#better lock them in the chamber and go call security.’

[clowndensation]

just got cask of amontillado’d folks.

[sweetflanfiction]

Asymetrical Symphony - Part 13

Universe: Arcane (LOL)

Pairing: Viktor x reader

Summary: You had been on the rooftop with Jayce and the Herald and somehow you were sent to a place where things can be different with your help

Disclaimers and Warnings: If you want me to tag you on the chapters let me know! Also leave a comment with your thoughts :D Not finished, not proofread. English isn't my 1st language. All I know about LOL is from google and all I know about Arcane is taken from the show, so inacuracies will be plenty. I have a sort of idea on how to I'm gonna go with magic and runes, so bear with me. The reader will be written as GN (going by they/them) to get everyone involved, but if you see any discrepancies let me know.

A.N: I'm back!!! Some trigger warnings: death mentioned and some medical stuff (probable inacuracies).

Part 1 • Part 2 • Part 3 • Part 4 • Part 5 • Part 6 • Part 7 • Part 8 • Part 9 • Part 10 • Part 11 • Part 12

• ··········· • ············ •

The council met two days after Jayce found Viktor and yourself inside the closet. Two long days of having the big, broad man teasing both of you to hide his own anxiety.

At the beginning of the second day, in the afternoon, Jayce, Viktor, Esther, and most of the investors your mother had rallied had been called to the brightly lit council chamber. You, however, were barred as soon as you tried to get in, the enforcer by the door giving you a sardonic grin when he placed a hand on your shoulder and gently pushed you away. Your mother was about to protest, but you shook your head and watched the double doors close on you.

With a sigh, you walked back to the lab. You took your time, pleasurably walking around the Academy until you arrived at your destination.

The glove came off as soon as you got to the lab's floor, and the door unlocked with a flick of your wrist, the rune spoken without thinking about it.

The lab was mostly clean, and you knew that it was because of the council's constant inspection that it had been organized. You sat on Viktor’s worktable, careful not to disturb anything. He had some books on magic scattered with his own notes and writing utensils. After a few minutes of twirling around on his stool, you thought your time would be better spent learning about your power.

The books had different thicknesses and a variety of covers. Some looked antique, leather-bound, and gold-foiled, while others looked more modern with hardcovers and simpler designs. One caught your attention, mostly because Viktor had left a note stuck on it with your name underlined.

'Read!'

The small couch behind the blackboard seemed like the perfect place to read it. Pushing the blackboard out of the way, you grabbed Viktor’s blanket and sat down. 

The inventor had already read the book, you noted by the little remarks he had added in little sticky notes. 

‘More than one language?’ ‘Prefixes and suffixes. Try.’ 'Curse words? Cursing runes?’ 'Are the runes a foreign language?' 'Do runes have accents?'

You laughed quietly at the annotations. Sitting quietly in the lab was always a peaceful experience. The muffled sounds of the people in the corridors and the soft whooshing of airships going around were soothing. Familiar.

Time ticked by as you read until you found yourself closing your eyes at the words. Shaking your head, you decided to try some new things with the runes.

If runes were similar to words, then they could be combined to make sentences. You looked around the room for inspiration, and your eyes fell on the locked hex-core storage. You knew the cores and gems were either in the council chamber or in Heimerdinger's locked office, now a sort of secure room since he had disappeared.

Not waiting for someone to walk in on you with a blue hand, you grabbed Viktor's colored sticky notepad and wrote the 'unlock' and 'move' rune. Before you could flick the rune with a finger, the locked door slammed against the wall.

“That’s new…” You frowned, determined to try and close the door and lock it from where you sat. 

You made the moving rune again, added the little coda signal next to it, and pulled. The door closed with a click. Still unlocked, though.

It didn't take you long to go through half of the notepad trying to decode what you should add to relock the door, and nothing worked. 

“Fine…be that way…” you grumbled as you got up and walked to Viktor’s shoulder bag on the coat hanger, grabbed his lab keys, walked to the door, and locked it. As you were walking back from dropping the keys back in the bag, the lab's door opened. For a moment you were confused, not having used any magic, but then Viktor’s handsome face peeked through.

“I thought I told you not to enter the lab without supervision.” He warned without menace in his voice.

“According to my mom, I own 2% of this lab, and I decided that this couch is just that. My 2%.” You joked, getting back to the warmth of the blanket on the couch.

He walked inside, closing the door as he made his way to you, a mocking, pensive expression on his face.

“I guess that is fair. Still does not explain why you are inside the lab.” He got to the couch and moved his index finger around, mentioning the room. "Unsupervised."

“Well, I need access to my 2%, don’t I?”

He rolled his eyes dramatically and sat next to you, leaning his cane on the arm of the couch and his shoulders on the back of it. Without thinking, you covered his legs with the wool blanket, patting his knees.

Viktor looked at you with a raised eyebrow, and you shrugged, trying to look nonchalant at the friendly move.

“Has the council session ended?” You asked, clearing your throat and closing the book. He shook his head. “Shouldn’t you be there?”

“Whenever Salo starts throwing personal jabs at me about where I’m from, I know whatever discussion was being had is over.”

“Yeah… stain on the hexgate floor…” you whispered, and he raised his eyebrows. “And how did the discussion end?”

“The council agreed to let the Tallis Lab operate as is... under supervision for a while, but they aren’t going to interfere with it.” He played with the hem of the blanket and shook his head. “Esther was a force of nature in that room tonight. For a moment I thought she was going to start casting runes and making the table float.”

You snorted and leaned against the arm of the couch, looking at his profile. Viktor always had a striking profile, with high cheekbones and a sharp jaw. 

“Did she ever tell you how we became friends?” He looked at the opposite wall, and you shook your head, making a negative sound.

“All she told me was that you and she had similar interests.”

“About… mmm… 11 years ago, before Jayce and Hextech, Professor Heimerdinger thought it was a good idea to give the engineering students something creative to do. So he asked Esther to come and give our analytical little brains some writing classes.”

“Aren’t you an inventor, though?” You tilted your head sideways to lean against the back of the couch; he nodded.

“I still think in numbers... It's different…Anyway, she would teach one class every two weeks. At first, I did not enjoy it; I could be studying or working, but at some point, I started to like it. My brain would go to these faraway places and imagine all of the things that, back then, were impossible. At some point your mother let us know her opinions of the Undercity, and after class, we spent a good two hours just speaking about it.”

“She does like to talk.” You joked, and he looked at you smiling.

“That she does, especially if she likes the subject. For one whole year, every two weeks I would be the first one in and the last one out. Sometimes she would let me read some of her manuscripts and ask for an honest review; other times I let her read my own school papers.”

“Wouldn’t that be cheating? Having an actual writer proofread your papers?” You raised an eyebrow.

“I was an Undercity boy, with an Undercity accent and a limp. I was taking any help I could get.” He shrugged, and you snorted. “One day she didn’t show up. I asked Professor Heimerdinger, and he said something awful had happened to her and her family.”

Immediately you straightened up, eyes wide in curiosity. If his math was correct, and it was, this was about the same time engraved on the stone at the cemetery.

“I knew she had a husband and a child about my age. There was never an opportunity for me to meet them, but still, whatever had happened, I wanted to show my solidarity. So, poor young Viktor walked all the way to the penthouse, and once he got there, Voltaire told poor young Viktor she was at the Skyward Clinic."He sighed, looking at his hands, flexing and relaxing his long fingers. "A trolley had derailed. Her husband had died on the route to the clinic. Her child seemed to be in a very precarious state.”

The buzzing in your ears started to drown out anything but Viktor's particular speech pattern. The corner of your eyes started to tunnel around him. Your breathing started to become elaborate as you tried to hide your restlessness.

It had never seemed to be the right opportunity to ask your mother how it happened. She had mentioned the accident but never in specifics, and you respected her need to keep it to herself. People grieve in their own way.

Your father could never pass by the hospital your mother had died in, even though he would make generous donations to it. But he would always take the long way if the quickest path passed by it.

“I had little money to spend on frivolous things like trolleys, so I walked all the way back to Skyward…” He made his fingers do a little walking motion in the air.

“That’s on the opposite side of the city.”

“It is.”

“And you walked there?”

“I did.” He nodded, his own eyes focusing on something on the floor, his mind tracing the memory.

“Your leg... your back...” You were about to start to complain about his recklessness, but he snorted.

“My lungs.”

“Your lungs?” This was the first time he had mentioned them.

“They took the brunt of my stupidity and my lack of funds." He gave a humorless snort and took a deep breath. "Everything collapsed as soon as my brain figured out how much strain I had put on my body."

He tilted his head to you but didn't look up from whatever it was that he was focused on on the floor.

"Do you know what the gray is?" He asked.

"Yes."

"Do you know what it does after long-term exposure to it?"

The question wasn't out of the blue, because of the subject being discussed and the person it was being discussed with. However, it hit you like a rush of cold water. You didn't know what it did personally, but you'd seen it on someone else. You'd seen it on his other dimension twin.

"Yes." You couldn't look at him.

"The respiratory system starts to rot. According to the doctors, I would be dead in about five to six years. But Esther…”

You remembered the day your Viktor had announced his own diagnosis. He had used those exact words, but the years were shortened to months.

That day had been seared into your brain. The way his voice sounded so strong and yet so broken, and he hadn’t allowed you to shed a single tear, even though they were flowing. ‘Save them for when I’m gone.’.

Your eyes filled with unshed tears now that he wasn't here to see them fall.

“I don’t know how, or even when, but I distinctly remember your mother holding my hand and crying by my bedside table. She said to me..." He cleaned a tear of his own, with the tip of his fingers. “She said nobody else’s child would be dying that night.”

It was like the air in your body had been sucked out. It held in your throat as your eyes widened.

“The doctors said we were a perfect match." He sighed, his eyebrow furrowing. "From blood type to size to the age of the donor. The chances of my body accepting the donated organ were above 80%. And Esther allowed it. And I survived.”

You gasped and followed his hand, which was now tracing a line of his diaphragm gingerly.

“There’s a scar right here…” He tapped his fingers in the lower part of his chest. “A reminder that death is sometimes inevitable for life to happen."

Viktor sniffled, closing his eyes, his hand still on his chest as it rose and fell with each breath.

"After that, we became inseparable. I will never be able to thank her for what she did, and if there is ever anything I can do to repay it, I will do it.”

There was silence now in the lab. The words he had spoken kept swimming freely in your head, fading into images of another Viktor coughing up blood and slowly succumbing to his illness.

You felt your body move on its own accord, your mental state not providing the necessary filters for you to stop yourself.

Viktor jumped when he felt your palm on top of his, on his chest, but didn't move away. You felt his breathing even out and even felt his little sniffles. 

“You’re not dying.” You whispered more to his other self than this one, as if somewhere in the other timeline your Viktor could hear you. 

“I am not.” Viktor whispered back, moving his hand so your own was flat against the fabric of his uniform.

You touched his shoulder with your forehead, a hand still on his chest, and you sobbed. There was sadness and anger and happiness and confusion; it was a convoluted mix of emotions that you couldn’t stop.

You were ecstatic that this Viktor was free from his impending doom, but you felt like your heart was breaking because your Viktor, the one you had loved and lost, could have been saved, could have had this. 

Hindsight was indeed 20/20. This type of procedure has never been given a thought. Although something told you the Viktor you knew would never go for it. He had already accepted his fate. His death. 

You kept asking yourself: Had you known then what you know now, not just about the Herald but about the possibility of you giving him a chance, would you accept it? Would you give your life for him? If you could?

Sadly, you didn’t know the answer to that. In a second of insanity, you just might, but if you had more time to think, the answer was not as clear.

And that confused you and angered you. 

You noticed his hand on top of your own, his thumb gently stroking the back of it. You stiffen, finally realizing where and how you were placed. Half on top of his torso, your forehead on his shoulders, hand on his chest.

Quickly you moved your body away from his.

“Sorry…I... You tried to clean your face with the back of your hands.

“It is expected. Aside from this..." He pointed to the hand he still held on his chest, and you quickly moved it away. "Jayce's reaction was sort of the same...”

“Sorry…It’s…huh…hard, I guess.”

“Matters of life and death often are.” He looked at you, his eyes softening.

Your mind jumped to when you asked if she would choose you or Viktor in case of need and how her answer was immediately him. Since the subject was saving Piltover, it made sense she didn’t hesitate, but now…now you understood it more deeply. He had a part of her child in him. She would save him not just because of the future but also because of what he meant to her. 

“Esther... she...” you said, accepting the burgundy handkerchief he was offering you. “She's very brave...”

Viktor smiled brightly even if his cheeks still had tears in them, and you did the same, seeing him as a completely different person for the first time since you got here.

Nature made them equal; nurture made them opposites.

• ············ •

“Why didn’t you tell me?” You asked your mother as soon as you were both alone in the penthouse.

“About?” she asked, going around the kitchen, having decided at 11 at night to make cupcakes.

“Viktor and the surgery.” 

She stopped abruptly and looked at you as you sat quietly in the breakfast nook of the kitchen. You made a conscious effort not to show or sound angry, because you weren’t.

“I…Did he tell you that?” You nodded, and she leaned her hip into the counter, looking at a point in the distance. “It was a burden that I didn’t think you’d need.”

She sighed, coming to sit on the opposite side of the table with a deep breath.

“Sometimes I still struggle with the decision I made. My child was gone, and he was there, lying on a hospital bed filled with tubes and machines, and…it became such an easy decision to make back then… I sometimes wonder if she would think less of me because of that...”

“I’m sorry.” You grabbed her shaking hand after a few minutes of silence. “I…don’t know if it means anything, but…as your child from another dimension, I don’t think I could ever think less of you.”

Esther smiled at you and extended a hand to touch your cheek. You took a deep breath and waited. Her touch was warm and gentle, her thumb stroking the top of your cheekbone, and you felt a kiss on your knuckles.

“Thank you, my dear. It means the world to me.” She whispered.

• ··········· • ············ •

@marshy-moo @victormydarling @blueesmiski @th3stup1dcat @22carolina08 @httpstes @that-one-shitty-blog @disa-pointment @sseleniaa @moons-lighttrail @aysluxe @fae-doodle @kitewa @local-mr-frog @bakusquadobsessed @cherry-cola-100 @optimistic-but-very-realistic @seeksrsnn @thecordelialetters @notsaelty @lansy-4 @ayupfrogg @sammypotato @wnbrw @lucycarlisleswife @noxturnalmoth @ren-ren23 @furblrwurblr @kapitankarate @mynicknameisgasoline @octo-octopie @birbwithhat @kneelarmhstrung @dedicated2viktor @elvishstudies

[wordsarelife]

pairing: slytherin!group x fem!nott!reader, enzo berkshire x fem!nott!reader

summary: mattheo’s “protective charm” locks everyone out of their rooms, forcing them to spend the night in the common room. no wands, no teachers, and strange noises that send blaise and enzo into full panic mode. as paranoia grows, they’re left wondering if they’re really safe—or if something darker is lurking in the shadows.

warnings: cursing, a very bad scary story, haunted common room, slow burnnnn

note: finally episode two is here!! super excited to share this. enjoy these 4k words of my yapping lol!

“this is the worst day ever, seriously” blaise zabini said as he crossed his arms and let himself fall onto one of the big dark couches in the slytherin common room.

“come on, it’s not so bad” mattheo shrugged, trying to hide his smile.

“no, actually, he’s right” you gestured between your friends, all obviously annoyed, apart from (you guessed it) mattheo. “this is the worst day ever”

“some friends you are” mattheo mumbled under his breath, turning away and huffing about the situation.

“well, it’s your own fault” theo shrugged unbothered. “you had to come up with that stupid charm”

“excuse you?” mattheo bluffed, holding his heart like theo had hurt him deeply. “i was just trying to help”

“emphasis on trying” draco muttered, sorting through a chest of blankets which was standing against one wall of the common room. “that’ll do”

“i could conjure up a few sleeping bags or beds” mattheo suggested, raising his wand.

“no!” the slytherin screamed in unison and pansy ripped the wand from mattheo’s hand, before he was able to react.

“hey!” mattheo complained, but everyone just ignored him. “i was trying to do something nice for my friends. not a reason to be bitches about it.”

“say the word ‘bitch’ one more time and—“

before blaise could fulfill his threat, enzo came back into the room, just barely breathing.

“snape is already in his chambers— or whatever you call that”

“sleeping quarters?” you suggested and enzo pointed a finger at you, thankful for the help.

“well, that means we can’t do anything until tomorrow” draco concluded the obvious.

“shit” pansy muttered and all of you send similar hateful glances in mattheo’s direction.

“how are we going to explain it to him anyway?” you asked, while you helped your brother to unfold the couch to a bed. “hello professor snape, we are idiots and locked ourselves out of our rooms, could you help us get back in please?”

“no” blaise shook his head. “we’re going to say that mattheo is an idiot, he looked us out of our rooms and now he needs professor snape’s help to get back in.”

"again, i'd like to point out that the intention was to help you" mattheo declared dramatically. "but whatever, just sell me out like that i guess."

"great"

"works for me"

"sounds good"

your voices chorused through the room and mattheo pouted offended.

"okay, what way are we sleeping?" enzo asked the group.

you shrugged, not really caring where you would need to sleep.

"well" draco said, looking around the room. "four of us can sleep on the two couches. one can sleep in the armchair, it's long enough when we drag out the foot rest and i guess to of us have to sleep on the floor."

"i'd say the girls get one of the sofas" theo suggested, while packing up a folded blanket and handing it to you, before nodding to the couch behind your back.

"normally, i’d call out the whole 'superior male savior complex' thing," pansy smirked, draping herself over the couch with a dramatic sigh. "but tonight? i’ll allow it. anything’s better than the floor."

"i agree" you grinned, following her lead.

"how generous of you," blaise rolled his eyes. "well, one of us gonna volunteer for the floor?"

all eyes darted to mattheo, who was at fault for the entire thing anyway, since he had decided to highten the security on his friends' and especially the girls' dorm room doors, enchanting them with some weird spell, that should've just simply made sure that no unauthorised people could enter the room, but now not even the people who were supposed to could.

"yeah, yeah" mattheo muttered, stuffing the floor with a blanket and sitting down on it. "of course i'd be the first to go."

"don't victimize yourself" draco smiled sarcastically.

"yeah," blaise nodded. "if anything, i'm the victim, considering my back will hurt horribly tomorrow"

"you mean us" enzo raised his eyebrows and blaise quickly agreed, like he had simply mispoken on accident.

"so, rock, paper, scissors?" theo suggested and blaise, draco and enzo nodded, before they split into two teams, dueling each other until there was a winner on each side. they repeated the process until three people had won against the others and only one person had lost: enzo.

"this is just because i'm the youngest:" he muttered, when he arranged his bed down on the floor next to the sofa pansy and you were sleeping on.

"i don't think age is considered in the game, enz," you said in a soft tone, helping him to make the floor as comfortable as possible to lighten his mood.

"so what now?" draco asked as soon as they all had been settled: blaise and him on the remaining couch and theo on the arm chair, legs hanging over the footrest.

"scary stories?" mattheo suggested with a hint of mischief in his eyes.

"aren't we a bit old for that?" draco asked with furrowed brows as he looked from one friend to another.

"we're a bit too old for sleepovers too, but who cares?" enzo grinned from the floor, catching your face light up at the mention of scary stories.

"do any of you know some?" you asked, adjusting your position under the blanket, ready to get scared.

"oh, please" mattheo smirked. he adjusted his position on the floor, before his voice dropped to a lower octave. "there’s a story the ministry doesn’t like to talk about. a case from decades ago, buried so deep you’d only find it if you knew what to look for. It’s about a child born to a pair of powerful wizards—prodigies, really. they wanted their child to be just as extraordinary as they were, maybe even more so. but there was one problem: their daughter eden was born a squib."

your brother and you exchanged unimpressed glances.

"a squib? really?" draco repeated.

"that's not meant to scare us, is it? because if you think that just because we all grew up in pureblooded families we might be scared of—"

"obviously not," mattheo interrupted blaise with a wave of his hand. "would you let me continue now?"

"go on," you nodded, crossing your arms and leaning back against the cushion of the sofa.

"so, eden was born a squib. and her parents? they couldn’t bear it. a child with no magic? in their family? so, they searched for a solution. and they found one—a forbidden spell from an ancient book, a ritual meant to transfer magical power from one soul to another. it required… a tether. something living." he looked between his friends ominiously. "they found a boy. a muggle orphan, barnett. young enough not to be missed, old enough to survive the spell—barely. they brought him into their home, dressed him like a brother to their daughter, and told the world he was family. the ritual worked."

you all shrieked up as the light flickered at his words. mattheo's smile widened, before he continued the story.

"eden gained incredible power, but the tether didn’t just give her the boy’s magic. it tied him to her—body and soul. at first, it wasn’t so bad. he would simply mimic her. if eden laughed, barnett smiled. but over time, it became… worse. eden started to hear barnett's voice in her head, whispering things she didn’t want to hear—begging her to let him go. one night, she woke up screaming. she said he was inside her skin, crawling, clawing his way out. they found her curled up in her bed, her body jerking violently. and barnett? he was standing in the corner, completely still, his eyes wide and empty."

the light flickered again and your hand unconciously clenched around pansy's wrist. pansy pulled the blanket closer, as if to shield you both from an invisible force.

“the parents tried to undo the ritual, but it was too late. barnett started appearing in places he shouldn’t have been—in reflections, in the dark corners of the house. eden began to waste away, her body covered in strange, blackened veins. she kept saying, ‘he’s taking it back.’ one morning, they found her lifeless in her bed. and barnett? he was gone."

you could see both blaise and draco furrow their brows simultaneously, unable to tell in which direction the ending of the story was going.

“the house was abandoned after that, left to crumble into ruin. sometimes, people walking by the old estate hear faint whispers, like the sound of children laughing. and if you look closely into the cracked windows, you might see a boy standing there, pale as death, waiting for someone to join him. some people said they could hear him whisper through the glass, calling for his sister: 'e—"

mattheo was interrupted by a loud thump. all of you shrieked up, your eyes on the wall were the sound had come from.

