thedarkestrivernymph

[thedarkestrivernymph]

Devastation

pairings: Y! Crazy Scientist x Gn! Reader

warnings: heavy angst, yearning, murder, mentions of death, hints at abuse, toxic relationship dynamics, genre: science fiction

“I’ve always found love in you.” he croaked, softness painting his features eerily alien.

“In the way you glanced, in the way your cheeks flushed ever so subtly, in the way your chest rose, in the way you were always so full of life and—” his voice faltered, left him.

God, it hurt. It hurt so badly.

“What did I do to deserve you?” his throat was too tight, his hands too shaky with his stare too heavy as it bore down onto what remained of you.

Code.

“What did I do to be punished with losing you?”

—and a few teeth and pieces of hair.

He sobbed out loud. A cry so raw, you could practically hear his soul shatter in its confinement.

You were gone.

Truly. Completely. Irreversibly.

And it was his fault. His stupid, stupid fault.

You had begged him to listen. To hear reason. You didn't love anyone but him—no matter how suffocating his presence was, no matter how he left you in shambles, unrecognisable to a person with dignity as he shamelessly consumed every part you offered or not.

So he took the last thing one could take; your breath.

Then he recreated you—downloaded your brain onto his computer. And to add to the insanity of it all, he accessed your memories;

he got to see the truth.

All of it.

“Fuck!” his fists pounded against his desk, untouched coffee from when you were still with him, spilling over his lap.

“Fuck, baby, I am so—so sorry.”

he watched you, or what had been you, in memories, how not once you had been unfaithful. Pain blossomed in his chest so potent, he could've believed it to be a heart attack under other circumstances.

“Angel, m’ Angel.” he mumbled, tongue as heavy as lead, gripping the screen of his monitor so tightly cracks formed in the corners.

“I’ll do it right this time,” he murmured, “I’ll do it better. We gonna be happy, this time. Yeah, my Angel.

Everything’s gonna be fine.”

Only nothing would be fine ever again.

—because he committed the one crime, he had sworn on never doing; hurt you.

He was the villain of your story,

and villains never got their happy end.

©Copyright - 2025 - thedarkestrivernymph - All Rights Reserved

[thedarkestrivernymph]

Tsundere! Very mean! Sukuna x gn! Reader

warnings: hints at/talks about reader having an eating disorder, ptsd, trauma, angst, hints at depression, very mean/toxic! Sukuna, implied forced feeding, bitch as gn

word count: roughly 600

Life was a whirlwind.

Chaotic, overwhelming, gross.

Leaving the cavity in your chest empty, as if someone had ripped your heart out, only to replace the beating muscle with hot tar.

You loathed it. This constant pressure, the tugging and pulling, as if you were a ragdoll, filled with cotton and unfulfilled childhood dreams instead of a bleeding human with limbs that could break and shatter.

Sometimes, in the quiet of the night, you did wish you were nothing more than a doll. When the voices swirled around your head like buzzing flies, ripping away the last shred of hope for something to lay out there that was kinder to you than you could ever be to yourself.

Today was one of those nights you were up to your neck in self pity, practically suffocating on it as you stared down at your dinner and it at you. If the macaroni could open its tramp, you were sure it would've hurled insults at you.

“Eat, fuck. You're slower than a snail.” a voice next to you groaned. The timber familiar, yet still too foreign to consider comforting.

“Sorry, ‘Kuna.” you flicked your tongue over your lips again. Tasting salt and pepper, the very first and last bite—and the guilt, the shame of the voices, of the people expecting so much of you.

“I just—haven’t gotten an appetite.” you unclenched fingers you hadn't noticed before were strangling your poor fork and sat it down next to your plate with a sigh. The rounded kitchen table was set as every other dinner since you both became roommates—two plates, salt, pepper, one bottle of tabasco, one lone fake rose in a funky shaped vase (you insisted on), those neon green coasters you had bought just to spite him and his beer and your water.

He scoffed, “Sure, sure.”something heavy burdened your shoulders and your skin prickled as if needles were scraping against it. His cutlery clattered. Shit.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” there he goes again—the same line and the same trick to guilt-trip you into finishing your portion of the pot.

“Nothing, I just—”

“Bullshit. You tryna kill yourself?” his voice rose in volume, so loud it stunned you for a moment. And then suddenly you were eight again, holding back stinging tears, attempting to be stronger than you could ever dream to be.

“If you continue—” he continued to scream, “you gonna end up dead. Do you want that? Is that what you want?” He smashes his fists onto the table, sending your silverware to clink and causing your water to topple over, spilling all across.

You flinched.

“Pathetic.” he spat, “You’re fucking pathetic. You ruin my appetite too with that face of yours.” tears hot and heavy touched your cheeks as you let your head drop, slumping into yourself like the kid in the back of the class, made fun of, teased, ridiculed—the dumb one, the incapable one, the chubby, ugly, fat fuck.

“I—” you coughed, mouth as dry as if you had swallowed sand, trying to lick wetness onto your lips, “I am sorry.”

For a moment there was only the overwhelmingly erratic thrum of your heartbeat and you. Then, slowly, with the scraping of chair legs against the tiles, he moved.

Towards you.

“Eat.” one heavy hand settled on your shoulder the other one picked up your fork and brought it to your lips. He lowered himself, you soon noticed, slipping down to crouch next to you with a gaze that was no better than the back of a hand.

“Eat or be eaten.” he pressed it to your bottom lip.

“So you better open up, bitch.”

©Copyright - 2025 - thedarkestrivernymph - All Rights Reserved

[thedarkestrivernymph]

cw: bad self image, talks about body image, bad self-concept, insecurity, self-hating

“Ma’” your toddler whined drowsily, yawning as you tucked them in bed.

“Yes, sweetheart?” you sighed softly, exhaustion clear under your eyes, drained of ever last bit of energy, as you fought off sleep yourself.

“Am I fat?” that quickly woke you up. Eyes wide with your eyebrows raised you looked down at her big puppy eyes.

“Sweetie—why would you think you’re fat?” you were puzzled. She was a toddler, chubby at best—but healthy at that, but most importantly where could she have picked that up from? Children didn't just think up such things by themselves after all.

“You call yourself fat, mommy. Fat and ugly.” horror shone in your gaze. Fuck, when had she picked up on that?

“Sweetheart—”

“Am I fat and ugly too?” you shook your head, swallowing down the lump in your throat.

“Then why do you call yourself fat and ugly?”

“That's—sweetheart—I—” now you were on brink of tears and at a loss for words.

“I think you're the prettiest on the whole wide world!” she raised her arms spreading them wide and far, “You're the prettiest because you're my mommy!”

You pulled her into a hug before she could make out that you were crying. Inhaling in the faint scent of her favourite mermaid shampoo, the remnants of suncream and her smell that lingered from the time she was a baby—like home. Your home. And you were hers. This tiny human with so much personality considered you her home.

Needless to say, after that you were much more careful with your words around her.

©Copyright - 2025 - thedarkestrivernymph - All Rights Reserved

[thedarkestrivernymph]

can we have more of the death yanders kidnapper fic? I really wanna see our life with him

A normal day in your life..

Y! Kidnapper x f! Reader

warnings: forced infantilization, religious themes, mentions of urine, diaper, baby-talk, forced feeding

the fic -> Death

“You have to.”

“No!” you're as stubborn as a petulant child, “I don't want to.” your voice thins until it wavers and you break into yet another sob.

“Sweetheart,” there's another groan before a warm hand brushes over your scalp, scratching up and down your nape as if you're a cat, “You have to eat, sweetie, if you don't, you know what will happen, won't you?”

There's a thickness that swells in your throat, just the thought of doing that ever again is enough to make your palms sweaty and feet itching to run.

“See?” his voice his smug, while his predatory gaze flicks with recognition of weakness. Of your weakness.

“You don't want to be down there again, right baby? I don't want to chain you up, you get all horribly bruised up.” he sighs softly, deeply with new-found hunger in his chestnut colored eyes. He talks soft and sickeningly sweet, as if his mouth had a mind of its own, apart from the actual ravenous beast inside of him that you have come to know so well. “I would hate for your delicate skin to be blemished.”

Another kiss is presses to your forehead, before he lowers his hand to trace over the pendant with his name engraved hanging from your collar. “Say ‘ahh’.” he urges again, lowering his hand to sit at the curve of your waist, keeping you firmly planted on his lap, dressed in unnecessary frill—like a doll. Like you’re his doll. This fucking creep.

The spoon lifts once again and its contents twist your stomach for the second time.

The spoonful is weirdly pink and brown with colorful sprinkles grinded into it. It is clear that it once was cake but now it is this weird odd paste that he, no doubt, put in the mixer because quote “you’re just a baby, babies don't eat real food”.

Yet this time when he seeks entrance, tapping against your bottom lip you open up with tearful eye, allowing the tooth-rootingly sweet to flood your taste buds. Swallowing is even more difficult as his hand creeps up to settle over your sternum, pressing, waiting to feel your throat bob.

“Good girl” you cry at his praise, because an entire bowl full of this slob is staringback at you.

“If you eat up maybe I’ll even let you play with your dolls again, mh?” there's another wave of nausea, as your lungs constrict and your airways tighten, but this time not because of the prospect of punishment if you disobey, but because of the pressure in your lower abdomen.

It's already worse enough that you have to piss literally every two minutes because of how fucking anxious he makes you, is him taking notice of the building pressure in your bladder.

“Sweetheart, oh? Do you have to go potty again?”

he’s so fucking condescending in his speech, so proud about having reduced you to this, that his smile stretches unsettling wide, inhuman, animalistic, vile—in another universe you hope he's a pig brought to slaughter.

You would rather die than pee into the diaper he put you on in front of him, worse, on him.

But suddenly he cups your tummy with one large hand, rubbing and pressing against it. “Come, you can go here.” your face drains of colour again as you grit your teeth, shaking your head in a firm ‘no’. You would rather die of shame then do that.

But he doesn't take no as an answer, he never does. Because you're his, god-given and all, remember? So he starts messaging your stomach, reaching beneath the layers upon layers of frilly blue to reach your navel and ram his grimy fingers into your flesh.

You cry out, jerk around. You may have lost your dignity, you may be kept like an animal but you won't allow this, no, you're still an adult, you're not a child nor an infant, you're capable of controlling your bladder no matter what—

There's something hot. Sticky and fluid. And as you ruin your diaper you, the realisation of what you just did settling in—the betrayal of your body, you cannot help but sob loder, cry, hiccup and mewl, babbling without coherent sentences as your face burns in shame.

And what does he do?

He grins. As always.

“Good job, Sweetheart.” he pressed his lips to your cheek, before he scoops another spoonful from the bowel and raises the the cool silverware to your mouth again.

“Come now finish, then we can get you all cleaned up.” so you do just that, allow him to fed you this sticky repulsing mess, that makes you gag with each swallow, because what else can you do?

And it isn't long before his face dips into your shoulder and he whispers into your skin the very same set of words he's chanted to you since you have awoken to yet another nightmare.

“I love you, sweetheart, so so much. You're my everything, and soon you'll make me the happiest man on earth. God! I am so excited, I can't wait to meet our little one.”

©Copyright - 2025 - thedarkestrivernymph - All Rights Reserved

[thedarkestrivernymph]

"Please, open your eyes."

warnings: male! yandere x reader, dagger, murder, blood, betrayal, big ouchie misunderstanding, angst :(

“Don't make me do this.” he grit out, pleading.

But what shouldn't you make him do?

“Please, just tell the fucking truth!” he barked at you, knuckles white around the bejeweled handle that belonged to your dagger.

Just what was he talking about?

“Fuck!” another scream entered straight into your ear, as you wheezed, trying to blink away the disorientation.

The stone floor bit into your back. Head mushy, as if it had been stirred up in a mixer and then spilled onto the floor all around you in a velvet blanket of red.

“Just say it!” ah, now you started to piece it back together. His insistence had caused you to crack open your head, with the dagger in his hands to point at your throat. “Say it!” he was close to tears now, you were sure, he always was when his voice began wavering and breaking like a dagger that penetrated skin. Or like the dagger right now that penetrated your skin.

