#▲;; ( my heart's an endless winter filled with rage ) || ic

[qitwrites]

Six professional heroes are stuck under a building.

It sounds like the beginning of a bad joke, but it’s actually just a fact.

Shoto, Ground Zero, Deku, Chargebolt, Earphone Jack, and Cellophane had been called on site to apprehend a huge group of villains. Between rescuing civilians from compromised buildings and taking out villains one at a time, they’d finally backed the last few into a corner, only to have the building collapse during the final showdown. So, they’re stuck here now, in a pocket of space underneath tons of rubble and the remnants of the building itself. The villains lay unconscious in the far corner, bound impossibly tight by Cellophane’s tape

‘I am going to bust the fuck out of here right now.’

Everyone groans at Bakugou.

‘Kacchan-‘ Midoriya tries.

‘Shut up, stupid Deku!’ Bakugou rages, fingers sparking. ‘If you’d worked faster, we never would’ve gotten stuck! Shit.’

Kaminari punches Bakugou’s arm lightly. ‘Lay off man, we all did fine. This was just unexpected’

‘Don’t touch me. And fuck you too. Fuck everything, I’m leaving-‘ Bakugou points his arms at the rubble just as Jirou plugs her earphone into his ear and gives him a shock of vibration, enough to startle him and make him yelp.

Before he can go off again, she holds up a hand, ‘I’ve already assessed the damage. The balance is precarious enough as is. If you move so much as a block, this is coming down on us, hard. And I, for one, would like to end this night with a beer in my hand, not at the hospital with a broken back.’

‘I second that.’ Sero calls out. Todoroki just nods, and Midoriya is smiling helplessly.

Bakugou curses viciously again but doesn’t bring up the topic of blasting shit up. Jirou reaches Uraraka on her phone, who says she’ll be there asap. The space fills with an easy mix of quiet murmurs and comfortable silences.

And then the cold sets in.

It’s easy to forget you’re in the dead of winter when you’re hopped up on adrenaline and right in the middle of a life-and-death situation, but when things settle down, shit gets real again. The day is below freezing, and even winter hero costumes aren’t equipped to keep you warm in the long term.

Todoroki barely feels the cold. With his temperature regulating quirk, he’s able to acclimatize to most weather conditions instantly. Over the years, its gone from being a conscious effort to a completely unconscious one, as easy and natural as breathing. His body know what temperature he’s most comfortable at, and it adjusts.

He’s leaned up against one of the broken walls, and Midoriya is propped against the surface perpendicular to him on his right. They are maybe 5 feet apart. Jirou is further down the same wall as Midoriya, and Bakugou and Kaminari are in front of Todoroki. Sero is on his left side, in front of Midoriya.

When Todoroki pays attention, he realizes his left is burning hotter than usual, in an attempt to maintain his inner temperature. It’s almost like a game to him, seeing how finely he can balance temperatures within himself, hot and cold, fire and ice.

‘To-Todoroki.’

He looks up and sees Midoriya staring at him, a small, uncertain smile on his lips, eyes bright with an idea.

‘Yes?’

‘I- um, would you- would it be alright if I sat to your left? I’m really, really cold.’ Upon closer inspection, Todoroki can see his lips turning slightly blue. Even his voice shakes from the cold.

Todoroki barely thinks about it. ‘Sure, no problem.’

Midoriya scrambles to his feet and walks over to his left before sinking down, carefully leaning his arm against Todoroki’s. He sighs immediately, slumping into the wall and gently pressing a bit more into that warmth.

‘That feels amazing,’ he mumbles, holding his other hand out and hovering it over Todoroki’s left side. ‘You practically radiate heat. It’s so useful.’

Todoroki huffs out a laugh and turns up the heat a notch, hot enough that he’s properly radiating but not so much that it will hurt the arm pressed against his. Even through the clothing, Todoroki knows that a lack of control can hurt his friend.

Midoriya’s eyes widen at the heat and he gives him a big, happy grin. ‘Thank you.’

Todoroki shakes his head. ‘Really not an issue. Barely takes any effort on my part.’ He shuts his eyes and leans his head back, intent on resting a little. The week’s been tough, filled with more villain cases than usual, and the paperwork has been endless, keeping him up much later than usual. Seems like everyone’s had difficult weeks- they’re all subdued, lacking their usual snark and energy.

When his eyes slip open a few minutes later, he finds Kaminari next to a sleeping Midoriya, with his eyes barely open. Sero has also moved, pressed against Kaminari, but Bakugou and Jirou haven’t moved yet.

Todoroki looks over at Kaminari, catches his eye and sees the slight shiver that runs up his spine.

He takes stock of their positions, does some quick calculations, and then makes up his mind with a nod.

Carefully, without jostling the still asleep Midoriya too much, Todoroki pulls his arm away and wraps it around Midoriya’s shoulder, pulling him flush into his left side, resting Midoriya’s head into his neck. The man continues to sleep, his even warm breath puffing against the skin of Todoroki’s neck. He then catches Kaminari’s eye again and flexes the fingers of his left hand before pointing to Kaminari’s neck. The blonde looks hella confused for a second but scoots closer nonetheless, and Todoroki places his warm hand against the bare skin of Kaminari’s neck, right against his nape.

The man goes limp against his grip, breathing out a groan of relief.

‘Fuck, that’s good,’ he whispers, snuggling into Midoriya to mooch the heat he’s mooching from Todoroki.

They stay like that for a few moments when Todoroki sees movement in the corner of his eyes. Jirou stands up from where she was sitting and walks towards the pile of people. She catches Todoroki’s eyes, and he sees how hesitant she is. She’s always been respectful of boundaries and space, so he can understand her feelings, if only a little. He gives her what he hopes is a reassuring smile.

‘I really don’t mind,’ he says softly. ‘It feels nice actually, to be able to use this quirk for something like this.’

Jirou holds his gaze for a moment longer before nodding. She sinks to her knees in front of Midoriya, and with a little bit of shifting and moving, Todoroki finds himself with Jirou’s head on his lap. It works because Midoriya’s sleeping with his legs folded in, and Kaminari follows suit, giving Jirou the space she needs. Sero joins her a few moments later, latching onto Todoroki’s calf, his fingers wrapped around the muscle.

Todoroki cranks up the heat a little, and everyone sighs together. Midoriya snuggles in deeper in his sleep, Kaminari moves in closer, and Jirou’s head turns to the side, cheek pressed into Todoroki’s thigh.

Tipping his head back again, Todoroki lets the weight of the bodies around him settle into his skin, and he feels a warmth build inside his chest, as unrelated to his quirk as it gets. He can hear the firm beats of his heart, just like he can feel the pulse in Kaminari’s neck. Midoriya’s hand has slid into Jirou’s hair, and Jirou’s hand has wrapped itself around Todoroki’s left side, fisting the material. They’re all tired, exhausted beyond belief, and in the midst of this incredulous situation, they find the safety to sleep.

When Todoroki’s eyes sluggishly drift open again, there’s a solid weight on his chest. He can’t look down, but he sees ash blonde hair just under his chin, and he smells Bakugou, sweet and ashy, as always. He must’ve pushed Todoroki’s right leg away and settled against his chest. He’s curled into the left side, his head above Todoroki’s heart, breathing even. The villains don’t make a peep – Midoriya and Bakugou had knocked them out cold – and the night is silent. Moonlight makes it through cracks in the rubble, forming small pools on the broken floor.

Todoroki’s heart is full.

He drops his head down to Midoriya’s, and he does exactly what his body asks him to.

In that moment, Todoroki just sleeps.

[lovelyrhink]

seven

Please, picture me in the trees I hit my peak at seven Feet in the swing over the creek I was too scared to jump in

summers with rhett are link’s favorite. link feels the most at peace when he’s having fun with his best friend without the churning, gossipy routines of school and schoolwork. he loves the sun, loves rhett in the sun. he loves rhett and how beautiful he looks and moves about in the sun, in the woods. hiking, swimming, chasing, playing- link will have him anywhere, but their youthful hearts stay tied creekside, ropeswinging into summer’s clear waters. rhett was brave and always jumped, but link was scared. he was always too shy to fall.

Sweet tea in the summer Cross your heart, won't tell no other

rhett and his weird friend, they call them. always together, stumbling ‘round town with dirty sneakers and a blood oath on their hands. catch them laughin’ outside the church or rasslin’ in the tall grass; they pick the bugs out of each other’s hair afterwards, like monkeys. they play cowboys sometimes, but spend the golden season riding bikes to hidden spots instead of horses. they always come back for supper. rhett’s mama will sometimes have black iced tea ready for them at the end of the day. and they like each other so much, sitting there on the porch, sipping sweetness, secrets, as the sky turns orange.

And I've been meaning to tell you I think your house is haunted Your dad is always mad and that must be why

two winters before rhett and link leave for college, rhett’s dad goes red in the face and snaps, meanness thrown about the house as link hides on the stairs, peeking through the railing like he’s not there. rhett’s father- his edges are so unlike his son’s, which are sharp with wit and creativity, and so much like the helpless burn when someone throws salt in your wounds. rhett holds anger for his father’s anger, which seems to flare only when rhett feels his most vulnerable. link sees this, and watches from the stairwell cove as something stiffens his friend’s upper lip and makes his gray eyes go slate.

Before I learned civility I used to scream ferociously Any time I wanted

they’re men now. their confusion, pain, and anger have become a tired, frustrated wisdom, and many years go by before link realizes he would’ve loved a second chance. link always thought he could’ve been someone different when it came to feelings. look now, a new type of love for his old friend. as the moon fills and unfills, link’s love for rhett waxes, wanes through the years. a marriage ceremony will do that. the ache that link feels is not one of jealousy, envy, rage, betrayal, but a deep longing. link feels this love with an intensity that has him acting strange. rhett was never the cold one, link realizes.

Love you to the Moon and Saturn Passed down like folk songs The love lasts so long

one day, we’re going to create something beautiful together, they said. one day, there’s going to be so much love in our lives that we won’t ache for the years we lost. it’s christmas day some years from today, and the men stand looking upon their large, noisy family. link feels the memory of an ache, but love has smothered it out. he has his love, he has his rhett, as rhett has his love and his love’s love, and rhett has him. paper shreds under grabby, little hands, and the spice of cinnamon drifts in from the warm kitchen. someone hums, then someone else is led off by a needy child, and only two are left. sitting together, admiring the glittering view of love and loves beyond. their hands touch in the dark, and they have found that endless, boundless love. eternal.

[wolf-and-bard]

@winter-fir: Sofia, my darling, this was written as a birthday present and with you in mind. Thank you for being such a delightful, funny, mad scientist genius friend, I love you. I wanted to give you some Arnaghad/Erland fluff and it didn’t turn out fluffy at all, it’s a rambly mess and I’m sorry. It did turn into a continuation and a prompt fill, I hope you don’t mind. 😂 I also hope you ate a lot of cake today ❤

Steal My Heart Again

Prompt: Isolation

Relationships: Arnaghad/Erland of Larvik

Rating: E

Content Warnings: apocalypse-appropriate sentiments (aka hopelessness), explicit sexual content, swear words, minor character death (past)

Summary: This is a sequel to Drown With Me If You Can. Erland and Arnaghad have made it to the safety of Kaer Seren’s cellars and have to face life during the apocalypse. They cope in different ways. In which: Erland wallows some more and Arnaghad wants cuddles. 

Word Count: ~3k

AO3 Link I @witcher-rarepair-summer-bingo​

In the latter years of the 1130s, a conflict between the Northern Realms of Redania, Kaedwen, and Kovir and Poviss sprouted up in which Kovir and Poviss petitioned to gain sovereignty.

Erland pauses to ponder his next words and in that pause, becomes aware of something stirring.

Witchers usually sniff and listen before something breeches their line of sight, but with his beloved bear, it’s even more intense. Erland can hear the giant’s footsteps pound in tune with his own heart as soon as Arnaghad rises from his meditative perch at least four rooms down the hallway. Erland can smell the endorphins that chase each other through Arnaghad’s bloodstream as soon as he calls out for Erland, still far away. They have a different scent for every person and witcher picking up on them.

For Erland, Arnaghad’s contentedness smells like toasted white bread and strawberry jam. Conversely, Arnaghad is reminded of the concoction of oils and herbs he treats his old bearskin with so that it retains its texture whenever Erland smiles. Everything about Arnaghad is intense, as is the emotional knot Erland carries tucked between his lungs, the one that is made up of strings of the past and present that have become inevitably entangled. There is no easy emotion here and so Erland shoves them all aside in favour of putting down his next lines.

It came to pass that, under the supervision of the Hierarch of Novigrad, then Walter Beda, the rulers of the three countries met to negotiate the agreement. King Radovid III of Redania and King Benda of Kaedwen sailed on the Redanian flagship Alata to Lan Exeter where Gedovius Troyden, then Earl and later King of Kovir, met them, accompanied by his wife Gemma. Thus, the First Treaty of Lan Exeter was forged, and Kovir and Poviss gained the right to call themselves a kingdom.

Erland blows on the ink and the smell intensifies so much that his mouth waters. He glances to the side to see the bear appear in the hallway.

“There you are,” Arnaghad rumbles when he arrives at Erland’s small chamber which used to be a storage for barrels in need of repair. He shoulders through the narrow doorway without knocks or ceremony, and his bare feet slap against the stone, warmed by an underground pool of water which is suffused by heat from the earth’s core. With the White Frost raging outside the keep of Kaer Seren - in whose basement they currently reside in - even that heat will fade and freeze, but it has not been touched yet. They have not been touched yet, they made it to the safety of this hidden hearth and it nearly cost them their lives. “What are you doing, birdie?”

“Writing,” Erland says absent-mindedly and growls when Arnaghad’s hulking form blots out the light of half the torches as he approaches the makeshift desk. It’s a splintered plank of wood propped up on two empty barrels, a third one – overturned – functioning as the chair. The rest of the room is bare save for the rusted grates in which the torches reside and a wicker basket full of half-rotten corks. The griffins used to collect them to fashion floormats for the baths with. The griffins that now lay buried under rubble, only a story or two above Erland’s and Arnaghad’s heads. He tries not to think about that as he writes, writes, writes.

“Why, thank you dearest beloved, I had not figured that out for myself.”

Erland shrugs and bends further over his page. He is halfway through his account and he has to keep going while the words still come easily and his hand hasn’t cramped up. It tends to do that a lot these days, whether from writing, shovelling endless masses of snow or from stroking Arnaghad’s oversized cock. The first one is a need to preserve what might otherwise get lost, the second a necessity so their one exit from Kaer Seren doesn’t get blocked completely. The third activity is all pleasure and indulgence and re-learning the body of a man he thought lost to him for so long.

Arnaghad, the obnoxious idiot, steps closer and squints over Erland’s shoulder which truly sucks up the rest of the flickering illumination. His burly hand comes to rest on Erland’s head – now freshly shaven into his preferred undercut again with his hair woven into complex patterns Arnaghad yet remembers from his home – and his chin presses against Erland’s temple.

“’Kovir’s Independence and the First Treaty of Lan Exeter’,” Arnaghad reads out loud from the top of the page. “The fuck does this have to do with you? Are you trying to write a world history?”

“You forget where we are,” Erland murmurs and finishes his sentence, placing a small asterisk with a number ten atop the last word for yet another footnote.

“I haven’t.” Arnaghad plucks the feather from Erland’s hand and rises a little, takes the bent fingers into his own and strokes along them to straighten them out, one by one. Erland sighs and sags against the bear, letting fatigue wash over him, wash away his ambition for the day. “You forget where you are. Who you are and who you are with.”

“I might have,” he admits sheepishly and closes his eyes, listens to the faint gurgle of Arnaghad’s stomach. It’s a simple, well-crafted lie. Erland never forgets and how could he?

“I understood the journal,” Arnaghad says. “Well, I wasn’t willing to give my life for it as you were, but I understood why you wrote it. The ice might melt, the beasts might return and for that, whoever is to inhabit this world may need the information you captured. But this is unfathomable.”

“Of course, it would be to you.”

“What is that supposed to mean? Are you calling me stupid?”

“No,” Erland says and melts as Arnaghad’s hands let go of his to gently massage his shoulders. It’s only when the static pain slowly ebbs away that Erland realizes just how long he’s been sitting hunched over his notes. Each word an investment with so little parchment leftover.

“Then what? Why are you doing this?”

“Doesn’t matter.” Erland sighs and ducks out of his lover’s grip to get up and pop his joints. Avoiding Arnaghad’s gaze, Erland extinguishes the torches with a flurry of precise Aards and makes to leave the room.

The bear wouldn’t understand in a million years why Erland writes the chronicle, would probably call it a waste of energy and resources. There is utility in writing a bestiary, there is only sentiment in writing a history. And perhaps a flicker of hope that whatever civilization rises from the rubble of the Ice Age will not repeat their forebearer’s mistakes. Except no. Erland may be an idealist at heart, but not enough that this hope has a chance of threading through the fabric of his motivation.

His motivation is woven in entirely selfish materials. It’s distraction, it’s occupation, it’s indulging in self-pity and nostalgia, melancholy and pride. It’s to keep himself from spiralling into depression and forgetfulness, to keep his brain from deterioration. Between fucking and eating and sleeping, Erland needs mental stimulation more than exercise.

Arnaghad, on the other hand, spends his hours in meditation and weapon-less drills, doing push-ups by the hundreds, handstands by the hours, pull-ups by the thousands. His massive body, in spite of the lethargy and sluggishness his form might suggest, needs constant movement. To prevent muscle atrophy and to keep himself alert and strong for whatever they have to face.

For now, what they have to face is endless isolation. Just the two of them, a slowly but steadily dwindling supply of dried meats and herbs, pickled vegetables and fruit, and barrels upon barrels of ale. Most of them brewed with the recipe Keldar perfected over decades of teaching young griffins to hold their alcohol alongside their swords.

Keldar.

Erland tries not to think of the old griffin master, especially tries not to think about how they found his body, a frozen statue before the crumpled gates of Kaer Seren, half-buried in snow by the time that Arnaghad and Erland fought their way to the keep. He’d survived the avalanche, had stayed at the school, and Erland had abandoned him. Him too.

Dear old Keldar, dutiful to his last moments. It was what every griffin would have done, every one except for Erland it seemed.

“Birdie,” Arnaghad says, tapping the side of Erland’s skull where his griffin tattoo decorates his shaved skin. They walk side by side, down the endless winding corridors of Kaer Seren’s basement system towards the centre where the heat is the most intense. It’s also where they set up their meagre bedroll, a heap of old linens with Erland’s quilt and Arnaghad’s bearskin on top. “You’re getting lost in your thoughts again.”

“What were you saying?” Erland asks and pushes open the door to their bedroom. Slap, slap, go Arnaghad’s feet as he enters while Erland’s follows after him. He wears both their socks, still more prone to the cold even down here.

“Nothing,” Arnaghad says. He stops in the middle of their room – all grey brick cast in flame from the torches Erland managed to keep perpetually burning. It’s a trick he perfected back when the signs where first developed where he can attach the power of a sign to an object. So, he tethered an Igni to each of the torches, and he did not tell Arnaghad that this constantly pulls on his own energy. The bear would worry and call that too a waste of resources. But Erland would rather be tired by firelight than wide-awake in perpetual darkness, calculating in his head the days that remain to them. “Come here, you look fatigued.”

Erland catches Arnaghad’s steady gaze, darkened by his heavy brow and chiselled face, a small smile tugging on his oh so stoic lips. His hair is neatly bound at the base of his skull, two ceremonial mini-braids framing his cheeks to either side. He wears naught but a simple set of beige linen clothes these days, linens that tug and pull at his bulging muscles. He’s more than a brick wall, he’s as unmoving as the very ground they stand on. Arnaghad cannot be taken apart with brute force, it takes more subtler means of attack to undo him. Erland knows them all intimately and perhaps that is exactly why Arnaghad opens his arms to him then. Erland sighs. He has the rest of Radovid III’s reign to chronicle and his stomach is still on fast-mode. The only reason he came here in the first place was… to… Erland sneezes and the torches flicker. He knows when he’s defeated.

“I am tired,” he admits and crosses the distance between them. If ever there is such a space, unbridgeable at times, invisible at others, it is because Erland put it there. Not intentionally and not always happily, but if things went Arnaghad’s way, they would be close always. The man that envelops Erland in a tight hug has a constant hunger for touch and affection, and Erland has trouble having that piece slide into the greater mosaic he has constructed of his lover over the past centuries.

‘You’re getting old and sappy,’ Erland said to him once, three orgasms into the night and Arnaghad still insisted on holding him close. ‘Sappy and cuddly. I do not recognize you.’

‘Nor I myself,’ Arnaghad replied. If they were other people they might have attributed it to love, how it had overcome everything, how, here at the end of all things, it was them against the apocalypse. How they needed to hold onto each other for there was nothing else to hold onto. But Erland is an idealist, not a romantic, and Arnaghad a pragmatist, not an intellectual, and so that was where the conversation died then.

“You should rest more,” Arnaghad says.

“What a waste of time,” Erland replies and rises to the tips of his toes, uses Arnaghad’s bull neck for purchase to pull himself up. They’re barely eye to eye, but that doesn’t matter when he can finally tilt his head and kiss the tiny frown from Arnaghad’s face. It’s a matter of last resort as well as personal pleasure. Erland is in no mood to argue about his newfound hobby and he does want. Wants so much, so deeply it aches to the core of his bones. They’re still working through their differences – and that, he suspects, will take longer than any written history might – but with each day, Erland can allow himself a little more. He can allow himself to slot their lips together and push his tongue deeply into Arnaghad’s mouth, can allow himself to melt into his bear’s arms and let his rumbling groan rattle his skeleton. Erland smiles at the zealous manner in which Arnaghad’s whole body responds to the kiss. His hands, splayed across Erland’s shoulder blades, tighten, his cock stirs when Erland licks and sucks and adds a moan of his own, his shoulders rise. He’s so passionate, has so much to give, something that Erland has trouble keeping up with.

If half of this witcher had been the one leading the bear school, where could it have climbed to? What could it have accomplished if the abysses between its members hadn’t been quite so gaping? Erland tries not to wonder, tries not to rewrite the course of time in endless thought spirals, but it’s so hard. It’s another reason why he has to focus on the actual past. Because if he doesn’t remind himself that it is set in stone, if he doesn’t capture it with his own words, he starts to trail down the paths of forgotten ‘what ifs’, of unforgettable ‘what ifs’, of the ‘what ifs’ that are neither forgotten nor unforgettable, that are too daring to even consider. Erland loses himself in thought and it is then perhaps a blessing that he can lose himself in Arnaghad’s embrace instead.

