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breakyeol · 4 years

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Sweet, Sweet Relief

Pairing : chanyeol x reader

Summary: in which your gorgeous best friend knows just what to do to help you relax.

Warnings: strong language, shy yeol towards the end, explicit sexual content; mild muscle kink?? i think??, dry humping for like two seconds, oral (f. receiving) aka pussy eating king back at it again, fingering, park chanyeol bc the man deserves a warning all his own

Word Count: 3.3k

a/n; ah yes, best friends to lovers, my favorite cliche. i can’t stop writing for Chanyeol lately?? which really isn’t that out of the ordinary bc the man is literally my muse, but it seems a bit excessive at times yikes. but i also think it’s a good thing because i’m making some leeway with his prince au!!! yay!!! hopefully it won’t be too terribly long of a wait! until then, i hope these drabbles turned one shots will hold you over :) enjoy!

“You’re stressed out.”

It wasn’t a question.

You sighed, head shaking as you spared Chanyeol a glance from the corner of your eye.

“I’m fine.”

“You’re obviously not.” Was his abrupt response, concerned eyes dragging over the length of your tensed features, pausing on the visible lines above your brow and at the corners of your mouth.

He was right, of course. You weren’t alright. In all honesty, you hadn’t been alright for the past month. Your latest assignment was beating the absolute shit out of you, draining your mind and body of all its viable energy and leaving you an exhausted, stressed out disaster of a person.

Unfortunately, you knew that if you admitted it out loud to Chanyeol, he would not let you spend another second staring at your stupid computer screen. But you really had to get the project done by the end of the week or you were totally and royally screwed. And if he couldn’t make you feel better, Chanyeol would end up feeling like shit and that in turn would make you feel even more like shit than you already do and it would be an endless cycle of the two of you feeling like shit and does anybody really need that right now? You were already struggling enough without having an extra pouty, sulking best friend to tend to.

“Chanyeol—“ you began, running your palms over your face as you concocted a number of things to say to get him to stop worrying. But, he didn’t give you the chance.

“I can do it again.”

Your hands fell away from where they’d begun to press against your sore eyes, a look of confusion crossing your features.

“Huh?”

He swallowed, shifting where he sat beside you on the plush sofa. You followed his every movement through narrowed eyes, your confusion building as a shade of pink dusted over his cheeks.

“I–if you want me to... I can do it again.”

It took you a second. To put the pieces together. To remember. For the shock to settle over you. It took a second, but it was with a jolt that you realized what he was talking about. Warmth blossomed beneath your skin, but you forced your expression to fall into that of gentle chiding.

“Yeol. We agreed that it was a one time thing.”

The near rejection had him crumbling in on himself, the blush coating his cheeks intensifying tenfold as he fiddled with his fingers in his lap.

“I know but... I don’t mind. If it helps.” He suddenly straightened his back and you damn near jumped out of your skin as one of his hands fell across your thigh. He stared into your eyes, determination and sincerity burning in his own. “I want to help.”

“Yeah but you don’t have to help like th— ah!” You yelped in surprise as he suddenly pushed you and you fell backwards onto the couch with a soft ‘oof’. “What the h– ell…” your voice gave with an embarrassing crack as Chanyeol crawled on top of you, straddling your hips and caging your head between his arms. The sudden change of position caught you completely off guard, and you found yourself grappling hopelessly to try and get your mind back on track.

“Let me help you, y/n. You know I’m good at it.” His voice had dropped an octave, softening into a near whisper. Heat pooled in your cheek, and you blinked rapidly, mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water.

Sure he was good —probably one of the best you’d ever had if you were being completely and totally honest—, but accidentally fucking your best friend while you are both wasted and horny beyond rationality is completely different than committing the act while sober and capable of discerning between right and wrong. And this— this had to be wrong.

Even if it felt so deliciously right.

Quickly ridding yourself of the thought, you pressed your palms against his chest with every intention to pushing him away, only to falter at the feeling of taut, bulging muscle beneath your fingertips that you were almost certain hadn’t been there the last time you’d laid your hands on him.

“Have you been working out?”

The question was so out of place in the situation that Chanyeol couldn’t rein in his laughter before it came bubbling from his chest in several loud, contagious eruptions.

“A little…” his lips curled into that familiar, boyish grin, “wanna see?”

Asking proved pointless as he sat up before you could conjure up an intelligible response and took hold of the bottom of his hoodie. In one soft motion, he pulled it over his head and tossed it aside without a care. You couldn’t help but gawk like a fool at the sight you were left with.

“W–wow.” You coughed out, blinking rapidly as you absorbed the expanse of the tanned, toned body on top of you. ‘A little’ had been an understatement. The last time you saw him shirtless, you can’t quite seem to recall there being such a defined six pack… or such impressive biceps… fuck.

