#* ⁰ ³ / ' arc‚ beauty is a beast that roars.

[evl-qn]

* _ ⁰ ³ / ' arc‚ once tame and gentle. * _ ⁰ ³ / ' arc‚ evil reigns : heart turns black. * _ ⁰ ³ / ' arc‚ victory lost to time unmoving. * _ ⁰ ³ / ' arc‚ curse broken : magic bound. * _ ⁰ ³ / ' arc‚ the line of succession. * _ ⁰ ³ / ' arc‚ the end is nigh. * _ ⁰ ³ / ' arc‚ beauty is a beast that roars.

[haztory]

[seagirl]

⤷ kuroo tetsurou x f!reader; spider-man!au, mentions of violence, brief gore mention, exes to lovers arc, p in v smut, fingering, praise, a lot of descriptive language

⤷ summary: her underwater ecstasy, you could easily be the death of me, i swim through/ he comes to me, stuck on his knees, asking for better days

(w.c: 9.5k)

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He stands in your living room like an ill-timed memory. 

Whole and vivid, he’s a flash of overdue colors and a crashing tide that overwhelms you. You blink a few times in hope that this may still be a dream; That his image will turn bleary and you’ll close your eyes enough times to realize they were never really open. That you’re in your bed waiting for the alarm to ring and the day to start as it always does.

It doesn’t happen.  

The person ambling around the room is not a figment of sheepish delusions, or the product of late night fantasies, but him— a heart-wrenching familiarity in a room that has been home to him so many times before.

It’s been three months since a hue of red has disturbed your home.

He’s lit only by the warm lowlight of your lamps as the sun returns to its place of rest. The dark bruise on his face looks gaunt, and his cheekbones arch higher in the shadows. He’s hauntingly beautiful, always has been, and yet, this beauty is unfamiliar to you. He looks nothing like you remember. 

Kuroo walks slowly in your living room, his trained steps light and deft on tile as he practically tiptoes around the room. As though a guard dog were sleeping in the corner of the room and one slight misstep would awaken the beast, disturb the peace and replace it with snarling roars and gnashing teeth. Force him out of the apartment entirely.

Maybe there is one—a silent protector lying in wait for the chance to jump out and bite; Chains wrapped tightly around its neck, made bloodied and raw from how tightly it’s leashed. It watches with focused eyes ready to ring the alarm at any second. It must sit largely in the corner, its presence so unmistakable that Kuroo must see it otherwise he wouldn’t be so diligent in trying to avoid the furniture. He circumvents the rug underneath your coffee table, hunches his shoulders and makes his body smaller as he sidesteps the loveseat to look quickly out the balcony sliding doors. He briefly pushes the curtains aside with one finger, surveying the darkening city with little more than a nod of acknowledgment before he returns his attention back to the room, looking around once more to see if anything has awoken by his doing.

He stills— amber eyes meet yours and he waits. Watching and waiting, waiting and watching. Stilling his movements as the predator watches its prey. Hoping for the acceptance in your space yet preparing for the barking.

It’s only when you break the gaze that he breathes. The dog rests its head on the floor.

The walls of your apartment have seen and felt Kuroo Tetsurou many times before; They have tasted his spilled blood, remain stained from it, and know of him in whole and scattered fragments—and yet he stands as a man seeing it for the first time. Perusing trinkets he knows too well, and focusing a little harder at the ones that have found their place during his absence. Acting as a stranger in the garden he helped grow. 

Do you—can we do this someplace more… private? 

N-no, I can’t do this—

Please? You can ask me anything, yell at me, whatever, I swear. I want to explain things, just… not here.

He had begged in the pharmacy. 

All reservations you had leading up to this moment crumbled alongside the shopping basket laid abandoned by your feet—much like everything else belonging to him and you. He’s in your home and it feels like both the violation of a boundary that you have rigidly put up for safety and the final piece to a puzzle. You try not to choke around a lump in your throat. 

You fight to ignore the whine of the dog and the ache that pulses your fingertips with the remembrance of him beneath your touch. A tired and worn body held tightly by lithe and lean muscles adorned with the kisses of blue and purple. Valleys and bumps, heartbeats pulsing beneath skin, it shouldn’t have changed that much in such a time— it couldn’t have. But, he looks so different in the passage of such a brief time. 

Maybe his heart beats differently now, but you suppose yours does too. You hardly feel like the same person that held him close on a thundering night. Was it even you who held a warm hand under violet flowers? You wouldn’t know. 

(It was you. There’s no way you could ever forget, no matter how hard you try.)

He’s standing by the coffee table when he reaches out to pick up an item on the glass surface; Some coasters lying stacked on top of each other, well loved and stained with drink. They’re recent additions to your home, hand painted and gifted by a friend from work after the success of one of your reports, but you suppose he must know that they’re new with the way he fixates.

He looks at them intently, fingers gently brushing over the acrylic surface. Tracing over the painted image with reverence, holding it tightly with a look in his eye that you can’t quite make out. But, he’s thinking— maybe too much as a minute, then two, passes. And still, he stares.

It is only after he speaks that you remember the coasters have wisteria painted on the surface.

“These are pretty.” He says, quietly. 

It’s a decoy—a false coercion to ease. A knock on your door with a whisper behind its asking sound, a quiet plea to join him. You’ve already let him in, isn’t that enough? What more could he want? It’s bait. 

You take it anyway. “Aoi made them.”

He nods, impressed. He holds the coaster up, waving the handiwork of your coworker gently in the air between his pointer and thumb. “Compliments to the chef.” He says, before setting it back down on the table. A gentleness in the action as though an actual flower were between his fingers, threatening to rupture at any sudden movement. “How is she?”

“Good.” You supply, simply.

He nods again. “And the job?”

“Good, too.” Even simpler. 

Silence encumbers the space once more. Red, scabbed knuckles make a flash appearance that you stare at, swallow a little too thickly at. Words live and die on your tongue, the urge to break fickle silence seemingly impossible. 

What could you ask him that you didn’t already know? What answers could you beg for that you weren’t already sure of? Spoken in the thick of his betrayal, truth settled on the guilt that hunches his shoulders. You don’t want to know about his life and the things he’s been up to because then it needs to be discussed.

But it ravages within you; the glaringly obvious, the bleeding heart of truth. The whining dog foams at the mouth as it barks for the taste of spilled ichor, the feel of the bone cracking between jagged teeth, and the savor of the split marrow. The dark, apoplectic fit of a yearning so deep that it tears the seams of you, screams to be held. Your want of knowing is equal if not more to the anger that has simmered within you for so long. 

You could demand an apology. It would be the appropriate thing to do. 

(It wouldn’t solve anything. Because he still left, and you still know why even if you lie to yourself and say that you don’t, and you both end up in the same place that you started. The hideous silence drowning you in the sanctity of your own home; Two familiar strangers trapped on a deflating raft wondering what there even was to say.)

“I read your articles.” He says, after a moment. Eyes flicker to yours, a slanted smile pulling at the corner of his lips. Genuity etched into the cracks. “The one about the wisteria tunnels was good. Really good.”

Hook pierces through you and tears through skin. Bait, bait, bait—

“Not too cheesy?” You offer quietly, eyes following red knuckles down to their place beside his body. If only to avoid his gaze. 

“No.” He says earnestly. “The right amount of cheese. It was amazing. You’re amazing.” 

Your body stills, rigid. You sigh and he knows. The barking commences.

“Kuroo—”

Lolling his head forward, shaking the mess of his black hair as he tries to roll the discomfort off of his body, he meets your gaze with a grimace of his own. “No, c’mon. Don’t—don’t do that. Please.” His lips are drawn in a tight line, some kind of debate playing over his features as he weighs the pros and cons of this—whatever this is. It’s infuriating, it’s misery, it puts you right back into the hole of devastation that you just finally started to see a way out of. 

Eyes of deep sorrow meet your angry ones. 

“That’s not my name,” Tetsurou breathes out in the empty space of your living room. He’s quiet with his words, convinced in them despite how gentle he says it. “Not with you.”

You shake your head bitterly, “You don’t get to do that anymore.”

His face furrows with a register of injury, but he doesn’t fight it. He does not mean to challenge you. He did not come with the intention to wage a war and emerge victorious— he didn’t really have much of an intentioned plan at all. Only knew that his mind froze at the sight of you and his heart lurched in a need long left unsatisfied.  

The frigid cold of your stare meets the charged electric of the tense room, the atmosphere turning white and hot as it bolsters through the already fraught room, unspoken words feeding the collision of the two forces. Your breath draws more ragged, the floods rising to your neck; Kuroo stands still, certain that his next step forward will be on the wire to the ticking bomb in the room—the cause of the implosion. 

(Kuroo thought he knew what the aftermath of an imploded life looked like— capitulating anger molding with deprived sleep left him a hollowed mess; Locked knee-deep in an endless vortex of must-do’s and must-be’s that resulted in nothing but a blank wall to stare at as fingers attempted to clean a mess that had no resolve. A fool tethering the same wounds, with the same tools, with the same outcome.

This is a different kind of hurt. Where home spits a poisonous rejection and burns through the still raw stitchings of patched skin. Comfort turned caustic, the remnants of good intentions showing him just how well they turned out to be. His name is no longer the reason for an amorous love, but instead the code to a blaring, bright red warning. 

Bloodied and broken fingers inch forward, doing as they always do and try to fix. Like a fool.)

“Okay.” He nods in acquiescence, placating but still firm. Determined, even in the threat of your gaze that tears him apart, to mend this. He hasn’t been imagining this day for three months now to fuck it up at the slightest sense of your anger. No, he’s handled worse than this. He would handle much worse if it guaranteed him this moment, this chance. Straightening his shoulders and standing tall before you, he readies himself for impact. Bracing himself for the explosion. 

He takes the step forward. 

“How do you want to do this?” He says, staring a kind of serious in you that is unsettling. As though something snapped into place within the brief second, a resolve solidified. This isn’t the Tetsurou you once knew, the one who made a fool of himself in his youth; This is the one you had the unpleasant encounter with—where lightning cast a sharp silhouette around with blood pouring from gaping wounds and fear filled the room with an impenetrable stink. 

That Tetsurou stands before you. Your bitterness settles like a pill stuck in your throat. “Hm, I don’t know. Maybe you should start with an apology?” 

“An apology won’t fix this.” He says succinctly, a knowing within him that he has deemed unnecessary to expand on, and it infuriates you.

“Well then maybe you should have thought of that before you left.” Rage stirs your appetite. Teeth growing, snarl rising, bite less of an inhibition and much more of a possibility as you thrash against rising waters. The taste of the marrow is thick on your tongue, its source right in sight. “No phone calls, no texts, nothing. You threw me away—”

He seems affronted, as though that insinuation were an insulting one, but he has no right. It only drives your anger further the more he seems to hunker down. “I was trying to protect you.” 

“You don’t protect someone by leaving them in the dark about something. By abandoning them.”

“I don’t expect you to forgive me, but you need to understand—”

“No, you need to understand what you did. The last time I saw you I thought you were going to die.” 

It’s the opening of the Pandora’s Box; Hurt and all of its tendrils that you tried to shove so deep within the confines of hiding crawl up your throat, wrapping around vocal chords and choking. They weave the familiar narrative and it is as vivid as you remember it to be. The pains and aches of an abandonment that dug into the depths of your soul, the heartbreak that comes when your great love has removed himself from it entirely. Rage tainting all that you have known, a rage that you were just starting to overcome. It’s hard to tap into the person you were earlier, the one that sat at lunch smiling and light-hearted and somewhat healed from the atrocities of lost love. 

Your guard has risen before the man you’ve entrusted the entirety of yourself to, its fortified walls shaking with each knock of hurt he brings to your door. “And then you left. You swore Kenma to secrecy. He wouldn’t tell me more than if you were alive or not. You could’ve given me something, anything. But you decided to act as if I didn’t exist—how could you do that to me?”  

His jaw clenches, the skin above pulsing with the movement. Darkness seems to swirl around him as he says, “I told you. I put you in danger.” But you hardly notice; Hardly care to. You plow forward.

“And I told you I was safer with you. You had no right to make a choice for me, especially not one that I didn’t want. And what’s worse is that you didn’t even have to think twice about leaving me behind.”

Kuroo takes another step forward, truly insulted as he crosses the expanse of your living room in quick steps— the speed in his movements still an alarming sight even after all of this time. He’s an arm’s distance away suddenly, intensity in his stare as he defends against your jabbing strikes, defense webbed against your venom. 

“That’s not even remotely true. It hurt me to let you go, more than you could ever know.” 

“Did it? More than not knowing anything? You had no problem staying away.”

“I did it to save your life.” He says, firmness beneath his in the tone, his own ire rising to match yours and you roll your eyes. 

“From someone who was already in police custody. Don’t say it like I should be grateful to you for it. Maybe if you involved me in the first place, maybe if I knew a little more than just you bleeding out on my couch, I’d have a little bit more sympathy for you right now.” 

The explosion happens, then— the bomb sets off. Only, it was you who stepped on the wire.

Series of images that only he knows intimately flash through his mind in quick succession—hideouts, trails of blood, dirty men with dirty intentions that filled Tetsurou with a vengeance that broke Hell and lit every fiber of his being aflame. It bursts from him at that moment.

“He knew where you lived. He knew your schedule, he had a whole fucking hideout with photos of you on the walls! I was compromised and because of that, you were a target. So yeah, I made a choice for you. I cut all ties and made it clear that you and I were done so that I could make sure he and anyone else he was working with were off of your scent. So that I could protect you.”

His lived nightmare—the one he worked so hard to shield you from for the past three months— spills from his lips in a frenzied shout. There is no hesitation to his tone, conviction bleeds through and you are taken aback. He is pulled taut, a rope fraying at the edges, unraveling right before your eyes.

Tetsurou continues, “I didn’t know who was involved or how long I had so I— I panicked. I should have told you, I know that. I’ve spent the past three months knowing I did it wrong but, I’m outside your window most nights just so I can make sure that you’re safe. And you are, so far as I can tell. So that means I did what I was supposed to do and I did a good fucking job at it.”

You stare at him, wide eyed and silent. It’s all you can think to do.

It was always a possibility. One you ran through in your mind, held quietly when Kuroo’s own worries about his other job came to the forefront. Someone knowing you, knowing about your ties to him and using that against him; But a year had passed with him as Spider-Man and for all of its ups and downs, Kuroo was careful. Nothing ever came of it.

But, a hideout? Enemies, plural, knowing who you were and seeking you out?

Even if doubt wanted to wiggle within the expanse of your mind at the admission, disbelief and all of its synonymous cousins working overtime to protect you from an unfathomable reality, it’s quickly squashed at the sight of Tetsurou’s haunted eyes. Caged fear and all of its tattered belongings veiled within his gaze. And while this transgression of his is large and looming, you believe it’s cause entirely; Because Kuroo may have broken your heart, but he’s never lied to you before. He couldn’t even think to lie to you about the symptoms of a spider bite, he certainly wouldn’t lie to you now about this. 

You believe him, unquestioningly. And it clicks then, like a light switch flicking, that as you have been wallowing in the ache of your loneliness, he has been navigating a world that has threatened him and you all on his own. That your life was in more danger than he had initially let on when he stumbled into your apartment, worried and frantic for your safety and he knew nothing more in his injured state other than the fact that he had to fix it.

His stupid senses of righteousness, his assumed burden to protect; Taking on the world at the tender age of twenty-three. Atlas, with his dark eyes and bruised skin, believes the threat of your safety to be his sin. One that he has exiled himself for, that has him stepping tentatively closer to you, until he’s right in front of you. And he doesn’t want to tell you these things that have kept him up at night, he hardly wanted to tell them to himself, but he knows if there is any way for him to win this—to make you see— then he’ll have to concede something. 

“I’m not— I’m smart but I’m not—I’m not good at this stuff. Okay? I don't know how to be him and also be yours. But, he knew your name.” Tetsurou’s voice cracks with desperation. “And yeah, I could’ve done a hundred things differently, but it wouldn’t have mattered because of how scared I was. I was willing to do anything to make sure you were safe.”

The first piece to your cracked walls falls. 

His fingertips lift up, padded fingers tracing your jaw, and it’s exactly as you remember. Heavy and sweet, the familiar touch satiating a dormant urge that has awoken only at his doing. You lean into it without realizing, the feel of his comfort sticking to you like  caramel. The sticky sugar of him pulls in closer no matter how hard your mind tries to chew your way out of it. You're stuck in the tar, mouth closed, voice silent, heart fluttering. 

His thumb sweeps across your cheek, his hand fitting against your skin like it never left. Warmth seeping in, blending the eternally blurred lines. A gentle force has your chin pulling upward, amber eyes meeting yours, like they always do. Finding you in a crowd of hundreds just as they do in the darkness of your living room. Meeting your gaze with little effort and boring into you, giving you ample opportunity to witness the throes of the brewing hurricane in his irises. 

Its hurtling towards you, the arms of its winds already wrapping around your wrists, your neck, your lungs. You’re inhaling its scent—musky and warm, the fading smell of a well-loved aftershave and damned latex. Tetsurou stares at you, and you stare at him, and it’s a fool’s game to think you’re anywhere but knee-deep in the eye of the storm.

“I will do anything to keep you safe.” He says, determination and all of its implications weigh on you.

His stare trails. Skirts across the features of your face as though he’s studying. It’s a quick flicker down to your lips and your heart leaps emphatically. He hears it, he must, because he’s then looking back to you and stops there. Parks his wandering gaze right into you and waits. He’s unconstrained, open, pleading for you to look and see; Find the answer in the ways that only you can find within him. 

“I couldn’t lose you.” Tetsurou brushes the underside of your lip with his thumb. His voice is low, low enough to rumble through his chest and into you. “I can’t lose you.”

You knew the moment he left why he did. Remember his words like a repeating lullabye as you run over them in your mind before bed, the desperation in his tone withering away the stone walls of your heart, the begging crumblings of letting him back in. Forgiving him is excusing the pain and the anger that tore through you, that left you cracked open and raw. You try to insist that within you, hammer that truth in with rusty nails in hopes that it will stick.

But you're drowning in the deep waters of anguish that he has flooded your apartment with, fighting life and limb against the beatings of caged desire that begs to reach out to him. Maybe, if you close your eyes hard enough you can shield yourself from the certainty of his gaze that the whimsies of romance try to convince you of and you can stand firm. You can open them and realize that this is all a dream that you had hoped it was at the beginning of this whole thing.

Maybe you could believe in that harrowed truth enough to have it buoy you to safety. A life preserver that whisks you away from the familiar touch of his hands that meld into your skin and drag you into the depths of his waters. 

You can remember his wrongs and try to do right by the girl that sat hurt and alone for three months. (Not alone, never alone. He was there; Watching, waiting. Ensuring your safety from a distance, checking through a widow. 

Loving you from afar in the only way that he could.)

“I wish you trusted me.” You whisper, and it’s not an invitation for forgiveness, but he shifts closer anyway. Lowlights of the room dance across his features, the shadows suiting him as they blend him half into the light and half into the darkness. What isn’t spoken is the hearty truth that lingers in the air. I wish I trusted you now.

Suddenly, his nose bumps into yours. Lips brush against yours and they part on instinct, puzzle pieces inching to find their unity once more. Mouths dancing, breaths mingling, one push and it would be the reunion of a past that is held up only by the misery of yearning. 

You want it, know deep within the parts that belong to him that he does too. He’s chasing it, looking for what once was his. His alter-ego isn’t one of the past, not one that he intends to give up anytime soon. Kuroo has never been a quitter, and you doubt as he pushes past blurring lines and unspoken boundaries that this is the indication that he’s willing to turn over a new leaf. 

He still wants both, still wants to be in the light and the dark, wants the normalcy of a life with you with the suit of red and blue. (And maybe, just maybe, a compromise could be struck; Balance could be found, with the growing pains. He could do both, don the mask and make time for you. You could enjoy the moments with him without pouring so much of yourself into him, the tiny voice of your heart whispers in your ear.

Maybe.)

“You should go.” You say, lips brushing his as your mouth moves to draw the line in the sand. The shattered pieces that were begging to finally be glued together drop to the floor. 

It’s hard to convince yourself that this is what you want, especially when he feels like sweet release in your hands, your mind finally feeling quiet in the warmth of his touch. It’s a betrayal against the deepest parts of your romantic self to deny this homecoming, but you do it anyway. Pulling away from his touch just slightly to stay firm.

It’s a minute before he finally nods. It’s absent of surety, instinctual almost, as he collects himself amidst the swarming tides of his thoughts. He parts, feet taking slow and heavy steps away from you. His thumb rubs across scabbed knuckles, hardly minding the pangs of pain that accompany as he picks and prods at his peeling skin. The jabs of sharp hurt macabrely steadying him as he wades through the sea of his own longing— intently hoping to push it to the side for this, for you.

“Yeah. Okay.” He says quietly, like he too has forgotten himself and is trying to piece himself together once more. 

His departure is slow moving, the disentangling of an entwined tar removing itself from the tether, an even harder fest the second time around— but he manages. Gathering himself, he steps towards your apartment door, opening it before halting and sparing one more glance towards you. Searching for something, trying to find it in your apartment, in you.

But you steel yourself, hold firm on this. Forgiveness is not given, it is earned—even for him.

“I want—” He begins before grimacing and shaking his head, “I would like to explain more. If you want. I know we’re not— I have to put the work in to get you to trust me again, and I want to do it.”

He shuffles in place, door adjusting with his movement, “Can I take you out for dinner? Try to do this the right way?”

And you should say no, should slam the door in his face for coming into your home, touching your things, yelling at you and crossing boundaries all within the same night. But even as your anger has risen at the confrontation of the past, at the poor attempts of mending, he has equally placated them. And you hate him for it, hate the fact that even though you haven’t seen him for three months, you’re still just as in tune with him as you were when he left.

This is a fine line between healing and dangerous territory— it could be the closure you need, the step forward to clarity. Or a warning. You fold your arms into yourself, deciding on the boundary at that moment, as shaky as it may be within your mind.

This cannot happen again; He cannot come into your home, touching you, breathing life into you when you have been wasted for so long. Pieces of the past cannot be picked up after they have laid abandoned for so long. For as long as you continue to look at Kuroo and see the wreckage that lies between you, things cannot be as they once were. Where you were a silly girl in head over heels for a stupid boy, reactionary to the ebbs and flows of a relationship that hadn’t known what steady ground was since the bite of the spider. It wasn’t a way to live, it wasn’t the way to be with someone.

Things need to be rewritten, dismantled and put back together. Etched anew. You are not who you once were three months ago, you look at him with too much distrust to be. He is not who he once was, his eyes are too sad to be. 

“I won’t promise you that I’ll trust you again.” You tell him and a deep breath racks his shoulders, “But I want to hear you out. As a friend.”

Tetsurou stares for a moment, understanding the words written between the lines of your statement. The line drawn in the sand. He weighs the options for a moment before eventually nodding, seemingly satisfied with that answer. Better to have you than not at all. “Yeah, that’s… that’s good. I’ll text you, we can figure out the details later.”

“As friends.” You repeat, unsure if it was meant to be a convincing reminder to him or yourself. 

“As friends.” He confirms. He gives you one last long look before he leaves your home. The water that choked you all evening receding with his exit. 

You had hoped in the crevices and cruxes of your mind as your entire world was tilted on its axis the moment that Tetsurou made his appearance, that you would be able to find your footing once he left. That your breath would come back to you in a way that it was pointedly thinned from your lungs— that peace could be found in the same way that you were just starting to become acquainted with it without your ex. This does not happen; As the apartment is submerged in silence, leaving only you in its embrace, you find that air doesn’t come back to you. If anything, you choke even more. Stand achingly still as your apartment becomes as it once was and settles emptily.

Even with the fire that he dredged forth, even the hurt that beat against the cages of your chest, even as you found the urge to yell and yell and never stop yelling at him—you can’t deny the truth that remains and rattles in the hollows of your mind.

You missed him. The way he spoke, how he filled your room, how his eyes found yours and stared an eternity into them. And maybe that’s the problem with first loves— the ghosts of them will always haunt the space of your heart, phantoms entwining around arteries and veins, infusing in your blood. But this is more than a rose-tinged ardor and a childish squabble; This is life and death, his and your own. And it cannot be regarded as anything but that, even if you want nothing more than to run out into the hallway and call after him.

You put that desire down, leaving it in the cage with all the other locked up hurts you hold of he and you, deciding it is a problem for another day. You force yourself to shift gear, turning to your bathroom in need of a shower to wash away all of the strain of the day, all of its exhaustion—

A knock resounds throughout the apartment. A beat passes, then two as its echo rings throughout the space.