“Do you think we could have dinner tonight?” Arnaghad asks after they part, even though he knows the answer. It’s worrying, a true sign that not even Arnaghad has an endless reservoir of energy. His hunger is much more vicious than Erland’s and it’s getting harder and harder for him to wait the intervals they settled on in order to stretch the food as long as they can. Usually, he doesn’t ask. Usually, his voice doesn’t sound so small. Fuck. It’s heart-breaking.

“Not yet, big bear, I’m sorry,” Erland sighs and noses along Arnaghad’s jaw, then sinks back down to his feet and presses his face into the crook of his neck. Wraps his arms around Arnaghad’s middle. Is proud when he doesn’t do the mental math right then and there. No, he won’t torment himself and he won’t succumb to the slight growl Arnaghad gives. Whether it’s from his throat or his stomach doesn’t really matter. The sound pierces Erland’s armour, but it doesn’t shatter. He’s still strong. Can still be strong. “Do you want me to distract you?”

“Ah, birdie, didn’t we just talk about how you’re tired?”

“I’d make a joke about being hungry myself,” Erland mutters, then licks over Arnaghad’s pulse point insistently. “But last I checked, your sense of humour is still as barren as the Korath desert.”

Arnaghad chuckles and the motion slightly shakes Erland where he rests against the bear’s chest. He lets his hand slide down to gingerly palm across Arnaghad’s half-hard cock and it rises to the touch, firms up. He closes his eyes and sucks on his own bottom lip. So easy to please.

“Says the man who thinks fun is a torture device,” Arnaghad retorts on a sigh and as such, it lacks an edge. Erland deftly plucks at the fastenings of the linen trousers and slips his hand into them. Arnaghad’s flesh is hot and solid, too big to wrap his fingers around.

“Alas,” Erland murmurs against the skin of Arnaghad’s neck, cranes his own to nibble on the bear’s jawbone, tracing it with his tongue. “My hand is tried from writing all morning.”

“All day more like,” Arnaghad grumbles.

“Even worse. It’s of no use now.” And with that, he gently guides Arnaghad to the corner where their makeshift bed is, bids him to sit down and takes his own place in Arnaghad’s lap with his belly pressed to the warm floor. Propped up on his elbows, Erland peers up at Arnaghad. From this low, the man seems taller than a mountain, his eyes far away, half-lidded and hazy and Erland smiles. He is tired, yes, so very tired, and that means he is sloppy. Sloppy as he descends over the head of Arnaghad’s massive cock which tastes salty and musky and he laps it all up he goes with lazy drags of his tongue. His lips are loose and his hands looser as they fondle Arnaghad’s cock at the base, toy with his balls.

Before long, spit leaks out of the corners of his mouth and runs down Arnaghad’s length and the low moans of the bear thunder through the hall, echo off the walls, loud enough to raise the dead, Erland thinks sometimes. He wishes he could revive his brothers and sons by cock-sucking alone, but the world has never been that simple. And it won’t ever be now. But if he can give Arnaghad pleasure and himself something to get distracted by then that should be enough.

Erland gets drunk on Arnaghad’s cock, chokes on it as he ruts into the floor without shame. They come within seconds of each other and Erland drinks up what he can, lets the rest spill over Arnaghad’s lap, then cleans that with his tongue too. After, he falls asleep there, curled into a ball in Arnaghad’s lap and it is enough. For now.

[ais-for-alex]

The Scars of Our Past: Chapter 26

Logan was avoiding mirrors, the moment his eyes caught sight of his own image in the reflective surface he forced himself to look away almost instantly. He couldn’t stand to see the gash just over his eyebrow, still held together by a steri strip, the skin around it purple and blue with mottled bruises. He couldn’t stand to look at it, because each time his eyes caught hold of the physical reminder of that game Logan found himself snapped back onto the ice. Back to that moment he glanced up through bloody fingers to see his normally even-tempered best friend filled with a white-hot rage, beating another man down onto the ice. Logan would see that horrible look in his eyes, the look that if someone hadn’t pulled him off of Carrow, Finn would have continued hitting him until his hands bled.

Almost worse than that though, was the memory of their conversation afterward, in the locker room. Logan could hear Finn’s words, playing over and over, like the needle of a turntable getting stuck creating a fucked-up loop of his voice.

You’re a fucking coward. You’re a fucking coward.

The hardest part was that Logan knew Finn was right, he is a coward. He had been running away from his feelings for his best so long, now it was all he knew how to do. Sadly though, it seemed that while Logan was too busy running with his tail between his legs, he had finally pushed Finn to his breaking point.

In all the years he had known him, Logan couldn’t remember a single time he had actually raised his voice to him, despite all of the shit they had been through together. The sound of hurt in Finn’s voice as he begged Logan to just tell him, was a sound he wouldn’t be forgetting anytime soon.

Coward.

I know.

It felt weird now, sitting in the locker room. The rest of the team seemed completely unfazed, they moved and joked as if Logan and Finn hadn’t flung themselves over the jagged edge of a cliff and were now tumbling through the endless sky. Just waiting to see if there were rocks at the bottom of the fall waiting to break their bodies on impact. In their defense though, the team didn’t know any of that, however, Logan still felt like their cheer was out of place.

Finn hadn’t been there when Logan got in that morning but even without the man himself there, he was avoiding Finn’s stall like the plague. Logan had zero desire to step back into that space, back into those memories so he kept his eyes firmly trained on the floor. He made quick work of getting his skates and pads on, so quick he ended up being the first player out on the ice for practice.

Beginning his warm ups Logan took in a deep breath, held it for a moment, then when he breathed out, he pushed away every thought in his head. He let the scrape of his skates on the ice drown out the memory of Finn’s voice, he let the smooth glide of the puck against his stick ground him in the moment, he let his mind focus on Kasey getting the puck past his sharp eyes into the back of the net. Over and over those were the only things Logan let his mind focus on, scrape, slide, shoot, that was it. He breathed a sigh of relief when he finally heard Coach’s whistle signaling the end of practice and he joined the throng of his teammates shuffling off the ice.

Logan savored the feeling of hot water coursing over his body, the feeling of it rinsing away the sweat that clung to his skin, he closed his eyes and let the spray wash over his face.

“Dude! Drop it,” Finn’s voice echoed through the shower as he wandered into the showers.

“Oh, come on Don Juan, tell us about her!” James said teasingly.

Her, Logan’s eyes opened, the water stung but he didn’t care, her?

“So what? She sees your fight on the ice and suddenly you’re just irresistible?” Logan turned to find James ruffling Finn’s hair.

“Pfft, I’m always irresistible,” Finn laughed and gestured to his naked body, “unlike some of us,” he said, giving James a bit of a shove before turning on the shower head and stepping into the steaming water.

“Ok first off rude,” James said indignantly as he turned on his own shower, “and second I’m not letting this go until you tell me something, hair color, eye color, was she at the game? She’s not a snake’s fan, is she? Ugh,” James shivered in disgust.

“Seriously?” Finn scoffed, turning his head to shoot an exasperated huff. When he did though Logan’s eyes zeroed in on the dark red bruise over his pulse point, distantly it clicked in his mind that this was probably what had prompted James’s probing but in that moment he didn’t care. Logan felt sick, the thought of Finn going out and finding just some random girl after their fight made his skin crawl.

“Please! I live vicariously through other people!” James shouted.

“Fine, blond. You happy?” Finn asked with a shake of his head.

“No, but I’ll accept that’s the only information you’re gonna give me.”

Logan was done, he didn’t want to hear another word, didn’t want to think about Finn and her whoever she was. He quickly shut off the shower, snagged his towel, and hastily moved towards the exit. Out of the corner of his eye though he noticed Finn glance up at him just as Logan slipped through the door back into the main area of the locker room.

He moved mechanically, it felt like his hands had flipped into autopilot as he pulled his clothes on over damp skin, darkening the fabric of his shirt as his hair dripped onto his shoulders until Logan roughly shoved a snapback on his head. Logan grabbed his things at random and chucked them into his bag hoping to make a quick escape, but just as he was zipping it up Logan felt a warm hand settle on his shoulder. Every muscle in his body tensed then melted as a shiver ran down his spine as the soft brush of Finn’s thumb against his neck, Logan couldn’t help the sigh that fell from his lips.

“Hey,” Finn whispered in a hushed voice, “it’s not what you think.”

It felt like his heart was breaking but Logan shoved the feeling aside and shrugged out from under Finn's touch.

“It's fine Harz, you don’t have to explain yourself to me. If you want to go out and screw around with random girls, it’s your right to do so. Not my place to have an opinion.”

“Lo…” Finn’s voice was sad and soft.

“I’m- I’m going home,” Logan said, slinging his bag onto his shoulder, the strap digging into the place Finn’s hand had just been.

“Give me a minute to get dressed and I can drive you,” Finn replied. Logan’s heart shattered even further at that, the small selfless offer, because this man; even when he was mad and hurt he just couldn’t seem to stop himself from caring for the people in his life.

“No,” Logan said firmly, “it's fine, go finish your shower. I’ll see you tomorrow.” With that Logan stepped away, leaving Finn behind standing in front of his stall as fled the ice rink out into the blistering cold winter air.

***

Logan pretended not to notice the slight tremble in his fingers as he slid his phone from his pocket and typed in the pin number. He pretended that the cold afternoon air wasn’t burning his lungs as he made his way down the sidewalk heading home. And he pretended the reason his heart was beating out of his chest was just lingering adrenaline from practice rather than the roiling jealousy in his stomach. Logan pretended he wasn’t turning green with envy over some faceless, nameless woman who got to so carelessly touch Finn the way his fingers had itched to touch him for years. He pretended that the blood running through his veins wasn’t spiked with bitterness, that it was her lips that sucked wine colored marks into the warm skin of Finn's throat rather than his own.

Shakily, Logan pulled up his contacts and scrolled past Finn’s and easily found the number he was looking for, the call rang loud in his ear for a moment before finally connecting.

“Hey,” Leo greeted, his voice filtering through the phone, his breathing was loud like he was panting heavily.

Logan wasn’t entirely sure why he had called Leo, all he knew was that he was sad, and jealous, and hurt, and the one person he would normally turn to for comfort was firmly off the table considering he had just walked away from him. All he knew was that Leo made him happy, and Logan desperately wanted to feel happy right now.

“Hey,” he said softly, “whatcha doing?”

“At the gym,” Leo huffed, “running- grabbed the call- on my- headphones,” his words were interrupted by sharp breaths.

“Oh, um- sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt your work out.”

“S’ok, I’m- almost- done,” there was a faint beeping on Leo’s end of the call as he turned down the speed on his treadmill, he was still panting but his breaths seemed to start coming easier. “So, what’s up?” Leo asked when he was breathing a bit more evenly.

“Ah, not much. Just left the rink and I-“ Logan paused, he wasn’t sure how he wanted to finish that sentence. He what? Ran away like the coward he is? He wanted to be comforted by the man that made his insides squirm just to think about over another man?

“Lo? Are you ok?” Leo asked, voice soft and filled with concern when Logan’s pause stretched a bit too long.

“I- yeah, I’m- I’ll be fine, it’s nothing,” Logan shook his head as if he could shake loose the thoughts in his mind.

“Alright, if you say so,” Leo said, accepting the answer but Logan could hear it in his voice that he didn’t entirely believe it was nothing. “Hey! What are you doing in like an hour?”

“Um, nothing?” Logan answered a bit thrown off by Leo’s sudden question, “Why?”

“If you want some company, I can come over? We can hang out, if you want?”

Logan felt something tight in his chest break loose at Leo’s offer, “yeah?” he asked hopefully.

“Yeah,” Logan could practically hear the smile in Logan's voice, “It’ll be fun.”

“I guess I’ll see you soon then,” Logan said softly, a smile beginning to pull at his lips.

“I’ll see you soon.”

When the call ended Logan sighed and slipped his phone back into his pocket, he glanced up when a car honked near him only to find Dumo’s car pulling up next to him.

“Why the fuck are you out here walking?” Dumo asked through his open window as the vehicle rolled to a stop.

“Ne posez pas de questions stupides, vieil homme. Laissez-moi entrer,” Logan huffed, trudging over to the passenger door.

Logan rolled his eyes at Dumo’s chortled laugh as he popped the lock to let him into the car.

French translation: Don't ask stupid questions, old man. Let me in!

Read on AO3

Chapter 25 Chapter 26

[goldeneyedgirl]

charity fic: all in the stars

So, some of you might be aware of the Move to Higher Group fan-zine that was being put together. It is an awesome project and I cannot wait to see the final product. 

I’ve decided to release my fic independently, with the same goal of raising money for the Quileute Tribe’s Move to Higher Ground Project. There is an amazing post right here by lemonadebottlecap that covers the history of the tribe and the misconceptions that Twilight spread - I’ve also reblogged that right below here. 

So I will cheerfully suggest and implore you to donate to the Move to Higher Ground Project - even just $1 would be amazing. 

I’m not asking for anything for the fic, but in the spirit of the zine and the fandom renaissance, please consider it. <3

Onwards to the fic

all in the stars.

Mary-Alice doesn’t speak much. She hasn’t for a long time. Mostly, she rocks and murmurs and stares. Sometimes she cries or shrieks, but that happens less and less since the doctors started her on the shock treatments. She shivers and stares and mutters, and the staff leave her well enough alone. Mostly.

(Matron hopes she dies this winter, she heard her say it to the nurse; she’s a fragile thing, all bird bones and sharp edges from her body eating away at itself. Her lungs rattle and her chest aches and her head always hurts and she knows that, one way or another, death is coming. It won’t take much to send her on her way.)

The nights are bitterly cold, and she shivers as she stares out the tiny barred window at the stars. No one knows what she’s looking for, or looking at; she’s been having treatments so long, and lived in the dim gloom of her cell for so many years, that her eyesight is greatly degraded - if she were free, she would be considered legally and irreversibly blind. But she stares, right at the stars, as if she’s searching for something.

(Her sight in the real world is nearly gone - she sees shapes and the shift of shadows, but everything is quite smeared, like looking through deep, murky water. But her other sight, of things that are to be and things that could be, that is still as sharp as ever, even if it doesn’t always make perfect sense.)

When she eats, she struggles to focus on her tray, to judge space and distance. Some of the orderlies laugh at her fumbling (hands shaking, eyes squinting, tiny body hunched over her singular meal of the day) and she is left to try and feed herself, barely managing to consume half before she has spilt it everywhere, or she gives up out of frustration and exhaustion, out of disgust of the taste of turning milk, of cooling animal fat and rancid vegetables. When she is taken to her treatments, and sessions with the doctors, she tries to guide herself with one thin hand on the wall. Mostly, she’s manhandled - dragged into the rooms with the report she was being ‘difficult’ and the unspoken promise of punishment, or ferried about in an ancient wheelchair.

(She used to count her bruises like the constellations in the sky, blooming black and blue, purple and green. Her very own Aurora Borealis. Back then, they were just needle sticks. Then they stretched out, wrapping painfully around her torso, her thighs. They swelled with blood and kept her from sleep. They made her easy to manipulate, fingers roughly pressing down on a raw spot to make her bend to their will. Now the bruises don’t fade, they linger - overlapping and constant, and it’s too hard to see them to bother counting them. She cannot tell the difference between a shadow and a bruise now, anyhow - her cell is dark, her eyes are dying, and there is always pain, no matter where she touches on her skin.)

Elias arrived (arrives? Sometimes the passage of time is hard to track) sometime ago. He was… he simply was, in the beginning. Another set of hands moving her around, sticking her with the needles, frowning and judging and damning her. And then one day, for no reason at all, he brought her an extra blanket and wrapped her up tight against the cold. He brought her cold tea, over-steeped and bitter on her tongue, but insisted she drink it. He looked at her with eyes that had seen too much, had tried and failed and run right through every ounce of hope and benevolence he could manage, so he had given up. Until now (then?).

(She knows she would have died that night, from the cold of the night and the shock of the ice bath, for want of a blanket and something to drink. Except he swept in, with his red eyes and the clean blanket and bad tea and held her hand in his, his gloves warming her skin. He stayed, she lived, and the future went spinning off into a kaleidoscope of possibility, lighting up her mind. She’s already lost her words by then, but she wants to tell him, however this all falls together, she forgives him and thanks him for his kindness. That she knows what he is, what he has done, and it is not her place to pass judgement on anyone, man or immortal.

That any kind of light in the dark is a beautiful thing, no matter how long it is lit.)

—

To say she dies when Elias bites her, when he presses venom into her wrists and throat and prays to a god he hasn’t believed in for many years, is a fallacy. It is a polite lie, a bedtime story for children. It is fiction designed to absolve the villains of the piece - doctors in clean, white coats; nurses with shark-smiles and vindictive natures.

(She has died a little every single day since her parents sent her to the asylum. That is true, if quite dramatic.)

What killed her, truly? It might have been the distracted nurse, overzealous in her dosage; it could have been the blow to the head when she fell against the desk in the doctor’s room, shoved by an irritated orderly in charge of shepherding her around. It might have been the addition of an imprecise voltage or two from a dismissive doctor. It might have been all those things bleeding together. But by the time Elias bites her, changes her, there is very little of Mary-Alice Brandon left - just a failing body struggling so hard to make it to the next hour, minute, second. Her heart thumps slowly, her lungs rattle with oxygen, her eyes glassy and unseeing. She does not know what is coming for her, and how Elias intends to protect her.

(If she could speak, she would talk of the change like being in the middle of space, of watching the rush of stars and galaxies, of colours and combustion and the swoop of the unknown, great and terrible. It was like being a tiny spot of dust in an expansive, ornate concert hall - terribly insignificant and in the presence of true greatness. But she is far enough gone that she doesn’t even know of the Hunter that stalks her, doesn’t know that when she wakes, she will be a brand new girl, an entirely new person who will be able to speak and think and run and see.)

It happens exactly how it is supposed to. Elias is old enough to know the tricks, to leave a false trail miles long that sacrifices more than one innocent, maybe a mad little inmate or two, as he carries Mary-Alice to sanctuary. She is an easy burden, still and silent, and Elias continues his futile pleas to god that this will work, and she will be born anew, and he won’t have immortalised her misery and suffering. In his long life, he has never seen an impaired vampire, one that has carried their damage and their disease over into eternity, and he hopes Mary-Alice will not be the first.

(Her galaxies surround her, in black and navy blue, violet and emerald. Rich gold, too bright to look directly at, streaks across the endless space. The stars wink at her, and some of them blink out - futures that are not hers to have, she decides. The light of the remaining stars is warm on her face and limbs, fills her chest to bursting, and she wants to cradle them in her arms, hold them tight forever.)

—

They nearly make it, you know. One day, two days, the third day dawns with no sign of the Hunter; not a scent on the breeze or the still of the woods. Just little Mary-Alice’s thin little breaths and faltering heartbeat, curled into a ball of blankets in the grass. Elias’ hand strokes her hair, and he remembers another sickly girl, brittle and dying. Long gone, in a forgotten grave in a corner of the woods an ocean away. It makes him feel ashamed, like he only helped Mary-Alice to fit her into the place left by another; that he is not so good to help her simply because of her suffering. But in truth, why else pick her, of all of the poor souls in that ward?

(Her old self is almost gone, as the stars slowly decline and the colours begin to fade. She cannot excuse his motivations when she does not know him or remember him. Or remind him why he was precious and good and kind to her. In her memory, his star has blinked out and gone, another lamp extinguished.)

She whimpers then, and it is their undoing - he is startled by her sudden noise; hope and concern knotting in his chest as he leans over her. It is also enough for a lurking Hunter, downwind to surprise his target. He is angry, a rippling red rage, at being tricked and turned around - at his precious quarry being snatched from under his nose and the stench of Elias’ venom taking hold of her blood. The Hunter is no loser; he is his own champion, one that takes sick delight in broken, bloodless girls whose throats are raw from screaming, and whose bones never fit back together right. One that has lost the battle but will win the war, and salt the earth just to spite Elias.

(In her last seconds, Mary-Alice sees. She sees Elias and the Hunter locked in battle; she sees Elias’ destruction and then she sees the Hunter come for her, still lost to the change. She sees what he does to her, how he mutilates and breaks her to punish her saviour, who is already ash in the air. And as quickly as the images press around her, they are gone, like confetti in the air.)

Elias is angry, angrier than he has been in a long time as the Hunter is upon them, and he drags the Hunter away from his charge’s prone body.

(Just a little longer. A little more time…)

—

She has a choice to make now; one she won’t remember. There are only a handful of her stars left, and she needs to pick one.

(She sees herself rise, red-eyed and confused but determined. It’s an easy trail to follow, watching the Hunter feed broken limbs into his fire with a smirk on his face and delicious plans for the girl in the glade. He’s taken the other man’s coat, and that strikes rage into her heart. He doesn’t have time to turn around before she has his head off and into the fire. She crouches in front of the fire, and watches carefully as it burns lower. It’s only when she’s left with ash and smoke that she rises, feeling heavier and sadder than she thinks she should be able to feel and slips off back into the forest, to a future yet to be decided.)

No, she doesn’t want to be sad anymore. She was sad before, she’s tired of sad.

(She runs south. She runs through the forest, faster and faster, to escape the one that is coming for her. When she stops running, she hides. She’s frightened, fearful, like a hunted rabbit. Her heart is quiet, but it still feels like it wants to burst from her chest in fear and she is completely and utterly lost, in all the ways that someone can be and she doesn’t know what to do.)

She doesn’t want to be afraid either.

(Golden eyes. A warm smile, one that makes her feel like her chest is full of starlight again. A scar on his neck that her fingers worry over, as if she can protect him from the pain. A kiss on her nose, her cheek, the corner of her mouth before his lips graze her ear.

“I love you, Alice. Irreversibly and forever,” he murmurs and, and…)

That one. That’s her. She’s Alice; she gets to be Alice, chooses to be Alice - Alice who is happy and loved and safe and precious. Alice, who loves him more than anything in existence. She could burst with how much she loves him. She could have a million choices, a million stars, and that will always be the one she chooses and holds tight.

(“Forever.”)