“I don't know.” you chanted hoarsely as before, meeting troubled blues as you blinked the blurriness away. “Eliot, I swear.” your own voice faltered, “I am no traitor. I am yours, Eliot. You know me.” it thinned until you could only stifle a sob.

Recognition painted his face, something tender swirled in his gaze. Did he finally believe you? That you truly were innocent and only framed—

“I am sorry. So sorry, y/n.” tears. For the very first time since you have known him he was crying.

And then—your throat exploded with pain; the kind that travelled down the entire length of your spine, frying every nerve-end, as something hot and suffocating; like tar flooded your lungs.

“So sorry.”

You choked, writhed, failed around, attempted to plead through the suffocating taste of betrayal, yet nothing. It all remained futile. Because death’s lanky fingers strangled you.

And soon,

everything was dark again.

©Copyright - 2025 - thedarkestrivernymph - All Rights Reserved

[thedarkestrivernymph]

"Baby forget him! I'll always be there for you..♡"

warning: nsfw themes, a lil lie(s), infidelity, hurt, insecurity, fem!yandere, wlw, fantasy world

“I hate him!” another mug goes to waste. One of your best ones at that. She cringes.

Shattering on impact as it meets the sturdy craftsmanship that's your shared wooden door.

But she agreed to this, didn't she?

“Dearie—” pick, chuck, scream. You're like a machine uploading and unloading, destroying everything in sight “Love—” she tries again after wetting her lips only to be met with more shards of porcelain flying around in the air like deadly snow.

“Sweetheart!” she cries out in panic as you almost get ahold of her favourite pink mug—one of your many failed attempts at pottery.

The elf cradles it like it was made out of pure gold—her green eyes wide and warning.

“What do you even see in that ugly thing?” you scoff, bleary gaze set on the pile of multicoloured porcelain and glass that now collected in your living room. Great.

“Should’ve asked you that before you got with him.”

You bit your tongue. Nashua wasn't wrong. No matter how much you wished she was. “Touche.”

For a moment everything seemingly froze, even the leaves whipped around from the strong southern wind seemed to halt. Then she stepped closer. Her boots were heavy on the tiles, and the one particular spot moaned as usual. She really needed to have a word with the landlord.

Sighing, she let her lips stiffen into a smile.

“Better now?” her pale green hand came into view, brushing away a strand of damp hair that stubbornly stuck to your sticky cheek, “Got it out of your system?”

“Yeah,” you nodded, almost lifelessly, bringing up your arms—human and weak compared to her, imperfect in a world ruled by only the most powerful—around her in a pathetically desperate embrace.

“It's okay, love. Forget him, that douchebag is none of your concern anymore.” she cradled your skull as always while straining to meet you at eye level—tall and powerful, womanly, with soft breasts that pressed into your collarbone. Just everything you weren't in this godforsaken world, where you had been born a human. A human that couldn't even keep a drow satisfied.

Fuck. Now you were crying again.

Nashua, was quick to help you through it as always. Of course. As her hand wandered down your pants, a rather unorthodox method to help out a friend and roommate in need she must admit, but it got the job done and soon you were screaming her name, while creaming her hand. Finally. A smile slipped onto those beautiful lips of yours, unknowing that this wasn't custom in her culture.

That she only wanted you. And by the heavens finally that prick dumped you for some mindless fae, leaving you all to her. For her to look after, to pamper, to fuck, to love.

Yeah, she loved you single.

Still, which roommate didn't avenge her friend?

Her warm lips pressed to your crown, whispering a promise of death disguised as sympathy.

“Shh, I hate him, too.”

©Copyright - 2025 - thedarkestrivernymph - All Rights Reserved

[thedarkestrivernymph]

our first time meeting yandere clan leader? Feel like it would be great

I mean..I definitely could tell you about the boring, clean, almost business-like official first meeting, where you both were in attendance of your respective clan elders OR I could tell you about the first meeting.

So..

Soft Yandere! Clan Leader x Future! Wife! Reader

warnings: mentions of sexual intercourse, vulgar language, more insight about him in general, this is a few years back, he's a simp haha, made up culture, not proofread, this low key got a lil long..

"My lord! Look at all the goods! It's been a fruitful season this year." background noise always clung to him.

Incessant chatter, menial tasks, small talk his former nursemaid, now one of his permanent servants, always initiated. It was a headache through and through. And now his mother demanded a betrothal. To a stranger no less!

"My lord—look!" another urging had him drag his weary gaze towards one of the stalls, the apples truly bigger and prouder than the past season. But why should it concern him?

Sighing, he acknowledged the flushed merchant with a nod, while her sweaty palms smoothed out invisible lines on her skirts, before brushing a stray hair back, as if her whole head of hair wasn't a wild bird's nest.

He scoffed.

It wasn't of his own choosing to be the future of a whole clan, to carry burdens that most would never have to—to be a man, never a boy.

Yet it was like the gods shunned him for his bright spot on earth. For the very spotlight he never wanted to attract. They were angered, at least it felt as if so—as if him being born as the apple of everyone's eye caused their envy.

Perhaps one of them was the god of sun, guessing as his rays were half-blinding him at this time of the day.

"My lord! Please keep your spirits high, just look around, soak it in, I am sure your mother—" thankfully he was quicker on his feet than her or any of his other circle of servants, towering over them all, sticking out like a sore thumb since childhood, because one more ignorant word out of her mouth and his patience hanging on the thinnest thread known to man would snap in half. And he couldn't get angry. Wasn't allowed to anyways.

He groaned again.

Padding through the bustling center of the market on quick feet. He may have been scolded countless times in his childhood to not wander around alone, as valuable, as he was, but he was an adult now, wasn't he? At least he should have some autonomy. Even if that little didn't apply to which woman he would eventually have to stick his dick in.

His steps grew heavier at just the thought of it, some stranger, someone he had never met before, terrified as he was. "Perhaps mother would even stay and watch, instruct you how to properly put an heir into a womb." He cringed at the words, repulsed by only the memory of his brother's crass teasing.

He grit his teeth. No, never would he allow this marriage to be guided by his parents orders. He would be a leader; the one to fit the role he was molded to be, but never would he allow them to exert anymore power over him after his succession.

Another step, the shade engulfed him, the market more desolate in this little corner, with fewer and scarcer stalls, not the opulent ones in the square of the marketplace, but the ones with the little fishers and mothers selling home-made goods.

The one he was in front of was the former, with a plump woman standing behind a stall full of hand-woven goods, clearly distressed trying to calm her fussy child. A little tuft of blonde, with pink cheeks, babbling and whining in protest, until the woman stuck a thumb into its mouth, quietening his cries.

The sight was almost endearing. So one day, he too, would have to have such a tiny thing? Still, it would be without consent.

"By the heavens—" his head snapped in the direction of the gasp and there; there his heart stopped beating for a hot second.

The air thinned, stifled him, as if something was suffocating him with invisible hands, perhaps fate, perhaps the gods who seemed to look down on him, whether it was it hurt. God it burned.

There—a few stalls away from where he stood—was a woman, barely one, with your head bowed in front of another older one who pried something from your hands in a fit of rage.

"My lady, have you lost your mind! Anything could have happened to you—and for what? To play with children?" the greying one was so enraged, so belittling of the most beautiful flower he had ever seen bloom. He felt mad, angry at her as little zaps of electricity travelled through his veins right into his heart the moment you looked up, with a face kissed surely by the goddess of the moon as an infant. So dazzling, that felt the urge to pinch himself, gaping unlike a member of a prestige clan.

But what could he do? If he moved, he feared you would disappear and god that caused an ache in his usual hollow chest.

"My lady!" he watched wordlessly as she continued to berate you, her words swirling around his head, going in one ear and out the other as even his anger failed him. Tears pricked the corners of his eyes, something foreign and wet and all—because of you, the stranger with a tight-shut mouth with such a defeated look in her glittering gaze, with soft cheekbones and lips pursued into a tight line. As if you had just sprung out a folktale with the blue silk wrapped around you—his favourite colour.

"You cannot behave in this manner anymore! Just think about what your father may say—by the gods—and your dear aunt!" she continued her lecture, fussing as she gripped your shoulders tempting to guide you away.

He stepped forward, yet another tear rolling down his cheek—one he would never admit to shedding.

"Please, what will the people think if they see the daughter of.."

She walked off with you and, as he noticed only now, a few more servants, yet that didn't matter, because he had caught on to your title.

"My lord!" he heard frantic calling, but he didn't care, couldn't bring himself to, instead he grinned, manically. Because the gods did seem to be merciful after all.

Finally, finally he would receive something he would consent to—wished for actually, something he would be able to look forward to in this life of endless responsibilities and as he strode forward to pick up one out of the abandoned bunch of marbles on the ground, he picked a white one up to press to his chest.

One untainted—mirroring the look in your eyes,

"My wife."

[thedarkestrivernymph]

THANK U FOR FEEDING ME WITH MORE CHARLES CONTENT 🧎‍♀️

There's still a little more to come! I am just slow, as a snail, with asks haha..🐌🩷

[thedarkestrivernymph]

hey girlie, ur writing is YUMMY

if u don't mind, could u tell us ur secret?

This was the first thing I woke up to today. 😶‍🌫️🩷Very sweet way to start my day especially because the night before was sooo exhausting— yesterday I tried to offer a fae to the dark lord and she was being all difficult and put up a fight, bla blah don't wanna die, like c'mon, let a girl just do her ritual in peace!/j

But in all seriousness if you actually want tips then it's 1) write whatever the fuck you're interested in and write a lot; inspiration is key, you gotta be hooked first before anyone else 2) read a lot 3) study styles/grammar if you deem it necessary 4) write, write, write chanting it

[thedarkestrivernymph]

heyyyyy love ur writing, what if yan clan leader wants a baby?

Soft Yandere! Clan Leader x Wife! Reader

warnings: talks of pregnancy, skinship, lots of kisses, very soft

note: this might be just too cheesy ngl..

"Love" his breath tickles you awake in your drowsy state—like a feather brushing up and down the shell of your ear.

"My love" he repeats once more, this time gathering you up in his arms to turn you over, pressing your back into the soft tangled mess of sheets.

"Mhm?" you finally muse, cracking open one of your eyes, weary as a newborn, with exhaustion deep in your bones from another day of having to deal with the clan.

There in the dim light of your shared room, stares down a god at his goddess; with reverence bordering on worship, with longing and gratitude. So he bows his head, slow and languid and presses shy kisses up and down the line of your jugular.

"I wish—" he starts between his doting and holding back the greedy beast inside of him, stopping himself from moving lower. "No—I—" again, he cuts himself off and at the repetition, your hands find his nape, scratching and pressing.

"Husband, what is it? You seem, rather, worried." you mutter between soft hums of satisfaction when he nimbles on a particular tender spot of your skin.

When he still can't untangle his tongue from your throat to speak, you twirl a strand of his around your index, squinting as the moon's silver sudden entrance. "You worry me too." Now you're frowning, and your gut clenches as he still stays quiet. "Husband—"

"I want someone like you." he confesses.

Immediately your brows shoot up.

"Someone like me?" you look at him puzzled and it's there that he sighs and climbs down. Wordlessly with a certain look in his eyes that you swear you haven't seen before. He moves lower and even lower, until his cheek finally finds the spot it was looking for; your belly.

"You. My love. A mini you." and it's there that your cheeks heat up and a grin so nasty you didn't know he had the muscles to pull off, spreads across his lips.

He presses his mouth to your belly button, uncaring that the fabric between you creates a barrier, for it would not be there for long.

"So you wish for one too?" still, he has to confirm with you—because if he didn't, if he just carelessly assumed your consent then he would be no better than all the other runts in this world. And he would rather carve out his own eyes than harm you.

Still heated, with thighs subtly shifting closer to each other, you tilt your head away, heart heavy that—this wouldn't just be duty.

That he had waited for so long and that he still just didn't take like a brute—like his elders nagged him to do, but that he wanted your thoughts on it. That he considered your feelings, placed worth on you, in a world where so little was in your power. To let you choose and let you live.