You stare at it, wondering for a moment if it is your brain playing with you. If somehow you hadn’t locked that desire up tight enough and it was now at your door, toying with your hearing. A shadow filters underneath the door, a shuffling of feet. 

You know what’s on the other side without having to look. 

There’s a million reasons not to do something, pages and pages of entries in your castaway diary that depict the woes of your heart in the time that Kuroo had abandoned it—all of it’s waxing poetry serving as a poignant explanation as to why you should not open the door. But something tells you to open it, something smaller and sanguine—plumes of billowing hope that curdle in your stomach and float through you like an intoxicating smoke. Filling your lungs on the inhale, decadent exhaust that burns the nicotine, spreading the burning high.

Your hand is on the knob before you have much of a realization.  

And he’s there. 

Eyes inked with a steady fortitude, filled with an intensity saved for moments where you imagine the other guy comes to play, saved for the moments when he’s hellbent on getting you to see him. He stands at your doorway, lit under the harshness of the fluorescent hallway lights, chest rising and falling with the heaviness of his breaths. 

And it calls to you—that craving for the marrow, the barking that rings throughout your ears. It isn’t for the truth of words—it’s for him.

Really, he should be a better person and commit to the drive that led him to leave for three months, his need to keep you safe; Commit to the boundary that you have placed, the one that says I’m not ready to forgive you, the one that dresses you in caution tape and blinks in flashing red lights to avoid lest he do as he’s done before and try to fix things like a fool.

(A fool in love.) 

But it tugs at him, pulls him to his knees when you meet him with your eyes wide and eyebrows furrowed. Confusion, curiosity, and something pouring into you. He’s neck deep in the throes of longing just at the sight of you and that third element, that fickle something that he knows better than anyone else. He should be a better person and walk away, do as you have asked and respect boundaries. But then you say his name, a whisper on your tongue, like how you used to speak to him. And he realizes that he’s already done his time in being a better person. Three months of denying all he has wanted for the sake of protection. 

He’ll indulge in selfishness, just this once. 

Greedy with his intentions, desperate for you; Ready to drown. 

His hand is on the wood veneered door pushing it wider. His heart races in his chest as he realizes you put up no resistance in his doing so. A decision is made, absent of logic, truant of any remorse. 

“We will never be just friends.” He says, voice laden and heavy with that third thing that sparks a glint in your own eyes—want.

His lips are pressing to yours, rushing forward and slamming the door closed behind him in quick succession. A muffled whimper escapes your lips as you fall into old habit. The rough parting of plushness for a ravenous taste that stokes the embers of a desire hardly contained. And suddenly, his waters are rising around your ankles again, his own feet dragging against the force of its push and pull. Salty spray splattering against him, his clothes heavy with the damp and he’s sinking. 

(Even if you hate him, even if you push him away, at least you’re there—alive. 

He should fight and climb his way to survival, it’s the one thing he’s good at after all. But he doesn’t. This could easily be his death, headstone laid at your feet, the key to his coffin in your palm. 

There is no part of him that hasn’t been tethered to you in the formations of love and remained resilient in the absence of you; He is and has been yours, entirely.  And that was precisely the issue; For where he ended, you began. There was no better danger to him than you. And now, there is no greater danger to you than him. 

The taste of you is just as he remembered.)

Kuroo kisses as if this is how he could explain things. 

He pours all of his ferocity into the action, eagerly laps up the savory of the needing touches and the sweetness of bared soul, as it pours out and in. Joined into one, lines blurred, delineation a fool’s game. When wrapped in the throes of your embrace, the parting of your lips is all too addicting, and submission isn’t a threat but a promise of more.

He digs his teeth into the plump and pulls, losing the fight with his feelings when a whimper erupts from your mouth and even more lost when you push into him with equal fervor. Your hands are rushing up to his hair and tugging on the strands, pulling him closer into you if that were even possible. His hands find their place on your waist, finding solace when you fit against him in the exact way that he remembers. Joy coursing through the rushing blood when his fingers dig into plush skin, craving hardly satiated but instead, amplified. 

It’s desperate, and mean, and hard, and consuming and it's the greatest thing he’s ever had. Flurried limbs pulling each other together, gripping on skin in calloused moans and tugging movements. Your tongues taste one another, licking into the open in wet fervor. A whine is exhaled when your mouths pull apart that is quickly replaced with bliss when his teeth sink into your neck, lapping over your tender pulse point in the way he knows your body responds best. Your nails dig into his biceps, the fabric of his shirt tugging upward. 

This dance is familiar and that makes it that much more exciting, like an inactive muscle being stretched out. He’s pushing you both further into the room, fingertips trailing at your waistband, silently asking as he sucks another mark into your neck. You beat him to it, pulling pants and underwear down in one quick movement, your heart pumping erratically as you fall on the couch, onto the buoy keeping you above the rising tide. He’s moving in tandem, your own shirt falling to your floor in abandon. 

Revealed to you is a pantheon of scars that decorate the lean and lithe muscle of his chest as you settle on the sofa. Some old, faded to the color of his skin, others new, pink and raw. Your fingers are drawn to them, running over the numerous marks that bisected skin, that make constellations against his ribcages.

Atlas stares down at you, deep breaths racking his chest. “What happened to you?” You ask quietly, fingers finding a particularly jagged mark that runs from the right side of his ribcage down to his belly button. Two pale pink scars lining either side of its division— claws. His stomach tenses beneath your touch.

The worry seen in your eyes ignites a heated passion in him, the held suppression that you still care driving him forward once more.

“Later. We can talk about it later.” Invigorated, he leans back down, capturing your lips in another kiss and running his tongue on the curl of them. His hands move on their own accord, long fingers gripping beneath your knees and hiking your legs upward, exposing the wet and slickened part of your sex to the eager grind of his hard length poking through his jeans. Denim meets your sex and the rough fabric pulls a broken moan from your occupied lips as it grinds against the wet of your folds. Rubbing coarsely into your sensitive bud. His fingers find their place there soon after, splitting your seam and gathering enough wetness at your entrance to roll it over your clit, swirling his finger around the pearl in the way he knows you like it best. 

There comes great advantage to being with a man for as long as you were with Kuroo. His expertise ignites the beginning rapture with a speed unlike any other. Fingers playing with your sex in ways that you’ve never been able to replicate on your own, driving your want higher, tightening the coil that burns with delectable heat in your stomach as his tongue licks into your mouth. Your breaths are heavy, lips disconnecting with him as you find yourself distracted in pleasure, a trail of spit stretching between you.

It’s when he slips a long skilled finger inside of you that you throw your head back. He makes quick work, attaching with eagerness to the column of your throat, suckling marks into the juncture of your jaw and neck. He knows where the spot lies, knows how to have your mind fogging up and your mouth opening in stupor. 

And you hate it; You hate that he knows what to do and how to do it to get you so malleable underneath him. You’re putty in his hands and it's the essence of everything that you have been warning yourself of. He could ask you anything, tell you anything, and in the embrace that has been yearned for, it wouldn’t take much for you to do whatever it is that he asked. 

You would do more to stop this were you not locked in the throes of pleasure—but he feeds the beaten dog so well.  

A second finger enters you and you moan.

“That’s it. I wanna hear it, baby.” The huskiness of his voice pants a hot breath against the side of your neck. “Please let me hear it.”

“Tetsurou—” You manage to bite out just as his fingers curl upward, stroking against the spongy spot of your front wall. A dull fuzzy pressure begins to fill your body.

“You gonna cum for me, pretty girl?” He asks, his thumb working in tandem with his two pumping fingers to rub hard circles against your clit. “You gonna let me taste it?”

His nose presses into your cheek, lips placing a loving kiss against the surface as you nod, emphatically. He breathes, enamored with the feel of your walls clenching around his fingers, drunk off of the faint smell of your perfume, and the salt of your skin. He knows an orgasm is hardly the way to fixing things, but he’ll be damned if he won’t try. Rising on his unoccupied arm, he hovers himself above you, studying the contortion of your face. Your face, gorgeous as it scrunches in response to his ministrations; Beyond beautiful in all of its existence, when you're smiling, skin pushing on the apples of your cheek; In sleep, resting and relaxed; In your fury, furrowed and gritted as you yell at him, give him your poison and vexation, deliver an acrimony that he can only kneel before— entrenched in all of your holy. 

Your eyes remain closed, sealed in bliss as he strums the familiar crescendo and as satisfying as it is to see, he wants more. Wants to see you. 

He says your name in reverence, “Look at me.”

Blown pupils meet his own and it's the final stretch. Heart escalating, fingers clenching, your thighs closing around his forearm to stave off the impending blow and all of its glory. He doesn’t stop, instead he keeps your gaze, dropping his mouth to your chest and sucking a nipple into it. Laving over the sensitive skin, setting nerves tender as he maintains his steady pace with his fingers.

And it comes; The sharp inhale of breath, the tumbling of his name, the peak of the long awaited happiness. Your fingers find home in gripping his arms, the one beside your head and the other between your thighs, still stroking an even stride through the pulsing of your gummy walls and the gush of wetness from you. 

It's convulsing and dizzying, you almost don’t believe that it's happening as euphoria washes over you. Tetsurou hovers over you, sliding his fingers from you and immediately putting them in his mouth, sucking the taste of you off of the digits. 

Were you not already pulsing with the aftershocks of an orgasm, the sight of his eagerness would have pushed you over the ledge. It's pathetic really how Kuroo does to you what no other person can. Set you aflame with the paradoxical sisters of lust and anger. The emotions of Mars, emboldened in intensity by his doing, are further impassioned as he stands on his knees, stare blown wide as he pushes your thighs apart once more. His gaze transfixed on the mess he’s made of your sex, the length of his cock twitching in arousal the longer that he looks. 

“There she is,” he says to himself, adjusting your knees further up until they’re hitting your chest. His hands grab underneath you, pulling your exposed pussy closer to him. He fists himself, a pearly bead of precum smearing over the red and leaking tip, pushing it forward so that the head of his cock bumps into the sensitive nub of you with each swipe against his length. Shocking you into the desire, building the anticipation once more. “This perfect pussy.”

He’s lost, stuck in the reverie as he stares at you and it eats you alive. To be so desired, so wanted by a man you were convinced hadn’t wanted you anymore.

“Tetsu,” Your voice is ragged and broken, propriety abandoned in the glow of the coital haze. You breathe and he seems reminded of where he is, a glaze in his own eyes. Kuroo leans down after a moment, reminding himself of what he’s meant to do. His lips find yours in a gentle peck as he breathes in your exhale. 

“Tell me. Please.” He swirls the head of his cock at your entrance, gathering your slick on him but waiting. “Tell me what you want. Tell me you want this.”

It feels like you're floating in the waters, no longer drowning or at risk of sinking, but instead light and loose on its surface. No longer made an enemy of its tides but the lover, kissed with each lap of its waves. If you close your eyes you can hear the water crashing against the shore. The waves that crumble the high rise of your stone walls, their wreckage falling into the sea. You can feel that it's Kuroo’s hands underneath you keeping you afloat, holding you still. Can pretend that everything is right once more. 

Your eyes shut in hope, the promise of tomorrow within reach. The words are spoken before you have any sense otherwise. Sober wants and the repressed truth voiced in a split second. 

“I want it so bad. I want you. Please, please—”

It’s all he needs, all he wants. Not the sex, forget the sex, but you—wanting him, asking for him. A revival of the shredded beating threads of a tender heart. He pushes into you, the hefty weight of his member filling you in the ways that are so familiar yet need the most adjustment. The burning stretch, the feeling of being whole as he moves forward, inch by aching inch. Slowly letting you adjust, slowly giving himself the time to fit.

He pauses his movement, a grunt, heavy and man, releases from his mouth. The wet heat of your walls choking him, wrapping around him like a vice that sets every neuron, every pathway alight. He digs his fingers into the soft of you tugging you closer in search of the home he knows, the one that will bring him to his death. In your embrace, it would be kind, long-awaited, the better alternative to the threat that he faces every night on the street.

He stills his hips, letting you acclimate to the feel of him inside of you. Conversely, he tries to catch his breath, tries to not burst at the first feel of your tightness around him. 

Tetsurou looks down at you, his hands smoothing up and down the expanse of your spread thighs as he watches the quick flicks of emotion on your face. Waiting for the signal, the green light to roll into you. 

Your chest heaves with a stuttered breath, your breasts rising and falling and he falls into the impulse to bring his hands to them. Palms cupping the skin, thumbs brushing over peaked and taught nipples. Your skin is dewy with sweat, eyes blown with lust, and hair messy as you lie beneath him. Beautiful, beyond beautiful. He takes a snapshot of you in his mind, folding this image in the file for the late night thoughts, for the reasons to keep living. 

Your face contorts into one of shock, eyes darting to his own, disrupting the image of ecstasy you were once so lost in. He mirrors your surprise with a look of confusion, unsure what happened in the split second to cause such a look from you. 

“What did you say?” You ask, rising onto your elbows, shifting his place inside of you ever so slightly.

He hisses with the movement, hands rushing down to your hips to hold you still. He can’t think with the jolting, the hot lick of pleasure that burns within him at the slightest of shifting from you, but he tries anyway. Recalling the previous couple of seconds, wondering what could have slipped out of his mouth in the few moments that he was gazing down at you, staring in awe as you writhed underneath him.

“I’m so in love with you.” 

It isn’t the most jarring of things to have ever been said by him, this evening alone enough of a reminder of the kinds of outrageous that his occupation can bring, but it’s the breach of a reality. The actualization of something fragile that lies between you two. It is easier to be abhorrently angry at him rather than violently in love with Tetsurou, and yet it remains. 

Like a hidden secret, you kept it locked in you. Tried to stampen it out, snuff it with hands around its throat. But here he is, on his knees, just as victimized by the truth, begging for better days. 

He rolls into you, then. Energized by his own admission, eager at the locking of your eyes. He pumps a steady rhythm, cock bullying against tight walls and rubbing in all the right ways, revitalized at the moans that spill out of you.

“I said I’m in love with you,” Palms release your breasts and find your own hands, intertwining fingers together and leaning close to you. Chest to chest, mouth hovering above your own, chasing the home of sweet release but making sure you’re right in front of him. “So fucking in love with you.”

It happens in quick succession. Pressure erupting, tide pulling you in and under, his voice the only tether to the surface as your orgasm reached you in record time. Brought asunder by the turmoil, the anticipation of him, and then finally having it. You can’t tell if it's because of the ministrations of his hips that know you so well, that know how to bring you forward— thighs pressing into yours, skin clapping at the repeated meeting of him into you, the tightening of the burning coil— or the confession. Spoken just as he has said everything else to you—

With conviction, firmly believing the words he has uttered. Kuroo has never lied to you, he wouldn’t do it now. 

The blooming fire in your core spreads throughout the entirety of you; Your head throws back in a cry and Kuroo takes it as permission to follow you. Drops his head into your neck, thrusting with deep abandon as he finds his own peak. He digs and digs, burying himself to the hilt as he reaches it. His stomach tightening, his body going rigid as the high he seeks renders him still deep within you. A guttural moan leaving his mouth, unintelligible whispers, low muttered honesty that he means for himself. 

He holds you close to him in the wake of the decrescendo, all but collapsing on top of you. Limbs gummy and soft, minds sluggish as he keeps you connected to him, for as long as you’ll let him. 

Time passes like this, held close to him, sweat gluing you back to him in the way it was always meant to be. 

And it's sticky, this mess that you're in, body and mind. Clinging to one another, your hands unthread with his fingers to run through his hair, his lips plant soft kisses to the skin that he can reach, and the fragments of uncertainty between you lay shattered in their great glory on the floor. The tide slowly rises, washing away the scattered pieces, returning it back to its sea, promising to take care of it all with a loving whisper.

You don’t know where to go from here. The abated fear that was put to rest in the heat of his touch slowly inches forward. He knows it must, can probably sense your rising apprehension before you even realize it. Spider senses, and whatnot.

His head rises from laying in the space between the couch and your neck, ambers looking into yours. Honestly, carefully, lovingly.

He brings his hand up, brushing a flyaway from your face. “What are you thinking about?” The quiet plea from before. 

Let me in.

“Are you going to leave when I go to sleep?” You ask, and even if you had the energy to muster a kind of bite to your words, you don’t have the desire to. 

He wonders for a second, voice soft when he finally questions, “Do you want me to?”

Old habits beat the familiar song, and you fear waking up again to an empty apartment after having him so close. No, you don’t want him to leave; But admitting that is jumping four hundred steps ahead in a wasteland now imploded from your coupling with him. Nothing about this is normal, even as you try to grasp some semblances of it. You shouldn’t have slept with your ex-boyfriend, not when you told yourself things needed to be patched up first, not when you were still hurt inside, but falling into the cycle, the old song and dance of before has thrown a wreck into the healthy attempt at boundaries.

It’s just made everything so much worse. Your head hurts, your heart pounds and all you can do is cover your face with your hands. Hiding the frustration before him.

“Hey,” Tetsurou coos, admonishing you gently from your secreting. His hands pull yours away from your face, voice guiding the quieting din in your mind. “I’d like to stay. We can talk all night or not at all. I just want to be next to you. But only if you want me.”

It’s up to you; All of this is up to you, now. 

“And if I say ‘no’?”

“Then I’ll wait until you’re ready. Even if you’re never ready.”

You hum, a means to fill the space. Uncertainty lingering.

He calls your name quietly, the same seriousness that has been following him all evening in his gaze again. The kind that pointedly was not apparent three months ago before the rainy night. “You need to know though, before we start anything, before you make a decision, if it comes down to it—if your safety is on the line—I’ll do it again. I’ll do whatever it takes. And you can’t change my mind on it.”

It’s then that you realize even in the height of your argument, in the consuming of one another, Tetsurou never gave you an apology. Said to your face it wouldn’t fix anything because he wasn’t going to apologize to you. Saying he’s sorry would be a lie, and he doesn’t lie to you. He’ll hurt you both again if he needs to. If it comes to pass, that’s his answer; Wherever you’re concerned, if your safety is at risk, there isn’t much Tetsurou wouldn’t do to protect it—protect you. 

A knowing that you are going to have to accept. And quickly. 

Your eyes see only but the honorable truth in his. Your heart pumps erratically and your mouth craves the taste of his once more. 

“Stay. I want you to stay.”

a/n: its here. two long years later. big thanks to everyone who loves this series and has been interested even after my long ass hiatus. you guys are the reason i kept going through it even through the worst of things. love you all! btw i made a whole ass playlist just for this chapter so let me know if that's something we are interested in

[banjjakz]

route warnings: (dubious-ish?) non-con; forced fellatio; manipulation; power imbalances; misogyny. please proceed with caution this one is kinda rough

➡ Turn back.

Shame cows your ambition, curtailing your hand’s daring arc towards the doorknob. Your arm retreats back into your body, burned by a phantom pain.

How could you be so audacious? It should be enough to simply admire Yuuta from afar… Just imagining how scared and confused he might be to see a fan in his personal quarters is enough of a gruesome mental image to shock you out of your starry-eyed stupor.

Shaking your head in disbelief, you hurry to put some distance between yourself and your tantalizing desire. Now that you are once more aligned with your cognitive reasoning and critical thinking, the darkness of the backstage corridor is kinda…spooky. Despite the deafening roar of the frenzied crowd just a few moments prior, the venue is now almost entirely empty. The only soundtrack accompanying your foolish venture is the ominous dripdripdrip-ing of the faulty, leaky water pipes hidden behind the sodden ceiling and peeling drywall.

Suddenly, this feels very much so like a place in which you do not belong. Turning on your heel, you make a mad dash to evacuate the premises from the way you originally came – only to run straight into something tough, solid, and warm.

Evidently, it is not a wall – otherwise, your nose would’ve probably been shattered on impact, considering how hard you bowled straight into the surface. But what else could be this immovable, this well-fortified and impassible? The only things that come to mind are brick and bone, which—

Oh.

Tremulously, you caution a glance upward, shivering in your grimy concert shoes at the thought of having to confront the absolute beast of a security guard who’d been eyeing you all night…

Instead, when your eyes finally grace the features of your obstacle, it is not at all the formidable security guard of your nightmares. In fact, the reality is much worse.

Looking down at you is Geto Suguru, ShinShow’s lead singer, in all of his six-footed, long, luscious haired, tattooed, gauged lobed, pierced-faced glory.

When you fail to produce any words, he smirks at you, seemingly relishing in the uncomfortable silence. With dawning horror, you realize that he intends to wait you out. His imposing stature is so broad and the dim hallway is so cramped that you would not be able to pass unless he let you. And, judging by his sardonically amused impassivity, he has no intention of doing anything of that sort.

Your gulp is audible in the dead quiet. Frozen, you linger in paralysis, an animal of prey caught in still waters.

“Well, you look lost,” says Geto Suguru, deceptively calm.

His face is the pinnacle of classic beauty: an unblemished, sanguine ivory mask. The deceptively easygoing set to his superhuman features sets the lids of his eyes low, cutting across the horizon of his irises in one neat, lethal swoop.

Any ShinShow fan with half of a functioning brain knows not to be fooled by this theatrical performance. It is this same, seemingly lackadaisical Geto Suguru who unleashes live performances inspiring pure, unadulterated horror and dread amongst an eager, addicted audience. His antics as the band’s front man have included, but are certainly not limited to: lovingly instructing his fans to refer to him as “Geto-sama”; regurgitating fake (?) blood on stage; displaying a seriously terrifying proficiency in martial arts as a form of choreography; and, of course, passionately and enthusiastically belting out self-composed lyrics lamenting the state of the world, the salvation to be found in existential dread, and the anarchist desire to destroy life as it currently manifests.

So, you know. Light work.

Point being: this is a man who you do not want to fuck around with. Even as a dedicated superfan, there are some risks best left unchallenged. You don’t even want to think about what he would say (or do…?) if he found out that you’d been sneaking around and preparing to break and enter into one of his bandmate’s dressing room…

“I am,” you lie, bowing your head in an attempt to shield your quivering bottom lip and your wet, shifty eyes. For some reason, you feel like he’ll see right through you if you let him. “Could you please direct me to the exit? I am very sorry to trouble you.”

Geto’s hearty laugh startles you into looking up at him. “Sure you don’t want a polaroid pic before you go?”

There are sparkles and glitter and sunshine and rainbows melting out of your head, leaking out of your ear canals, dripping down your neck and shoulders and onto the dirty concrete like liquified brain matter. “If—if you insist.”

This is how you find yourself posing against a disgusting brick wall with the one and only Geto Suguru. You would squee, if the thought of fangirling in front of Geto Suguru didn’t make you want to violently extinguish your own existence.

The only thing worse than fangirling embarrassingly hard in front of Geto would be the insinuation that he is your oshi and you are one of his “followers,” as he has lovingly (?) dubbed his personal fanbase. To bear the brunt of his condescending, considerably sadistic attitude which he wields against fans like a whip of love…

It would be indecent(ly erotic)! It would be humiliating(ly pleasurable)! You would not survive (with your dignity intact)!

Out of the kindness of his cold, dead heart, he takes multiple shots with you. The first picture sees the both of you shoulder-to-shoulder, smiling serenely at the camera – a standard shot for oshi and fan. The second picture is his signature M.O. for fanservice photos: your faces are deadpanned in joint, mildly disgusted unison, staring down the viewer with thinly veiled contempt. It’s a popular, ironic style for niche idols like ShinShow to poke fun at both themselves as well as the concept of idol fanservice in general. Secretly, you derive a different meaning entirely from the farcical display of scorn. It is as though you gaze at the viewer as a voyeur. Why are you here? Why are you looking at him? Why are you looking at us? Go away. You aren’t worthy.

The white-hot flash of a successfully snapped shot sears across your vision like the wink of a shooting star, immeasurably awesome, woefully transient. As you mourn this interaction’s inevitable end, Geto surprises you by asking if you’d like some digital photos as well.

Charmed, you find yourself unable to do anything but agree, albeit not too enthusiastically. Appearances are important, here.

After quickly unlocking the device, he smoothly slips your smartphone from your shaky, clammy grasp, raising it up to a fashionably high selfie angle. Inside the four-by-four digital reflection, you are confronted with a reality you have never dared hope to imagine:

Geto Suguru, long black hair loose and in disarray from a recent stage performance, makeup running down the chiseled planes of his face in pigmented rivulets, black-painted nails splayed in a facetious peace sign right underneath your chin.