"that was probably just—" enzo wanted to say, before he too, was interrupted.

"eden!" a loud voice beamed, making you all start screaming simultaneously. "eden!" the chandelier above you started swining and the lights flickered once again.

the process lasted about thirty seconds, before everything stopped and the room looked totally normal again.

all of you had crowded together in a circle, watching the ordeal back to back.

"what the fuck was that?" pansy muttered, pressing a hand to her chest to calm her heartbeat.

your eyes wandered through the circle of people before they landed on mattheo and you stepped forward, a finger hitting his chest.

"ow!" mattheo cried at the surprising pain of your small touch.

"this isn't funny, mattheo" you snapped.

mattheo pushed your finger away. “calm down, woman. i didn’t even do anything.”

“then it was one of you!” pansy accused looking between the remaining guys.

“literally no one here has a wand, except for mattheo.” theo crossed his arms, annoyed at her stupid accusation, but there was also a hint of worry in his words.

mattheo rolled his eyes. “pansy took it earlier, remember? when i generously suggested to conjure up comfortable beds or something.”

all eyes flew to pansy.

“it wasn’t her.” you exclaimed with a shake of your head. you glanced over to the sofa, the abandoned wand lying in the middle of where pansy and you had sat. “i would’ve noticed.”

“great” blaise smiled sarcastically. “so that leaves… who exactly?”

“no one, okay?” draco nodded, his lips pressed tightly together. “this is a magical school and we’re inside an incredible old castle. this might just happen sometimes.”

you looked to the side to find enzo’s eyes, who just shrugged.

all of you knew that there needed to be a different explanation, but rather ignored the pending question, as you settled back to your sleeping spots.

there were a few more minutes of light chatter, all of you growing increasingly more tired, before it was finally time to sleep. with a wave of mattheo’s wand, pansy put out the light and all of you got under your blankets.

you drifted off to sleep easier than you would've guessed, your mind being tired down from an exhausting school day and your body feeling the effects of walking up and down stairs all day.

you didn't even mind the snoring of the boys, as your mind settled on a sweet dream about something you surely wouldn't remember in the morning.

just when you thought the night wouldn't be as bad as expected, you woke up around 3am, the air in the common room was ice cold and you were shivering even under your thick blanket.

you opened your eyes to try and find the source of the coldness in the darkness, only for your gaze to flicker to enzo, who was stirring in his sleep, before he finally opened his eyes, directly looking back.

enzo made a surprised sound at you looking down at him and sat up. "why are you awake?" he whispered, as to not wake your still sleeping friends.

"it's cold," you muttered back, your eyes wandering around the room once again.

"oh," enzo nodded. "the fire is out." he threw back his blanket and got up. "here, let me just.." he grabbed a few pieces of wood and reached for mattheo's wand on the table to enlight the flame. the fire prickled to life quickly, illuminating the room in a warm glow and you immediately felt a lot warmer.

"thank you." you smiled gratefully as you watched enzo walk back over.

"anything," he smiled down at you and even in the dark you could see his perfect white teeth and your cheeks grew pink from the warmth of his gaze.

for a few seconds the both of you just simply looked at each other. you, still sitting on the couch, and enzo leaning slightly over you, keeping his gaze locked onto your eyes.

the moment was interrupted by a loud bang, when a shelf collapsed, sending a dozen books down to the floor. you had gripped enzo’s hand and he had fallen onto your legs as he had shrieked away from the sudden sound.

the rest of the slytherins now opened their eyes too, just as disturbed from the sudden loudness as enzo and you.

"what the hell?" mattheo sat up, rubbing his eyes.

all eyes wandered to the books on the floor. draco and blaise sat up too, pansy groaned and theo cleared his throat when his gaze dropped to enzo sitting half on your lap. enzo got back onto his feet in a hurry.

"i see you're counting on my sister to protect you, huh?" theo quirked a brow, a sarcastic smile settling onto his lips. but he was less amused than annoyed.

"n-no" enzo stuttered and looked at you for help.

you rolled your eyes, not willing to entertain your brother any further than necessary. "well, if you must know,” you began, sitting up straighter, “enzo was just about to confess his undying love for me before the bookshelf rudely interrupted.”

enzo choked on air. “i—what?” he quickly shook his head. "theo, i swear i wasn't—"

pansy, now fully awake, smirked. “oh, this just got interesting.”

draco groaned, flopping back against the couch. “It’s too bloody late for whatever this is.”

theo, however, narrowed his eyes at you. “hilarious.” his tone was flat, but the slight twitch of his jaw told you he wasn’t entirely amused. “but let’s focus on the part where random objects are flying around while we’re supposed to be sleeping.”

"exactly." blaise nodded, pointing a hand in theo's direction. "i think theo brings up a very good point: someone should go over there and inspect the thing."

"okay. why not you?" mattheo challenged, narrowing his eyes at his friend.

blaise shook his head, laughing like mattheo had suggested the stupidest thing ever. "for obvious reasons, mattheo." without explaining further, his eyes darted across the room, landing on pansy and you. "ladies?"

"and they say chivalry is dead." pansy smiled sarcastically, crossing her arms across her chest, "i'm not doing shit. i heard draco has studied well for the upcoming defense exam. he should go"

"actually" draco corrected, holding up a finger. "theo has been the one who helped me study, so i really think he—"

"fucking babies." you muttered, climbing down from the couch and walking closer to the book shelf at the back of the room.

"the wand, y/n" mattheo suggested, as he nodded at the fireplace, where enzo had left his wand.

you nodded, gripping the wand in your hand and slowly stepping closer.

"you're really letting her do this?" enzo frowned in theo's direction. your brother simply shrugged, not quite convinved there was something that could hurt you waiting in the corner of the room.

"y/n, wait"

you froze in the middle of the room. the same distance between you and your friends as to the bookshelf in front of you. you turned around and saw enzo standing in the middle of the two couches, looking unsure.

"what?" you questioned at his dramatic stance.

"i'll come with you."

"i'm not going to war, enz."

you were unable to stop the boy, the determination had already settled on his face, as he grabbed a pillow and stepped across the room.

"fucking idiot," you could hear blaise mutter under his breath. "two funerals is gonna be super expensive."

"no ones getting buried." pansy whispered back harshly.

"and you're loaded anyway." theo lazily commented.

you ignored your friends, your gaze still fixed on enzo, who looked like he wanted to be anywhere else. you were sure whatever it was, it wasn't as bad as to warrant that kind of fear.

"you really don't have to." you furrowed your brows at the way the pillow was shaking in his hold. "it's probably nothing."

"but what if it isn't?" enzo glanced to the shelf. "then you need someone to protect you."

normally you would've immediately corrected that stupid assumption, but the boy was so determined and ready to jump between you and whatever was waiting near that shelf, that you just couldn't. he was too lovely for his own good.

"okay," you nodded, stepping closer to the shelf.

the atmosphere in the room only grew to be scarier, as all of you held your breaths and the slytherins kept their eyes trained on enzo and you, stepping closer to whatever was awaiting you.

your hand gently wandered over the shelf in the wall, and after a few quiet seconds, your exhaled your breath, relief flooding your features. "see?" you said, turning back to your friends, "nothing—"

a loud crash echoed through the room when the remaining shelves all broke through at the same time. enzo jumped forward, gripping your hand and effectively sending mattheo's wand flying, as he pushed you behind him and threw his weapon,—pansy's super soft foam pillow that she always carried in her enchanted bag in case she got tired—, at the shelf.

"run," he then screamed, pushing you back into the direction of the couches, accompanied by your and your friends frantic screams.

"now should be the right time to get the fuck out of here." pansy suggested with a screech.

"could you please, uh, NOT SCREAM THAT DIRECTLY INTO MY EAR?" blaise's voice rang through the room.

"great! you left the wand" mattheo looked a little shaken up, but a lot less than the rest of your friends. the same could be said about theo.

"calm down," your brother said loudly, interrupting the fight that was going on between pansy and blaise, who were both continuously screaming at each other.

"calm down?" blaise repeated. "this is the fucking conjuring. how am i supposed to calm down?!"

"what's the conjuring?" draco asked confused, looking at you for help, but you could only shrug, never having heard that name before.

"muggle horror film." theo exclaimed with a roll of his eyes. "what in merlins name are you doing?" he narrowed his eyes at blaise, who was hectically lifting blankets and seemingly searching for something.

"oh, i'm out of here." blaise shrugged, still searching. "but i'm not about to leave my gucci scarf down here."

"gucci scarf?" enzo repeated in a whisper.

"might be another muggle thing." you shrugged.

"and where exactly are we leaving to?" draco crossed his arms. "i'm not about to be caught in the halls and lose like 50 points each."

"whatever we decide on, my wand is still lying at the end of this room." mattheo nodded to the point where his wand was still moving a little from falling from your hand.

"that's on me." you nodded. "i'll get it." you stepped forward, but before you could move further, enzo pushed you back into pansy's arms.

"i'll go. it was my fault anyway."

"lovely." blaise nodded sarcastically. "i'm gonna find good words for your funeral, brother."

"ready to die for a girl who isn't even his girlfriend." draco muttered under his breath.

theo's head turned to the blonde boy, his gaze sharp. "his what?"

draco averted his eyes and followed the line of sight of the rest of his friends, including you, who were staring after enzo with a guiltridden expression.

enzo took one step after the other, very slowly nearing the wand, his eyes darting from one side of the room to the other, as if to look out for any hints of an intruder or another thing happening.

he hesitated only for a second before taking a step forward, reaching down toward where mattheo’s wand had landed—

then, without warning, the flames in the fireplace extinguished completely. darkness swallowed the room. the temperature plummeted once more.

and from the depths of the common room, an unmistakable whisper slithered through the air—low, cold, and utterly inhuman.

run.

all of you took a moment to react, frozen in your movement, before blaise broke your trance, jumping over the couch like he was a gold winning athlete. "save yourselves!" he screamed, already half up the stairs.

screaming, you and your friends bolted for the stairs, trampling over each other in a frantic attempt to get out.

mattheo tripped over a pillow. pansy shoved draco out of her way. enzo sprinted across the room, holding onto your wrist, practically dragging you toward the common room entrance.

you all arrived at the doors, which just wouldn't budge, trapping you in the room.

a loud laugh echoed through the room, as all of you stood, your backs pressed against the doors, looking ahead with sheer horror at whatever was about to reveal itself.

then a poof and the sickly satisfied expression on peeves' face was staring right at you.

"PEEVES?" pansy shrieked, her voice cracking as she clutched onto draco’s arm.

"you've got to be kidding." theo groaned, rubbing his temples.

mattheo exhaled sharply, dragging a hand down his face. "i knew this was too stupid to be a real haunting."

"stupid?" peeves gasped, clutching his chest like he’d been mortally wounded. "STUPID?" then, as if deciding that was a compliment, he grinned. "oh, but it worked, didn’t it? look at you all! shaking in your boots!” he twisted midair and did a mock bow. “peeves wins again!"

"you're dead," blaise muttered. "dead. when the baron gets back, you’re done."

at that, peeves did a lazy backflip and grinned. "ah, but he’s not here tonight, is he? nooo, the baron is out twirling with the other ghosts, leaving poor little slytherins all alone… and ripe for a bit of mischief!" he cackled, swooping down to hover inches from theo’s face. "you lot are always so boring—all your rules and manners and pureblood traditions—blah, blah, blah! so i took my chance, locked you out of your rooms and had a little fun.”

"so it was you!" mattheo pointed at the ghost, before turning his gaze back to all of you. "see! it wasn't my fault, my hex would've worked just as intended if this stupid little—"

"actually," peeves interrupted, spinning in midair. "you were this close to making things a whole lot worse. your hex would’ve triggered a nasty smell throughout the whole castle, like rotten fish and burnt hair. not to mention it might've set the curtains on fire. a real disaster, if you ask me."

"what?!" mattheo's eyes widened in disbelief. "i didn’t—"

"of course you didn't, mattheo" pansy rolled her eyes, stepping away from the door and sending a last scornful look in peeves' direction. "if you would excuse me? i'm going back to sleep."

"yeah, me too." draco sighed, following pansy back down into the common room.

the rest of you nodded too, leaving peeves behind, who pouted at your sudden disinterest, as you settled back into your sleeping bags for the night.

tomorrow you would explain to professor snape what peeves had done, maybe leaving out the part where mattheo had nearly burned down something and cursed the entire castle, and he would hopefully help you unlock your rooms and return to normal.

enzo smiled up at you, when you had gotten comfortable under your blanket.

the others had already grown quiet, indicating them drifting off to sleep.

you were still wide awake, looking down at the boy, who didn't make any move to close his eyes or go back to sleep either.

"thanks for protecting me tonight." you whispered softly. "especially while you were scared too."

"any time." enzo assured.

you weren't sure what possessed you to do it, but your hand wandered down slowly, softly brushing against his arm, as if to comfort him.

"really, though," you continued, your voice quieter now, "i don’t think i could’ve made it through all that without you."

enzo's lips curled into a small smile, but he didn’t say anything right away. his hand, almost instinctively, moved closer to yours, fingers brushing against yours in the slightest, a silent acknowledgment.

"you’ve got a way of making me feel less stupid," he said after a beat, a teasing undertone in his voice that made you laugh softly.

"maybe that’s because you’re not stupid at all," you replied, your heart suddenly racing for reasons you couldn’t quite explain.

"is this okay?" he whispered softly, taking your hand into his fully.

you nodded, before you closed your eyes. enzo's voice being the last thing you heard before drifting off into a dream filled with the golden light of the sun and whispered promises under cherry blossom trees.

"goodnight, y/n." he whispered, his voice soft but sincere. "i'll be waiting for you."

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[dany-is-my-queen]

A QUESTION OF LOYALTY XXI

Rhaneyra Targaryen x reader, Alicent Hightower x reader

Word count: 4.6k

Summary: When dragons of green and dragons of black dance, you have to choose the color that suits you best.

From the Hill of Rhaenys, where the Dragonpit loomed, an uproar of angry cries echoed through the streets. The mob, incited by the “Shepherd’s” fiery rhetoric, surged forward to destroy the dragons—a symbol of their oppression.

Within the Red Keep, Rhaenyra paced frantically, her face pale and sweat beading her brow. The queen’s usual composure had melted into sheer panic.

“My son… my son!” she murmured, horror tightening her voice.

“Your Grace,” you called out, trying to ground her.

She barely heard you, her attention snapping back to the balcony. From the vantage point of Maegor’s Holdfast, the golden shimmer of Syrax was visible against the night sky, her massive wings beating as she bore Joffrey toward the Dragonpit.

“No! Bring him back! Every man, every boy—go after him!” she cried out.

You stepped forward and placed a steadying hand on her arm.

“Your Grace, your Grace! Listen to me. I’ll go. I’ll bring him back,” you promised.

Rhaenyra’s wide, tear-filled eyes darted to you. “Are you mad? They’ll rip you apart! They’ll murder—”

“Trust me, my Queen. I’ll get through. There’s no time to lose,” you cut her off, determination firm in your tone.

Without waiting for her consent, you turned and sprinted from the chamber. The fastest steed in the stables was saddled within moments, and you galloped into the chaos, sword in hand, weaving through the panicked streets toward the Dragonpit.

Years ago, when Joffrey was but a babe, you remembered Rhaenyra introducing her sons to Syrax.

“Take them to the skies with you as soon as you can,” you had said, your voice soft but certain. “Better they grow familiar, even before their dragons hatch. So Syrax may warm to them as well.”

You had been there, watching as the golden she-dragon tilted her great head to inspect the toddling boys. To your surprise, she had taken to them quickly, her nostrils flaring in recognition of their Targaryen blood.

Now, as Syrax carried Joffrey toward the Dragonpit, you prayed the bond would protect him.

When you arrived at the pit, the scene was a nightmare. Flames licked the crumbled edges of the dome, the shrieks of dying dragons and frenzied rioters mingling in the air.

“Joffrey! My Prince!” you called out, spotting him near Syrax.

He turned, his face streaked with soot. “Aunt Y/N? No! I need to get to Tyraxes!”

“Your mother needs you, my boy,” you shouted back.

Joffrey hesitated, his eyes darting toward Tyraxes’s lair, where the mob swarmed. But when you extended a hand to him, he relented, rushing into your grasp.

With one arm, you hoisted him onto your saddle, buckling him securely with a strap. “Hold on tight!”

Syrax descended in a furious dive, her claws raking through the mob and scattering men like leaves in a storm. Her tail swept through the crowd, knocking rioters off their feet, and she let out a jet of flame, creating a temporary barrier between you and the advancing mob.

She landed in front of you, her golden eyes locking onto Joffrey. She crouched low, shielding the both of you with her massive body, her wings folding protectively around you.

But even her presence couldn’t halt the onslaught. The mob’s shouts grew louder, and arrows began to rain down. Syrax roared in pain as one struck her side, then another embedded itself near her shoulder. She reared back, her wings flaring as she unleashed another torrent of flame to keep the crowd at bay.

She let out a low growl, almost as if urging you to flee.

“She’ll circle back,” you told Joffrey firmly. “But we have to go now”

The horse bolted forward, and you pushed through the crowd, cutting down anyone who dared to block your path. The mob was relentless, but Syrax’s fiery distraction had given you just enough of an opening to break free.

Then you saw her—Dreamfyre. The pale dragon stood in the open courtyard, her wings spread wide as her silver flames illuminated the frenzied crowd closing in around her. She was cornered, her roar shaking the very foundation of the pit, but the mob pressed forward, undeterred by the carnage.

"Dreamfyre!" you gasped, your heart lurching.

Joffrey tugged at your arm. "Aunt Y/N, I need to—"

“No!” you snapped, your tone sharper than intended. “Your mother needs you alive.”

Your horse bucked nervously as you drew closer, but your eyes remained fixed on Dreamfyre. Her jaws snapped shut on a man wielding a massive axe, flinging his lifeless body across the pit. A burst of flame erupted from her maw, incinerating dozens of attackers in a single, merciless breath.

But then, as if summoned by the gods’ cruelty, a crossbow bolt struck her eye. The scream that tore from her throat was unlike anything you had ever heard—a sound that reverberated in your very bones.

Another bolt struck her wing. Dreamfyre tried to leap into the air, her massive body thrashing against the confines of the pit. But the mob swarmed her, hacking at her legs, her tail, her wounded wings.

“Gods,” you whispered, your throat tight.

Joffrey’s voice broke through your paralysis. “We have to help her!”

You turned to him, your hands gripping his shoulders tightly. “We can’t, Joffrey. If we stay, we’ll die.”

His face crumpled with despair, but he nodded reluctantly.

Dreamfyre’s anguished roars filled the air as you turned your horse away. Tears blurred your vision as you forced yourself to move, to think, to prioritize the prince’s safety above all else.

“Hyah!” you shouted, spurring your horse into a gallop, cutting through the thinning crowd as the Dragonpit dome shuddered behind you.

Every step of the journey was a battle. You cut down attackers who lunged at you, your sword flashing in the firelight. Two arrows lodged into your back, the pain sharp but ignored as adrenaline carried you forward. A spear found your leg, and you gritted your teeth against the agony, focusing only on getting Joffrey to safety.

At last, the gates of the Red Keep loomed ahead. The Queen’s Guard rushed to your side, fending off the last of the mob as you staggered through.

Once inside, your grip on Joffrey slackened. You slid from the saddle, your body collapsing to the ground. Your vision blurred, the last thing you saw before darkness consumed you was Joffrey being carried into the castle.

“Joffrey… Joff…”

When you awoke, the room was quiet except for the crackling of a nearby fire. Pain pulsed through your body, dulled by milk of the poppy. Rhaenyra sat beside you, her face a mixture of relief and sorrow.

“You’re awake,” she said softly, taking your hand.

“Joffrey?” you croaked, your throat dry and raw.

“Safe,” she assured you. “Thanks to you. You are the Warrior in flesh and bone, my lady. I am sorry for my reaction, I see and acknowledge now that saved the Queen dowager and her daughter out of sincere and selfless care. You made the right choice.”

“Thank you, Your Grace.” You closed your eyes, exhaustion and relief washing over you. “Syrax?”

“She came back,” Rhaenyra said, her voice breaking slightly. “Wounded, but alive.”

You nodded weakly. “Dreamfyre…, Tyraxes.”

Rhaenyra’s silence told you all you needed to know.

“They’ve slaughtered the dragons. I can’t keep doing this,” she said after a long pause, her voice trembling. “The city is lost. My children… you… I won’t risk any more lives. In a fortnight we are leaving for Dragonstone."

Her words felt like both a defeat and a reprieve, but as you lay there, her hand in yours, you knew this was the end of something far greater than just a battle.

————

Dragonstone did not come to happen.

When the bells toiled, you knew the time had come, and with it, all the hatred and the ambition that had been brewing for so long.

Silverwing had just returned to you yesterday, perfect timing.

There was no running now. Perhaps there never had been, but that was irrelevant. She had to be protected at all costs.

“Y/N, he has come,” the Queen said urgently as she donned her red and black armor. Two of her guards stood behind her like shadows, awaiting her orders. You made a discreet signal, and they nodded, understanding. She was ready to face her own husband, ready to gamble everything. But you couldn’t allow it. Not because you doubted her strength, but because you remembered. You remembered the devastation that had befallen your family, the helplessness you had felt as your mother fell. Daemon wouldn’t stop until he claimed everything, and you could not allow her to be his next victim, nor anyone else's."

You turned toward the courtyard where the dragons, Syrax (not yet fully recovered) and Silverwing, could already taste the coming carnage. But just before stepping outside, you seized Rhaenyra’s arm with swift motion, pulling her to one of the Maester’s rooms nearby. She fought against you, her fury igniting. “Y/N! What in the Seven Hells are you doing?!”