“Wanna feel?”

His large hand was already wrapped around your wrist before the question escaped his lips, though this time he actually waited for your verbal approval before proceeding. Was it really the best idea to be feeling up your shirtless best friend after he’d just propositioned you? Probably not. Were you going to do it anyway? Abso-fucking-lutely.

Allowing him to guide your palm to his impressive pectorals, you almost moaned at the feeling of the hard, warm skin beneath your greedy fingertips. “Not bad, huh?” He asked, smug smirk twirling at the corners of his lips.

“In a word.” You offered mildly, far too absorbed in tracing the defined ridges of his abs to come up with one of your usual smart ass responses. The faintest of gasps fluttered from his lips as you caressed over a particularly sensitive area, and you didn’t miss the goosebumps that rose across his sun kissed skin— nor the pressure of something hard suddenly nudging up against your hip.

Swallowing thickly, you tipped your head up, making the deadly mistake of meeting his eyes. They were dark, darker than you’d ever seen them, and hooded, pretty eyelashes fluttering across his flushed cheeks with every lazy blink. Something dangerous yet tempting swirled within them, and you found yourself too overwhelmed to hold his intense gaze for much longer, quickly diverting your attention elsewhere.

But, just your luck, your eyes happened to land directly on the second most dangerous feature on his face— his lips. They were a dark, lovely shade of pink and deliciously swollen from the relentless assault of his teeth. The unexpected urge to tip you chin up and kiss him crashed over you with all the strength of a tsunami, heat flooding down between your thighs. Instinctively, you tried to close them, but the shape of his body prevented you from doing such. Unfortunately for your sanity, the pressure of your legs squeezing around his hips gave Chanyeol a different idea all together, a whole new way of absolutely wrecking you.

You almost— scratch that, you quite literally choked on air when he suddenly rolled his hips down, grinding against you. It was more experimental than anything else, testing the waters, seeing just how far you’d let him go. When you showed no signs of pushing him away and telling him to go fuck himself, he did it again, and this time, you really did moan out loud. Chanyeol shuddered at the sound, positively delighted that he’d been the one to pull such a delicate, sexy noise from you.

Encouraged and invigorated with newfound determination, he set a steady, confident rhythm with his hips, rolling them into yours in hard, deliberate, fluid motions.

“Let me make you feel good, y/n.”

A shiver wracked your body, and you found yourself utterly helpless against the deep rasping bass of (what you liked to identify as) his sex voice. It was at least an octave deeper than his regular voice, with a deliberate yet natural hoarseness that shot straight to your core. And no being on earth was immune to it, including you.

“Okay. Fuck, okay,” you caved, breathing heavy and uneven just from that juvenile dry humping alone, “but this is seriously the last time, Chanyeol. We can’t keep doing shit like t–this.”

A triumphant grin twisted onto his rose petal lips, “that’s alright. Just this once is all I need.”

Contrarily, you feared this little indiscretion would make you crave him all the more.

You sighed softly as his head fell into the juncture of your neck, painting hot, open mouthed kisses across the vulnerable skin. “No marks.” You huffed lightly when he resorted to sucking and nipping, and you could feel the pout that downturned the corners of his lips, but he made no objections nonetheless. A trembling breath flooded out of your chest as he descended your body, pushing up the loose fabric of your t-shirt to press searing kisses across your belly, all the way down to the elastic of your leggings. He glanced up at you, and somehow the angle made him look more attractive than he already was.

“Don’t be nervous.”

You shot him a lopsided grin, “who’s nervous?”

He didn’t look convinced, thumbs rubbing soothing circles into the skin of your hips. “If you don’t want to do this, that’s completely alright, just tell me and I’ll—”

“Don’t stop.” Chanyeol’s eyes widened at the sudden interruption, staring up at you with all the excitement and hope of a puppy getting a treat dangled in front of his nose. Sinking your teeth into your lower lip, you allowed your thighs to relax, falling open before him. “Please… don’t stop.”

He literally whined, though it quickly pitched into a rough, heavy groan somewhere deep in his chest. Long fingers slipped beneath the tight elastic of your leggings, making quick work of tugging them down the length of your legs. The air was cold against your bare skin, prickling goosebumps shooting up across your freshly shaved and lotion lathed legs (you silently thanked yourself for making yesterday one of your monthly self care days). The chill of the air was warded away by the warm press of his hands against the flesh of your thighs, grip tight enough to bruise.

“Fuck.” You hissed as he feathered his mouth over your clothed pussy, the heat of his breath rippling through your core in tiny shockwaves. Something dangerous glinted in his hooded eyes, and you let out a shaky moan when he flicked his tongue experimentally. The thin grey cotton darkened with a mixture of his saliva and your arousal, and he moaned quietly when your faint flavor hit his taste buds.

