explode into pieces – and it does so in a great rush that has you wailing, your mouth opening, as your mind seems to blank out into nothingness at the same time as every feeling in the entire world seems to hit you all in one go.

You’re crying?

You’re sobbing.

Your shoulders are shaking, your lip wobbling, your throat so dry that you can barely gasp air as it feels as though every emotion that you have ever experienced seems to come around to visit you again, the feeling entirely overwhelming. You can’t think. You can’t breathe--

Risotto’s eyes are wide and full of concern, blood and ink gone to uneasiness that this is all his fault. Your eyes are blurry with tears, but you see him open his mouth to speak nonetheless.

“Hey, hey--” his voice is quiet, through the haze of your tears, his hips stilling inside of you. “Tesoro, amore, cara mia--”

The pet names just make your bubbling sob get worse; your breath short. You don’t know what it is! You’re not upset, you’re not angry, you’re not even so happy that you can’t help yourself.

You’re just feeling so, so, so much.

“Risotto,” you breathe out, hiccuping, and your legs are gently dropped from your chest. “Risotto, I’m--”

“Please tell me if something’s wrong,” he murmurs, low and dark. “I’ll stop, I’ll do anything--”

“N-no,” you shake your head, aware that he is still buried inside of you – that your tears are stopping him reaching his full completion. “I-it’s not that—”

He pulls out, carefully, and you miss the feel of him inside of you like a physical ache, even though he is still on top of you. He reaches down and kisses your cheeks, chasing the tears away. A half-laugh bubbles up through the heaving of your chest and the tears clogging up your throat.

“Please tell me,” he repeats, again, all concern. His hands are still entangled with yours, as he leans down and puts his face very close to yours. If you stretched forward, just a little, you could rub your noses together, and the thought makes you smile despite yourself and despite the tear-tracks still drying on your face. “Amore, I promise I won’t be angry at you--”

“It’s just-- s-so much--” You say, eventually – lost for words, because how does one explain quite why they started crying with no real reason to? It had simply felt like everything had washed over you in one go, and your heart had not been able to handle it. Something about your orgasm had pushed forth all of your feelings, whether good or bad, and they had scrambled inside of your chest until all you could do was let tears roll down your face.

“I’m here,” he says, soft and slow. He lets go of your hands. Large arms wrap around you, pulling you up so you’re pressed against the broad expanse of your chest. “I’m not going anywhere.”

He’s so warm. Your cheek rests against him; hard muscle and scar tissue. You can hear the beating of his heart, and in the end it’s that – steady, constant, true – that makes the tears finally stop leaking down your face. Your breath calms.

A big hand comes up to stroke through your hair, reassuring.

“I’m always here for you,” he says. “Forever. Through anything.”

“I love you,” you say, all in a rush. You two avoid it; it’s hard to deal with constants when you’re in a business like Passione. ‘I love you’ is not in the vernacular of an assassin – but neither is ‘forever’, and Risotto had said it to you as casually as breathing--

“I love you too,” Risotto says. His voice does not quaver. He is certain and sure; as strong as the arms around you, the chest you’re pressed to, as strong as his convictions always are. He means it.

And you are so, so very glad that he does.

[darth-feanor-writes]

Sword and Arrow: Chapter 5

All Chapters

Fandom: The Lord of the Rings

Pairings: Aragorn/Boromir, Aragorn/Female OC

Chapter summary: Beruthiel goes for some archery practice.

Warnings: none

Words: 1.8k

Chapters: 5/?

CHAPTER 5

Morning found Beruthiel hurrying through Rivendell, shoulder-length hair fluttering in the cool breeze. She inhaled deeply, the scent of new rain was in the air. A full quiver at her belt and a bow from Rivendell's armory in her hand, she was headed towards the archery range to practice.

One and a half weeks had gone by since the Council of Elrond, since the day she had pledged to protect a halfling she barely knew. Since then, she hadn't seen most of the members of the Fellowship- just some polite words with Boromir during meals or bumping into Legolas while practicing archery- that elf never practiced when she did, so it was either when one was leaving and the other was arriving, or vice versa.

Unsurprisingly, when she reached the archery range, Legolas was already there. She never did understand how that storming elf got up so early. Ignoring him, she strung her borrowed bow- her own one had been shattered by a Warg a few months ago, and she had been too busy to make a new one.

"I've never seen you practicing," Legolas called over to her as he retrieved his arrows from the varied targets. Ten out of ten, of course. "How good are you?"

"Ranger good," Beruthiel answered, making sure her wrist cuff was in place. She dug the gauntlet with reinforced fingertips out of her satchel, put it on her right hand, and tossed the satchel away.

"Show me," the elf said, nodding towards the targets. "Ten shafts?"

Beruthiel nodded back. "Ten shafts." She took a deep breath, an arrow in her hand and another four dangling from her bow hand. Then she rapidly shot the four shafts, not seeming to aim, before moving on to the other five on her belt, shooting each into a different target- the range had various targets at different distances and levels.

Legolas whistled. "Dang, but you're good," he said as she stepped forward to retrieve them, pinching each just under the arrowhead. "Never seen a human shoot like that." Beruthiel tipped her head in thanks.

"All Rangers can shoot like that, you know," she said. He shrugged.

"I'm not used to mortals shooting that well. No offense," he said after a pause. "Aragorn always preferred the sword."

"Yes, he's stubborn that way," Beruthiel agreed. Speaking of which, she hadn't seen him since the Council, only at meals, and even then, he ate quickly and left early. She wondered what was up. Most likely he was going out with Elladan and Elrohir, but she wondered why he hadn't told her. They certainly needed all the help they could get.

Legolas snorted in amusement. "You Rangers use knives too, right?"

Beruthiel nodded. "We prefer the bow, but knives too." She took both the saxe and the throwing knife out of their scabbard. The saxe was a long knife, made of hardened, bluish steel. The hilt was formed of leather cylinders stacked on each other. The throwing knife was shorter, with the same brass-and-leather hilt.

"These are good,"  Legolas said, nodding. "Elvish steel?"

"Hardest you'll find east of Valinor," Beruthiel agreed. "It'll notch any sword."

"My knives are better," Legolas said, handing hers back with a smile. Beruthiel rolled her eyes.

"They look like they're made of bone," she said, peering at the knives in their scabbard on his back.

"They are," he told her. "Dragon bone."

Beruthiel whistled. "Damn." She thought for a moment. "Smaug or Scatha?"

He shook his head. "Glaurung."

Beruthiel's eyes widened. "Damn. How did you get them?"