Crap, his hand is really warm! You can’t help but to lean into the plush crevice of skin between his pointer and thumb…is it weird, that you’re kind of obsessed with how soft it is? For a seasoned musician with quite the gnarly disposition, his hands – much like the rest of him – are deceptively soft.

Is it really alright, to be this close to him? As he snaps the third and final photo, you lose yourself in the intoxicating sensation of skin-to-skin contact. Delusional from the proximity, your consciousness has been untethered from your body, entirely outside of the reach of normal human sensibilities. You are only slammed back into your own mind when a sudden, swift constriction of pressure on your lower jaw demands your attention.

Shocked, you try to turn your head to look up at your idol.  Subsequently, you are horrified to realize that it is his hand who restricts your movement.

In the mirrored image displayed by your phone camera, your trembling pupils track the slow spread of Geto’s lips which peel back from his teeth like unfurling layers of some fruit repulsively past the point of ripeness. Suddenly, his beautiful, white face of traditional peerless beauty now appears to you as an eerie mask concealing an unimaginably horrific reality.

“Did you know that I can smell your fear?” says Geto conversationally, still facing the camera, still smiling.

His mirrored image belies a reflection perhaps even more terrifying than an overtly antagonistic expression of anger or wrath. Instead of obvious malice, Geto’s undisturbed sanguineness installs within you a new and revolutionary kind of desperate terror.

“E-excuse me?” You ask, voice a tremulous, pitiful thing. “I don’t think I understand, Geto-san—”

Fast as lightning, and just as electrifyingly immobilizing, Geto’s large hand reaches upwards to smother your “You’ll use that mouth to properly address me Geto-sama, or you won’t use it at all. What is a follower’s role but to obey?”

A chill runs down the length of you, infiltrating your nervous system, hijacking your senses, arresting your higher functioning. Geto’s words sink in with fatal clarity: you are not escaping this. This is your fate.

Oddly, this realization excites you.

As though the line about smelling your fear wasn’t merely a maniacal bluff, Geto’s neatly-trimmed brows raise almost at the same time as you come to this conclusion. As a heady sort of anticipation fills your gut, his mask cracks for the first time, toeing the line between disgust and another, unnamable sentiment – one that lends a new kind of scintillating, sadistic twinkle in those small, dark eyes.

“Don’t tell me--” His fingers dig even more deeply into the supple flesh of your burning cheeks. “—that you like this.” Before you can curb it, a damning whimper flies forth from your dry throat, betraying your weakened knees, the weeping arousal between your quaking thighs.

More than being scared, you are egregiously humiliated. Not even a momentary reprive through fluttering your eyes shut is granted to you, for Geto violently shakes your skull in his palm until you are jolted back to staring into the selfie camera.

The frightened, excited tears that spill from the corners of your eyes only serve to further validate his salacious suspicions. “You do. How interesting.”

His gaze strays from your own in the phone camera, wandering to fixate on a point a few centimeters above your head. Is he plotting his next move? Does he know something that you don’t? Is he wholly sane?

Of course he isn’t! You scream at yourself, internally. Any guy who holds a girl hostage backstage is absolutely off his rocker!!

And yet – shamefully – you’re kind of into it.

Will you die tonight? Maybe.

Will you go out with a bang? Hopefully.

“Ghkfdbmmsnnmm,” you plea from behind his fingers. Graciously, he peels back his fingers, one-by -one, partially releasing your voice from his clutches even as he still hostages your face with cautious interest.

This time, when you speak, your voice sounds like a gunshot in the empty stillness of the desolate corridor. In this atmosphere, it feels as though there is not another soul alive besides you and your captor.

“Geto-sama. Please have mercy…”

He must be able to tell it’s an act. You don’t even sound convincing to yourself. The last thing you crave is his mercy.

“My, my. Such a turn this has taken,” he muses, fingers idly tapping away at your back molars. “What shall I do with you?”

Eat me alive, supplies your brain. “Whatever Geto-sama wills, it is my duty to fulfill.”

When you lock eyes in the camera, meeting each other’s gazes through the digital mirage for the last time, Geto shuts off the phone with one quick, decisive movement. You watch the system warning flash across the screen before everything goes dark and quiet. No more camera. No more phone. No more location services. The device drops to the ground with a heart-dropping clatter. You don’t have time to wonder if it survives the fall.

Geto turns to you for the first time in what feels like eons. Without the layer of pixelated filters softening the blow, being subject to his direct line of sight paralyzes you to the core.

“Get on your knees.”

Instantly, you obey. Refusal does not even cross your mind. The grimy floor rushes to greet your knees with a firm thud! The impact reverberates throughout your entire body, setting every single nerve alight with stimulation.

He draws over to you lackadaisically, like a tiger stalking its sure kill. Playing into it, you shuffle backwards, scraping your sensitive knees and shins against the unforgiving platform until your heels hit the wall behind you.

“Your fear is waning. You aren’t scared,” says Geto, undoing his fly. “You should be.”

Without further ado, he pulls out his dick and shoves it inside the wanton cavern of your willing, wanting mouth.

It happens so fast that your eyes can’t quite keep up with his movements, unable to visually register just how large his appendage is until it’s being stuffed down your throat. Bile rises to greet the tip of his dick and he is, apparently, into that. Makes it all the wetter.

For your part, you are struggling to maintain your initial excitement. In your lust-addled, starstruck stupor, you imagined that you and your idol shared a similar appreciation for the taboo mirage of consensually non-consensual liaisons. What you had failed to realize was that you were the only imaginary in this particular fantasy scenario. What used to exist merely as the stuff of wet-dream musings has now crystallized into a concrete reality; a reality wherein there are no safe-words, no underlying currents of care or affection, and no opting out.

You realize the extent of your disadvantaged position when Geto takes a break from brutalizing your esophagus to release you from his clutches and decides that he would rather rub his dick all over your face, instead.

Not only this, but he smacks you with it.

This isn’t even the stuff of brutal pornos. You’re no stranger to the horrors of exploitative snuff film, and even those seem to pale in comparison to the way he holds the back of your skull with one hand as he beats your cheekbones, your nose, your eyelids, your mouth, your chin, your jaw, even your fucking ears with his cock. From the crest of your hairline to the peaks of your clavicles, you are sodden with wet, sticky precum, battered with blooming bruises.

It all happens so fast that you barely have time to blink – definitely no time to indulge in the privilege of breathing. Geto’s movements become frenzied, harried, washing over you dark and fast like the rolling thunder of an impending typhoon.

Caught in the midst of severely troubled waters, ears roaring with adrenaline, blood, and terror, rooted to the spot by forces beyond your body’s will, your mind sparks to life with one last-ditch attempt at a moment of clarity:

What will you do?

>  Call for help.

>  Take it.

[rorygilmcre]

the way that fairytales are a motif in ttpd is more interesting than it ever has been in taylor's previous work because my overall impression of the album is that she thought this supposedly heroic man of her dreams was coming back to "save" her from a situation that she felt trapped in, and then instead of living up to her expectations he totally let her down in every possible way and all the references to fairytales ("now I'm running with my dress unbuttoned, screaming "but daddy I love him!" / "beauty is a beast that roars down on all fours" / "you said you were gonna grow up, then you were gonna come find me" / "and the shelf life of those fantasies has expired, lost to the lost boys chapter of your life" / "poison blood from the wound of the pricked hand, oh, still I dream of him") show that arc from fairytale "his will be my happily-ever-after" beginning to the messy poisoned cowardly lion ending that everyone in the world can feast their eyes upon

[yuzukahibiscus]

"A Top Star as sparkling as the seven colours of the rainbow" — Yuzuka Rei's Sayonara Show and press conference after the Closing Performance at the Grand Theatre

(Source from Fujingahou)

The tragic of the crown prince, the pianist bestowed with talent and beauty, the hero who became the first Roman emperor...She who played these various roles gorgeously is the (former) Flower Troupe Top Star Yuzuka Rei.

"Arc en ciel~The Rainbow Over Paris" is her graduation performance, which had her closing performance in the Takarazuka Grand Theatre on March 24. After the musical, she performed in "Yuzuka Rei's Sayonara Show" and in the press conference, and here is a report of the enthusiasm on present scene.

A sophisticated beauty, an elegant expression. Stage performances with Flower Troupe Top Star Yuzuka Rei will always be artistic in any moment, a charm that melts the audiences' hearts.

Yuzuka entered the revue in spring 15 years ago, and she was a stylish otokoyaku who received much attention early on with her gorgeous beauty and excellent dance. She received hit roles like Domyouji Tsukasa in "Boys Over Flowers" and became the Top Star in 2020. Her Top Star debut performance "Haikara-san ga Tooru" was affected by the pandemic and was faced with the trials of opening the performances after a 4-month delay.

Later on in the next 4 years, Yuzuka was calm and reliable to lead Flower Troupe no matter the time. This time, the Top Star will play the role Marcel – a talented dancer who sang the song "Sunk but not wavering" dignifiedly during the Nazi German invasion of Paris – written by the director Koike Shuuichirou. On the closing performance, she wraps her arms around her friends' shoulders and her eyes were filled with strength, believing in a bright future ahead with confidence.

After the musical, with the support of a full-housed audience, the "Yuzuka Rei Sayonara Show" began. Rising from the stage, Yuzuka appeared as the second lieutenant Ijjuin Shinobu, whom she had starred in her representative performance of "Haikara-san ga Tooru" in 2017 and 2020. The theatre was filled with people cheering in joy and a great round of applause! Ijjuin Shinobu returns to the Takarazuka Grand Theatre in the season of cherry blossoms. With the bright and clear sounds, Yuzuka sang "Taisho Romance Love Song" and "My Haikara-san", to which she later mentioned in the press conference, "It made me recall how I felt for the audience during the Top Star debut performance in the Grand Theatre. That is very important to me, and I wanted to meet everyone as the second lieutenant again". Of course, Yuzuka still wore her military uniform, reenacting the scene by holding the bouquet of flowers and reciting her lines. Yuzuka walked slowly on the silver bridge as the second lieutenant, which moved many fans.

Next is followed by Hoshikaze Madoka, the Flower Troupe Top Musumeyaku who is also graduating. She sang theme song of "The Fascination" gorgeously, the first performance of her as a Flower Troupe Top Musumeyaku after transferring from a Cosmos Troupe Top Musumeyaku. Later on, Hoshikaze also sang "In My Dreams" from "Anastasia", a symbolic work of hers in Cosmos Troupe, with her beautiful voice echoing in the theatre.

As if wound by the thread of fate, Yuzuka and Hoshikaze became the Top Combi towards the end of their Takarazuka life. They sang a duet "Fireworks are glittering, sparkling" in their Top Combi debut performance "Genroku Baroque Rock". Their clear voices bring an emotional resonation to the song. Then, a chandelier is slowly drawn down and they danced to the classical and gorgeous song of "CHEEK TO CHEEK" in "TOP HAT". With dry ice smoke on the ground, the pair showcased the high-speed lift turns and the audience applauded enthusiastically for them.

As a show star, Yuzuka always captivated the audience with her vibrant dance genres. She played the beast with razor gaze and wild charms in "Cool Beast!!". While roaring and singing, the Flower Troupe stars cross the silver bridge, standing next to Yuzuka who wore a red costume which showed her beauty. You could feel how passionate the theatre became with the sound of enormous clapping. In a next scene, they performed "Black Eyes" from the black tails scene of "Haikara-san ga Tooru". Yuzuka went up to the grand staircase alone in silence and posed, an aesthetic from the silhouette of her body. That is how she captures the audience's attention easily.

Together with the next (current) Flower Troupe Top Star Towaki Sea, they performed a casual interaction showing the men's frienship from a number of "A Battlefield for the Two of Us" and they later shared a firm handshake. Before the Sayonara Show, the kumichou Mikaze Maira read a letter from Yuzuka, "(Towaki transferred from Snow Troupe) Even before she came to Flower Troupe, I had wanted to work with her". And in the press conference, she spoke warmly, "I'm excited to what kind of troupe she will create, and I will be looking forward and watching from afar."

For the climax and finale of the Sayonara Show is a number from "Fashionable Empire" where the Flower Troupe members embraced and interacted with Yuzuka. In the end, all Flower Troupe members sang "Let us live in this moment!!" powerfully, and completing the performance brightly. As each of the graduates descended from grand staircase and gave their speech in the graduation ceremony, they were Misato Reina, Aira Miko, Hozumi Mahiro, Maizuki Nagisa. Hoshikaze Madoka later appeared and expressed her gratitude for her 10 years of her Takarazuka life. She also mentioned her encounter with Yuzuka was like receiving light from her. As she spoke with such a clear expression, you could feel how strong their trust is towards each other.

Then finally, as the Flower Troupe members called "Rei-san!" and she responded with "here~", Yuzuka appeared. Different from other graduating members, she appeared in the black suits that is a signature costume for otokoyaku and came down the grand staircase slowly. She received the graduation bouquet of flowers from "Minami Maito of Senka". When her name was announced, the Grand Theatre reacted greatly. Till last year, it had already been almost 14 years that the otokoyaku star Minami had spent the time with Yuzuka in Flower Troupe honing and polishing their skills, so when she appeared, it was a surprise to the audience. Yuzuka hugged Minami and Minami also showed an emotional expression, and you could feel the depths of time the two had spent together.

Yuzuka then delivered her speech.

"I just kept on running. It was a journey that I devoted all of my youth to. Entering the revue for 15 years, I have only continued running with all my might. Facing uphills and downhills, even after there was finally a clear road for me, I have been in deep frustrations. When I faced muddy paths, my footsteps become heavy, and there were days when I couldn't move forward.  But in the midst of running these paths, many wonderful sceneries are waiting for me.  Either it's how we all became united as one, or that I accomplished something, at each turning point, there were sceneries that were imprinted in my heart. In the road ahead, there will definitely be sceneries that I've worked hard for, waiting for me. And that scenery is something I can see on this stage now. To me, this scenery is my favourite one. Be it the dazzling eyes of the audience, the shining scenery as far as my eyes could see... Whatever I perform on stage, the audience would always look and respond with me with their shimmering eyes, and I'd be so happy with these interactions.  These footsteps, (that once were heavy) will become lighter. If I could see such happy scenery in the place I've arrived in, I have no regrets in remain. I will never forget this wonderful scenery in my lifetime."

She then addressed her appreciation to the teachers, the staff members, the Senka members, her classmates, the Flower Troupe members, her parents and her brothers and continued to say,

"I am saying farewell to this Takarazuka Grand Theatre full of memories I am saying goodbye to this wonderful scenery in Takarazuka Grand Theatre.  For all who have loved the Flower Troupe otokoyaku Yuzuka Rei through the Takarazuka Grand Theatre, I would like to express my appreciation for these 15 years. Sincerely, truly, thank you all."

(Here is Hoshikaze Madoka's speech)

"10 years ago, I've started my life as a stage performer in this place. With classmates who spent through happiness and sorrow with me, Cosmos Troupe members who taught me everything from square one when I was still an underclassmen, to the teachers and staff members. To the Flower Troupe members who embraced me warmly and filled my world with the colours of joy. There have been many wonderful encounters in Takarazuka, to which these people have taught me and guided me. And to Yuzuka-san. Meeting with Yuzuka-san alone is such an important tredasure in my life. No matter what circumstances I am facing she will never let go of my hand and never stop walking with me and always continues to shine bright and I am filled with gratitude in my heart. To my dearest family, and to the fans who continued to shower me with warm love. It's thanks to everyone that I am able to move forward and keep on walking with a smile. To all who have gave me such great sentiments of happiness, I would like to express my sincerest love and gratitude. Thank you all so much.

Afterwards, the Flower Troupe members were seen crying and smiling, but Yuzuka was seen to be smiling brightly from start to finish, her whole body contained in happiness. There were 6 curtain calls, and she mentioned the story of how in New Year's Eve in 2023, she went walking with Hoshikaze and saw rainbows on that day, "In 'Haikara-san ga Tooru' and also in 'Arc en ciel', both musicals have rainbows in the lyrics of their songs, so rainbows have a special meaning for me". Even the mention of this fantastic "rainbow-talk" is very Yuzuka-like.

The ceremony after the press conference was also held in a calm manner. "Today I woke up with such blissful feelings. Now that everything is done I am relieved, but at the same time I have the desire to want to hug the Flower Troupe members, the audience and all these days that I've lived in the past tightly" and spoke with such satisfaction. About the Takarazuka Grand Theatre, she looked back on the path she has gone and said, "It's a place full of my important memories. A place where I had to face myself, facing and exploring challenges and struggles. It is no doubt an important place where 'Yuzuka Rei' was created."

She chose to give her final speech in black tails because "this is the formal costume for otokoyaku, and I love the black tails without any particular ornament more than any kind of costume. I thought how much I wanted to wear the formal otokoyaku costume in the Grand Theatre for my last time, so I've chosen this costume". And when she talked about how she felt from coming down the Grand Staricase, "I am only overwhelmed with gratitude that expands in my heart. It's special because it is irreplaceable to anything." A day that is filled more with joy than with regret.

"Rather than crying, this moment is imprinted in my heart. Everything is truly so lovey."

Yuzuka stays bright even towards the end, as she left the conference with a clear expression as beautiful as the seven colours of the rainbow. In addition to her smart brilliance and elegance of her Flower Troupe otokoyaku, she has a sense of humour and honesty that is loved by others, thereby being a star that has good sense and sensitivity to things. No matter if she plays a fairy or a young soldier, a mysterious adolescent, a pianist in the Romanticist era, her many roles have made an impact on stage. After the Tokyo Closing Performance in the Tokyo Takarazuka Theatre on May 26, "otokoyaku Yuzuka Rei" will reach her last act. We hope to remember her last moments firmly.

[pearlsinmyhair]

༄ breath of venus ༄

chapter nine: golden hour

synopsis: a girl born from nothing has spent her entire life trying to be everything her family and her clan needs. but when dead faces and old ghosts come back to haunt her, her life takes a sharp turn. the question is: for better, or for worse?

chapter summary: a conversation, a confrontation, and a game of tug of war. dawn sheds some light on venus, both metaphorically and literally.

warnings: violent ptsd dream immediately from quaritch. canon typical violence. mention of blood. stress and trauma. tread lightly. this is mostly from quaritch’s pov, and i think that deserves a warning.

a.n.: guys i think this is the halfway point. either this one or the next one. that’s halfway thought the ‘way of water’ arc, not the whole story.

word count: 4.3k

“but when she was scared, she was a child again, and she was more afraid of being a child again than anything else in her life.” — tamsyn muir

Quaritch didn’t dream when he was human. At least, not that he could remember.

His memories of his human self were iron strong, cold and unyielding. He did what had to be done, and he did it with no hesitation.

But that Quaritch did not have the memories that he now had. He did not have his death looming over him, with his killer alive somewhere on this moon.

He hadn’t expected to slip so easily into sleep when he had first curled into his sleeping bag. He thought that the unease over Venus’s state would have kept him awake, but his body’s need for rest must have won that fight.

The images that conjured behind his eyelids were familiar at first: Paz, whose face shifted into Venus’s and back again, forming some kind of mix in the middle. Then, an arrow, impaling him in his chest as the wind was knocked from him. He’d look up to find Neytiri, crouched over an unconscious Jake. He fell into darkness, a kind of empty liquid that muted all sounds.

He’d look down at his hands, finding that they were neither human nor na’vi. They’d shift back in forth, or they’d settle on a mix. The disdain he felt for his new body and the disconnect from his old confused his revived mind.

Normally he’d float there, maybe seeing a few figures around him as his brain shifted through his inherited consciousness. He never remembered faces of the things he saw, only vague figures and action that faded as he woke up.

But this time he was greeted by a figure so in focus that his body seemed to jump, a flood of energy shooting down his spine and to his arms.

Venus grabbed him by the dog tags around his neck and cinched them tight, pulling his face close as she hissed, her breath hot against his cheek.

Air bubbles floated from his mouth as she choked him, and he took in water as she pulled the chain tighter.

She opened her mouth to scream, but the roar of her voice was that of the thanator’s, and suddenly she was the thanator.

The hand around his necklace disappeared and dug down into his arm, ripping his skin down to his wrist.

The beast looked like Tamar, from the yellow stripe down his side to the sharp teeth in his mouth.

Then he turned his head, and Quaritch saw that his eyes were Venus’s, yellow and hauntingly beautiful.

He didn’t struggle as Tamar closed his jaws around his neck and snapped it.

His vision blinked, and Venus was standing over him, a bow in her hand and blood across her chest. He looked down to find her arrow buried in his stomach, the teal and red of the fletching vibrant.

“Quaritch.”

He looked up to find that Venus’s blank expression had become one of concern, her eyebrows rising as she knelt at his side.

“Colonel.”

Her voice sounded wrong, like a mixture between hers and something else. It rose and fell like a wave, uneven in sound and tone.

“Miles.”

Her hands found his shoulders as she leaned over him, the warmth of her breath soft on his face.

“Miles, please.”

Her voice shifted completely, and his eyes opened.

Lyle leaned over him, expression soft as his hands moved from his shoulders to his hands, clenching them in his.

“Hey.” he whispered, stroking his thumbs against his wrists.

Miles’s ears flicked, taking in the sounds around him. Everyone was asleep, some snoring softly, others simply breathing.

“Lyle, what did I tell you about hanging over me?” he asked, moving to sit up. His shirt clung to his back, soaked with sweat. Lyle kept holding his hands, and it was only then that he felt the stinging.

He looked down to find fingernail prints along his palms, and his dog tags had snapped off completely. He must have grabbed at his neck when he was dreaming.

“Fuck…” he mumbled, and Lyle squeezed his hands.

“Just breathe for a second.” he whispered, leaning his forehead against Miles’s as he tried to catch his breath.

His eyes scanned the cave out of habit, one that had developed back when he would sneak behind bleachers with others as a kid. His instincts told him to pull away, but he ignored it.

“I came over here to tell you something and you were trying to strangle yourself.” Lyle said softly, looking deep into his eyes.

It was odd how similar he and Venus were now. Lyle’s eyes had always been sharp, always able to stop the old Quaritch in his tracks when necessary.

But there was something about Na’vi eyes that amped that intensity up, making his heart nearly stop in his chest.

Or maybe it was something else entirely.

“Not stranglin’ myself. Trying to stop someone from stranglin’ me.” he whispered, voice gravely with sleep.

Lyle’s eyebrows raised, inclining his head and opening his mouth to question him. But Quaritch narrowed his eyes, stopping Lyle.

The corporal rolled his eyes. “This is why I said you’d hate therapy.” he mumbled, and Miles pushed his forehead against his. Lyle chucked, dropping his brow onto Miles shoulder.

“It’s 06:00 hours.” Lyle whispered, and Miles’s spine went bolt straight.

If it was morning, why were they asleep? Why was he asleep? Were there no rotations?

He turned his head to the side to meet eyes with Wainfleet, who looked at him evenly.

“Venus is still out there.” Miles murmured, a statement rather than a question.

Lyle nodded.

Quaritch rose swiftly, changing out of his sweat-soaked shirt into a fresh tank.

“Be easy with her. She’s grieving.” Wainfleet told him, voice soft as to not wake the others.

Quaritch spared him a glance and a nod before turning.

Lyle’s finger hooked one of his belt loops before he could get away, and he turned to face him again.

“I’m serious, Miles. Your face is going to be the last one she wants to see, but you need to hear her when she speaks. Listen to her.”

Miles took a breath, closing his eyes briefly. “I will.” he said with sincerety, and Lyle let go of him.

Quaritch took one last look at his sleeping soldiers before exiting the cave, greeted by the chirping of birds and the calls of wildlife.

The sky was a pale yellow as he climbed a tree, easily finding foot holds to hoist himself up. He would never admit it, but it was Venus’s stubborn guidance that gave him confidence.

It was that same guidance that led him to believe that she had chosen this tree.

It only took him a few moments of searching the dense branches to find he was right.

She had found an alcove in the leaves that allowed her to see out, but still protected her from view. Her ears flicked to him, and her tail swished across the bark, but her eyes stayed forward.

From a glance, no one would be able to tell that she had stayed up for nearly ten hours, watching the tree line and listening for danger. She had pulled her knees up to her chest, resting her chin against them as her tail returned to its place wrapped around her ankles.

Quaritch settled beside her, subtly studying the tracks of dried salt from her tears down her face. Her eyes were puffy and slightly red. Dry. But she seemed determined to ignore whatever state she was in.

He tapped her arm with his water flask, a silent offering.