—

And she opens her eyes, clear and bright and ruby-red. She spies the moss and the ferns, her discarded blankets, the bugs in the dirt. She sees feeble light of dusk pushing through the trees. She smells water and dirt and trees and … smoke.

(“Alice.”)

Getting to her feet, her throat burning and her mind too full of everything that is new and unknown around her, and the ominous promise of the smoke hovering in the air, she holds the image of the man with the golden eyes in her mind and she begins to run.

(“I love you.”)

She runs North with nothing but hope and a name, spoken by the one who loves - or will love (she forgets that time moves differently when you can’t see what’s coming) - her best. She runs away from disaster, from pain and fear and sadness, and everything she came from, a brand new girl on her way to a brand new life.

(“Irreversibly and forever.”)

—

[afewmarvelousthoughts]

The Devil’s Daughter Ch. 2

Master List: @afewmarvelousthoughtsadmin

Pairing: The Winter Soldier X Reader (Bucky X Reader)

Summary: Born and bred to be a monster worthy to lead Hydra into a new age you must decide if you will become the beast they always intended or perhaps something greater… Someone worthy even, of love.

Warnings: Trauma. This one is lighter but I still advise to tread with caution when it comes to this series. 

A/N: I MISSED ALL OF YOU! I’ve been so wrapped up with work and another project that I haven’t had really any time to breathe. BUT I finally took like a half step back and remembered that fic is actually a form of self care for me. I LOVE writing these stories and needed to make time for this and, of course, to give those of you who are invested something to sink your teeth into. 

This is a shorter chapter but will answer that lingering question from the last chapter and, I hope, make up for the wait just a bit. 

Love you sweet pumpkins! 

TAGS ARE OPEN

If I missed your tag please remind me. 

You hadn’t expected sleep to come easily. It rarely did even before this seemingly endless day, and yet the moment you settled into the plush bed you fell into blissful unconsciousness. 

A few hours before sunrise, your eyes pop open. It certainly wasn’t the longest night’s sleep but you felt more than rested. Another side effect of the serum you suspected, and honestly, not a bad one. 

You had work to do. 

Tentatively you step from your room, both cautious of any potential threats and not wanting to disturb the presumably sleeping Soldier, wherever he may be. Thankfully, you found neither assailant nor your new muscle stalking around the space. 

Given your first goal of the day you were honestly more grateful to not see the Soldier awake than you were to not face an attack.

On the small dining table, the boxes of files on The Soldier sat just where you’d left them the night before. You lay your hand on top of one, almost reverently. 

There was no doubt that what these boxes contained was unpleasant if not horrific. Part of you almost didn’t want to crack into them, not wanting to take this journey now. 

With a deep breath, you shake your head, dismissing your hesitation. You’d made a commitment, albeit only to yourself, that you would give him his name back. And if his freedom could be wrenched from these files… Well, you’d do that too.

By the time the sun finally lit the windows you felt ill. No one could ever accuse you of having a weak constitution when it came to violence but still… some levels of depravity, especially sanctioned depravity, were more than even you could bear. 

The story told of The Soldier unfolded in the files on the floor around you. It was a lesson in just how deep the cruelty of man could go. 

Beyond the more gut-wrenching details, you’d gained a surface understanding of how he ticked. The triggers and tools available to you, none of which you intended to use, as well as his limitations. 

Part of his appeal was that he could be rendered a blank slate, a human weapon at the full control of whoever had a firm enough grasp on his leash. However, wiping him and bringing him fully back to square one had its risks. 

The insidious technique always carried the chance of simply leveling him to a state of drooling uselessness at best and death at worst. Because of this, they only wiped him entirely with the use of the chair when absolutely necessary. In fact, his last full wipe had been almost four years ago—which likely explained his remembering your encounter from several years prior. 

From what you gathered so far, this was one of the longer stints Hydra had gone without either icing or wiping him. The notes indicated that this was a great win. They thought they’d finally broken him. 

A smile filled your face knowing this was far from true. 

“Amusing read?” 

You had been so absorbed in your research that you didn’t hear his approach and embarrassingly jumped at the sound of his voice. 

“The content isn’t amusing. Their misguided ideas though…” 

His brows raise at this, “Ideas about what?” 

“That they have somehow finally broken you.” The moment the words leave your lips you regret them. His expression is unreadable, a combination of horror, disgust, and murderous rage that no language you knew had a word for. 

“Haven’t they.” It wasn’t a question. 

“Your presence here says they haven’t.” As did his attempt on your life last night and the fact that he didn’t kill you when you told him your plan. He doesn’t respond, just shoves his hands in his pockets, fixing his gaze out the window. 

“They think because they haven’t had to wipe you in so long that you’ve given in. It’s amusing because it’s the exact opposite, isn’t it? You figured out-”

“Even a dog learns not to bark when the shock collar goes off too many times.” His frigid tone makes you flinch. You think to respond but his cold glare freezes your jaw shut. “It doesn’t mean a goddamn thing.”

“You’re wrong.” 

A muscle in his jaw ticks and you brace for his rebuttal. It doesn’t come. He simply turns and strides onto the terrace. 

To say that wasn’t what you expected would be an understatement. Last night he admitted to remembering you, admitted that what he did to Eric he did for the both of you. Clearly he had grabbed hold of a bit of autonomy, some level of self-awareness. Yet he didn’t see it as any kind of victory… 

Rather than push the matter, you sigh and begin repacking the boxes, tucking the nightmarish pieces of The Soldier’s puzzle away--all but one. 

The file was old, dating back to WWII, it’s edges frayed and flaking. Once more you flip open the cover. 

Held by a rusted paperclip is a black and white photo of a striking young man in military dress with a mischievous smile. 

Your eyes wander from the photo to the man on the terrace. Logically you knew they were the same person but at the same time, it seemed impossible. There was a spark in the person staring back at you in the photo, an effortless charm that couldn’t be dulled by the passage of time. For that energy to remain in a photograph and not in the man himself… 

Taking care to not damage the picture, you slide it from the paperclip. The document below held nothing but basic information, information he may want. The photo though--well it seemed almost cruel to present him with it when it was clear the man in it had died a long time ago. 

“Oh,” you breathe out as his reaction makes some kind of sense to you. 

Before you’d wondered if he may remember his name, it seemed marginally possible given that he’d known you. But after what you’d learned and how your words had clearly hurt you knew that wasn’t the case. He may have wrenched some control back out of sheer will over the past few years but it was, for him, a hollow victory.

With effort you swallow the lump in your throat, setting the file on top of the box before you head back to the room you’d slept in. 

Looking to take your mind off your bungled good deed you pick up the burner phone Mara had given you thinking to ring her to come on up until you note the early hour. The woman had been through hell, you could grant her a few more hours of what you hoped was restful sleep. 

Unable to think of anything else to do you get in the shower, turning the water to a scalding temperature. The sting on your skin grounding you in your body, making you feel present, as pain so often did. 

-

He wanted to… apologize? Maybe? Even though he wasn’t sure if he really wanted to or if he was just afraid of what may happen if he didn’t. 

She isn’t like that, he tries to tell himself. But whether that was the truth or just his own pathetic need for it to be true he didn’t know. 

If he was being honest, he could hardly tell up from down.

Sighing, he rubs his temples, forcing down a few deep breaths. 

She didn’t deserve that, a voice in his head whispers. It’s right. She may be the one who was wrong but he’d been needlessly cold. 

Squaring his shoulders he heads back inside only to be met by the sound of the shower. 

Relief floods him. He may have decided he would apologize but he hadn’t actually known what to say. Before he’s able to think more about it his eyes land on a single folder sitting conspicuously on top of the boxes. 

In the span of a heartbeat, everything around him falls away for just a moment. Then the alarm bells sound. 

He’s both too hot and too cold. His breath ragged, if not gasping.  In his chest, his heart threatens to break free. 

Still, he moves like a man possessed toward the unassuming document. 

All night he’d thought of coming out here and opening these boxes. Tearing through them with the hopes that he’d get back whatever they took from him or find out that there was nothing worth regaining. 

Really that’s what he wanted to learn. More than anything he wanted to open these boxes and know that he had always been this creature of Hydra. He wanted there to only be this. He needed the skinny boy with the busted lip and bright smile, the woman humming in a kitchen, and the little girl on ice skates who haunted his dreams to be figments crafted by his fractured mind. 

If the Soldier was all he ever was he could continue onward. Anything else… 

With shaking hands he lifts the file and opens it. 

It’s like being punched in the chest. 

Gasping he falls to his knees on the plush carpet. In his mind, he’s falling elsewhere. A man screams a word printed on the page. 

“Bucky!” 

It echoes through his very bones. Over and over. 

“Bucky, you promise I won’t fall?” The little girl wears a red scarf, her blue eyes big and trusting. 

“Bucky, take this to the table and tell your sisters to wash up.” The woman has the same blue eyes, her smile feels like home. 

“Bucky, I don’t need you to fight my battles.” The skinny boy says, wiping blood from his lip. 

“Bucky!”

“Bucky!”

It feels like the only sound in the world. 

“James!” 

That wasn’t right. 

“James!”

Another word. Another name. 

“James, you come back to us. You hear me boy?!” The man’s voice and face were severe but his brown eyes shone with tears. 

“James, you really bring out the best in him you know?” The woman’s red lips curl in a friendly smile. 

“Oh for fuck’s sake. James!” 

The sting of a slap brings reality crashing in sending all the nameless ghosts tumbling back into the fog always lingering at the edges of his mind. In their stead is a face with a name he knows. 

“Catherine.” 

She huffs out a breath, wet hair tumbling into her face smelling like flowers. When she looks back at him her eyes flood with regret. 

“I’m so sorry for hitting you. I… You didn’t seem to be breathing but you looked like you were screaming…”

“It’s o-”

“It isn’t ok.” Sighing, she sits cross-legged in front of him, her eyes lighting on the file still gripped in his hands. 

Only then do his eyes reluctantly find their way back to the page. 

Barnes, James “Bucky” Buchanan 

He fights down the bile rising in his throat. 

“James.” It comes out garbled like his tongue can’t quite make sense of the syllables. He doesn’t notice his trembling until her warm hand rests against his left forearm. 

“You called me, James.” 

“I did. Was that ok?” He meets her eyes once more, unsure of how to answer. “I won’t use it if-” Shaking his head he cuts her off glancing back at the page. 

“James is good.” Too many nameless faces whispered the other name. But James, there were fewer echoes there. 

“It’s an honor to meet you, James.”

Her voice is warm, soft. He almost thinks he’s imagining it. 

“Is it?”

“Without question.” She gives his arm a squeeze, and he knows this is real. 

“I assume you prefer coffee to tea?” Catherine asks as she rises to her feet, striding to the phone without explanation. 

“I-” He’s a bit baffled by the shift. 

“Well, you are American. So I assume you prefer coffee.” 

Did he? 

“I’ll get both and if you prefer coffee I win.” He can’t help but laugh a little. 

“What do you win?” 

“I’ll think of something.” She winks before picking up the receiver and James could almost swear his pulse quickened if only a little. 

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[bitsandbobsandstuff]

never let you go (2)

Summary: After losing the woman they love, Bucky and Steve make a desperate decision with unimaginable consequences. 

Characters: Stucky x Reader

Warnings: Violence, blood, mentions of demons and gore. Brief hints of SMUT. Swearing. Bucky and Steve are not exactly nice. A very brief appearance by my favorite Hunter (SPN crossover).

Prompt: “Heartache is one thing, but this…this is worse.��

A/N: This is my submission for the fantastic @sherrybaby14 for Sherry’s Fall Into You challenge, thanks babe for hosting. This is a dark story fam, different than my usual writing. Bucky and Steve really do make some bad decisions, so please heed the warnings. This is a short series, only 3 parts.

Want to find all my stories? Search #bitsmasterlist or try the link in my bio!

Previously...

“How did you do it?”

“Hmm?” Steve murmurs, drifting toward the balm of sleep. Bucky says nothing, simply snuggles closer, his steady breaths puffing warm on your skin.

“I remember what happened.” Softly the confession falls. “Please don’t lie to me. Tell me how you did it. How you brought me back.”

Both men stiffen. Bucky stops breathing. Steve stops stroking his hair. Dread fills you, cold as ice. You know then, whatever price they’ve paid? It will tear the world apart.

Breath tickling the back of your neck, Steve murmurs so quietly, you strain to hear.

“We made a deal.”

*****

“The greatness of humanity is not in being human, but in being humane.” Mahatma Gandhi

*****

Along the glass smooth lake, the tufts of grass are wrapped in furry white frost. Fog rises in slow curls from the mirror of dark blue, warm water battling cold air, while white ice crackles along the edges in paper thin sheets. Each morning you walk out to the lake, the ice creeps further, a bitter omen of what will come.

It all feels surreal. Impossible and improbable. An endless winter waiting in the wings. 

From the outside, life is the same. The world turns, the sun rises in the east. Bucky still giggles madly at cat videos on YouTube and Steve still argues that cough syrup tastes delicious. For the three of you, nothing has changed.

But for the world, it has.

Part of you wants to hate them. It was the most selfish, self-sacrificing act either has ever committed in their long lives, but no matter how monumentally fucked up the situation, it changes nothing. Regardless of the road ahead, there are no limits to the love you feel for them both, and one truth burns with a steadfast certainty - you will always follow in their footsteps.

Perhaps that fact will be your downfall.

Staring bleakly across the clear lake, you think back to that night, when they explained everything. With the proverbial cards on the table, the most complicated question of your entire life now looms.

What will you do to save them?

*****

Eyes downcast, they sit beside each other on the edge of the bed, overgrown children awaiting punishment. Fingers linked atop your head, you pace a short path in front of them, back and forth, breathing fast, words locked in your throat. When they finally burst free, both men flinch.

“Explain what you mean. I don’t understand, Steve. What does a deal with a demon mean? What is that?”

Refusing to look up, Steve remains silent, nervously pinching the callouses on his palm. Bucky stares mutely at his toes, wiggling them into the ropey blue rug beneath the bed. He cracks his knuckles and you can tell he’s mustering his courage. Wetting his lips, he finally meets your gaze.

“It means exactly what Steve said. I know it sounds insane, but it was a real demon. Like the kind you find in - in fairy tales or something. We met a couple guys and they told us how to find her. Said you can make a deal, whatever you want, the demon’ll give it to you...” Bucky trails off, losing steam; another deep breath and he plows on. “...she gives it to you in exchange for 10 years. Those are the contract terms, the regular deal. At the end of the 10 years, that’s it. She comes back to collect, and you’re sent - down. To hell.”

Disbelief clenches like an iron fist, heavy and suffocating. It makes no sense - demons don’t exist. Something else must have happened, some unknown magic, a wormhole, an alternate reality, a time loop maybe. Each ludicrous option seems more likely than their calm explanation, they must be wrong. If demons existed, SHIELD would know. There would be a documentation, strategies, fighting methods.

There would be safe guards to stop idiots in love from making disastrous decisions.

“Bucky, what you’re saying makes no sense. Demons aren’t real,” you say carefully, and goosebumps flare across your skin when Steve lifts guarded eyes to yours. “Steve? They’re not real. It was something else…right?”

“I’m sorry,” he whispers.

Every fiber of your being screams this must be a nightmare, any moment you’ll wake up. Maybe you weren’t on the roof that day, maybe this is all a sick lucid dream. Maybe you’re alive and asleep in bed, and when you wake up Bucky will have stolen all the pillows and Steve will be in the kitchen making oatmeal.

Wake up, you chant to yourself. Wake up, wake up, wake up.

Nothing happens. Chest heaving, you spin away, hot tears burning your throat.

“So that’s what you did? You sold your souls to a demon? And in 10 years she comes back and - drags you to hell?”

“Wait,” Bucky says earnestly. “You didn’t let me finish, it wasn’t that. We didn’t sell our souls. That was the regular deal, but not for us. There’s no 10-year limit, we’re staying with you. All three of us, we get to stay together.”

He pushes off the bed and comes toward you, arms reaching for a hug. Surprise blooms over his face when you place both palms flat on his chest and shove. Stumbling back, he hits the mattress with a shocked bounce.

“No,” you grit out, “Tell me you’re not that naive. It had to cost something, so what was it. What did you give her?” Stubbornly, Bucky’s mouth tightens. Fine then. Turning to Steve, you cup his chin, tilting his face until you glimpse the swirl of shame glowing in his blue eyes. “Steve. Tell me what you gave her.”

It takes all of five seconds for him to give in; Steve never could keep a secret. Not from Bucky. Not from you.

“It wasn’t our souls,” he mumbles. Misery seeps from his skin and he stares intently, begging a forgiveness you never realized you had to give. “She asked for - humanity. That was what she wanted. We gave her our humanity.”

At his admission, a fresh urgency, a new panic, fills the hollowness in your heart.

“Your humanity? What does that mean? What happens now?”

Shrugging helplessly, Steve looks back to his feet. “I guess since we gave her that, then maybe we’ll - change. Maybe we’ll become - different.”

It clicks, then.

Different.

Two battle hardened soldiers, potent super strength flowing through their veins. If you take away their good hearts, strip out the kindness and patience and compassion, extinguish the beautiful tenderness that illuminates them from the inside, what remains?

Brutal violence powered by deadly strength. Something cold and destructive. It seems obvious now, why the demon offered this choice.

Stay above and be in love, happy and content for 10 years before death comes calling.

Or stay above and be in love, happy and content for as long as life allows, with one chilling caveat - abandon who you are.

Without a conscience to keep them in check, the scale of violence two super soldiers could wreak across the globe is breathtaking. And if they leave their humanity in the dust and use the serum thrumming in their veins for something dark and terrible? The outcome remains the same.

Someday in the future, death will still come for them. And with a list of innocent deaths attached to their names, it all means the same thing.

No matter what, they’ve damned themselves to hell. It’s only a matter of time.

“But she promised nothing changes between the three of us,” Bucky interrupts the morbid train of thought, gesturing at you, at Steve, at himself. “Other things might change, but she said the three of us, we’ll stay the same. We won’t change, not when it comes to you. We can make this work, I swear.”

His words make you want to scream. How could they be so stupid? How could they not realize?

“God dammit Bucky! You’re telling me that eventually every bit of goodness that makes you human, that will disappear? What then? The world has two psychopaths with fucking super powers? Is that what you’re saying?!”

“But we can fight it,” Bucky argues, rising again. He takes one step and you shove him harder, knocking him back. Frustrated, he slaps the bed. “We can. I know we can. This was a way around it.”

Before you, they both melt into blurry shadows as the tears spill over, rivers of sticky heat dripping down your neck, soaking the ragged collar of your shirt. Hopelessness shatters your voice.

“No you won’t, Bucky. You can’t. So now what? Huh? How am I supposed to save you?”

Deflated, Bucky hesitates before standing again. Cautiously, he steps forward, ignoring the hand you push against his chest, ignoring the bite of your nails scratching his skin. He murmurs your name, an imploring plea, and the sound breaks you. Trembling fingers curl into a fist and you slam your knuckles against the steel of his sternum, anger fading into fear. He says nothing, lets you expend your rage all over him, wild fists punching him over and over, until you collapse. Then he catches you easily, sitting on the bed, cuddling you in his lap.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, holding tight to your halfhearted struggles, before you finally give up. Burying your face against his neck, he rocks you gently, terrified tears drenching his skin like a spring rain. “But she gave you back. That was enough for us to say yes. You were worth the price.”

“I’m not, nothing is worth this,” you sob hysterically. Guilt pours out, overwhelming and soul-shattering. “This will kill you both, it’ll ruin you. I ruined you.”

“No.” Steve says fiercely. Gripping your arm, he gives a harsh shake. “You did not do this. This was our decision. We knew exactly what we were doing, sweetheart. This wasn’t a mistake.”

Steve moves closer, wrapping his arms around you both, one palm on the warm heat of Bucky’s shoulder blade, the other cupping your face. Pressing his lips to your forehead, the solidity of his presence a quiet reassurance. Tangling your hand in his hair, you tug hard, aching to bring him closer.

Maybe, you think, if you hold tight enough you can keep them intact. Humanity. Souls. Hearts. Whatever they’re made up of inside, maybe if you love them hard enough, you can save them.

“He’s right,” Bucky murmurs, trembling lips at your temple, “This was all on us. But if we had to choose between losing you and doing this again, we’d still do this. We’d choose you. We’ll always choose you.”

*****

There are five people who know the truth.

Nick Fury and Maria Hill. Steve tells them but keeps the specifics of the deal vague. Deep down, he knows Nick would lock them up if he knew everything. They were furious, but in different ways. Fury screamed at them for 30 straight minutes, before storming out in a swirl of black leather. Following close behind, Maria gave them a tight-lipped nod and somehow, that silent disappointment was worse.

And then there were the other three.

Natasha, Tony, Sam. All three received perplexing text messages asking them to meet at Bucky and Steve’s apartment; when they arrive, Sam knocks on cautiously and Bucky meets them with a blank face, wordlessly handing each a fresh bottle of whiskey.

“You’ll need it,” is all he says.

With each Avenger clutching their liquor, Bucky and Steve proceed to explain everything. Their sorrow, their grief. The inability to find any future without you. Their anger at everything, at the world, at each other. Calmly, they each offer their perspective and they see Tony looking confused, Sam looking uneasy, and Natasha looking - strangely resigned.

When they finally finish, there’s a long silence, until Natasha snaps the cap on her bottle of whiskey and takes a long swig. She wipes her mouth and asks.

“What did you do?”

Steve looks at Bucky, who stares determinedly at his feet. Nodding to himself, he rises slowly, walking into the bedroom. Beyond the doors, they hear the hum of low voices and then it creaks open. Bucky hesitates for a breath. 

Then he leads you forward.

At the unexpected sight, Tony tumbles off the armchair with a garbled shout and Sam leaps to his feet.

Natasha still sits calmly.

“So. You met the Winchester boys,” she states. Defiance in his eyes, Bucky shoots her a cool glare.

“Yes,” he says shortly, and she simply nods. Carefully setting her bottle of whiskey on the floor, she rises gracefully and tiptoes toward you. Instantly, Steve and Bucky lean into a protective stance, mirrored snarls on their lips, but Natasha brushes them aside. With no hesitation, she wraps you in a fierce hug.

“I’m so glad you’re home,” she whispers in your ear. Burying your face in her hair, the sweet scents of lavender and leather swirl, so unequivocally Natasha.