"I think... my grandfather made them and passed them down."

"Thing is, I can throw my knives and you can't," Beruthiel bragged. Legolas looked at her, then rolled his eyes. "Therefore, mine are more useful." She turned away, sheathed both knives, and proceeded to shoot, twenty shafts. Each was shattered out of the air. Beruthiel turned to Legolas, who didn't look the least bit shameful. "You know how hard those are to make?" she demanded.

Legolas raised his eyebrows. "I am an archer, you know," he said drily. "I do make my own arrows. And besides, you can get arrows anywhere."

"Yes, but I make my own. Special for my draw length," she said. "And besides, they're Ranger arrows. Beautifully balanced and made of ash."

Legolas rolled his eyes. "Still arrows."

"Special arrows."

"Fine. You can use mine." He unbuckled his quiver and handed it to her. She hesitantly took it.

"I've... er, never used a back quiver," she said.

"Here." He moved towards her. "You want me to help?" She nodded. He stood behind her and fastened one of the straps around her waist. Then he hesitated.

"Just do it," she said, sighing. Legolas winced and tightened the straps around her chest.

"Move around," he instructed. "If it's loose, tighten it." She obliged him. The quiver was secure, no need for more tightening. She picked up her bow and went to nock an arrow. Her hand instinctively went to her belt. Realizing that the quiver was empty (thanks a lot, Legolas), she reached past her shoulder and snagged the fletching of an arrow with her finger. She lifted it out, fumbling a bit as she nocked it, then shot without seeming to aim.

Bull's-eye.

She shot another ten shafts in that fashion, then frowned at Legolas, who stood with his arms crossed, watching her. "This is kind of weird," she admitted. He raised an eyebrow. "I mean, I have to re-, er, you know, reposition the arrow in my hand."

"You're not used to the back quiver," he finished. "Drawing from a back quiver is different from a belt quiver."

Beruthiel nodded. "Exactly."

"I think you should practice with a back quiver, but not my more-awesome-than-yours quiver that comes with my better-than-yours knives, though," Legolas suggested. Beruthiel snorted. "I mean since we've volunteered for this mission... quest... thing, you never know what we're going to have to go through, you know. I mean, if your quiver gets destroyed or something, you never know if where we are, they have belt quivers."

Beruthiel frowned. "Pretty sure they use belt quivers in Rohan," she pointed out.

"But not in Gondor," Legolas rebutted.

Beruthiel raised an eyebrow. "I don't think they even have archers in Gondor," she said, unbuckling the quiver. "Aren't they mostly heavy infantry, some heavy cavalry?"

Legolas considered it. "I guess," he admitted. "It's been quite some time since I've been to Gondor. They had good archers in Hyarmendacil's reign. But, that means that you should practice with the back quiver more since you don't know if you'll get a belt quiver in Gondor."

She sighed, handing his quiver back to him. "No winning against you, is there?" she asked.

"Nope," the elf replied, too cheerily in her opinion. She rolled her eyes and stalked out of the archery range. "Where are you going?" he called after her.

"To get more arrows!" she yelled over her shoulder. "In a belt quiver, thank you very much!"

 ~🗡️👑🏹~

"Can you tell me where we're going?" Beruthiel asked for the umpteenth time, eyes closed, as Aragorn steered her through Rivendell. She staggered along, arms held in front of her like a zombie or something. Whatever a zombie was, the only reason Aragorn knew the word was because of a tale around the campfire one of the younger apprentices had told.

"Nope," Aragorn said. "No, no, not that way!" He pulled Beruthiel out of the way just before she crashed into the tree.

"Warn me the next time you steer me into a tree!" she said, then promptly tripped over an uneven flagstone.

Aragorn sighed. "You have to be the clumsiest Ranger I know," he told her, holding her by the shoulder. "Wait! Stairs ahead! And considering that, it's a wonder you're as good as you are at the unseen movement."

"You're just jealous."

"Okay, take it easy... yes, there's another flight. No, no, no, turn! Turn!" Aragorn sighed again as Beruthiel ignored his instructions and smashed her forehead into a wall. "For the future record, it's not my fault if you have bruises all over your body."

This was the first time she had seen Aragorn since the Council. To spend the time, she'd relentlessly practiced with the bow until her arms and shoulders were sore, though pointedly not with a back quiver. Legolas, of course, made sarcastic comments on that every time.

"Okay. Even ground, even ground," Aragorn instructed. "Turn left- no, not right! Left! Yes, now, okay... Open them."

Beruthiel opened her eyes. Rested on a low stone wall was…

"A bow?" she exclaimed, spinning around. Aragorn wore a satisfied smile. "And... a quiver? And arrows?!"

"Happy birthday," he said. Beruthiel's eyes widened.

"You remembered!"

"'Course I did," he said, scratching the back of his head. "Um... do you like it?"

Beruthiel shook her head. Aragorn's face fell. "I love it," she said softly, then tackled him in a hug. He grinned, holding her tight.

"I remembered your old one was broken," he said once they had separated. "So I made you a new one."

"You made this?!" she exclaimed. He nodded. "Oh Valar, Aragorn, it's... amazing!"

Aragorn smiled. "Go on, try it out," he said, indicating the bow. She bounded towards it (though not without nearly tripping on a patch of uneven ground) and picked up the bow. She ran her hand over the length of wood, carved with leaf-and-vine patterns, and looked back at her friend. He smiled at her again.

Beruthiel strung the bow, then turned towards the full quiver. It was also handmade and embroidered with a leaping cat, and the top bore the same leaf-and-vine pattern as the bow. She had no idea where he'd learned to embroider.

She carefully tightened the belt around her waist, then drew and shot an arrow at a nearby tree. It hit the exact bump she'd been aiming for. "It's perfect!" she said. "The draw weight, and the length of the arrows- and the quiver and bow, they're beautiful!" Beruthiel gasped. "Is this what you've been doing?"

Aragorn nodded. "It's worth it."

"Damnation..." She tackled him in another hug. "You're the best friend ever."

"I know," he said, making her laugh. "And now, I expect a very nice present in March, thank you very much. No sticks, like that one time." Beruthiel dropped her eyes to the ground. She'd forgotten about that one time.

"I gave you a stick because you gave me a leaf!" she retorted.

"It was a very pretty leaf," Aragorn pointed out. She rolled her eyes.

"Still a leaf," she maintained. "And besides, it fell apart two days after I brought it inside. It took me forever to clean!"

"It was still a pretty leaf," Aragorn said stubbornly.