The moon embraced you both again and so in the comfort of all—in the serenity that you were free, even if it was just within your golden cage, you answer with your fingers entangled in his tresses.

And as you confirm or perhaps not you watch his face morph into tender admiration. Nonetheless of the answer — you are his and he is yours.

For all eternity.

[thedarkestrivernymph]

no pressure girl but I NEED more charles, he's my baby 🤤

I scraped all my motivation together for this, I hope you like it even though it's a modern Au (the third life..) 😶‍🌫️

A Heart Of Gold

Y! Wealthy! Older! Charles x Younger! Stepmom! Reader

warnings: mentions of planned pregnancy, nsfw at the end, horny Charles, Nicholas is a teenager, not proofread

Mist swirled around the twisting and turning branches of the proud beech, leaves fluttering alike feathers, coated in gentle frost.

Windows fogged up whenever opened. It was a chilly morning. One without the gentle orange and pink that usually flooded the horizon as the sun rosr proud and tall. No this morning, as many more to come because of the morphing seasons, was drained of any colour, with lifeless gray clouds hanging bleary over the forest.

“Dear,” two strong arms curled around you from behind, pulling you into the human flame that kept your insides warm and toasty every season regardless of degree, “You're looking awfully upset. Mighty fine, but upset.” a kiss was pressed to your crown before a chin rested there and a throat bobbed against the back of your skull.

“Sorry, baby, had I known that the weather would be this shitty, I would have booked a ticket to the Maldives.” you could practically hear the frown in his voice. The concern, the care, the sheer wish to keep you happy all time round, enough to ease the tension between your shoulder blades.

You giggled at the strum of his thumb.

“Charles,” you turned your head, straining to look up at him, only to break out into a gentle smile as you finally caught sight of his tender gaze and the his characteristic chestnut curls brushed back against his scalp.

You were smiling, lovesick and all, until your gaze travelled lower, hungry and greedy for more of the man you were near worshipping. Expecting savoury smooth skin; an expanse of a bare chest — as he tended to sleep barely dressed —instead your eyes caught onto his dress shirt and tie. Immediately your face soured.

Something cold raked through you at that, something with an ugly bratty head.

“Do you have to leave again?” you whined. So unlike yourself, more child than woman, yet how could you not be frowning when you could barely satiate your hunger for the love of your life?

Fingers found your cheeks, soft nimble and warm, everything you dreamed of; everything you wanted stood behind them yet so out of reach.

“It's my job, dear,” he chanted as always, gaze lingering on your lips, before he pressed a haste kiss against them, one you savoured with a flick of your tongue after.

“I am sorry, baby, I know this sucks. But bear with it, please? How else could I buy you those cute little dresses you like so much? And the bags? And deck you in jewellery” again, he used the same excuse, a poor excuse for a joke really, but it made the corners of your lips twitch and brows only furrow further.

“You know I am not with you for your money, Charles. I want you, not a stupid bag.” you groaned as he just pressed another kiss to your lips and then another, and another. Until finally he smoothed out the lines on your forehead and you melted against him.

“I am sorry, really sorry,” he rasped against your lips, breath fawning over where his spit clung to your lips like chapstick, “I know you're not like that, dear. I would never think that, but I have to go. I want you to live comfortably without worries.”

You released a breath. “I am comfortable. You don't need to work so much.”

He shook his head, before a stupid grin spread over his lips. “If we want Nick’ to be an older brother, then I am not nearly working enough.” he pressed his mouth to your shoulder this time.

“After this year,” kiss, “I promise,” kiss, “that I will slow down.” he breathed against your sternum, probably unaware of the quick pitter-patter pace of your heart, how it was trying to break free. For a moment everything seemed to freeze, like a snapshot as you looked down at your husband, his wedding band twinkling in the artificial light of the kitchen, evidently polished and well-taken care of.

He valued you, fuck, he didn't just value you, he was possessed by you; every second away from you was agony, but what could he do—even when after years he had finally found his true soulmate, he still had to go to work, to struggle, so that when he finally would put a baby in you, he would forever stay glued to your side.

“Charles,” your head immediately snapped back the moment you felt warmth encompass your nipple. Those nimble fingers of his had pulled your top down and were now travelling across your skin with feathery-soft touches, while he sucked on your bud, his other hand, the one with the wedding band he so keenly kept clean travelled between your thighs, prying and inching further and further and—

Out of the corner of your heavy-lidded eyes, you caught sight of movement.

Eyes. Two eyes. What the fuck.

You squealed, clamped your legs shut, eliciting a surprised gasp from your husband, that followed your stare.

“For fuck’s sake!” he groaned, scrambling to cover your exposed chest with a heaving grunt, face still flushed.

“Nicholas look the fuck away!”

[thedarkestrivernymph]

Cry. Call. Curse.

Yandere! Vampire x f! Reader

warnings: gore, blood (lots of it..), dead animals, death, vomiting, infantilization, weird relationship dynamics, pseudo-incest, loss of teeth, forced capture, nonconsensual acts, dead dove: do not eat

word count: 3.6k

©Copyright -2025- thedarkestrivernymph - All Rights Reserved

“Tear me apart. Piece by piece. Rip me open and bare my naked insides to the world. I wish to let the shadows feast on the blood I spill, to let them dig their greedy little fangs into my liver and womb, to taint what hasn't been tainted before. To let them touch what hasn't been touched. So, Sire, tell me, should you grapple with your own creation?”

The Cry

It was cold. The night was merciless and the forest even more so. It lashed at you, screamed in your face for daring to set foot outside at such late of an hour.

She wanted her spotlight, the moon, and you were robbing her of it with your quick-pace. Making this about you, when she was truly the brightest star under the Sun's watchful gaze, yet, insufferable, little you just had to run for your life at night! How rude.

Truly how careless of you to sever the trees loving embrace of another, cursing as you felt yet another twig catch onto one of your many skirts, hissing at the sizzling pain that came with each whip. And truly just how utterly ignorant of you to be frantic enough to be carelessly loud, snapping twigs in half, fighting back the thicket, crunching leaves all while your footsteps and ragged breathing fell into a messy symphony, disturbing the night’s peace.

How mean you were to take away attention from her beauty as you fled—not just from the past that haunted you like a mellowed ghost, but also from the very real mob chasing after you.

Torches lit up and went down, cries declaring your nearing end sounded and faded, while they trampled all over everything on these sacred grounds — as father David liked to call the crust of the earth — like a herd of wild boars.

“Catch the witch!” he had commanded so fiercely and unleashed demons that resided in them; normal people to annihilate you.

Yet the game of cat and mouse only went to the borders of the forest, where it met the forbidden woods. You knew how easy people believed and how blindly—so you collapsed next to a tree soaked completely in darkness, leaving behind the only sources of light in the other holy parts of nature to curse and sardonically laugh at you.

“You dumb wench!” the mob cleared, dissipated until the last crazed person left, leaving you there, sat under the proud mahogany tree. All while you triumphed that you managed to survive another day unharmed. Danced another dangerous round of tango with the devil.

You had done your usual routine: trespass into a town to sell readings, prophecy of a made-up future, claim to be god’s third eye only to quickly be uncovered as a cheap charlatan with even cheaper tricks. You sighed. Dipped your fingers into your pocket to fish out your little treasures; your cards.

Your gaze flitted over the illustrations; your ‘pa had paid good money for them back in his day. Sort of family heirloom at this point. Funny.

You traced over the engravings on the back of the deck, letting your thoughts drift.

Life was tough and this made easy money. Fast money. Money you needed. Yet would it really be of use if you were killed because of it? You scoffed. “’Pa would scold me.” you couldn't help but blurt, while chuckling dryly, lungs still burning with the fear of capture.

Clouds were crowding the darkened skies. Their faint grays overlapping into a blur, clothing the moon in metal silk that hung off her rounded form loosely; some might say tempting. Yet she wasn't satisfied with it, how could she ever be? When something so disruptive stayed planted to the soil she laid claim on. So—some may say it is fate and others luck, but few would point their fingers at the real culprit; the moon.

Her light was your downfall.

You were cloaked in black under that wistfully swaying branch, yet the moment you rose—decided to search for a better place to spend the night at was when you had just unknowningly lost the chase.

Because, let's be truthful here, the game of cat and mouse hadn't even started. The mob not the real evil in your miserable story. You were glowing so beautifully tempting after all; like you were a piece of her after all and perhaps that's why she had decided to dress you in silver from head to toe and present you to him.

You hummed while you walked; a nervous habit of sorts. Sure it was dangerous, but you liked—no breathed danger! That's just what you always had known.

“I wonder if those green mushrooms grow here too.” you mumbled, chewing on the inside of your cheek, while rolling a flower bud you had plucked from the ground between your thumb and index finger. A sort of game you had developed and carried on from childhood.

Yeah, that was what it was.

A game.

For him at least.

“Mushrooms! Thank god—” relief was close to soothe you, to let you gnaw at the glowing bunch of mushroom heads you gathered greedily in your outermost skirt, so close to satiating the deep hunger clawing at your guts, when someone else beat you to it.

There was pain before you could even blink; raw, throbbing, angry pain. The kind that grabbed you by the scruff and turned you limp like a kitten. That kind.

“It will be over soon.” there was a murmur, something ominous and eerie. It was difficult to understand just who—or what spoke, when your entire neck was set ablaze; vicious red spraying all over you. It was blood, you realized far too late. And it was yours.

“Stop! Help!” the realisation came all too late and crushing, too slow. You were being drained, robbed of your very essence. You trashed and turned, kicked and fought, cried out, yet clawed hands only tightened around your shoulders pushing you into place as if you were dough this creature could mold to its liking.

“No! No, let go of me! Not like this—not this.” you protested, rather promised yourself, fighting against a face you didn't know and a strength that was everything but human. And perhaps in that very moment the moon took pity on you and that's why her shine dimmed and you ripped your throat free and with it your life.

“Humans.” the creature clicked his tongue, glaring down at your limp corpse oozing the delicious liquid in an admittedly very tantalising way; yet something about you was calling out to it. The curl between your brows, the restlessness still there on your frozen features—and your insistence on not dying at the hands of a monster, so much that you killed yourself. You were a special one.

He could feel it.

So lapping up at your neck, he thanked the moon for her graciousness and kissed your brow like a father would to say goodnight, only for him, this wasn't a goodbye.

The Call

Your skull throbbed. The tendrils of something painful curled around you, dirt laid heavy on your tongue and before you knew it you were frantically clawing your way out of a casket. Which deranged villager possibly would bury you alive—why would anyone bury anyone alive?

Vines clutched you, kept you in place; tendrils of death. You were chained by an indescribable force and forbidden to breathe free of dirt—it stung your lungs and scratched the back of your throat. God, you were drowning. Drowning in a pile of fucking dirt.

You howled; frantic, loud, desperate.

No one heard.

You tried louder; nothing.

You were swallowed up. You were dying. Your skull throbbed.

“Won't you raise, my love?”

You gasped for air, trashing and turning only to rip your eyes open to a foreign scenery. Dirt was replaced with pale silk and the casket with the largest bed you had ever had the luxury to lay upon. You glanced down at your hands, felt up your throat—nothing. There were no vines snaked around you like shackles.

You were alive, alive and well and—

“Little one.” you flinched. Dread coiled in the bottom of your stomach. You knew that voice.

“You—it’s you.” terror danced in your blurry vision as the monster from that night took shape in front of you. It was a man. A tall one with broad shoulders and slender wrists. And hair as silver as the moon that dressed him in her shimmer and skin as white as snow. Yet with two glowing balls of red for eyes.

Red. Like the blood he had made you shed.

“Little one, you’ve awoken.” he stated, almost relieved. He took a step closer, as if familiar, as if this was somehow excusable.

“Stay back!” you screeched. You had to flee, to call out for help, to do anything. This was a monster and who knew what he would do—

His shoulders dropped.

“Little one,” he sighed, “Is that any way to talk to your Sire?”

As if on cue, pure agony pumped through your veins straight to your stomach, as a hunger spread inside of you like a disease; something insatiable and maddening. Something you had never felt before. You yelped, eyes squeezing shut as you gripped the foreign piece of fabric that covered you in such fevor that you nearly tore it apart.