It broke her from whatever thoughts she was having, her eyes darting to the flask and then to him. She took it like it was a snake, ready to snap if handled incorrectly. But the way she gulped down the water greedily revealed the true depths to her dehydration.

“Irayo.” she whispered, voice scratchy as she handed the flask, now empty, back to him.

“Kea tìkin.” he replied, the words coming easily after a month of chastising from Venus about his failing manners.

Her eyes darted to him again, though her look was sharper, more cutting than the curious one before.

“Don’t use Na’vi against me, Quaritch.” she said, voice firmer.

“I’m not.” he answered, settling back against the tree bark as he tucked the the flask into a tree hallow above their heads.

“You’re trying to lull me into a sense of normalcy, and you think that speaking in Na’vi is going to work.” she said, turning her head to look at him fully. His ears dropped back, and her mouth quirked in a rueful smile.

“Ok then, smartass. How do you want me to talk to you then?” he asked, keeping his voice low.

“Like that. Just go back to being annoyed by my presence. Better yet, just go back to the others and sleep. I don’t want company.” she answered, turning her face back to the gradually lightening horizon.

Polyphemus hovered on the left side of the sky, its eye-like storm watching them always. But as it moved, light shone in, and Quaritch watched as the sunlight began to stream through the branches onto Venus’s face.

Her eyes fluttered closed as she raised her chin to it, and the stars answered her call, the light strengthening and dappling her skin.

“You shouldn’t be alone right now. I should have gotten up to let someone relieve you.” he said, keeping his eyes on how her ears flicked and her eyebrows moved. Venus could be expressive when she was loose, and Quaritch had a feeling that she didn’t care enough to hide herself now.

“I wanted to be alone.” she murmured, eyes remaining shut. “And you all needed sleep. Especially you.” One of her eyes opened to look down at his now bandaged arm, and he shifted it reflexively.

Her eye shifted closed once more, and they sat in silence. Quaritch mirrored her position, lifting his chin and resting his head back against the tree.

“Thank you. For saving me.” he said after a minute of listening to the forest.

Whack went Venus’s hand against his forehead.

Quaritch jumped back, eyes shooting open just in time to see her hand raise again. He caught it by the wrist, holding it still even as she tried to pull away.

She had gotten up on her knees, eyes angry as she looked at him. Her other hand was used to steady herself, and her chest heaved with the rush of adrenaline.

“Do not thank me for death, Quaritch.” she hissed, her voice low. His grip tightened on her, staring back at her defiantly.

After a few beats of silence, Venus eased back, sitting down. He released her wrist, and she pulled it into her lap, resting it against the hilt of her knife.

She must have been fiddling with it through the night, based on how clean the blade now was in comparison to hours ago. It was spotless, the black of it without mare. But she scrutinized it, inspecting it for more blood despite how clean it appeared to be.

“I’m not thankful he’s dead in the sense that I celebrate it, Venus.” he tried, fixing his gaze at the soft orange sky. “But I am that you saved me.”

He felt the telltale prickle of his skin as she looked at him, but when he glanced to the side she was staring at her blade once more.

Her hair looked freshly braided, the strands around her queue tight, while the tangles at the end of it were combed out. He caught sight of the three red quills she had taken from Tamar’s body before the viperwolves ravaged his corpse.

They were woven into her hair, sticking out and down as if they were connected to her body. It was as if she had traded feathers for them, doning it like a war crest.

She shifted slightly to again lift her face to the sun, and his eyes wondered to her throat, finding it empty of her necklace. As he searched her, he found that all of her decorations were gone, sitting in a small pile on the opposite side of her.

She looked bare without it.

She looked vulnerable.

He sighed, his tail flicking against hers as he moved his shoulders back against the tree, finding a comfortable position. How she could sit like this for hours, he would never know.

“Talk to me.” he said, and she whipped her head to the side, shock evident in her eyes. He would have laughed if it weren’t for the circumstances.

She worked her jaw, tightening her teeth as she thought. It was a habit he had noticed early on. Venus, for all her bark to the Recombinants, had a tendency to swallow her words, at least the majority of the time.

“Why should I?” she whispered, watching him.

“Because of you don’t talk to someone, you’re gonna explode.” he answered.

She paused for a minute.

“Lyle sent you up here.” she finally replied, and a twinge of something like guilt sprung in his gut.

“He did.” he said simply.

“Is that why you’re being so… nonchalant?” she asked, tilting her head inquisitively.

He glanced sideways at her, raising a brow.

“Quiet. Not argumentative. It’s weird. Stop.”

“I’m tryin’ to show you sympathy, here. Cut me some slack.”

“It’s not sympathy. It’s pity. And I don’t want it.”

He opened his mouth to protest, to argue. But the whisper of someone long ago sounded in his ear, a memory barely intact and yet so vivid.

“Sometimes you have to let someone fill the silence.” Paz whispered from beside him, her naked body covered by the scratchy RDA sheets as they laid together.

His lips closed, and Venus’s eyes widened. He nodded to her, turning to fully face her. His knees pressed to hers, forming a diamond as he waited.

Here, this close, it was hard to not be reminded of her age. She was nearly a foot shorter than him, making him almost tower over her. He leaned back slightly to give her space, still keeping his eyes connected to hers.

She turned the knifes blade in her hand.

“I should have let you die.” she said, clear and unfiltered. Something in his chest throbbed.

“And why didn’t you?” he tried, making sure to keep his voice soft as to not break the spell.

Silence. Her mouth clamped shut as she looked down to her knife, pressing the blade to her fingertips.

He fought down his words and waited.

Seconds of quiet turned into a minute. The screech of an ikran sounded in the distance. Venus’s ear flicked towards it, then rested back.

Another minute.

Then-

“I hate you. All of you.”

He couldn’t help it. “Even Mansk?”

She smacked him again, this time on the bicep of his unbandaged arm.

“I hate how you all make me feel. How you all make me act.” she whispered, her hand going back to her knife. “I’ve betrayed my family by letting you live. I betrayed myself every time I have not killed you. And the moment that Eywa gives me an opportunity to let you die, I saved you.”

He watched her fingers pick at her nails.

“Against all my training. Against what I was raised to defend. I saved you. A man who leaves destruction in his wake with no remorse. Who would kill me in an instant if he was ordered to. Who will kill my father like a bug to be squashed. You relish in violence, and yet between you and my brother, I chose you to live.”

Her voice cracked, and he watched as a drop hit the back of her hand.

“I wish you were dead. I wish you never came back. I wish i wasn’t here.” her hands clenched the knife harder, white knuckling it.

“So why not have shot me instead? You had a clear chance.” he whispered, and her shoulders stiffened.

“You and I both know I would have been shot in an instant if I had.”

His chest panged again.

Because of course he knew. For all the laughter and kindness that his squad had shared with her, they wouldn’t hesitate to put her down the moment she showed violence.

At least, most of them wouldn’t.

Lyle would close his eyes.

Mansk would probably had grabbed her and thrown himself over her if he could get close fast enough.

Brown would have cried as he pulled the trigger.

Zdinarsk would have bowed her head.

Ja would have brushed his fingers over her eyes, closing them forever.

Lopez would have found a way to bring her back to her home, where she could be laid to rest.

Prager would have pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes to forget the image.

They wouldnt hesitate to kill her had she raised her bow to him. If she killed him, any truce of friendship would be gone.

Her right hand clenched the knife.

Quick as a viper, his own palm encircled her wrist, the other wrapping around her hand to keep her hold on the blade as he brought it to his chest.

“So end this now. You’ll have at least ten minutes to get away if you do it now. Only Lyle knows i’m up here.” he said, fighting the panic in his gut at the feeling of cold obsidian against his sternum.

Venus watched him, wide eyed. The tears she had been holding back slid down her face without so much as a choked breath.

He let her hand go, and she gripped the knife, pushing it against him harder.

“You’re going to need a lot of force to push it through.” he whispered, and then she really did choke, a kind of hiccup as she watched a speck of blood spread across his shirt.

“He would never forgive me.” she whispered.

Lyle. Who was most certainly waiting at the cave entrance, looking up at this very tree.

Would he sense his death? Would he know he was gone?

“But he’d let you go.” he said, fighting to keep his voice from sounding tight.

Lyle, who held Venus as a baby. Who cradled her head after she was tranquilized.

“Be careful with her.” he had said, having to shout over the sound of the copter as Quaritch lifted the girl over his shoulder.

He had looked at him oddly then, but now he understood.

“They’d all come after me, just as you’re after my father.”

That stung, just slightly. Or maybe that was the sensation of the blade being pushed further into his skin.

“But the war would be over. End it, Venus.”

She paused, refusing to meet his eyes. The tears kept coming, to the point where he contemplated just how much juice she had left in her tank. He focused on how the tanhi next to the mole under her left eye glittered with the watery trail, focusing on anything but the feeling of his blood seeping onto his shirt.

Venus swallowed thickly. “Killing you would not stop the war. It’s only continuing it.”

He clicked his tongue, leaning forward into the knife. She flinched away, trying to pull the blade back. But his hand found her wrist again, pulling her back.

“Be selfish, then. For once in your life, Venus, be selfish. Get your vengeance. Tap into whatever murderous intent your mother has when she sees me. Think of all the people I killed-“

“Quaritch, stop it-“

“Trudy Chacon, Eytukan-“

“Stop-“

“All the innocents in Home Tree-“

“Quaritch-“

“Grace-“

“Enough!” she cried, streams of tears pouring down her face. Quaritch’s mouth clamped shut.

Her hands shook, both now gripping the hilt. Her breathing was ragged, and she dared to finally make eye contact with him.

“Enough.” she whispered.

He let her wrist go.

She pulled the knife from his skin, placing her hand over the growing spot of blood. His heart was racing, and there was no doubt in his mind that she could feel it.

She took a moment to herself, watching how his chest heaved as she herself caught her breath.

“Why” she exhaled shakily, setting her knife to the side “are you so eager to take the sins of your other self and make them your own?”

Confusion flooded his brain. “Other self?”

“The old one. The…my father.”

You’re not my father.

“I’m him, Venus. His sins are mine. That’s it.”

She shook her head, placing her other hand over the one already planted on his wound.

“No, you are not. You learned about those actions, didn’t you? From logs? You didn’t experience them. I was already told that you all couldn’t remember two weeks before the Battle.”

Well.

She had him at that.

“That doesn’t change the fact that i’m him. His brain is my brain, Venus. His thoughts are mine.”

Again, she shook her head, and he felt his frustration rise.

“No, don’t start, please. You’re… your decisions are not his. You have his memories, yes, but those were not your hands. These hands-“ she grabbed his palms, raising them face up to him and shaking them slightly. “are not the ones that did those things. You have a choice. Everything that you do now is by your own design, not his.”

He watched her, observing the way the rising sun made her eyes glow, the tears making them glimmer.

He gentle moved his hands from hers, running his thumbs over her cheek and chin out of pure instinct and reflex.

She didn’t pull away. But she didn’t lean in either. She just watched him, eyes intense as he wiped away the salt tracks down her face.

His thumb traced the deep line of her eye socket, noting the purple tinge there. “You haven’t been sleeping?”

She shook her head slightly, limited by his hands against her face. “How could I? I close my eyes and I see…” she paused, a flicker of fear and dread in her eyes. She swallowed. “I see them.”

He didn’t need a thorough explanation to understand. Not when his own dreams were still fresh.

He took his hands from her face, resting them once more against his knees as he looked down at her quizzically.

“How long?” he asked, and her mouth drew into a tight line.

He pocketed her jewelry, ignoring her protests as he stood.

“You’re gonna sleep. We have two hours until we leave, and you’re gonna sleep through both of ‘em. In their entirety.” he said, staring down at her.

She glared at him, but it lacked energy.

Venus was exhausted, that much was clear. Dehydrated and sleep deprived to hell and back. She noted his change in subject, registered his avoidance of talk over his identity. But she had run out of fire.

Her following him without argument was another clue to the extent of her fatigue. She climbed down as if on auto pilot, her eyes unfocused. He kept a hand near her just in case, but as always she was fine.

She walked just behind him as they entered the cave, and seven pairs of yellow eyes turned to them.

Venus froze, and Quaritch was very aware of the spot of blood in the center of his chest, accompanied with her tear stained face.

But none of them asked questions. They simply assessed, understood, and laid back down.

“Where’s your bed roll?” Quaritch asked quietly.

Venus didn’t answer for a moment. Then “I didn’t think to unroll it.”

I didn’t think that i’d sleep tonight.

Quaritch met Wainfleet’s eyes. Lyle stood, finding the pack Venus had brought from Rutxïryo when they had dismounted. Quaritch left Venus’s side to find a spot for her, and she watched them with a curious but tired expression.

When they had rolled it out, she walked over to them, being careful not to step on anyone.

Quaritch ignored the way Venus extended her hand to Mansk, who held it for a breif moment before letting her go.

He ignored how Lopez sat up slightly to say something to Venus, making her finally crack a smile.

He ignored how Prager didn’t even look at her, but his tail whacked gently against her ankles as she passed.

He ignored the small nod Brown gave her, which she returned uncertainly.

He ignored how Ja asked how she was feeling, only for Venus to shrug and whisper “just tired.”

Lyle placed his hand on her shoulder, just slightly, as she passed. She looked at him with a nervousness that Quaritch hadn’t seen before, tentative in accepting the touch but willing.

She situated herself beside Zdog, the woman’s back facing towards her. She looked over her shoulder at her before extending a hand back.

Venus intertwined her fingers with Z’s, and the female recom pulled her hand over her shoulder to her front, holding it against her collarbone.

Venus pressed her forehead between her shoulder blades, breathing in her now familiar scent. Warmth enveloped her, even as her dark thoughts knocked at the door to her mind.

She listened to the sounds of Lyle and Quaritch settling, whispering something to one another before all fell silent, the only sound around her being their breathing and the occasional shift of someone’s body.

She matched her breath to Zdinarsk, forcing her heart to a slow thump as sleep relaxed her muscles.

She allowed her eyes to close, for once relaxed enough to rest.

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TWST Chapter 7 : Ruler of the Abyss -  Trailer review & theories

[SPOILERS WARNING !  Even if I will be focused on Diasomnia Arc’s trailer, I will do some references to the Chapter 7 Main Story Part 1′s events.]

I can’t believe it... After two years, there we are. Chapter 7 : Ruler of the Abyss. It’s kinda an unreal and exicinting feeling. As Malleus fan, I was so long looking for his Dorm’s Arc and now it’s happening ^^ When I saw the trailer and after the Main Story Part 1, it’s was like dream come true... Even now, everytime I watch it, my heart don’t stop skip some beat who breathtaking and heartbreaking it is. I notice some details about Malleus (character and feature) and eventual plotlines.

1) Words, Dragons and Fea

Maleficent is a Fea. Dark Fea and so it’s for Malleus. But more than that he is a Dragon. 

Until now the only gleans of Malleus’s draconique (aside of his horns, breath fire and his eyes), are show in the Halloween Event, “Scary Monsters“ where, Malleus is dressed as a Ryū Ghost and his dragon tail is visible. During the operation for chasing away the Magiccam Monsters, it’s cleary said that Malleus planned to scare the Magiccam on his true form, and during the “attack“, the roar of a gigantic, dragon-like beast and then Malleus’s voice. Since Chapter 7 is based on Sleeping Beauty, it’s sure than Malleus’s dragon form will finaly being fully releavel and I looking for it ^^

With  the mentions that Malleus had hatch form a egg, there is very fews clue about Malleus draconic identity. It’s more his Fea-side that is put on the light, but one element make the bound and remind us Malleus’s nature, more than his Horns. His eyes.

“I look at him and... I saw my self” 

That line form How to Train your Dragon about first confrontation/meeting between Hiccup and Toothless is releavant of one of the Dragon’s most intriguing, and fanstatic aspects, in both legend and fictions . Theirs eyes.

The word “dragon“ came from the ancient greek verb “ drakemai“ which means “looking with intense gaze“. In old tales and legends, meeting the gaze of Dragon, is something as perilous than confront the beast, like it’s the case for Fafnir or others legendary dragons around the world. And Dragons from modern fictions inherited of that aspect, such as Smaug, Toothless, Haku from Spirited Away etc... 

Some will say that one of the greatests weapons of a dragon his ability of using language and mastering True Names (like Fea XD), but, for me, dragon’s eyes is the fascinating feature about theses creatures. They gazing through the distance. Piercing eyes that look right into a person heart/soul like a open book and reveal who truly is the person who cross their gaze. But also the very personality of the Dragon is refected from their owns eyes !

Dragon eyes that can having a kinda hypnotic powers and being used as weapons [final showdow beetween Tûrin Turumbar and Glamgrund (The Children of Hûrin)]. Its can be also a soul’s mirror. A mirror for the person  by dearing or misfortune, who look in it. Butn an other hand,  it’s only there where the dragon’s true heart, despite all his features, behavior that can be revealed. And Malleus is no exception to that.

In Diasomnia’s Trailer, there is at least five focus and close up on his eyes or his face.The others tailers had also to some eyes’s focus but never that much and in that kind of context. It’s true the Malleus’s eyes chartreuse lime green glow canhelp a bit but while his face stay so stern, his eyes tales more than he can told with words (like Malleus’s lines) or the animation.

In one minutes, we see a passive, calm and lone gaze to tense, fierce glance, passing by a distress/shocked look. I know that there could been a reference to the scene where Maleficent hypnozis Aurora, but I think it highlights  Malleus’s character, and in particular his status in the Main story. Even he is one the very few characters to be presented so early in the Story and his presence is everywhere in the game and in the offical artwork. In every Event Story where he appears, he play a significant or major role and ore the Story goes on, more he take a place equal to Yuu or Ace, as Main Protagonist, even his personal Arc would be the last to be explorer. Twisted Wonderland writers had made here a wonderfull job in character narrative’s construction. They give us the time and the space for meeting and discover Malleus’s personality as some clues about his backstory. First by mysteries, as his characters’s is first presented and,a s Yuu we learn more about him and at the end, we care about him, without taking away his mysterious’s aura. 

Idia once said that Malleus was the Final Boos’s type character.  In tales and fictions Dragons are the greastest challenge that a Hero can have, whatever it’s about a evil dragon like Smaug or a belovent one like Therru or Haku. They aren’t creature of monster. They are beigns, characters. Why the confrontation with a Dragon with worthhaving despiste all the danger. It’s because Dragon represents  our greastest fears, our douts... The person who success that meeting found new strengths in himself and return anew.

In fact meeting a Dragon is meeting your fate.

2)  Broken Fate and Betray

The Spinning Wheel... Certainly one of the most famous Sleeping Beauty’s artfacts. When we saw it we associated immidiatly with Maleficent and Aurora’s tragic fate...

Fate. That is the word that entirely best definited that object.

Fate or Destiny is often represented a thread and in most European legends, Destiny is associated with the figure of Threader or most specicly a Tro of Weathers. The Scandinavieans Nores, the Moires , the three witches from MacBeth. A Trio of woman who weath human’s live, form birth to death. The Wheel of Fortune is also associate to theses myths. Even if it seems unfaire, it’s the Cycle of Life, it’s what make our existances worth living, that life is precious... And the most curious is that our modern word of Fea and Fairy is came form the latin word Fatum which means well “Fate“.

 In Diasomina trailer, we can see the Spinning Wheel two times. The first time juste after seeing Malleus in the Dorm Lounge. The Spinning Wheel, glow of a bright green light and the ties seems being well. Like if, as Idia one day will be in charge of keeper unlock Phantoms, Malleus’s task was to take care of Time and Fate and of all the things and beings that roams in the Dark. But the second time we seen the artefact it’s when Silver wake up.  Then the light from the Spinning Wheel’s is lited and the ties break. Just after that we see Malleus, alone in middle of a pool of dark ink (blot?) and seeing thorns surronding him. Like is the Cycle  was broken...

I think like many, I was very happy to learn a bit more about Silver’s true origins. I mean, a human infant, found in the forest, in a kingdom where of the majority of its inhabitants are Fea. It’s quite curious and now with that ring. It’s prety obvious that Silver is form royalty and it is, again, a link to his Disney inspiration, Aurora.

But... since some times, it seem to me that Silver is to good to be true or to remain that kind person we know. Look Ortho. Yes there were clues, in the previous chapter, Event Stories or voices lines that he was made after Idia’s lost little brother, but what in world could forshadowing such a twist, that him will bring the core of the Underword !  I think we goes on a similar path with Silver.

 I know that Silver is Light Magic User as Kalim or Rook. I will certainly stop to write it down, but for me one of the greates strength of Twisted Wonderland is to take characters form Disney’s classical movies and, after taking some inspirations for its, making original and genious charaters. For exemple  Kalim shear with the Sultant some easy-going live-style, without taking about conscequences. But, twist Kalim beside his precious lighthearted can show courage and sens of justice in time of need and Rook is a masterclass of rewriting !

Yes Silver is a very insteresting twist form Aurora. But And sometimes we forget that Silver is also twisted from the Sword of Truth. The very weapon gived by the Fearies to Prince for defeat and slay Maleficent. If we look closely, all Silver outfits’s desgin had his magic-pen turn into a sword-wand  at his belt. It’s could be a reference of his social statut, the Crown-Heir’scarekeeper and son’s of the great Kingdom’s Champion. 

What does it mean ? Silver will kill Malleus ? I saw some theories about that Silver could be the one who Overbolted. Even if more probaly and certain that will be Malleusl, it give an idea that game tend to show us by little details that Silver can be dangerous and he is not that much Prince Charming and the fact that we had seen Lilia’s ancient weapon, a massive sword made in a rare metal and how the Main Story goes darker and darker...  If Malleus’s Overbolt, Silver will decide to slay him for protect innocents ?

In the second Fairy Gala story, there were a line from Silver which bothered me a bit. He implided, if I record, despite their mischevelous feature, fairies are nice person. So what happen during Halloween when Lilia take his fun a bit too much by faking of being possessed and I don’t remember to have seen him being sorry... There is many kind of Fairies, and may be because Silver meet only the nice ones (or because they had respect/are afraid for Lilia and Malleus) and never a true dark fea, like Maleficent or a true Black Dragon. May be he will be dillusionned and the fact that he wake up is his awakeing form a beloven innocent/dream/illusion. He see with Rollo Flame as far fear can engended   

And also with the mention of the Enchantress Mirror form Beauty of the Beast, and the fact that there is a Beast’s vibes on Malleus character, does it mean that will we have a confrontation of Silver as Gaston and Malleus as the Beast about what is better Yuu (Belle) ?

A lot of questions that I hope will be soon answered in the upcoming part.

3) Loneliness 

As the precedent Dorms’s Trailers, we heard the main protagonist of the Arc, here Malleus, retaking some of the iconic lines of the Vilains on which they’re based on. There is here an echos to Maleficent’s quoted when she curse Aurora and in particular when her speech to Prince Phillip, emprisonned in ther fortress. “ A fairy tale come true”. It could being like we seen until Octovinelle’s trailer, just a “movie reference“.  To show to the similarities beetween the Dorm Learders and the 7 Viliains... But it was until Scarabia’s trailer. Since this Chapter, the text hearded had some echoes to the Vilians, but became truly the voice of the characters and not just a “quoting“ the  Queen of Heart, Scar or Ursula. It’s became, fully and geniously the voice of Jamil/Kamil, Vil, Idia/Ortho and now Malleus... and that so show the ton and issue of the Chapter (and by extention the core of the characters’s overbolt). Jamil/Kamil  represent social status issue and the fact to never being greeted for our true valor. Vil it is all the pression of fame and art/movie/model industry and the prize for winning at all cost. Idia’s story is about the deny of grief and the lost of close relative.  

One sure is certain about Malleus, it’s that loneliness is part of his life. Many time in Main Story and Events we had seen how much he get used to it and still live in it because both his tremendous and dark aura/powers and his social statut, with the trailer is became accurated. 

When the trailer being, we see Malleus sitting on his throne in Diasomnia lounge, in the dark. A scene that echoe to malificent’s but his face is calm, peaceful with a sad and lonely gleam in his eyes. He stay in the shadows. Right after seen we see his bodyguards bow before their Prince and Dorm Leader but Malleus keep his eyes close even when Lilia’s show up behind him. He seems to keep his true feelings for himself and keep walking. He will continue his duties even for that  guarding his heart (even if his inner emotions had some influence on the wheather).