"You're hopeless," Beruthiel said, sighing. She retrieved the arrow she had shot into a tree and stuck it back into her quiver, then tugged on Aragorn's elbow. "Come on," she said. "I need you to persuade a certain elf that belt quivers are better than back quivers."

~🗡️👑🏹~

Sword and Arrow Masterpost

[mateoftheshadowsinger]

Just a reminder that Azriel (the quiet and somewhat solitary member of the IC), voluntarily seeks out Elain. More than that, he initiates contact/touch with her; something that he VERY RARELY does outside of training and winnowing. Azriel is portrayed to be fairly introverted, and while he doesn’t always seek to avoid socializing, he usually isn’t one to initiate it outside of work related topics. Instead, he’s content to remain just on the outside of things, casually observing/listening. However, with Elain it’s as if he finds any and every excuse to interact with her. So in other words, here we have Az, who is likely uncomfortable with touch (given the untold amount of trauma he faced during his childhood and sense of unworth), actually seeking out Elain.

I apologize in advance, this is going to be one of my longer posts. I’ve put together a list of instances where Az initiates contact between himself and Elain (I also added the scenes where they winnow/fly together because I like to think he chooses to winnow/fly her).

> “Azriel arrived first, no shadows to be seen, my sister a pale, golden mass in his arms. He, too, wore his Illyrian armor, Elain’s golden- brown hair snagging in some of the black scales across his chest and shoulders (ACOWAR).

Azriel smiled faintly. “Would you like me to show you the garden?” She seemed so small before him, so fragile compared to the scales of his fighting leathers, the breadth of his shoulders. The wings peeking over them. But Elain did not balk from him, did not shy away as she nodded—just once. Azriel, graceful as any courtier, offered her an arm. I couldn’t tell if she was looking at his blue Siphon or at his scarred skin beneath as she breathed, “Beautiful.” Color bloomed high on Azriel’s golden-brown cheeks, but he inclined his head in thanks and led my sister toward the back doors into the garden, sunlight bathing them” (ACOWAR).

“The two Illyrians paused their inspection of me long enough to note my sisters finishing up breakfast, Nesta in a pale gray gown that brought out the steel in her eyes, Elain in dusty pink. Both males went a bit still... I dragged a hand over my face before going to Elain and touching her too-bony shoulder. “Can I set you up in the garden? The herbs you planted are coming in nicely.” “I can help her,” said Azriel, stepping to the table as Elain silently rose. No shadows at his ear, no darkness ringing his fingers as he extended a hand. Nesta monitored him like a hawk, but kept silent as Elain took his hand, and out they went” (ACOWAR). *one of my favorite scenes because they’re holding hands! I can just picture them still holding hands as he leads her to the garden*

“Then Azriel, gently taking Elain’s hand in his own, as if afraid his scars would hurt her”(ACOWAR).

Azriel scooped up Elain, looping her bound arms around his neck. “Hold tight,” he ordered her, “and don’t make a sound.”(ACOWAR).

“Azriel still cradling Elain to his chest. He dripped blood behind him the entire time—a trickle compared to the torrent that should be leaking out.” (ACOWAR)

“Elain’s eyes widened at the obsidian-hilted blade in Azriel’s scarred hand. The runes on the dark scabbard. “It has never failed me once,” the shadowsinger said, the midday sun devoured by the dark blade. “Some people say it is magic and will always strike true.” He gently took her hand and pressed the hilt of the legendary blade into it. “It will serve you well.” (ACOWAR)

“Elain looked up at Azriel, their eyes meeting, his hand still lingering on the hilt of the blade. I saw the painting in my mind: the lovely fawn, blooming spring vibrant behind her. Standing before Death, shadows and terrors lurking over his shoulder. Light and dark, the space between their bodies a blend of the two. The only bridge of connection … that knife.” (ACOWAR)

Elain just linked her arm through Nesta’s and led her toward the family room, where Azriel stood in the doorway, monitoring them. As if he’d heard Elain’s sharp laugh and wondered what had caused it. (ACOSF)

Azriel’s hand slid up her neck, burying in her thick hair. Tilting her face the way he wanted it. Elain’s mouth parted slightly, her eyes scanning his before fluttering shut. Offer and permission. He nearly groaned with relief and need as he lowered his head toward hers.” (ACOSF)

There were more I probably could have added (especially with the necklace), but those were the the most significant. I also wanted to add one more quote, to point out that Az KNELT before Elain (which has long been associated with mates).

“I shifted my face back into my own, raising a hand to my lips as Azriel knelt before her.” (ACOWAR)

[obsidiancreates]

Ed's Sea Cred (Part 5)

Who Needs A Flag When You Have Frilly Sleeves

"Oh!" Stede steps aboard Ed's ship. "My, quite the macabre décor, isn't it?"

"It's badass," Jim says, looking around at the black ropes and spikes on the rails and skulls on the stairs.

"Quite badass. Oh, there's even bloodstains on the wood! I wonder if that's authentic?"

"Authentic?"

"Could be pig's blood, or something similar. Wine, maybe."

Jim eyes an assortment of bloody weapons near the mast. "I think it's pretty authentic."

"Amazing." Stede walks confidently into the lower decks, and runs into one of Ed's crewmembers. Wearing leather, as seems to be the uniform for this crew. The pirate snarls and goes for a sword, but Jim has a dagger to his throat before he can even grasp the hilt.

"Good day," Stede says pleasantly. "I'm just here to gather a few things for your captain!"

"Captain's been missing since they raided us," the pirate growls. "We barely got out with the hull intact. Lost half the crew."

"Oh, that's terrible news. Do you need rations?"

The pirate's scowl droops, confusion taking over. "No. What?"

"Your Captain seems like a good man," Stede says kindly, "So I'll share with you all if it's needed."

"... What's Captain's name?"

"Ed."

"How do I know he's alive?"

Stede huffs. "I suppose you don't. Can you point me to the captain's cabin?"

"Why should I?"

"This is El Gentleman Pirata," Jim growls. "Do you really want to argue?"

The blood drains from the pirate's face. "The Gentleman Pirate? You-you're bluffing."

"Do you really want to take that chance, hombrecito?"

"... Captain's Cabin is this way."

"Thank you." Stede nods to Jim and they put their dagger away. He dismisses the crew member once he's inside Ed's room.

It is... sad. Bare. There's a fancy chair, and thick curtains, and an old desk, but clearly he's put most of his collected funds and décor into making the most visible parts of the ship intimidating. The floor is barely even a floor, with the way so many boards are lifting or broken.