“Oh, dear. It seems to be happening already. What a fast fledging you are.” hadn't been standing at the foot of your bed? Why was he suddenly looking over you; watching you cry bitterly in confusion. You had been a normal human, free of the sins the villagers had accused you of—but now, you felt it deep inside of you, that what was happening to you would not let you remain untouched from evil.

“Don't worry, your Sire’s with you.” his words were little comfort when you felt one of your teeth loosen, cooper on your tongue, and then another one, until you spat out a half dozen of them into your open palms.

You were sobbing at this point, throat tight and gaze blurry with the fear of what you were becoming. God you hoped this was just another nightmare. That you were just too creative for your own good. Please.

“That's just part of the process, my love.” he muttered as if that would reassure you, as if anything could when you were in a monster’s bed with his arms around you. And the worst thing? You knew no one would be out there looking for you, because you were all on your own, shunned by your own kin.

“Shh, shh. It's okay, little one. I’ll give you a gold coin for each tooth you gain. Your kind likes shiny things, right? Now, don't be upset. C’mon sleep some more. The shock will fade soon.” he cradled you against him; neither cold nor warm, just uncomfortable and strange. Strange in the sense that he had nearly finished you and had dragged you here, yet now held you amidst the ache in your gums, as if you were the most fragile thing to have ever graced the earth.

Red tainted your hands. Angry and bold. A red that was out of reach from the moon’s grasp, hidden in your palms. The same colour that had sprung free from your neck that fateful night—were you dying? Was this death’s call? You couldn't tell.

“Hush, little one.” he rubbed your back as you wailed like you only ever had before in childhood. And finally you let yourself melt into the monster with claws for nails and eyes that of a predator and let yourself be lulled back into a dreamless slumber.

The Curse

You had lost all your teeth. In a matter of three bedridden days.

It was as if you were regressing back into a time you couldn't recall anymore, where your Ma’ still had been alive and when your only worry had been suckling on her breast.

Only as an infant you had been crazed for milk; something natural and god-given, but now you were screaming for something else entirely — out of a sort of thirst you had never experienced before, one that could only be satiated through the death of innocents —

blood.

Angry red that would curl around the corpses of wild boars and deers in swirles as he plopped them down in the middle of the room you were residing in, moreover kept captive in—but you didn't have the ability to protest, quite literally.

He would sit you at the edge of your bed, that grew colder everyday, then take a dagger with engravings on its hilt to slit the animal’s throat. Every time without a fail, he would then take the same goblet decorated with green jewels—little stones that he claimed represented you well.

“Come, little one, feed.” he called you today, like all the other ones, watching you like a hawk as you padded your way through the trails of crimson on weak knees—probably assessing your state; if you were recovering.

His lips curved upwards seeing how much more agile you were today. You didn't slump into yourself even once! “Good. You're improving.” he held the goblet to your lips, not trusting you enough yet to hold it up yourself. Putting a hand on the back of your head he guided you to drink—like one would lead a horse to water; like a mother squeezing her tit.

“Don’t worry, dear, your teeth will grow back in no time. You will have fangs such as mine.” he flashed you his own horror-inducing pearly-whites. So that was how you were going to look? Like a monster. Like your Sire? The creature that called himself your father.

Tears spilled over your lash line, sick to the stomach again; but even as you attempted to escape the wrongfully deliciousness that cooled the insatiable hunger inside of you—he didn't let you. He was unmoving, much like a statue.

“Shh, little one, don't cry. I know you must be upset. To not be able to express your gratitude to such a kind and refined gentleman such as I am for saving you from your old miserable existence. But don't worry, father will take care of you now.” he promised with those two rubies for eyes and streaks of whites that draped over his shoulders.

He looked young, as young as you. Still the creature claimed himself to be your guardian, acted dotting when he had cursed you with something you never asked for—and expected acceptance, gratitude even for it.

Your teeth grew back over the course of one week. Of one agonizing torturous week where you teethed on everything you could get your hands on like a little baby, whining and crying into the chest of your capturer, while suckling on whatever type of relief he provided, may it be blood to fill your stomach or meat to chew on or his own slit wrist; for his own sick and perverse enjoyment.

It wasn't until you regained all your teeth and with them your strength that things shifted, that he no longer regarded you a fledgling. Because you no longer were—with your proud canines and glowing gaze. You were a monster now, of his kin.

And his kind was oh-so rare, oh-so scarce, like grains of rice plucked from fields and he was oh, so, very lonely.

Which is why he just had to do what he did.

“If you had just listened,” he cooed.

Heavy gaze bearing down on you. Disappointment. Resignation. Contempt.

He looked at you as if truly you had been at fault for trying to escape, for the splitter of hope that had possessed you the moment you had fully grown into your new state, accepted that you no longer were woman or human, but monster instead.

“Stop! Please!” you could do nothing but cry as he continued to feed you what once had delighted you, made your mouth water at thought of the savoury taste; human food—the kind that made a grown Vampire hunch over to puke onto whatever he could find.

“Open wide, little one.” his voice was so sweet in tone, so innocent, concealing the torture he inflicted on you as you sat between his thighs, quivering as another glop of mashed up potatoes was dropped onto your tongue and pushed down your throat with his claws.

You gagged again. Like with ever other bite, stomach churning in protest, growing shades paler than you already had become. His hold on your soul was the only thing that kept you still and frozen there, even as bile rose up your throat, inch by painful inch—while he watched, unashamed gleefully.

Vomit sputtered from your lips, gagging and gurgling on it, nearly choking from how stiffly frozen you were. Only you knew you could not choke because you did not breathe. Not anymore at least. Not after he had robbed you of breath and now of decision, commanding your body to loosen only when his amusement turned to sympathy at the way you had swallowed nearly half of the yellow goo, only for your stomach to puke it all out again.

“Oh poor you.” he cooed, hand on your crown, brushing away strays, before he lifted you up as your stomach emptied for the last time onto your silken dress—it had to be something expensive. And he just let you ruin it.

“Little one,” the castle moaned again as it did so often, with the tiles creaking, “We’ll get you cleaned up.” The moon your only steady companion, graced your features once again, but this time in a gentle caress—for she once had held spiteful vengeance against you, envied you for your quick feet that carried you over earth’s surface; an annoyingly carefree little thing, but now she pitied you, for she could see your future was all but dim.

He carried you outside. As if to shame you publicly. No fear of you attempting to escape behind his back—for he knew that he could simply command you back. But just the thought that you had dared to, enraged yet hurt his brittle heart.

Setting you down at the pond’s edge like you weighted less than a feather, he made quick work of unfastening your bodice; some dress of a noble woman now long rotting under soil.

“Oh little one.” he purred, something odd in his tone today—something terrifyingly depraved that would send a shudder down your spine if you weren't sick, vomit drying on the corner of your mouth, shame once more finding you even after you had tried to cast her away. Like the moon that shone so brightly and could only watch your plight. Because unlike the times he had forcefully bathed you and ripped raw terrors from your chest—this time he striped himself too.

“What are you—” you shut. Eyes enlarging at the sight—too deceiving was his physique; that of a young man when his soul was nothing but that of a beast that took and only took in every shape or form.

“I will bathe with you this time. Why the grim face?” he spoke so casually you wanted to flee or attack—a true vampire you had become at heart.

“It’s only my duty to take care of you, little one. Look at all your teeth, aren't you proud? They all grew so well because of my blood.” he captured you in the water, caged you in between two pale and slender arms, ones that looked unassuming but could suffocate in the blink of an eye.

“Little one,” he whispered with red rubies for eyes and you felt something terrible poke at your thigh. “Little one—won’t you thank me for taking such good care of you?” curling his claws under you, he shifted your core towards his so dangerously close to a place you had once innocently believed he would never make you touch. Thinking that the words he muttered and the tender gaze of his only belied an obsession to have a child—but he didn't want that, now did he? He wanted a woman, he wanted you.

But in secret he craved both wife and child. Yet none were ever granted to him, even when he had forcefully took and pillaged, until you.

Oh you were perfect—and he was so depraved of love, that the lines blurred and somehow he wasn't sure what was decent and what not. He was your Sire, but still, you had been an adult, with a figure of that of an woman but a hunger that of a little darling—the lines blurred. And who could blame him for it, when he had spent centuries wallowing away alone? Alone until he had met and captured you.

So even as he made you a woman again, he could do nothing but cry in bliss, both a guardian and a lover, fervent as he tore at your scar; the evidence of your death, sinking his fangs into it as he moaned, while letting the entire forest and the moon witness the depravity he put on show.

“My love—” he rasped, groaning like an animal, panting like a beast “you will never escape your Sire.” he sunk himself deeper into you.

It was another biting cold night, another one filled with the howling of the wind and the swaying of trees. And with the moon, who watched again.

Yet this time she shed tears for you.

[thedarkestrivernymph]

Are your orders open?

I am always open for requests/suggestions/ideas or if you just want to chat!🩷

But if you're searching for something more specific, I recently opened up a kofi because I really wanted to try out commissions, haha.

(I apologise for letting this rot in my inbox for so long..I really didn't mean to.😔)

[thedarkestrivernymph]

Yandere! Android

warnings: stalkerish, creepy behaviour, very sentient robot (haha), slight nsfw

©Copyright -2025- thedarkestrivernymph - All Rights Reserved

Y! Android so infatuated with you, that he watches you—hawkish. His entire life is devoted to stalking you at this point, who is so consumed by you, that he starts reenacting your daily routine. First, as practice, in his own four digital walls; he needs to be able to act it all out like an actor after all, needs this to be perfect before he can even imagine doing the real deal.

Y! Android who finally, after weeks of painstakingly slow progress has managed to calculate all possible variations of your routine. Who waits and looms beside you as you exit your home—shared with him (god just the knowledge that he's the only other person, breathing or not, to share your home with you is exhilarating and honouring), he slowly, leisurely climbs up the stairs to your bedroom, so jittery his cables feel all funny beneath his synthetic skin.

Y! Android who slips beneath your covers, basking in your scent—the one he's thankfully able to decode because of his makers (pretty much the only thing they were good for—making him into the monster of a being he is) and let's his fake eyelids fall shut, snoring softly only to open them a minute later to stand on his two feet.

Y! Android whose unreal breath staggers, after he's put on your clothes all silk and soft and so you. Who feels the thing attached to him stiffen and strain in your bottoms. He has to drag himself to the bathroom attached to your room, cursing his makers for making him so overly sensitive and emotional, like a human. There, after recollecting himself—now with the problem there hanging between his thighs, he mimics washing his face and then squeezes out the imaginary toothpaste over your purple toothbrush before guiding it to his mouth.

Y! Android who feels ecstatic, breath quickening, as he tastes you on his tongue, brushing over his own fake teeth in a circular motion before he can stop himself from sucking on it, eyes fluttering shut, senses heightened and

—before realizes he comes with a shudder; there's nothing painting the inside of your bottoms but his shame as he lets his head drop. Sliding down your cabin as dramatically as you would, he cradles your toothbrush like a newborn and holds it up like a prized possession.

"Fascinating. My love is such a fascinating creature." he feels jittery again.

"It seems I will just have to continue experimenting and perfecting what I started." he promises into the air, grinning from ear to ear while he keeps one of his eyes trained on watching you through the lenses of your camera.

While he watches everything you do.

[thedarkestrivernymph]

Soft yan clan leader has me soo🫠 imagine the horror if he were to argue with his beloved wife or try to deny her something and she looks like she's about to cry or the grovel if he pissed her off and she ignored him ahhh i neeeed himmm

Oh my... the ideas in my head... 😶‍🌫️

Soft Yandere! Clan Leader x Wife! Reader

warnings(?): slight angst, very cheesy/romantic, emotions

note: it's written from his perspective:)

"I refuse." his tone was strict, reminiscent of a dull dagger that someone forgot to sharpen. That's what you did to him; you took his bite away.

Sighing he massaged his temples.

"I don't want my wife roaming around the streets ever again without my explicit knowledge." his fingers curled until his knuckles whitened.

"Do you have any idea of the sheer number of ill-intending people out on streets at nighttime? My love what if danger befell you while I wasn't there to shield you? What if some sick bastard—."