It’s really seem that Malleus is a attentive Crown-Heir/Dorm Learder and that he care about his subjects/fellow students. He kown what his statut means, what is expected form him. What he can and can’t do. That his all behavior, even faking a porposal, can have concequences on his kingdom. But Malleus possesses a more mischievous, childish and curious side about the outside world. We see him running off on his own, escaping from his carekeeper watching and having a personal time. Alone, yes but not always wandering in ruins, but also visiting the town’s libaries and antic shops, or having a good times with a certain Child of Men,  the only no- close relative person that doesn’t fear him and consider him as a person. As just Malleus.   

It’s true that Lilia, Silver and Sebek are based on a character or an element from Sleeping Beauty (Lighting, Aurora/Sword of Truth, Flora) but look their hair color. Diasomnia’s had this family leifmotif between them. a group whose ties are very close and strong. Just like Aurora was with the ThreeFearies. Lilia is well know to be Malleus’s carekeeper since his hatching. Sebek and Silver are also called by this nomination. There is also each one look the other grow old, Lilia being the father figure for three boys. But as they grow, there relations change and even if them and Malleus are close, it is now a servant/master relationships. When Silver and Sebek speak about Malleus, it’s always as “Lord“ or “Young Master“. There is distance and nothing personal. Personal as knowing Malleus own dreams and emotions. Just like the Fairies belived that Rose will be glad to learn that she is the Princess. It’s true that Malleus could, said what he had on his heart, but as he said himself, he know loneliness even when he didn’t hatch. It’s Lilia and in particulary Yuu that helped him to open to the outside world.

 To Others. 

4) Thorns of Despair

I think of the trailer, this is the part who litteraly give me goosegumps and skip some heartbeat so much that it’s hadsome as animation but also for the story telling, and that break my heart.

That scene, of Malleus in middle of a large ink-blot surface (his unconsciousness), his face and eyes clearly show fear and distress, not being able to control the thorns that surronding and imprison him in a cage. The next scene is Malleus rising in black and lime green light, with a fierce gaze and smirk. That scene in plus to remember me the dream of Arren in Tales of Earthsea and some Ancient Magus’s Bride vides, that sequence is so heartbreaking.

First there is the thorns. In plus to be bond to Maleficent’s imagery, all plant with thorns are, according to folklore the Fea most beloved’s plants. Roses, Briar Rose, Blackthorn. For years, Malleus has maintained a private rose garden and he is very proud of it, a occupation that remind the original archetype of the Beast who also he is the keeper of a roses garden. Few times he ask if he can”t not summon some briars as extra decorations. To see its going against him it’s to hurtful and it’s seem that it’s that imprisonnement that provoc the transformation.

What doesn’t thorns means. In first hand, it could be, like the others Overbolt, the incarnations of all the bad, hurting dark feelings that Malleus keeped hidden so long for centuries inside him. May be so far inside his heart that he didn’t relealizehow powerful and dangerous, thoses burried feelings were.

But it’s seems to easy and an others interprestations fit better to Malleus. Since the end of Ignihyde Arc, Malleus relealize for the first time of his life that all life, the very very long one of the Fea have an end. For Fea, like Malleus, it’s an aspect of life, notion that is very hard handle, to understand trully. He is a Fea, a being that will live for centuries for hundreds of years. Death is rare among immortal and he never confronted to the fragility of existence until Ramshackle destruction in Chapter 6. And now Lilia is leaving after loosing his magic and is potentialy at the edge of his life and there is Yuu’s potential departure from Twisted Wonderland to his/her original world.

Who would not try to do something about to advoid losing someone dear ? Who ?   

Since I discover Twisted Wonderland, Malleus’s character give me sometimes such Elias Rainworths vibes. Both are no-humans beign thank a Child of Men, looking to the Outside World and the humans, trying to understand it. The big differents it’s that if Malleus take by himself the iniatiative to learn more about humans (and his meeting with Yuu  increase it), Elias began to wonder about humantity only after Chise’s arrival in his house. They are both have the imagery of thorns in theirs respectives features, tremendous powers and sometimes called “freak“ or “monsters“.   Coincidence, when Elias goes to the Magic College’s Libary to get a forbidden spell for helping an diying Chise, a alchemist teacher compare him the Sleeping Beauty inside her castle surronded by thorns. In the Futhark Alphabet, the Rune Thurisaz is the Rune of the Thorn. Its symbolisme is chaos and power.  In divination and magic, that rune is one of the hardess to use because it is more bond to no-humain beings and had two opposite effect: like a hall of thorns it is the perfect protection against agression but can hurt both the foe that the one inside. Elias as Malleus, inherited both of theses characterestics. In order to help some, and in particulary someone dear, they are able to to anything, even terrible things with dreafull consequences, even it’s came form a good intention.

According of what is foresharowing in Chapter 7 part 1, Malleus will may be try to put the entire campus into a kinda timeless dream world. Like this all the precious moments with Lilia, Yuu and others will be keeped save from Time. But he relealize too late that what is doing is wrong. By looking that sequence, we can see that the true victime of that “Speel“, is Malleus in himself. Even after years of knowing how must his power can be dangerous if he is loose his control on it, he never trully face it and ened to being literaly imprisonned, becoming helpless in face of such tremendous powers. Like suggested the scene where he brutaly open his eyes, he never suspected to having a such dark power in him, and hope to wake of that bad dream. 

Riddle, Leona, Azul and even Jamil are kinda victimes too because when they overbolted it was because they had being pusched to the edge and all their , (but they a bit looking for it by doing things far to be “innocents“).  Notice that after theses fourth trailers we stop to see the Overbolted form as the Main Story turning to a darker path. 

At the end of the Pomefiore trailer, after rising up a stairs (a metaphor for the ascension to glory and fame), Vil facing like the Evil Queen a Mirror and there is that gorgeous Picture of Dorian Gray’s scene : Vil’s refection, still in Dorm Uniform as his real conterpart, don’t act as the real Vil and smirk as blot surronding him. Beauty can hide hidious soul/deeds. Idia is catched by the darkness and humanoid creepy forms aka the Phantoms of his past and his own regrets and grief.But even there is a change of rules in theses two trailers, all the six firsts Overbolted students accepted their transformations into a dark version of themself.  Malleus don’t. He seems trully afraid and surprise of that darkness that surronding him and turn him into his opposite, a new Maleficent.

As I said at the beginning of this review, meeting a Dragon mean meeting our Fate and I think it’s exactly what is showed there. Even Malleus can be fierce and he is known for his temper which take the form of lighting storms, never he go into full Black Dragon. A pure incarnation of darkeness, power and destruction. One of the most fascinating about Malleus is that how far his personatily is form Maleficient’s. He is looking for the meeting of the Others, doesn’t treat humans as a “weak race“ unlike many of his kind (and one of his own relative). He is mischievous indeed, but he is also carring, benevolent and true. A Protector. He is so far from a Dark Lord and yet he had that dark power that can be a danger even for himself.

The Party will confront a dragon the most powerful being on earth so in a sens becoming like Champion in Old Tales and I will not surprise that Ace getting there his Unique Magic since with Yuu and Malleus, he is the most close of the Heros Archetype. He know what is right as he show many times by confronting Riddle, Eliza or Malleus himself during teh second Hallowen event. And Malleus understand his point of view and when we reseen both of them, it is for Malleus Bloomgear Birthday Story. Until that Event Story, all Ace’s interactions about Malleus was fullied with fear like when Yuu said out-loud Malleus’s nickname. But there, they are like friends, perhaps not close than Yuu and Malleus, but more than Carter (who was the only one who had the courage to talk Malleus at least as classmate). Why I talking about Ace, well, as Malleus (and Deuce and Grim), Ace is the first character with who Yuu deeply befriend. He is the last one of the main first years to don’t having discover his Unique Magic. Confront a Dragon, and in particulary a close friend of Yuu, is the ideal opportunity.

But there is more, because there is an other chalenger to the Dragon. Malleus himself. And it’s where I came with Arren’s Dream’s vibes. Between the two scenes from Tales of Earthsea and Diasomnia trailer,  there is a connection. Malleus and Arren confront themself who take the form of a Shadow. When after embracing and facing his darkness side, like the others Dorm Leader, Malleus will had the power to became the great King that he is destined to be, because he would had confront his grestest foe, his own darkness.

It was a very long post but I really wanted to talk about that trailer and that dear dragon. I hope you enjoyed ^^

Have a nice day/evening !

[arc-misadventures]

The Farmer’s Guard Dog

It was a perfect summers day.

Sun flying high in the sky, gentle breeze in the wind blowing the golden wheat fields. Butterflies soaring through the air resting on flowers. Cattle gently grazing in the fields. A simple farmer lent against a tree basking in the cool shade of a tree. Raising his straw hate, as he basked in this perfect day. To, Jaune Arc, small time rancher, and farmer; this was a perfect day.

Jaune: Ahh yep, this is just the prefect day. Nothing can possibly go wrong to ruin this perfect day~!

As, Jaune took in the beauty before him, he could feel the earth shake, and could hear the sheep bay in fear, as Jaune just stared into the void with a single though on his mind.

Jaune: Jaune, you fool!

Jaune booked it an ran to his sheep, he had a very good idea what was going on, and he knew just how to stop it!

Then again, this was probably a really stupid idea. But, he didn’t have a better idea, so he was going to go with this.

The devil was he supposed to do when a giant, chocolate brown, with black stripes, giant wings that that could block out the sun. A beast larger than his barn house which housed dozens upon dozens of animals. Razor sharp teeth, and claws strong enough to tear through rocks like bread. Breath of fire, and ash. And, eyes that shinned like gold.

Yeah, this was something, Jaune expected to one day deal with this. A giant dragon terrorizing his farm. Yeah this was to be expected.

But, Jaune was a farmer, he would do what was needed to protect his farm! But, one could ask, what could a farmer do to protect his farm from a dragon?

Jaune: No wait, what the hell am I supposed to do to stop a dragon?

Jaune: …

Jaune: Just wing it sounds like a good idea!

As, Jaune saw the dragon near closer to his terrified sheep. He ran in between the beast, and his ship, waving his hands as fast, and is big as he could.

Jaune: Wait! Wait! Wait! Wait! Wait! Wait! C-C-Can we talk about this?!

A wave of warm air flew over, Jaune as a dragon bore over him, fangs bared, and eyes blazing through him.

: ‘Talk about this?!’ Bahahahaha!

The dragon laugh was earthshaking, knocking, Jaune to ground with the reverberations that drove through the ground.

: What would I, a dragon need to discuss with a pathetic human like you!!!

Jaune: B-Because… I… I… Uhhh… I-I have a job offer for you!

The dragon stared at the farm boy before leaning dangerously close, dangerously close for any human to be near a dragon that is.

: And, what possible job could a mere human offer a dragon?!

The dragons body arched its back upward, spreading its wings out wide blocking out the sky. Showing, Jaune just how wide the the gap between the two of them.

Still, Jaune was a brave man, and to be a brave man they had to be a but of an idiot.

And, by the gods, Jaune can be one hell of an idiot.

Jaune: Y-You p-protect my farm… A-And, I will give you a cow, or maybe a couple of sheep, everything other week.

: You want me to be your guard dog?! How dare you treat me! A dragon, as some over glorified guard dog?!

The dragon roared, and, Jaune felt himself being pushed to the ground by the shear force of the dragons roar. As it stopped, Jaune tiredly rose his hand up, to gain a moment of the dragons time.

Jaune: T-Technically true! But, its a highly beneficial agreement for the both of us! I can keep my stock of farm animals! Keeping my best cattle, and sheep so I can bread more, while you take the ‘bad ones,’ and improve my stock! And, with you watching over my flocks, I can get more sheep, and more cattle, and I can feed you more! Everyone wins!

The dragon raised an inquisitive brow as it thought upon the farmers mad request, before turning back to stare at the mad farm boy.

: Is that the best you can offer?

Jaune: Uhhh…? Well… T-There’s a lake with clean drinking water over there. And, uhhh…? There’s a cave in the hills over there… Y-You could stay there if you want. T-That’s if you dragon’s do live in caves. If so, you won’t have to be running all over the place, from… whatever hunts dragons?

: A place where I can rest… And, you promise you would not use this as an excuse to have me trapped, and slayed by some of your dragon hunters…?!

The dragon glared at him, eyes filled with distrust as it stared down the poor foolish farmer.

Jaune: W-Well… If I did something like that, you can raze my farm, eat all my cattle then… I don’t know… E-Eat me? Sound… good to you?

: Hmm… Your life if you betray me… Very well, I accept your deal. I will protect, you, your livestock, and the rest of your farm for food, and a nice little cave to rest in.

Jaune couldn’t help but burst out with small nervous laugh as he held out his hand.

Jaune: Then shall we shake on it then! O-Or, whatever the dragon, human equivalent is?

The dragon snorted at him, amused by the humans perky attitude about this bizarre situation. It stared at him until his smile fell, and his hands fell to his side.

Jaune: O-Or, we’ll just make a vocal agreement That works…

A nervous laugh escaped his lips as the dragon stared him down. Soon the dragon breathed out in what, Jaune could only assume was a chuckle.

: We shall make a contract, but we will do it as dragons would.

Jaune: Oh, okay. Uhh, how do I, a human do that?

: Just stand still, and don’t freak out too much.

The dragons paw, hand, thingy came forward, and pressed its talon gently against his chest. But before, Jaune could ask what was going on, a series of golden circles enveloped around its talon, and his arm, writing in a series of runes, and strange branding’s across his arm. As the light faded away, he looked at the strange new markings across his arms.

Jaune: Well… that’s neat. Hope my mom doesn’t get angry at me for having a ‘tattoo.’ But, uhhh… what is it?

: Its is a Oath Seal; We have sworn an oath to provide, and support one another. This mark is proof of that vow. And, any betrayal of that vow, and this mark will kill us.

Jaune: The mark will what?!

: We can also use it to contact one another. Not to speak one to another as we are now. But to warn, and ask for help.

Jaune: Oh, that’s useful. So… Is there anything else I need to know?

: If there is, I will let you know. Now, I want my first payment, before I familiarize myself with your lands.

Jaune: Oh, okay. Uhh… Take one of the bulls. I don’t mind if you eat them, so long as I have one of them I will be fine. Oh! And, don’t you eat the one with the big horns!

: The big horns? Why?

Jaune: I’ve had, Sir. Bullhopper since I started this farm! I ain’t gonna lose him to anything, but old age!

: Very well, I won’t touch, Bullhopper.

Jaune: Sir. Bullhopper!

: Haa… Sir. Bullhopper… Happy now?

Jaune: Just peachy!

: Very well… now, if you don’t mind, I am hungry, and I shall feed!

Jaune: Okay, just keep it out of sight so you don’t freak out everyone! Oh! And one more thing.

: Haaa… What is it now?

Jaune put his hand upon his chest, and smiled happily at the dragon.

Jaune: My name is, Jaune Arc. What’s yours?

The dragon stared at him for a while, deep in thought as she debated on telling this human her name. She ultimately relented, deciding it would be for the best since she didn’t want to be called, Dragon all the time.

: My name is, Sienna Khan.

Jaune: Hi, Sienna Khan. I look forward to working with you.

The dragon… Sienna! Sienna smiled just for the briefest of moments before leaving to find her meal.

Sienna: And, I you, Jaune.

As, Jaune watched, his new ‘farmhand’ walk away, he couldn’t help but feel the fact he did something incredibly stupid, couldn’t help but feel like he made the right choice.

His thoughts on the matter were quickly dashed as he saw his herd of cattle, and flocks of sheep scatter in a mad panic as he heard the sound that could only be described as the tearing of flesh, and the shattering of bones.

Jaune: Sienna?! I told you to take that to a place out of sight! You’re terrifying the rest of the herd! Sienna?! SIENNA?!!!

[scribbledquillz]

Savagery

It truly is a beautiful place. The falls alone would make it a worthy spot to admire, its rushing waters carrying on a hum that pulls at a rhythm beyond music. With the high, natural walls of stone, lush greenery and twinned elk statues sat in their elegant vigil made addition, Kai might go so far as to call the whole of it bucolic. And the sight of it now, draped in soft, dappled moonlight, makes her sick.

She cannot wait here like this much longer, the venom buried in her chest long since spread through the rest of her body. The silence only makes the burn that much worse, every bite of teeth against her tongue or nails into the palms of her hands buying her ever less time. Another moment. Then another moment more. Each one of them are as wretched as they are precious, every second she keeps her hold another footfall drawing Solas further away.

There are thorns buried in her throat, wrapped about it on their vines pulling tighter with every thin breath she takes. Her eyes burn, hot and bitter as the tear tracks scalded down the curves of her face. He will not see this. She was a fool, a simpering idiot caught up in fancies meant to stay in the pages of the twice cursed books from whence they came. But for all her missteps and wishful thinking he was the one who guided her through them, and he will not see this.

The levy in her chest breaks, splintering into a thousand pieces. Solas had been right about one thing - the Veil is thin in this beautiful, terrible place. She has no more than twitched a finger for her magic than it is there, sizzling along her skin with all the roiling black anger of a summer storm. For once she does not hold it back, giving in to the gale tearing through her, screaming in her blood. There is no longer the sound of gentle waters in her ears, no hush of verdure and ancient peace. The winds are in her, surround her to tear at cloak and robe and the shards of a bared heart left at her feet.

Light flashes, great, violent arcs of lightning thrown out in a careless snap of her arm while thunder roars over the sound of her wailing. They crack against the stonework, broken rock sent crashing into the tranquil surface of the pond while their mossy cover smoulders into blackened husks. Another bolt leaps free, connecting with the front half of one of the elk, it's regal crown of antlers reduced to splinters as its torso cracks away from the whole and topples forward to the ground.

Good, a voice snarls in her ear as she watches the statue's head snap free and roll off into the churning depth of the pool. Let it crumble away. Let this whole place match the ugliness seeded here tonight.

Besides. If the world - if he - wishes to see her as no more than a beast, it is only right she be allowed this taste of savagery.

[thephantomcasebook]

Alicent being a boy mom ...

And a little extra Helaemond if you got it.

Hmm ...

I've never actually written Helamond before ...

Well, all the girlies will either like it or they'll let me know otherwise.

(Note: The Characterization of Daeron is from another post I did where someone asked me to introduce the character my own way in the show)

Well, live or die, here's my Helamond shot.

He could still see her falling.

He wanted to twist her beautiful curling locks in his hand, yank her head back, and demand to know why she was stupid?! She could’ve gotten killed! But instead, she is pressed hard against his chest – not being able to tell where she started, and he began. They were latched tight to his saddle, her arms about his neck. Her hot breath was in his ear, repeating nonsense over and over again – “A sapphire lost in the God’s Eye!” He felt her clutching him hard, nuzzling his neck, tears streaming down her milky cheeks. “A sapphire lost in the God’s Eye!” She was afraid, petrified.

Queen Helaena Targaryen was not made nor meant for a battlefield, to be in the air filled with cries of flame and roars of hate.  Below them, fireballs of pitch and ruins of stone arced up at them from the catapults of the Velaryon blockade. The gleam of red, orange, and blue flames from burning ships reflected in the gentle tears of the young queen of the Seven Kingdoms as she sat astride Vhagar in reverse. Aemond’s left hand was clutching the handle of his saddle, the right firmly grasping Helaena’s leather clad arse to force her against him as they maneuvered above.

A fury, unbridled and murderous, came over him when the flaming arrows and exploding pitch halted. When he leaned over to glance down, his single eye bulged in rage. Fore there he was, landed on the damaged and half enflamed Velaryon flagship. The sleek and graceful creature of cerulean scale, a beast of royalty, sat poised for even the slightest flinch on the deck of the ship. A figure in golden dragon wing helm with masked eye guard and green streamers to represent the flame of Old Town at war, sat astride his majestic beast. All around him, the ashen and seared sailors of the beaten flagship gathered behind Corlys Velaryon who stood stalwart with his Valyrian Steel axe in hand, his white whiskers scorched.

Yet, he lowered his weapon.

Fore laying in the young dragon knight’s arms was a silver haired young woman in tight leather and stricken crimson scale armor. Baela Targaryen was staring at the figure who held her gently in wonder and amazement. For a moment she couldn’t understand it, couldn’t believe it.

 He … he saved her life?

She had been felled by Vhagar as she rushed to save her grandmother whose dragon, Meleys, was held by a monstrous foot in vise by her pink rigged neck. But when she dove at her late mother’s dragon, the old bitch craned her head, her maw closing about Moondancer’s wing, ripping most of it off. Baela’s scream was shrill and lost in the wind as she fell to the earth, the sea rushing toward her like a green tinted wall. Her grandmother could do nothing but watch. In that last moment, the young beauty thought of her mother, her smile, her kisses, the warmth of her body as she read to her girls. Then, like a blue comet, a figure came diving in a flash, buzzing Vhagar, Meleys, Prince Aemond, Queen Helaena, and the helpless Princess Rhaenys line a typhoon wind. It gave chase to the falling girl like a bolt of lightning. An arm wrapped Baela’s waist and pulled her to a stricken and repaired breast plate with the worn engraving of the High Tower upon it. Suddenly, with a dip in her taut belly, they leveled out just a foot or so from the surface of the sea. It was then that she found herself in unfamiliar arms that held her tenderly … perfectly.

They had never met, but she knew of him, heard stories around the Painted Table. Jace spoke very highly of him, Luke admired him, Father hated him, and Rhaenyra did not wish to discuss him one way or the other. For Baela, she had no opinion of her cousin till the last fifteen minutes when Moondancer couldn’t keep up, Meyleys took his chained Morningstar whip in the head twice, And Grandmother’s nose broke against the sole of his boot when he unlatched himself from the saddle and came flying downward as she angled to burn Aemond and … Queen Helena.  Baela thought she hated him, feared him, was frustrated that he and his blue queen were untouchable. But now she felt only shock … only …

What she had hoped Jace and she would find in time.

A bare ebony hand touched the silken green scarf of Queen Alicent’s favor that was wrapped about the mouth and nose of the helmeted dragon knight. She smelt the pleasing scent of her aunt as she leaned in and gave a peck to where she thought her cousin’s lips might be. Then, she cautiously slipped from his self-crafted and battle worn saddle, flush at his almost intimate touch helping her down. But whatever soft and looming emotions that fluttered in her heart soon retreated when the cerulean dragon craned her head back and gave a cry of threat at the girl’s lingering.

Quickly, Baela stumbled back to the open arms of her grandfather. For a time, Lord Corlys Velaryon and the Dragon Knight matched glares. It was an offering, the paying of a debt – for the life of one Driftmark heir had the other’s life been spared. And needing not to be told the context or meaning of the gallant gesture, Lord Velaryon took his axe in hand and placed it to his chest and bowed his head in gratitude. In response, the young knight simply gave his former captain and comrade in arms a familiar two finger salute before he urged his mount to take off in Valyrian. With a roar, the she-dragon lifted off into the air, flying low, back to Kings landing. And for a time, among the horror and terror of the “Dance of Dragons” there was glimpse of honor and mutual respect between Green and Black on that afternoon.

The battle was over.

But not at the Dragon Pit.

With an order in Valyrian, Tessarion clawed low into the dark. She could smell, hear, the snorting shuffle of livestock - victory morsels. However – and luckily – before Daeron Targaryen could remove his nicked and battle scared helmet, something hard and powerful contacted it. The blow rattled his brain like coppers in a jar. The young knight immediately found himself on the ground, a voice in sinister Valyrian shouting at him. Meanwhile, what sounded like his sister was protesting. Then, a hand grasped his battered breastplate and yanked him into a siting potion. There, in a murderous rage, was his brother Aemond, his single eyes nearly black in the darkness of the Dragon Pit.

“<Blood Traitor!>” He snarled at him in Valyrian. “<You spared our sisters would be killer! Craven pup!>” He punched Daeron again, making the winged dragon helm sing from the strike.

But this time the coppers didn’t rattle – only the cage of the dragon in his blood. In anger and madness  boiling from the fight still coursing within, Daeron went right back into battle instinct learned from years of fighting on the Stepstones. He immediately swept a foot and heel kicked Aemond across the back of the knee. Then, when knelt, Daeron launched headfirst with his helmet, smashing its armored brow against Aemond forehead - drawing blood. With clenched teeth of rage, the younger brother tackled the older into the dust of the Dragon Pit.

Soon, they began rolling and punching, cries and snarls of curses in Common Tongue and Valyrian echoed into the vast arena. Around them the Dragon Keepers watched on neutrally with their tall staffs and scorched crimson and cream robes. Meanwhile, Queen Helaena paced anxiously as she covered her ears to drown out the violence and the stream of angry emotion from the men she loved that came on like waves of a typhoon that violated her sweet and gentle nature.