"Oh, this is dreadful," Stede says, trying to wave away all the dust. "We should help him redecorate sometime. Now... if I was a hidden book, where I would hide..."

Jim looks at Stede judgmentally, and then walks over to Ed's hammock. They stomp on a particularly loose floorboard and it flies up. They reach into the hole, and pull out a small, worn book. They toss it to Stede.

"That's was amazing!" Stede fumbles the catch a little, but grins nonetheless. "How did you know?"

"You said he seems ashamed to own it, sí? But he liked it?" They gesture at the floors. "Hiding spots everywhere, easy access from the hammock."

"Excellent sleuthing skills." Stede tucks the book into his outer jacket. "You get to pick the next crafts project!"

Jim smiles a little. They glance around. "Want to snoop a moment more?"

"Oh, I don't know. That'd be a bit rude."

"What hombre doesn't know won't hurt him."

"... Maybe just a peek." Stede leans down and glances under a few more boards. He finds a little jar of old hair oil, a small collection of various cutlery pieces, and an old cotton glove. All lovely things, all hidden away and unused. Stede sighs.

This is a lot less fun than secret wardrobes.

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

Ed wakes up to Stede sitting next to him, quietly staring at-

"My book."

Stede startles, his reading glasses doing a funny little jump on his nose. "I know I said we'd read it together, but I couldn't help myself!"

"It's okay man." Ed slowly props himself up just slightly, mindful of his gut. "Read it plenty of times myself, anyway."

Stede smiles a little in relief. There's just no way this guy is The Gentleman Pirate. No way.

"Well, it's certainly been an, ah, interesting read." Stede holds the book up a little. "Ghost of an aristocrat out for revenge?"

"Hate that one."

"And the story about how I supposedly tamed The Kraken Itself?"

Ed swallows quickly to prevent the lump from rising in his throat. "Yeah. Stupid."

"... Which is your favorite?"

"What? What kinda question is that?"

"It's a well-loved book. You must enjoy one of the stories, at least."

"... The one about you being made of fabrics."

Stede clicks his tongue and nods. "I remember you mentioning that. Why's it your favorite?"

Because it's a story of something soft and unfit for this type of life fitting in with it. Because it means something can break the mould of what it is, adjust, become something new. Because it means that even a wreaked thing that's decided to reject its purpose can be of worth in some way.

"Because it sounds fucking badass."

Stede gives a delighted little hum. "I don't mind that one, actually. And I can see where it comes from. I do wear a lot of layers."

"Probably hotter in that outfit than I get in my leathers."

"Oh, I doubt it. Very breathable materials."

"Nah man, doesn't matter how breathable they are. Still layered on." Ed glances over at the secret closet door. "Try my stuff on, I bet it's cooler."

Stede loks at him with a disbelieving side-smile. "What?"

"Try it on," Ed says again. "Yeah, it's a fuckin' weird thing to do mate, but I'm already wearing your clothes, aren't I?"

"Well... fair is fair, I suppose." Stede disappears into the secret closet. Ed hears some minor grunts of struggle, because the outfit is not easy to get on, especially the pants. But Stede steps out a few minutes later, and Ed's breath catches.

Stede looks down at himself. "Well, it's certainly a bold style!" he says, looking at Ed with a grin. "But not at all as comfortable as my own. I was right, this is like wearing humidity itself."

Ed laughs. "And your stuff is like wearing fog. Look at this." He swishes the frilly sleeve around. "What is this? Completely impratical, man. I love it."

"We've both got bad clothes for the job," Stede concedes, sitting by Ed's bedside again. The leather squeaks as he sits, and Stede makes an uncomfortable face. "But I guess it works for us."

"Works for you. Everyone's fuckin' terrified to see some fancy pants boarding their ship. I'd give anything to have that, you know."

"Really?" Stede makes a face of mild surprise. "Why?"

"To have people terrified of me? Shivering in their boots when they see my flag? Come on, man, that's the dream! The whole point of becoming a pirate! And you've got it, fuckin' Gentleman Pirate, scourge of the seas. I wish I could walk a day in your shoes, mate."

Ed looks at Stede, and watches a smile slowly spread across his face. "Why don't we make that happen, then?"

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

Izzy can't belive what he's seeing for a moment.

Because that fucking ponce, Stede Bonnet, is standing on the deck dressed in Edward's clothes, slapping on a serious expression like its a fucking play.

"Crew of The Revenge!" Stede shouts. His whole crew are looking at him and, apparently, feeling the same confused disbelief as Izzy.

"Please welcome out the fear of the oceans, the scourge of the seas, the living myth!" Stede steps aside, and out hobbles Edward, holding his middle but grinning like a child, and dressed in Stedes fancy clothes. "The Gentleman Pirate!"

Edward bows, hiding a wince, and swishes around those stupid frilly lace sleeves. Izzy has half a mind to punch him in the nose out of embarrassment.

"It is I," Edward says with a flourish to his voice, "The Gentleman Pirate."

"And his new friend Ed," Stede pipes up, throwing an arm around Ed to conceal the way he has to help steady the other injured man.

"Aren't you boiling in that?" Lucius asks from somewhere behind Izzy, in an odd mix of concern and slight judgement.

"It's very hot, yes," Stede says, still smiling, "But it's badass!"

"Edward," Izzy pipes up.

Stede looks at him, smile sharpening the way it did before. "Yes, First Mate?"

"Not you." Izzy stalks over and grabs the real Edward by the arm, dragging him over under the stairs. "What the fuck are you doing?"

"Saying hello to my crew." Ed waves his arm out at the deck to make the stupid cuffs flap around again. "The Gentleman Pirate always greets his crew warmly."

"This is a fuckin' embarrassment."

"How?"

"You'll never be feared if words gets out about you doing this."

Ed nods out at Stede, who's engaged in a hushed conversation with Buttons. "He is."

"That fuckin' twat isn't a real pirate."

"He's the best pirate." Ed pats Izzy's shoulder. "Maybe this is all a bit more complicated than either of us thought, mate. He's got a library."

"A fuckin'-! Edward." Izzy shakes Ed's hand off. "Don't take ideas from this joke."

"I'm not Edward." He points out at Stede, who's gone a bit pale. "He is. I'm The Gentleman Pirate."

Izzy grits his teeth, bristling. "You hired me for my advice on being a proper pirate," he spits, "So if you want to ignore that, be my fuckin' guest."

Izzy turns and storms up onto the deck. he leans onto the pristine, un-nicked, bloodless railing, and for a brief moment wonders if throwing himself overboard would be better than staying another second on this cursed fucking ship.