With a swift push, you shoved her inside, but she tried to break free, her eyes burning with defiance. “Let me go! We must prepare to face Daemon!”

You shoved open the door, practically throwing her into the room. She stumbled but regained her balance, her fury only growing. She rushed toward the exit, but you caught her by the waist, holding her in place.

“I’m afraid that won’t be possible, Your Grace. You must stay here. I will not let you face him,”

Her face flushed with indignation. “I don’t need your permission. I am the Queen. This is my battle. I will not stand here, locked away like some maid in need of protection,” Rhaenyra snapped, her defiance ringing through the room. “Move aside, or I’ll make you."

You leaned in close, whispering with a calm certainty, “I love you.” And before she could respond, you kissed her briefly, a stolen kiss that sealed your decision. You locked the door and ran.

With one final glance, you strode toward your dragon. The chill in the air was biting as you mounted Silverwing, the two of you leaving the Queen behind.

As you beheld Daemon, his insatiable thirst for a Throne that was not his, memories of your mother and siblings surged within you—both of them. Their faces, their gazes, haunted you. You knew that Daemon would not relent until the entire realm was drenched in blood.

Daemon continued to relentlessly direct Caraxes toward you, the force of his assault overwhelming. Dodging him was no simple feat, yet Silverwing’s agility remained her advantage, though you were keenly aware that she had sustained grievous injuries.

The two dragons wove through the heavens, locked in a relentless pursuit, testing one another’s mettle. Below, the battlefield was a gruesome tableau of men being torn apart, their bodies scattered across the land. You knew that with him still breathing, he would make his move toward Daeron—the last threat to his “claim,”. And you were certain he would not hesitate to rid himself of his own wife if it meant securing the throne.

You could have disappeared into the smoke, vanished into the flames, but you chose instead to advance, to encircle him. The armor you wore mirrored that of your mother’s on the fateful day of her last battle, and within your eyes burned the same resolve she had—there would be no surrender.

“īlon kostagon mazverdagon ziry, hāedar. (We can make it, girl),” you uttered. She spared a glance back at you, her sorrow evident in the fleeting look she gave. This would be the last battle you fought together, the last time you soared as one in the skies. Yet despite it all, you and Silverwing became a singular force, releasing all your wrath upon Caraxes, who had grown distracted. His rider reacted swiftly, but you were faster, driving your talons deep into his left eye. Caraxes bellowed in anguish, unleashing a torrent of flame so blindingly fierce that it seared Silverwing’s wings, incinerating them with the fury of a thousand suns.

At that very moment, you perceived Syrax’s approach, her rider, the Queen, coming to your aid—an aid you had neither expected nor desired.

“Damn it Rhaenyra.”

Caraxes, however, arrived seconds after, taking both you and the Queen by surprise. Your face contorted with imminent concern as you deftly steered Silverwing to intercept, pushing Caraxes away. Syrax, though cunning, had never before faced such a battle. Caraxes raked his claws across the smaller dragon’s abdomen, sending Syrax into a momentary disarray. She sought to retaliate, but Caraxes evaded the blow, and you pursued him, chasing until he vanished momentarily among the clouds.

Caraxes returned with a roar, a fiery Dracarys that cut through the air, but you guided Silverwing directly into the path of Syrax and the Queen, shielding them both from the inferno. Just as you readied to strike once more, Silverwing seized Caraxes by the leg, wrenching him away as Syrax rained fire upon him. At last, driven by sheer instinct, Caraxes delivered a savage blow to Silverwing’s chest, while she clamped down on his lengthy neck, tearing it from his body before he could deliver a fatal wound to Syrax.

Daemon’s gaze shifted, a flicker of disbelief passing across his face as he witnessed the fall of his dragon. In that instant, he seemed to lose all sense of direction. Silverwing, her energy drained, released a final burst of flame, sending both dragons spiraling to the ground in a cataclysmic descent. However, despite her best efforts, Silverwing was no longer able to maintain flight, her strength failing, and she plummeted alongside Caraxes in a protracted, helpless fall.

Rhaenyra stood frozen in terror, watching as you and Silverwing fell from the heavens. Time itself seemed to slow.

Her cries echoed through the skies as the two of you crashed into the forest below, a wail so piercing it seemed to reverberate across the continent. Silverwing spread her shredded wings wide, her last act of defiance, creating a refuge from which none could pass.

You lay close to her neck, blood pouring from both of you, a torrential flow that seemed endless.

“Kirimvose (thank you)” you whispered, your voice barely a breath, the remnants of your strength fading. And Silverwing, with one final cry, echoed your sentiment.

The Queen descended swiftly on her dragon, rushing to your side with a sense of urgency. Yet, she was careful as she approached. Silverwing lay still, lifeless, her body cradling yours in an eternal embrace of protection. Rhaenyra fell to her knees when she recognized you, your eyes closed, but still faintly breathing. The presence of her sorrow stirred you, and you managed to open your eyes just enough to meet her gaze. She was in shock, her grip on these fleeting moments of life unrelenting. She could not speak, for she knew there was nothing more to be done. No mortal force could save you now. And so, she remained at your side, her tears flooding forth, uncontrollable.

You clasped her fingers, and she held them with a desperation as if her own life depended on that touch. You had no strength to speak, but she could only whisper, the words trembling from her lips:

“I was fortunate to have known the heart of a dragon.”

A faint smile curved your lips, a smile that would live forever in her memory, etched into her very soul. And with that, your heart ceased to beat.

Rhaenyra felt your hand slip from hers, its warmth fading, but she clung to it, her grip unwavering. And in that moment, Syrax cried out in grief, the dragon’s sorrow echoing the Queen’s. In that instant, the crushing realization struck her—she had lost you forever.

Upon opening your eyes, you were met with faces so familiar, so cherished—it was Laenor and Laena. Without hesitation, you embraced them tightly, and they returned your embrace with warm smiles, their expressions full of love. Behind them stood your mother, her tears of joy threatening to spill as she struggled to contain them. You did the same, mirroring her restrained emotions, though the sight of her filled you with an indescribable comfort.

To one side stood little Jaehaerys, gazing up at you with tender innocence. His tiny hand lifting in a shy wave. You reached out and tousled his hair gently. His simple presence warmed your heart, grounding you in this ethereal moment.

Not far from him stood Jace and Luke, their princely bearings unburdened by worry or fear. Their serenity was striking, their faces calm and full of light. You cupped their cheeks with both hands, holding them as if to memorize every detail of their features.

Further back, a silhouette loomed, unfamiliar at first. As the figure turned, recognition struck you like a wave. It was him—the man from your visions, the one whose face you had seen but never known. His dark hair was as black as the night, his features a perfect reflection of your own. Your father. He stepped forward, his expression soft yet brimming with pride, and placed a tender kiss on your forehead. His eyes, filled with unspoken words, told you everything you needed to hear.

Lastly, two women emerged into view, their presence both surprising and deeply reassuring. Lady Alerie and Queen Aemma. Their gazes held a profound gratitude and quiet satisfaction, as if their very souls had waited for this moment to share their solace with you.

It was then, as the weight in your heart lifted and a deep, all-encompassing peace filled your soul, that you understood. This was the end, but it was not despair—it was release. You could let go, knowing that the realm would find harmony, that those you loved would be safe. That the fight was over, and all would be well.

And so, with one final, peaceful breath, you allowed yourself to surrender to the light.

———-

Your sacrifice had not been in vain. As news of your passing spread throughout the realm, thousands of people, both nobles and commoners, converged upon the Capital. Days later, your funeral was held. Rhaenyra, still the reigning Queen, orchestrated the proceedings with the utmost respect and honor.

The Queen Dowager arrived with the two children she had left, Helaena and Daeron. Both were shattered by the loss, yet forever grateful for the time they had shared with you.

Lord Corlys Velaryon and his heir, Addam—now betrothed to Baela—attended, alongside Rhaena, who had at last returned from the Eyrie, bringing with her the Queen’s three youngest children.

The Starks, the Baratheons, the Lannisters, the Tullys—every house in the realm gathered to bid you their final farewell.

You didn’t wish the sea to claim you, as you always expressed should your demise come. Everyone knew it and that’s why your desire was to be granted with ash & fire, that was who you were.

“Y/N Velaryon was…” The Queen began, her heart heavy with sorrow. The words caught in her throat as she could scarcely believe she stood here, before so many, speaking of you in the past tense. Gathering her courage, she continued. “She was unfathomably brave and bold. Fear never held dominion over her. And though we had our differences, in the end, it was she who brought us together. She saw, and truly believed, that after such slaughter and endless suffering from both parties, reconciliation and a promise of a better tomorrow were still within reach. Lady Y/N’s legacy lives on in each and every one of us. She will never truly depart from us. She fought with the heart of a Targaryen. That blood, that fire, runs through her veins. But she was not just of our blood—she was as humble as any common soul. She cared more for others than she did for herself. She showed resilience in the darkest hours, emerging as a beacon of light and hope. That is something to be admired. She never allowed her grief to turn her to hatred or vengeance. Instead, her heart retained the sanity and wisdom that many of us sorely lacked.” She paused, her voice breaking as she added, “Y/N will always be our heroine. And the life we lead here today is, in large part, thanks to her. The most honorable dragonrider. The noblest lady of them all. May the Seven keep you, now and forever. Ao kostagon rest, issa jorrāelagon, rest. (You may rest, my love, rest.)”

A profound silence fell over the assembly, as many whispered words of gratitude, others offered their blessings, and still others gazed solemnly toward the place where your body lay.

Alicent no longer wore green, nor did any of her sons. Helaena, her face streaked with tears, cradled her young daughter, Jaehaera, in her arms, while Daeron—more composed than his mother, but no less heartbroken—held his mother’s arm. It was then, in this moment of finality, that the young prince commanded his dragon, who had stood watchful beside Syrax.

“Dracarys, Tessarion,” He said, his voice thick with grief, the pain palpable in his every word. His command echoed through the silence like the tolling of a bell. Tessarion, the blue queen, gave a mighty roar, and her flames consumed your remains in a fierce blaze. The funeral pyre blazed brighter than the sun, turning the sky into a canvas of crimson and gold.

————

You had entrusted a few letters to the Maester, to be delivered in the event that something went amiss. And thus, with deep sorrow, he carried out his duty. The two women had gathered in the Capital, where Rhaenyra had invited Alicent to join her for a meal in memory of you. Alicent would soon return to her home, accompanied by her daughter, while Daeron remained in the Capital.

“It is a sad irony that it took such a tragedy for us to all dine together once more. Well, almost all of us,” the Queen remarked.

“That is true, Your Grace. But I am certain that better times are ahead.”

“I am sorry, Alicent. For everything,” Rhaenyra expressed with heartfelt sincerity.

“As am I,” Alicent replied. “I know we both loved her, and she loved us both. Her way of loving was unique, and all the rivalry, all the competition for her affection—it broke many hearts. Still, I am grateful that we were allowed to love her so deeply. I shall never encounter another like her.”

“We were young once, and then we were not. But the joy of knowing her… that shall remain. As I hope the years to come will be prosperous, and that we may forgive the offenses of the past. As for me, I have forgiven.”

“You will make a fine Queen,” Alicent said, offering a gentle smile that Rhaenyra returned with equal sincerity.

————-

Rhaenyra, having seen her subjects and the nobles return to their homes, now found herself in a more peaceful state after the tumult of the recent events. In the stillness that followed, she opened your letter.

My Realm’s Delight

“There is so much I wish to convey, yet time would never suffice. Forgive me, if you are able, for the harm I have caused. For failing to be there when you needed me most. For turning away from you after swearing to you eternal loyalty. What I offer now is something that will endure, and that is the love I will always hold for you and for all your children. Embrace Princess Y/N with all the warmth your heart can offer. If you share with her my tale, it would be an honor; tell her that, even without having met her, I have prayed for her well-being and her happiness. Provide her with one of the eggs that Silverwing laid, so that she may be protected and, in turn, may protect. I know she will become a formidable dragonrider, but one of noble heart and wondrous spirit. Guide Rhaena and Baela, tell them I love them and not a day passed by that I didn’t think of them. Continue to guide those princelings; Aegon and Viserys are destined for great things. May they always remember the worth of things, and in time, they shall grow into knights of great stature. As for Joffrey, cradle him close, care for him, prepare him… for he is your heir, and whatever whispers may follow him, remind him always of who he is and where he comes from. Do not neglect yourself, Rhaenyra. Permit yourself to love once more, if such a thing is possible. Heal the wounds of your heart, and soar high… caress the very clouds. I will be with you in that flight.

Dragonstone would have been ideal… perhaps in some wild reverie, you might find me accepting that impetuous proposal, and we would love one another with all the fervor of our souls.

Be the Queen they need, be kind, as you already are, for let the gentleness of your spirit prevail over the iron of your hand. You bear the hope of the future, the promise of the generations to come.

Avy jorrāelan (I love you).

Y/N Velaryon.”

Upon finishing the letter, Rhaenyra pressed the page to her chest, and in that moment, she swore she could feel you beside her, serenely. Meanwhile, little /N—not so little anymore—slept in peaceful slumber.

—————

Alicent had returned to her home once more. This time, the emptiness was not as unbearable as when she had first lost her mother. High in the tower, she stood, unfolding the letter sealed with the Velaryon sigil.

A fleeting memory crossed her mind of your visit, riding upon Silverwing’s back. What concerns had burdened you then?

My Queen

“Your Grace, we have endured so much together… and I give thanks to the Gods for allowing me to love a woman such as you. We shared moments of deep anguish, of resentment… but also love and understanding. You allowed me to know you in a way no one else had, and I was the luckiest of women. I regret, with all my heart, that I was unable to save them. Know that I tried. Know that I adored you from the very beginning and loved those princeligs as my own. Care for Helaena, my sweet girl. I pray that she finds true happiness after such bitter trials, and that those around her will respect and protect her. May you rebuild the bond with that admirable son of yours. And, please, do not let sorrow cloud your heart over my departure. On the contrary, remember me for the best moments we shared, and let the shadows of the past fade from your mind. I wish that you might feel the sun upon your face, the sea breeze in your hair, and the call of the birds around you. Let melancholy never take hold, and rise as you always have, for you shall never be alone. Find a new purpose, and may it lead you to your full fulfillment. That is my wish for you, my Queen. Love yourself, love yourself fiercely, and never lose sight of who you are. Thank you for the love you gave me, and for allowing me to return it to you. You are the prettiest of flowers.

I love you.

Y/N Velaryon.”

Alicent closed her eyes, tears welling within them, yet she smiled amidst the sorrow and kissed the letter, bidding you her final farewell. She then lit a candle in your name, alongside all those she had lost.

————-

At long last, the statue that the Queen had commissioned in your honor had been completed… as well as that of Silverwing, your faithful companion.

You were free.

___________

Hey hey!!

I want to dedicate this chapter to everyone who has followed this story from beginning to end. New readers have joined over these two years since I started, and I am infinitely grateful for the support you've given me and for your desire to see this journey through to its completion, for believing in it.

When I first began, I didn’t plan on making it this long, nor expect it to receive all the love and positive feedback it has. I will always remember it fondly. This story has brought me so many smiles; I’ve thoroughly enjoyed writing new chapters for all of you, keeping you entertained for a little while.

I apologize if I ever delayed—it was sometimes due to a lack of inspiration or time. One thing I want to emphasize is that if you ever plan to write your own story, take it slow and don’t feel pressured. Your readers will understand, and the most important thing is that you enjoy the ride. Let it nourish you.

Thanks to this story, I’ve had the chance to meet incredibly special and warm individuals. It’s truly a blessing—I’m so grateful for it because without it, I would never have met people who became dear friends and who I now hold close to my heart. It was all a butterfly effect, and I am so grateful for it. Even when I stop to think about it, it feels surreal.

Anyway, I truly hope you’ve enjoyed the final, even though it sadly had to come to an end :( I hope you’ll also enjoy the upcoming seasons of this amazing series that has taken us through all kinds of emotions.

Thank you, thank you.

With much love, Kenia

Taglist: @nnightskiess @loveislove4 @evattude @lethal-minds @sophiexoxsblog @claymoresword @tired-ninfa @glorioushamsterqueen @pinkponycent @newcaptainofsquad @pindoris @oh-thats-cute @rxscpctals @laenordeservedbetter @voniikg @toot-is-tired @letlovee-in @urmomsgirlfriend1 @valenciavv @the-camilucha @acidblum @itssecret2109 @i-nail-jello-to-walls @cone-fused-mind @livingdreams97 @unique0003 @wicked-laugh @lottiemsgf @duckiekong @thecavalrywife @username23345 @simp4women08 @vorsdany @unique0003

[nicolejones412]

Out of Sync Part 5

Bucky Barnes x fem!reader

Summary: You've found yourself with the 107th fighting Hydra, where you meet a handsome Sergeant. But something just isn't right.

A/N: Not much to say about this one. Let me know what you think!

Read Part 1 here. Read Part 2 here. Read Part 3 here. Read Part 4 here.

FIC:

A few weeks passed as Shuri did tests to figure out the core of the brain washing, and you spent them mostly recovering.

Your stay at the raft had taken more of toll on you and had influenced your decision to stay in Wakanda more than you'd like to admit.

After you were starting to feel better, Shuri proposed that you take a look in Bucky's head.

"We will keep him sedated, but not fully in cryo like he's been. You may have better luck than we have at finding the root."

You nervously agreed. As much as Bucky seemed to trust you, you were still learning to trust yourself. What if you did mess him up even more somehow?

You tried to push the thoughts away. There was no way those could be helpful.

So you sat down next to the table he was laid on, and pressed your fingers into his temples.

Your heart broke as you searched his mind. You sifted through memories until you saw some that looked...wrong was the only word you could think of.

You saw a cryo chamber, not unlike the one he had just been in, but this wasn't Bucky.

You moved toward it, and placed your hand on the glass.

The dark eyes of the Winter Soldier shot open, shocking you back to your body as Bucky tried to sit up on the table, fighting his restraints and searching for a weapon as Shuri stepped back and security was called.

You looked down at him and his eyes locked with yours, full of anger and fear.

And a determination to kill.

You blinked and you were back in his head, just having entered the room with the Winter Soldier.

You exited his mind, not wanting to risk disturbing anything further. You opened your eyes and saw Bucky, still under on the table.

"What did you see?" Shuri asked. "You look pale. Are you-?"

"I found it," you said. "I found the Winter Soldier."

Now if you could just figure out how to get your abstract view of his mind to line up with Shuri's scientific view, that would be great.

-

Months passed, and it seemed that slowly Shuri was making progress. Between the two of you, you were able to locate the specific area of the brain that had been hijacked, and Shuri was working on a solution to help him heal. Some fancy science stuff and some therapy combined with a bit of luck and one day he would be clear.

One of the first days they woke him up and had him walking around, you joined the Dora Milaje who were escorting him.

You spent most of the time giving him a tour to the best of your understanding. He was mostly silent, taking in all the sights. He'd hum in agreement or give whatever responses were polite, but that was about it.

As you prepared to turn back, he spoke up.

"Thank you."

You turned to him, wondering exactly what he meant. He said it with too much gravity to mean your mediocre services as a tour guide. You couldn't help getting a glimpse of his surface thoughts. Lots of fear and self-hatred going on.

"Of course." Was all you could think to reply.

-

You settled into a routine as Bucky adapted over the following weeks. Wakanda had truly begun to feel like home.

Of course that was when you got a call from Natasha.

"We need you to come in."

And of course you'd go.

It was relatively simple. There was a terrorist organization with Chitauri weapons, they just weren't quite sure where. You were less recognizable than the rest of the Avengers, as keeping out of the public eye had been your preference. Add your telepathic abilities and you had the best chance of quickly figuring it out without being found out.

And you were more likely to be able to call for backup if needed.

There was a knock at your door as you packed a bag. You knew who it was before you answered. You'd grown used to his mind at this point, and he was thinking pretty loudly, thoughts racing.

"So you're leaving?"

"Nat says they need me. Shouldn't take took long."

What if you don't come back?

"Of course I'll come back. It'll be-"

You didn't realize until you'd already replied that he hadn't asked out loud. You turned to face him, struggling to read the expression on his face.

"I'm sorry. That's got to feel incredibly invasive. Just with all the connecting I've been doing combined with how loud you were thinking."

"It's fine." He looked down at his feet. "I mean, those powers of yours have been a great help to me, and I may not trust my mind, but I do trust yours."

You paused for a moment before turning back to pack, really not knowing how to reply to that. You wanted to ask him why he was thinking so loudly. Why he seemed so worried. But you thought better of it. You'd obviously become close, who wouldn't?

Combine that with how long he's been on his own or surrounded by people who just wanted to use him, you couldn't blame him.

You threw your bag on your shoulder. "I'll be back in a few days, maybe a week." Bucky nodded.

"Just, stay safe out there." You nodded and walked past him toward your ride.

-

You were made on day 2 of being undercover, so you had to improvise. You really hadn't planned on the number 1 Psychrono superfan being part of this organization, and you were so focused on finding the location of the weapons, that you didn't really have a heads up.

You almost turned time back, but what were you gonna do? Shoot the guy who named you? You were brand new there was no way that was gonna go well. Convince him not to out you? Not likely. Better to conserve energy.

So no more undercover, you were just going to have to convince them you were mad at the government over the whole Sokovia Accords thing and you didn't tell them who you were because you assumed they wouldn't believe you and you wanted to make sure their operation was worth really being a part of before revealing you were enhanced.

Please tell me no one told her about Blue Ridge.

Crap does she know about Wintergreen?

That would have to be enough. They seemed to buy your story enough, now you just had to convince them you were worth keeping around. At least long enough for Cap and the others to get to you since you signaled them and passed on the intel as soon as you got the location.

Just in case they decided to just shoot you now, at least they got the info. Not that you intended to die today.

You stood with your hands in the air as three of them huddled up. At least they hadn't had the good sense to restrain you. Would make it easier to run if the opportunity presented itself.

It's too risky.

What are we gonna do? Kill an Avenger?