Immediately, astride two white stallions, followed by a mounted guard of men in Hightower armor, the visage of the Dowager Queen Alicent and her Lord Commander Ser Criston Cole appeared with a clatter of hooves in the vast open space. The queen’s luxurious copper locks flowed like a banner as she raced into the Dragon Pit, afear of what losses she would face from the mission this afternoon. But instead she pulled back on the reigns of Ser Criston’s name day gift to her.

“Hey!” She called loudly in alarm.

In front of her was a tall figure in highly crafted black sable armor and a younger silhouette in stricken and cobbled pieces of battle-damaged Hightower armor and a weathered and patched cloak, rolling about. They looked like hounds in a kennel fighting over a bone or an errant challenge in the hall. They gripped and punched, Aemond pulling on the green streamers atop Daeron’s golden dragon helm, while Daeron was shoving Aemond’s face into the dust, metal squealing and rattling as they continuously rolled, trying to get and deny leverage to one another. All the while Helaena, in tight black leather trousers and matching scaled doublet of Dragon riding gear, paced around them, ears covered, and choking on the rapid words and phrases she said aloud to comfort herself.

“Aemond! Stardust!” She called out to them. “Enough!” Alicent leapt from the back of her horse, Criston grasping the bridle.

“Prince Aemond! Daeron!” Criston shouted as he dismounted, waiting for one of the queen’s guard to take their matching stallions’ reins.

Helaena marched away from her mother’s bracing grip as she watched her boys rolling around, shouting words she understood – even the foreign ones – and would never allow them to utter in her home, much less in public. With gritted teeth of determination, Alicent flung herself into the fray. She got hold of the back of the golden helmeted youth that wore the green embroidered scarf of her silken favor about his mouth and nose under his eye guard. With all her strength she put her youngest child in a choke hold and pulled with her slender legs and creamy hamstrings.

“Stardust … stop it!” She growled into Daeron’s ear as she got him upon his knees, prying him off Aemond. Then, with a startled gasp - not wearing shoes that carried the cobbled traction needed for such strenuous physical activities as pulling apart your two scrapping youngest children – Alicent fell backward, taking Daeron with her. She landed on her bottom; her arms wrapped like a vise about her youngest’s chest. There she held him as he squirmed against her.

“Oh, no you don’t!” She gritted crushing the back of his helmeted head into the crook of her neck, covering his eyes so he couldn’t escape.

It would’ve left him vulnerable for Aemond when he recovered, if the anger and bloodlust of the battle was not shocked out of the tall lean young man by a blast of cold. As he turned over onto his stomach to push himself back onto his feet to pursue his traitorous sibling, he let out a cry of shock and confusion when something wet and frigid thunder down upon him. With wide eye, Aemond glanced around - now soaking wet – to find Lord Commander Cole with an overturned bucket from the fire safety trough.

With a shiver and chatter, the outraged prince struggled to get to his feet – incensed at needing Ser Criston’s help. He pushed the man away, who only smirked in that annoying, know-it-all, way that his teacher and mentor always had since he could remember. With a wet rattle, Aemond ripped off his black helm with green plume and threw it down, his long silvery hair soaked and dripping. But when he saw Daeron still on the ground he made to approach.

“Don’t you dare!” Alicent’s voice was like a whip that cracked, keeping the lion at bay.

Ser Criston already firmly placed his grip on the young warrior prince’s breast plate in restraint. And each time that Aemond swatted his hand away, the Lord Commander’s other replaced it, retaliating by shoving him back further and further with his palms. Meanwhile, Alicent had gotten to her feet and was pulling Daeron’s arm till he found his own. The youth’s light armor – stricken breast plate, a shoulder plate on his sword arm, vambraces, and all covered by a tattered cloak she wove him long ago – made it easier for him to stand.

Yet, the moment he did, Alicent grasped her son by the golden winged dragon helm and slipped it from his head.  Immediately a mane of her own waving copper curls in a half hazard messy ponytail slipped free. With his mouth and nose covered by her green favor, Daeron’s brow line and eyes were of such a striking match to her own face that she might have been looking into a gender bent mirror. Throwing his helmet away, Alicent reached up and pulled down the silken scarf to see the sculpted boyish stubble of copper hair on his chin.

‘Enough!” She snapped in his face, grasping Gwayne’s former breast plate and pulling it down so that Daeron was looking right into their matching eyes. No sooner had she done this, when she strode over and grasped Aemond by his prominent chin and pulled him down to make eye contact.

“Do-you-hear-me?!” She annunciated every syllable, nodding her son’s head with her cadence. Then, when she heard the petulant answer of the classic Aemond Targaryen non-answer of “Mmhn”, she tossed his head back. But she didn’t stop there.

“You!” She strode over to Helaena who turned away from her. But that wasn’t gonna fly today. She grabbed Helaena back by the arm and twisted her to face her. “What were you thinking?!” She yelled at her daughter. “You are the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms!” She shook the girl. “You cannot go flying into the middle of a battle or a dragon duel!” She shook her. “Why?!” She demanded of her daughter.

“A sapphire lost in the God’s Eye!” She snapped angrily at her mother. “Lost forever, never to be found!” Her voice cracked in devastation and fear.

 A look of heartbroken and helpless confusion fell over Alicent’s countenance as she searched Helaena’s distressed face but found no recognition, no understanding. Teary eyes of falling anger glassed over as her hand reached out to pet her silvery blonde hair. But the girl turned away and paced over to stand by Aemond, covering her ears as she laid her head against his shoulder. The dowager queen took a shaky breath to collect herself before she walked the short distance between her two sons.

“What is going on?!”

“Baela dove on Dreamfyre while Stardust was playing with Princess Rhaenys! She could’ve killed Helaena if it wasn’t for Vhagar!” Aemond was incensed. The use of Alicent’s pet name for her youngest babe stung and seared Daeron when used against him in mockery.

“How was I supposed know that Helaena and Dreamfyre was going to go wandering into the middle of the battle?!” Daeron replied hotly. “I was supposed to be keeping the old hag and Moondancer busy while you opened a lane for the Blockade Runner!” He announced.

“Baela tried to kill our sister, your queen! And you decided to save her life! <You spared, boy>!” Aemond finished in Valyrian.

“I did what I thought was right!” Daeron countered forthright and chest forward. “There’s an honor in the way we fight!” He said stalwartly. “It’s what separates and distinguishes us from Daemon and his thugs!” He scorned in lecture.  

“This is war!” Aemond cried angrily.

“Don’t!”

There was a dangerous snarl that was so heavy that it came out in a whisper from the young knight’s mouth. Alicent turned at the noise, the deep traumatic stress that set her motherly instinct aflame.

“Don’t you talk at me, Aemond, about war!” Daeron gritted his teeth, his eyes suddenly alight with memories or horrors undreamed upon the small rocky chain of islands that could not be unseen. “I know more about it then you ever will!” the young knight’s eyes grew haunted and his voice distant.

Alicent found herself at the youth’s side, her hand slipping into his, her eyes sorrowed.

“You read too many story books, brother!” Aemond grew fierce then, Helaena’s breath on his ear like the fanning air to the flames in his blood. He could still see her falling from Dreamfyre’s saddle when Moondancer slashed across her belly - Vhagar too big, too bulky, almost losing Helaena on the horizon as she fell. It was only by an instinct he couldn’t quantify, that he could … sense where she was. Reach out and take her hand when he couldn’t see her. The fear, the helplessness of almost losing her …

It made him fiercer than his dragon.

“There’s no room for heroes here, brother!” He stepped away, in front of their sister, as if to protect her from this valiant and noble fool with their mother’s face. “The guilt for whatever sins you weep about into our mother’s breasts in the night have no place in my army!” He said rancorously. “I hear Daeron “The Daring” was a champion, hero of the Stepstones – that he and his dragon Tessarion sank the largest war galley in the world at the Battle of Tara-Haj.” He scoffed as if it were some tall tale told in a tavern. “But I only see a mewling and wailing tourney knight! Mother’s arse a pillow while hiding behind her silk skirts and more worried about his own honor than protecting his sister, his queen!” He snarled, pointing the finger of prosecution at the handsome young knight.  

 “Careful, Brother …” Daeron fixed the tall man with dark look. “ <Don’t mistake murdering a boy and his hatchling for being a warrior.>” The youth replied with a deep distain in cutting High Valyrian.

“Hey-Hey-Hey!”

They drove so hard at one another that the only obstacle to their rematch was the crushing together of Alicent and Criston – back to back – as both young men were barely restrained by their mother and their mentor. Alicent squinted, gritting her teeth as she pushed back against her youngest, her arms wrapped around his torso, her cheek against his scorched and scared breastplate. Meanwhile, Criston’s lips were pressed in strain at he had Aemond under the arms trying to walk the slender spear of a man backward. Both the queen and her protector’s heads and hair were battered by flailing arms and hands striking at the other. Eventually, with a twist, Criston got Aemond off his feet, tossing him upon the ground. With a clank and sliding of metal, he dragged the violent young man by the back of his chest piece toward Helaena as he kicked and struggled.

“Stay down!” Criston snapped shoving the young prince back onto the floor when he tried to get back up.

Then, suddenly there was another splash of water that was thrown into Aemond’s face. With a spit and a snarl, murder was in his single eye as he turned to see which dead man it was. But instead, his fire was quenched in shock and confusion when he looked up to see that it had been Helaena with the bucket in hand. Her eyes were stern, her face cold – the same expression she gave Aegon. That single look of disappointment and displeasure alone stopped everything within Aemond in its tracks. He gave a pride saving grunt and “Mmnhm” as he turned his steely eye forward past Criston – pacified by his queen’s want.

“Enough! Stardust, look at me!” Alicent struggled with her little boy. “It’s me! Stardust, it’s me!” She said forcefully till he stopped wrestling with her. “It’s done. It’s time to stop!” She gave him a sobering shake, knowing of the madness, the manias, and flashbacks to war and violence that lived within him – how he suffered in their thralldom. It was only then, lost in her eyes, the soft melodic velvet of her familiar voice, that a sobriety took over him. Alicent grabbed Daeron by his ears and forced his head down. When their eyes matched, a fierce and stern look was wrapped in a loving sympathy.

“Okay?” She said softly.

“Yeah …” He replied emotionally.

“Yeah?”

“It’s fine …” He nodded, his eyes losing their sharpness.

“Go outside and wait for me and Ser Criston.” She ordered handing him his distinct dragon winged helm.

There was a half nod in his reluctance as there remained a fiery glare at Aemond - who was now laying down in the muddy spot, hands behind his head – waiting for his scolding as one does for the sunset in a flowery field. Meanwhile, Helaena looked at her little brother with a soft wilting smirk of love – assurance that she did not agree with their brother. But before he had left Alicent’s shadow, the queen grasped his arm and pulled him back to her. She cupped his cheeks and pulled his head down low to her.   

 “Reluctance to murder is not a weakness …!” Alicent whispered to Daeron, touching her forehead to his. The youth did not say anything, he simply nodded, letting her nuzzle and nip his nose in maternal affection and pride of his conduct that day on the field of battle. Then, she gave him a soft shove of parental steel, sending him on his way.

“Get up, Aemond!”

“…”

“Get up!”

With a noise of bemusement, the youth found his feet in a timelier manner than anyone was expecting. But his jaw grew tight when slender pale hands grasped his breast plate and pulled him close. Her hand gripped his chin once more and used it like a hinge as she turned his head left to right, checking the cut on his forehead and gashed cheek where Princess Rhaenys had caught him with her whip. Satisfied that nothing was serious, she let go. He did not respond when she gave a pensive shake of his chest in her hard grip.

“Thank you …” She sighed. “For saving Helaena, for looking after her.” She nodded.

“You don’t have to thank me, Mother.” He stood impeccably upright, immaculately postured. “I wouldn’t let any harm to come to her.” Aemond was more sincere than she ever thought possible. “You know that.” He nodded.

“Yes …” She replied. “And we’ve won a victory today. Our envoys have gotten past the blockade and are on their way to negotiate with The Triarchy. You and your brother have destroyed over a dozen Velaryon ships, and you’ve permanently maimed one Rhaenyra’s dragons.” Alicent praised.

“A day to be celebrated.” Aemond gave a nod.

“A day not to be squandered.” She corrected. “With baseless accusations and slander!” She suddenly snapped.

“He spared Baela –“ He began.

“And he saved your life and Helaena’s too when Rhaenys had you two right where she wanted! I watched from the Tower of the Hand from the Grand Maester’s telescope! Or do you deny it?!” Her eyes fixed on the stalwart and carful warrior prince.

“I do not.” He looked away.

Alicent turned Aemond’s head gently to face her. “We cannot fight a war against Rhaenyra and ourselves.” She said softly. “Perhaps, mistakes were made. Foolish things done!” Helaena had the decency to look chastised when Alicent’s gaze fell upon her in accusation. “But you cannot win this war on your own Aemond.” Her eyes glistened. “You and Daeron are the sole compliment of our dragon riders. When you’re out there, you need each other.” She placed her hand on the Targaryen insignia on his black breastplate. “Don’t bring the war home with you.” She stroked his chest.

She smirked softly when Aemond grabbed her hand and squeezed it.

“Of course, Mother.” He said dutifully. “I’m sorry if I …” He cleared his throat.

“It happens to all of us, my dearest boy.” She nodded. “Now get Helaena home … we’ll meet you there.” Alicent replied, needing only a glance to convey her plans to Ser Criston – a shorthand of sixteen years of devotion to one another. As they left, Criston clasped Aemond’s shoulder in comradery, the two sharing a nod of affectionate endearment as the Dowager Queen and the Lord Commander paced outside. 

When they were gone, Aemond turned to find Helaena standing near him. Something different, relaxed, relieved, was in her countenance as they stood alone together in the vast hall of the Dragon Pit. A soft smile touched her face as she paced closer to him.

“It …” She shook her head cautiously. “It wasn’t today.” She said, his eyes fluttering shut at the soft and smooth warmth of the sun in her heavenly palms that stroked his cheek in reverence.

“What wasn’t?” He asked.

“I saw a sapphire lost forever in the God’s Eye …” She replied, a single tear falling down her cheek. “And I thought it was today.” She nodded. “I thought it was today.” She repeated in a strangled whisper of dueling relief of the hour and fear for the unknown of many tomorrows.

Then, to assuage her, Aemond removed his eyepatch to reveal the sapphire that she had once given him, breaking it free from her favorite necklace as compensation – replacing something she loved with something else just as precious.

“Not today.” He said confidently.

He did not flinch nor blink when her finger reached out and touched the sapphire, his hand grasping her own, leading her digit across the smooth surface of the jewel.

“Not today …” She whispered again, a sobbed little chuckle.

Then, he took her in his arms as she clung to him, crying happy tears as his strong jaw nuzzled the silky locks of her silvery blonde hair.

Perhaps one day a sapphire will be lost forever to the God’s Eye …

But it wasn’t today.           

[castle-in-the-air0]

Abandon All Hope - Chapter 2 (Shadows)

Previous chapter

Pairing: Aemond Targaryen x Original Female Character

Rating: M

Chapter Warnings: Suicidal ideation and self harm, just to be safe. Nothing super graphic. Description of canon injuries (Aemond).

A/N: Quick question. Would y'all prefer I just post the whole chapters here as well as on AO3? Or do you really not care either way?

Daenys long ago decided that there was nothing as beautiful as Dragonstone, when observed from dragonback. The castle, with its stone towers warped to the likeness of dragons, appeared as though it was a part of the island itself. So intertwined were they, Daenys was uncertain the island and castle of a shared name could not exist without the other. 

For all that she tried, Daenys couldn’t fathom why Aegon the Conqueror hadn’t made Dragonstone his seat. There was no sight like it; the Red Keep and King’s Landing could never hope to compare. Especially when the weather was fair, and the sun shone off the dark stone of the castle and the water was blue and lovely. Daenys feared no painter could ever capture its likeness. The greed of time would steal away it. 

The wind was fiercer way up high on dragonback, and it snagged tendrils of Daenys’ hair from her braid with ferocity. The sun, free from Dragonstone’s usual cloudy veil, shone down on them and forced Daenys to squint against it. The air smelt of brine and smoke, a scent so unique to Dragonstone, and it remained strong even high in the air as she soared above the island on Silverwing. It smelt of home.

Silverwing trilled as Daenys ordered her lower to skim over the water, sending water spraying up around them and her stomach into her throat. Daenys never grew used to the plummeting lightness of dragon flight, and she hoped she never did. A delighted squeal of laughter rang from behind Daenys, and she peeked behind her shoulder at her closest friend. Rhae leaned to the side to try to reach the water and Daenys directed Silverwing higher, forcing Rhae to cling to her if she wished to keep her balance. 

At Rhae’s indignant squawk, Daenys giggled. There was no real danger of her falling; Rhae was strapped to the saddle same as Daenys. It’d taken nearly a year for Daenys to convince Rhae to ride Silverwing with her before she relented, and Daenys was glad she hadn’t given up. Flying, she found, was far more fun when she had her friend to share it with. 

“Hold on,” Daenys called over her shoulder. 

“No! Daenys, don’t,” Rhae yelled. She clawed her arms around Daenys’ waist and hurled curses into the wind.

Daenys stretched low on Silverwing’s saddle, and with a sharp tug of the reins, Silverwing tucked her wings close and dove straight towards the water. Wind roared past her ears and stung her eyes, Rhae shrieked and cursed in her ear, and Daenys laughed; breathless though she was. At the last moment Silverwing arced upwards, spiraling and weaving back up into the sky. Daenys floated off her saddle, and were it not for the straps holding them down, both she and Rhae would certainly have found themselves in the ocean.

“You arse!” Rhae smacked Daenys’ arm, but she laughed anyway. Daenys smiled and pulled back on Silverwing’s reins, leveling out and steering her to circle the island. 

From this height, the villages below the castle appeared no more than crumbs to be brushed away and forgotten. Galleys and cogs dallied at the ports, and Daenys espied the purple sails of a Braavosi trading ship passing by, likely en route to Driftmark. With another flick of the reins, Daenys steered Silverwing further around the island towards the Dragonmont. 

Dwarfing aught else on Dragonstone, the Dragonmont was a great, looming beast that spat pale gray smoke from its mouth and vents. As they flew towards the volcano, Silverwing flapped her wings and climbed even higher without Daenys’ command. More villages dotted below the Dragonmont, and shepherds and Dragonkeepers picked their way along the rocky paths that scarred the lower half of the Dragonmont. 

Continue on AO3

[eternally6pm]

Sorry to hear about your writers block!! I'd love to read something about them fighting together and/or taking care of each other after a battle!!

There was time, he tried to convince himself, lied, because any other truth in that moment was unthinkable as he raised Fujin Yumi and drew, the air burning like fire in his lungs. 

The arrow found the throat of the archer a mere second too late, and even as he immediately launched into a full sprint, he could only watch, grounded and helpless as steel tore a horrific gash through the wing of Camilla’s mount, and it plummeted with a piercing shriek. 

Immediately, the pack of outlaws swarmed like ants, converging on her. Again, Takumi was forced to stop, skidding to a halt on the edge of a bursting exhalation that made his ears ring as the muscles in his arm strained against the juddering turbulence of the bow string and he loosed two arrows that screamed towards their targets, cracking fatally through flesh and bone. 

Camilla sprang from her fallen wyvern, her axe swinging a gleaming arc to meet the first of them in a violent crash of steel and a coiling spray of crimson left in the wake of a head, shorn clean from its neck and another falling, his spine severed. 

There was still time. 

Another arrow, the final one before close quarters rendered Fujin Yumi useless, and Takumi drew his sword, breathless with desperation to reach her. 

But they were too many all at once, even as Camilla rent the limbs from the men that surrounded her, others took aim - and now there was no time left. 

The blow struck her in the side, a massive, swinging spiked club that caught in the plates of her armour, making her stagger, and it was all Takumi could do, to throw himself, blade and body before her and let the edge of the axe come crashing down on him.

She screamed. 

Or perhaps, he imagined she did, all the sound in his ears suddenly mute as he felt something shift, break, rupture unnaturally as he staggered, stupefied, unprepared for the crushing swing of a hammer. His ribs crunched, expelling the last of his breath and he watched the world tilt wildly, falling away until all he could see was sky.

And oh, she was indeed screaming now, roaring like a beast enraged, the predator she truly was. 

Takumi heaved for air, coughed and tasted blood against his teeth, filling his mouth. He tried and failed to raise his arm, to stand, but nothing obeyed, his fingers numb, his legs like lead.

He was dying, he realised, and the notion brought him a strange sensation of calm.

But suddenly, Camilla had returned, her voice distant, frantic, and she tried to gather him, screaming this time, names: Elise, Sakura, Jakob, help.

The irony of dying for someone he hated was not lost on him, but she was… beautiful, he finally allowed himself to admit, truly, deeply kind. Someone worth the lives it took to protect. In these final moments, seeing tears streak tracks through the blood on her face, he felt perhaps he had never hated her at all.

He had repaid his debt; she was safe. It was pitiful consolation, but it would have to be enough for one as pathetic as him. 

Leave me, he wanted to tell her, even as she shook her head, crying commands to stay awake, but he was so very tired, and it was an easy thing, to release his grasp and let the merciful darkness finally claim him.

—

There was pain before there was anything else, like being torn open, cut apart slowly on the edge of a ragged blade.

Even breathing brought pain, a thousand sharp hooks in his chest as he inhaled deeply and groaned, an inadvertent sound that triggered a chain of discomfort: sore head, stiff legs, dry throat - the unnatural sensation of being displaced, somewhere he shouldn’t be.

And then a hand, gentle, cool, upon his forehead, softly, against his cheek.

Mother, he thought, relieved. 

“Oh, I’m sorry, young prince,” came the reply. “You’ll have to settle for me.”

It was light, blue-green and strangely harsh that came first with a faint hum, but then faded, and in the wan glow, he saw, and started to understand. 

He was in his own quarters, his own bed, and the light had come from a large round polished stone at the foot of it. It glimmered dimly for the moment, its colours shifting indigo-green, familiar.

A Dragon Vein.

And upon the stone, the hand of Camilla, slowly lifting as she stepped towards him again, watching him with an inscrutable smile.

"Welcome back."

How strange. He flexed his fingers and found them working, though the movement drove fire through his left shoulder, pain so severe that he wrenched the sheet away with his right in a near panic, worried that he was somehow spilling blood into the bed.

His fingertips found the stiff traces of scar tissue running a long thin track from almost the middle of his chest, up past his clavicle and beyond where his shoulder met his neck. 

“Any deeper and they would have found your heart,” Camilla said quietly.

All at once, his mind flooded with detail - the edge of an axe, shattering bone, the falling shadow of a wyvern, running, running, and Camilla at the centre of it all, drenched in the blood of her foes as he lay at her feet, prone and broken -

“Leave,” Takumi croaked. 

She frowned at him.

“Get out,” he tried again, and her frown grew deeper. Ignoring his instruction, she stepped over to the table by his bed to draw water into a glass from a pitcher. 

“I don’t want you here -”

“Nonsense,” she said tersely, sliding a hand beneath his pillow to support him as she held the glass to his lips. “You’ll have me whether you like it or not. If you don’t want me here, you shouldn’t have saved my life.”

Resentment, white hot, settled in the pit of his stomach, even as he gratefully accepted the water, draining the glass. 

“Where are the healers?” He demanded.

She lowered him with a sigh and set the glass down, perhaps a little harder than she intended. “You’ve no need for them - you are mended. There is no more healing to be done.”

“Sakura -”

“Worked for hours, without rest. I sent her away, she needs sleep - she needs peace.”

He thought of his sister, pouring her soul into saving his ruined body, the shame of Hinoka and Ryoma learning that their brother had almost fallen, split down the middle like a blade of grass. And of Camilla, who watched him falter and fail, like a brittle blade, shattering on impact.

He clenched his eyes shut. “Then I will wait. Just leave me be.”

“You can hardly move from the pain,” she admonished, her words clipped in irritation. “Let me help, and for once in your life, do not be stubborn.”

“I don’t want your help. I don’t want to see you.”

She scowled coldly. “Then why even choose to save me? If you hate me so much, what was the point in saving my life?”

“I can’t lose any more!” Searing pain erupted through his side, and he had to bite down on a cry, barely resisting the impulse to double in on himself. The agony made him miserable, made him want to snarl and bite, to capitulate, crumble and fade into nothing.

Camilla stood silent as he caught his breath, and struggled to rein his temper.