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

Ed walks back over to Stede, trying to imitate the straight-backed little stroll Stede does. Somehow there's also always a sort of spring in his step, but Ed finds that part hard to manage. The shoes are too stiff for it.

"Hello again, esteemed crew," he says with a little bow, because that seems fancy, right? He hadn't ever been paid this much respect while a servant himself, so he's not entirely sure how a Fancyman would address underlings without snapping or scowling.

Stede gives him a strained smile. "Captain! Um, Buttons here has a bit of news for you, doesn't he?"

Buttons nods, locking his intense stare onto Ed. "It seems that The Spanish are tailing us."

[jay-and-dean]

Stolen Crown  Chapter 1 : Under the hood

By @roonyxx​ and @jay-and-dean​

Pairings : Dean x reader ? Kight!Dean x reader ?

Summary :  What happens when she is sent in a world that isn’t hers, but with very familiar faces ?

This, as much as it looks like it, is not ‘technically’ an AU, because your Dean, our Dean, exists too...

Serie Warnings : Smut (please be 18+), Fluff, Angst, Swearing. Mention of physical pain. Each Chapter will have detailled warnings.

Chapter warnings : Swearing for now.

Chapter Wordcound : 3230

Note : This is a collaboration beetween both of us. We can’t both edit the same post, so we decided we would post 1 chapter/2 each, like for Firefly.

We both worked as much on this story and it’s the result of both our brains but also both our hearts.

Please, if you want to show love for this story, don’t forget we were together in this.

Text divider by the awesome @talesmaniac89​

Want to read more:

Jay’s Masterlist

Roonyxx Masterlist

Whistling. 

Only a shrill whistling in her ears, and her heart pounding hard in her temples…

She holds her head and tries to get up, but the ground seems unsure of where it is supposed to be.

“Dean ?” she tries with a weak voice but, even with the high-pitched sound fading quickly, she can’t hear any answer. “Dean !”

She opens her eyes and they widen right away.

The seedy warehouse is gone, the smell of gasoline and the night are too… But above all, he is gone. Dean is nowhere to be seen. 

Instead : A sunny beautiful forest. Shiny rays of lights come through the radiant, high trees and birds are signing. So many birds.

“Shit” she grunts, looking around. “DEAN ! SAMMY !”

But her voice echoes and dies in the woods, only making a few rodents run through the bushes, themselves moving some butterflies and bees. Nothing else. 

Where was she sent ? Is it witchcraft or some stupid God ? She had told them that this case seemed more complicated than what they said ! And here she is, probably miles from home.

“Please, tell me I’m still in the United states” she whimpers, taking her phone from her jeans shorts pocket. “No come on ! No signal now ?”

After pacing around to try and find any sign of signal, she gives up and puts the useless phone back in her pocket, regretting her morning choice to wear only a t-shirt and shorts, because if she has to walk miles to find a road, the night might be here before she finds her friends again, and nights are colder out there.

“DEAN ! DEAN !” she tries again.

But he is obviously not with her.

What if he had been sent far too ? What if he was in an indian market now ? Or in a boat on the australian seas ? 

“Sammy you have to find us” she mutters, looking around to gather clues.

This forest is not tropical or northern, it’s a temperate one, and it’s obviously still early summer…

Suddenly, hooves disturb the forest’s calm in the distance, rapidly approaching her. The metal clattering with every step the big animal -probably a horse- takes, says it’s not alone…

She quickly moves in the bushes and stills behind a large tree to hide herself from whoever is coming. 

“Your highness ?” a deep, oddly familiar, voice calls.

Her back flat against the tree, she turns her head a little to be able to see beyond the thick bark, holding her breath and reaching for the knife in her boot. 

A beautiful, massive shiny black horse is nervously stepping on the ground while the owner of the mare pats it on the neck.

“Easy girl” the man says. 

She frowns, keeping the dagger in her hand, ‘that voice… I know it.’ When she dares to look between the leaves, her eyes widen.

“Dean?” she says with a confused smile, putting the knife back in her boot, as she steps from out of the bushes.

“My Queen !” he throws his leg over the majestic black horse and steps off, right away going down on one knee in front of her, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword. “I have been looking for you, my Queen” he says towards the ground, not looking up to her once.

“Queen ?” she huffs, still a little dizzy. “Where the Hell are we, Dean ? And what the fuck are you wearing, is that... a freaking armor?” she asks, pointing at his weird clothes.

Dean finally tilts his head upwards. And when he sees her, his eyes nearly fall out of his head, his mouth is open but no words leave his lips. The more he stares at her like she was naked, the more she starts to feel a little self conscious.

His eyes slowly travel up her bare legs, a confused expression on his face, when she bends a little to make eye contact with him he quickly adverts his gaze.

“Your Majesty, what happened to your robes ? Are you harmed ?” he asks, obviously worried. 

“Cut the crap, Dean, what’s happening ? Where are we ?” she asks, annoyed.

“We are in the…” he looks around a little, apparently wondering what to answer. “In the woods… Not far from the Castle, my Queen” he says.

She stares at him, mouth agape, a deep feeling of confusion replacing the annoyance totally. Her tone changes to something colder, more distant.

“Why do you keep calling me ‘queen’ ?” she asks. “And what’s up with the stupid clothes ?”

He dares looking up at her again, a sorry frown on his face. 

“My apologies, your Highness. I do not understand… Is there something wrong with my apparel ?” he stands up, his eyes searching her face. “Did you hit your head or have you fallen maybe ? You disappeared, my Queen. I have been so worried” he turns to his horse to retrieve a big grey fur cloak. “What happened to your gown, did someone attack you ?” 

His head low, he comes closer to carefully drape the very heavy cape around her shoulders.

“I obviously failed at my duty” his eyes are dark and she clearly recognizes that crushing guilt on his features

She touches the floor length fur coat he put around her with a frown. It’s pleasantly warm outside, there is no need for this... 

Everything he does is weird, and why does he look so different ? Was he hit by a spell of some weird stuff like that time he was losing his memory ? 

Unless… 

She takes in his appearance. He looks exactly like him but he has more scruff, and his hair is a little longer, his clothes are very strange too. 

The closer she looks, through the fading cloud in her mind, the more this costume he is wearing really doesn’t look like one. All the layers of leather and metal make him look like he was ready for war, and his shoulders are even more broad under the armor he is wearing. 

Everything about him seems heavy and powerful : Between the metal on his chest, the big belt holding several weapons, including the scabbard of that seems to hold a very authentic sword, the real huge grey fur around his shoulder, like he had killed a wolf…

She shivers at how impressive he looks, at how she realizes she doesn’t know anything about him..