Is she even an Avenger anymore?

Maybe she'd make a good hostage.

Or maybe she does want to help?

Steve's thoughts broke through the noise.

Brace!

You braced yourself and put your hands behind your head just before an explosion rocked the building. You curled yourself down, covering your head as others were knocked from their feet, but you immediately recovered and made for cover.

You felt a sting in the back of your calf as you dove behind a metal desk. You drew your weapon, adrenaline helping you ignore the gun shot wound in your leg for now, but running for real might not be an option.

The chaos continued, and most of the focus turned to the explosion, but there were still shots aimed in your direction.

You felt a pain in your stomach. Like you were being pulled backward by your belly button.

You drew your weapon, trying to decide between firing and just waiting it out, when something landing on the ground in front of you.

A grenade.

You panicked and tried to wind back time in the split second that it blew.

The tugging sensation got more powerful and then everything was quiet.

The gun fire stopped and when you opened your eyes it was far to bright.

As your eyes adjusted you realized you were outside, sitting on the ground in a field by a pond, and as you turned to see a building you didn't recognize, you fainted.

-

Read Part 6 here.

A/N: What happened? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I hope y'all are enjoying this one!

[widowromanova]

Sniper (Final Part) - Natasha x Female Reader

warnings: violence, death

word count: 4841

The S.H.I.E.L.D. transport came to a smooth stop in front of headquarters, but you barely registered it. The weight in your chest hasn’t lifted since the moment they hauled Natasha away.

The door unlocks with a soft click, and you stepped out into the cool night air, inhaling deep like it might steady you. It doesn’t.

Your legs feel heavy as you walk toward the entrance, each step pressing the guilt further into your gut.

You did this.

She trusted you enough to let her guard down, and you called them in.

Inside, the building hums with quiet efficiency - agents moving with purpose, monitors casting cold blue light, voices murmuring over comms. The escort assigned to you says nothing, just leads you down a long corridor, deeper into the heart of the facility. Every step echoes.

Eventually, they stop at a door and gesture for you to enter.

You step inside the dimly lit observation room, and your stomach clenches at the sight beyond the two-way glass.

Natasha stands in the center of the interrogation chamber, her hands bound above her head, wrists secured to a rope hanging from the ceiling. Her red hair falls messily over her face, but she’s still. Too still.

The door on the other side of the glass opens. Two agents walk in. One of them, broad-shouldered and smirking, steps closer.

"Romanoff," he says casually, as if this is just another conversation. "You know how this works. Talk, and we make this easy."

She doesn’t react. Doesn’t even lift her head.

The agent sighs, then drives a fist into her ribs. A sharp, sickening sound fills the room.

You stiffen. Another hit. This time to her face. Her head jerks to the side, hair whipping across her cheek, but she barely flinches. She only looks back at them, gaze sharp, calculating.

Your pulse spikes, this wasn’t part of the plan. Your breath quickened as the agent winds up again.

Before he can land the next blow, you turned and shoved open the door. You don’t think, you just move. You have to find Fury now.

You stormed through the hallways of S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters, your heart hammering against your ribs. The cold fluorescent lights overhead seem harsher now, their sterile glow making the walls feel even more suffocating. Your breath is short, your hands clenched and you barely register the agents you pass, some throwing you confused glances as you push forward.

You reach the right corridor, nearly knocking into an analyst carrying a stack of files. They stumble, muttering something under their breath, but you don’t have time for apologies.

The agents outside Fury’s office straighten as you approach, blocking your path.

"I need to see him," you say, voice sharp.

"He’s busy," one of them says, unmoving.

You reach for the door handle before either of them can react and the door swings open from the inside.

Fury stands there, his one good eye locking onto you instantly. He doesn’t look surprised - just vaguely annoyed.

"You better have a damn good reason for barging in here," he says, arms crossed.

You step inside, voice tight with barely restrained frustration. "They’re beating her."

Fury watches you for a long moment, unreadable. "And?"

Your stomach twists. "What do you mean, and? This was not part of the plan."

Fury exhales through his nose, stepping aside to let you in before shutting the door. "You wanted her brought in. We brought her in. You wanted information. We’re getting it. That’s how this works."

You shake your head, the image of Natasha’s body jerking with every hit burned into your mind. "No. This - this isn’t interrogation. This is torture."

Fury leans against his desk, arms still crossed. "She’s not going to talk willingly."

You glare at him. "So that justifies this?"

"It’s not about justification. It’s about results."

You shake your head. "No. No. This is wrong. You need to stop." Fury watches you carefully, then he sighs, rubbing a hand over his temple like you’re giving him a headache. "You feeling guilty?"

The words hit harder than you expect.

You swallow. Because yes - you do. Because no matter how dangerous Natasha is, no matter what she’s done, you can’t shake the image of her standing there, hands bound, taking the hits like she expected nothing else. Like she’s been through worse. And you put her there.

Fury exhales, standing up straighter. "You knew what you were signing up for."

"Not this."

"Then maybe you should’ve thought twice before making the call," he says, his voice calm but firm. "It’s too late for regrets now."

Your jaw tightens. "Stop it."

Fury raises an eyebrow. "Stop what?"

"The interrogation. Stop it. Right now."

Fury stares at you for a long moment. Then, without a word, he picks up his comm and mutters something into it - a short, clipped command.

A beat of silence. Then he looks back at you. "Happy now?" he asks.

You don’t answer. Because you won’t be until you see it for yourself.

Without waiting for permission, you turn on your heel and head back the way you came.

Your footsteps are loud in the otherwise quiet building as you make your way back to the observation room. When you reach the door, you barely pause. You open it quickly, stepping inside before the agent stationed there can even acknowledge you.

Natasha is still in the center of the interrogation room. The rope pulls her arms upward, and though she’s still, you can see the tension in her shoulders. The agents are talking amongst themselves, too focused on their mission to notice you standing in the doorway.

The agent who had been hitting her earlier stands by her side, staring at her with a look that doesn’t quite meet the standard of professional. You can see the frustration in his posture - he wants something from her, and she’s not giving it."Romanoff," he sneers, his voice cutting through the silence. "Still not talking?"

She doesn’t answer.

Another agent approaches, his face impassive. "Maybe we should intensify the pressure. She’s a tough one."

Your breath catches in your throat. "You will not lay another hand on her." The words spill out before you can stop them.

The agents freeze, surprised by your presence, and the one closest to Natasha looks over his shoulder, raising an eyebrow. "And who the hell are you to give orders?"

Before you can answer, Natasha speaks for the first time. "Let them do what they want," she says, her voice low, but strong. "It won’t make me talk."

You take a step forward, eyes locked on her, ignoring the agents now visibly tensing in the room. "Stop," you say again, voice quieter but no less firm. "Now."

One of the agents narrows his eyes, about to challenge you. But just before he can speak, Fury’s voice cuts through the tension.

"You heard her," Fury says from the doorway, his tone unamused. "Release her."

The agent looks between you and Fury, clearly weighing the situation, then reluctantly steps back. Natasha’s hands drop slightly from the rope, and the tension in her body eases, if only a little.

You stare at her for a long moment, watching her breath slow. She doesn’t look at you. She doesn’t look at anyone. But for a brief moment, you catch a glimpse of something softer in her eyes - something that wasn’t there earlier when you saw her through the glass. You don’t know what that means, but it gnaws at you.

Fury steps past you, his eye hardening as he looks at the agent who had been interrogating Natasha. turns to you."Get out of here," he says, his voice a low growl. "You’ve done enough for one day."

The next day arrives quietly, the cold grey light filtering through the windows of S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters doing little to ease the tension that’s still tight in your chest.

When you arrive at the interrogation room later that morning, the air feels heavier. The agents you pass are more tense, but the usual buzz of activity feels muted today. You don't acknowledge anyone as you make your way down the corridor.

The door to the interrogation room opens with a soft click. Inside, Natasha is already seated, her posture as controlled as ever, but there’s something different in the way she’s watching you.

She’s free of the rope now, but the physical marks of last night’s treatment are still visible - bruises, swelling.

She looks at you as you enter with only a faint acknowledgment of what’s happened, of what you did.

You step inside and close the door behind you, letting the silence stretch out for a moment. The room feels smaller than it did yesterday, the glass reflecting your strained expression back at you. The events of last night, Fury’s indifference, the desperation in Natasha’s eyes - they all flood back, making your chest tighten again.

“I need to talk to you.” She raises an eyebrow but doesn’t respond. She’s waiting. For you to explain, or perhaps, for you to break the silence first.

You take a deep breath, trying to steady the rush of thoughts swirling in your mind. “I... I shouldn’t have let it get that far. The way they treated you. I shouldn’t have let it happen.”

There’s a flicker of something in her eyes - something almost unreadable, but she doesn’t interrupt you. She just watches, her face impassive.

“I made the call,” you continue, your voice tight. Natasha leans back slightly in her chair, considering your words. She exhales slowly through her nose, as if weighing her response. “You think I haven’t been through worse?” Her tone is calm, too calm, like she’s been numbed to the world. “You think I don’t know what happens when you make deals with people like this?”

You open your mouth to reply, but she cuts you off.

“It’s fine,” she says, the words quiet but cutting. “You did what you had to do. I get it.” Her gaze shifts slightly, a flicker of something softer in her eyes. “I knew what I was getting into when I trusted you.”

The words hit you harder than you expected, a wave of guilt rushing over you. You want to say something, anything, to make this right, but what could you possibly say? The damage has been done.

For a long moment, neither of you speaks. The silence fills the room again. Finally, you find your voice again. “I need you to tell me what your plan is, Nat.” You pause, meeting her eyes. “You’re not the only one with a past." She stares at you for a long moment, her face unreadable. “You think I trust anyone here?” she asks softly, her voice a bit sharper than before.

Your chest tightens, but you hold her gaze. “I’m not them,” you say firmly. “You know that.”

Her eyes narrow, as if she’s trying to gauge whether or not your words are true. For a moment, the room feels charged, as if everything hangs in the balance, waiting for a shift that will come from either one of you.

Finally, Natasha exhales, her posture shifting slightly as she leans forward. “Fine. I’ll talk,” she says, her voice low but unwavering. “But not like this. Not with them watching me.”

You nod slowly, understanding. “You’re not going to make this easy on me, are you?”

She gives you a wry smile, the kind that feels both familiar and unsettling. “You’re the one who brought me in, remember?” You take a step closer, your resolve hardening. “You’re going to get me what I need. I’ll protect you, Natasha. You know that, right?”

Her gaze softens, but only for a brief moment. Then, it’s gone, replaced by that calculating look she wears so well. “We’ll see,” she murmurs. “But you’d better make sure no one else gets in my way.”

For now, this feels like a start.

After a few minutes of tense silence, an agent enters the room and gestures for both you and Natasha to follow. There’s no hesitation from either of you; the reality of the situation has settled in, and you know that you can’t afford to waste time here.

You walk side by side, your footsteps echoing softly. Natasha doesn’t speak, but you can feel the shift in her - she’s preparing herself for something.

Eventually, you arrive at a plain, unassuming door. The agent holding the keys unlocks it, and inside is a stark, simple room with a heavy metal table, two chairs, and a single window near the ceiling. The only lighting is a harsh, overhead bulb.

The agent motions for you both to sit. Natasha moves without protest, her usual defiance hidden behind a mask of calculated calm. You sit across from her and the door clicks shut behind you. Then, Natasha speaks, her voice low. "You should know what you’re up against."

You raise an eyebrow, leaning forward slightly. "What are you talking about?"

She meets your gaze, her eyes intense, like she's measuring you, like she's testing how much you're willing to accept. "The bio-weapon I’ve been building for years," she says, and the words send a chill down your spine. "It’s not just some lab experiment. It’s not even a weapon - it’s a message."

You blink, trying to process what she's saying, but Natasha isn’t giving you time to form questions. "I’ve been building it underground, in the warehouse..." she looks at you teasingly.

"The one thing that can break SHIELD." You feel your pulse quicken. "You’ve been building a weapon under SHIELD's nose."

She nods. "It’s a virus. One that targets specific DNA of those highest-ranking in SHIELD, but it’s designed to be adaptable. It can spread. It could cripple the entire organisation in a matter of days if released properly."

Your mind races to piece together the implications. You’re torn - between the woman you once knew, the woman who loved you, and this stranger sitting across from you, determined to bring the world to its knees.

In the silence that follows, you realize one harsh truth: Natasha has already made her choice. And now, you’ll have to decide where you stand... whether you’ll try to stop her, or if you’ll let her tear everything apart.

You sit there, the room feels colder now, the stark metal walls closing in as you process everything Natasha just revealed. She’s already so far down this path, and you realise the task of stopping her is far more complicated than you ever imagined.

You open your mouth to say something, anything, but your words catch in your throat. She’s right about one thing - SHIELD is corrupt, twisted in its own way. But what Natasha’s planning… it’s on another level. This isn’t just about taking down a few bad actors - it’s about destroying an entire institution, and countless lives in the process.

A part of you wonders if there’s a way to stop this without turning on her, but another part of you is already beginning to see the futility in trying to reason with her. She’s made her choice.

"Do you think I’m doing this out of some twisted need for revenge?" she asks suddenly, as if reading your thoughts. "I’ve seen what SHIELD has done. The lives it’s ruined. They’ll never stop. The virus is just a way to make sure they never have the chance to do it again."

You stand, pacing restlessly around the room, struggling to hold onto any semblance of control over your emotions. You want to believe there’s a way to fix things, to somehow find a middle ground. But Natasha’s cold conviction is shaking the very foundation of your beliefs.

She watches you, her gaze unwavering. "You’re going to have to choose, you know."

A slight, almost imperceptible smile tugs at Natasha’s lips, but it’s not one of victory. "You’re not in control anymore," she whispers. "You never were."

The sound of footsteps outside the room breaks the tense moment. You hear the lock on the door click, signaling that an agent is about to enter. You instinctively move toward Natasha, your hand gripping the edge of the table as if trying to make a final decision in the span of a breath. But just as the door opens, something happens.

The lights flicker once. Twice. Then the entire room goes dark.

A voice echoes in the distance - a faint, almost eerie sound. "You thought this would be easy?"

Before you can react, you hear the unmistakable sound of a chair scraping across the floor, followed by the sharp sound of metal snapping.

The room plunges into near-complete darkness, and for a brief second, you’re disoriented, your heart racing. Then, you hear the sound of something - or someone - moving quickly, footsteps padding along the floor. You turn toward the sound, only to realize it’s too late. Natasha is gone.

The door to the room slams open, agents pouring in, flashing their lights around. They begin shouting, their voices frantic, but you’re already sprinting for the exit. You throw the door open, and in the chaos, you catch a glimpse of Natasha slipping into the shadows, disappearing as quickly as she appeared.

"Where the hell is she?!" an agent yells. You watch as she turns her gaze back to you, softly smiling before disappearing down the side of a building.

You hear the frantic voices of the agents around you, but they feel distant. Your mind is fixed on her, on that smile. And then, the bitter realization that she’s out there, still playing the game - only now, the stakes are higher. The bio-weapon she’s been building, the plan to bring down SHIELD, all of it still in motion, and you’re left standing in the aftermath of your choices.

The agents are shouting, scrambling for answers, but you’re already moving. You barely register the words they’re saying, too focused on what you need to do next. Fury will want answers, and SHIELD will be in full-blown pursuit mode, but deep down, you know that’s not enough.

A couple of days have passed since Natasha’s escape, but the world still feels like it’s holding its breath. SHIELD has been working around the clock, trying to track her down, but so far, no luck. Every lead, every attempt to intercept her, has been futile. You’ve been involved in planning, trying to predict her next move, but it feels like you’re chasing a shadow.

You sit at a long, rectangular table in a high-security meeting room. The air is thick with tension, agents and high-ranking officers murmuring amongst themselves, trying to piece together what’s left of the mess Natasha has left in her wake. They’re still focused on the bio-weapon, still trying to figure out how she got it, where it might be, and what she plans to do with it.

You’re half-listening to the reports, your mind elsewhere. Fury is across from you, his face grim, every line of his body taut. A few agents present more potential leads, but you can’t shake the feeling of impending dread that’s settled in your gut. You keep glancing at the clock, wondering if it’s just a matter of time before everything falls apart.

Then, it happens.

A man at the far end of the table - a high-ranking agent - suddenly slumps forward, his head hitting the table with a sickening thud. There’s a collective gasp as everyone jumps to their feet.

"Agent Carr! Agent Carr!" someone yells.

You’re frozen for a split second, unsure if what you’re seeing is real, if the panic in the room is just a byproduct of too many sleepless nights. But then you see it - the man’s face is pale, his breathing shallow. His eyes are wide open but glassy, vacant. It’s clear he’s not just unconscious.

"Someone call medical!" Fury shouts, standing up, his face turning to stone. He turns to you, his eyes hard and piercing. "Do you know what this is?"

You don’t answer.

The bio-weapon Natasha had been working on had been set into motion. The room starts to buzz with frantic chatter, but it’s all muffled in your ears.

"How long until we know more?" you ask, your voice sounding distant, even to your own ears.

"It’s too soon to say," Fury replies, his voice tight with frustration. "But I need answers. Now."

The room falls into disarray, agents rushing to assess the situation, calling for containment measures, working to stop whatever has been released. But in the back of your mind, you know this is only the beginning. Natasha’s plan is unfolding.

The door bursts open as more agents rush in, but all you can think about is Natasha. You stand up abruptly, the chaos around you blurring into the background. With every passing second, the stakes are getting higher.

The chaos in the room intensifies as you watch, helpless, as more and more high-ranking agents begin to cough violently. It starts with one, then another, and soon, it’s a cascade of agents, each of them clutching their throats, their faces contorting in pain. They stumble, crashing against the walls, collapsing to the floor.

The scene is surreal. You feel your heart pounding in your chest as the room fills with muffled coughs, choked gasps for air. The air feels thicker, heavier, as if the walls themselves are closing in.

Fury stands at the end of the table, his sharp eye scanning the room with quick precision, as always, but even he can’t escape the inevitable. You watch him for a moment longer, the tension in his features tightening as he steps back, the first signs of panic crossing his face. His hand grips the side of the table, and then, with a sudden, painful gasp, he doubles over.

"No,” you whisper, barely daring to believe it, as Fury falls to his knees.

He gasps for breath, his chest heaving, his face turning pale as the same violent coughs wrack his body. His one good eye, wide with confusion, meets yours as he stumbles to his feet, but it’s clear. He’s not in control.

You don’t wait another second to push past the chaos and rush toward him, your legs heavy but moving on instinct.

“Fury!” you shout, but your voice is drowned by the cacophony of coughing and screaming from around you. It’s as though the room has turned into a battlefield.

You reach him just as he’s about to fall. His hand shoots out, grabbing your arm, his grip weak but desperate. “It’s... it’s too late...” he rasps, his voice barely audible over the violent coughing that now wracks his body.

“No, Fury. You can’t—” You reach for his face, trying to steady him, but he’s already crumbling.

His grip loosens. He falls against you, and in that moment, you realize it’s not just him. It’s everyone. Every high-ranking agent in the room is succumbing to the virus Natasha unleashed. And there’s nothing you can do to stop it.

You’re frozen. Fury’s eyes begin to glaze over, and you realize the unthinkable: the one person who might have been able to stop this has fallen too.

You glance around frantically. The room is descending into utter chaos. Some agents are still conscious, but their movements are slow, labored. Others are completely unresponsive, coughing up blood. The bio-weapon is spreading faster than you could have imagined.

“Fury, no…” You try again, but he can’t answer. His body is shaking now, barely holding onto consciousness.

But even as you watch, something else shifts. A door bursts open, and you catch sight of more agents rushing in, trying to help, trying to contain the damage. But it’s clear - everyone in the room is infected.

And in the midst of it all, one thought claws its way to the front of your mind: Natasha’s weapon has succeeded. It’s working faster than you anticipated. It’s a biological nightmare, and there’s no antidote. No plan B.

You slam the door of your car, the sound of it echoing in the empty parking lot. The engine roars to life. You barely know what to think anymore, but the one thing you do know is that Natasha is somewhere out there, and you need to find her.

You speed through the streets, the city lights flashing by in a blur as your hands grip the wheel tighter. The vision of Natasha’s face - those moments of quiet intimacy between you, the way she disappeared - haunts you. What has she done?

You focus on the road as it stretches before you, the rooftop gala looming in your mind’s eye.

You reach the familiar building, parking your car at the base of the structure. Without a second thought, you climb out, your feet moving quickly, but your mind racing even faster. You can’t seem to escape the weight in your chest. Every step you take feels heavy, like the ground beneath you is pulling you down into something darker, something inevitable.

You reach the rooftop door, pushing it open, and the night air hits you, cool and sharp. You scan the area, but there’s no sign of Natasha. Your heart skips a beat. The rooftop feels empty, distant, like an echo of the chaos that brought you here.

And then, you see her.

She’s sitting on the edge of the rooftop, legs dangling over the side, her gaze directed downward, seemingly lost in thought. The sight of her hits you like a physical blow, a sharp pang of recognition. She looks as calm as ever, like this is just another night for her, even though everything is falling apart.

You step forward, hesitant. Your voice catches in your throat, unsure of what to say, unsure of where to even begin.

“Natasha…” you call softly, but she doesn’t react. Her eyes remain fixed on the distance, and you can’t read her expression.

The silence stretches between you, and you take another step closer, until you’re standing just a few feet away from her. You reach out, but hesitate, unsure if she’ll pull away again.

Your heart tightens, but before you can respond, something shifts. You feel it - like a sudden weight on your chest, a tightness.

You stumble, trying to catch your balance as a sharp, unexpected pain jolts through you. Your breath catches in your throat.

You try to steady yourself, but your body feels heavy, sluggish, like something is seeping into your veins, paralysing you. Your vision blurs. The world tilts. You stagger forward, barely catching yourself on the ledge of the rooftop.