They explain everything then. The deal, the magic, the price. All down to the last, gruesome detail. At the end of their story, the room is silent. Tony is the first to respond, ashen faced, shaking with unspeakable anger. He heaves his full bottle of whiskey into the fireplace and it explodes with a crash of flames, before he barrels through the front door with a resounding boom.

Sam sways where he stands, his vision folding along the edges. He wants to understand, he does. More than anyone, he saw the depths of grief into which they sunk, but this? He never considered this. But instead of screaming, he says nothing, just hugs you gently, thinking bizarrely of delicately spun glass. Shoulders sagging under the burden of knowing, he silently follows Tony, his footsteps as heavy as his heart.

And Natasha? Well. Standing in the doorway, she smiles sadly.

“I spoke to them too, you know. Found a crossroad in Colorado. Nine years ago,” she confesses. “One year to go.”

The door clicks shut, leaving them to ponder a new horror.

*****

The official SHIELD report stamps your return with CONFIDENTIAL block letters, and the file is buried deep in the vaults. It leaks to the press as a simple solution, a fake out, a way to throw the bad guys off the trail. Here you are, alive and well, on leave for an indeterminate period.

New York becomes too much. Hostile and loud, too many questions, too many opportunities to let the truth slip free. In the middle of the night, the three of you tangled in a mess of sleepy limbs, Steve offers a solution.

At sunrise you leave.

Refuge comes at a secluded cabin in upstate New York, a mossy pile of logs Steve fell in love with years ago and purchased on a whim. Hidden deep in the trees, it overlooks a crystalline lake and when you step inside, it smells of dust and mothballs. With a mop, a few dust rags, and a bit of elbow grease, it quickly becomes a home.

There, life finally moves forward.

Mornings with bitter coffee, mornings with breathless runs, mornings lazing in a massive claw foot bathtub, big enough for three.

Evenings by the crackling fire, evenings full of books and music, evenings filled with Bucky’s sweat slicked hair tangled in your fingers, with Steve’s quiet groans between your legs, with your shaking cries echoing off the walls.

Sheer perfection. Every waking moment. 

After a few weeks, Bucky and Steve tentatively return to combat, agreeing to short missions that never tear them from your side for more than a few days. Stepping up together, they take on the world once more, protecting the innocent, righting the wrongs. Each time they return, they come refreshed and relaxed, full of sweet words and excited laughter, familiar bits of your former life spilling into the comfortable home the three of you have made together.

They seem so happy. So bright and wild and bursting with love.

It makes you wonder. Maybe, just maybe, Bucky was right. Maybe they found a way around the inevitable. Maybe the demon changed her mind. Maybe they’re safe.

Maybe it worked.

*****

Until slowly and certainly, things begin to change.

*****

Bullets are pinging around them, sparks flying through the air. Steve moves confidently, smoothly dodging every bullet slung their way with a flick of his shield. Behind him, Bucky slinks along, his gun at the ready. When they cut around the corner, three men put up a cursory fight, before all three are taken down with a flick of the shield and two well-placed bullets.

“Like taking candy from a baby,” Steve mutters. Sifting through a pile of paper, he gathers up the files, stuffs them in a secure pocket at his hip and motions for Bucky to leave.

They hear a faint moan.

Propped against the wall, sits a hostage. Mouth taped shut, feet tied together. Blood streams thick and heavy down his face, congealing in a warm pool along his collarbone. Death is imminent, even across the room they can smell it coming. As they come closer, the man registers footsteps and opens his eyes, blinking blearily at the two men looking down. Recognition when he sees the familiar red, white, and blue, a glimmer of hope cutting through the pain.

Staring down, Steve twitches his fingers, an unconscious motion to help, before something inside denies the move.

How peculiar.

Turning away, he issues a rough order at Bucky.

“He won’t make it. Put him out of his misery.”

Bucky gazes at the dying man at his feet.

Shrugging, he raises his pistol and pulls the trigger.

*****

Sunlight streams through the tall windows of the living room, as you laze on the couch. Down the hall, you hear the shower running, the sound of Steve’s off-key baritone singing as he soaps the red stains of death from his skin.

When he shuffles into the living room wearing sweatpants and a soft green shirt, his tired eyes find you. The lingering stress falls away and he bounds forward, flopping on the couch with a careless oompf. Dropping a kiss on your forehead, he carefully arranges a pillow in your lap, and plunks his head down. Post shower, his blond hair is wet dark and squeaky clean, the spicy scent of body wash still lingering.

“Scratch my head?” he asks, adding a sweet pout that never fails to make you give in. Dragging your fingers through the damp strands, you rub his scalp and he sighs happily. When he stretches his feet over the edge of the couch with a wide yawn, his muscles shift and twist, reminding you of a lion you saw once at the zoo. Big and lazy, soaking up the warm golden sunshine.

“Nothing but a big lazy cat,” you murmur, one hand in his hair, the other rubbing slow circles over his heart. Closing his eyes, he grins at the comparison. Catching the hand at his chest, he brings your palm to his lips and presses kisses along each finger, before linking his hand to yours. Moments pass, and his body goes lax, a low stream of steady breaths as he drifts to sleep.

In the shifting afternoon sun, you stay there, watching the light play off his pale eyelashes. You think about Steve. Warm skin and golden hair. Sharp claws retracted; teeth hidden. Deadly to everyone, except those he loves.

*****

“I gave you the intel, I gave it to you!”

Bucky stabs the knife into the muscled meat of the man’s thigh, and the responding scream reverberates off the walls. Like flame hot metal through butter, the pale skin is splayed open, revealing marbled streaks of yellow fat, white bone gleaming beneath. Blubbering incoherently, bloody spit foams in the corners of his mouth, wild eyes rolling back in his head.

“I gave it to you, I did, I did, I did, please!”

There is a pause and for a blessed moment, the man believes he has a reprieve. Swollen eyes fly open, meeting bright blue and Bucky smiles.

And then he punches the knife handle straight through the man’s thigh bone. It cracks and splinters apart and the man screams and screams and screams and Bucky laughs and laughs and laughs.

“Did you think I fucking cared?”

*****

The sticky scent of maple syrup wakes you.

Crawling from the empty bed, you wrap the feather down comforter around your shoulders and shuffle from the bedroom, eager for the source.

The sight catches you off guard. Unimaginably soft.

There in the kitchen, Bucky stands in nothing but skintight black boxers.

Hair twisted in a messy knot, he shimmies through the small space, dancing absently to the music tinkling from the small speaker propped on the windowsill. On the stove, he has a flat skillet coated in butter and filled with bubbling silver-dollar pancakes. Along the edge of the counter, he taps out a rhythm with his spatula, tap tap tap-a-tap-a-tap, and your heart swells at the gentle domesticity.

When he whirls around, he discovers you watching from the doorway, sleepy and rumpled. He lights up, a honeyed smile on his lips, and stretches out a hand, a wordless request. Tripping into his arms, he tucks you safe against his chest.

“Morning baby,” he murmurs, warm breath tickling your ear. “God you look beautiful. How’d I get so lucky?”

The words are simple, lovely phrases he’s shared a million times before, but still your belly flips. Rubbing your cheek against his hot skin, you relax. Let yourself believe everything is perfect, while Bucky dances you slowly around the cozy kitchen until the charcoal crisp of pancake flavors the air.

“Buck, I think your pancakes are burning,” you breathe against the sandpaper stubble along his neck.

He merely hums.

“Let ‘em burn. I’m dancin’ with my girl.”

Mellow notes of smoky jazz drift through the air and you burrow closer, until Bucky pulls you down to the smooth kitchen tiles. The feather comforter pillows beneath you, the searing heat of his mouth tracing down your neck.   

*****

“We’re out of time, set the bombs off. Now.”

In all the time he’s known known Steve Rogers, Sam has never heard his voice like this. Brittle. Cold. Devoid of emotion. On the ground below, amid soaring walls of steel and glass, screaming voices echo off the tower buildings. From his perch high above the melee, Sam stares watches people streaming from the front doors. He hesitates.

“There are still people inside,” he responds.

On the other end of the line is a bone crunching thunk, a truncated scream. Steve’s voice returns.

“Did I fucking stutter? Set it off. Now.”

Again, Sam hesitates, the trigger clenched in his sweaty hand. He shakes his head.

“Negative, Cap. There are still - “

“Jesus Christ, Wilson, you fucking pussy,” Bucky snarls. He rips the black box from Sam’s numb fingers and shoves him aside. Without pause, he flips the switch.

Across the street, the building rumbles and sways and in the space of a breath, the world is rent apart: glass shatters, steel beams screech, concrete explodes. All those still inside, fighting their way to freedom, go down in a crush of rubble, screams and shouts silenced by the thundering rush of crumbling stone.

Stalking around the corner, Steve is sliding the shield onto his back. Without a glance at the crowd below, he rushes at Sam.

“When I tell you to do something, don’t you ever fucking hesitate. You understand?”

Beside him, Bucky snorts and flings the device to the ground. He grinds it under his heel and strolls away, resuming his stance above the disaster. Blanching at the rage in those blue eyes, Sam takes a wordless step back.

“Yeah. Yeah, I understand.”

*****

The last time Steve came to the familiar meadow, was because he needed space to let the rage in his heart spill into the world. In the desolation of those black nights, he screamed his fury into the heavens, broken beyond repair.

This time is different.

Velvety night drips through the sparse tree branches as you walk through the dense forest, Steve leading the way, Bucky close behind. Slivers of moonlight streak through the dark trees, illuminating the huffs of frosty white breath.

When you reach the clearing, Steve slips his warm hand through your gloved fingers, Bucky curves a protective arm around your shoulders. Together, they lead you toward the middle of the field, until they come to an abrupt halt.

Bemused, you stare at them. Under the shy glow of white moonlight, they look carved from marble.

Fallen angels, maybe.

“Is everything okay?” you whisper, eyes roving uncertainly between them.

From the depths of his pocket, Bucky pulls free a black satin box. It sits in the palm of his hand and he looks nervously at you, over to Steve, back to you. He clears his throat.

“We’ve been talking about this forever.” A crooked smile lifts his lips. “Since the first night you spent with us. This here, what we have with you, it’s the only thing we want. We don’t need anything official, but we thought you should know. We’ll love you forever, sweetheart. If you’ll let us.”

Gently, he opens the case, revealing a dark ring set against white silk. Eyes wide, you watch as Bucky lifts the simple band, two strings of delicate black vibranium twisted into an infinity circle. As he holds it aloft, Steve nudges him, and they both fall, kneeling to worship at your feet.

“What do you think?” Steve murmurs. Tentative, hesitant. As though the answer could ever be anything other the words rolling from your tongue.

No matter the circumstance, the love you have for Bucky Barnes and Steve Rogers is the one shining light in a world of darkness.

“Yes,” you breathe. “Of course. I love you both so much, nothing will ever change that. Forever.”

Under the raw, naked gleam of the bright night, you kneel before them, face to face with their delighted smiles. Together they reach for you, pulling you into the safe haven of their arms.

*****

“God dammit Rogers! You’re out of line with this shit!”

Leaning over his desk, Nick Fury wipes irritably at the fat beads of sweat dripping down his temple.

Across from him, Steve and Bucky sit in matching leather chairs, both still wearing their combat uniforms. They look like heathens, covered in dust and blood, the pervading reek of death defiling the pristine shine of the SHIELD office. Bucky sits with his legs sprawled open, Steve with one ankle balanced on the opposite knee.

Both are smirking.

“Are we though?” Steve shrugs, eyes wide. “If you’re not gonna do your job, someone has to pick up the slack. Like always.”

Nick grinds his teeth so hard they nearly crack. He sees red.

“That’s it, you cocky sonofabitch. We’re done with this. Effective immediately, you’re relieved of your duties. Both of you.”

Steve tips his head back and laughs, an inhuman sound. Nick feels his gut twist.

“Really? Buck did you hear that? We’re ‘relieved’ of our duties. How’s that sound?”

“Sounds like a fucking relief,” Bucky drawls. He picks at his fingernail, scraping dried blood from beneath and flicking it away. Tilting his head, he looks up at Fury with a poisonous smile. “But I dunno, the thing is Director, we’re pretty happy with our jobs. Pays the bills and gives us something to do, so I don’t think we’ll accept your offer. Another day, maybe. That sound good Stevie?”

“Sounds great, Buck.”

At a loss for words, Nick stares. Over the decades, he’s encountered some genuinely fucked up people, a common currency in this line of business, but this? This right here? This is a whole other level. Every hint of remorse, every bit of humanity, every last fragment of goodness is gone. Disappeared. Nothing more than ashes in the wind.

It is a bleak world, when superheroes become the monsters they hunt.

Steeling himself, Nick presses his fists into the desk to hide the shaking tremor of nerves.

“One last warning Rogers. Turn in your weapons and go home. Stand down, or I will make you.”

“Oh please,” Steve sneers, delight in his voice, “give it your best shot. I can’t wait to see how that goes.”

Smoothly simultaneous, they stand. The sound of raucous laughter follows them through the door and into the hallway, before abruptly ending as the heavy wood slams shut. Wide-eyed, Nick sinks slowly into his creaking leather chair.

The skin along the back of his neck tingles.

“Motherfucker,” he whispers.

*****

Standing at the edge of the dark lake, gentle ripples slide along the edges of cracked ice. It grows so fast now, stretching frozen fingers to claim the sheet of blue. Like a parasite, hardening the shoreline, freezing the world to stone.

The wicked irony of the metaphor is not lost.

Staring at the mobile phone clenched tight in your icy fingers, you turn it on for the first time in weeks and the screen lights up with a sea of notifications, red blips and blinking green lights, texts, emails, voicemails. Indicators of an increasingly desperate world beyond the confines of your comfortable bubble. Scrolling through, the names are an endless loop and your heart plummets.

Natasha, Sam, Tony. Nick Fury.

While Steve and Bucky have said nothing, the question itched at your brain. Upon each return, you begged them to tell you: what happened, how were they feeling, what did they see, was anything changing? And over and over, they answered with bashful shrugs and dashing smiles, fervent kisses pressed to your lips as they murmured the same response.

Nothing changed. Everything is good, we feel fine.

Nausea rises, thick and sour. Why did you ever let yourself believe them?

Before, they agonized over morality, what was right, the cost of their decisions. But now? The evidence of their lies glare up in black and white. Thumbing through, you see the increasing alarm in every message, descriptions of all they’ve done. Bombs, gunshots, torture. Blatant disregard for lives, for their team, for anything and anyone other than themselves.

Any semblance of humanity whittled away to nothing. Shattered by a desperate wish and a bargaining dance with a red-eyed demon.

Fuck.

Finger hovering over the latest message from Natasha, you brace yourself and click it open. The words jumble together, swimming black letters.

Nat: Dean Winchester. 785-555-0128. Call him. Please.

Eyes shut, you tip your face up to the sky, sucking in a lungful of sharp air.

For all the darkness circling their souls, the truth is, it remains pure and clear when it comes to their love for you. Bright smiles in the morning, rich laughter teasing through the day, sweet caresses in the night. The unconventionally beautiful relationship among the three of you created remains flawless.

Just as the demon promised.

Selfishly, you want that to be enough - if only it could be - but no. Some wrongs need to be righted, and this tragedy now rests squarely in your hands. Maybe you can save them. Maybe.

And if you can’t?

Heart hammering wildly in your chest, you punch the number, lift the phone to your ear and wait. It rings for so long, you nearly give up, until a gruff voice finally answers.

“Hello?”

*****

End

*****

[inforapound]

Ease The Dawn Pt.2 Ch.14

A/N - A short chapter that I actually wrote last fall. This will be it until next weekend. The story will be complete before TLK starts:) Chapter 13 here. Thx.

Pairing - Ivar and Aethelswith   Words - 1,300      

Warnings - Angst, human sacrifice, death.

"Oh!" Freydis gasped, turning to look at Brana.

"Did not mean to startle you," Brana said, circling Freydis where she knelt on the grass in a large patch of wildflowers. In one of her gloved hands was a small knife from the kitchen.

"Is this where the flowers in Aethelswith's room come from each week?"

"It is," Freydis smiled. "It might be silly; I realize she cannot see but I feel like I can do little else to help. Plus, it is such a lovely day, I am enjoying being outside."

She moved her two baskets of flowers to her other side, one partially filled with colourful mixed varieties and the other held pure white flowers with thick, green stems.

Noticing Brana's eyes on the baskets, Freydis smiled again, "The wildflowers are for the hall but the white ones are all for Lady Aethelswith. They are her favourite."

"That is thoughtful of you, Freydis. Thank you."

"Of course, she is my queen. Sit," Freydis patted the grass beside her. "It feels uncivilized to stand while visiting."

"I will stand. This is an official visit."

Tipping her face up, Freydis waited for Brana to continue.

"Ivar released the healers."

"Little good they did anyway."

"King Ivar and I will care for her now."

Closing her eyes for a moment, Freydis nodded, "We can work in shifts. The King, of course, will be with her at night."

"King Ivar and I will nurse her alone. You now work under Brigit; however, she sees fit."

"I must insist that I stay with my queen. I cannot leave her while she is in this condition. She has been so kind to me, and I swore to serve her."

"Until the hall re-opens, you will help with store preparations for the winter and anything else that Brigit needs."

Looking away, Freydis stared off into the distance over the sloped meadow bordered by tall evergreens.

"Will that be a problem?" Brana pressed, her cool blue eyes staying fixed on Freydis.

"Of course not," she replied quietly, glancing back. "Wherever I am needed."

"Good. Before you return, would you collect some of the blue flowers with the orange centers? They are Forget-Me-Nots. I, too, know my queen."

----

Shuffling through the wooden chimes, the smell of bile scratched his throat, making his nostrils burn. Stopping, he fought the urge to retreat. The fact that he was standing in the putrid little shack, seeking answers from the old man was proof he had exhausted all other means and the realization nearly turned his stomach. But there had been no signs following his offerings to the Gods, no voices or apparitions giving guidance or warning. The silence after all he had done left him wondering if Ragnar truly had been a decedent. Or, perhaps his own life was, in fact, cursed.

After weeks of sacrifice and urgent appeals, her death still felt promised. At night the dreams of the stag and dark waters, faceless huntsmen had morphed into sheer blackness, with the sardonic laughter of a woman, surely Frigg, mocking his attempts at reweaving their fate.

This could not be their destiny though. He refused to believe that he had received this extraordinary gift only to have it taken. She was everything, his reward, his life, not punishment for his rage; he had to end her suffering.

The Gods would be wrong to take her, he thought. The All-Father wrong. They had never felt her spirit in their rough hands, or kissed her perfect lips or had their cold, bitter hearts warmed by her endless understanding. Closing his eyes, he listened to the wind howl, inhaling through his mouth in an attempt to escape the stench. Panic knocked within his chest as he thought how no man, not even one with the heart of a beast, could survive losing her. His beloved was being extinguished and the Seer had to have answers.

"I have been waiting for you, Ivar," a voice came from the cloaked figure on the far side of the room.

"The Gods told you I would come?"

"No, your thoughts are loud boy king."

"I am no boy," he sneered, looking at the sooty mouth of the Seer's distorted face.

"All men are boys when you are hundreds of years old," he rasped back.

Holding his tongue, Ivar stood in place, goose-flesh spreading beneath his leathers. Despite the small, crackling fire, the shack was ice cold. With a huff, he moved forward, shuffling his crutch through the clutter, dropping to sit on a coarsely made bench.

"Tell me," he exhaled through his nose, preparing his question. "Tell me what you foresee?"

"Only what the Gods allow me."

Glaring, he rolled his neck, resisting the urge to run his blade through the melted skin on the old fool's face.

"Talk!" he snapped, his nostrils flaring as he inhaled more of the smell of piss.

"You dare stir Odin through the gates of Valhalla?" His voice sounded amused. "To save your Christian?"

"Tell me, old man," Ivar repeated. "What do they require?"

"Everything," the seer laughed, his chest crackling with phlegm. "To win the favour of the Gods you must appease them, but you already knew that."

Frustration and rage threatened to spill as Ivar boiled away within.

"This is the last place I would be if I knew what they wanted," he spoke through gritted teeth. "I have drained the blood of dozens. Countless animals too. I do this to honour them. For her."

"Hah," he croaked, hacking again. "Conceit is like the bones of a scaled fish, young Ivar. Hard to unswallow. You drained that blood for yourself."

"I did it for her," he hissed, pointing his finger.

"Yourself."

"Then tell me what to do. I cannot lose her."

"And yet, she drinks the poison your kingdom pours."

Narrowing his eyes, Ivar shook his head, not understanding. "What are you talking about? My kingdom... They refuse to save her and yet they have the power. What must I do?"

"The Gods do favour courageous women. They see your princess and what she bears. The question is not, will the Gods save her. It is, what will Ivar the Boneless give for love?"

"Blood. Gold. Anything."

The old man's laugh erupted again settling with a cough. "The Gods sail through oceans of blood. Their boats are cast from gold. They have no interest in your spills."

"What do they want!" Ivar shouted in frustration.

"They require the greatest sacrifice for such a call. To settle the seas of your vanity."

"Fine. Who?"

"A king," the ancient one answered as if it was obvious.

"Finehair."

"You insult the Gods. The thirst of Harald Finehair may turn your harbour red but his life will not appease them." Pausing, he tilted his eyeless face up as if listening to the wind.

"I will cut down anyone I must. She is my everything."

"No, she was your beginning and now your fates are tied in the undoing of your making, son of Ragnar. You must choose."

"Choose what?" he snapped.

"To live or to die."

"I choose for her to live."

The Seer shook his cloaked head, "Little birds will perch again when you lay your gold at the feet of Odin."

Squeezing the ax at his side, Ivar's patience was done.

"Ivar, sacrifice does not part a union forged in love and a woman's love burns in the lining of her heart. Hers, your princess, it burns even in her small bones and tiny womb."

"Enough of your riddles! What kind of sacrifice must I make?"

"The ultimate," the Seer spat back.

"Who needs to die for her to live?"

"You, my King."

.