“Shit…” she mutters realizing this is not her Dean at all. 

This is not the United states of America, and this is probably not even her world… But if the Dean from around here is willing to protect her, that might be her best chance of survival.

She clears her throat, nodding to encourage herself to play along.

“No... I’m…” she suddenly has no idea how to use her voice. “I’m okay and I am your queen, because you are my…?” she leaves the sentence open, hoping he’ll answer it.

“Your knight” he says, uncertain.

Knight, right… She nods and looks around once more.

If this is some kind of fucked up middle age alternate universe, there is a big chance that the forest is going for miles and miles, and an even bigger chance that she starves to death before Sammy finds a way to bring her back to the Instagram century. And dressed like that, she might have to fear more than wolves…

She stares at him for a minute and he seems to be just waiting for orders, his green eyes on the floor.

“Kneel” she says with a corner smile and he just does, with no question, comment or delay.

Dean Winchester obeying her to the letter… If that is not a good side of this whole crap !

“You can get up” she chuckles, letting him stand on his feet again.

But her amusement quickly fades. 

Royalty is not really the easiest undercover, and the discretion will be impossible. She wants to ask for help but, even if her whole body and soul tell her she can trust Dean -for it is still Dean-, her eyes travel the thick leather covering his forearms and she remembers she doesn’t know him.

So maybe she better stay silent for now, and follow his lead until she decides if he is an ally.

“Your Majesty” he speaks, with a deference she never heard from him. “If the news of your disparition comes to the Council, there undoubtedly will be trouble. We should head back now. Please.”

“Y-yes” she nods, a lump growing in her throat.

Council ? Trouble ? Castle ? How is she supposed to deal with all that ? People close to the queen will know she isn’t her in a minute…

The knight offers his hand, and she follows, frowning when he joins his wrists to help her get on the horse. 

“This is not the best comfort for travel, your Majesty, for that I am sorry” he apologizes again.

“It’s okay Dean” at her words, he frowns again, but she puts her feet on his wrists and jumps on the tall horse, quickly understanding, by the look on his face, that she is not supposed to ride “like a man”.

Her eyes can’t decide where to look, and her hands can’t decide where to hold him.

Gripping his belt tight in this uncomfortable position, she takes in the unbelievable landscapes before her : Untouched forests and large lakes, small villages down in the valley, with all those wood houses that remember her of Braveheart. 

All she can think of is when she is going to tell the boys about everything she saw… If she ever goes back to them.

“Put on your hood, my Queen” the knight asks, so she does. 

Her unsure hands grasp the heavy hood of the animal fur around her and she hides her face in the huge hood. He probably needs her to not be recognized.

“What animal is it ?” she asks, touching the hair with a mix of curiosity and disgust.

“Animal, your Majesty ?”

“The hood ?” she asks, quickly grasping his belt again when the horse half jumps above a root.

“My coat is made of a bear” he answers. 

“Poor animal…”

He lets a silence and clears his throat slightly. 

“I had never thought of it that way, my Queen. Your empathy for the creatures of this world is godly.”

But she stopped listening.

Her breath stuck in her lungs, she discovers the huge, beautiful castle coming in her sight. 

A gigantic wall surrounds a little city, itself surrounding a huge, elegant castle. The light stone walls seem to be touching the clouds from here, and a vibrant living noise comes from it.

“Wow” she murmurs, looking up the thin sharp towers surrounded by birds.

“My breath gets cut short each time I see your home in sight too, your Highness” he says with a soft voice. 

Inside the walls of the city, everything is different. 

People are busy, all dressed like they came from a movie, carrying vegetables and raw pieces of meat, sheeps and baskets of fabric… Each and everyone turning their head at the sound of the huge horse’s steps on the stone pavements. 

“Sir Winchester !” a kid exclaims.

She keeps her hood low, suddenly very aware of the trouble that could come from the crowd recognizing their queen. 

The knight version of Dean stays unfazed, guiding them to the stables where several horsemen are waiting for him. 

He gets off of the horse, helping her and closing his coat neatly on her.

“Keep your head down” he murmurs next to the hood and she just nods, determined to let him guide her. “You” he says louder to one of the men here. “Go tell the guards that the wolf hunt is done. My men can gather again peacefully, nothing is to fear.”

She can’t help but very quickly look up at the man giving orders next to her, his remarkable charisma making her feel so small. 

She always looked up at Dean with an infinite admiration, but at least, she knows him… This stranger is different. 

“Allow me to touch you” he says under his breath and she just nods again while he wraps his strong arm around her.

Under the hood, she can’t see everything precisely, but the little she can distinguish of the inside of the castle he is guiding her in is enough to amaze her. 

Huge corridors and busy servants, carpets that seem to come from a museum, gold and flowers decoration the thick stone walls.

“Sir” a guard comes in their way, bending before Dean in respect. “Your men have been called back. The news never spread outside of the Queen’s guard.”

“Thank you” the knight answers.

“Glory be to the Queen” the guard bows again. 

“To the Queen” Dean answers.

The knight guides her further into the castle and up an infinite number of stairs, a serious look on his face. With every step up, the coat on her shoulders feels heavier and heavier, and her apprehension does too.

Once they reach the top, he walks to the left, his heavy boots echoing in the spacious corridor. Still holding her, his grip both reassuring and oppressing, he stops in front of a big wooden door that she may be supposed to recognize. 

She looks up at the door a little, still not completely daring to stop hiding under the big hood. He opens the door and stands with his back against the wall, his eyes straight ahead.

She hesitates, waiting for him, but when he doesn’t move, she carefully steps inside, not sure what she will meet on the other side of the massive oak door. 

Before her, a large room with thick wooden furniture and rich fabric. In the middle, a queen size bed with wooden bed posts that are near the stone ceiling with wolves carved in each of them. Hanging from the posts, a dark red velvet-like canopy that matches the heavy curtains. A big antique closet stands to the left side of the room.

Taking a cautious step, she looks right. Behind a great arch is another room that holds a big wooden tub covered in a sand-white sheet.

Despite the cold stone everywhere, the many carpets with many different colorful illustrations, the curtains, and candles everywhere makes the room somehow warm. 

She stands in the middle of what she guesses is the queen’s room, unsure of what to do now. Looking back to the door, she sees Dean’s elbow from where he is still standing against the wall, straight and still.

“Dean, come inside please” she states, using the most authoritative voice she has.