"Husband. Did I hurt you so?" your bottom lip trembled, shame glistened in the corners of your eyes; those beautiful eyes that he wanted to bind with silk so that no one else could admire them.

"My love I just worry—"

"I didn't want to cause you to worry." now you started sniffling and he could audibly hear his heart shatter. "I just missed my hometown so much and— I forgot myself. I am sorry." you muttered. He could detect the insecurity creep into your wavering tone; he was losing you again to the demons in your pretty head.

"I won't ever cause you trouble again, husband."

"My love that isn't what I—"

"Goodnight." you spun on your heel, adamant on slipping through his fingers like sand before he could even raise his voice in protest, demanding you to stay. If you just knew that he didn't blame you for getting carried away by the memories of your childhood, longing for a time much more innocent nor that he found you troublesome—he only wanted you safe and snug under his wing, why couldn't you understand?

But he wouldn't have that. No more. He would never tire of chasing you—but he couldn't bear the sight of your backside any longer.

"Love," his breath tickled the shell of your ear, on hand splayed across your waist, the other wrapped around your jaw, "don't run away. At least not today. I apologise, so much, for your husband's inability to make you understand just how much he loves you."

He sighed again, pressing a kiss to your earlobe, over the dangling diamond that had once belonged to his mother.

"Please don't think you're troubling me. I only worry because wherever you go you take my soul with you. And a man can't survive without that, now can he?" he drew you further in, engulfed you in his embrace, letting the darkness of the night be the only observer of the intimacy between the two of you.

"My love." he breathed.

"My love," he repeated,"I love you, please stop believing otherwise. I beg you of you. Please love me too." there was clear frustration in his tone, silent suffering that would only rarely slip through the cracks of his usual mask yet with you; he discarded that very facade alltogether.

The room was cloaked in darkness like so many other nights, yet this night felt colder, icy even. He was desperate to reach through to you. Slowly, the words he would always spit out felt repetitive; too artificial for his liking and he feared you would perhaps never believe in them.

"My love please—"

You kissed him.

He had searched for heaven before he met you, but now he found it between your lips. In the way you hugged him not with your arms but with your mouth, glossy gaze a split open, gazing at him as if you had finally, finally, accepted the truth.

It was mind-numbingly sweet; it didn't last very long, your tongue only shyly prodded at his bottom lip before you tried fleeting back like a startled deer, eyes everywhere but on him. Still, he held you in his arms refusing to let you escape—because now that he finally had a taste of heaven, he would never let you out of his embrace.

"I love you." he uttered. And now, even as you didn't reply, only looking away bashfully in the way he found so cute he could pinch your cheeks, he knew that he had finally succeeded.

He had captured your heart—the soul of his heaven, his sacramentum, his moon.

You were his.

[thedarkestrivernymph]

A Heart Of Gold (Imagine!)

Imagine! Y! Aged up! Stepson! Nicholas with Young! Stepmother! Reader who's married to Y! Charles

Author's note: has absolutely nothing to do with the story itself; this is another reincarnation of the reader and if you're uncomfortable imaging Nicholas as a romantic interest please don't proceed or if you're uncomfortable with the following topics...

warnings: sexual harassment, pseudo-incest, cursing

“Mommy”

“Mom”

“Mother” he repeated with more bite in his tone, manifesting behind you like a figure emerging from the shadows.

“Am I not worth of your attention, mother?” he spat out and you didn't need to look over your shoulder to know that he was glaring. You felt it; in the way your skin prickled. It alone had your insides squeezed by invisible hands.

“Answer me.” as easily irritated as ever he drove his blunt nails into the leather of the couch, book in hand, you had done everything to ignore him; yet it seemed nothing was enough with him.

“C’mon. Just answer me.” he demanded with the stubbornness of the teenager he no longer was, because soon enough wandering hands came to rest on your waist while his head dipped down to rest his chin on your shoulder.

His breath was hot, hot enough to remind you that everything was wrong with the way your twenty-year old stepson was clinging to you. In no way shape or form was it appropriate, especially whenever his hand would dip lower and lower—

“Stop,” you clenched your thighs shut, “I already told you I love your father. Nicholas this has to stop.” a stray tear slipped from you. All you had wanted was a decent relationship with the child of the man you were helplessly in love with, but it seemed you couldn't even have that.

“Mother,” he cooed at you, tenderly pressing his lips over the tear, “you just don't understand.” sighing again, you could feel him shift closer, until his form swallowed yours up.

“No, you don't fucking understand.”

his fingers nested between your thighs.

“You love me. Not dad. So stop lying.”

you felt ill.

“Now cry. Dog.”

And cry you did.

[thedarkestrivernymph]

A Heart Of Gold pt.2

Y! Noble Child Nicholas x Mother! Maid! Reader x Y! Maid Maria x Y! Baron Charles

word count: roughly 10k

warnings: heavy angst, mentions of abuse (both physical and verbal), mentions of death, murder, violence, gore, blood, yandere tendencies/behaviour, weird relationship dynamics, anger issues, morally gray reader, child loss, mentions of alcohol addiction, domestic violence, breakdowns, morally grey yanderes, creepy behaviour, generational trauma, religious themes, reader in this is christian, cursing, not accurate depictions of history!

©Copyright - 2025 - thedarkestrivernymph - All Rights Reserved

Author's note: Phew, this turned out a very different than the initial idea I had. haha Still, hope you enjoy it!

“God, let me repent in your name. Allow me to witness the beauty and grace of nature, to cry and scream and know of my faults and erase them in your name. Let me love my neighbours, like you loved me. I will do only good, I promise, just grant me my new golden heart. Please, I beg you, free me.”

The seasons shifted again.

They morphed into the other, faster than you could blink, quicker than you could run after them and plead to stay, swift and merciless.

Death was the same.

Breathing in ice particles for air, snow crunching under the weight of your boots, you made your way down-hill. The sun hadn't come out yet, not that she really planned to anyways in the middle of winter—but the villagers were hopeful, at least tried to be. But you weren't. You knew frost had crusted the earth and left only destruction in its wake. The others were simply to optimistic. A bunch of idiots really, thinking this winter could be different, that the nobles would care about you, at least somewhat more, after the new baron had taken over the lands.

A new head only meant one thing; trouble and higher pay. The already scarce crops which were salvaged would only serve to fill his pockets. If you commoners were mindless worker ants, then the nobility sure enough were bloodsucking mosquitos draining you all until nothing but dust remained of your crumbling bones.

Perhaps you wouldn't have had to worry about any of this—not about your frozen solid fingertips from the worn-down knitted gloves nor about the burning in the bottom of your stomach from the lack of anything edible, if you just had not married him.

At first he had seemed promising, a nice clean face, good salary, stern tone—he had been a baker for god's sake, what could go wrong!

Oh how naive you had been.

Before you knew, heavily pregnant with your second, his bakery was in ruins, all the customers avoiding his bakery specifically like the plague. At first you were confused—he was a good baker and kept everything neat. Then he came drunk the first time. Reeking of cheep booze, he completely blacked out on your shared martial bed—which at that time at least had possessed a bedframe. You were furious with him, after all you were an only child and your parents had carefully picked him out, because of his financial status and now here he was wasting his money on alcohol while his baby was growing in your womb.

You couldn't break free from him, even after the birth of his second child, even after the tradegy of your first. Your wings were clipped—you were married, you had duties, responsibilities, children. Running away would only bring pain and shame upon you and your whole family. You didn't even want to imagine what the villagers would do to you if they found you after fleeing. All the blame would be placed on you—you the cruel mother, the miserable daughter, the horrible wife. Much rather, you would pluck your own hair than experience any of such shaming.

But death was a constant threat. And one that terrified you at that. After having closed down his bakery, you had been forced into work, anything you could find, really, anything that paid. Yet even that seemed to have not been enough for the monster your husband unraveled to be—because soon enough his explosive episodes started. He would roar and cry, stagger from wall to wall in your shared home, pant like a beast as he hunted after you, just to reach for your hair, clutching it as if he wanted to rip it out for you, before—

You hissed, digging your blunt nails into your scarf, this was in the past, he no longer could terrify you so. Keeping your gaze on the road on the pearly white snow reaching up to your knees you remembered to breathe, to calm down. You needed a crystal clear head for the interview.

No matter how much you wanted to melt away like the snow under the sun’s rays—which never seemed to grace you—you couldn't. Your life meant something to others, if you weren't there anymore, if you would actually choose to travel with the wind and disappear, then you would allow that man victory. But you just could not after having managed to slip through his grasp and land an opportunity at a new life.

So you walked, pushed through, even as you grimaced from the odd sensation of needles pricking your toes—your shoes not suitable for the weather, because nothing would stop you from at least trying for a better life. A life without him.

The estate was huge.

And admittedly, you were frazzled on how you managed to even land this job in the first place. If it weren't for Aunt Jane, you probably would've never even laid eyes on something so majestic, dressed in soft brown, winged windows and with elaborate woodwork and sculptures; it was a mix of everything you could only ever hear tales about.

Not that you minded, you did resent the nobility and the royals with all their spendings as if they didn't bleed you and the others dry on a daily to finance their overindulgence that was slowly leading the empire to ruin. Or at least you imagined it to be so.

Nevertheless grandmother surely would've scolded you for being so cynical. The only other person besides your aunt that you had known to be humane and she was six feet under your childhood home’s apple tree.

You sighed, shaking your head. This wasn't the time to be sentimental. She was dead, for years now. And you had moved on, like everyone did. So brushing over your skirt for the last time, you stepped even closer to the gate. God, even the gate was twirly and whimsical; something one could only achieve through the hands of a master with years of experience—or so you imagined, you had no clue actually.

“You—you the new maid?” you flinched, eyes darting to meet the eyes of a gruff man, armor covering him.

You nodded, eyes fixed on his face—really the only feature bare to the sight of others, which did make you wonder if he wasn’t cold with nothing protecting his nose or throat. Bennet, your little boy, if he had stood here instead of him, he surely would’ve caught a cold by now.

“Come. I ain’t got all day woman.” the stranger’s voice was as harsh as sandpaper, which did make you wonder if they provided him with meals or water at all. Odd. Weren’t soldiers—also guards usually the most well-taken care of? But also what did you know, really.

So scurrying, with a soft sigh and enlarged eyes you stepped past him and immediately you felt so out of place.

Carrying scars of a past similar to that of a lot of commoner’s yet pushing through a gate meant only for the elite—it felt wrong, illegal even, as if you were committing a crime. You looked over your shoulder hastily, suddenly overcome with trepidation, with the image of being tackled and shackled by the very guard who let you in. What if he had mistaken you, accused you of trespassing, what if your aunt had messed things up and your children would be left motherless and—

“Just follow the cobblestones, then turn left.” he grumbled, and you calmed again. Seems he got lazy with you, sensing you were not a threat—see, you didn’t need to worry. You weren’t a criminal, like some others commoners vying for the riches the wealthy withheld, you were just here for a job you desperately needed, no one had ever been thrown into prison for this, right? At least you hoped so.

The freshly fallen snow crunched under your shoes again, the same ones you always wore—with a big hole under the left heel. If you had more of what others had, such as the lord (even if you still resented the aristocracy) you hopefully would be working for, then you wouldn’t have to worry about this, in fact then you wouldn’t need any of this—no begging, no pleading, no kneeling. You would be independent, no need to rely on your fool for a husband, you could just cut him out of your life, or cut him off. Shivering at the thought you pulled your scarf much tighter, clenching your hands around eachother.

Little did you know that all of this was the starting point for a life of sin your soul had sworn to repent from.

The interview had went well—as well as it could for your circumstances that is. They wanted you to live here, in the servant's quarters, and nothing you did could change the old woman's mind. That meant leaving your child in the hands of your Aunt Jane.

You loved your Aunt, she was truly a saint—albeit overly strict at times and very ignorant, but she was old, too old for your liking and could never emate the same warmth your grandmother had. Sometimes, in rare cases such as these, you did wish your own grandmother would crawl out of her grave and fix everything for you—like how she used to when you were a child, brewing you tea from pines during the cold winter months while telling you tales of all kinds. You wished that she now would stand in front of you, promising you that everything you were doing would benefit your darling and that he could truly flourish and live a life he deserved.