@youbloodymadgenius​ @naaladareia​ @whenimaunicorn​ @ceridwenofwales​  @jaydelesley4​  @sweeneythots​ @funmadnessandbadassvikings​ @fangirl-nonsense​ @redama​ @mdredwine​ @didiintheblog​   @londongal2810​ @fields-and-fields-of-poppies​  @littlecarolina94​ @oddsnendsfanfics​  @youbelongeverywhere @blonddnamedhandz​ @hecohansen31​

[aethelflaedladyofmercia]

The Long Walk

(We have a lot to celebrate this month: 30 years from the publication of Good Omens, one year since the series came out. I, myself, have some big milestones: 666 followers, 200k+ on AO3, and 30 fics posted! And I’m about to hit 4,000 Tumblr posts. Naturally, I choose to celebrate with something VERY melancholy

(This fic was inspired by my prompt for @itsthearoway - milestones of Crowley and Aziraphale through history - but was written right after I went into self-isolation. It’s a bit of a reflection on death, life, and hope. I’m not tagging it for death because technically there are no on-screen deaths, but if you are avoiding fic that make you think about mortality DO NOT READ THIS. It’s hopeful, but also very angst.

(Thank you all! I’m working on a longer light-hearted fic about the early days of the arrangement for @itsthearoway that I hope to have the first chapter ready for in a couple of days. Here’s to another 200k!)

--

The Long Walk - A short saga of the world, two observers, and the question: what is it all for? (1697 words)

Also on AO3

The sands stretch away from the Walls of Eden, eternally in either direction. Endless empty wasteland. Unrelenting heat fills the air, beaming down from the sun, up from the dunes. The kind of heat that nothing can live in.

Through the endless empty wasteland walk an angel and a demon, side-by-side.

“Seems an awful waste,” says the demon. “Build a whole world with nothing in it. If the Almighty is so powerful, why not make everywhere like Eden?”

“Eden was special,” says the angel, sadly. He hasn’t been cast out, not in the way the humans and the demon have. But the Garden’s time is over, and he can move on, or fade with it. “Eden was perfect.”

“Yeah, a perfect prison.” The demon rolls his eyes. “Too perfect for the likes of me.”

“No, not perfect like that. Perfectly balanced.” The angel holds out a hand, tipping it side to side. “The weather, the animals, all life, everything hung perfectly from the slightest thread. The was no…no room for deviation, you might say. No room for evil, yes, but also for good. For knowledge. For choice or free will. Once the humans had that, they had to leave. Even if they stayed, it all would have fallen apart.”

The demon considers as they walked. “That’s your ‘ineffable’ explanation?”

A shrug. “It makes sense, doesn’t it?”

“Not really.” The demon looks at their surroundings. “And it still seems an awful waste. Sending the humans out here to die.”

“Oh, I don’t think it will come to that. They may yet find something outside the Garden. Look.”

Ahead of them, a shape bursts from the shade of a dune, a small lizard, mottled brown, running for all it's worth to cower in the next shadow. “There’s still life,” says the angel. “Still a chance.”

A thousand years.

Frozen winters.

Drought-filled summers.

A Flood covers the land, and recedes.

Through lands scoured clear of any trace of life walk an angel and a demon, side-by-side.

“Not much of a chance, if our sides keep interfering,” the demon says, watching the brown river rush past between barren banks.

“You shouldn’t say things like that,” the angel chides.

A snort. “You’d say the same if it were my side that did this.” Silence, apart from footfalls in the mud. “Well, go on. Tell me it’s all part of the Plan. I can practically hear you thinking it.”

“Well it is. I might not understand it, but it must be.”

“Some Plan. A thousand years of struggle and toil, for what? Just to be destroyed like that.”

“Nonsense.” The angel points overhead at a flitting dove. The first bird either of them has seen since the rains began. “It isn’t over yet. And we can’t know until it’s over.”

Two thousand more years.

Cities rise.

Cities fall.

Sodom.

Thera.

Troy.

They walk together through the empty streets of what had once been the world’s greatest city, past shattered walls and burned out homes and the remains of a wooden horse.

“They’ve learned from you,” the angel says, an edge of bitterness.

“They’ve learned from us,” the demon corrects, but without rancor.

The angel pauses to study the remains of a temple, altar within shattered, blood spattered across the floor from more than sacrificial animals. “Either way, they surpassed their teachers.”

“They did.” In the distance, past once-impregnable gates that will never close again, high-masted ships depart. Not the attackers, returning victorious to kingdoms that have been destroyed in other ways; these are the survivors, in search of a new home. “Do you suppose they’ll do any better the next time?”

“We must hope,” said the angel, looking where white flowers grow through the cracks in the path. “We must always hope.”

Phoenicia.

Persia.

Carthage.

Rome.

Empires grow.

Empires topple.

They walk, tracing the path of an aqueduct, still valiantly carrying water to an empty city, miles away.

“You know, I really thought they had something this time,” sighs the angel, watching the rodents burrow beneath the monumental stones.

The demon tosses his head, looking at the endless span of arch on arch, crossing a continent. “They did.”

“Next time,” the angel says, with confidence he doesn’t feel. “Next time they’ll get it right.”

“They will. For a time.”

“Oh, there is no need for you to be…pessimistic,” the angel snaps.

“It’s not pessimism, it’s – oh, never mind.” The demon saunters a little faster. “I think I see a village up ahead. Probably have something to drink there.”

Wars rage, brought by raiders or kings or desperate humans.

Famine crawls from town to town, spurred on by locusts, by ice storms, by greed.

Pestilence crosses the world again and again.

Death. Death. Death.

An angel kneels in the street, holding a human’s hand. The human isn’t moving.

A demon materializes from the shadows behind him. “Give it a rest. You can’t do anything for him now.”

“I know.” He stands up. “But I had to try.”

All around them, the city stands silent. Not empty. Humans locked in their homes, afraid to go out, afraid to be too close, afraid the plague may catch them, too.

“He should have fled,” the angel says sadly. “Left the city while he still had a chance.”

“Not everyone can run,” the demon points out.

“I know.” After a time, he walks again, the demon beside him. Past empty fountains, abandoned marketplaces, homes boarded shut. “The city has changed so much. Do you remember that lovely restaurant we used to visit?”

“Burned down. Almost a thousand years ago.” The demon shrugs. “Vandals. Or Goths, maybe.”

“Ah. Pity.”

From a nearby alley, the stench of death. The demon tries to look away, only to find himself meeting the angel’s eyes.

“You won’t find anyone in there.”

“I know. But I have to try.”

The demon sighs, but follows him in. “I hate this century.”

“You always say that, dear.”

New continents.

New art styles.

New wars.

New technologies.

Until one afternoon the world ends – and is made anew.

And only one small group of humans will ever know – and an angel and a demon, stepping off a bus together at three in the morning. The city isn’t empty, merely asleep.

Not ready to go inside just yet, they walk around the block, listening to foxes rummage through rubbish bins, watching lights flick on, here and there, where another insomniac has risen from bed.

“What do you suppose comes next?” the angel wonders, when the silence becomes too much. “For the humans.”

“Dunno.” The demon tosses his head, hands stuck in his pockets. “More of the same, I would guess. Life, death, love, hate, good, bad. Human stuff.”

“But something has to change,” the angel insists. “The world nearly ended for…for Heaven’s sake,” he finishes, voice full of irony. “But if it was the Plan, it must mean something. What’s it all leading to?”

“We might find out. Depends what comes next. For us.”

“Ah.” The angel slows. Stops. “Do you…do you suppose they’re very angry?”

The demon turns to face him with a snort. “What do you think?”

“I think…I think…” His hands straighten his waistcoat, smooth his tie. “I think that whatever comes next, however much time we have…I should like to carry on as we always have.” His tone is light, his eyes searching.

A slow nod. “Yeah.” The demon reaches out, gently squeezes the angel’s shoulder. “Yeah. Me too.”

When they start walking again it is, as always, side-by-side.

“And, you know, I would like to see how it all turns out.”

“You and me both, Angel.”

More time passes.

The world grows old. Ancient.

Another war. The Really Big One. Bigger than any seen on Earth or in Heaven.

Everybody fights.

Everybody loses.

When it is over – when all things are over – there is nothing left.

No world, no Paradise, no eternal torment. No Hosts of Heaven, no Legions of Hell.

No humans, no Satan, no God.

Just an endless, eternal expanse of nothing and, somewhere in the featureless plane, an angel in white, kneeling, alone.

Slowly, the darkness around him resolves into another shape. The demon steps forward, fighting back a smile. “There you are. You survived.” As if he hasn’t been frantically searching. “Thought as much. You’re very hard to kill.”

The angel doesn’t respond.

“It sure was a mess, though, wasn’t it?” The demon shakes his head ruefully. “Should have expected it, really, but right at the end when –”

“I was wrong.” The angel hasn’t moved, eyes still locked on the endless Nothing. “Thousands of years, millions of sunrises, and for what? There was never any point.”

“No, Angel.” The demon kneels beside him, rests a hand on his shoulder. “I mean, yeah, you were wrong. Because the ending was never the point. It was the journey – all those millions of days, filled with love and hate and smiling children and fighting with friends and favorite foods and annoying songs and struggles and choices and…and life. Everything they never would have had if they’d stayed in the Garden. That was the point. That was always the point.”

“Perhaps,” the angel tries to smile. “It was lovely, wasn’t it? While it lasted?”

“Yeah. It really was.” The demon helps him to his feet. “And, you know, it’s not completely gone.”

He waves a hand, long fingers trailing through the void as they had at the beginning of time, helping to shape the stars. He gathers together every atom, every wisp of matter, closer, closer, into a ball. The angel presses his hands into it, and together they compress it, tighter, denser, until –

A spark. From neither. From both.

BANG.

The void fills once more.

With chaos.

With potential.

With light.

The demon looks around, nodding with approval. “What do you think, Angel? Time for another walk?”

He gazes out at the disks of galaxies forming in the expanding cloud of debris. “Do you…do you think things will be different this time?”

A shrug. “Only one way to find out.”

Through the glowing crucible of a newborn universe walk an angel and a demon, side-by-side.

[anika-ann]

Heart Too Cold, but Friends of Gold - Pt.3

Dead Woman Walking

Pairing: Steve Rogers x reader     Word count: 3590

Summary: Avenger!reader AU. Part 2 of Melting Hearts series. Part 1 HERE.

Facing an enemy who took your parents was a challenge. Facing your parents, who had lived under the impression you had died was a other story entirely...Let’s just say that it was too much to handle... but punching you could do.

Warnings: swearing, violence, violence caused by superpowers… (if that’s a thing…Ice Ice Baby)

Story Masterlist

────── ·❆· ──────

You knew you were not ready to see your parents ever again.

You sure as fuck were not ready to see them with a knife at their throats, no matter how much you tried to brace yourself.

All remnants of your cool, all the confidence you had gained when fighting your way through, it all turned into ash.

You were a helpless kid again – helpless and ill, finally seeing their mother after an endless procedure and all you wished for was to curl up in her arms and let her cradle you in her warm and safe embrace, where everything got better.

You felt the air being knocked out of you, tears prickling your eyes. Your dad was right next to her, a huge man holding him in some sort of a headlock, blade on his throat. His expression was one of horror; the fact you might have been the true source of his fear stung your gut sharper than you anticipated.

Your mother was simply crying, watching you with mixture of healthy respect, fear and hesitant hope. It broke you even when you knew she could never ever recognize you like this.

You sprang in her direction first, but a man waiting behind the door on your left surprised you, lunging after you. You shushed the yelp and the pissed off ‘sloppy’ that sounded in your head and caught his arm on you, flipping him over, knocking him unconscious with your fist covered in ice.

The one appearing right behind him ended up with his feet frozen to the floor by two thick columns of ice, your sole in his abdomen. Also, his hand received a bit of a frostbite when he aimed his gun at you. And then you punched him in his face twice. He fell down.

“If I didn’t have my hands full, I would clap,” a sly voice commented, sending icy shivers down your spine.

You snapped your head to him, your ponytail flying with the swift movement.

Oh how you had learnt to hate and despise that voice in just few hours. Had you had fallen asleep during the time between receiving the phone call and your arrival here, you would have heard him in your nightmares.

You barely made a move towards him when the click of his tongue stopped you, his gaze focused on the blade of your mother’s skin. You froze in the middle of your step.

“Wouldn’t do that if I were you, Snowflake.”

Your nails dug into your palm at the addressing, the action followed by his cheeky smile. God how much you craved for freezing that smile and punching all of his teeth out.

“Let them go,” you hissed, not caring if you sounded cliché or not.

He seemed to consider for long seconds, his gaze getting distant.

“Not exactly what I had in mind,” he replied in the end, meeting your eyes again.

You would swear you saw a flash of madness in them; your heart stopped at that. Mad people had nothing to lose. Who had nothing to lose did whatever they wanted.

You gulped. How do you get through to a psychopath?

You had no better plan than offering yourself in exchange – you were not afraid of showing your weakness, he had already known it after all, he had used it to get you here.

“Please. You don’t have to hurt them. You got my attention. I’m here. These people are innocent,” you pleaded in shaky voice, glancing at your parents’ faces again.

Their expressions twisted with fear made you want to cry and curl up in a ball.

Here I am, you fucking bastard. Here I am, so let them go. For god’s sake, just let them go. I was supposed to die years ago and if not that, than at least months ago. I am in relative peace with my death and so are they. But not with their own.

They were both crying, eyes puffy and their features worn. It seemed like the exhaustion they were used to was nothing compared to this, this time not settled into their bones; no, the weariness was now eating their bones like a disease.

Your mother was a kindergarten teacher and your dad was an accountant, after all. They were not built for this shit. They were never meant to go through this. They didn’t deserve it. And yet, here they were. Because of you. And because of him.

“Just one ‘please’? I would expect more from you…. After all, their lives should matter to you greatly. Don’t you think, Madam?” he whispered to your mom’s ear and your hand jerked their way. “Oh come on, don’t be stupid. She’ll be dead before you even try. That’s not how this works. Beg.”

The hate coiling in your abdomen mingled with fear. The instinct of being a good girl and do as he asked so your parents, the people you loved endlessly, wouldn’t be harmed any further, and the instinct of a fighter developed during your moths as an Avenger were in a furious battle… and no one was winning.

Except Michaels.

“Get on your knees. And beg.”

Your jaw clenched as he beckoned to his friend; the man added a bit of a pressure and suddenly the thinnest trickle of blood went down, sinking into your father’s collar. He wore a blue shirt – you didn’t think this could get any more ironic. You obediently sunk to your knees, your eyes locked with his.

The floor around you covered in black ice in perfect circle without you intending it. You ignored it and sought out their captor again. “Please. Please, don’t hurt them. I’m begging you.”

His lips spread in a smile. “Not bad, sweet-cheeks. Now, why don’t you take the eye-mask off? So they know why they’re gonna die?”

You glanced at your mother’s pale face and that was enough to bring tears into your eyes. Your hands shook as you placed them both on the edges of your mask, slowly, oh so slowly stripping it.

You raised your gaze hesitantly, not even faking the reluctance – you just gave up one barrier that was separating your true identity from your Avenger persona. Today, you had given your money on two more things – the voice disguiser and the skin-thin mask S.H.I.E.L.D. was using to conceal someone’s face so no one could suspect a thing. It was an incredible technology that worked all too well.

Unless your enemies knew for a fact that this was not what you looked like.

The man in charge clicked his tongue disapprovingly.

“Aww, Frosty, it’s cute that you think you can hide. But you’re forgetting I know who you are. Some fancy tech won’t fool me. Take off your mask… or she dies.”

He pressed the knife tighter to your mom’s skin and you would swear your heart stopped. Your hands instinctively went to prop up, so you could lunge forward; a warning tsk made you change your mind effectively.

“Uh-huh. Stay where you are and. Take. Off. Your. Fucking. Mask.”

“She’s not wearing a mask! What are you talking about?” your mother cried out, tears rolling down her cheeks and you swore that moment that you would fucking gut that bastard who had done this to her.

“Oh she is. Come on. Do I need to start a countdown?” he mocked you.

“Why are you doing this?” you whispered, icy fire sneaking through your body, filling your veins with unknown feeling as well as the room.

The walls started covering in thin ice too – you weren’t aware of doing it, it must have been a subconscious reaction of your powers to your mental state. You were losing control, but you didn’t give a fuck. You had no intention to spare this worm, the poor excuse for a human being.

“To make a show. But don’t worry, you’re gonna die too. I vowed to find a soft spot of each Avenger to detach them from the team and make them an easy target to kill… you were the easiest one really. Leaving the people you care about so much unprotected…” he teased you slyly and the unknown feeling suddenly blossomed into something much more familiar, only with yet unrecognized intensity.

Anger. Rage.

“You fucking bastard-“

“Ouch. You kiss your mother with that mouth?” That fucker! You gritted your teeth, your hands balling into tight fists against the floor. “I’m gonna slit her throat unless you reveal yourself in three…”

You were sure as hell that he wouldn’t hesitate to do as he was promising, even if it meant he wouldn’t get his big revelation – he was insane like that, no doubt.

You squeezed your eyes shut, feeling your tears running down the synthetic material imitating your skin. You held out one of your hands, asking for a moment, but you didn’t expect to get any.

“…two…”

You turned off the voice disguiser first – if you were about to reveal your face, there was no point in it. Then you brought your other hand to the levelled button to deactivate the advanced tech and started stripping it only a fraction of second later after pushing at the right place. You scrambled the thin film off your face, letting it fall.

You heard the astonished gasps, the breath of your name on your parent’s lips as loud as if they were screaming and you swallowed more tears that begged for release. You couldn’t make yourself to meet anyone’s eyes.

“That’s it, pretty girl. It’s a shame to hide a face like that, ain’t it?”

You breathed in sharply when you saw the steam coming out of his mouth peripherally. The temperature dropped significantly – your doing again, another sign of the powers acting on their own.

You lifted your gaze, piercing his eyes with yours with determination.

“Oh-ho, sweet. Never saw you change the colour of your eyes before. I guess the winter is coming.”

You had no fucking idea what he was talking about. Heavy snowflakes started falling down, but there was no gentleness in it – no, cold wind blew them, making them swirl around madly, making everyone in the room squint; except you. You felt something bubble inside you, something fighting its way out, crawling out and you had no need to try to shush it or push it back.

It made you feel strong. It made feel powerful enough to take these sons of bitches out.

“Whoa, now that’s new, Frosty-frost. What else you’ve got?” he mocked you with a victorious grin, his disgusting smugness in a stark contrast to your mother’s pale face.

You let go – you let go completely, allowing the burning energy to get loose. Your arms flew up in front of you intuitively as you jumped to your feet.

The sudden gust of wind threw the two remaining thugs against a wall, while your parents forms remained steady for some inexplicable reason – it was as if the energy acted instinctively again, its rage only focused on the people who had done you wrong.

The thug who had been holding your father’s head was knocked out by the blast; he slid down the icy wall as a rag doll, leaving a thin smudge of blood on its way, the ice cracked on the point of impact.

Michaels scrambled up, trying to catch his breath; behind him, the ice was broken as well. He chuckled a bit shakily, wiping blood from his fingertips to his trousers.

“Gotta admit, didn’t see that coming, Ice Queen.”

You walked to him slowly, having all the time in the world – he was barely standing and you felt the sprouts of energy at your hands that were just begging you to release them. So you did.

His body slammed against the wall once again, this time staying that way – invisible force was keeping him on place and he was stretching his neck so he could watch you approach.

“Why did you do this? The truth,” you demanded flatly, taking your time when erasing the distance between the two of you. You passed by your parents without a word; you had a monster to deal with now.

Michaels’ eyebrow rose – the gesture looked ridiculous since he still had to keep his eyes narrowed to see anything at all as the snowflakes was blowing into his face constantly.

“Big fan of family gathe-“

Your hand shot up to grab his throat before he could finish. He gasped for air.

“Tell. Me.”

Despite fighting for air and his limbs pinned to the wall, he grinned. “Look who’s— showing-- their true--- colours.”

You clenched your jaw and pressed tighter – you could feel your palm burning cold, itching to give a frostbite to his fucking vocal cords. The power was dizzying. You had never felt so strong and you were thanking heavens or hell – you didn’t care whose doing that was – for being able to fight like this now.

A solid weight of an icicle formed in your free hand unwittingly, rising to his neck.

You could see his eyes widen in shock before he composed his expression – you didn’t believe his fake bravery, you knew he was scared and it only fuelled the flame in you. You were the superior one. And this man needed a punishment.

“Frostbite— more like-- Killer Frost,” he choked out, tears rolling down his cheeks as he was fighting for air. His lips were slowly turning blue; you found it more interesting than his words, because he wasn’t saying what you wanted to hear. In fact, something stung your guts at the addressing, making your twitch, that something that felt important. But it wasn’t. “Why don’t--- you show---- mommy and dad-“

The sting was sharper this time. Something twisted your insides, something you couldn’t recognize, an inner voice whispering you to stop this madness; the freaking snowstorm in the room, the wind, the ice, the icy fire on your hands. The voice was shushed by a new rush of anger as you saw the man’s cocky smile, only growing when his hazy gaze looked behind you.

“-daddy— what a mur-murderer-- you are. Not your--- your first time---- ‘fter all.”

You gripped your weapon tighter and squeezed your eyes shut as the voice in your head got louder.

Spare him.

NO.

“Shut up,” you strained through your teeth, forcing yourself to look at him, to remember how much you hated him for what he had done and had tried to do. How much he deserved to die.

“ ’m sure Cap— ‘d be proud-- too.”

The mention of Steve did it.

You roared, burying the icicle in his body – it sank into his muscles as if he was made of butter, instantly covering in crimson liquid.

It was the most satisfying thing you had even done.

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Part 4

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Tags: @mermaidxatxheart​, @murdermornings​, @elisaa-shelby​ @ask-hellbent-tweek @cxptain, @kallafrench​, @smilexcaptainx​

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Thank you for reading! If anyone happens to want in or out of tags for Steve or this story, lemme know!

[razieltwelve]

The Queen of Winter (RWBY AU Snippet)

Note: This goes with Dragon.

X     X     X

For ten thousand years, or so it was said, Atlas stood unbroken, hidden behind its walls of ice and a storm that never ended. Safe in the eye of the storm, its people prospered, and any Grimm that ventured too close fell prey to the ice, the wind, and the snow.

But the storm weakened, for it was born from the blood of ancient dragons, and the dragons were all gone. Little by little, year by year, it weakened. And the walls of ice that never melted began to thaw one by one. Atlas had stood unbroken for ten thousand years, but nothing lasts forever.