A queen has to be, right ?

“Yes, your Majesty.”

The knight steps inside immediately, his hands behind his back, his gaze fixated in front of him.

“What are... my plans for today ?” she asks him, trying to figure out what to do, to convince them, a whole Castle and Kingdom, that she is the damn queen.

“The Council requested a parlay with you when the sun is at its highest, and after you have your usual walk in the garden before you talk to the People. I think, Majesty.” 

“Right, the Council” she says unsure, wondering what the council can be. “Take me to them.” 

She holds her chin high, trying desperately to look like the Hollywood idea she has of how royals act.

His gaze finally finds hers, a small frown is on his face, an expression of confusion growing on his hard but still so beautiful features.

“Do you not wish to be dressed first, my Queen?”

“Oh… yes, I-I do wish that” she nods. 

She walks towards the closet and opens it, checking his face in the corner of her eye to try and find clues of what she is supposed to do, but all she can see there is worry for her, well hidden on his bodyguard face. 

Inside the huge closet, put in color order, are dresses, all of them big and complicated… And on some shelves, smaller white dresses, that may be for inside or summer. She takes them out.

“This will work” she states to herself as she turns around but stops when she hears Dean gasp. 

When she looks up he’s stepping towards the door quickly.

“No wait !” she calls out for him and he stops right in his tracks. “Dean...” 

He turns towards her, his gaze on the floor, jaw clenched.

She doesn’t want him to leave. She is, in fact; terrified of being without him. Although he is a stranger, his face is the only thing she knows in this weird place she knows nothing about.

What will they do once they find out their queen disappeared ? Is there a king she has to sleep with ? Do they torture people ? Kill ? 

She just needs him close.

“I don’t know what to wear” she admits.

Or even how to wear it, she thinks to herself.

“Any gown makes you look divine, my Queen” he says in a husky voice, still watching the floor intensely.

If the circumstances were different her knees would wobble at what he just said… But he is not Dean, and maybe he just says that to not get his throat slit.

“Okay, I will put on this gown” she says as she lifts the small white dress that she is holding, a questioning look on her face.

The knight swallows hard and seems agitated. For a second, she wonders why he is acting so weird.

“What is it ?” she asks him. “Tell me.”

“Pardon me, your Highness, but that is not a gown” he clears his throat and stands up straighter. “That is your undergarment.”

“Undergarment ?” she looks at the little dress, holding it in front of her by the straps. 

Her lips open in an ‘o’ when she understands this is her underwear. She has been flashing him her royal underwear this whole time, of course he was acting weird !

In a quick motion, she hides it behind her back and mutters an apology.

“Yes, my undergarment, of course. I-I will get dressed now” she walks towards her closet to retrieve a big gown in a hum of hesitation.

“Let me just call the maids, your Majesty” he says low. 

“Yes ! Oh and Dean ?” she starts, waiting for his gaze to meet hers before she speaks again. “Thank you” she kindly smiles.

The knight nods, turns slowly and steps towards the bedroom door with a determined gait, closing and locking it by sliding the metal rod in the slot.

She frowns, seeing him lock himself with her. His back still on her, he clears his throat before he talks.

“My Queen...” he starts. 

With that hunter speed her Dean also has, he suddenly unsheaths his sword from his scabbard and holds its sharp end under her chin without touching her 

“Would never have said something like that” he finishes his sentence. “Or call me Dean…”

She searches his face, slowly lifting her hands up in surrender.

“That is because I am not your queen.”

__________

Chapter 2 on @roonyxx​‘s blog 

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[smutty-skyrim]

Keeping Quiet || Brynjolf X Reader

WARNING: NSFW

Pairing: Brynjolf x Fem!Reader

Contains: Public Sex, Mild Dirty Talk

Your heart slams against your ribs as you tear through the empty Riften streets. The cobblestone road before you is lit by the full moons looming overhead. A sack of gold jingles at your hip with each step.

Your lungs burn and your legs ache. Pinpricks of sweat dot your forehead, chilling your skin in the cool night air.

You glance over your shoulder, hoping to catch a glimpse of your partner, Brynjolf. With any luck he hasn't been snagged by the authorities yet. Of course, the smooth talker could surely work his way out without a hitch. Still, too much risk for your taste. Even if that is a thief's way.

You spot the man close behind, copper hair covered by his dark hood. No guards are in sight.

A smile tugs at your lips. You might actually get away with this.

You bound over a rusted metal gate. It rattles behind you as Brynjolf makes the hurtle. Just a little further and you'll be at the back entrance to the Thieves Guild and away from prying eyes.

The dewdrop covered grass of the cemetery muffles the sound of your boots. You rush past the worn, crooked headstones and into the small mausoleum. You only notice Brynjolf's arrival behind you by the shadow looming across the floor.

You press the weathered button on the sarcophagus. With the harsh sound of stone against stone, the floor opens and gives way to a familiar staircase.

A firm hand on your lower back guides you down the steps.

"Gotta love those close calls, eh, lass?" Brynjolf's hushed voice wears a chuckle. Through the shadow of his hood you see a twinkle in his emerald eyes.

"You're saying that like I had some part in this." You reply with a whisper.

"Oh? Where else do you suggest we put that blame?"

"On the guy who slapped my ass while I was trying to pick a lock." You stifle a laugh.

"Ah, but you're the one who made that precious little sound."

"You mean the yelp that got us busted?" You smirk and pull the weathered chain hanging from the wall. With a groan the ceiling above you begins to slide shut.

"That would be the one." He gives a devilish smile - the last thing you see before the entrance is closed and the alcove is submerged in darkness. "We both know you're not the best at keeping quiet."

Your face flushes. You blindly reach out in the black to smack his arm. The back of your hand slaps off leather. "I'm quiet!"

"Aye, which is why we almost always get busted when we try to have fun in-"

"The training room is just echoey!" You reply, obstinate. "That's on the room. I'm perfectly inconspicuous."

Brynjolf leans in close. His nose brushes your temple and his breath is hot on your ear. "You sound mighty confident in yourself, lass. Care to put that to the test?"

Your breath catches in your throat. "What are you suggesting?"

"A challenge of sorts." He purrs as his hand catches yours. He places a kiss by your ear and another beneath it. "What do you say?"

"What are the stakes?"

"Simple: if you lose, we get caught." His other hand finds your face. A thumb brushes your lips. Using his fingertips as a guide, his mouth finds its way to yours. His lips gently press against yours, lingering for only a moment.

"And if I win?" You ask through uneven breaths.