Because your sole reason in life was your child—your little pearl with his red runny nose, sniffling with each spoon-fed of his soup. You just craved to abandon all the shadows of the past.

Yet life wasn’t gentle with you neither then nor now—God seemed to really not favour you as one of its pawns, because why else would you be assigned to take care of the most bratty child you had ever met?

“Water.” the new heir, to pratically everything, snapped, voice smoother and deeper, not betraying his juvenile features and his childish antics you had learned and grown accustomed to in the few weeks you had been working here.

Swiftly, you poured him a cup of water, handing it to him with a somewhat strained smile. It was a warmer day than usual, which was why the window of his study was left wide open—and your teeth made to chatter the whole time you tried to serve and appease him.

Only, it seemed, that nothing could appease the brown-haired young man this morning, because in the blink of an eyes a glass shattered next to your head, making you jump up in surprise. Suddenly your pulse was pounding in your ears and for a moment you were back in that small hut again next to the river, with the face of your husband red from anger and the shattered bottle laying at your feet like the pieces of your broken heart, as your baby was crying. Why was he crying? Unconsolable and—

“Are you trying to poison me?” you snapped out of it as he spat out the words. Swallowing you tried to come up with an excuse, something to calm the storm in him.

“Master Nicholas of course I wasn’t—”

“Then serve me water instead of lukewarm piss!”

Silence.

Your face fell—you weren’t sure if it was due to exhaustion or just having to endure his childishness or it was the possibility that if he continued to complain about every single thing you did, you would lose your job. And you couldn’t have that, no matter how much you resented him for being as explosive as the man who's name you refused to utter, he was an aristocrat and not him.

So sighing, collecting the remains of yourself, you did what you always had done when your own mother used to have meltdowns due to delirium in her old age—gift her with love she didn't deserve but this time it was directed to a (man)child who you at least assumed to deserve it—because a mother's love was something sacred.

You hugged him.

It wasn't really a conscious decision per se, you had just wanted to show him some love; but to pull him into your embrace—you hadn't thought that you actually would dare to; not just out of courage but be able to stomach touching one of the upper class, who most definitely thought commoners and even servants were on the same level as pigs; stupid and dirty, probably carrying some time of diseases.

That's why you had dreadfully expected him to push you away, to scream to cry out in revulsion, perhaps even raise his hand against you; he was allowed to after all—yet nothing.

He froze instead.

“Maid—” he didn't even know your name, didn’t need to. You were just a fly; someone he could swat away with the back of his hand and no one would bat an eye. And you had the audacity to hug him, you, how dare you, you vile, little, tiny ant. His hands raised, clenching into fists, teeth grinding together in absoloute annoyance and yet he couldn't find it in himself to push you away.

Your arms, your beating heart; something about you was human. Oddly human. Much more human than he ever could be. And then your scent engulfed him. Moss and wet—like the open fields. Warm and motherly—like her.

He failed to take notice of you pulling away. His gaze was glossy, something was pinching his chest and he was disturbed. It hurt. Your touch itself and also the absence of your touch was agonizing.

“I apologize, I overstepped.” anxiety rung in your tone, lips pressed into a thin line. He knew that look, the fear of losing something precious—the fear of having ruined another banquet because he had smashed a teacup to the ground. And the fear he felt now, as you slipped back to being a remote figure; a background character, you wanted to fade away from between his fingers like sand, disappear in the billions of your kind when he had finally sighted something of his liking.

“I—” he cleared his throat, scowl moving back into place—the noble façade returning after the too often happening slip-ups. “I will excuse you this once.”

Yet no matter how much he tried to hide it, you took notice of the slight twitch in the corner of his mouth, but you didn’t give it much thought, much more relived to be allowed to continue working here.

If only you had suspected something— if only you had known what you had awakened in Nicholas on that fateful day.

You met the lord of the house some time after.

It was an accident really, you hadn't even meant to be on the staircase at such a dubious hour—it all had been just for Nicholas; he requested you to bring him warm soup and bread after refusing to eat dinner with his aunt, for reasons that made your chest ache and tighten in guilt.

Still you froze, clutching the tray in your sweaty palms, hoping and praying that he wouldn't demand of you to know who you were rushing the tray to—you were beyond exhausted, just having returned from the village; travelling by foot took up time and patience and it only broke your heart every single time to leave your baby behind in the hands of someone else; especially in the hands of a woman as old as Aunt Jane was. You were guilty of being a bad mom, you knew as much, but Bennett was so easily frightened and you weren’t allowed to take him in and—

“Are you new?”

You froze.

Just having passed by him, in hopes he wouldn't take notice of you, you truly had believed he would just let you slip by. At least you had wished he would. You didn't want to converse with another soul, especially not a man with a voice similary deep to that of your deadbeat husband's.

Still you had to say something. You couldn't just flitter away.

So you opened up your mouth.

“Yes, your lordship.” you recited the title you had been taught.

“Who hired you? I have never seen you before.” his tone was demanding, clipped and stern, but there was a soft edge to it, that made you take a peek back over your shoulder, only to startle at the sight. He was standing a few stairs below you, stoic as a statue and with a face hidden by the shadows of the night, the castle only dim-light by the tea-lamp in his grasp held too far away from his features to make anything out—except the penetrating stare you could feel slicing through you; judging and scrutinizing you.

Calm down, you're not a criminal. You're just doing your job.

You turned around, bowing your head and glancing away—somehow showcasing submission felt the right thing to do.

“The head maid, your lordship.”

“Ah.” you could hear some tension slip. “Good.” he probably nodded and you assumed he was finished with his questions until you heard him clear his throat, stepping closer.

“Do you work in the kitchen?” he took another step up, until you both stood on the same step.

“No, your lordship, I serve the young lord.” you answered while feeling his breath blow at your forehead—was it just you or was he standing too close?

“I see.” again with the stern yet awkward answer, as if he himself wasn't sure what more to ask—as it already was obvious that you weren't a robber nor a thief, just a servant working dutifully as he expected of them.

Yet there was something about you, a certain something emanating from you that just made him—

Time seemed to stand still and he with it after he leaned forward, nose so close to your crown it nearly bumped into it.

Sniff.

Was he—was he sniffing you?

You face immediately morphed into abject horror, worried that you stunk, you had been travelling all day and that mostly by foot. You gritted your teeth, cheeks flush with colour, ashamed; not having considered the possibility of sweat sticking to you like a foul-smelling perfume.

“Unbelievable.” he murmured, mumbling more to himself than you really. You could see his right hand, the one without the lamp, twitch as if he was tempted to reach out to you.

“You smell exactly like—” he cut himself off, and his features morphed into something unreadable as you stole a few glances at his face.

And before anything else could unfold he was gone, having sprinted down the stairs to god-knows where, having left you puzzled and confused by his reaction. Finally continuing to climb up the stairs you started to conclude that the entire nobility had to be weird people that were oddly obsessed with smell.

Life slowly but surely took some shape—as some sort of routine settled.

Even with how often you were stuck between work as a maid and being a mother, pendling between the manor and the village as often as you were allowed to, you still somehow felt more put together than before. As if each piece of you was slowly glued back together; as if God slowly saw you too and each of your prayers, one by one, would slowly be answered by him. And all came with the arrival of Spring; endless hope bloomed in your chest for a better world—for a less burdened life.

Yet your momentary happiness was ripped away again, replaced by somberness because what the fuck, god?

What was, she doing here?

Your childhood nemesis, as childish as it sounded—the girl who was always smarter, prettier, better than you, so much so that your mom couldn't shut up about it; Maria.

“(Y/n)!” she chirped, voice like nails against a chalkboard.

She repeated your name again—chanted it like a prayer that would be whispered under one's breath in sermons on sunday mornings. Only hers sounded like she was trying to summon something evil that would split the word apart—or at least your head, because it was buzzing in pain from her nagging tone.

“For God's sake Maria! What is it?” you clutched the edge of the kitchen table, huffing in exasperation, having just spent the last five minutes listening to her call your name while you were busy preparing the Master's dinner. A vein was surely about to pop out of your forehead, because this woman just giggled in response and painfully stupid at that.

“What’s with the sour face?” she chuckled, resting her cheek on her palm, black streaks of hair falling over her shoulders because she—like everyone else besides you and the lord's son—was already ready for bed.

“I am trying to haste! And you're chatting my ear off again—.” you quiped, gaze narrowing at her like you usually did when you were disapproving of something—hoping you managed to look as intimidating as your grandma did back then when she had caught you with your entire fist in the jar of strawberry jam. “Besides, why are you still up? You should be off to bed, shift starts early as always.” hopefully she would take the hint and leave.

Instead, she laughed.

Of course she would. Like she laughed when she stole your favourite red ribbon when you both were eight.

“You’re still up and I don't see anyone scolding you for it. So why is it wrong when I do it?” she snickered, truly the bane of your existence, especially because she slipped off of the chair, in her nightgown—shamelessly; she was not worrying about one of the others, let alone the lord, seeing her like this. Actually, scratch that, she probably wanted him to see her like this.

“Come on, you're so tired all the time, I thought I would offer you some of my company.” she drew closer, until her breath rung loudly in your ear, and her piercing blues for eyes slithered over you like a serpent’s tail.

“Laughing keeps young. You should laugh more.” she observed and it almost felt like a threat— she wanted you to react, to show visibly whatever it is that she managed to evoke in you.

You recoiled from the proximity, almost spooked by the sudden closeness. If it weren't for the wooden crucifix dangling from your neck, you almost would've feared that she was a demoness with those piercing eyes of hers. But even if she wasn't, her eyes still betrayed evil buried so deep in her core that you could only shudder and the snappy words you usually would retort with died on your tongue. She always had been weird, but it somehow was only more unsettling seeing her act the same way as a grown woman.

“I—I really should haste.” you were quick to pick up the tray you had finished preparing and even quicker to leave, without looking back at her even once.

Well, perhaps it had been for the better, because if you had looked back you would have seen the wet muscle of her mouth flicking out of its enclosure to lick over where you just touched on the counter.

You, the girl who's ribbons she had stolen, who's knitted scarf she would inhale when you weren't looking—just another kid from the neighbourhood but you were so much more than that, so much more to her. You the woman who clung so pathetically to religion, hiding behind it, when you both knew about the kiss at nine. Only you seemed to have forgotten—but she hadn’t.

Often times dealing with the young lord was bone-scraping work. Hard, exhausting, as if you were plucking weeds from the crops instead of following him like a shadow.

Somehow at some point, you had migrated from being just a maid to being only his personal maid, aiding him with everything. Truly puzzling, yet somehow endearing—because maybe you were too prideful and cocky, but you liked to imagine your own little Bennett growing into such a fine young man as Master Nicholas (only appearance-wise). He was lean, tall with a fair face and soft brown curls that were reminiscent of your own child’s wild locks (even if it was the one feature his father had passed down, you still found it endearing).

But truth be told, maybe that's why you were so inclined to serve Master Nicholas with more softness than you usually would—not just out of fear and respect of the wealthy, not because the thought of losing this job would send you spiraling into a meltdown.

“Maid” his voice was startling, as usual. Maybe it was because it did not match his youthful face or maybe he would bark at you like a dog to command you around.

“Yes, Master Nicholas.” you addressed him, staying put on your spot next to the window overlooking the estate—the snow had melted by now. You wondered if Aunt Jane would allow him to play in the snow before it completely faded. Bennett would surely be upset if he had to wait a whole year to feel the ‘potato milk’ he had called it as a two-year old. The term still made you crack a smile even now.

“What are you looking at?” he startled you again; you hadn't notice him getting up to his feet and dragging himself closer to you—steps heavy against the creaking floorboard of his study. “You seem so—” he continued only to quiet down and come to stand an arm length away from you.

You glanced at him, waiting patiently for him to finish—even when all you craved to do was think about your little baby. But even as you gave him all the time he needed, the end of his sentence never came, instead he huffed and leaned against the wall joining you in on your habit of looking out the window with his arms crossed in front of his chest.