Your breath comes in shallow gasps now, and you struggle to focus, to stay upright. But the dizziness is consuming you, clouding your thoughts. Panic sets in as you realize: this isn’t normal. This isn’t just fatigue. Something is wrong.

“Wha - what’s happening?” You choke out, your voice barely a whisper. The pain is spreading, your chest tightening with every breath.Natasha finally turns to face you, her eyes widening in shock as she takes in your condition. She starts to move toward you, but something in her face changes. A flicker of realization crosses her features.

“No…” she breathes, her voice barely above a whisper. “No, this wasn’t supposed to happen.”

You try to speak again, but your throat is constricting, each breath coming harder than the last. Your vision fades in and out, your legs buckling beneath you. You collapse to the ground, gasping for air, your heart racing.

You hear Natasha’s voice, but it’s distant now, almost as if it’s echoing in a faraway place. “No, no, no…” she murmurs to herself, her hands trembling as she approaches you. “This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

You reach out, but it feels like your body is betraying you. You’re shaking uncontrollably, unable to stop it. The world is slipping away, and all you can do is watch as she falls to her knees beside you, her face twisted in guilt.

“I didn’t mean it… I didn’t know...” Natasha’s words are broken now, her hands hovering near you, unsure of what to do.

Your breath comes in ragged gasps, but you can’t make sense of it. Your body is shutting down, your skin feeling like it’s on fire. You can feel it now - the virus, spreading through your body, and Natasha’s voice rings in your ears: I didn't realise it spreads by touch.

You try to hold on, but the pain is too much. Your vision fades to black, and you’re left with nothing but the sound of Natasha’s broken voice, whispering your name.

In those last moments, you feel the warmth of Natasha’s lips against yours for the final time, and the desperation with which she clutches your hand as the virus begins to seize her too. Your eyes fade over with a black, the last colour of her red streaks fading.

And then... nothing.

a/n: whew, i am almost crying at my own story. sorry guys..

thank you to all the support you guys have given to this story, this is definitely not my last ever but this is where this story ends. looking forward to more in the future (sorry for the sad ending lol) :)

[polyhexian]

despite Jasper telling Raine not to call him for CATTs business after the finale, I feel like Raine would, indeed, end up calling him. a lot. because, like. there's an entire oppressive government to mop up, and as former Golden Guards both Jasper and Hunter would be a wealth of information.

it's a 50-50 chance whether Jasper will just hang up or whether he'll demand some ridiculous price for his help, but Raine has a dangerous castle full of an evil emperor's secrets to clean up, and the former Golden Guards are RIGHT THERE.

so like…

~

"Whispers, I told you not to call me."

"I know, don't worry, I'll be quick. Is there a backup key to the treasury?"

"I'm sorry, what?"

"We can't find the treasury secretary and the key is gone and we KIND OF need the relief funds - "

"Ohoho you guys are screwed, if you try going in there without the key you're gonna get vaporized by the security system."

"I AM AWARE. Do you know of some other way to get in?"

"Mmm theoretically."

"…What's it gonna cost to get you to help?"

"I've been considering getting my own wifi plan. Could you get the fees waived for, like, forever?"

~

"DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW TO GET UPPER-LEVEL ACCESS TO THE CASTLE'S CRYSTAL BALL NETWORK?"

"Hello to you too, Whispers."

"YES, HI, WE'RE KIND OF ON A TIME LIMIT HERE, NO TIME TO EXPLAIN BUT LILITH'S ACCESS WAS REVOKED SO - "

"Pfft wait, they actually locked her out? Oh, wait, she was alive when she defected, that makes sense…"

"JASPER PLEASE I KNOW THIS IS A LONGSHOT BUT IF YOU HAVE ANY IDEAS - "

"Here I'll just text you my username and password."

"…WHAT???"

"Yeah they never changed it, pretty stupid of them. There you go, sent, feel free to use it as much as you like, it's not like I need it anymore. Also stop calling me."

~

"Listen I know you said you don't care to participate in government BUT I'm just putting out feelers so I wanted to know if you had any ideas on how to de-militarize the Emperor's Coven?"

"What makes you think I understand the first thing about political theory?"

"You were the Emperor's RIGHT HAND MAN."

"Haha yeah, doesn't mean I understood anything."

~

"Did Belos actually acquire the XYZ artifact?"

"Oh, yeah, I got that for him like 20 years ago."

"Great! Do you know where he stored it?"

"Not a clue."

~

"Whispers I am marathoning Cosmic Frontier with my kid, this had better be important."

"Sorry, just - quick question, we're trying to clear Belos's wing of the castle and we need to know, how many secret passages are there in this hallway?"

"Well in the hallway there's five, but there's another two in his chambers and one in his study."

"For the love of - "

"Hm? One sec. …Okay, Hunter says there's actually three in the study and seven in the hallway - wait, but Hunter, you never knew about the grimwalker lab? Huh. Okay so between me and Hunter there are eight in the hallway. That we know of."

"Great. Fantastic."

"Also watch out for the booby traps. And now that I think about it, one of the passages in the bedchamber is probably keyed so that only a human can enter, so you might want to recruit Luz for that."

"Is there anything I can do to get you to come help us clear this place?"

"Absolutely not. Wait, let me check - hey, Hunter, want to go back to the site of our torment to help Whispers and Mason do their jobs? Yeah, didn't think so."

"Alright, alright, sorry for asking."

"Oh, but I do claim anything you find pertaining to grimwalkers as, like, reparations or whatever. At the very least there should be a shelf full of journals in the lab. You can give what's left of Caleb back to the Clawthornes, though, he's their graverobbed great-great-whatever-granddad."

"Oh dear titan."

"Going back to our marathon now, if you have an emergency in the next thirteen hours I am NOT answering my scroll. Byyyyyyye."

SO fucking funny. "here's my password have fun kids" and that's how Raine finds out how jasper has known everything always all the time jehshdhdja. THAT SON OF A-

Don't forget jasper loves being bribed. When hunter is busy or at school jasper can be convinced to do stuff. Mostly with food. Food is a great motivator the man is hungry.

Raine: hey... Can you come and break down the wards in Belos's chambers?

Jasper: no

Raine: you want a house

Jasper: what

Raine: a house. White picket fence. Bay windows. Kitchen nook. You want one

Jasper: wh

Raine: mason will make you a house if you will come deactivate these wards

Jasper: why would I need a house. I have a house.

Raine: you live in a cave.

Jasper: I like my cave.

Raine: I bet hunter would like a house.

Jasper: I'll be right there

[theultrablog]

Pulp Storytime #71: The Whisperer in Duluth!

Paranoia pays off. That’s the lesson learned by Javid Kulfi, Afghan technician/photographer, and pal Devika Velyapur. Devika (ex-cultist/child millionaire) was still stressed out by the events of "Web Of The Spider Cult!", especially the part where she was put into a coma by a spider cult. So they were turning art dealer Sir Matthew’s townhouse into a fortress, much to his chagrin. (Devi had taken up semi-permanent residence ever since her mentor, Lord Simon, had moved in.) The doorbell rang after dinner, with two new faces: formerly dead detective JP Diamond*... and a five-year-old whose name he did not know. He found her in the woods while working a case in Minnesota, and all his instincts said bad hoodoo. And for better or worse, Miss Velyapur was an expert in cults, magic, and as a 13-year-old girl, girls. *JP Diamond has appeared once before in "The B-Team!". He met Devi very briefly in "Beignet, Done That", and is played by Florence’s old player. Because of the events of “Beignet”, he suffered from mild zombieism, which while “cured”, continues to have knock on effects.

It was evening, so there was little for the team to do but secure the house more and go to bed. It was lucky they were paranoid: the next day, there was evidence of powerful mystical attack, a spell designed to snatch the five-year-old’s mind and lead her back to captivity. The "fix the five-year-old" project was assigned to Devika, who called information. The right person for the job was "Dr. Dan", Manhattan’s premier child psychologist. And he was helpful, getting the girl to draw and write out her problems. The pictures contained odd blobs, chains of teeth, and other unsightly oddities. Javid consulted his knowledge of the occult and suggested Devi attack the psychic construct in the girl’s head! The ersatz exorcism had its intended effect… as much to Dr. Dan’s amazement the girl began to speak! Well, first scream, a lot, but after that, speak!

Her name was Aurora Coil. She wanted her mommy. Her dad was a wicked man who wanted to open her soul to demonic possession. This scared the hell out of the already-addled child millionaire. After some effort and cupcakes, Javid and detective Diamond coaxed Devika back to her normal, arrogant self. It was scary, to be sure, but she was an expert. They needed her! Devi agreed on the condition that Aurora not be allowed in her room. It wasn’t hard to find the Cole residence. The decaying manner was in the woods near Duluth, a multilevel Victorian with its windows shuttered or barred. Infiltration was also easy, with JP pretending to be an encyclopedia salesman, and the other two sneaking in the back way. Despite locked doors and mystic wards, there was only one thing that could stop them: nerves. Fastidious Javid and cowardly Davika both screamed when they found the basement’s Sacrifice Chamber. It reeked of entrails and maggots. The screams eliminated the element of surprise. But the narrow, corner-filled house worked against the cultists. JP hammered them with haymakers. Javid put bullets through eyebrows. Devika ran support with her dagger. JP took a .45 to the sternum… and sighed, knowing he’d have to sew up that suit. Les Cole was another matter. The alienist commanded the house itself against our heroes: the windows bricking up, the furnace going full blast, the stairs inverting their nails. Cole had a weakness, though. (Two if you consider lunacy to be a weakness.) His greatest powers required eye contact. Devika took the sheets from the master bedroom and hurled them on his head! Cole soon traded his mansion for a drawer in the morgue. Detective JP scoured the now-normal grounds for clues. Old wedding records, framed photos, travel documents… It would take some doing, but he could now reunite Aurora and her mother. Javid told Devika to gather Aurora’s toys and clothes before they burned the mansion to the ground. The rest was cleanup! Diamond found the cult’s New York member in a fleabag motel. It wasn’t hard for Javid to put the man’s ideas on the wall behind him. For her part, Devika was emboldened by the group’s success. She treated Aurora like a little sister. Games, new outfits, even a guided tour through Devi’s various globetrotting knickknacks. And after mother and daughter were reunited, Devi had one more call to make. Did Dr. Dan work with adult patients, ones who we were 13? JP Diamond:

[rifleseye]

It comes in waves.

First, this:

You are asleep, the day prior exhausted you to your spark and you only wished for some time for yourself. Time to recuperate. You've been trying to get better at it — the best way to keep one's mind sharp is with remaining mindful of the body's needs. You've struggled with that since the Wreckers.

You sleep late. Far later than you usually would. You check the date and you frown to yourself. It will have been... how many years? Since that fateful day. You sigh to yourself and sit up.

And it is here you begin to worry. You feel the world around you move in a blur, your eyes struggle to focus. Fatigue hits you all at once. The last time this happened you ended up laid up in medical for weeks, the invasive surgery to repair your spark chamber took a lot out of you.

You check your vitals, keep track of your spark's rhythmic rotations within its chamber. Slightly elevated, but no arrhythmia. You're about to call up medical to get a checkup when it hits you next.

Hard coded, lining your body, scarring your inner mechanisms, your head aches. Worse yet you feel your emulator kick in. Lines of code. You've lost control. No no no.

You're back with the Wreckers. Kup is still getting used to his new body and you pace anxiously as the others free your teammates. They look terrible and you should be giving them a once-over before leaving. You don't, however, as you're soon found.

You need to do something with your hands. You need to be useful.

You secure the lock and you're mid-sentence when they stop trying. When they—

There is a hole in your chest.

Spark shrinking.

Spark shrinking.

Hole in chest. Useless. Helpless.

Pain. Pain. Pain.

Spark shrinking.

Emergency Protocol.

Need to survive.

Wanted to travel.

Wanted to learn more.

Helpless. Helpless. Helpless.

Where did they go? Where did they go? Where are they going?

Helpless. Helpless. Helpless.

You're still here.

Spark shrinking.

You're still alive.

Stop shrinking.

You're still alive. Where did they go?

Helpless. Helpless. Helpless....

Hard coded, lining your body, scarring your inner mechanisms, your head aches. Worse yet you feel your emulator kick in. Lines of code. You've lost control. No no no.

You're back with the Wreckers. Kup is still getting used to his new...

[auxxrat]

Wicked Game

Preview

Link to fic

Preview of 1st chapter

Tags - cheating, politics (somewhat), jango/shaak, alt universe, human au, canon divergence

shaak is afro indigenous 🤝 Walon is an ass, Jango is severely mentally unstable, Wolffe is just a boy and Appo is the best son

Shaak Ti sank down into the warm water of the tub when all of her handmaidens finally scurried off, leaving her to soak up the rare silence. The water was hot enough to make the normal person cringe, the maids had insisted on having cooler water—didn’t they know Togruta’s like the heat?

In the midst of the peaceful silence the door to Shaak’s chambers slowly creaked open, clicking shut softly as a smirk tugged at the corner of her lips.

Walon Vau, a member of Cuy’val Dar, took soft steps towards the woman in the tub, creeping behind her and softly gliding the palm of his hand against her cheek. Shaak melted into the touch, kissing his calloused hand. Walon was an older man, his dark hair was peppered with grey and his once bright eyes held wrinkles around them. He was famous for his sleek black armor and his fighting ability, hence the reason Jango put him on Cuy’val Dar.

They were basically the royal families top everything, security, military, and warriors. They were meant to mostly be a secret, for a while they were, until Jango saw their true potential and started to have them train the next generation of warriors. By Shaak they were assigned to watch the royal princes, the only heirs.

“He’s looking for you.” Walon whispered lowly, sliding his hand down under Shaak’s jaw, forcing her head backwards to look up at him.

“Then I should go to him…” She shivered despite the steaming water, knees going up as her hands gripped the sides of the tub so hard her knuckles turned white.

“You always go at his every call, yet I have to sneak around just to look at you” His fingers rubbed at the soft skin around Shaak’s throat, his voice flat but the eyes told a difference story. He was jealous.

“He’s my husband..” Shaak said just above a whisper, eyebrows furrowed

“He kidnapped you”

“He’s sick… he was worse before, if the knowledge of me beging close is enough to make him feel better-“

“You defend him? ” Walon’s voice went angry, top lip curled in a snarl as he looked down at Shaak with a mixture of confusion and disgust

“He’s your Mand’alor…” The thought of treason was frightening to Shaak, the thought of being associated with someone who was even thinking of it scared her. What if Jango were to find out? And somehow figured out that she was close to them? And in such a way? The thought was disturbing. Shaak knew he would never hurt her, but he wasn’t beyond imprisonment.

“And you are my Queen…” There was a slight hesitation in his voice, like he didn’t quite know what to say next, “That doesn’t mean I must agree with everything he does”

Shaak let her head fall back against Walon’s leg, sighing as her heavy eyelids shut. They stung.

“Leave, I have to summon my handmaidens.” She pressed a soft kiss to the man’s black armor when she turned on her knees to get up, “I’ll see you later…”

When the Mandalorian hastily left the handmaidens quickly followed, hustling inside the door as Shaak sat on her knees in thought. Her eyes watched the ripples in the water, ears going completely deaf on what was going on around her.

“Miss? Do you need help getting out?” One of the younger girls tried to pull Shaak out of her trance, not daring to touch the woman without consent. When she didn’t answer another tried pitching in to help

“My lady are you alright?”

In a blink of an eye Shaak shoved her head under the water, causing her ladies to yelp in distress and try to pull her back up. When they did they were greeted with her usual kind smile and hectic laughter, they all locked eyes in confusion, the room now being filled with loud giggles

“My lady… do you need us to call a doctor?”

“No, no Porcia, just help me get ready” Shaak shook her head, hands already folding her white hair into a tight braid.

-

The hallways of the castle were cold, empty besides the occasional group of diplomats and politicians walking through. They gave low bows when walking past Shaak, staying quiet as she paid little to no attention to them and continued her way down to the chambers of the Mand’alor.

They were on total opposite sides of their shared home.

When she arrived at the door one of them was already cracked open, just enough for the warm light and the sound of soft voices to spill out. Shaak stood behind the doors quietly, listening closely before she barged in. After deeming it a right time to walk in she opened one of the doors slowly, stepping in quietly so she wasn’t noticed right away. The sight before her was one she saw often, but it made guilt run through her stomach like a madman, if Shaak didn’t know any better she’d think she was about to vomit.

Jango was seated comfortably on one of his blue velvet couches, a paper in one hand and the other wrapped around a squirming five year old. The rest of his sons sat around him on the floor and on the couch across, playing with whatever toys they could get their hands on, they played quietly as if they knew their father was trying to focus. Shaak moved closer, sneaking behind the couch to look over her husband’s shoulder and onto the paper. She didn’t even get to begin reading before Jango sensed her presence, standing up quickly, almost like he was excited.

“ Ti ” He said breathlessly, hoisting their son from his lap to his hip, both now looking at her with excitement, “I was going to watch them today but.. something came up, it needs my attention”

Shaak watched as the other boys' heads snapped up at the mention of their mothers name, dropping their toys like they were on fire and running to the woman. She easily lifted the second youngest, Fox, into her arms and let him cling. The poor baby was still having a hard time with separation anxiety.

“It’s fine… just-“ Shaak spoke as Jango moved around the room, grabbing and moving different papers that sat neatly on his desk, “Just tell me what it’s about?”

If she could help bear at least half the burden of ruling, she would, but Jango was never one to share.

“It’s the Emperor. He’s building a new military base and wants Mandalore to help fund it, or at least give up a fraction of our military to give over” He tried explaining, whenever it came to the Empire Jango tried not to share as much information as he could. Not out of fear but concern, the concern that Shaak would feel any type of hurt hearing about the Empire that destroyed her previous life.

“And your response?” As far as she knows, Jango hasn’t done anything to directly help the Empire. Instead he claimed Mandalore’s neutrality as much as he could and that could either be a blessing or a curse. So far it was a blessing, but Palpatine would never take the chance on raising war against Mandalore.

Palpatine would never rage war against a military that had more power than he could ever dream of. That much has kept them safe, but the Empire was pushy and broke people, Jango could only hold out on them so long.

“That’s exactly where I’m going, I’m telling them we’ll have no part in it. Hopefully it goes over well.” Once he was finished collecting his papers he placed them by the small side table that stood next to the door, placing the small child he kept on his hip down, letting him run over to the rest of his brothers, “If it doesn’t, hopefully we can compromise”

“Hopefully? And if he doesn’t want to take your answer? What if it’s not even the Emperor himself?” Shaak’s hold on Fox tightened as worry built in her gut, “What if he sends Vader ?”

That last part came out in more of a trembling whisper, but Jango still caught it. Even he knew the possibility and danger of that type of situation, Darth Vader wasn’t someone to sit down and strike a deal. Shaak had fought him the night of his arrival, she knew first hand the type of power he wielded, even the mere thought of Jango stuck in a room with him was heart wrenching.

“Anakin is of no concern.” Was all the Mand’alor said before walking out the door, leaving Shaak full of worry.

Throughout the whole day she sat worrying, though her attention needed to be on taking care of her children, the other half of her brain telling her that something bad was going down just wouldn’t shut up. To try and calm her anxiety down Shaak stayed in the comfort of Jango’s chambers, laying comfortably on the dark velvet chaise that was placed near the window. From there she watched carefully as the boys played, fingers playing with the velvet as she let the anxiety eat her up.

Apparently her sons could sense the anxiety. Wolffe, who rarely ever said anything and looked at people like he knew every secret, had quietly crawled up next to the lounge and placed his tiny face on the empty space

“Mama…” He whispered softly, looking up at Shaak Ti like she held the world, “Are you okay?”

The sudden words took her off guard, Wolffe truly didn’t speak most of the time, when he did it was only because he deemed it important enough to speak about. This, to him at least, was important enough.

Shaak nodded her head, those few tears she did hold in slipped out and were quickly wiped away by her palm, “Yes, I’m okay baby, just worried about your Buir”

Wolffe seemed to quickly understand, crawling up onto the couch and curling into Shaak’s side. His way of showing he cared had always been different, Shaak knew from the moment she held him that this boy wasn’t exactly like his brothers. He felt emotions differently, understood them in a way no one else did.

More tears threatened to spill but she quickly forced them back, these children didn’t deserve to bare witness to something like this. They’ve already been through too much, they’ve already had to shoulder things they shouldn’t, the last thing they need to worry about is loosing their mother a second time.

“I love you, my sweet son” She whispered softly, hand flattening out Wolffe’s dark curls so she could rest her chin.

Still, the anxiety sat in the back of her throat like a bad taste and threatened to make her gag. She just wanted this meeting over.

-

“Buir!” The eldest, Appo, yelled in delight as his father walked back into the doors after what seemed like hours. It sounded the alarm for his brothers, all scrambling to their feet to meet Jango at the door.

It had brought Shaak out from her light sleep, causing her to shoot up from the chaise and sit up fully, heart racing. When she saw it wasn’t anything bad her heart settled, but her mind raced with questions- questions she wasn’t sure Jango was ready to answer right away or not.

With soft steps she moved past her husband, sitting down on her heels as she hugged each son goodbye. When she got to Jango the man looked at her with sad eyes, like she just kicked him.

“You’re leaving now?” His voice came broken, eyes giving her a pleading look.

That look alone almost made her stay, almost.

“I have things to attend to.” Was the only answer Shaak could come up with, leaving the chambers hastily.

“Buir… come…” Appo pulled Jango’s hand gently, urging him to come play. He was only 8 but already knew the signs of his father breaking down, he was still a child and already knew how to stop an adult’s episode. Appo shouldn’t have to take care of his own father, but he has been since their mother left; Now it was just a habit.

Nonetheless Jango complied, mindlessly following his son to whatever he wanted to do.