X     X     X

Weiss dreamed of stormy skies and endless drifts snow. She dreamed of a land where it was always winter, and the sun gleamed off glaciers that had no end. She dreamed of wings that brought blizzards and of breath that froze oceans. She dreamed of fangs and claws and scales as white as freshly fallen snow.

Sometimes, when she closed her eyes, she could hear something beyond the howl of the wind. It sounded almost like a dragon’s roar.

X     X     X

When Weiss was four, she awakened her magic. Her father looked at the ice creeping across the floor and the frost on the windowpanes, and he shook his head.

“Not strong enough.”

And Weiss looked beyond him to the towering walls that had stood unchallenged for as long as anyone could remember, walls of ice as sure and certain as the dawn. The walls were melting, and what use was one child’s magic when the kingdom needed a dragon?

Not strong enough. The words echoed in her heart, and something burned in her chest, something cold and almost cruel. It felt like winter clawing through her veins.

X     X     X

Weiss became a prodigy. By the time she was twelve, she was the finest ice mage the kingdom had known in centuries. Day and night she laboured, searching for a way to strengthen the walls and the storm that protected her kingdom. Many were the nights she slept surrounded by open books and tattered scrolls, and always the answer was the same.

Not strong enough.

And yet, was her father any better?

She had delved deep into the history of her people, she had learned the stories of their greatest kings and queens. Her father was no great king, though he liked to style himself as one. He was quick to assign blame, but even quicker to take credit, and his magic was weak.

He was no caller of storms, no bringer of winter, no weaver of ice and snow and glacier. 

And the stronger she grew, the angrier he became.

“Not strong enough,” he would growl. “Never strong enough.”

And for all that he was right - Weiss still wasn’t strong enough - he was hardly any better. 

X     X     X

When Weiss was fifteen, her father sent her from the palace. The great walls of ice were still melting, and the storm was growing ever weaker. More and more Grimm dared to approach Atlas, and the people grew afraid. There were whispers of his weakness, of how his magic had not slowed the failing of the walls or the fading of the storm.

There were whispers too of Weiss, of how perhaps she might succeed where her father had failed. And so he sent her away, but he would soon regret it. For Weiss distinguished herself in battle against the Grimm. 

Assigned to one of the kingdom’s outposts, Weiss and those she commanded won a great battle. The Grimm assailed them in great numbers, but Weiss called tearing winds and bitter cold, and the Grimm were driven back with heavy losses.

Queen of Winter they called her.

“No,” she replied. “I am only a princess.”

But still those she led merely smiled and shook their heads.

“Queen of Winter,” they insisted.

And the title spread throughout the land.

X     X     X

When Weiss was seventeen, she died.

Her father sent more men to the outpost, a blessing she’d thought at first, an acknowledgement of her good work. She should have known better. On a scouting trip that passed a lake, they planted a knife between her ribs and flung her into the icy waters.

She sank quickly, embraced by the cold and the long, lingering dark. Her last sight was of the black depths of the lake below her, and the trails of red spiralling up toward the surface and the cloud-strewn skies above.

An old prayer filled her mind even as water and blood filled her lungs.

X     X     X

My scales are white And my blood is ice My teeth are swords And my claws are spears My wings are the winter wind And my heart is the soul of the frozen north I was a dragon once And I will be a dragon again

X     X     X

Weiss died, and winter had its queen again.

X     X     X

“What have you done, father?” Winter hissed. 

The king looked back at her, and she realised for the first time that the man she had called father had died long ago, slain by pride and jealousy. “What I had to.”

“To have Weiss - your own daughter - assassinated! Have you lost your mind?” Winter reached for the sword at her side, and the royal guard seemed torn between stopping her and merely standing aside.

“I am the king!” her father bellowed. “Your sister was going to usurp me! I know what they called her! Queen of Winter,” he sneered. “Queen of nothing! I am the king, and there will be no other ruler while I still -”

He stopped there, for throughout all of Atlas, bells had begun to ring. The Grimm had come.

“We will speak of this again,” Winter growled as she turned on her heel. “Someone has to defend this kingdom.” She snarled and tossed her last words over her shoulder. “Though I wonder if it is even worth defending if its king is so craven as to murder his own daughter and then huddle inside his palace while others, braver by far, fight and die.”

X     X     X

“The outer walls have fallen!” Winter cried as she rallied what soldiers she had left. “Retreat to the inner walls! Only death awaits us here.” Beneath them, the great wall of ice shuddered, and the chunks of it ripped loose and tumbled to the ground. The howl of the storm was little more than a whimper, and Winter blinked back tears as she looked upon the end of Atlas.

A black tide of Grimm marred the snow, and vivid splashes of red marked where the kingdom’s brave defenders had fallen. Like a verminous wave, they clambered over the cracked and breaking walls, and their cries of rage and hate filled the air with a symphony of malice. In the skies, winged Grimm shrieked and bayed, no longer kept back by the tearing winds of the storm. Now and then, they dove, tearing brave soldiers from the walls or spewing vile poison upon those unlucky enough to be caught out in the open.

For ten thousand years, Atlas had stood unbroken. No longer. 

“Your Highness,” one of the soldiers said, all but dragging her clear as the wall began to collapse. “You must retreat to the palace. We cannot hold the outer walls, and the inner walls will not last much longer either. At least at the palace -”

“No!” She shook herself free of his grasp. “I am no coward. If I die, it will be on these walls defending my people. Let my father huddle in the palace. Once the walls fall, the palace will be little better than a tomb. A thousand years from now, if our people still endure, I will not have it said that I ran while my people died!”

But despite her brave words, Winter trembled. Death was close at hand now, and she could feel its icy touch upon her heart.

And then, when all seemed lost, a cry went up. A soldier on the southernmost section of the wall saw it first and then another and another, and their shouts spread over the din of battle and the wails of the dying.

“Dragon! A dragon has come!”

Winter turned her eyes to the south and saw they had spoken truly. A dragon had come, a dragon straight from the Old Days when a dragon in mortal form had founded Atlas and built the walls and birthed the storm.

Scales as white as fresh snow shone in the winter sun, and eyes like blue fire blazed with murderous intent. The dragon bellowed, and the sound of it tore the air. The dwindling storm roared in reply, and the weakening winds became a howl that threatened to wrench soldiers off the walls and tear buildings from the ground.

A wave of cold washed over them, so intense that it all but stole Winter’s breath away. Above them, the dragon opened its maw and let loose a blast of ice that would have shamed even the deepest of winters. The skies froze and the Grimm with them, and Grimm fell to shatter upon ground. With a sound like a hurricane, the dragon dove, and frost followed in its wake. The Grimm upon the walls and those pouring into the city were frozen where they stood, and the dragon rose once more.

Beneath them, the walls shook. Fresh ice restored them. Around them, the storm raged. The Grimm were slaughtered in droves as ice and hail rained down and snow swept them aside.

And then the dragon descended, and where a dragon had been, a princess now stood. 

“Weiss!” Winter cried with joy in her heart.

Weiss turned to look at her, and for a moment there was something so ancient, so unspeakably old, in her gaze that Winter could barely move. But the moment passed, and Weiss’s gaze shifted to the palace at the centre of the city.

X     X     X

Jacques trembled as he looked upon the dragon that had once been his daughter. 

“Seize her!” he ordered his royal guard.

Not one of them moved.

With each step Weiss took, the ground beneath her froze. Hoarfrost clung to the trees and the sculptures that dotted the courtyard. Gone were the mage’s robes she favoured. In their place was a mantle of frost and robes of woven snow. And upon her brow, gleaming like a star, was a crown of ice.

Weiss stopped not far from him and cast her gaze around the courtyard. One by one the royal guards knelt, not to him but to her.

“I am a dragon, father,” Weiss said, and her lips curled. “Perhaps I should thank you. A life for a life, father, isn’t that what the gods teach us? A princess died, so a dragon could be born.”

“I…”

“You know what this means, don’t you?” Weiss asked, and her smile was so cold it burned. 

He did. Atlas had been founded by a dragon, and only a dragon could truly rule it. But all the dragons were gone… until now.

“I do.”

Weiss did not move, but her shadow stirred, and the vast, presence of a dragon filled the courtyard. “Then kneel.”

X     X     X

Author’s Notes

Weiss’s situation is somewhat different from Yang’s, which is fine. It lets her be an absolute badass.

If you’re interested in my thoughts on writing and other topics, you can find those here.

You can find my original fiction on Amazon here. In fact, I’ve just released a new story, Attempted Adventuring. If you like humour, action, and adventure, be sure to check it out.

[fromthedeskofelizabeththird]

Stolen

Officially dipping my toes into Fire Emblem fics. Dimitri has replaced V as the traumatized sad boy I can project onto lmaooooo. Expect PTSD recovery fics in the nearish future. Yall know I’m weak for those.

Fire Emblem Three Houses | M (for violence, not smut) | Dimileth

~~

Dimitri used to dream of battlefields.

He’s not sure what it says about him that his mind, when left to wander, is most comfortable at war. He is soothed by the monsters in his own imagination and only sleeps comfortably with a knife under his pillow.

During the fall of Garreg Mach, he wonders if he’s dreaming, barely hearing the screams around him and reaching for his lance out of instinct and little else. He is numb to the fire and destruction and does not return to his senses until he’s tossed into a cell.

Only then does he resist it; throwing his body at the bars like an angry tiger. He does not want to be left alone in the silence; cannot stand the idea of being left in the dark. The calm and quiet leaves him thinking of corpses; it fills his nose with the smell of smoke and burning bodies.He does not sleep there unless he can help it. He paces every corner of his cell in the hope that sunlight might burn through the cracks. It’s almost cruel that the chaos of his escape is the closest he has ever felt to home.

It’s winter when he returns to Garreg Mach and the monastery is blanketed in a thick layer of snow. He glances back at his footsteps in the ice, all too aware that he walks alone.

He remembers it as he walks through the empty halls, dodging rubble and bodies on the way. In his imagination the monastery is caught in an eternal summer: Ashe sitting on a tree branch and dropping apples into Mercedes’ basket; Sylvain whispering sweet nothings into a different girl’s ear to the one the day before, only to be yanked away the ear by an increasingly frustrated Ingrid; Felix begrudgingly carrying a pile of books from the library with Annette in tow; Dedue kneeling on the floor of the greenhouse and tending to his Duscur flowers.

Ashe’s tree is gone now; chopped for firewood well over a year ago. Sylvain’s makeshift lover’s corner is nothing more than rubble. The library was swallowed up in flames and its heavy tomes left in tatters where they’ve survived at all. Dedue’s Duscur flowers are overgrown.

He remembers the Professor sleeping in the library, the focussed expression on her face as she fished by sunset. He remembers the way she pored over heavy books, familiarising herself with magic and cavalry techniques so that she might better instruct her students.

It goes without saying that the Professor is not there either, a gaping void in what had once been his home. He doesn’t know where she went and that makes it worse.

Only when he’s standing inside of the ruined goddess tower does he realise he’s been searching for her. If he’s completely honest with himself, he’s been searching for her since the invasion. He craned his neck and peered through the bars of his cell, searching the faces of every other prisoner in the hopes that one of them would be Byleth. He expected her to be there when he escaped the darkness at the cost of Dedue’s life; an echo of the moment she split the sky. He wishes now that he had told her the truth about his feelings  when it mattered. He wishes he hadn’t cracked a joke for fear of rejection.

Not for the first time in his life, he laments his stolen future. It’s easier to think of it as stolen by somebody else than lost through his own neglect.

His demons have always had faces, but now they have claws and he feels them break the skin every time he wanders the ruined halls. They whisper in his ear as he lingers on the cusp of sleep, reminding him of everything he could have done differently.

Three months after his return, he catches a thief red handed. They’re little more than a boy-as young as he was when his father took his last breath- but he cannot see beyond what they represent. They’re only holding a silver plate, but it might as well have been his still beating heart. It’s not even his plate but the idea of losing something else fills him with rage.

He doesn’t feel remorse until later; too focused on the Professor’s sleeping form and Dudue’s Duscur flowers to hold back. He watches the light fade from the thief's eyes as he once did autumn sunsets, cutting into him over and over to silence the crueler voices in his mind.

If he can save this plate, he isn’t worthless.

If he can fix this, it isn’t too late.

The other Blue Lions are stolen and might be returned if he cuts the throats of enough thieves.

They might come back if they know he’s looking for them.

He knows it’s ridiculous. He’s had dark thoughts before but this frightens even him. He can’t escape the smell of blood, can’t stop himself from taking a perverse sort of pleasure in smearing strangers’ blood across the halls. He tells each and every one of them that they’re failures as they drift away; they’re beasts and worthless and deserving of far worse. They stole away his endless summer.

He’s sure he remembers them cutting down Ashe’s apple tree. Weren’t they the ones who burned the library? The Professor is gone now and they’re the ones to blame.

He used to dream of battlefields, but now he dreams of a stolen life- a past, present and future he doesn’t belong in anymore. He no longer recognises himself in the beloved king he wanted so much to be, doesn’t want to tarnish the throne and his birthright.

That Dimitri would be frightened of him, he’s sure and that Byleth would be disgusted.

He’s disappointed every time he wakes up, wanting nothing more than to slip away in his sleep, even though he’s well aware that such a gentle fate is more than he deserves.

It’s strangely fitting when he hears her footsteps across the stone floor only when he is content to die; one last kiss from an angel before his descent into hell.

Byleth looks the same, from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. The sky behind her is the perfect shade of peach and leaves a golden halo in her hair and he stares at the hand she extends, taking note of the calluses that litter her palms.

She doesn’t have the delicate hands of a story book maiden, but he’s always believed that to be one of her finer qualities. Even so, he hesitates before giving her his own. Surely she can see the blood stains and broken lives smeared across it. She’s not real, yet the guilt overrides his senses nonetheless.

Right now she is a goddess in all but name and he is not the one she came here to save.

He takes her hand, if nothing else for the fact that it’s so warm in his. For a moment, even temporarily, she’s real and returned to him and it silences his mind.

“I should have known,” he says aloud, his voice an unfamiliar rasp, “that one day you’d haunt me as well.”

[thatboomerkid]

Wishing Day

Wishing Day

Pathfinder Fiction by Clinton J. Boomer

Brought to you absolutely free to enjoy, to test & to share – as always – by the fine folks of my Patreon.

Old Wishtwister Shadibriri was having himself a truly lovely day.

The barren sky hung still, sullen and gray like a pool of seething lead, low and dark upon the horizon without a ghost of sunlight behind it. Stinging snow, much of it now clumped into hard, cruel shards of ice, sifted and spattered through the black and leafless trees, filling the forest path with a drifting, bony whiteness, which crunched delightfully underfoot.

A cry of killing wind cut, crackling, through the ice-coated branches, and a smile crept unto the lips of the Wishtwister.

Such good sport, he thought with a quiet laugh. And what a day!

It was a day that promised to be delightful, and productive, and most of all simply a well-fulfilling damned enterprise. After all, he thought: it’s Wishing Day!

Thirty miles south by south-east of Gralton, soiled jewel of the River Kingdoms, the whistling Wishtwister cut through the nameless woods to his destination: a blackened little circle of seven stumps ringing ’round a jut of bloodstained and rune-carved rock dating back to the time of the old Sarkoris Binding-Witches. The creeping grin which began, split the Wishgiver’s face at the thought of those old hags and what had become of them was colder than even the ice-choked wind.

His smile brightened, and his pace quickened. He was, of course, wearing a potent glamour, painted pleasant, bright and ruddy-cheeked as he always did when amongst humans, but the spring in his step was all real. It had simply been too long, by his delighted accounting, since Wishing Day had last come to Gralton.

Has it really been only a year?

Gralton had been a lucky find, all things considered during that winter of 4668 – the year all the wishing started. Once the old aristocracy of Galt had fled from the Red Revolution and settled into their rotting river estates just long enough to hate themselves for cowardice, it had been all too easy to put the right words in the right ears; on the 11th of Kuthona, when all the faithful of Cayden Cailean were gathered by a roaring hearth, spinning tall-tales and raising a tongue-tied toast to their hero’s bold ascension, the bitter and the vengeance-minded were to be found upon a very cold and lonely holiday indeed.

A dozen souls attended that first, inaugural Wishing Day.

This year, for his 42nd anniversary, Shadibriri expected a crowd of near fifty.

In truth, it should be said, there were more profitable opportunities than Gralton scattered around the great, wide world with all its mysteries: the early weeks of Gozran were always exciting, coming as they did in the very shadow of Taxfest. And the endless, aching middle of Calistril invariably saw the burning agony of some youth’s heart in the desperate need of an immediate fulfillment. Strangest of all, perhaps, the last gasps of Lamashan always seemed to writhe around an artist who had lost his muse or a soldier staggering home, sick to their stomach of war. Yes, all twelve months had very special and wonderful reasons to be in the right place at the right time, with sharp ears tuned to the right desires. And when there were no temptations to sow or bargains to make, no words to massage or dull-tongued desires to bring forth into hideous life, there was always killing to be done.

Yes, always killing, and blood and fear and the bursting of hot flesh in one’s sharp, slick hands. And the cries of accusations and sorcerer-burning. And the souls caught up in the shuffle, of course, and carried out into the Abyss. Delightful, all.

But for old Wishtwister Shadibriri, nothing was quite as sweet as today, perhaps because it was his – and his alone. No one else yet had a Wishing Day: ripe with those looks of pure, panicked, docile, tragic, terrified, wasted hope wreathed in angry, spiteful, blood-thrumming need. A crowd, squirming, willing to wrestle and claw and kill for the right to sell their soul short.

No wonder he loved Wishing Day.

A wandering, tuneless hum began to bounce right along with Shadibriri’s mirth, and the old demon turned his thoughts, quite idly, to how he might go about conducting this day’s most unique symphony of wants and promises and weeping betrayals. Would he make his supplicants fight for his favor? Fornicate, perhaps, in ugly couplings? Strip naked and race through the cold woods on frozen feet? Perhaps a wine-drinking competition, full to bursting and puking, or a teeth-pulling challenge, yanking gaping gums bare and bloody, or some other contest of trembling self-mutilation.

Each of those had always been joyous in the past.

And then the wish, of course, was the best part of all.

The old Wishtwister had never been one for plans. Ever the artist, never the engineer. An improviser: for him, a single second’s spark of spontaneity was worth well more than a dull decade’s dusty design; a moment of madness would always out-pace a century of contemplation.

But he did like to wonder.

And then, with a twinkle in his eye and a slick, savage parting of the strings of conjuration which bind the Astral spaces, the Wishtwister arrived at his destination.

There were four dozen there, all told, huddled against the cloying chill that strikes the River Kingdoms with a vengeful howl each winter and refuses to let go. Ice in their beards, hands fisted into numbs clumps at their sides, wet, crimson misery in their eyes; these abandoned and shifting souls were wrapped in finery and peasant’s rags alike. Some had surely rode six days out of Daggermark for this occasion, in sumptuous carriages crafted of darkwood and cold iron; others had no doubt begun the bleak march out of South Gralton’s gray farmland at nightfall wrapped in all they owned. And all were here, balancing dread against obsession.

With a ringing laugh, the Wishtwister leapt up upon the tallest stump of the clearing, and his warm voice carried against the wind: “Welcome, welcome, welcome all! And let our Wishing Day … commence!”

His sparkling smile washed over the crowd, and his gaze picked at their worried faces shining with unknown needs. He made a thousand, thousand guesses, and discarded all of them just as quickly.

Who, today, would leave with their heart’s desire?

He did not know, and the joy was in the learning of it. There was, for a moment, a heat within him so fierce that it was almost overwhelming; a wild mania, a rage to pick each and every one of the gathered throng apart with his bare hands and drink their piping blood down in gasping gulps.

“Hello, hello and hello! I am the old Shadibriri, friends, who hearkens close to those in greatest need, and by the ancient pacts of these old woods I come in this hour to hear your wants and whispers. I am no god, and I seek no prayers; I am no man, and I seek no gold; I am only a spirit of hoping and of wishing and of having, and I come expecting … gifts! Who, then, has brought me a treat, a taste, a tickle or a tithe?”

One woman, all-too-young, barefooted, dressed in rag and pushing forward through the crowd: “I … I bring you fresh milk.”

A grin: “Oh, and indeed I do treasure a drink of sweet milk! Is it warm, may I inquire?”

A look of terrified uncertainty: “I’m afraid … well, the … the cold … ”

“Huh. You did not think to clutch it next to your body, and to keep it warm?”

“I … I tucked it close as I could, against the wind, but … ”

“Oh, no. Then, perhaps next year you will remember to hide it beneath your cloak, against your bare and secret skin.”

The woman blushed, and stammered.

“… I …”

“No matter, young lady! ‘Tis but a bit of teasing from an old man, is all. You are bold, to speak first, and I do admire boldness. You may stay, for your milk is a fine gift. Pour it, now, on the ground, and abide awhile. If I may ask, then, little one, what will you wish for if the wishing be made yours this day?”

A soft gasp against the wind: “The … love of … ”

“Eh? What’s that, my little lamb, my little lark?”

“The love of a certain … certain person.”

“Hm. Oh, but I am afraid that I cannot give you the love of another.”

Red eyes startled, staring, disappointed.

A grin, as the ruined and muddy milk began to freeze upon the ground: “But I can give you this person, rest you assured. This person, their life, their body, their mind, their very heart, still hot, if you wish. All the things which make them, which is better than love. To thee, young lady, I wish the best of luck!”

Her eyes turned downward, humiliated and on the verge of tears.

“Now, who is next with gifts?”

A man stepped forward: “I bring you, master, a brick of solid silver.”

“Hm. And what need has a spirit for silver, lad?”

“… taken from my grandfather’s store without his knowledge.”

“Ah! Then you guess at my nature, boy!”

“I remember you of years past, my master.”

“Quite well, son! Well indeed, and I see your gift and am pleased, and beg of you to stay. If I may ask, my shivering and cunning friend, what shall you wish for today if the wish is made yours?”

“Revenge.”

“Oh, delightful! Come close, and drop your gift at my feet! Now, of these gathered lords and ladies, who else has a thing to offer me?”

A black-cloaked figure pushed forward: “I offer you only death, monster.”

The crowd drew back in time with the unsheathing of a blade.

A delighted gasp: “You offer me … death? So few have ever done so, and in truth I have never had it. And, then, what would your wish be, friend?”

With a scarred and battle-worn voice: “That you face me.”

“Indeed!”