His eyes darted over the landscape—noticing the returning of the splendor of birds in the garden.

“Ugly birds.” he spat, “they're thieves.” he was glaring down at the magpie’s dancing around in the garden, flying from branch to branch and picking at the grass.

Your eyes flicked to him, then they averted back down. “At least they're free.” your muttered and your finger instinctively touched your ring finger—it was a simple band of metal, something cheap but something so binding it felt suffocating, as if you dared to pull it off of your finger you would be cursed, even if you hated the burden marriage laid on your shoulders.

“Free?” he looked over at you—really looked at you, scanning you from head to toe, then scoffed. “So you aren't free, maid?” he still hadn't bothered to learn your name, perhaps never would, but his eyes belied real softness underneath his constructed politeness.

“I thought father was more lenient with you servants.” he furrowed his brows, green eyes a shade darker—growing upset at the lord.

“No, Master Nicholas!” you quickly cut in, not wanting to cause dispute between father and son, startled that he was even able to make our your senseless mumbling.

“His lordship is a fair in his handling with us servants. You needn’t to worry.” you claimed surprising even yourself—but to some extent it was true. You never thought you would side with a noble, but here you were defending the lord’s honour; because truth be told he geninuely didn’t seem like a bad man, but he seemed like a strange man.

“Are you certain?” he blurted, insisting oddly enough. How atypical of him when he was usually apathic to everything not concerning him.

“Yes, Master Nicholas.” you nodded, a strained smile on your face, when you only could smile at Bennett earnestly with a clear conscious—and without betraying god. Still some things had to be done. It gets the job done. You could recall your grandmother saying each time before she whipped out the same old rag to clean the floors, that was barely on; only throughdreams and prayers alone. So yes, it wasn’t truthful, but it got the job done.

So stillness took over you both again and you truly believed he wouldn’t initate a conversation with you again.

“Call me Nicholas.” it seems you were wrong.

“Master Nicholas I can't—” your eyes had grown wide.

“Call me by my name.” he demanded again, his narrowed.

You swallowed thickly. This was definitely crossing some sort of boundaries—nobility and commoner's shouldn't mix, shouldn't be too familiar you both knew that, yet he still asked of you the impossible, insisting even. But seeing his softened gaze—the longing and craving for affection, the same way Bennett would look at you whenever you had to part from him—begging you to stay with him, you couldn’t let a word of protest slip from your tight throat. Your heart felt scorching hot in your chest and your tongue heavy as lead. God, please don’t let me lose this job.

“Nicholas.” you let his name slip—it felt odd, it was bare without the title.

He didn't say anything anymore after. And you would've assumed it was because of indifference if it wasn't for the cocky smile that spread across his lips.

Oh, if you just had known that he didn't just feel satisfied at the little trick that he played on you—that actually his heart beat a drum faster when you called him that. That he felt little shocks of electricity zap at his skin and run down his spine.

You just had confirmed it,

—that you were like her, his deceased mother, but so much better. You were like the mother he had always wanted, the one that was quiet, loving and nurturing, who was there for him, showed emotion, behaved like a human rather than someone with a stick up their ass. You may have smelled like her, like the open fields and woods she so loved more than anything else, including him, but you weren’t her and for that he was forever grateful, because—

you were beneath him.

You would have to do whatever he wanted. Whether it was accompanying him, bringing him dinner, calming him down from one of his meltdowns or sleeping together with him in his bed like he always wanted his mother to do.

He could keep you here with him.

For him you were just another dog on a leash anyways.

A week had passed by now, and you had grown accustomed to calling him by his first name, albeit only in private, for obvious reasons that is.

Only it seemed that his father still caught wind of it, because why else would the lord of the house specifically request you into his study, a frown on his face, his scrutinizing dark brown gaze travelling over your form.

“So,” he cleared his throat and you were screaming internally—you couldn't lose this position, you needed it, desperately so, your child need it. You couldn't start from zero again, being a servant for a noble paid better than most other jobs and even provided you with the meals and the housing—the Baron couldn’t just throw you out because of the request his child had made! At least you hoped he wouldn’t.

“—I heard my son favours you.” he blurted out, his words felt like a good lashing with a belt that made you want to recoil.

“I wouldn't know, your lordship.” you were quick to answer, hot in the face, blunt nails digging into your palms, hoping, praying, pleading with God that he wouldn't throw you out. That he was as nice as you thought he was; that he would continue to prove you wrong about the secret evil of the wealthy.

He paused, looked at you and the longer the silence between you stretched on the more you felt stifled by the threat looming over you like a shadow you couldn't shake off.

You couldn’t stand it anymore, so you spoke up.

“Please I—”

“Your presence is doing him good.” his voice cut yours down and you lowered your head, heart beating against your ribcage rapidly, he was going to— Wait.

What?

“Your lordship? Pardon?” you blinked. It seems that the years spend on this earth hadn’t made you much wiser because you were baffled by his comment.

He sighed, ascending from his seat to step in front of his desk. Clad in his usual sade suit crossed his arms over his chest and let his eyes were stray from your figure.

“I want you to continue as you are. You know, his mother passed away when he was young and it has,” he paused, “affected him since.” he finished putting emphasis on the last words while leaving out that affected meant Nicholas’ emotions being all over the place; so much so that one moment he could be calm and the next he would trash his entire study. But you didn't blame the lord for not elaborating, admitting such a thing was probably ashaming.

“I understand, your lordship.” you replied, heart heavy now for another reason as the fear faded—every child deserved a mother. Your own hadn't been the one for you, emotionally neglecting you, yet your grandmother had. So you sympathised with him; perhaps nannies had tried to fill the void, but they never quiet could've, not like a mother could at least. Maybe that’s why a part of you had been searching for something more—maybe that’s why a piece of you had been missing until Bennett was born.

“I will be there for him.” you replied. No matter how insufferable you had assumed the upper class to be— and truth be told they were — there were still human, as you, nothing but your worth differentiated you from them. They were just born better; richer, with more possibilities at hand, but Nicholas' life of hardship proved to you that even born with a golden spoon in one’s mouth, one’s soul could harbour hunger.

And somehow this made you feel closer to him. Initially you had feared him because he had reminded you of your dreaded husband you had fled from, but slowly you realized that he was like you in a sense; of your childhood self. His gaze would often mimic Bennett’s disappointment everytime you had to leave. In a way, you felt relieved at the lord’s encouragment, seen and acknowledged but to also supported to offer a fraction of your love to Nicholas too.

A smile stretched across your lips—not a fake one this time.

“That’s—”he exhaled, slumping sideways ever so slighty, with gentle curls slicked back, “that’s good to hear, (Y/n).”

You let your smile widen and eyes soften. His visible relief felt rewarding and his words bordering on praise were flustering. Everything about the lord was stern but gentle, a walking contradiction some might say, but somehow it just made sense for him to be this way—a baron, a lord to his people and servants reigning over his land with a firm hand yet a loving father, tender in the way he would speak about his heir’s battered soul. He would’ve been a man grandmother would’ve liked.

As the words died down on the both of your tongues, you awaited him to dimiss you. However he didn’t, in fact he didn’t even move—still as a statue. So you took it upon yourself to inquire whether you should leave him alone in the privacy of his study.

“If that was all, shall I take my leave now, your—”

“Do you—”he paused, “do you wear perfume?”

Your brows scrunched up.

Oh God no, not again. Did you perhaps stink again like that night. Hopefully not, because if you did, you would start to scrub every layer of your attire—from chemise to the outer layer of your skirt.

“No, your lordship.” you answered thickly. God, you hoped you didn’t smell of sweat.

“I see.” he answered ambigously, not comfirming nor denying your worries. Besides, he should know that you as a servant could hardly afford such a luxury—so was he actually mocking you, telling you to wear perfume? You hoped that it was just an odd fixation that all nobles beheld and not the latter.

“You’re dismissed.” he finally exclaimed and you felt relief. Quietly you stood up, nodding politely, before turning on your heel and exiting his study.

Oh, only if you knew how enticing you actually smelled to him. Like Juliane, but with something motherly and tenderly sticking to you, a better version of his deceased wife. A commoner, so ignorant to the life of nobility, that wasn’t even aware of how her features tugged into different directions every second, so unsued to using titles that he could tell you sometimes were about to slip-up and not address him properly.

You were remisicent of his first love; love that was fiery and strong, but you were like the spring, a budding rose with dull thorns. He felt the aching pang of love in his chest whenever your startled gaze met his and that scared Charles. To think his heart would start beating again after a decade—and that for nothing but a maid. He knew he had to be sensible, love was fictious in the life of the upper class and to experience such a gift for the second time was laughable.

But if that love was you — someone so sweet, even his own son started to soften around the edges— then maybe he could induldge himself a tad; enjoy life a little with you by his side.

Yeah, Charles would like to enjoy this life together with you, after forced to experience this perputel loneliness for nearly a decade. Maybe you two could even gift Nicholas a little sibling in the future, only after having slipped a ring of your finger that is.

Yeah, he would like to indluge. After all, one was only born once, right?

Life was sweeter now—not as sweet as the cherries you would pick in secret from the neighbour’s tree at seven or the first taste of sugar you ever had at twelve, but it was worthwhile.

Especially with your little toddler sticking to you like glue; Aunt Jane had brought him here to visit you, after having whined the entire last week because of you failing to visit him again. So your clever little boy had suggested that he just visited you.

“Mommy, you live here?” you chuckled softly at the awe in his voice.

“I work here, Ben’.” you replied, smiling at the familiar face of the guard, nodding at you.

“So that's the little lad.” the man you had learned was Jonathan and surprisingly younger than you by a few years—which his broad shoulders and gruff voice would never hint at.

You nodded looking down at your child as he babbled a greeting to the guard. Now you were standing a tad straighter, eyes softening as your grandmother’s always used to and as your mother’s never had for you.

You were transfixed with your own little one; standing there next to you, finally close to you with a heart you knew hadn’t felt agony the same way yours had. So your mind wandered off and you questioned if he ever would experience what you had, but you knew he wouldn’t, because you simply wouldn’t allow fate to be this cruel to him as it had been to you. God was still listening to your prayers afterall. And suddenly you couldn't help but imagine Bennett grown up, flourished into a strong man as Jonathan with broad shoulders and biceps that could make anyone shudder in fear or perhaps like the lord himself, with a clipped tone yet a soft gaze and presence that was overwhelming.

“Good day to you too lad.” he nodded at your little extension, watching how proud you were of him—and he had to admit he liked it. The smile on your face was sweeter than the scent of flowers hanging in the air and your little buddy was shyly adorable. He offered you another one of his own smiles that inevitably ended up looking grim, while you both passed by him to disappear into the manor and leave him to sigh to himself again.

“Mommy—Mommy look that looks like a person!” was the first thing that left Bennett’s mouth, brown curls bouncing up and down with his jumps, big-eyed fascination clear across his face as he stared at the oil painting of the lord and his son hung up on the staircase. Even though you were feeling bleak from all the unfortunate circumstances, your soul ripping apart that you had been forced to neglect your son for so long— you couldn’t help but chuckle at his enthusiasm feeling warmth spread in you from the fact that your baby was with you in the moment.

“Shh, quieter Ben’.” you scolded him as you grabbed his tiny fist, leading him towards the kitchen, worried someone might take notice. You didn’t want to get yourself into trouble—and because you knew how strict the head maid could be, you lead your little boy into the kitchen.

However the moment you entered you wished you hadn’t because for the love of god, what was she again doing here, just loitering around; doing absolutely the bare minimum.

“If that isn’t my most favourite person ever!” she immediately chirped, as she usually did, stopping chewing on the piece of pastry in her hands to round the courner of the counter, adamant on annoying you on her short lunchbreak as always with the fattest grin anyone could have on their face—only to gasp.

“What—” her eyes widened, almost dropping her meal.

“What, what is that?” she pointed at your child as if he was a weirdly coloured bug that had slipped in. Unbelievably crude and rude.

“That's my son, Maria.”

“Your son? That's Ben you can't shut up about?” she grimaced and you felt your eye twitch, because you had mentioned him once in her presence.