-

(continue reading on ao3 if you’d like! re work is being done because it’s a slightly old fic that I didn’t expect to actually wanna do more with. My fics are just for the sake of my entertainment, i only post them sometimes when people tell me to. This one in particular is inspired by many different medias just for the funzies)

[merppppppppppppppppp]

Yandere Yakuza Bakugo x Fem Black Darling

(Art by: @mlightfoott on Instagram)

(This has been on my mind for awhile)

You started as Bakugo’s personal assistant and occasional personal fuck doll.

Because: 💥 Come on, you think I hired your fine ass JUST to balance my books? Tch! Fuck outta here.

His words. He was drawn your stacked body, beautiful skin, and bright eyes full of intelligence and attitude

Even though your PA position came with extra work, You didn’t mind either job.

Bakugo paid you well and fucked you until you were pretty much bedridden.

In fact, that was the only way he kept you. Bedridden. Usually in his bed

If you think he wasn’t strategic about insisting you stay over the night to ‘rest’ until you ‘got back on your feet’ well, I got a beach house to sale you in Idaho.

Somehow or another you ended up moving up from his PA and fuck toy, to his woman

And what a move it was!

If you thought Bakugo spoiled your ass before?

Oh girl!

You can get the entire world if you want it

There’s just a few rules.

No talking to men whom aren’t on his team or aren’t service workers of some sort because..

💥 Daddy’s a little jealous baby girl. Can you fuckin blame me? Look how beautiful you are

If you do talk to someone he hasn’t approved of, no problem. Nothing a few explosive spanks on that pretty chocolate ass of yours can’t fix. You won’t make that mistake again will you?

And of course if any guy touches, harasses or flirts with you, you get the pleasure of hearing them be tortured in Bakugo’s “pleasure chambers” as he calls them

He also likes to pre-approve your outfits. He likes you scantily clad. You’d think he’d want you conservative, but no. He likes those short skirts that show off your pretty melanated legs, no bras so he can watch your nipples harden, tight jeans so he can watch that ass jiggle

Also, he enjoys watching men drool over what’s his

Never question his authority.

💥 I know what’s best for us, baby. Don’t worry.

If you do, we’ll, he’ll just have to throat fuck you until you’re too hoarse to talk now, won’t he? Maybe use one of those fun little toys that forces your mouth open

If he’s in the mood, you’re in the mood. PERIOD

💥 What the fuck do you mean, you’re tired?! You don’t do shit all day but spend my money.

He won’t force sex out of you, but you better either let him thigh fuck or tit fuck you until he’s satisfied.

You’re not allowed to go anywhere without him or one of his security guards

Speaking of going places, you better check in with him in hourly intervals or answer his calls. Failure to do so will result in revoked phone privileges and you being on lock down for months

He monitors your friends closely. Most of your friends are just other darlings or women in his crew.

And again you ain’t going no where without his permission or his guards. He doesn’t give af who those girls are. He still can’t trust em

He doesn’t share. Too jealous for that, but he does like an audience, so be prepared to get fucked in a meeting or on a conference table.

Definitely be prepared for people watch his goons beating off to you two and to catch them eye fucking you when Katsuki’s not looking

But the only people who can smash is the squad and that’s on special occasions

So, sure, there are some rules and regulations to being Bakugo’s kept woman, but as long as you follow them, the whole world is yours to have

[c-is-for-circinate]

As promised: let's talk Hades, and how acts of abuse can create toxic environments for everyone around them, and also how people react to those environments--and to them being disrupted.

(For reference, I have just kicked Theseus's ass for the first time, it was exactly as satisfying as it was intended to be, and then I got predictably slaughtered a couple of chambers into Styx. Spoilers for everything through that point, but please no spoilers in reblogs/comments for anything after that!) Also, TW for a whole lot of discussion of abuse, particularly verbal and emotional abuse, and abusive familyworkplace dynamics.

Okay, so. To start out with, Hades is an abusive parent. He engages in innumerable acts of verbal and emotional abuse towards his son, because yep, that's what you call it when a parent constantly berates and belittles their kid for every perceived failure, including the ones the parent themselves could have prevented. Sometimes especially the ones the parent could have prevented. Zagreus failed at his office clerk job because Hades refused to teach him how to do it and then blamed him for not already knowing how. Cerberus tore up the lounge because Hades, who was actually there, chose not to stop him. Hades created, possibly deliberately, and then took full advantage of every opportunity he saw to insult and demean his kid, and the clerk job flashback shows us that he was doing so even before the escape attempts started. I'm pretty sure we're all on the same page here, but: yep, that all constitutes abuse, even if they're gods. Even if Hades has reasons for Being Like That. Even if you think Zagreus seems okay and unharmed by it (which: repeatedly throwing yourself into a gauntlet of violence that inevitably ends in your own pain and death because you're so desperate to escape home, not actually an indicator of someone who's okay). We all good on that?

Cool. Because I'm not really here to talk about how Hades' abuse directly impacts Zagreus right now (although there's for sure an essay in that too). I'm thinking about how it impacts everybody else.

Hades isn't as obviously unreasonable with anybody else in his kingdom the way he is with his kid. When we see him lecture somebody else, it's usually for an actual failure to do their job: Hypnos for literally falling asleep on the job and not doing anything that was assigned to him, Megaera for letting us past her so many time, Orpheus for being a court bard who refuses to sing. His attitude is super confrontational and unpleasant, but on the surface it doesn't necessarily look as fucked-up. Thing is, though, whether any individual act of aggression towards an employee/family member is justified or not (I would generally argue 'not', because aggression towards employees/family members is, y'know, not justifiable)--it's not about the individual acts. It's about the entire cultivated atmosphere of toxicity and abuse.

One of the very first things Meg ever says to us is, "I'd rather be on your bad side than his." Up until that point, we've got no reason to believe Meg has any history whatsoever of fucking up at her job. In fact, we've got plenty of reason to believe she's good at it. She's fiercely proud of it, she's frequently Employee Of The [Time Period], and we've apparently never even met her sisters because she handles her shit herself. But she's still scared of Hades. Dusa, who is an anxious wreck at all times because oh god what if she gets fired what if she gets fired what if she gets fired, in spite of apparently being absolutely exemplary at her job, is scared of Hades. Every single shade in the Hall is clearly terrified of Hades, and it's not because of what he's done to each of them. It's what they've seen him do to other people.

Which is how toxic environments work, whether they're work environments or families. The Court of Hades is of course both, always, with the bonus hell layer of you can't quit even if you DIE. An abuser in authority doesn't have to target you in order to make you feel scared, cowed, and desperate to please them. Humans (and gods who are basically extra-powerful humans) are good at learning by example. The residents of the Court get the picture.

So this Court is a minefield--and everyone except Zagreus is very good at tiptoeing around mines. We see it in Meg, so desperate to do her job well. We see that Hypnos very clearly does not give a shit about anything, but he still makes sure to have a list of excuses ready if/when Hades ever confronts him about failure to do his job, just in case. We see it when Achilles tells us that my ability to help you is constrained by the authority your father gives me, or whatever the line was sixty runs ago when he couldn't let me into locked chambers. The system, such as it is, works, and if Nyx talks to Hades as little as possible, if Thanatos avoids the Court entirely, if Achilles treads very carefully and knows how to keep his head down--well that's just the system, right? That's just how things are.

Even Zagreus seems to have had a role in that system as the court fuckup. He's the kid who didn't have a real job or purpose. He could take the focus of Hades' generalized, day-to-day ire off of everyone else, without triggering some of the more direct and violent ire because the work he was doing didn't really matter (a LOT of Hades' rage-triggers seem to be related to job performance, which means that the people with real jobs are of course the most at risk). And he could do so "safely" (big emphasis on the quotation marks there) because he alone of the court is Hades' actual kid, who's Prince of the Underworld no matter how much he fucks up. If one of Nyx's other kids gets something really really wrong, she might be able to protect them from some consequences, but Hades doesn't have any layer of supposed parental affection holding him back from getting violently furious about it. Zagreus gets a nice bedroom and the abuse is limited to words rather than divine power, and Hades is a dick to everyone but he only occasionally condemns people to eternities of torture, and only for good reasons like refusing to sing when your job is to be court bard, so it's fine, everybody's fine, everything's totally fine, right?

Except it's not fine when everybody is so clearly worried about anything going wrong. And it's especially not fine for Zagreus, who's the person to finally say no. He's leaving, for his own sake, because he deserves better and he's finally convinced he can have it. And that turns the whole system into disarray.

I am endlessly fascinated by the ways this game portrays different characters reacting to this upheaval in their carefully-mapped minefield. It's different for authority figures and peers and servants, different based on how people are positioned in the house under Hades' rule, and it's so spot-on and I love it.

Nyx, for instance, is absolutely calm about the whole thing, because Nyx has power. Hades can't hurt her. Hades can't even really do much against her children, not when Hypnos and Thanatos are gods in their own right. Yes, Hades rules the kingdom, but Nyx owns the land, and she gives no shits about his rages. And it's interesting, too, to see the lines she doesn't draw. The deal seems to be that Hades doesn't fuck with her, and doesn't outright threaten her kids (because Hypnos is bad at his job, demonstrably so, and Hades hasn't ruined him yet), and she doesn't interfere with the way he treats the people around him. She gives Zagreus advice and support and the mirror, but she also doesn't take a direct stand against Hades. He can't hurt her, but he could make life...difficult. She's protected, her position in the minefield is more of a safe viewing platform than slogging through the middle of it, but the mines are still there.

And then we have Achilles, who is one of my favorite characters in the whole game because of how he reacts to this whole situation. Achilles, like Nyx, is so supportive. Every single time you see him he has something encouraging to say. He gives us his Codex, secretly finds us weapons, trained us for years, clearly wants us to succeed. And still he's limited, not necessarily out of fear for himself (though he has to be scared for himself, he knows what Hades does to people who anger him), but out of concern that if he gives Zagreus too much help in one way, he won't be able to provide help at all later. He's still so careful.

Achilles and Nyx are so fucking important to this story because they're the only authority figures Zagreus really has in his life except for his father, and they are so supportive. They're what keep this story from being a nightmare of psychological horror and depression. They can't stop the pressure from Hades and this life in his house being miserable for Zag, but they can give us hope, remind us that Zagreus is still loved. And they have such an incredibly important role when it comes to guilt, which is one of the biggest ways toxic systems maintain themselves.

If Zagreus leaves, what happens to everybody else? Who takes Hades' wrath then? Who becomes court scapegoat if he's not there, and also, who gets punished for his escape? These questions matter, and we see him worry about it! He asks Nyx and Achilles both, is it going to be okay that you're helping me, are you going to be alright, will my father hurt you for this? And they are both so firm about telling him no. No, I will be fine. See, here's the list of reasons about why I'm going to be fine, why my position in this minefield is secure. They make a point of telling us that it's fine, that we do not need to hold ourself back from getting out of this abusive situation for their sake. That is instrumental in Zagreus's ability to keep making these escape attempts without feeling too guilty and worried and selfish to go on. (Another thing that's actually really important in setting up that dynamic--we see that Hades cares about Cerberus, even if he's using him as a pawn against us, and Cerberus seems to be the one figure in court who Hades doesn't get mad at. The dog isn't at risk, and that is really essential in keeping the story from getting too grim.) These people who we care about refuse to let themselves be held hostage to secure our good behavior.

It's also really useful for raising the stakes later in the story--we see Hades arguing with Nyx once or twice, and we see Zagreus feeling guilty about it, but it's also a sign that we're making enough progress to piss him off. After I finally made it out of Elysium on my last run, I came home to find him furious with Achilles in a way that actually makes me nervous, because Achilles does not have nearly as much security in his position as he says he does. (Achilles is such a good teacher/authority figure, because he knows goddamn well what Hades could do to him, and still refuses to let fear for his own situation stop him from helping the abused kid under his care escape his. And no, not everybody has the capacity to do that, but it matters so much coming from the guy who helped raise us. It matters so much. I do not even have the words for how much.)

It's also no mistake that many of the people we find supporting us along our journey are either the people with the most power in their immediate environment, or the least. Sisyphus helps us because what more could they do to me than this? Orpheus is a little wild around the eyes and somewhat disconnected from reality, and he wishes us the best because someone should get what they want and also he no longer gives a single fuck what happens to him. Eurydice has her own cozy little corner of Asphodel, as safe from Hades' rage as anybody anywhere in his realm because she's tucked in such an out-of-the-way middle place she's outside his notice. Dusa is so scared of everything anyway that, crush aside, she isn't any more threatened by us escaping than she is just by her everyday life here. Charon is unfathomable and unstoppable; Skelly literally exists to be a punching bag, and yet he also seems basically immune to pain, no matter what we do to him. There's no threat from Hades there.

So the people most at risk when I flip the world on its ear are the ones who have so much standing that they have something to lose, but not enough to protect them from losing it. Which of course brings us to Than and Meg--who are, of course, the two people who also seem by far the most upset by my attempts to leave.

As authority figures, Nyx and Achilles are constantly reinforcing the message that it's Hades' fault, not ours, if they or anybody else get caught in the crossfire of his wrath. I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing, and it's not my guilt to bear. From Megaera and Thanatos, we get the opposite message--I am fucking with things, I am hurting people, and I need to stop. Zagreus isn't just abandoning them, as a friend or brother or lover or all of the above they're Greek gods who even knows. He's betraying them. They were in this together, as friends or lovers or whatever, but now Zagreus is sending earthquakes through the minefield they both still have to stand in. He is about to capsize this boat in the middle of a thunderstorm, he is fucking with the system, and they're the ones who are going to get most hurt.

I'm so curious how this is going to work for Than, who out of everyone we meet holds the closest role to Nyx's in terms of being sheltered from Hades' wrath. He's the guy who gets to leave, after all, even though he always has to come back. I've seen the least of him out of anybody so far because it took forever for me to get to Elysium, but two things really stand out and I'm so interested to see where they go. One, he really genuinely does care about Zagreus. He wants us safe, he wants us unhurt, the accessory he gives us only grants its bonus if we clear a room without taking injury, he keeps showing up to help. And two, he wants us to give up and go back and recognize how good we had it. Which is SO fucking interesting, considering how miserable Zagreus so clearly was, and how legitimate his reasons for being miserable were.

It makes me wonder so much about Than's standards for comparison. Does he know something we don't about what's waiting for us on the surface, something that might theoretically hurt Zagreus even more than staying down below? Has his life, which apparently allows him more freedom than anybody else in the Court, sucked horribly in ways we haven't seen, and that's why he spends so little time there in the first place? Either of those things is plausible, both of those things are plausible, and yet either one leads to this sense of patronizing, because he refuses to simply tell us. If something terrible is awaiting us, don't give us vague warnings, tell us what it is and let us decide for ourself! If you're fucking jealous because we might get out entirely and you're still stuck coming back here, say so. If you're worried about your mom--and he does bring her up, how could Zagreus turn his back on her like that, does seem to worry for her--then let's have an actual conversation about how many times she has insisted I do this and also how much I love her.

And, right, it's clear that a lot of Thanatos being upset is simply, you were going to leave me without even saying goodbye, you want to leave ME, which is understandable! But, like, he is demonstrably the one god who gets to visit the surface. He's the one person we actually COULD expect to see again. And he is absolutely also upset because there's an Order To Things, and we're fucking it up. We used to be his careless callow reckless friend who could talk back to Hades and get away with it, and now we're not, and everything is changing and we might leave him altogether, and we might leave him alone in that court without us, and he hates it.

Is it a short-sighted, selfish fear on his part? Yes, absolutely. Even if he's not scared of Hades on his own behalf, he is still frightened by what happens if we upset this system--and maybe it's the sanctity of a much bigger system than the Underworld that he's worried about! Maybe it's the whole divine and cosmic order. Whatever system he wants so badly to protect is enabling the abuse Zagreus has been dealing with for however-long he's been alive. Whatever system he wants so badly to protect OUGHT to be overturned, or at least shaken up. But this is what toxic systems DO. They convince the people within them that they have to be maintained, that a broken system that hurts the people within it is far better than no system at all, that changing the world is too scary and too dangerous. And Thanatos wants his whatever-Zagreus-is-to-him to be there, because he loves him and also because that's how the world works, and those things are all tangled up in one another, and that is how relationships are in a messed-up family like this so therefore I love it.

And Meg. Meg, the best for last, my dear, beautiful, furious, bitter, scared angry tired girl. I adore her. I am absolutely never going to date her, because the thing Zagreus needs most in his life hurts her, more directly than anybody else in the story, and that sucks, and it's not Zag's fault but they still shouldn't be together. Meg has taken more injury from this situation than anyone, quite literally as well as metaphorically, and it's not her fault any more than it's ours, but oh boy it has made her lash out and it's awful and it's perfect.

Meg's place in the Court of Hades is unique because she's not dead, not a mortal, not anything other than a god--but she's also not family. Nyx is not her mother. She's very much part of this system, she and her two sisters belong to Hades-the-realm and therefore also Hades-the-king, she can't leave, but she also doesn't have that protection of Nyx watching out for her in the same way. She's not royalty. She and her sisters (if you ask Hesiod instead of Virgil, which seems to be the interpretation the game's going with here) sprang from the blood of maimed Uranus at the same time as Aphrodite, but fuck knows Aphrodite isn't claiming them as siblings. And she can't be fired, exactly, but she sure can be demoted, and she sure can be made miserable in her job. Meg is vulnerable in a way very few people in Hades' employ are. She's a lot harder to do away with than any one random shade, but she's also a lot harder to miss blending in with a crowd.

What's more, she's the one person in this whole mess who is specifically tasked with stopping us from leaving. Hypnos isn't ordered to put us to sleep and keep us in our room. Thanatos can't be compelled or punished if he doesn't hunt us down. Achilles isn't told to lock us up and keep the keys. Meg is the one stationed at the doorway to Tartarus to keep us in. Meg is the one who gets in trouble when we leave. Meg (who Hades knows goddamn well Zagreus cares for, or cared for, who he absolutely knows we used to date) is the one who has to fight us again and again and again. And she's the one who keeps dying.

Again, it's this incredibly fucked-up guilt/hostage situation deliberately designed to keep people from fleeing abusive situations. Meg's insistence on fighting us now puts Zagreus in the position of having to hurt her himself again and again. Now suddenly we're the ones sticking a sword in our ex-girlfriend. Now suddenly someone can point to our desire to leave, to flee, to escape, and say, how selfish. How cruel. How terrible of us to want to go, when we're even willing to hurt the people we love to do it.

Except, right: Hades is the one who demands Meg stand there and stop us. Hades is the one who puts both of us in that position. Meg is also in an abusive situation, and she's willing to hurt us to protect herself. "I'd rather be on your bad side than your father's." It's easy to blame her at the start for being complicit, for being a tool of our father's abuse, for being on his side. It gets harder as the game goes on. I've killed her so many times. There's no way for her to beat me. She knows at this point that she can't beat me. She still fights, every single time, still throws herself upon that spike, not because she thinks she has any chance of stopping me but because she is so damn scared of what will happen if she doesn't try.

In fact, Meg's the one person we have actually seen face consequences for our actions so far, instead of just facing the threat of them. Her sisters are here. Her sisters, who she clearly does not want here, who are wild and violent and who she does not want in her life or anywhere near her, let alone near the job she takes so much pride in. She gets to deal with them now. (Hades doesn't have to deal with them. They're still not allowed in his court. But Meg does.) She gets stabbed, and bludgeoned, and shot, and lightning-struck, and poisoned, and every other thing we do to her. Thanatos doesn't. Nyx and Achilles and Hypnos don't. Bug Meg? Oh yes. Meg pays.

And yes, ok, she is complicit in this system. Everybody is complicit in this system. Zagreus who's trying to escape on his own behalf instead of overthrowing his father for the sake of everyone he'd otherwise be leaving behind is complicit in this system. Pointing fingers and pulling strings of who's more at fault? and who do we blame for this? is exactly how this sort of system perpetuates itself. Your sister always talked back at the dinner table and put everyone in an even worse and more violent mood. Your coworker refuses to work more than forty hours a week so now you have to take overtime to pick up their slack. You're enabling your dad by asking your sister to shut up, you're enabling your employer by working as hard as you do so you don't get fired, everyone's at fault, everyone's to blame, everyone is--

It's not everyone. It's Hades. It's Hades at the root of everything, and probably something big and institutional and fucked-up even beyond him. But even if everyone down in this Underworld does have to be trapped here forever, even if he's trapped here forever, Hades is neither challenging the system that put them here nor trying to make that fate better for anyone else stuck with him. He's just created an entire kingdom of backbiting and misery and people who can either go along with his whims or suffer the consequences.

At this point in the game, Meg is so fucking tired. Every time we run into her in the lounge, hunched over a table, the venom in her voice when she tells us "Do I look like I have anything to say to you?" is so bitter and so exhausted. There was a system, and she knew her place in the system, and it was a system divinely ordered by the gods themselves, and sure it was cruel but that's the literal will of the universe as far as she knows it. She had a role, and her role was vengeance and punishment and violence against those who'd committed the most egregious of sins in life, and there was a point to it, she was the divine deterrent to convince people not to do those things, and that was just, and that was right. The GODS THEMSELVES said so. How do you argue with that? You can't possibly argue with that!

And Zagreus is arguing with that. In trying to leave, he's questioning the unbreakable rule that nothing in the Underworld ever gets to leave it. In disobeying his father to do so, he's questioning the unbreakable rule that what the gods say is LAW. He's breaking everything.

And of course he's not trying to do any of that. He's not trying to destabilize the system at all. He's just trying to get himself out of it, to a place where he feels like he belongs and maybe a parent who's slightly nicer to him than this one. But toxic systems like this one break when the people within them have access to another option. When the kids find a way to actually leave, and not answer the phone, and not come home for holidays, and not deal with it any more. When the employees have the economic freedom to quit. When opportunities granted by education, money, social support, etc etc etc, show up and give people a choice. Even if the option is only ever for Zagreus--he's demonstrating that an option exists. Which is, of course, the one thing the system cannot ever allow.

I really like this game.