“Look at me. I am broken - I cannot even draw a bow. If I failed to save even you, then what use am I? No better than a decoration, a toy.” He huffed a short, bitter laugh. “You should have left me to rot.”

Still, she said nothing, simply regarded him with arms folded and ice in her stare.

“You would be better off without the burden.”

At this, her stance bristled, her back straightening and her eyes flashing like the after image of a spell, the same aura that glinted at the cruel edge of her weapon. “Are you quite done?” She asked sharply.

It was his turn to fall silent. 

“Good. Let me ask you, Prince Takumi, if you think of me so little that you would save my life and then tell me to disregard the value of yours.”

He blinked at her, unable to fathom a response. 

"No answer? Then allow me to propose that you do not actually think me that little, and I am of at least some worth.”

He flinched at her approach, but she did little more than smooth the sheets down with a hand, and perch elegantly on the edge of the bed.

 “If you are truly the prince I know you must be, then it is only proper that you would pay the same regard to those I consider worthy."

She grasped his chin and leaned close, and the scent of roses on her skin carried her words like those in a dream.

"And I consider you most worthy."

And suddenly the frost dissipated, the warmth returning to her gaze, her voice, the gentle stroke of her fingertips as she touched them to his cheek.

"Don't be ridiculous. And do not dare insult me by disrespecting those I care for most."

Takumi's silence now was unbidden, a swell of adoration he had to labour against in his chest, his throat, warmth stinging behind his eyes. She was still somehow compassionate even when he tried to elicit nothing but contempt, and she was wrong in a thousand ways, because if he was anything in that moment at all, he was certainly not worthy of her.

"Now. Let me help you. You must recover, for if I am again in dire need, I expect you to once more to assist." 

She smiled, and bowing her head, pressed a soft kiss to the scar on his chest.

Takumi felt his face flush with heat.

"Wh-what is this?"

"A Nohrian… custom," she explained, smiling now like she intended something much worse. "It’s called kissing it better." 

She bent again, and kissed him, lower. The sensation of her lips sparked something within him that burned uncontrollably, destroying any semblance of sensible thought.

"Stop," he said urgently.

"Does it hurt?" She asked, every part a picture of innocence. 

"N-no, I just -"

Higher this time, at his collar. All of the blood in his head rushed away, heat pooling low in his torso and making his voice weak.

"Princess, you can't -"

She pressed a kiss to neck now and the sound that he made left him mortified. 

"Stop," he begged.

She glanced at him in pure amusement, tucking her hair nonchalantly behind an ear. "It's all right. I do this for my little brother all the time."

He burnt with embarrassment, with shame and in the midst of his hazy indignation, he felt wretched disappointment. "I am not your little brother."

"No, of course not.” She stood at last, releasing him like a plaything spent, her fun complete. “My little brother isn't nearly as adorable as you, Prince Takumi."

---

You are. So kind!! Thank you for coming to help me, and for your kind words. It’s a timely request - I intended to write a couple such scenes in my fic, so… if these work, you might see them again, expanded and as part of a bigger whole. That's also why there is presumed knowledge that Camilla has already saved his life once - though it was not enough to earn his trust. 

Honestly speaking, I’m not sure this is what you were looking for - it’s probably a smidge darker than you’d probably like. I might try again at a later date if I feel inspired to write something about them just kicking ass in battle (because we all know they stronk), and then… I dunno, getting drunk afterwards, in celebration.

I errr also intended for these to be really quick and much shorter, but it kind of grew out of my control, and with no second reader or editing, so it's pretty raw. 

Thank you for waiting! And hit me with any additional requests, as many as you like!

[whumpinaheartbeat]

Look At My Son, Pride Is Not The Word I'm Looking For (Febuwhump 2023 Day 20)

This fic contains violence, graphic injury, cauterisation and description of burned skin. Please read with discretion.

“Dad?”

The crack in Will’s voice made my heart break. My son, my beautiful son was standing there, an hand pressed to his side, his eyes begging me to help him. I roared, fighting against the Galymans that held me but it only tightened its grip, my muscles aching. I kicked backwards, desperate to get to Will but the enemy was made of stronger stuff than my flabby pimply human body.

The blood was blossoming out from Will’s wound, leaking through his fingers and staining his Camp Half Blood shirt, the knife that had inflicted the pain now sitting innocently on the ground. I distantly heard Calligula laugh but I couldn’t bring myself to care, fixated on Will and only Will.

In all of the millennia in my of life, everything I had done had been for myself. I had destroyed whole cities, cursed men and women alike to live miserable lives, I have done nothing but cause pain for all those around me and for what. For fun? Glory? Anger at a world that didn’t give a damn about me if I wasn’t saving someone every day?

Now that Will was standing in front of me covered in blood, his face growing paler by the moment, none of those reasons seemed like enough. Will had already been through so much in his short life and most of it had been because of me. Even now the only reason why he was here at all. He should have been safe at Camp, not on some quest to defeat all the Roman Emperors.

Will Solace was my son. I had already failed as a father so many times, I had so many kids that lay unclaimed, so many kids who died in my name while I never knew theirs. I was just a pathetic used-to-be God who had never done anything right in his life and now my son stood dying in front of me, I didn’t even have the strength to reach him.

No. 

Will needed me right now. I have to be stronger than this. I had to be worthy of my Son. Will had already done so much, been through so much, if he died because of me…

At first I didn’t recognise the heat burning in my chest, thinking it was just my growing anger at myself and at the one who had hurt my boy. But the heat turned into an inferno and I heard the beast behind me screech as its skin burned. I didn’t seem to have control over my Godly powers but that didn’t matter. The beast let go of me with a scream as the heat got too much and in an instant I was by Will’s side, his face in my hands.

“I’m here.” I said, wiping a stray tear from his face. “I’m right here.”

Will seemed to lose all of his strength and his knees buckled. I helped guide him to the ground, my heart breaking all over again when I heard him gasp. The world seemed to dissolve around us, there was no enemies around, no crazy Roman Emperor trying to become a God. It was just me and Will.

“Dad.” Will seemed out of breath, his chest spluttering up and down.

“Just relax…” I soothed. “I’ve got you.”

“Dad it hurts.”

“I know, I know. But you just have to relax.”

I needed to assess the injury but Will didn’t want to take his hand away. After a few more moments of calming him with soft words, he finally relented, his back arcing when I lifted his shirt. It was even worse than I had feared, jagged lines surrounding the deep puncture on his abdomen. Will hissed as I brushed against it, which at least meant he still had nerve feeling.

“Will, I need you to stay with me.” I said as his eyes seemed to flutter. “I know it hurts, but you’re going to get through this.”

Will’s eyes opened fully now, his beautiful blue eyes that reminded me so much of his mother. The normal sheen seemed to be missing, though if it was the lighting or his weakening body I did not know.

“I know.” Will mumbled. “With you, I can get through anything.”

His words struck me almost as strongly as a battering ram would. I fumbled for a response but as the God of Poetry all words seemed to allude me. As more blood pumped out of his wound, Will’s focus was waning once more.

“Will, I’m going to need to put pressure on your wound. Now, it’s going to hurt, but I need you to hold on. Can you do that?”

As Will hesitated, I became aware that Caligula was watching us as he lounged on his Roman sofa, popping grapes into his mouth as if he was watching the latest soap opera. I felt the rage boil up inside me again but I could deal with Caligula later. If the bastard was enjoying the show at least that meant I was allowed to treat my Son.

“Dad…” Will gritted his teeth. “I’m scared.”

“I know but I’m right here with you, okay? We’ll get through this, together.”

It was hard to believe that in just a few months, I could become so fiercely protective of Will. Of all of my Kids, really, Meg included in that list as annoying as she was. Before I became Lestor, when one of my children died I would be inconvenienced and maybe a little mad but those feelings would pass quickly, especially if that child hadn’t brought enough honour to my name. Humans simply hadn’t mattered all that much to me. But now the very idea of losing Will tore me apart.

Finally, Will nodded. He braced himself as much as he could, but the moment my hands pressed down on his side he was screaming, thrashing strongly.

“I’m sorry but it needs to be done.” I said as gently as I could while my own son fought against me. “Just breathe. Deep breathes… That’s it… Just breathe…”

His whole body jolted a few more times, plus another scream for good measure, but slowly Will relaxed beneath me. He was conscious, but barely, his face even whiter than before. He had lost so much blood already, it was surprising he had any strength left in him at all.

Will trembled, his breathing levelling out as much as it could considering the situation. Now that I had put pressure on the wound, while he was still bleeding it was a lot slower than before. I had bought him some time but time didn’t matter if I still couldn’t treat his wound.

Racking my brain for ideas, I realised that I was just delaying the inevitable. I had no equipment, no Godly powers, nothing. Will was still going to die and it was all my fault. I really was as useless as everyone thought I was. The God of Medicine, unable to stop his own son from bleeding to death.

Will suddenly hissed, his whole body spasming.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, knowing that whatever it was there was nothing I could do about it.

“It… Burns…” Will choked out.

I startled so much I almost lifted my hands off of his wound. Burns. That hadn’t been from the wound, that was from me. In my anger and frustration, I had somehow again accessed my solar based abilities. While I was far from a full fledged God, I was getting stronger. Hope blossomed in my chest as I realised that maybe there was something I could do after all.

But if I was to use my Godly powers to fix this, then I would have to do it now. Will didn’t have my time left and who knew how long my abilities would remain.

Not wanting to scare Will anymore than I had to, I knew that I had to explain to him what I was going to do.

“Will, I have to stop this bleeding. I’m going to have to cauterise the wound. Do you understand?”

“Cauterising is when you burn the blood vessels around a wound to close off the system in the hopes of retaining blood pressure.” Will spoke confidently as if he wasn’t going to be the patient, though his breathing was becoming more laboured. “A procedure only used in emergencies as it can cause nerve damage or shock.”

“Very good.”

“I’ve been studying.” Will gasped. “I got Nico to quiz me. Oh Gods Nico. He’s going to kill me if I die.”

“You’re not going to die.” I wish I could say that my own voice wasn’t shaking but it most definitely was. “Not if I cauterise your wound.”

“There’s no fire.” Will said sluggishly, his eyes barely open. “It needs to be hot enough to cause an instant burn.”

“I’m the God of the Sun, remember.” I said, trying to convince both him and myself that this was going to work. “If I summon enough power, I might be able to seal off the bleeding enough to get you to surgery.”

Will’s face definitely paled then but I knew that no matter what I could not let that boy die. I would save him, even if Will cursed my name for the rest of eternity.

“Okay.” Will whispered.

Okay? Will was going to let his own father burn him? Geez, I really did suck as a parent if Will was so willing to accept such a stupid plan.

“I trust you.” Will said. 

My heart felt heavier than it ever had. He trusted me after everything I had done to him, after everything I had done to his uncountable amount of siblings that he will never know. The beautiful boy trusted me to not let him die.

Summoning my powers came easier this time as I finally remembered how it felt, that warmth that spread to my finger tips. I had to sear the wound closed as fast as I could less Will pass out from shock but the moment my hands began to heat he was screaming again and I had to fight the urge to move away and give him space. I held my position on his wound, forcing my hands to burn hotter, my eyes stinging as the smell of my own son’s flesh hit me. 

I would never forget that smell, never forget the feeling of my hands on his skin.

Will was still screaming. 

A foolish part of me wished that he would lose consciousness, that he would not have to feel any of this, but the rest of me knew that if those blue eyes closed they might never reopen. 

“Just breathe, Will, I’m almost done.”

I wasn’t but even I didn’t want to acknowledge that. I urged my powers to burn hotter, hot enough that his wound closed but not so hot that he would melt.

When I at last sat back my head was spinning and the tears were falling freely. Will lay there trembling on the floor, surrounded by his own blood. My hands were covered in it too, all of me was. The wound that the knife had inflicted looked horrendous, the skin bright red with burns that would probably never heal even with Ambrosia. Injuries caused by Gods were always prone to scarring and I knew for certain that this injury would scar me for all eternity too.

“Dad…” Will croaked. 

“I’m here.”

“I’m… Sorry…”

Will’s eyes rolled back and his body went still.

I don’t know how long I screamed. I don’t know how Caligula’s chest felt beneath my fists. I don’t know how heavy Will felt in my arms. I don’t know how I had gotten to Camp Half Blood, I don’t even know why I had went there at all.

All I knew was that I loved my son and my son was dead because of me.

I had fallen asleep at some point, no not asleep, unconscious, the use of my powers draining all of my energy. When I awoke I was warm, the sun streaming in through the window. I twisted away from it, wishing to never again see what I used to love so much.

“Dad,” A voice said. “Are you awake?”

Kayla. Yet another child of mine that I had failed time and again. How she must loath me now, knowing what I had done.

“Dad,” She said again “You should try to eat something.”

Even the thought of food made me feel ill. The thought of cooked meat especially made my stomach roll and I was certain I could still feel Will’s skin burning beneath my hands.

Kayla sighed and I waited for her to leave. Everyone left me eventually, not that I blamed them. I had been lucky that she had even stayed here for so long. The bed creaked beneath me and I tried not to tense. I kept my back to Kayla, undeserving of her gaze, willing my hands to stop shaking. 

“It must have been hard.” Kayla said. “Doing what you knew you had to for your patient. I wish I could have been that brave.”

Will wasn’t just my patient that I had failed. He was my son. He was my son and he was dead because of me, because of the pain I had inflicted. 

“He’s resting now,” Kayla continued. “I’ve been keeping him hyd-“

I was already up and off the bed before I registered her words, my legs feeling like jello beneath me. It was impossible, Will couldn’t be resting. He was dead. He had to be dead. I had seen his eyes close, I had seen his chest stutter and stop. Hell, I was the God of Healing, I could sense when someone was dead. 

Except my powers had been taken from me all those months ago. I had been able to summon just enough solar energy to cauterise Will’s wound but that didn’t mean I had unlocked the full extent of my Godhood. I looked down on myself, realising that I was not Apollo but I was Lestor, pimples and all.

I staggered forward but Kayla caught me, a hand on my elbow.

“Easy,” Kayla said. “You’re still weak.”

“He’s alive?” I croaked, my heart breaking at the mere idea that I had misheard her.

“Yes.” Kayla said. 

My legs really did fail me then and Kayla guided me to the ground, a comforting hand on my shoulder. 

“Will is alive because of what you did.” Kayla said. “You managed to stop the bleeding. I won’t lie and say that he’s completely out of the woods, he has yet to regain consciousness, but he is alive.”

Oh thank the Sun he was alive. My boy was alive, I hadn’t killed him after all.

Kayla, being Kayla, didn’t let me stand until she was sure I would not collapse again and when she did I hugged her tightly, kissing her forehead.

“I am so proud of you,” I said. “You are incredible and amazing and-“

“Dad.” She said. “You’re freaking me out. Are you sure you didn’t hit your head in that fight?”

“I’m just so glad to have you as a Daughter.”

Kayla smiled, hugging me one more time. She led me to the other side of the cabin, apparently not convinced I could walk by myself after all. There was a portion of the Cabin that had been sectioned off with surgical drapes and when we came to it I felt myself stop. What if this was just some cruel trick after all, what if Will was laying on that bed dead because of what I had done to him.

One arm still on my elbow, Kayla used the other hand to draw apart the drapes. 

On the bed lay a small body, its torso covered in bandages, its arms bruised with two seperate IV’s that had blood products and saline. The body was pale, too pale to be alive, and yet its chest slowly raised and fell, its breath misting the oxygen mask.

Nico Di Angelo was watching me carefully from his place by Will’s side but he said nothing, his hand holding Will’s own. How the boy must loathe me, knowing what I had done to the love of his life. Nico cleared his throat, at last glancing away from me.

“Thanks.” He said. “I guess.”

I did not know what to say so I did not say anything. Kayla sat me down on a chair on the other side of Will’s bed. She busied herself with checking Will’s vitals but I knew that she was blinking back the tears brewing in her eyes.

She hated seeing her brother like this just as much as I hated seeing my son unconscious and on life support.

“Will,” I said, my voice breaking. “My Will…”

“Dad?” Will whispered, his eyes fluttering.

Nico lurched forward, as did Kayla, but my sole focus was on Will.

“Dad…” Will said. “It hurts.”

“I know,” I said. 

I glanced at Kayla but she shook her head. Will had already been given the maximum dosage of medication. 

“You’re going to be okay.” I said.

“I know.” Will whispered. “Because you’re here.”

[bxldrsdraumar]

a kiss where they’re both covered in blood (toa adjacent au? anyway sorry for being an unhygienic dragon as if its her fault)

Sacred sword in hand, hair pulled back, and with Sigurd at her side the Archbishop of the Church of Seiros has little to fear. She charges forth into enemy lines with the grace and ferocity of a swordsdancer while the Jugdrali knight smites his own share of foes atop his chosen steed; even so, the conditions are harsh – dragging mud and pouring rain slowing their advance despite the vigor of their approach.

Rhea pulls ahead to launch herself at a pegasus rider, but turns back when she hears a grunt of pain from behind her; she contents herself with making a mess of the mount’s wing before running back to her knight. He and his steed are in one piece but torn in places, and Rhea presses a hand to the scale like markings that show through Sigurd’s torn tabard.

“There is no need to push yourself to the brink, not any longer,” not in her service, Rhea thinks, and as casually as she would brush aside her bangs she presses a sluggishly bleeding arm wound to her own mouth before finding his lips with her own. “Here, you may take what you need.”

She is a beacon on the battlefield – bright and shining, thrumming with energy, his heart roars in triumph at the chance to ride into battle beside her, his liege, his lady, the progenitor of this second life that he carries. She dances about the field and she is a marvel to behold, decimating their foes in graceful arcs of her sword, and he is in awe of her terrible beauty. 

His horse sears forward, his own sword an extension of his arm, vibrating with each cleave, tremors skating up his arm begging moremoreMORE! 

Sigurd is at war and he is alive. 

He sees the ballista take aim from the corner of his eye, and tugs his horse sharply, and though he manages to deflect one quarrel another shears near enough to the poor beast's head that it arcs to the side, legs kicking wildly in the air before tumbling to the ground, its weight pressing firm against Sigurd's torso. 

He manages to wrench himself from underneath the beast, but he feels now the smattering of smaller wounds all about his body, seeping his lifeblood from him by ounces. 

She is at his side immediately, and she is radiant, fresh from the kill, and he chuckles at the scold, tilting his head in time with hers to accept the press of lips against his, the succor of his lady's life energy within him stoking a heat that had never been there before. 

The slant of his smile turns feral for a moment before he regains himself, coming to standing with her hands still wrapped around his throat, almost tender – and when the moment is broken, they turn from each other as one, launching themselves back into the fray. 

[vendettavalor]

Wild and Free

⚔️ For @dragetunge 's Hiccup! ⚔️

The sun-warmed wind flows over the ocean, carrying the smell of sea salt, beach sands, and wild foliage in full bloom. Cutting sharply away from the sea and the shoreline is a vast jungle of forests and wetlands. Fields and marshes and meadows. Their flowers are unique and beautiful, their wildlife even more so. A discovery most promising; a new series of land masses dots this corner of the map, rising from the sea with sloping beaches and grand cliffs featuring plethoras of rock arches and waterfalls. All around the spires of land, the birds flock in groups, nesting on the outcropping of cliff edges. Animals flee from the edge deeper into the lush wild lands. It all seems quite routine for a wild, untouched place like this.

And then, that normalcy is broken.

In the distance, the roar of some beast rolls low and booming like thunder. There’s the faint sound of a dragon’s fiery breath bursting in a vibrant explosion of light and color. A far edge of the forest shakes, trees trembling before pulling back as something bursts from the depths of them. It looks like a dragon. Its scales are a pale pink like the dusty petals of newly blooming rose. It beats the air with grand, powerful wings, rising into the air with effortless grace despite its size. Its wingtips brush the clouds before it dives down in a swoop, arcing gracefully in a long curve around the island’s outer edge. Its gaze is fixated on the trees, as though monitoring them. Patrolling them.

Guarding its territory.

It’s a magnificent beast, unlike anything the Book of Dragons has catalogued in its many pages. It’s a powerful flyer, bulky and almost cumbersome-looking in its appearance. Yet it flies with great precision and control. Graceful as a swan gliding by, commanding the wind with wings that crack the air with each rare wingbeat. Something seems to catch its eye, making it snarl and part its jaws in a roar. From the direction its fearsome gaze is turned, a glimmer in the trees- and a net shoots across the sky. It tangles around the beast faster than it can react, clamping down around its desperately writhing wings and sending it hurtling down into a field below with a shriek.

Dragon hunters.

[stjarnaloki]

The Hands that Hold You (Loki x f. reader)

hi! I finally have something to post! I am thrilled! this is the spicy sequel to this fic request about Loki's hands.

Major CW besides 18+: reader in this fic does suffer from mental health issues. please be aware if this is triggering to you. I wrote this heavily based on my own experience with derealization. It's so dark and dramatic in bits lmao but it felt good to write about. Words: 6k Tags: major friends to lovers, Loki is a simp, Loki is also an angsty idiot, post-Avengers Loki, Loki forgiveness arc, romantic smut, mentally ill reader, anxiety, healing, HANDS. Taglist:

@mad4marvelloki @lokiprompts @littlepupthoughs

finally, this fic is dedicated to the WikiHow page, "How to Throw a Knife"

Loki stayed for a long time, letting you rub and squeeze and caress the expanse of his beautiful hands, never once making a move to leave until you squeezed twice and yawned. 

And then he kissed the thumb that was wrapped around his, chaste and pure and honest. And then with a quick “night, sweet,” he was gone. 

Loki found you curled up in a ball in the pantry. 

“Hey…hey…what’s this…” he murmured, kneeling quickly beside you. Your back quivered with shivering breaths, your hands clutched to your stomach that threatened to spill at any moment with anxiety-induced nausea. 

“I d-on’t…I d-d-” your tongue, that didn’t even feel like your tongue, how was it moving? stuttered as you tried to explain how you felt. You wouldn’t wish this experience on your worst enemy. It was the most terrifying sensation, completely alien to anyone who hadn’t felt it themselves. And when you explained it, you felt insane. 

“I d-don’t feel like I’m real I’m not real I don’t feel like anything’s real…” you blurted all at once, followed immediately by a stuttering inhale that immediately crumpled into a sob. Snot ran from your nose freely, but you didn’t care…none of this was real anyway. Who cares what you look like?

Loki’s brows furrowed in worry, saying nothing as he placed one of his broad hands on your back. You felt the warmth from his palm vaguely as he rubbed slowly, but it was a numb, dull sensation. Like a sedative had been slipped in your drink. Only you wished it was such a simple explanation as that. It was your own head torturing you like this, no one to blame but yourself. 

From somewhere far away, you felt Loki gently pry one hand off your knee and clasp it in his. Loki knew something was wrong when your hand didn’t immediately start rubbing the pad of his thumb. That was your routine, a nearly immediate cure that the trickster was used to by now and secretly, though he’d never admit it to you, felt immensely proud of. But now, you held it limply, like you barely noticed it was there, your breath still wheezing raggedly. 

So Loki rubbed your back a little more forcefully, like a mother to a sick child. But to no avail. Your hand was clammy in his, and it still wasn’t responding to his touch. The confused Loki scanned your features hurriedly, his mind versed in Asgardian health literature trying to diagnose what you needed. Your eyes were glazed over, unblinking and staring down at the ground, the only movement in your wracking breaths. You were going to make yourself sick, or pass out completely, Loki thought, if this continued.

“Sweet, you must try to breathe…” he finally spoke, his voice soft as silk. 

“...try to breathe…” you heard from far away, in a voice that sounded muffled underwater. 

None of this was happening. The life before your eyes moved like a dream, in frames that didn’t make sense. You felt like you were a million miles away, staring at your own body as you cowered in the corner. Your own heartbeat roared in your ears, completely aware that your hyperventilating was making you feel worse and completely unable to stop.

“Deep breath now, please…” Loki murmured, an uncomfortable worry beginning to bubble in his stomach. Whatever was happening was an entirely new beast, far more complicated than nerves from a presentation. He could feel the tumultuous energy around you, nearly see the chaos swirling around in your head. 

“...please…” the faraway voice said again. It was Loki’s. But Loki wasn’t here. It was just your own stupid head, making you think that you weren’t real and now it’s making you hear voices that weren’t there. The panic increased, your sobs more violent. You felt like you were suffocating, marooned on an island with only the tortuous thoughts in your head. 

You vaguely felt hands grab your face, and Loki’s face swam into your vision in slow motion. You saw the green of his eyes first. 