Screams roiled through the crowd, as some few saw, for the briefest moment, the Old Wishtwister for what he truly was. A great and gnarled limb, like the claw of some misshapen crab vomited out of the Lake of Mists and Veils, snapped forward and severed the swordsman in twain. With a gush of steaming blood, his corpse twitched upon the scarlet snows and then lay still.

“There. A wish is granted.”

A mummer of panic roiled through the audience.

“Oh, fear not, friends! His request was a trifling thing, no great difficulty in granting. In truth, he deserved much more than that for which he asked; I could have given him strength beyond the mortal, or a blade more swift than blackness itself, or the insight to know his enemy’s heart and the vision to see foes all around him. A pity, then, that he chose so foolishly. Now, then … who else has brought me a gift?”

And there, as the supplication went on, and trophies piled before him, and the crowd began to turn spiteful and desperate, the Old Wishtwister decided upon the final task which would decide the victor of Wishing Day: the supplicant willing to devour, in gasps, the greatest portion of the fallen swordsman would be granted their dearest wish.

Oh yes, that would be fun. And then, and then, and THEN the very wish itself, and the new horrors dawned from it.

Ah, the joys of Wishing Day!

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NOTE:

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[anodyne-sunflower]

Neptune-BalemxReader (Request)

A/N: Balem is ridiculous, and makes it hard to enjoy the Christmas spirit. So picking a plot for him was a challenge lol Also, this takes care of another request...for a reaction I wouldn’t consider very ‘Balem’ but fun to write ;)

MOOD MUSIC: Battlefield by Svrcina

***

A strong-willed woman, that’s what it took, and Balem would find himself incapable of denying you even the smallest of requests. He could not fathom how low he had sunk on his own personal view of people, but who was he to find fault in the love he held for you. As far as he could remember, you had undeniably hooked him into your world and refused to let go. Breaking down each barrier of his brash personality, until all that was left was a ruler who found his one weakness in the form of a gorgeous earthling.

“No.”

“Balem-“ The Primary growled deeply in his throat, almost a purr of annoyance that you had sensed building. He was a stubborn man, but you knew better than to give up on the first try with him. “My dear husband...”

Balem’s inquisitive eyes fell upon your figure, voyaging over the curve of your tempting hip and stopping just when those pretty lips came into his view. He could play this game with you, pretend you had little to no effect over him, but that would be disastrous by the end of it. It was unlikely he was even able to feign such a display, because those pleading eyes of yours were enough to earn a ‘yes’ from him. “Very well....” By now his tone had lost some of its potency, but it would be in bad taste to immediately destroy the aloof reputation he had built himself. He couldn’t have his staff bare witness to these softer moments with you, and judging by the curious stares of his advisor he already felt that part of his life ending.

“Mr. Night,” Balem stared icily towards the splice, not appreciating the way he lingered behind him like some child awaiting permission. The intimate moments he shared with you would remain behind closed doors, and he intended for that rule to apply to the throne room as well. “Do not stand there like some fool-!”

“You can go, Mr. Night.” Your palm fell over Balem’s clenched fist, acting as an instant calmative for the rage filled man. It was endearing how quarrelsome he could become under the scrutiny of his staff, but you suspected being the intimidating ruler of planets could make anyone testy. “You really shouldn’t be so cruel, Balem.” You waited until the rest of the servants left the throne room, knowing he’d be better off to receive your affections that way. “If you really don’t want to go then-“

“You’re a bothersome woman.” Balem scoffed in frustration, crossing his arms as he took a seat back on his hovering throne. You knew better than to take his words seriously in this instance, but it still made you pout down at him. Call it a sweet revenge, but you took advantage of the influence you had over him.

“I only asked for one thing...don’t be so melancholy.” Your fingers tugged gently on the ends of your dress, lifting it up and out of the way as you took a seat on his lap. Despite his initial cold shoulder, you still felt the brush of his fingertips on your lower back, softly massaging the skin that was bare from the dip of your gown. “Do you really not want to go?”

“Hm.” It was barely a reply, but you understood him well enough to know that his simple remarks meant he was caving to your desires.

“Oh, thank you!” With a relieved sigh, you tangled your arms around his neck, kissing his cheek happily and leaving him to gripe about the upcoming trip as you went away to pack.

***

“Neptune?! I thought we agreed we would go to earth? You said that-“

“Earth, Neptune...it’s all the same.” Balem shrugged your exasperation off, his shortened nails tapping away at the rim of his wine glass. He was in no fine spirits to be traveling away from Jupiter, as he usually was, but for you he was willing to make the small sacrifice. He hated most planets, they were often over populated, and the customs changed so frequently he never had time to register what was going on. He relied heavily on his advisor to notify him of such trivial details, but if he had to pick one planet he found tolerable alongside Jupiter, it would be Neptune. It was cold, desolate, and held a peaceful silence he was proud to call his own. He may have promised you a trip for the holidays, a Christmas tradition you forced upon him, but he was under no obligation to make it on earth.

“You stubborn, bull-headed, man!” Was it really so much to expect him to keep his word? He was always so skilled at deceiving his business rivals, you felt he might be transferring those ideals to his marriage. “One Christmas, just one, that’s all I wanted. Back home where people actually decorate, make hot chocolate, sing carols, and exchange gifts!” There was no use covering up your disappointment, and in hindsight you were being rather childish about it. But you were homesick, as anyone would get during the holidays. All you wished was for one Christmas abroad, and to delight in the extravagant traditions earth offered.

“You begged me for a winter, and now you have it.” Balem muttered back to you, gesturing to the white landscape below as his clipper descended onto the docking bay. “Neptune is forever in a state of endless snowstorms. You have your wish, my queen. Do not presume to ask me for more.”

Balem was not an easy man to be married to, but you loved him anyway. However, your forgiving nature didn’t extend to trickery and lies, or his terrible attitude on most things. Christmas was your favorite time of year, and having to brave the boring atmosphere of Jupiter for one more year would’ve been hell. “You are selfish, Balem! I hope you enjoy your solitude, because I’m,” With a displeased demeanor, you grabbed your pale blue cloak from the bed and stormed out of his clipper chambers, barely acknowledging him on your way out. “Going out and enjoying what I can of this foreign place you’ve brought me.” Drama wasn’t your talent, but being with Balem sometimes brought that out in you. Mainly when you wanted to get away and deal with your conflicting emotions on your own. Or, if you were being perfectly honest, to gain some sympathy from your husband.

“Y/N.” Balem rose from his seat, debating whether to chase after you or let you simmer in your anger. He despised conversations about feelings, but he couldn’t deny the small pang of grief he felt at your departure. “Wait...” He grumbled to himself, cursing the gods for ever letting him fall victim to his heart’s passions.

The ship came to a halt on the docks, anchoring to the metal and releasing the ramp for you to exit. You could feel Balem’s presence looming behind you, but in your sour mood it wasn’t worth giving him the time of day now. “That awful...handsome, petulant man...” To say it was difficult to insult your husband would be an understatement, because he brought you more joy than headaches in the past years. However, today he was on your list of people you wanted to slap upside the head for their unbecoming behavior. “I swear.”

You greeted Mr. Night on your way out, smiling when he fussed over you staying warm whilst exploring about. You had never set foot on Neptune before, but the minute you looked out at the sea of white in front of you, your heart nearly stopped from the grand scenery. It was stunningly beautiful, sparkling white in the soft glow of the sun that beamed from so far away. There was very little light that was given to the planet, but regardless of that fact, you were amazed at how gorgeous it looked. Darkened trees dotted the horizon, the lakes frozen over and proving even prettier upon closer inspection. If ever there was a winter wonderland, it was this. The odd part was, that it angered you, because not only had he specifically chosen a planet that would perfectly capture what you wanted, but he went out of his way to even agree to travel. It sounded immature and petty, but you liked to actually stay mad at him for once. Instead of finding out his selfish nature was actually him just working around what you had requested of him.

With a small groan of annoyance, you finally trekked into the snow. The chill of it running up to your knees and causing you to smile in fondness of your childhood memories. You had missed such weather, and knowing Neptune was in a perpetual state of winter made you warm with joy. Unfortunately, the holiday spirit was meant to be shared with your hotheaded husband, who didn’t seem to be following you any longer. “Merry Christmas, to me...” You sullenly whispered, stopping at a stone archway that was covered in iced over vines. The path lead down into the valley, where an enchanting castle stood alone on the hill surrounded by old metal gates and plants that had withered away without proper care. Even then, it still looked elegant to you, and the more you thought it over the more you were willing to spend your vacation here.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” His dark voice trailed into your mind, making you turn around and come face to face with him in his brooding company.

“Yes.” There was more descriptive words you could’ve used to explain your love for this place, but Balem would’ve been smug about it. Something you weren’t willing to fully put up with just yet. “It is.”

Balem sighed heavily, picking up on your cold shoulder and not wanting to further the wrath you had developed against him. Normally he’d be fine with the silence, but the sentimental half of him loathed your aloofness towards him. “My flower.” He eagerly reached for you, ignoring your gentle resistance of his touch when he tugged you into his arms.

He stayed silent, but you felt the love he harbored for you through his embrace. The warmth that came with his hold, it was comforting to your frustrated soul, and even if you still wanted to bite back for his irritable ways you allowed him the proximity. “You’re still in trouble, Balem.”

The Primary smirked at your weak threat, burying his nose into your hair and drinking in the heavy scent of your perfume. It provided its own pleasure for him, and if this was the events Christmas would bring in the future, he was happy to play along next time. “Will this palace suffice?”

The answer, was an obvious yes, but you weren’t going to satisfy his ego with it just yet. He could wait to hear how much you adored him for bringing you to Neptune. Especially when all you wanted to do now was hurry inside and bask in the heat of the fireplace that undoubtedly adorned the castle walls. “Balem,” You pulled away from him, still staying within his hold as you gazed lovingly up at the Primary. He looked devilishly handsome against the backdrop of winter, the distinguished gold and black cloak he wore emitting a kingly vibe. If it wasn’t for your vengeful side, you’d of enthusiastically dragged him into his winter palace and spent Christmas locked in his heated embrace. But that special gift could wait until you got precisely what you wanted. “Do you love me?”

The inquiry caught him off guard, his eyebrow raising in suspicion as he stared curiously down at you. “Little bird,” he warned, scowl growing deep when you simply smiled up at him. He couldn’t gauge what your plan was, but he assumed you wished for nothing more than his suffering. Dramatic as it was, he was not capable of voicing the extent of his adoration of you. “Do not-“

“Answer me, Balem.” You prodded him for a confession, even when you knew he loved you deeper than anything else in his life. You valued actions above words most days, but on the rare occasion, you rather enjoyed hearing him admit it. Nothing screamed payback like watching the most powerful man succumb to his woman.

Balem could not comprehend why you’d burden him with this nonsense, and truthfully he just wanted to whisk you away into the castle and find more creative ways to keep warm. But that determined stare of yours was making him feel a vulnerability he wasn’t accustomed to, and he hated every minute of it. “I...” He muttered, brow furrowing in distaste of this topic. Courting you was the most romantic side of him you’d likely ever witness. He had hoped, in vain, that you’d be satisfied with that outcome. Only now, it would appear otherwise. “This is nonsense, enough of it.”

Balem gently shoved you aside, his mind set on leaving this foolish conversation behind. He had better things to attend to than placate the sentiments of your earthling heart. “Come, I’ll have the servants build us a fire. We’ll have dinner together.”

It was his way of showing you just how much you meant to him, you were aware of that. And you couldn’t help but smile at his discomfort over the topic of love. He was never going to be an open person, but you were his wife, and you intended to tease him about it until the end of your days. “Balem, just say it. It won’t kill you.” You hooked your arm around his, leaning your head happily against his shoulder as you walked along the snowy path and towards the palace gates.

“I said enough.” His words were straight and to the point, laced in a discontent that made you giggle madly. He could be curt all he wanted, because when you glanced up and saw that heated trail of pink along his cheeks you knew you had won this time.

***

A/N: In case it wasn’t obvious, the request was for ‘Balem blushing’. Not a very realistic reaction for the ass, but I tried to put him into a position where I thought maybe, just maybe, he’d blush lol So, hope it was decent 🤷🏻‍♀️

[the-traveler-errant]

The Legacy of Winter

So I wrote a bit of a short story that’s honestly starting to turn into more of an outline for an even longer story about Nomad and his life story. Well, his backstory at least. The first major battles he faced, his first failures, his first losses, his first slain demon, all that stuff.

It ended up being sixteen pages long, and is the third or fourth “First Draft” I’ve written for him. It’s long, so I’m going to slap most of it beneath a “Read More”, but I’m happy with the fact that I actually wrote something resembling a short story. 

So HERE WE GO! NOMAD MONOLOGUE TIME BABY!

To understand my story, you must understand my homeland. I hail from a land of constant winter. Ice and wind were as familiar to us as sunlight is to you. Our beasts were fierce, merciless, full of cunning. We treated the forests and mountains as if they were living creatures, for they would strike down any who did not treat them with the respect they demanded. My people would not be turned away from this land though. We found its inability to be tamed beautiful, a reflection of what the world should have been.

So we let the land shape us. Our kings and queens, whose bloodlines carried powerful magic, carved entire glaciers into sprawling castles. They took the stones thrown by the mountains, and turned them into cities. Their hunters, proud and fearless, would stalk the mightiest beasts of the forests, take their fur and meat to keep our people warm and their bellies full.

And we knew that somewhere, trapped beneath the ice and snow, there was land fertile enough to grow our crops on. Our sages prayed to the gods, and the gods answered, parting the clouds and letting sunlight fall upon small pieces of the land. We did not have many fields, but our farmers were tough, their will stronger than the winter around them. Their harvests were never as plentiful as any of the others I have seen in my travels. Yet this did not matter to them. It was the act of farming in a frozen land, that existence based on defying the odds, that truly mattered. That they could farm was enough for their stubborn hearts.

We named this land Winterfury, and called it our home for nearly a thousand years. Our lifestyle was never easy, but it was ours. It made us strong, taught us to be resilient. We thought we could stand proud against anything.

Then, three hundred years ago, our people were nearly destroyed. A foolish sage, a heretic, formed a covenant with a god of chaos and fire. The heretic was sickened with the endless winter, driven mad by his failures to drive it away. He desired to plunge the land into fire and destruction, and so they willingly followed the orders of that wicked god. Using forbidden and forgotten rituals, he summoned forth the child of this god, a child of chaos, a Lord of Brimstone and Ash, a King of Demons.

Entire armies fell to this demon. So fierce were his flames, so destructive his rage. He slaughtered thousands on his rampage. Nothing could even hope to stop him.

Until High King Lysandre took the field. He stepped forth, wielding a sword forged by the gods themselves, and met the demon in single combat. The sword, imbued with the blessings of the divines, was more than a match for that unholy terror. With a single strike, the sword sealed the demon away far, far beneath the earth.

High King Lysandre then ordered that a temple be built atop the site of the demon’s fall, to praise the gods, and remind our people of how close we came to annihilation. And, as if speaking the words of the gods themselves, he gave his people a grim prophecy. He spoke of the demon’s return, of how his strength would be more terrible and greater than before. He warned of the demon’s fire, how it could spread to consume the entire world if left unchallenged. He spoke of many dire warnings related to that demon’s return.

But he also spoke of hope. He foretold that four heroes would emerge, to claim the king’s holy sword, and once again use it to seal away the demon. The sword would deem one of them a worthy successor to his legacy, to his bloodline, and allow the heroes to draw the blade in the name of the people, and banish the demon back to the abyss from whence it came.

It was the word of our hero, the word of the High King. Why would anyone doubt him, when the gods had so readily come to his aid?

He ordered his sages to assist him with the construction of a tomb, to ensure that whoever tried to seek the sword would have to endure trials of their design, and prove themselves worthy to carry his sword into battle. Lysandre ensured that the location of his tomb would be kept secret as well. After all, what sort of trials would they be if anyone could take them?

Why would any sword deem a simple peasant worthy of wielding its holy power?

Three hundred years passed. Life went on. Though they watched for signs of the demon’s return, and the rise of the heroes, they were not afraid. Even when the first fires began, they held hope that the heroes would save them. It was the promise of their old king.

I once heard that the first sign of the Lord of Brimstone’s return came in the form of a fire that engulfed the church that was built over that now legendary battleground. I was not there to witness it, nor was I there to partake of the rumors surrounding it. In fact, I had never heard of that prophecy until I was well into manhood.

Prophecies do not mean much to someone who has spent more than half their life in a prison.

When I was still a child, I was imprisoned in Glacialholde. This prison had stood for more than two hundred years, providing a commodity to the people of Winterfury that was very rare in that land:

Entertainment.

Nobles and rich merchants from across the realm would gather at Glacialholde to wager upon the outcomes of whatever fights were arranged by the wardens. Inmates would be made to fight all manner of creatures, purely for the enjoyment of the audience and the purse of the wardens. And the inmates would willingly participate in these fights, fights against rabid beasts, other prisoners, even arrogant knights and warriors who wished to prove their mettle or earn the favor of a noble.

Many inmates died in that arena. They preferred to die in battle, than the alternatives Glacialholde had to offer to its visitors. The wardens believed that a volunteer would fight better than one who was forced to fight. So they made the alternative to the arena as undesirable as possible.

We were kept in cages. Exposed to the ice and wind, given only a thin wool coat to shield us from the elements. Guards would throw our meals into the middle of our cages, and watch as we attempted to murder one another for scraps of dried meat and molded bread. It was not uncommon for ten inmates to be kept to one small cage, and there was never enough room for everyone to sleep with their back against a wall. I don’t believe anyone lasted more than a month in those cages.

So they would volunteer for the arena. Those who survived would be given a private cell to recover from their injuries in, with solid walls and a single door made of iron. They would be given a blanket, and if a noble took a liking to them, they might spend a portion of their winnings on an extra ration for their favored fighter. But once you volunteered for the arena, you were expected to participate until your sentence was served, or you were killed.

I was the only one sent to Glacialholde who did not die there. I spent thirteen years in that prison, accused of a crime I never committed. I was only a child, and they thought I had murdered a noble. Bah. They only wanted a scapegoat, one they could toss away, that could be forgotten in the depths of a prison. I had no family. No friends. No one who could stand for me, or promise to help me escape that frozen hell. The only scrap of hope I had was to fight in the games for as long as I could. So after one week of suffering, I volunteered.

I remember that my first match was against an aging wolf. It had already torn out the throats of seven other inmates. The beast damn near took off half my face, nearly blinded me. But I had already spent most of my life fending off death in the alleyways, the abandoned streets, and in the desolate winters. I managed to strangle the wolf with my bare hands.

I spent three weeks recovering from my wounds. As soon as I was able to, I went back into the arena. I knew that I would likely die in that place. I went into every fight, thinking it would be my last. But instead, I became stronger. I wrestled wolves, strangled bears, fought with tooth and nail against every man or woman the wardens threw at me. I came close to death many, many times, but it could never fully take me.

My strength was unmatched. The wardens and nobles began to call me The Titan of Glacialholde, and I became a crowd favorite. No one ever wanted to parley for my freedom, though. I was of more use to their coffers as a fighter they could bet their gold on. So I fought. I murdered. I killed. I became a savage beast, mindless, relentless, only focused on survival, on becoming as strong as possible. I began to fight every single day, no matter how severe my injury.

No matter what manner of monster they made me fight, I would not fall.

One day, as I was being escorted back to my cell, three strangers approached me. They carried with them a mythril collar, and a letter from the current High King. The letter, given to the guard, stated that I was needed. The “Prophecy of Lysandre” had begun to take form, and the fourth hero was needed. I was told that, if I went with the strangers, and helped them to prevent the end of Winterfury, that I would be pardoned for whatever crimes I may have committed, and be allowed to walk as a free man once again.

The strangers were shocked when I told them to go to the gallows. I don’t think I knew then why their “request” had filled me with rage. It was only years later, that I realized why. They only believed I was important to them because of the words of a dead man. Not because anyone cared of my innocence, or because a child had been forgotten and abandoned. Only because they needed my strength.

They were insistent. They told me to forget my anger, to realize that my country needed me, that evil would arise and lay waste to the land if I did not help them. They promised that they would personally ensure my freedom, and that no one would try to imprison me again, only if I accompanied them on their quest.

In the end, I joined them. I put on their damned collar, their way to mark me should I try to escape. I only joined because freedom meant I could begin to fight on my own terms, and no one else’s.

And it was then, that I heard the prophecy for the first time:

Four Children of Winter shall arise,

Four Heroes to prevent our Realm’s Demise.

One, From the Forest, swift as Wind

One, From Royal Blood, with the Wisdom of Sages,

One, From the shadows, silent as Night,

One, Born from Constant War, stronger than all

Together they shall find the Holy King’s Tomb

And prevent the Demon King’s Doom

The prophecy never translates well into any language, least of all my native tongue. It always does a poor job of describing the “heroes” I was with.

There was the Ranger, Elsiwhyr. Tall and graceful, whose heart belonged to the wilds of our land. His arrows could find their mark even in the fiercest snowstorm. One of the king’s personal rangers, he had spent years watching the forests for any threat to the crown, hunting spies and assassins as if they were mere rabbits.

There was the thief, Brin. As sharp as their knives and as cunning as a fox, they could walk through fresh snow and leave no trace. They lurked in the shadows, striking at the heart of corruption, exposing the lies of the powerful. Brin would only steal from those they deemed deserving, who thought themselves above the law. There was not a place on Earth Brin couldn’t escape from.

And there was the sage, Lyn, heir to the throne, who could have become the High Queen. But instead, she chose a life of knowledge, seeking to understand the mysteries of the arcane. As wise as she was kind, she could summon the fury of the elements, and smite the wicked with hardly a single effort. Yet of all of us, she was the most humble, the one who led us forth upon our quest.

I once thought them all arrogant. In the first days of our journey, I thought that they were all soft, untested youths who had never known suffering. To my mind, that was the true reason they needed me. They needed a brute, a monster who would heed their beck and call. Someone to give them time to loose their deadly arrows, to cast their spells, to draw attention so they might sneak away into the shadows. They did not need me. They just needed my strength.

So I gave it to them. I stayed silent while they planned our routes, bought our provisions. While they studied in ancient libraries, desperate for clues of the tomb’s location, I would stand guard at the door, watching for any sign of our foes. There were many, in the wake of signs of the demon’s return, who wished to follow the path of the Heretic Sage, and gain the favor of the Demon King’s father. We fought them countless times on our quest.