[howl-fantasies]

Bloodbath

A/N - @immortal-velociraptor a little bit late but here it is!! Definitely had to do something with the “You’re covered in blood?? Like some kind of slut??” 

--

The integrality of the room she was in was the epitome of chaos. When Oswald fucking Cobblepot threw his tantrum and ordered her to shoot EVERYONE inside of the Chamber of Gotham Lords, because they refused him a seat, she first told the little bird man to go take his pills and go to sleep. 

But when he threatened her with a broken glass bottle and, far worse, when he raised his voice higher making it a screech, she decided she preferred dying because of a lost bullet between her eyes than from ears bleed. Damn, the fucker sounded like someone slammed a door on his testicles, horrifying, truly. 

So she went in the Chamber, putting so many weapons on her she looked like Trinity and Neo when they were ready to free Morpheus. Only difference being she was alone, ah, and another one, she was not on a noble mission but simply indulging a child-man's caprice. 

She sent a text to Wayne though, just telling him to stay home and don’t go to the Chamber. When he asked why, she politely told him to fuck off. The boy didn’t need to perish because Crybblepot did a shitty job trying to earn his seat. 

She infiltrated the beautiful building quite easily, broke into the monitoring room without pulling the trigger once, only slaughtering the guards and hiding them inside of a closet where they wouldn’t be found until a few hours. 

Quickly, she hacked the machines to disconnect the CCTV inside and outside the building then locked the doors of the Chamber, granting access only for the badge she collected on one of the corpses earlier. 

She next made a general call to the security, pretexting some ruckus happening on the back of the building and ordering everyone here just in case. Gothamites were absolutely stupid, she thought, exciting the monitoring room, and walking peacefully in the beautiful great hall, her feet quiet on the marble. 

Before she entered, she extended a string between two colossal marble pillars just in front of the doors, connecting each extremity to the pins of two grenades. 

Anyone trying to enter after her or who would managed to escape from the room would run straight to it and make a devastating firework. Better be safe than sorry, in particular doing her job she thought again. 

When she completed her task, she put the badge against the security panel next to the huge carved double doors and unlocked it, entering quickly. “Show time”, she muttered. One after one, the lords stopped their political bickering, eying the strange woman in a leather suit walking in the middle of the circular room. 

When she reached the podium at the very center, she took one gun and shot at the ceiling. “Order, gentlemen”, She purred. All the men froze in their seat, situated all around the room, holding their breath. 

“That woman”, muttered one of them in a terrified voice and disbelief. “She’s...” He was cut by another Lord from the other side of the room. “She works for Penguin!”. 

Y/N sighed mentally, she hated what she was about to do next. Grabbing the only wooden chair in the center, she climbed on it, to be able to be seen by the fourty men seated all around her. 

She remembered of what Connor - the assassin Oswald tricked to killed Maroni - once said: he didn’t understand the point with delivering a message to people who were gonna die by their hands anyway. Damn right he was. She hated it, it was useless. 

But she did as she was told and shot another time to gain silence. “I am here in front of you today, because you refused an ugly little brat his seat among you, elite of the city.” 

She didn’t have to repeat exactly what Oswald told her, the main message was more important, and, who would repeat her speech after all? “You shouldn’t have, because he sentenced you to death. Right now.” She finished grabbing her other gun and starting to shoot them. 

Poor men weren’t even able to fight back since weapons were prohibited inside of the Chamber. For sure, that rule was going to change after today bloodbath she thought, withdrawing her empty guns in her shoulder’s holster, grabbing those placed on her thighs and resuming her task. 

She was interrupted though, when a deafening KABOOM shrilled from outside the room, blowing up the doors and the four men trying to open it. 

She quickly took cover, jumping behind the wooden railing separating the seats from the middle of the room. When some shots resonated, she aimed at the security guards as well as the few remaining politicians who tried to escape.

When the “clic” of her guns indicated her she no longer had bullets, she put them back in their holsters and jumped on the nearest guard, slicing his throat with a blade hidden in her sleeve. She did the same with another guard, emptying their guns on their colleagues who fell in a 'thud', staining the immaculate floor. 

She ran and took cover behind a pillar when other shots where heard, refilling her four guns. “FREEZE!” Yelled a man, only for him to see a smoke bomb being thrown in their direction. “SHIT!” 

The woman bolted from her hiding place and shot every time she saw a shadow moving around her. When the smoke dissipated, the resting guards only noticed the corpses laying everywhere, the blood and the remaining of some collectables shattered around the great hall. But no trace of the assassin responsible of this absolute slaughter. 

Unless... Another shot was heard above them, forcing the men to look up, finally seeing her, hanging upside down on the massive crystal chandelier, balancing quickly and shooting again. “FUCKING HELL! HOW DID SHE CLIMBED?!” Yelled their chief in disbelief, trying to touch her without success. 

His question found its answer when she lifted her right hand and they all saw a cable exiting a device attached to her wrist, which hang itself at the ceiling. She then let the chandelier go and shot the chain holding it. 

“MOOOVE!” Yelled the chief again but not quick enough to allow the nearest men to dodge. He watched in horror how the huge rich ornament fall on top of them and impaled them, the crystal exploding everywhere, injuring a few other guards who soon fall dead on the floor when the woman shot again. 

“No! No, no, no, no, no!” Panicked the man when he noticed he was the only one remaining. “PLEASE!” He tried, only to be forever silenced by a bullet piercing his skull and exiting from between his eyes, making her crouch before the bullet can touch her.

“THE FUCK?!” Screamed Y/N in disbelief and outrage, feeling a bit of blood and brain from the poor man on her face then falling on her clothes, already soaked with blood. When the lifeless body of the guard touched the floor, she saw Victor Zsasz standing in front of her, spotless, his clothes perfectly neat. 

“Hi Sweetness.” He greeted, moving his head slightly while she lifted up. His unblinking eyes looked all around her to the beautiful carnage she was responsible of. Mesmerizing, he thought. She did one hell of a job here, all by herself. His dark orbs found her form again and he stared. 

His long silence, made her grit her teeth, she was exhausted and still fuming because of Cobblepot’s tantrum. And being in front of Victor Zsasz right now, not knowing exactly if he was here to help her or terminate her - Oswald was 100% vicious enough to order that - put her on the edge. “If you have something to say, just fucking say it Vic!” She snapped. 

The man reduced the distance between them, looking her from head to toes intensely. His absolutely blank face suddenly changed. “You’re covered in blood?? Like some kind of slut??” He scoffed while opening his eyes and mouth comically. Frankly, she would have face palmed right now if her hands weren’t soaked with blood too. 

Instead, she raised an arrogant eyebrow and leaned forward a bit. “And what are you gonna do about it dearest?” She taunted. The huge salacious grin which answered her made her other brow raised. 

Victor snaked an arm around her waist and pull her brutally against him, his right gloved hand gabbing a handful of her hair, “Why, match each other of course”, he whispered against her lips, licking it and a bit of blood too. “Gonna make you my slut then”, she purred as their lips crashed and they kissed each other hungrily in the middle of the bloodbath she created. 

“GCPD! PUT DOWN YOUR WEAPONS AND PUT YOUR HANDS IN THE- OH SHIT!” Yelled the angry voice of Jim Gordon from the entry, interrupting their making out. 

Y/N felt Victor slowly pull back from her lips, his now soaked face frowned in annoyance and he let escape a low “Damn it.” How he would have loved to fuck her dumb in the middle of this amazing chaos if not for Jim fucking Gordon bringing his cop ass in here. 

The groan he heard from Y/N made him grin madly, she was thinking the exact same thing. “Hi Jim, we’re a little bit busy right now, care to get lost while we paint this fine hall in red and white?” He asked like nothing was wrong here. 

“Can’t do that Zsasz! You’re both under arrest for -” “No time for foreplay Jimbo, I want his cock and I want it now. Say hi to Maggie for me!”, cut Y/N’s voice as she throws another smoke grenade at his feet. Taking the occasion the woman grabbed Victor's jacket, smashing her lips on his and pull him behind her as they flee, dodging the bullets. 

[father-time-and-baby-new-year]

Would it be to much to ask for a Eren scenario where both he and the reader are both equally toxic, manipulative and possessive over eachother but both just cannot let the other go to the point where even when they reunite when Eren escapes the survey corps he asks her to tell him if anyone else whether it was the army or the jeagerists, if they had touched her even if it was just to escort her which she just nods and refuses to tell him any names cuz she likes to see him riled up by her having been "corrupted" and seeing how with a single act she can have him on edge and he falls for her even more by her devious and selfish wiles to have him get irritated and angry but only to end up wanting more of her charms.

Just some good dark angtsy feels all around🖤

A/N: just a little drabble. i've never done canon-verse stuff for AOT so this was fun to try. thank you sending this ask. i did deviate from your ending a little bit so im sorry <3

Warning: AoT Season 4 Spoilers, extreme possessive behavior, toxic relationship, anger issues, gaslighting/manipulating

Eren can feel himself getting restless. Hange had been getting on his nerves. He was the literally the only reason they had secured their victory against Marley on multiple fronts. She and the rest of the fucking Survey Corps should be bending over backward in gratitude.

He cracks his knuckles although he had no need to, wanting to focus on a physical sensation. His thoughts eventually circle back to you. He misses you sorely.

In Marley, there was this kind child Falco. Eren could say he felt guilty for manipulating the poor boy. But that's not true. He's shed that part of humanity a long time ago. All's fair in war after all.

The fair-haired boy was worried about his friend, didn't want a certain special someone of his to become titanized.

Is this other candidate a girl?

Eren had asked. Because he could relate to the Marelyan child. There was a girl he was trying to protect too, who he'd raise hell over, who he'd destroy the world for.

The dark-haired boy can feel himself grow restless. There are a million things to do. Coups to start. Militia to gather. A brother to manipulate. A world to ruin.

But first, he needs to see you. It's already been so long. He had barked orders to Floch to make sure you were safe and secure. If any hair off your pretty little head was misplaced-well no one wants to witness the rage of the Founding Titan's holder.

CRASH

The ground shakes. Eren closes his eyes and lets the Warhammer titan's power course through his veins. Foolish to think any prison could ever hold him.

He's walking uphill. The sunset bathes the land in vibrant pinks, oranges, and light violets. There is a crowd of people standing tall and at attention, postures rigid, save for one.

You hurl towards him at the speed of light and twice the fury, wrapping your arms around his neck. If Eren wasn't six feet of hard muscle, he would have been knocked off his feet from the vigor of your crushing embrace.

"Eren!" You cry out.

The attack titan vessel is too shocked to respond. He's been anticipating your presence for the longest but to finally feel you in the flesh and to smell your soft pretty scent was sending him into overdrive. He couldn't believe you were tangible and not some hauntingly beautiful apparition.

He wraps his arms around you, enveloping your body in his warmth, and you rest your head in the crook of his neck. He feels your nimble fingers toying with his hair.

"I like this new look. It suits you." You mummer.

"Like me without a shirt too?" Eren teases.

He forgot how easy it was to be himself around you, to joke and laugh like he wasn't planning a global genocide of epic proportions. No, even that's an understatement. His goal was an omnicide, utter annihilation. Only Paradis will be left after the ashes settle. A Paradis with you.

"What are you thinking about?" You ask, eyes wide with an untouched innocence that Eren doesn't know how you still possess. All of that eager wide-eyed optimism had been snuffed out from all of his friends. From him. But you, you don't change like the seasons or winds. You're you.

And that was going to be his ruin.

After the Yeagerists brief him on what happened with Zackley and Zeke Yeager's possible whereabouts, Eren gives into his overwhelming urges to see you.

He approaches your chambers, trying to conceal his impatience with soft knocks. You don't answer which irritates him, so he knocks louder and louder, the sound of his fist banging against the door sounding like thunderclaps.

Where the fuck are you? Were you with someone right now? He knew you were getting a little too friendly with Floch from the way you guys were talking at dinner. It was so obvious. He's been gone, for what, a few months and you're already whor-

The door opens and exposes a sleepy-looking girl whose rubbing one of her eyes. Admittedly, very adorable.

"Eren" Your voice is saccharine, "Do you need anything?"

He lets himself in, and shuts the door behind him, locking it in place.

"I don't usually lock the door," You pout but there's a playfulness in your expression that Eren would have noticed had he not been consumed by rage.

"What? So you let anyone in?" He asks, nearly snarling out the words. as he stares scandalized at your slip of a nightgown. A pale translucent pink that reached the middle of your thighs. He could even make the outline of your nipples poking through.

"No, silly." You giggle, twirling the hem of your dress, "Floch's security measure." You pretended not to notice how Eren's fist clenches.

"Is that so?" Eren said, words spoken between gritted teeth. As long as Eren was here, there need be no concerns over security measures. But he knew Floch. The ginger worshipped the ground Eren walked on and would never make a move on you if he cared about his limbs staying intact.

You sat down on your bed and Eren couldn't help but watch your skimpy dress ride up your creamy thighs.

He stood over you, his form looming over yours as you sat on your bed, feet swinging above the ground.

"I wanted to ask you something."

You look up with those big childlike eyes, "Okay."

"Did. Anyone. Touch. You?" His voice is low and he punctuates each word slowly.

You blink "What do you mean?” But there’s a coy smile tugging at the corner of your lips.

"Quit playing dumb." He growls, anger evident in the crease between his eyebrows.

You're quiet for a still moment, mouth opening and closing. Eren's anxiety increases more each second and it finally boils over when you softly ask, "What kind of touch?"

Like a chess piece topping over, he shoves you down the bed, pinning your wrists with his strong hands.

Usually, Eren was smarter. Quicker to call you on your tricks. But alas, absence makes the heart fonder. You love making him lose his stoic composure, so lost in his lust and desire for you that all he can see crimson. And if the price for that is to play the fragile maiden, it is what it is.

"Ow." You pitifully whine, lightly shaking your right hand. Eren knew he wasn't holding you too hard so he experimentally thumbs over a certain spot on your right wrist, eliciting another small whimper. He brings your wrist closer to him and finds a purple bruise.

"Who touched you? Was is it any of the yeagerists?" His voice is deadly calm but an ice-cold rage simmers in his eyes. You can feel yourself growing excited, heat pooling in the bottom of your stomach. You’re rubbing your legs together for the friction but Eren assumes it a nervous tic to avoid answering any of his questions.

When you avert your gaze and simply look the side, he delicately cradles your cheek: “Was it the scouts?”

The delicate touch turns harsher when you don't respond, forcing your pretty head to look straight at him. He sees your eyes glistening, and when he looks into your dewy irises, he can see himself.

His voice drops a pitch, "Please tell me."

Your breathing is shallower and you can't help but enjoy this so much.

It's been so long since you've seen him-since you begged him not to go but he went anyway, and having him here right now--the pride and joy of the Eldian empire , the holder of the Founding Titan-unravel in your fingertips, well this was the closest to true power you've ever been.

Eren can feel his patience sleeping, anger seeping into his bones at your silence, and the bruise on your delicate wrist only serves to anger him further. He can't even do what he swore to do and that was to keep you safe.

"Are you not telling me who it is because you're protecting them?"

The words are delivered deadly calm with the tension of a brewing storm behind it. You're nervous, exactly aware of what your beau is capable of, but the excited kind of nervous where butterflies are swarming in your stomach.

Maybe you underestimated his anger because within a second, the telltale red lines start to form under his eyes, lightning bright sparks forming between each breath.

Without thinking, you envelop the back of his head with one arm (the other hand rendered useless bu the force of his hold), trying to bring his head into the softness your breasts.

Understanding your gesture, Eren immediately calms down and lets himself be smothered in your chest like a babe being cradled in his mother's warmth.

"There, there" you coo, words soft and melodious on your tongue.

You can feel wet-spots on your nightie, "Eren...are you-" you begin, not sure when to end.

His voice is tightly controlled as if not let his coiled emotions fuse again, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I was about to hurt you." He sounds so broken, and all you can do is stroke his hair.

You press a kiss to his head. You know what the right words to say are. You should be comforting him and assuring him he could never hurt you.

Instead you stay silent, softly exhaling. He can't see the pleased smile on your face.

*

"Your wrist feeling any better?"

You whip up your head to see Floch whose peering down at you in slight concern. You must have looked confused because he elaborated, "The one you accidentally banged against the doorway. Looked like it hurt."

"Oh." You pause, looking down at the fresh set of finger shaper marks overtaking the fading violet.

You laugh airily, "Yeah it's alright."

[peaceisadirtyword]

Heathen (Ivar/Edlynn)

A/N: Hello♥️ as I promised, here’s the first chapter of the new series I’m writing. The idea came to me when I was rewatching Vikings and then I planned it while rewatching The Last Kingdom. So I started writing it, doing a bit of worldbuilding to introduce some original characters and here I am. It’s set on season 6B (I'm changing things, so it will not follow the show’s storyline). And I was really excited to write the mature version of Ivar, so I’m sorry if he seems a bit out of character. This chapter might be a bit boring, but it serves as an introduction. I hope you enjoy it, thank you for reading🥰 I will post a new chapter every Thursday at 21:00 (CET). 

Warnings: mentions of violence and war, talk of arranged marriage, alcohol... Well, it’s Vikings😅

Words: 4197 

Summary

gif belongs to @therealcalicali 

"I've heard the pagans are back" 

Edlynn raised her head. She sat next to the window, and had spent most of the time looking at the rain falling outside as she leant her head against the wall. It had been raining a lot those days. The beautiful cloth she was trying to practice her embroidery on was already forgotten and abandoned on her lap, a bit dirty with blood from all those times she had poked her finger with the needle.

The queen looked nervous when one of the girls in the room mentioned the northmen. Edlynn had also heard her father and even the king himself talking about it, whispering and with a frown, like men do when they talk about a very serious matter. They had already evacuated some of the towns near the coast, but no one really told her what was happening. 

"We must trust on our men and on God" she smiled at her "They will protect England, they always have" 

"I heard the king is thinking about evacuating the city too" other of the girls whined "What if they find us?" 

"They won't, my dear" the queen looked uncomfortable "I don't know about the plans my husband has, he won't discuss them with me, but I'm sure he'll do what is best for our people" 

Edlynn bit her lip. Queen Elsewith was nervous, she had seen her ordering the servants to start packing slowly, in case everyone had to leave the town. And there were whispers and an uneasiness that everyone had noticed. 

Next to her, her friend Mildrith leant in to speak softly. 

"I hope we can see the heathens from up close this time" she giggled. 

Edlynn had to hold back a smile. For some reason, Mildrith had a fascination for the northmen that called themselves vikings, even if everyone else was scared of them. She had been infatuated with a viking boy that worked on the lands King Alfred had given to the northmen some time ago. Even if neither Mildrith nor Edlynn had been allowed to visit those lands, King Alfred invited some of the settlers to dine in his own home sometimes, to secure the good relations with them. The boy and Mildrith had had a short but intense romance that Edlynn helped to hide from her family and the king, and since then she had been obsessed with learning about their culture. 

Edlynn could understand why, their ways and their traditions were different from the ones she had grown up with, and anyone with a bit of curiosity in them would want to know more. But no one let her learn about their Gods or they beliefs, for it was a sin. 

"I don't think we will" she shook her head and spoke softly "The King won't let them"

"Maybe they will be invited for a feast" Mildrith bit her lip, excited "And we can see them. They say they're are the same ones that took York" 

"We should go and pray" one of the women in the room stood up, interrupting Edlynn as she was about to answer her friend "For the safety of our country and our king, ask God to protect us"

Some of the women muttered in agreement, and soon the room filled with the noise of everyone standing and walking to the door. But before she could even stand, the queen approached. Quickly, Mildrith and her bowed their heads at Queen Elsewith respectfully. 

"Edlynn, I'd like to talk to you for a moment, if you will" 

She nodded slowly, and Mildrith excused herself after widening her eyes. 

"Yes, queen Elsewith?" 

"I just wanted to see if you were alright, Edlynn, these days I've barely seen you" 

She bit her lip again. The queen was always nice and kind to her, but it was still the queen and she couldn't act like close friends with her. And she definitely couldn't speak her mind freely. 

"Yes, I'm fine" she smiled softly "These days I wasn't feeling too well, I... Spent some time in my chambers just resting" 

"I was worried about you, you disappeared just after your engagement to Lord Edmund, and as I've also been there, I thought maybe I could help" 

The engagement. She had tried her best not to think about it the past few days. Even if Edlynn knew since she was born that she'd have to marry a stranger, it was still awkward to meet a man during a small feast that was announced as her future husband just half an hour later. 

In any case, she was still lucky, Lord Edmund was handsome, young and, as far as everyone knew, nice. Edlynn wasn't that upset about it, but it was still overwhelming, and the fact that she'd have to abandon the court, her friends -oh, what would she do without Mildrith?- and her family to go and live in a stranger's home saddened her. 

"Lord Edmund is a very good man that I can't wait to get to know better, and I feel honored and lucky that he chose me to be his wife" Edlynn repeated the words that Hilda, the nun that raised her after her mother's death, had made her learn in preparation for this moment. 

Elsewith smiled sadly at the young girl. It was a woman's duty, but she saw a lot of herself on Edlynn and she knew she must have been scared and nervous, even if she understood it. But Edlynn had always been a proper and obedient lady and, like many other women in her position, learnt to hide her true feelings. She'd never do anything that went against her father and the King's wishes.

"The king would never have let him ask for your hand in marriage if he didn't know he's a good man, a good warrior and a good Christian" the queen reassured her "He loves your family a lot and just wishes a good life for you"

"I know, my queen, and I will always be thankful to him and to you for how much kindness you've shown me and my family" 

Her smile widened. 

"I also wanted to talk to you about Mildrith" Elsewith sighed and started walking to the door "She really shouldn't go around talking about how she'd like to meet a northman, it's... Not proper"

"I know" muttered Edlynn, following her "I'll talk to her" 

She nodded, and just before exiting the room, Elsewith took her hand and squeezed it softly. In some way, she had always considered Edlynn her friend. 