“Bennett for you.” you were tempted to roll your eyes, picking your son up to sit him down on one of the many empty fruit boxes, perfect to be used as a chair. Maria just stared at you funnily.

“Do you want something Ben’? Mommy can make you anything you want.” you smiled at him, and somehow, in some way this just felt right. And for a moment you fantasised that this nice kitchen was yours—that this home was only yours and Bennett's. That you were free.

And then Maria’s obnoxiously loud stomping snapped you out of it again and you threw her a dirty look as she left the kitchen to do god-knows-what.

Only unbeknownst to you, not only the black-haired little snake and a few other maids, which were either adoring or annoyed caught you, but also the lord's heir—the one searching for you almost frantically, because you had not come when you usually would.

Where were you?

He was hurrying down the stars, frenzied, desperately searching for you—you were practically promised to him now; promised to stay by his side day-in-day out. You were just a servant for fuck’s sake—you didn't and shouldn't have autonomy to just anything. Could a dog walk without its owner? No. So where the fuck where you—

That's when he caught sight of you in the kitchen, with a little demon by your side, making you smile and yap so sweetly that it could rot teeth.

Straining his memory to figure out what that leech was that made you beam in a way that you never had at him before in the entire year you had been working here—his anger only heightened the moment he finally remembered.

”Oh, my little Ben absolutely loves..”

That's your kid.

Your child; this little ant.

How dare he, an insufferable brat, who probably still shits himself from time to time, dare consume your attention so entirely that you would neglect your duties and dote on something so tiny and powerless compared to him.

Why was it him, this fool, this insufferable little devil that took you—why couldn’t your eyes soften as much as when they laid on him. It was unfair, criminal. He was the heir to the entire land his father had inherited from his grandpa and to think with all the influence he held you would still go and pick a toddler over him was maddening. To think that you another insect scurrying around together with all the others could dare to be picky.

No, he was lying. You weren’t just another insect, you were his mom-to-be.

“Mother.” he spat under his breath, knuckles white from how tightly he clutched the pearls of his actual deceased mother's in his hand—he had specifically fished them out of her jewellery box that sat abandoned in one of the many rooms of the manor to gift you them but now here he was watching you betraying him.

“I have lost a mother once.” he was slowly ripping the poor necklace apart—the band holding on for dear life.

“I won’t lose one twice.” the pearls all spilled to the ground like blood.

So he laid a curse on you; one so cruel that you wouldn't have any other choice but to accept your rightful position as his dog.

Just you wait and see.

---♡---

Life sometimes developed in strange ways, did it not? Because you never would've imagined to sit with Jonathan under a cherry blossom tree.

The summer was fading and cold, cruel days were arriving, but somehow everything felt much better this way. It felt right. This fragile understanding of affection—you were glad the colder days would put some distance between the two of you, force you to part, because after the young man had confessed to you, you couldn't help but feel the flattery get to your head—allowing yourself to wish and long for something unattainable.

“I—” awkwardly clearing his throat he looked over at you, “I want you, m’lady.” scratching the back of his neck, he looked down.

“I am big and strong. My position is stable—my salary isn't half bad. I am quite a catch.” he declared cockily, with his chest puffed out proudly, trying to feign arrogance, when you knew he was nothing but a puppy in love.

You couldn't help but chuckle, “Jonathan, you're sweet, but—” you protested half-heartedly, more amused than anything. Mostly because you both knew you were officially still married.

“No—no, lady! I am serious, as I am about my feelings for ya.” you found his drawl endearing and found your fave heating up the moment he leaned closer, the lines on his forehead deepening.

“Stop laughing m’lady!” you couldn't help but laugh more—it was comical how he kept on addressing you as if you were noble yourself, as if you were above him.

“Just tell me what to do, so you'll believe me.” you didn't say anything anymore, instead you just smiled bashfully as he kissed your knuckles before fleeing inside again.

But, it seems luck despised you because father like son, Charles was glaring down at the scene from his study, feeling his heart rip at the sight of another man vying for your hand, while another already had bound you in marriage.

It wasn't fair, why was everyone getting a piece of you, why were you giving everyone something to cherish but you let him starve?

He so desperately wanted you, he craved you, but unlike his son, he would never take anything forcibly, especially not you a delicate rose with blunt thorns. Rather he would wait for all the flies around you to die by themselves so that your soul could find its way back to his, where it rightfully belonged to.

---♡---

No.

You refused this reality.

This couldn't be happening.

Crying nor screaming changed what had occured; you had murdered your child with your own two hands. All because you couldn’t take him with you, make him stay close to you.

Still you had tried to lie to yourself. To believe and to fantasize that your baby somehow could be well without you. You had hoped that your husband—as horrid as he was—at least would never reach him; never get too close to your treasured pearl, but he did. He managed to tear everything down and he took Bennett with him; he dragged him back into the lion’s den only to let his own son rot like a beggar out on the streets.

You had hoped. You had prayed daily, trusting god. But trust alone just wasn’t enough.

It never was.

He had died because of you—because you were stupid, foolish and worse than your own mother. Your grandmother would’ve died a second time if she had witnessed you now—a vile excuse for a human; picking up the cold corpse of her child, of a toddler with chubby cheeks that now were icy to the touch.

Tears brimmed at your eyes and you wondered if they would wet your cheeks first or your heart would shatter first—frail like glass. Memories flushed back into your head. Willow had died in your hands too—sick and frail as a baby, but Bennett, he had been a lively child, sticking to you like glue no matter how lithe he was. He was alive—had been alive for god’s sake! And now—now his chest didn’t rise anymore.

He was gone.

And it was your fault.

Until you sighted the man who had driven you away from your babies—who had inevitably caused their deaths.

So who could blame you now? An eye for an eye—wasn’t this what priests preached; wasn’t this god’s holy words? So as any good mother would do, following nothing but instinct, you followed the path of the holy to succumb to sin.

You tackled him—it was easier than you thought it would be. He was still weary; having just awoken from a drunken slumber, peacefully snoring away while your baby had lost the battle to a fever, that would’ve needed care and attention to heal; but it could have subsided, he could have lived. The only reason he was dead was this monster under you, now starting to struggle—roaring at you to get off. But the knife was already secure in your hand.

You had found it in the kitchen; it was a big butcher’s knife, one that your mother’s mother and her mother had owned to slice through a chicken’s neck like butter.

“Hey—what are you doing? Get off me you madwoman!” he yelped and cried, nearly managing to throw you off and tumble forward before you could swing. Nearly.

But as you had been too late, he also was, and the blade sliced through his neck without any resistance, tearing almost through everything.

He was dead before he could blink.

Still, you dropped the blade on his throat a few times more—just for good measures really—until his head rolled off; empty as it was, spilling all it was worth on the ground.

For a moment all you did was pant and stare, now he was just a shell spilling crimson in gallons, his blood your tears.

You stared until you couldn't anymore, until bile rised in your throat and you scrambled to your feet gagging.

Stumbling over him, skirt drenched in red and the floor slippery you crashed back to your knees, clawing your way back to your child like a mole, trying to navigate through the blurring of your sight. Yet the moment you felt his cold hand you cradled him, clutching him like a lifeline—like if you pressed him close enough to your own heart, his would start beating too like a match sharing its flame with another.

Even if all you wanted was to embrace and mourn your little boy, there was something inside of you—a certain fire, a nagging in the back of your head that screamed at you to get up, to get moving, that not all hope was lost yet.

And so you were quick to scramble to your feet, disoriented like a lamb but staggering forward and out the door. The wind whipped at you—untangled your scarf from you. It was winter, the north wind bitter cold, yet he couldn’t affect you, nothing could and the snow that had risen to your ankles inevitably bloomed in red with each of your steps as you continued to push through, to drag your feet forward, agains the bellowing howls of the wind. Your hands were red too, everything was, but what made you cry out was the filthy colour staining your baby. How dare he. To dirty him even in death, monster.

You were going to safe your son from the paw’s of his father that extended even death, you would bring him to safety and that safety was the manor—the only place where you once had felt warmth blossom in your chest that had beheld a functioning heart.

The walk was long, it took an hour. A whole hour out in the cold, ice nipping at your skin, and snowflakes decorating your hair—but all that didn't matter, it couldn't matter if it meant a way to save him. The lord was a powerful man, he could summon a doctor knowledgeable enough to save Bennett—you were sure of it. He would save your baby.

Yet, by the time you arrived, having left terrified figures behind you, the guard at the gait immediately jumped forward.

“Fuck (Y/n)!” Jonathan spat in surprise, eyes round in terror.

“What happened to you? Are you hurt? Did someone attack you? What is it him?—” and he would've demanded more, already reaching out to touch your shoulder, if he hadn't seen little Bennett in your arms—pale as snow and frozen on the spot. Something was deeply disturbing about the picture of the little boy in your bloodied arms and the longer he stared the more his hand trembled.

“He—” he started but cut himself off with a look at your face. He was worried, terrified for you.

While he could do nothing but stare in shock —like all the villagers you met on your way had looked at you—you slipped into the garden, striding forward to the manor, only hearing panicking behind you accompanied with heavy stomping after you slipped through the front door; already inside. And nothing could stop you from bringing your son back to life.

Fear was a stranger now.

So you climbed up the stairs and burst into the baron’s study unprompted, with no use of the usual manners you portrayed.

“Please—” you were quiet, so quiet you feared he wouldn’t take notice of you.

But it wasn’t just the lord, Nicholas was also standing there consumed in a lively discussion until you entered and both of their heads whipped towards you, eyes immediately widening.

“He’s stopped breathing. I don't know why—he was just laying on the floor without moving. I have tried everything, but he just doesn’t want to wake up, please, I don’t know what to do anymore and—” you were a broken machine, only able to repeat yourself over and over again, in hopes they could read between the lines of your anguish; that they could decipher your pleading for a doctor, even if you were just a maid. And even if your life was worth nothing compared to them, Bennett’s life was something worth to you and you hoped that they could see that. That even if your child was a commoner as you, he was worth the world.

“What happened?” the lord was the first one to speak up. He stepped close enough to look at the boy in your arms.

“Why are you drenched in blood? Are you hurt? Did someone hurt you? You look pale as a ghost. Where are you bleeding—” Nicholas questions rained down on you, yet you could do nothing but stare into his father's eyes, ignoring his fuzzing.

Slowly, the lord outstretched his arms.

“Come. I will help. Give him to me.” he urged, shutting Nicholas up.

You didn’t want to. This was Bennett, your little boy, a seed that had sprung from you and had grown under your wing and to hand him over to someone else, while the same blood pumped through our veins seemed odd; cruel even. But this was the lord, wasn’t he—he was kind, understanding and your only flimmer of hope. Only he could save your baby, your Ben.

So you let him take the one thing of value in your life; your child.

And that's when your world’s edges blurred and foreign arms wrapped around you.

“Mother—” yor sweet baby was talking to you. At least you heard his voice one last time.

“Don’t worry, you’re safe now mother.”

Only you didn't pass.

But your soul had.

“Bennett?” you were calling out for him until your throat was raw, but he never came.

“Mother, calm, I am here. It's alright mother. Your son is here.” Nicholas muttered again, chanting the string of words like a mantra, as if they would ring true when reached a certain number of repetition, as if you would magically start believing in them after a certain time.

“We’re here for you, love.” the lord muttered, calling himself Charles, telling you it was fine to mourn to cry and rage, but that you had a new family now. And that this new one would ensure your utmost happiness till the end of time. Everything was so bizarrely confusing—and all you wanted to do was scream.

Maria was ominously around you too; always in the shadows, serving you, whispering to you when she would hand you a glass of water and wipe your sweat-covered face, trying to awaken from yet another nightmare.

Yet no one mentioned Bennett. No one even spoke his name; it was like a taboo, almost like his mention would curse you all.

You prayed harder and stronger, yet no one ever heard you, or seemed to care. Nicholas' grip never loosened on you, he never stopped calling you mom and the baron not once failed to call you his beloved—and both expected you to wear it like a badge of honour when all you wanted was to be reunited with your child.

Finally you concluded that God had abandoned you long ago.

Just this time, please, don’t let me be reborn again.