“Breathe…” his lips moved, and you registered the word a few seconds later. Your heart thumped a little less loudly.

“Look at me…” the lips moved again. A command this time. Louder. His eyes were brighter than you’d ever seen, deep pools of emerald, with some emotion behind them that you couldn’t distinguish as anger or concern. Looking at them felt nice. You swallowed thickly, finally having enough time between pants to feel your own tongue. Then another swallow, and finally a slow breath that filled your lungs completely. You felt a squeeze of your hand and came to realize that Loki was not a trick of your mind. Loki was there, full flesh and blood, his long legs crossed awkwardly in front of him, his worried face inches from your own.

“Rub my hand, darling, feel it…” the man in front of you murmured softly. His voice sounded nearly normal now, no longer warbled and far away. You obeyed, feeling a little better now that feeling was returning to your limbs. “It’s real, see?” 

Your mind caught up to reality all at once, like a video resuming after being rewound. Loki was now in full focus, and you heard the tick tick of the fridge and the hum of the air conditioning vent above you. Loki’s hand was real. There was the soft pale skin, the bony ridges, and squishy thumb pads you knew well, bringing you slowly back into your body. You sniffed pitifully, still unable to speak, fresh tears streaming down your face. You readjusted your grip on Loki’s hand where it lay on your lap, smoothing over his knuckles. He offered his other one and you grabbed it with a shaking hand. Loki slowly brought it to his breast, pressing your hand flat against the spot over his heart. You felt a steady thumping, much slower than a human’s, but strong.  

“I’m real, I’m right here…” Loki murmured, squeezing your other hand again for emphasis. You nodded, trying to stop the flow of tears. After a long few minutes of focusing on his heartbeat, your breathing was steady and your pulse returned to a normal level. You felt weak and shaken, but the worst had subsided.

Loki brought the hand on his chest to his lips, laying a soft kiss to your knuckles. The intimacy of this gesture was completely lost on you, still reeling from your out-of-body anxiety attack. 

“Sorry…” you found your words again, but the word came out more like a burble, halfway caught in your throat. 

“Shut up…” Loki replied, gently, unfolding his long legs so you could lean against his chest. 

 At his kindness, you lost it again. Fresh tears welled in your eyes and they fell in fat puddles on his gray shirt where you buried your face.

“Shh…shsh…” Loki said, wrapping his free arm around your shoulders and drawing you closer. 

“I fucking hate it…” you sobbed. “I don’t know why this happens.” 

“You don’t have to understand why,” Loki murmured, his hand still in your own. You wrung it in such anguish you thought he would cry out, but he did not. “Some things just happen in your mind. Norns, if anyone would understand that it’s me.” 

Jesus, he was being sweet. With a long sniff, you gathered yourself enough to stop crying. You reluctantly pushed yourself up to sitting again, beginning to wipe your eyes with the backs of your wrists. 

“Ah-” Loki said, snapping his fingers to stop you. With a glimmer and a deadpan wink, Loki materialized a silk cloth with gold trim and presented it to you on an outstretched palm. You snorted, but took it gratefully. 

“Couldn’t you have just healed me?” you said, dabbing your eyes with the cloth, a little embarrassed at the fat tear stains you’d left on his shirt. “Zapped my head a little?” 

“I wanted to. You needed to break out of it yourself,” Loki said apologetically, leaning his long frame against a shelf full of rice. “The more you practice getting out of your own head, I think, the less daunting those feelings will be when they arise….” he said slowly, like a doctor postulating to a colleague. He looked at you apprehensively, like he was bracing for anger from withholding the remedy. 

You nodded instead, to his relief. 

“You sound like my shrink,” you sighed. “The only way out is through.” 

“The unfortunate truth, most times,” Loki replied. His words hung in the air, neither of you knowing what else to say. 

Loki broke the tension by clearing his throat. 

“I feel, personally, like a distraction would be a very good thing at the moment, no?” Loki said, all matter-of-fact. You smiled at his confidence, raising your eyebrows as if to say is that so? 

Loki jumped to his feet, holding out his hand to pull you from the ground. 

“Come with me.”

—-------------

“Not a workout…” you groaned, . “Loki…” 

Loki had led you at a brisk pace down the stairs to the doorway of the compound’s training center. He held the door open for you expectantly. 

“No, no,” Loki sighed impatiently. “Unlike my brother I don’t use my emotions as fuel to lift heavy things. Close, but not quite. Come,” he finished, nodding at you to come inside. “Trust me…” he wheedled when you didn’t move. 

You rolled your eyes, but allowed yourself to be ushered in. Once inside, Loki opened another door to what you thought was a closet, but turned out to be much more confusing. It was long, with a large padded board at the end of the room. Foam stuck out of the three dummies standing upright, where hundreds of slash marks had hit them. 

“Jesus Christ…” you said, marveling at the rack of daggers and battle knives that lined the opposite wall. 

“Marvelous, isn’t it?” Loki said, beaming, while he ran his finger down the edge of a dagger. It pinged when he flicked it. “Tony’s idea, the annoying fuck.” 

“Very nice…” you said slowly, more charmed by the grin that was stretching Loki’s face. The shadows that usually hung around his brow had faded entirely. 

“Try it,” Loki said, handing you a gilded handle of a blade. “Just throw one and see how it feels.” 

You took it silently, looking apprehensive. Loki faltered a little. He wasn’t used to displaying such enthusiasm. 

“It helps me feel better,” he said, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “I thought it might do the same for you…” his voice trailed off. 

You suddenly realized how much you enjoyed the crinkles that appeared at the corners of his eyes when he said something serious. 

“Okay…” you sighed, trying not to blush, and took a wider stance on the padded floor. You wound up your arm, gripping the dagger with force. With a slight grunt, you hurled it at what you thought was the third target’s upper shoulder, but turned out to be his mid-calf. The blade only stuck a few inches, and the weight of the handle made it tumble to the ground with a dull clunk after a few seconds. 

When you looked back at him sheepishly, Loki was rolling up his shirtsleeves. Your eyes fell on an exposed forearm, admiring how his dexterous fingers folded the fabric in on itself, how handsome his nose was as he focused on that insignificant, mundane motion.  

“That’s a fair first shot, my lady,” he was saying, skimming his fingers along the top rack of knives like an artist peruses tubes of paint. “But, erm…”

You had raised your eyebrows at “my lady,” but expectantly waited for Loki’s inevitably perfect execution. 

Loki tossed his choice, an eight-inch blade adorned with an intricate vine pattern, a few inches into the air and caught it again. 

“A little harder, darling,” Loki said, picking one up and hurling it with what could only be the energy of hundreds of years of anger and mistreatment. His smile was gone, replaced with a dark focus. The lips drawn thin, the eyes bright, his opposite fist flexing and unflexing at his side. He observed where his dagger had hit, directly in the heart of the dummy, and relaxed slightly. The shadow lifted, and he looked at you with a nod as if to say got that? 

“Did you see how I turned my hips?” he said, shaking his dark curls a little. 

Did I ever, you thought. “Think so,” was what you said. 

“Try again. And, um, try exhaling this time. When you throw it,” Loki said, handing you another blade. 

Loki, bless him, had handed you a much smaller blade this time. Still wickedly sharp, but no longer than a butter knife. It sat nicer in the curve of your hand. With less weight, you felt much more in control. 

You took a deep breath and stood sideways, gripping the handle. With a twisting motion, you hurled your arm in an arc at the target. This time, the blade landed with a much more satisfying thunk, and it stuck in place. 

“Oh, well done,” Loki said, quirking the corner of his mouth. “Our victim certainly requires stitches, at least,” he said, motioning to the dummy, where your blade was protruding out of its upper shoulder.

“You’re the one that gave me the butter knife,” you quipped, stripping off your sweatshirt to just your sports bra. 

“They’re just as deadly, if you want them to be.” Loki said with a chuckle, and you didn’t fail to notice his eyes flicking up and down your now-exposed torso. You felt a shiver run through you. 

“Can I?” he asked, stepping forward with an expectant hand. 

“Sure,” you said, swallowing thickly. 

He reached for your throwing hand, readjusting your grip so the thumb rested on the blunt edge of the knife. He shifted the rest of your fingers down with delicate touches, then clasped it in his own. 

“Now…” he stepped behind you, your back just brushing the front of his shirt. His touch was so unlike what you were used to. Instead of soothing, his hands were electrifying. The hand that didn’t hold the knife trailed down to your hip bone, where he pressed gently in the direction he wanted you to move.

You hoped he couldn’t feel your heartbeat that was hammering in your ribs. 

“It’s more in the elbow,” he muttered, drawing your arm up so it was perpendicular. He mimed throwing in slow motion, and you tried your hardest to ignore how his breath shifted the hairs on the back of your neck. 

“Got it?” he questioned once he’d done it a few times, stepping away.

“We’ll see,” you said, entirely skeptical you had absorbed anything he showed you with the scent of his aftershave still making your head spin. 

You inhaled deeply, eyes shut. When you snapped them open, you moved all at once, releasing the frustration you felt with your own mind. How unfair it was that other people had brains that just worked and were able to go about their days without the impending dread that something terrible was about to happen. The knife left your hand at the same time you let go of a shout of fury, shame, and fear, a loud bark that echoed off the walls until the knife sunk directly into the center of the dummy’s chest.

Silence followed, in which you just stared, panting at the emotional discharge. 

“Oh, shit,” Loki whistled, breaking the tension. When you didn’t respond, he leaned his head into your field of vision, where you still stared at the dagger sticking out of the dummy. 

“How’d that feel?” he said softly, snapping you out of your trance.

“Quite good,” you admitted, shaking yourself a little. “That must have been a fluke. Did you use your magic to make me feel better?” 

“On Valhalla, I did not,” Loki said, smiling at you. 

—---------

You threw daggers with Loki until orange light poked through the windows, signaling dinnertime. By the last throw, you felt cleansed. It was as close to forgetting about your panic attack as you ever would be. 

Loki tossed you a towel to wipe the sweat off. He’d made himself an outfit more comfortable than a button down, which turned out to be gym shorts and nothing more. He was glistening, too.

“I’ll see you at dinner?” you asked, suddenly feeling exposed and unsure how to end this violent therapy session. 

“Yeah, I’ll see you,” Loki said. But neither of you moved. You shifted your weight to the other hip, not wanting to be the one that ended this moment. Loki’s moods were forbidden rooms, too, often hidden by heavy doors. You didn’t know when you would see this one again.

You cleared your throat. 

“Thank you,” you said earnestly. “It helped. A lot.”

“Don’t mention it,” Loki said gruffly, freezing where he stared at you. 

“I’m sorry you had to see…this afternoon,” you continued, unable to hold your tongue. 

“Stop it,” Loki said a little forcefully. 

You took a step closer to him, feeling bold and foolish all at the same time. The emotions of the day left you feeling like you had little else to lose.

“You…make this bearable,” you said. 

“I don’t need thanks,” Loki cut you off gruffly. “You don’t owe me anything. It’s just what…”

“What friends do?” you said, your voice barely a whisper. Another step and your face would be inches from his. 

“If you’d like to call it that…” Loki said again, indulging in a long glance at your lips.

“Is that what you’d like to call…this?” you asked all at once, not breaking his dark green stare. His face moved an inch closer to yours in the long pause that followed, and then another inch. Your exhales danced on each others’ lips. 

“You trust me. And I trust you. And it is very hard for me to trust. I think that says enough,” Loki said, his lips so close to yours they brushed on his vowels.

That was as close to a confession as you’d get from the trickster, you reasoned. 

The first meeting of your lips was a pillowy-soft question. His lips spoke neither encouragement nor resistance at first. But the hands that flew to your waist a second later were not indifferent. They commanded you closer, drew you to his firm body so fast that you broke the kiss to gasp against his mouth.  

Loki’s mouth was devouring yours again a second later, kissing you with a fervor that caused goosebumps to prickle up your arms. 

For once, your hands got to explore the rest of his body. Caress his still-damp chest, tug gently on the curls at the back of his head. He was everywhere all at once, tasting your lips, licking your neck, nibbling your collarbones until you gasped against his cheek.

Loki stopped suddenly, leaning his forehead against yours and panting. 

“...you’ve had a shit day,” he said, the quiver in his voice giving away any chance he had of concealing his arousal. 

“Please don’t stop…” you moaned, trying to tug his broad shoulders closer to your body again. He backed away instead, making your insides feel like they were shriveling up. 

“I feel like you’re going to regret this,” he said, rubbing a frustrated hand over his forehead.

“What?” you exclaimed, but Loki was already sweeping out of the room, muttering I’m sorry. 

Loki didn’t come to dinner that night. When you went to bed, you slammed the door neighboring his room loud enough to rattle the paintings on the wall. 

—-------

You awoke a few hours before sunrise, with no other explanation but the annoyance you felt at your jilted kiss. You tossed in the sheets, running things you’d like to yell at Loki in your head. It was humiliating, the way he’d left you standing there, and after a kiss like that. 

Worst of all, and this shook you to the bone, you were afraid that your little outburst yesterday had ruined whatever chance you had to turn your friendship with Loki into something more. Maybe finding you in that snotty heap in the pantry had been the nail in the coffin on your connection. You could hardly blame him. 

No, Loki wouldn’t do that, the tiniest voice in your head said. 

Do you really know that? The louder, ruder voice said. 

After ten minutes of this, it became clear you were not going to get back to sleep. You threw on a t-shirt and didn’t bother with pants, assuming the rest of the compound was asleep. 

Going to Loki’s room crossed your mind, but you shoved the thought aside, feeling foolish. 

That is, until you opened the door and there was Loki, apparently working up the courage to knock. 

“Fuck,” you yelped, startled at the unexpected tall, dark shadow.

“Oh,” he mused. “Hello.” 

“What do you want?” you asked him sullenly. 

“I saw your light turn on. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“What, so you can take care of me because it strokes your ego and then run the other way once you remember how much of a fuck-up I am?” 

You threw the words at him, wanting them to make him yell and scream so this could just be over, but the trickster denied you of that as well. He frowned, making you feel even worse. 

“You know as well as I do that we’re both fuck-ups,” he finally said, looking at you with the trace of a smirk at the corner of his mouth.

You lunged forward to hit him square in the chest, and found yourself instead on his lips, kissing them with all the violence of the punch. Loki made a noise in the back of his throat as your tongue circled his, clawing at his shoulders to get him inside. 

Without breaking your lips, Loki pushed you backwards and spun you around until the door clicked shut with the weight of him pressing you against it. His hands rifled up the fabric of your long t-shirt as he licked into your mouth, and you helped him by ripping it over your head. 

He groaned at the sight of the pale moonlight dancing on your bare breasts, squeezing them with both hands until you gasped. 

“I’m still mad at you,” you half-moaned as he took one of your nipples between his teeth. 

“I know,” Loki said, licking a hot stripe up the center of your chest before pressing his tongue into your mouth again.

“I…” your admonishment was interrupted as a gasp escaped your lips, brought on by Loki’s hand trailing down to your thigh. “I got the impression I scared you off…”

Loki sighed, kissing you again, this time a little more gently, letting his lips drag off of yours before he spoke. 

“I am sorry for what happened yesterday. I felt…guilt, and it was unnecessary, and it hurt you,” Loki said, speaking slowly, as if he chewed each word.  

“You’re not the only one whose mind spirals out of control sometimes. I was worried you’d think I’d only cared for you because I wanted something,” Loki said, his eyebrow knit together in an endearing worry. “I assure you, I’ve wanted you for some time and I have not been capable of expressing it. You were the one who faced it head-on, and I ran like a scared little boy, and for that I am truly sorry,” Loki finished, looking at you expectantly. 

You said nothing, but a smile curled your lips and you toyed with the hem of Loki’s shirt. 

“Besides, wasn’t my rock-hard cock enough of an indicator that I wanted you desperately?” Loki murmured, the lust returning to his voice. “Frankly, I didn’t come to dinner last night because I couldn’t stop thinking about how pretty you’d look with my come leaking out of you,” Loki said between kisses he nipped onto your breasts

“Oh…fuck, Loki…” the image of his white liquid defiling your skin sent floods between your legs. Your hips arched off the back of the door on their own, searching for friction. You clawed at Loki’s back, wanting to be so close to him that he absorbed you. 

“Easy, darling…” Loki purred, but relenting, hiking your leg up so your throbbing heat rested on his hip. You ground onto it, heaving a shuddering breath at this first delicious friction.

Loki watched you write your hips against him, his lips pink and shining with your saliva. 

“Look at you…” he murmured appreciatively, training his hands down your abdomen and appreciating the twitches they sent into your core.

“So sensitive,” he purred as your skin jumped under his fingertips. 

“Loki,” you whispered, looking at him through half-lidded eyes, his name on your lips more of a request than a statement. He understood.

With your other leg already wrapped around his waist, he grabbed your other hip and easily hoisted you so his body was the only thing holding you against the door. His weight was deliciously smothering, his hips gently rocking his straining cock against your stomach. 

“Tell me,” Loki breathed hot into the crook of your neck, his hips grinding in tandem with yours, each trying to chase pleasure through clothing. “Tell me how you want me and I’ll give it to you…anything…” he panted.

A thrill went through you, as this was surely the most desperate thing you’d ever heard him say.  

“I want you inside me,” you said shamelessly. “Fuck me until I’m sore and leaking your come all over the sheets, Loki, please.” After those sinful words left your mouth, you grabbed one of Loki’s hands that you loved so much and brought it to your mouth, slowly sliding two of his digits into your wet lips. You sucked them gently, bringing their length down the back of your throat, saliva coating them as you suppressed a gag around them. 

Loki’s eyes went black. His cock jumped against your stomach, so hard it must have been painful. His lips parted in, was it shock or desire?, and his other hand was suddenly gripping your hip so hard you felt blood vessels burst. You finally released his fingers, letting your lips drag over them as they left your mouth. Loki growled as he watched a trail of spit connect your lips to the tips of his fingers, a feral sound that sent floods gushing into the panties that still kept your cunt from him. He was captivating and terrifying.

Loki attacked your mouth again, panting and moaning against your tongue in a frenzy as he threw your arms around his neck. Lips still connected, he carried you over to the bed and set you down, not removing his tongue from your mouth until you scrabbled impatiently at the front of his sweatpants.   

Loki’s cock was nearly at eye level when he stood over you. With his clothing glimmered away, his tip was shining in the moonlight, beckoning you, and without thinking you licked up the shaft until the entire head was in your mouth. You tasted the tang of salt and you moaned around it. Loki gasped with the vibration you made around his cock, pulling you by the chin off of his length. 

“You do that again and I’ll come…” he said, almost a threat, but his eyelids fluttered with pleasure. 

“Isn’t that the point?” you said, dipping forward to lick at the pink head again. 

“Uhn….” Loki groaned, pulling you off again, trailing one thumb over your wet lips as he stared down into your eyes. “Not yet. Get on your stomach.” 

You obeyed in an instant, and in another Loki’s body was encompassing yours, his heavy cock resting in the curve of your low back as he lay sweet kisses up and down your spine. One hand snaked under your hips until it found your clit and you jerked at the sudden jolt of pleasure.

“Shhh….sh..sh…that’s it…” Loki said into your shoulder blade, circling slowly until you relaxed into his touch. Soon you relaxed and your hips began to grind down onto his fingers, fresh wetness flowing over his hand and sheets under you.

“You’re dripping, my darling…” Loki said in reverence.  

“Oh, shit…” you moaned, your voice muffled into the bedsheets. You felt your core begin to flutter, the rock of your hips becoming more desperate. Loki sensed this too from the way your body shook with every circle of his index finger, and withdrew. Your cunt clenched around air, left wanting in his fingers’ absence. 

“Are you ready for me, sweet girl?” Loki murmured into the crook of your neck, letting his lips drag down your shoulder where you quivered under his touch. 

“Please…” you cried, shifting your hips to angle towards him. You were aching to be filled. 

“Turn over for me, baby,” Loki murmured. “I want to look into your eyes when I fill you up.” 

Your cunt clenched again at this idea as you flipped and drew him into a deep kiss. His body rippled over yours, his cock leaking clear fluid onto your stomach.

Loki hoisted one knee to your chest, spreading your entrance open for him. He dipped his head to kiss you once more before drawing back, pumping a handful of your slick up and down his shaft. With one thumb he tugged your lips open, gazing at the glistening pink softness with blown pupils.  

“Loki, please,” you mewled, growing impatient. “Please, I need you inside me.” 

Loki leaned down, one hand lining up his slicked head at your entrance. He nipped at your bottom lip, and gave you what you wanted. 

“Oh-fuckkkkk” you both cried. Loki exhaled into your mouth as he pressed the head of his cock into your tightness. 

“Fuck,” he echoed, drawing back before pressing himself further inside. 

“More…” you said in a strangled voice, clawing at his back with your nails. “Loki give me more.” 

He plunged into you again, deeper this time, his green eyes still piercing yours. He absorbed every furrow of pleasure in your brow, every shudder the ridge of his head brought when it brushed against your g-spot. 

“Oh, darling, I love watching you take my cock like this,” Loki groaned, thrusting once more. He worked your clit with his thumb, adding delicious pressure that opened you up while he stretched you. 

“Oh, god,” you gasped in a breath that was entirely Loki’s air. 

Loki bottomed out inside of you at the same time he slipped his tongue between your lips. He broke the kiss when he felt you clench around him, gasping fuck, darling, before kissing you wetly again. 

“You like feeling me all the way inside?” Loki murmured when you parted, rocking his hips ever so slightly. “You like being all filled up like this, don’t you, sweet girl?” 

You whimpered and nodded, arching your back to your chest pressed into his. Then he took your hand and placed it on your abdomen, pressing it down until you gasped.

“Yeah, you feel me right there?” Loki growled, rocking his hips in and out so you could feel his length moving inside you under your palm, stretching you, ruining you. You covered your mouth with your other hand, practically sobbing at how much this aroused you. Fluid gushed around Loki’s cock and down your thighs, making him murmur in approval.  

“You could come just like this, couldn’t you?” Loki’s teasing was relentless. 

“Yes, oh, fuck, please, yes, I can come, I’ll come for you,” you gasped all in one breath, still feeling the swell of Loki’s cock stretching the skin of your stomach. 

At once, Loki’s hips began to move with purpose, drawing a gasp of pleasure from you every time the ridge of his head rubbed your g-spot. With his thumb, he circled your swollen clit, each touch its’ own little wave that rippled through your core. 

“Gods, I can feel you gripping me,” Loki said, his voice shaking with the rhythmic tightening of your cunt that meant you were about to explode. 

“Loki, Loki..ah- Loki,” your voice was a high-pitched whine. 

“Tell me, darling” Loki goaded you, rocking his hips faster, the sound of wet skin filling the room.

 “I’m gonna come, I’mgonnafuckingcome…” was your incoherent whisper. You grabbed the sides of Loki’s face, drawing him closer, wanting to be filled by his tongue and his cock as you came.

“Come for me, darling, that’s right, yes, oh, you’re almost there….” Loki’s lips brushed your own with every word. “Look at me when you come,” he thumb echoing the command as it swirled harder on your clit. Your core was fluttering rapidly, making Loki grit his teeth.

“Come for me, now,” Loki choked out, at the same time his cock twitched inside you. His last thrust was sloppy and wet and perfect, and together you both went rigid with pleasure, eyes locked on each other and sharing hot, stuttering gasps.

“OH….fuck…” you rasped, wave after wave of white-hot ecstasy rushing through your body, milking Loki’s cock as he spilled inside you.

“Uhnnn…” Loki moaned as your cunt drew his come deeper with every clench of your orgasm. His release flooded you with warmth, pooling inside you until you were entirely his. 

Loki’s arms shook and he collapsed on your chest, both of you struggling to breathe in the aftermath of your pleasure. 

You felt limp as you came down from your high, completely content with being smothered by Loki’s firm body on top of you. You wrapped your arms around his neck, stroking his back until his breath returned to normal. 

He raised his head at last, his face flushed the most gorgeous tinge of pink. He kissed you slow and deep, lust quickly replaced with sweetness. 

Loki hissed when he finally slid out of you. As promised, white liquid followed, running down the seam of your cunt and onto the sheet. Loki smirked, admiring the mess he’d made of you.   

“What have we done?” you questioned, smirking back at him. 

“Are you complaining?” Loki questioned, tugging you so his body encompassed yours. 

“Far from it,” you murmured, shivering at his hands on your body. Those hands. The ones that had started all of this.

“Good.” Loki said, sleep already creeping in the edge of his voice. 

“Is this going to be a problem?” 

“Undoubtedly.” 

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