"Remember you can come and talk to me any time you need" the queen smiled again "Women understand each other much better than men" 

"I will" she nodded "Thank you, my queen" Edlynn bowed her head again before Queen Elsewith turned around, walking to the nearest chapel escorted by two of the guards. 

__________________________________________

King Alfred threw a feast to celebrate the engagement. Usually, this kind of things weren't celebrated that much, but Edlynn's father, Lord Eldred, had been close to King Aethelwulf and was close to King Alfred,  becoming one of his most trusted men after his mother's death. Besides, Alfred and Edlynn grew up together and even if with time the both of them had learnt to keep their relationship purely formal, he still had a soft spot for her. 

Edlynn's sister had been married to a lord from Mercia and her brother was a proud member of King Alfred's personal guard. Now it was her turn to make the family proud by doing her duty and what she had been born to: Stand next to her soon-to-be-husband and smile politely at strangers that couldn't care less about her and her happiness but that queued to wish the both of them a happy marriage. 

Even if she knew that was what she was supposed to do, it was still boring. 

"The king has told me you enjoy reading" Lord Edmund, sitting next to her, was the one that started the conversation after talking with the king and her father about war. 

Edlynn was surprised when he spoke to her. It was the first time the two of them talked. She wasn't very talkative, at least not at the beginning, and didn't really expect more from him than the usual formalities. She had seen marriages like this many times, and didn't really expected him to acknowledge her much in public.

"I do" she smiled politely. 

"It's nice, what kind of things you like to read?" 

"Mostly, about history" she bit her lip nervously "I find the Romans particularly interesting" 

Lord Edmund nodded. 

"I will make sure that you have enough to read back in my castle" he said softly "And don't be afraid of asking for anything that you need or want to feel comfortable" 

That surprised Edlynn even more. He smiled at her confused face and his grey eyes fixed on hers. 'At least he has pretty eyes' she thought. Maybe their children would inherit his grey eyes and not her brown ones. For some reason, she didn't feel that overwhelmed by the thought of a young child with his grey eyes and her auburn hair.

"I knew you were special since I saw you, when I first arrived here to take an oath to King Alfred after my father's death, that's why I asked your father for your hand in marriage, and I'm pleased to know there's much more about you behind your beauty" 

His words were so sweet, and one lock of his bright black hair fell next to his face, giving him an attractive look that made Edlynn understand why many women had been glaring at her since the engagement was announced. 

"You flatter me, my lord" she tried your best to sound confident "I appreciate your kindness, thank you" 

From the corner of her eye, she could see her father and Hilda, the nun, watching her. Edlynn straightened her back and kept talking to Lord Edmund, feeling a strange emptiness inside her. 

____________________________________

Ivar knew taking England wouldn't be easy, but it would definitely be easier if he was leading the entire army. 

King Harald had the last word, and even if he trusted him enough to let him think about the strategies, it wasn't the same. Ivar made a flawless plan, he thought about every single detail, and he knew exactly what the english would do. It wasn't too hard. 

"So, King Alfred is evacuating the city" Harald emptied his drink, taking another piece of meat before his deep blue eyes fixed on Ivar, who ate in silence next to his brother. Hvitserk ignored them, focusing on the food on his plate "Should we take it?"

Ivar raised an eyebrow and swallowed the food before taking his cup to drink some more ale. 

"We need to defeat Alfred first, we can't do much with just the city"

Harald shrugged. 

"Defeating him in battle won't change much either, we need to gain some more ground" 

Ivar hummed, nodding. 

"I agree, and we should try and find something that gives us some kind of advantage over them, because we are outnumbered and we can't defeat them just by winning battles, they can assemble another army faster than us" 

"And? You're the strategist here, Ivar" Harald chuckled. In some way, he was happy to have the youngest Ragnarsson back on his side.

"We need to find something that makes them surrender to our terms and buys us some time" Ivar raised an eyebrow. 

"Like a hostage?" Hvitserk raised his head for the first time since the food arrived. He let Ivar do the talk, and stuck to fighting. 

Ivar smirked at his brother. 

"Exactly. A hostage, dear brother" 

"I don't think that a couple of soldiers captured in battle will make them surrender to our terms" Harald shrugged again "We'd need someone else, someone like..."

"The queen" 

The king raised an eyebrow at him, while Ivar smiled softly.

"Christian women don't go to battle, and we can't try and break into their camp, there will be too many guards"

"Exactly, so we need to find a moment in which the men are occupied with something else, something like..."

"A battle" Hvitserk chuckled. 

Ivar nodded winking at his brother.

"So you mean to kidnap the queen during the battle" Harald nodded slowly "It could work"

"The queen won't be far from the battlefield, and there won't be so many guards" Ivar shrugged, taking another bite from his plate. 

"We could go and meet them on a battlefield, I already explored some of the lands around here and I think it would be easier to attract them to the woods" Ivar nibbled one of the ribs "Then, we ambush them, and keep them distracted enough time to sneak into their camp and take the queen"

"And then?" Harald looked interested. Sometimes, he found Ivar's mind fascinating.

"Then we negotiate" he shrugged "We just want some land, right? The queen in exchange for that land, I think it's a fair exchange, then, when we have the land, some resources and a place to settle down, we can continue fighting, because we will be stronger" 

"But he could betray us after he gets his queen back" Hvitserk raised an eyebrow. 

"I know Alfred, he won't" Ivar shook his head "Not as long as he thinks we're willing to stop the raids and the invasion if we get the land" 

"So we lie to him" Harald pointed, and Ivar nodded slowly. 

"But first" he raised an eyebrow "We need the queen"

_________________________________

 The beds on the camp were uncomfortable. Edlynn didn't complain, though, knowing everyone had bigger problems than worrying about her not getting any sleep. 

Just two days after the engagement feast, king Alfred ordered to evacuate the city. The northmen were too close, and it was too dangerous, it was the only explanation she got when her father bursted into the chambers and ordered to pack only the necessary. Edlynn barely saw him since then, as he and Edward, her brother, would ride with the king when everyone was moving and didn't leave the king's tent when they camped, too busy with battle plans and strategies. Queen Elsewith was also with them, and Edlynn's betrothed, Lord Edmund, too. Betrothed... It still sounded too irreal. At least, he rode next to the carriage she traveled in. 

Mildrith was the only one that found the entire thing exciting. Edlynn often found her wandering outside the camp, and didn't mind how many times she begged her to stay in the tent, Mildrith wouldn't listen. 

Edlynn could sneak a couple of books inside of her trunk, hidden between some dresses, and it was the only entertainment she had. 

"They say tomorrow there will be a battle" Mildrith muttered as she watched some of the soldiers training. It was raining and the both of them stayed inside of the tent, just at the entrance so Edlynn could read and Mildrith could watch the people around. 

"The King and our men will be victorious" Edlynn repeated what Hilda said every time she mentioned the war "We have God on our side"

Mildrith frowned, as she always did when she heard that phrase, which was the only thing everyone seemed to say these days.

"I'm not so sure about that, Lynn" she muttered "They are smart and their Gods are fierce, they say that they're lead by the same one that took York" she lowered her tone "Ivar the Boneless" 

Her friend raised an eyebrow, the name was familiar. 

"Why do they call him boneless?" 

"Because he can't walk" Mildrith shrugged like it was obvious "They say he crawls around like a snake, and that he's fierce and vicious... Some even say he's the Devil incarnated" 

Edlynn rolled her eyes.

"Those are tales, Mildrith, he's just a man" she chuckled "A cruel one, a heathen, but just a man, he's just like you and me" 

"Some women say he's handsome too" she giggled. 

"Have they seen him?" 

"Yes, in York, they said he's cruel but beautiful, just looking at him felt like a sin" 

Edlynn closed her book. 

"You shouldn't go around saying these things, Mildrith, anyone would think you're in love with that heathen"

She laughed out loud, making some of the soldiers near them turn to look at her. 

"I'm not in love with him, I don't know him" she shrugged "But I'd like to see him, at least once" 

Edlynn rolled her eyes again, shaking her head before going back to the book.

__________________________________

Edlynn didn't know how to feel when she saw the men leaving. King Alfred said goodbye to his queen and Edlynn hugged her father and brother. Even Lord Edmund kissed the back of her hand and bowed his head with a gentle smile on his lips. She didn't know how to react, as she never had to say goodbye to the men when they left to battle. Should I cry? Smile? She tried her best to imitate queen Elsewith. 

"Pray for us" her father kissed Edlynn's forehead softly for the last time before getting on his horse "And may God be with us" 

She nodded slowly and kept silent as they left the camp. 

After a couple of minutes in silence, the queen walked towards her, making Edlynn nervous. Will she scold me for not doing this well? 

"Edlynn, I'd like you to join me in my tent to pray for the safe return of the king and his men"

She looked around. Some of the women looked at her, probably jealous of seeing she had the queen's favor and thinking that was the reason why she had been betrothed to Lord Edmund. 

"Of course" Edlynn nodded her head respectfully, ignoring them.

The queen smiled brightly at her, relieved to hear her agreeing. She had a bad feeling about this new war, and worried about her husband, but  also hoped to find some kind of peace on the tent. 

"You can go, there's food and wine, I'll go talk to the priest first, and then I'll join you"

Edlynn nodded with a small smile. Her eyes found Hilda's, who smiled proudly at the young girl she loved so much. Mildrith waited until the queen had walked away and then approached her friend. 

"What's with you and the queen?" 

Edlynn shrugged. 

"I suppose she's just trying to be nice, after all she understands what's like to be betrothed to someone you don't know" 

"Oh" Mildrith bit her lip, almost like she had forgotten Edlynn was about to marry a stranger "Yes, it makes sense... Anyway, be careful, people will start thinking you're trying to win the queen's favor" 

Edlynn glanced to a group of women from the court, who looked at the both of them and whispered. 

"I'll go to the queen's tent now" she decided to ignore it "Join me later? We could go to the river and maybe bathe" 

Anything to avoid thinking about the battle that was probably going to take place soon. 

Mildrith nodded with a smile and waved at her as she approached the tent. The guards bowed their heads respectfully and moved to let her enter. It was much bigger than the tent Edlynn shared with Hilda, and the bed looked much comfortable than the one they had given to her. The bedding was soft and warm, and made her sigh in jealousy as her eyes wandered around the tent. 

There was a table with some food and wine on it, and Edlynn's mouth watered as she realized she still hadn't eaten. In front of the bed, there was a table with a cross and a few candles, which was where she supposed both the king and the queen said their prayers. 

Edlynn glanced at the entrance to make sure no one entered and quickly grabbed a grape from one of the bronze plates and turned around to savor it. She loved grapes, and the best ones could only be found at the king's table. 

But as she glanced down to hide her face in case the queen entered, Edlynn noticed something on the rug that covered the floor of the tent. Frowning, and wondering why there was a dark spot just before her, she bended down to examine it, widening her eyes when she realized it was blood. There wasn't just one spot, but a trail that disappeared behind a curtain, and suddenly she realized something else. 

The guards didn't ask who I was before letting me in. 

Before Edlynn could even react, someone grabbed her from behind, putting their hands on her mouth to stifle the scream that left her throat. She writhed and fought, but there was two of them, too strong for her. Suddenly, she heard a whisper on a foreign language and then an intense pain on the back of her head as one of the two men hit the back of her head with the handle of his sword before there was only darkness. 

________________________________

Ivar was proud. Once again, he ensured a clear victory over the saxons with a flawless plan, and he demonstrated he still was the brilliant strategist everyone admired. Even Harald looked impressed to see that the risky plan to defeat King Alfred's army had been successful. Ivar seemed to read the young king's mind perfectly, and if everything had gone well with the other part of the plan, they'd have a queen waiting for them in the camp that would make things even easier for them. Hvitserk also looked satisfied, having missed the adrenaline of the battlefield and the satisfaction of killing too much. Harald admitted he was wary of those two, with Ivar's sharp mind and Hvitserk's skills in battle, they were nearly unbeatable. 

Thanks Odin any of them had given any signs of wanting the crown of Norway Harald had fought so hard to get. But he still didn't trust Ivar completely. 

But now they had a common cause, and he hoped that controlling some lands in England would satisfy Ivar's hunger for power. 

"So..." Ivar didn't speak until he had finished two horns of ale. The intensity of the battle, standing for so long and walking with the crutches left him exhausted "Do we have a queen or not?" 

The men that had just entered the tent, still wearing the saxon's armor, bowed their heads before speaking. 

"We do" one of them smiled victoriously "She's unconscious, but guarded, we had to hit her to bring her here" 

Hvitserk raised an eyebrow. Ivar had made very clear that he didn't want the queen harmed. Not yet at least, he had said with a chuckle the night before, Alfred won't surrender to our terms if we harm her. 

"She's fine, though" the other man glared at his companion "It was just a small blow on the head" 

Harald nodded, ignoring the stern glare Ivar sent their way. 

"Try and wake her up" the king ordered "We'll talk to her before feasting and resting" 

The men bowed again and left. Harald then turned to look at the brothers. In some way, it hurt to see them so close again, reminding him of his own brother, who had also been his most loyal friend. The Ragnarssons didn't have the best relationship, but he noticed they looked much closer since they went back to Kattegat after being with the Rus. He didn't know what had happened there between them, but now he was sure no one could get between them. He envied them for that. 

Now they seemed to be having a conversation in silence, with just some stares and grimaces. 

"Your plan worked" he said out loud, looking at Ivar. The youngest son of Ragnar shot him a cocky smile. 

"Of course it worked, saxons are predictable" he shrugged "And Alfred won't dare to attack us when we have his queen" his eyes shone with pride. 

"I wonder if she's pretty" Hvitserk muttered with a dreamy smile as he chewed on a piece of bread. Harald smirked at that, he understood the feeling of coming back from battle and feeling the need to have a woman after filling his belly with warm food and cold drinks. It helped to relax. 

Ivar rolled his eyes. He was never as interested in women as his brothers were, and the few times he actually was with women had ended in disaster. So he couldn't understand the obsession. 

"She's a christian, so probably not" he shrugged "Anyway, that's the last thing we should worry about" 

"There are beautiful christian women out there, little brother" Hvitserk chuckled, amused by his brother's annoyance. 

"They're weak" he narrowed his eyes "They are always scared, they don't fight and they don't have the spirit and the courage of viking women"

"How many christian women have you met, Ivar?" Harald laughed. 

Ivar frowned. He had had too much contact with christians for his liking.

"Anyway" he scowled, annoyed, as he stood up leaning on his crutch "Let's go, we have a queen to meet".

__________________________________

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[jaskiersvalley]

I loved your fic about witchers being afraid of moths so much. I suffer mottophobia as well and the thought that witchers feel the same is nice. So thank you!!!

Nonnie, I'm so pleased you liked that story! Phobias of any kind can be so stressful, I hope moths don't bother you all that often. While I don't have another phobia story for you, I have something a little different that I hope you enjoy.

CW: Panic attacks

It had taken Aiden several years before he broached the idea of wintering together. He knew Lambert went to Kaer Morhen each season and didn't want to be rude by inviting himself to the Wolves' den. But he also didn't want to make Lambert have to choose between seeing his family for the season and accompanying Aiden to the Caravan. Really, he need not have feared because as soon as he brought up the topic of winter, Lambert was jumping at the chance.

"Want to go to the Caravan?"

Just like that, they spent three years wintering with Cats. Lambert fit right in, helping with life on the road without a hitch, messing around, teaching tricks and learning new ones in equal measure. He cooked, did repairs and was as accepted into the Caravan as a stranger could be. It made Aiden wonder whether he missed the pack feel of his own family of Wolves.

"This year-" he said with some hesitance late one summer, "-why don't we go north? Kaer Morhen has probably missed its youngest Wolf."

If Lambert's expression was anything to go by, he didn't agree. "Does the Caravan not want me this year?"

"What?" Aiden scoffed at the notion. "No! I thought you knew they all dote on you. I just thought you might want to spend a season with your family. You met mine..." Not that he'd ever say it out loud but Aiden wanted to meet Lambert's family too, he didn't want to be a shameful secret.

The terse "fine" sounded anything but fine. However, Lambert refused to discuss it any further and, come winter, he led them north. By the time they got to the bottom of the mountain Lambert was tense, quiet and anything he said was cutting. It wasn't the Lambert Aiden knew at all. But he reasoned that maybe Lambert was nervous about bringing a Cat home. The higher up they got, the faster Lambert's heart beat. Perhaps it was the excitement of coming home after so long, at least that was what Aiden told himself. He figured once they were done with the dangerous path up to Kaer Morhen then Lambert would relax. He was wrong.

They made it into the warmth of the halls and what followed was the most uncomfortable introduction Aiden had ever endured. Lambert stopped, arms crossed over his chest as he regarded the other three.

"This is Aiden. You break him, I break your necks." With that, Lambert stomped out, bristling and grumbling under his breath. Hastily, Aiden followed after a quick wave that the three Witchers looking suitably non-plussed by it all.

What was strange was that Lambert didn't settle. He was a fountain of bitter remarks, sarcastic quips and brash aggression. Aiden couldn't make heads or tails of it. The others didn't react, didn't seem like they even wanted to try and calm the situation. In the end Aiden couldn't stand by anymore and cornered Eskel, demanding answers.

"What do you mean?" The thing was, Eskel genuinely seemed confused. "That's just Lambert for you. You've known him for years now, surely you're used to it."

But Aiden wasn't. He hadn't seen Lambert like that before, so on edge. "No," he replied in the end. "This isn't how I know him. His heart rate's high, he's callous, spikey, lashing out. That's not the Lambert I know."

The look Eskel gave him was one of strange reproach. "The mutagens didn't fully take with him, his heart's always been faster than a normal Witcher's. As for the rest, I don't know what swamp water you drink to block it out but that's Lambert in a nutshell."

It wasn't. Aiden knew Lambert, spent years listening to his steady heartbeat, relishing when they fell in sync most nights. He'd seen the kindness and patience Lambert had out on the Path and at the Caravan. There was no mocking for getting footwork wrong, no calling the other person an idiot with a scoff. Nor had Aiden ever seen Lambert pace before, a restless tracing of a path between window and door of the bedroom. The growled "don't touch me" sounded full of threat, so much like a dog trying to prove he could really hurt an opponent in an effort to stave off an actual fight. Seeing Lambert like that hurt and Aiden didn't know what had provoked the change.

Things got worse when they were making repairs to Kaer Morhen, trying to undo all the damage the sacking had done. With the parts they inhabited secure and warm, Vesemir directed their work to the dungeons, salvaging what they could. Smoke stained books and scrolls along with bottles that contained the dregs of potions were pulled from partially collapsed rooms. Lambert was exceptionally acerbic, sniping at everyone including Aiden. It was all ignored until he snapped at Vesemir, "so what's the plan here, old man? Going to open up the torture chambers again to get your rocks off?"

"Another word from you and you'll be running the Killer twice before each meal," Vesemir growled, grabbing another thick book covered in ash and rock debris.

Throwing his hands up, Lambert stormed off, muttering about how he'd rather run the Killer night and day than suffer this idiocy. Nobody seemed to care that his breath had hitched and heartrate was rocketing higher. Well, Aiden cared. Seeing as none of the others looked interested in following Lambert, he took it upon himself.

"Best to leave him," Eskel called after him. "He'll probably destroy a few training dummies in a fit of rage and then calm. Ignoring him leads to the fewest injuries for all."

Not that Aiden cared. He followed the sour scent that Lambert had been coated in all winter, maybe even before that. True to Eskel's prediction, he was in the training yard but he wasn't decimating dummies. Instead, Lambert was staring blankly off into the distance, muscles locked into a tense hunch.

"Lamb?"

His name seemed to jerk Lambert out of whatever thoughts he'd gotten lost in. Whirling, he rounded on Aiden with a snarl. Not rising to it, Aiden held a arm open and stepped closer, inviting Lambert into a cuddle. His heart broke a little when Lambert reared away, spitting with rage. "Don't touch me!"

Truthfully, Aiden didn't have to, he could see the solid lines of muscles, coiled tight. Everything about Lambert screamed to be left alone but he couldn't, not when there was something so underlyingly wrong. If Aiden didn't know any better, he'd have said that anyone else behaving like Lambert was having a silent panic attack. Maybe Aiden didn't know any better. He'd rarely heard Lambert speak of Kaer Morhen or the others, and when it did it wasn't with fondness. Around them was destruction, every stone imbued with memories of a hard life. Aiden knew that the instructors were harsh, often punishing Lambert with a cane or deprivation as he grew up. Vesemir had been one of those men and Lambert had to face his tormentor on a daily basis. They'd been digging up the dungeon where the trials had been administered, pulling what they could on how to recreate the them. Each crumbling wall was another layer of memories of the sacking, of a life Lambert hated but had no idea how to leave behind. When the misery was the only thing he knew, the only steady thing in his life, it was easier to cling to it rather than embrace the terror of the unknow.

Keeping his distance, Aiden nodded. "It's okay." It wasn't but he had no idea what else to say. They were going to have to get through winter, it was too late to head down the mountain. But as soon as it was safe, Aiden was whisking Lambert away from it. He wasn't letting him face the traumas of his past again and again. It wasn't healthy to rip open those wounds, to come face to face with living memories each time he saw Vesemir and Kaer Morhen.

When Aiden stepped in again, Lambert didn't scuttle away. Instead, he was stiff as a board in Aiden's arms, quivering with pent up emotions. Slowly, Aiden rubbed his back, tried to urge him to relax into his hold. Ever so gradually Lambert did, letting Aiden take a fair chunk of his weight as the shaking got more pronounced. Without a word, Aiden held him, gave him the quiet and the space to finally fall apart. It made him wonder whether, in years gone by, Lambert would allow himself to break apart each night in the privacy of his room. Now, with Aiden there, had he been trying to hold it all together, no space safe enough to let his emotions out? Shuddering at the thought, Aiden held Lambert tighter. Come next year, they were going to spend winter with the Caravan again. Never again was Lambert going to have to face the haunting wraiths of his past. Not if Aiden could help it.