Despite the many trials we endured together, it took me an eternity to begin to trust my comrades. I told myself it was because they did not trust me. I thought they all mocked and judged me whenever they believed I could not hear them; that they would betray me as soon as they did not need me. Every time the Ranger would make light of my past, I thought it because he had already decided what he thought of me. Whenever the Thief silently stared at me, I thought it because they were planning where to stick their knife in me. And every time the Sage offered to teach me a prayer or how to read, I thought it was out of a sense of superiority.

I was foolish. It was not until the Thief pushed me out of the way of an arrow meant for my heart that I realized that. They took the arrow instead, and nearly died for it. The Sage exhausted herself using magic to keep them from the brink of death, and the Ranger made sure that the assassin knew what it was to come face to face with a true archer.

I was frozen in place, shocked that anyone would do something like that. The concept of “Sacrifice” had no place in Glacialholde. I… felt something, then. It is too complex to put into words. It was anger, regret, confusion, longing, a myriad of feelings I did not understand.

We spent two weeks at a tavern, waiting patiently for the Thief to heal from their injury. The Sage could only encourage their healing with her magic, as the arrow had been laced with a poison that was meant to strike down something much larger and stronger than they were. They were in so much pain.

I felt guilty. I felt as if I should have taken that arrow and been the one to suffer, not them. Instead of thanking the Thief, I told them they were foolish for doing something so reckless. And the Thief smiled at me, despite the poison. I never left their side as they recovered. The Ranger would venture into the city to study at libraries, and The Sage would consult with wisemen and scholars about any hint of the location of the tomb. And while they did that… the Thief and I talked. It was difficult, at first. I had very little knowledge of how to carry a conversation. Most of the time, I would listen to The Thief talk about their past exploits, their successes and failures.

And I began to open up to them. Just the Thief, at first, but slowly I began to talk to the Ranger and Sage as well. I don’t know which of us were the most surprised.

I learned that the Thief was enslaved as a child. They had suffered at the hands of a cruel owner, a noble who seemed above the law. Like me, they knew what it felt like to be abandoned and helpless in the face of such cruelty. The Ranger was the bastard son of one of the High King’s own knights, and was cast out in shame. He learned to survive in the harsh wilderness, and had to fight for everything in his life, just as I had to.

And Anya had chosen the life of a Sage simply to escape from her fate as heir to the throne. She did not desire to rule over anyone’s fate, and wanted to dedicate her life to the stories and teachings of the people she loved so very much. She wanted to pass on that knowledge to others.

They heard my story as well. And we found a camaraderie between us. I started to trust them, little by little, until they became the family I had lost so long ago. I began to laugh at the Ranger’s jokes, to trust the Thief’s silent warnings, and found comfort in the wisdom of The Sage.

They all taught me skills that are still with me today. How to survive the wilderness. How to watch for trouble. How to read a book and find meaning in the ink and paper. How to laugh. How to trust. Most importantly of all, they taught me compassion and mercy for others around me. I learned that my strength could do more than harm.

I loved them. Do you understand that? They were the ones who ensured I would no longer be anyone’s beast. They removed my collar one day, and I wept for the first time in more than twenty years. I followed them willingly, and I would have gladly shed every single drop of blood in my body if it meant that I could see any of them smile again, hear their laughter. Gods above and below, their laughter was beautiful. I could never hear it enough. It still haunts my dreams.

We traveled together for more than a year. We promised that when our quest was ended, we would still journey forth, and right the wrongs of the land together. With our cunning, wisdom, grace, and strength, we could be the heroes that our homeland deserved.

And then we found the High King’s tomb. We braved its trials, fought past the heretics who had followed us and wanted to destroy the Holy Sword. We emerged from that tomb with the sword, convinced our quest was nearly at an end.

But none of us could draw the sword from its scabbard.

We thought it a mistake. We all took turns trying to draw the blade, we all tried to draw it together as one, but the sword would not move a single inch. In a cruel twist of fate, created by some mirthless god, the Holy Sword of King Lysandre had deemed us unworthy of its power. It had thought our past sins too much for its pristine self

The Ranger was a bastard. The Sage had forsaken the throne. The Thief had stolen, and was proud of that act. And I had too much blood on my hands for the Sword’s liking. None of the “chosen” heroes were worthy to use the sword, the one object that the prophecy said could prevent the demise of our home. That piece of scrap metal thought we were not good enough to save innocent lives.

And by that time, the Lord of Brimstone, that terrible Demon King, had returned. When we emerged from that tomb, we could only see smoke and fire. Winterfury was ablaze. Smoke filled the sky, ash replaced the ice and snow, and the horizon had been replaced by endless fire.

I remember that I wanted to run. I tried to tell my friends that we had done everything we could, and if the sword decided we were not heroes then we could leave that damn prophecy to burn and save ourselves. I didn’t want my friends die. I had dreamed so long of a life of peace with them.

They would not abandon their loves though. This was their home. The Ranger’s forests, The Thief’s people, The Sage’s stories. Everything would be burned to nothing if no one stood up to the Demon. None of them could turn their backs on what they truly cared about. They knew that Winterfury held nothing like that for me, and did not judge my desire to flee.

My friends started to go to that demon. And I followed them, because they were what I loved. The land had shaped them, made them who they were. I could not bear to see what they loved die. So I went with them, to confront the Lord of Brimstone. As we made our final march, we thought that perhaps the sword would only show itself in the presence of the demon, or needed true heroism to shine forth through the darkness. When we found that Demon, we gladly put ourselves in its path and openly challenged it to battle.

And it was useless.

The Blade would still not let itself be drawn forth.

We fought it anyways, despite how hopeless it was. Yet none of us could truly comprehend what the demon truly was. I could not understand, until we fought it. I took the first move against it, I tried to cut its head off with an axe. And as I approached it, the Lord of Brimstone looked into my eyes, and hesitated. I remember its look of… longing, as I tried to strike at it. It then looked from me to my friends, and it did something none of us expected.

It spoke.

It spoke to me.

“Hail, Savage,” it said. “You must sleep. There are forces that hold you back from being the challenge I have so desperately sought.”

It then grabbed me by my neck, and strangled me until I lost consciousness. The last thing I saw, before darkness overtook me, was the sight of my comrades rushing toward me… and the demon laughing.

When I awoke, the world was nothing but fire and cinder. And my precious friends… dead. Burned to almost nothingness. The sword, that damned and accursed sword, still in its scabbard, lay next to them, the only thing untouched by the fire. The sight of it, flawless and shining, was too much for me to take. I felt rage build up inside me, hotter than any fire the demon could summon forth. I let it consume every inch of my being, let it burn through my soul.

I took that sword in my hands, and I broke it in half. That wasn’t enough though. I kept picking up its pieces and snapping them, again and again, until my fingers bled so much that I couldn’t hold the damn thing. Nothing like that deserved to be beautiful in the face of such tragedy, tragedy that it could have prevented. I wanted it to rot in the abyss, but all I could do was toss its pieces to the wind. I’m sure the Divines cursed me for such an act, but I did not care. I still do not care.

Their blessing caused the destruction of my home and family. Their curse could not do anything worse than that.

I wanted to die then. But I did not want to die alone. I wanted to take the Lord of Brimstone to the Abyss with me, so that I could spend my afterlife murdering him again and again for what he had done to me. I tracked him through the corpse of my country for weeks, until I found him standing in the ruins of Glacialholde, and he greeted me with open arms.

He was waiting for me. The Lord of Brimstone told me he had looked upon my soul at our first clash, and wanted me as someone who could match him in strength and fury. He was glad I had destroyed the sword, because he wanted a truly fair and honorable fight. He knew I would hold myself back, and that I would be distracted if I had to worry about the lives of my comrades.

He had done himself a favor and killed them, just to make sure that when I fought him, it was because I wanted to do more than kill him because of a prophecy.

He said to me, “I would face you as you truly are. I have waited so long for you.”

So we fought. His flames against my strength. He was a child of chaos and fire, and I was a savage born of winter and darkness. He laughed with the thrill of the fight, so overjoyed to be met with a real challenge. All of Winterfury had burned at his hands, and yet I was something that his flames could not touch.

We struggled against each other for hours. Perhaps days. I do not know. There are only moments in that fight that still stick with me. The clearest thing I remember is how the fight ended. The demon was on its back, exhausted and with its legs broken. I stood above it, and it smiled at me as if I were its lover.

“Thank you,” it said. “Take my life, and take my blessing, warrior.”

It started to laugh, tears of joy in its eyes. It had won everything it desired. The land was in cinders. The prophecy had failed. It had been given a true fight, and soundly defeated without the aid of any god. The Lord of Brimstone even smiled as its head was ripped from its shoulders.

And so I stood there. Nothing remained for me in Winterfury. The land was truly dead. My friends were dead. I truly had nothing left.

I asked myself if I should just lie down in the ash and mud, next to the corpse of the demon, and wait for death. I had fought Death so many times that perhaps now was the time to let it take me away. But then I thought of my friends. Of how they had died for something they loved.

I thought of how Winterfury was part of an entire world. How there were other lands out there. Other stories. Other people.

How the rest of the world had other prophecies that might betray them, as mine had.

And in that thought, I found purpose. I left Winterfury. I found a single boat that was only partially burned, and gathered what supplies I could. I buried my friends upon the coast, and found the hilt of the now broken Holy Sword. I carry that piece with me, even to this day, kept so that I may never forget what is truly important to me.

I still miss my friends. I miss Elsiwhyr whenever I look upon the forest, or drink a pint of ale. I miss Brin whenever night falls, and when the birds sing. I miss Lyn whenever I read, and think of what she might say if she saw me now.

In their memory, I fight for what they never had the chance to see. For the people. For the untamed wilds. For the stories they never heard.

I am Nomad. Titan, Demonslayer, Sword-Breaker, and Oathkeeper.

I am the Legacy of Winterfury.

[spookyspaghettisundae]

Through a Magicked Mirror

Few have the opportunity to dine with a real monster.

Nora pretended to sip from the silver wine goblet in her hand and stared at the creature sitting at the other end of the long table. Unlike her usual attire, she wore a dress for this occasion, complete with an elegant veil. She had gone through the trouble to put her hair in a fancy bun. Being a rare occasion for her, the huntress had even made an effort to move and speak as lady-like as she could muster when the manor’s butler granted her entrance.

A far cry from her usual life.

She placed the goblet back down by her dinner plate. The dish consisted of a slice of roasted pheasant, arranged in an exquisite composition with a smattering of a delicious-smelling brown sauce and slices of verdant herbs sprinkled about. The huntress had not taken a single bite out of her meal yet.

It was not every day that she could speak like this to prey.

The man who sat across from her was no man, though his appearance would fool anybody not in the savvy. Dressed like the aristocracy of Crimsonport, his expensive clothing looked like it was tailored directly onto his body by the finest masters. With his legs crossed and lounging in his tall-backed chair with the velvet upholstery, he had the air of a king about him. The dim but warm illumination from the fireplace and candlelight clashed with the cold blue glow from the foggy twilight outside the windows, painting his face in an otherworldly light.

By all metrics, Lord Wilkins possessed an unearthly handsomeness. A tall, well-toned body of an athlete and a chiseled face that would fill flawless statues with envy. And eyes that intensely stared back at Nora over the brim of his own goblet.

Whatever he sipped, it did not look like wine. A drop escaped the corner of his mouth and ran down his chin at a languid pace. While it left a trail, Nora suppressed a shudder as she observed it. The way it trickled was far too viscous, and it was far too dark.

With the grace of a gentleman, he dabbed the mishap away with his napkin, but it left a subtle splotch. A bloodstain.

“Miss Morrissey, I would not have expected you to take me up on my invitation after all—after all that has transpired,” he finally spoke, breaking the silence that had blanketed the large room in this spacious manor since the corpse-like butler had escorted Nora to her seat at the table.

She had exchanged smiles with him. Hers had been born from wonder over this curious situation. His had borne the likeness of a wolf in sheep’s clothing. A hungry, leering wolf.

“You failed to keep your ghouls in check. A guildsman paid good money for someone to dispatch the scoundrels who had killed his brother. I happened to be that someone, and it was nothing personal,” she said.

Before she could lose her cool and smirk at him, she managed to produce a sleek object from her handbag, from a spot where it had rested in next to the oak stake she had brought here with her. She flapped the object open to conceal the lower half of her face behind it—a fan. A beautiful painting of an exotic vista of a mountain and tree covered the fan’s surface—on a whim, she had paid good coin to purchase this vanity piece, for it had been imported from the far east. She finally saw some utility in it now, for the first time.

“And like the charming bloodhound you are, you had one of the Giovetti family’s mystics scry on a sample of a ghoul’s blood to find your way to me. But you did not act upon it,” he added to her explanation.

“I was just curious,” Nora said from behind her fan. “How did you notice?”

“The Giovettis answer to me, my dear. They know who I am. What I am. They know better than not to report such an event to me. Your inaction led me to wonder. Other hunters ply your trade on principle. They hate the creatures of the night, seek revenge for the horrors we have inflicted upon their loved ones, or are on a crusade for some misguided religion. But you are different. You seem to work only for hard currency. Tell me—would you have come here on different terms, had there been a price on my head?”

Nora folded the fan back up and clumsily fiddled with it before she fastened it back together by its clip. She cleared her throat and then could not help but look back down at the pheasant on the plate before her.

“Yes,” she lied. Her stomach growled, but she refused to eat anything being served to her in this majestic, yet dark abode. She swallowed air, looked back up at her host, and raised her chin high. “Well, no. I would not have come here at all. I would have sought out your coffin, flooded the crypt with daylight reflected off of mirrors, and butchered you while you are resting and helpless, while the sun rises high on the firmament.”

Lord Wilkins nodded and folded his arms in front of himself.

“You are lying. I can feel it,” he said. His speech rolled into a deep chuckle that cascaded into confident, hearty laughter. It then stopped abruptly, and his eyes flashed with something that reflected admiration. “But I like it. I cherish your brazen insolence. I have never met a human who knew of my nature and would sit at my table like this. So fearless. It is refreshing. You are indeed—unusual.”

Having become a stranger to flattery over the past five years, the intonation of his words sounded so much like a sincere compliment that it flushed red color into Nora’s cheeks. When she realized what she must have looked like because a wide, wolfish smile crept across the vampire’s face, she blushed with embarrassment.

She pouted in a way that plunged her into a sea of nostalgia, making her feel like the innocent girl she used to be before she had become the woman she was now. Lord Wilkins’ smile widened at this sight.

Nora regained her confidence and centered her mind on the here and now. She reminded herself what kind of creature she sat across from, and asked, “Now I am curious, Lord Wilkins. Why would you invite someone of my reputation and trade to your noble estate? Why all the pomp? Why pay for this dress, why the meal? Am I here to amuse you before you sink your fangs into my flesh? For this entire situation we are in now—it, too, is unusual.”

He leaned in over his empty plate—when the butler had served their courses, it had been empty to begin with. The butler had only served blood from a separate decanter into Lord Wilkins’ goblet. The vampire rested his elbows on the table, folded his hands before his face in a flowing, graceful movement, and stared intently into Nora’s eyes.

Even though they sat almost five paces apart, a sense of vertigo overcame, her and it felt like he drew closer by the second without budging from his seat. The intensity of his dark eyes, staring back at her, began to give her tunnel vision. She saw an endless abyss in his eyes.

“I can see them, you know,” he said, ignoring every single question she had posed. “The ghosts that haunt you.”

Shivers ran down her spine, and her hands went ice-cold, but her heart beat faster and a red-hot rage welled up inside her.

“What do you see,” she asked, though it sounded less like a question. Anybody could tell that she did not want to hear the answer.

“I can hear their whispers,” Lord Wilkins said, not answering that question, either. “Whispers that would be screams. They demand blood and retribution. The wrong you have inflicted upon them. The dead never sleep, Miss Morrissey.”

Lifting a single finger from the fold of his hands, he pointed past her, in the direction of the barred window behind her, but she refused to follow and turn her head to look. Part of her was truly afraid that she would see the dead Red Banner Furies standing behind her there, the ghosts that robbed her of her sleep at night, calling out for her death—for revenge.

“I wanted to see a monster in the flesh, Nora. You do not disappoint,” he said. Lord Wilkins leaned back in his lavish chair, resting his elbows on the armrests and keeping his hands folded in front of him. He never broke his eerie eye contact with her, and his smile was now as cold as deepest winter.

He had rendered her speechless. No spell, no hex, no unnatural force was behind it. She found herself awash in guilt and realizations, thoughts that had never crossed her mind before. Frozen in her own mind.

“All the witches and warlocks, the shapeshifters and beastkin, the animated objects and undead. Even the regular people that served them. You have killed so many that you have lost count, have you not? All for the coin, never wondering what existences you ended, what could have been had you not interfered.”

Lord Wilkins unfolded his hands and steepled his fingers before continuing in a lower, even more accusatory tone, “I know where you came from, Nora. Or Nora Mirsad, I should say, a girl from Wealdstone, adopted by the good Morrissey family. You have always had an affinity for us creatures of the night. And I know why.”

“Why,” she asked, though it came out flat and more like a statement—she had wanted it to be louder than a whisper, loud enough to channel her anger into the world, to wipe the smug smile off of Wilkins’ face.

“Just as your blood calls out to us, our blood calls out to you. Ever since that witch touched your soul, from before the blight that swept over Wealdstone, where you were among the few survivors.”

“So you are saying I am one of your kind? I am not like you, you monster,” she said. Her voice shook with impotent rage and plummeted into the void where her confidence had gone mere minutes ago.

“No, you are indeed not one of us, though you are cursed in more ways than you admit to yourself, Nora Mirsad. You are a murderer and a thief. You have the gall to dub me a monster?” He suddenly lurched forward and slammed a fist onto the table, causing the dishes and cutlery to shake and rattle. He snarled as he continued to speak, baring inhumanly large fangs among his otherwise normal teeth. “I feed to survive. You callously slaughter the denizens of the night without batting an eye. How stupidly self-righteous are you that you dare use that word to describe me? You are not one of us. You are a different breed of monster. A human monster. The worst blight upon this world, a disease that cannot be cured.”

Nora’s chin jutted out in defiance. Her nostrils flared, and she gritted her teeth, but her mind reeled, and she could not find any witty remark, any glib retort to throw back at him. He grabbed his silver goblet from the table and took a sip, but she now read rage in his own demeanor—his hand clenched around the goblet like a vice, and it looked like it was bending under the sheer pressure of strength that only a beastly grip could possess.

“This world—this dying world. It belongs to us. The nights grow longer. Our strength will prevail over the weak human cattle, they will bend to our will. But we can say that we rule over you out of necessity. For the sake of our own survival and because your kind is weak. But you—only avarice and blood-lust guides you. You run away from the truths that hound you, from the ghosts that haunt you, and hide behind your blood-riddled trade. You perhaps even tell yourself that you are doing mankind a favor while lining your own pockets with gold.”

The smile was long gone from his face, replaced by a grim frown. The eye contact between these two figures never broke. The door to the dining hall opened, and the pale, emotionless butler peered inside. Neither Nora nor Lord Wilkins paid attention to the servant. They stared daggers at each other. The murder in their eyes was palpable. As the butler saw the intensity of this scene wordlessly unfolding before him, he disappeared again, quietly closing the door behind himself.

“You speak with a forked tongue,” Nora finally said. “How many people left their lives so you could believe yourself immortal? How many throats have you ripped out and drank from like an animal to quench your thirst?” Her voice grew louder with every word. Some words sounded almost like growls. Her confidence returned to her. And something else.

Unbridled fury.

She leaned over her end of the table. The grandfather clock in the room suddenly ticked to the next hour and sent loud, gonging sounds to echo throughout the manor.

“I will show you how much of a monster I can be, you fiend. It will be the last thing you see,” she said.

“I do not think you have wrestled with vampires before, child,” Lord Wilkins replied. His face darkened and his eyes began to glow in a deep crimson. The shadows in his vicinity seemed to solidify, like they were absorbing and devouring all light, and the darkness itself around him came alive and reached out towards her.

Nora bit her tongue till she drew blood from the tip of it in an attempt to dispel the illusion, knowing he would use it to distract her. Her hand had long crept into her handbag, to the oak stake she had brought with her. Her cold fingers clutched it with a new-found fierceness, and in the violent burst of movement between the two adversaries that followed, she knocked over her goblet.

Before the item even hit the soft carpet and stained it with splatters of dark red wine, the two were at each other’s throats.

Long before midnight arrived, the manor’s front doors swung open. Nora emerged from the building, chest heaving, and stumbling forward on a sprained ankle while clutching her broken left arm. Her beautiful black and white dress now torn and sullied with blood, both from the slain Lord Wilkins, the butler she had killed with a poker from the fireplace, and her own injuries that the vampire had inflicted. She had even killed the poor wretch of a street urchin being held in the basement for Wilkins to feed on.

Crackling and glowing in a warm orange behind her, a fire burned inside the manor’s bowels, a fire that would consume the edifice before dawn, with the first plumes of smoke emerging from some broken windows. A dozen people among the neighboring cityfolk who had heard the fighting and glass shattering and shouts from Nora’s and Lord Wilkins’ past struggle now gawked at the disheveled-looking woman standing outside the manor’s entrance.

They did not recognize her nor would they render any useful description when the constable eventually showed up and asked eye witnesses. Because Nora would never dress like this again, even reliable reports would not help identify her.

She looked at her right hand, the hand with which she normally wielded her cutlass and flintlock pistols. She felt a sense of loss. She felt like she had forgotten something, then recalled that she had plunged the stake into the vampire’s heart before she beheaded him with a meat cleaver from the kitchen.

Her hand was stained with blood. In more ways than one.

Elsewhere, another creature of the night observed these events through a magicked mirror, overjoyed by all the grisly details and cackling, drinking in the excessive display of violence and carnage that the two had wrought in Wilkins Manor as they had struggled to end each other’s existences.

Cracked blue lips formed a sinister smile baring rotten black teeth on her face as she watched the distorted images in the mirror, observing how Nora staggered off into the night, fleeing from the scene of the crime. She had high hopes for Nora. She had never had a daughter, but deemed this young woman to be the closest thing to one.

What a masterpiece she had created all those years ago in Wealdstone.

What a beautiful monster Nora had become.

—Submitted by Wratts