"Isn't this a victory enough?" He catches your lower lip between his. His hand slips from your cheek to your waist where he pulls you flush against his body. He guides you backwards, step by step, until your back is pressed to the cold stone wall. His chest is warm against you, igniting the heat in your stomach.

He trails his lips back to your ear where he nibbles on the lobe. You choke back a giggle as feather light kisses tickle their way down your neck.

You reach your free hand out. Your fingertips find his thigh and slowly trace upwards, dipping in toward his groin as they travel.

He deftly snatches your wrist and pins both of your hands to the wall above your head. Your arms are stretched, and you find yourself feeling vulnerable in his grasp.

"Not so fast there, love. I'm the one who issued the challenge. Which means I'm the one calling the shots." He says.

You whine under your breath. You arch your back and press against him. His length is pressed hard against your stomach through his leather pants.

He shifts his hands, taking both of yours in one of his and holding them tight against the wall. His free hand begins to wander. Fingers comb through your hair and trail gently down your neck. They run along your collarbone before slipping to your breasts.

He takes one in his hand through your cuirass. He sighs, squeezing  and palming at an exploratory pace. He finds the movements that earn delighted gasps and keeps with them. Your face is flushed as he rubs your pert nipple through the leather. The sensation - though muted - sets a fire alight between your legs. The buffer of the fabric only makes you long for more.

His hand travels down along your stomach. He traces the waistband of your pants, chuckling as you squirm beneath his touch. Inquisitive fingers slip beneath and head to your clit.

He rubs small, gentle circles. The motions are slow and methodical. He listens for when your breath catches, judging his pace carefully.

He places a kiss on your lips. You part them, allowing his tongue to graze yours. You move with each other, each gesture building the heat.

You buck against his hand.

He picks up speed, pressing firmer against your sensitive clit.

A moan bubbles out, stifled by the kiss.

He pulls back. "Careful, lass. Don't want to get caught in any compromising positions."

You pout - something lost to the dark surrounding you.

He applies more pressure to your clit. The movements grow faster. His fingers become slick with your fluids. You writhe against his hand, desperate for more friction.

The tension between your hips builds. With hitching breath you spread your legs further.

Closer you climb. Pleasured sighs escape your lips.

"You make the sweetest sounds." Brynjolf whispers as he leans against you, hard cock pressed to your hip. "I wonder if they'll hear you cum for me."

You shake your head and stifle a giggle. They won't hear a thing. If someone comes up the exit they'll be met with dark and silence. You'll be composed as ever. You'll keep your ecstasy fluttering between your ribs, hidden from the others. Brynjolf won't get the better of you.

He pauses, pulling his fingers back and letting the still air around your swollen clit taunt you.

"Please," you whimper, "please, I'm so close."

"Ah, but I'm just getting started." He replies, honeyed voice low.

He releases your wrists and grabs hold of your pants. He yanks them down and they drop to your ankles.

"Bryn, what if someone-"

You're cut off by his lips crashing against yours. You hear his hands fumbling with the fastenings of his pants.

He grabs your legs and hoists them around his hips. His head rests at your entrance.

He breaks the kiss and returns the attention to your ear, kissing behind it and nibbling the cartilage. You each for him tangling one hand in his hair and bracing the other on his broad chest.

Slowly he pushes into you. It's done with ease. You're wet from the foreplay and your skin prickles with anticipation. His fingertips dig into your thighs.

He thrusts at an agonizing pace, taking his time and never quite reaching the hilt. He keeps his hips away from yours, keeping the noise to a minimum. Instead of the slapping of skin you hear the wet sounds of your cunt, and his deep, uneven breaths.

With each roll of hips hips, pleasure seeps through you. Your clit aches, desperate for more stimulation. It's jostled slightly as he thrusts, but it's not enough. His skin is so close, yet so far as he fucks you.

He steadily gains speed.

You try and listen past the slick sounds and to the noise of the cistern rising up from the hole in the floor nearby. You can't hear much, just faint murmuring. You hope nobody is coming, but you can't be sure. That fact alone sends a rush of warmth through your body.

"What would they think if they caught us?" Brynjolf's voice is hushed and ragged. "With how fast word travels in the guild...." His grip tightens. "The looks we'd get in the Flagon..."

He thrusts and his cock brushes a sensitive spot. It makes your toes curl. His name threatens to spill from your lips. You bite your cheeks to silence it.

His hips snap against yours. You squeak out a whine. Your face burns.

He repeats the motion. You push back against him. The small alcove is filled with the sound of skin slapping against skin.

Your ear is caught by an indistinct voice nearby. You only catch a couple of words: "... out for a bit..."

Niruin.

Your heart stops.

Brynjolf doesn't.

The thought of getting caught with him between your legs sends a spasm through your pussy. He groans. His pace verges on erratic.

Niruin can be heard from below, closer: "Try making a request before I'm heading out the door next time, would you, Rune?"

You're running out of time. He'll be at the ladder any moment, and you'll be rushing to hide your shame. You'll be fumbling to pull your pants up and brush your hair into place, but nothing will hide your frazzled face in the moonlight.

Brynjolf's hips crash into yours.

The noise. The risk. The sensation.

You bury your face in his chest as the knot releases. Waves of pleasure wash over you. You cum around his length, fluids seeping down his shaft. His motions never slow as your legs squeeze tight around him.

"Bryn-"

A hand clamps over your mouth. His name devolves into a moan - a sound that sends him over the edge. He groans, thrusting deeper, shameless in the sound your hips name. He fills you, sticky semen pumping into you.

He lingers with his hips pressed flush to yours. There are hot puffs of air against your neck as he pants.

"Well done, lass." He says. He removes his hand from your mouth and lowers your feet to the floor. You regain your balance on wobbly legs. You are suddenly acutely aware of how your limbs are trembling.

He pulls up your pants. You feel his cum leak into your panties as he fastens the button.

You only notice Niruin's approach when the wood planks covering the hole in the floor are removed. A dim light floods the area.

The elf pokes his head up and greets you.

"Oh! (Y/N). Brynjolf. See you two made it back alright." His eyes linger on your face, then shift to your partner's.

"Careful out there tonight. Seems we might have riled up the guards a bit." Brynjolf replies with forced nonchalance.

Niruin gives a chuckle - one far too knowing for your taste - and pulls the chain on the wall. "Riled up, is it?"

You narrow your eyes, staring daggers at Brynjolf. The man replies with a smirk and a halfhearted shrug.

"I'm sure I'll be just fine." Niruin says, heading up the stairs as the pathway opens before him. "You two, have fun..."