“Baby,” he purred softly, rolling his thumb over your clit and prodding the tip of his tongue where he estimated your entrance was. Your head tipped back against the cushion, mouth opening in a silent gasp. One of your hands reached down to weave through his thick black locks, while the other grabbed hold of the armrest behind your head. “Can I take them off?”

“Yes.” You breathed, removing your hand from his hair to brace it against the couch as you lifted your hips, allowing him to pull the black cotton down your legs. He tossed them aside haphazardly, a low groan rumbling in his throat at the sight of your bare core, wet and exposed in front of him. The first time you’d done this, it had been too dark and he’d been too drunk to really appreciate you. So, he’d take his time now. Really take his time.

“You’re so pretty.”

Warmth blossomed beneath your cheeks and you scoffed softly, trying your best to act like the compliment hadn’t made your heart flutter. He dragged his index slowly through your arousal, mouth falling open with a breath of amazement as he admired the glistening wetness that coated it. Chills rolled down your spine, an almost embarrassingly desperate whine resonating in your throat.

“Chan.” The urgency in your voice made him smile, and he looked up at you with eyes sparkling with mischief. You could only watch helplessly as he dragged his finger away from you, and slipped it between his lips, humming in delight.

Fuck. He was definitely trying to kill you.

Luckily for you, that one little taste proved to not be anywhere near enough for his insatiable appetite and, without warning, he pressed his face in close and began lapping eagerly at your pussy. Your mouth gaped, hips bucking up uncontrollably as his nose ground into your clit, his hot tongue licking hungrily at your entrance. Pleasure ignited in your veins like a wildfire, explosive and untamable and all consuming. It stretched through every part of your body, setting your skin ablaze in the wake of his touch.

“Oh my god, Chan—” he groaned against you in response, hooded eyes fluttering blissfully as he lost himself in the taste of your cunt. He was eating you out like his life depended on it, fierce and unrelenting, the sound of it wet and messy. You were moaning his name, thigh tightening spastically around his head, but his strong, calloused hands kept them apart, forcing them open so he could have his way. You almost lost it completely when he wrapped his lips around your clit and started sucking.

Strangely enough, you found that without the intoxication of alcohol in your system, everything he did had that much of a more intense effect on you. It was like every touch, every sensation was amplified by your mere sobriety; the heat of his mouth, the softness of his lips, the eagerness of his tongue, the pressure of his fingers. You felt all of it, every one of your senses going into overdrive.

And god it was so much. And yet, you still wanted more.

“Y– your fingers, Chan, your fingers, please—” you panted, brows knitting as you felt that familiar tightening in your gut. He quickly obeyed, sinking his long middle finger inside of you with such ease you almost felt embarrassed. But there was no room for such emotions when you were so enthralled in the hot rush of pleasure bursting like the most brilliant of firecrackers in your veins.

A second finger was swift to join the first, stretching you out so deliciously that your toes curled. With his free hand, he tugged at your knee, bringing it up to rest over his shoulder. The new angle forced your hips off of the plush cushion below, his skilled fingers burying themselves deeper, pillowy lips sucking harder. It was over the second his digits curled, stroking up against that perfect little spot that had white hot electricity crackling in your blood.

Your orgasm hit you hard and fast. It was hot and overwhelming, the persistent, eager pressure of his mouth and hands drawing it out as long as it could possibly go. He dragged it out until you were limp and trembling beneath him, moaning and whining out broken fragments of his name, too lost in the bliss inducing thralls of your high to feel even the slightest hint of shame.

His ministrations seemed to grow even fiercer through your orgasm, his ravenous moans increasing in volume right alongside yours. He only pulled away when he knew you wouldn’t be able to withstand anymore, resorting to pressing soothing kisses and murmuring breathless praises against the soft, trembling skin of your thighs.

“Fuck you, Chanyeol.” You laughed breathlessly, tossing an arm over your eyes.

“Fuck me? Fuck you, I almost busted in my pants when you came. That was so fucking hot.” He groaned, sinking his teeth into his bottom lip as he crawled back on top of you, caging your head between his arms. You chuckled, warmth spreading through your cheeks. A sweet smile upturned the corners of his mouth. “Did it help?”

The question was less than a breath against your lips, so soft you had to strain your ears to hear it. You swallowed, gaze momentarily dropping to his mouth before returning to his eyes, only to find that they’d honed in on your lips.

“It helped. You helped.”

He inhaled shakily, tongue slipping out to trace the seam of his bottom lip. “Can I help a little more?” He asked, and you felt his bangs feather over your forehead as his head lowered. Hot breath rushed over your mouth. Instead of answering, you reached up and cupped his face, pulling him into a kiss. It was short, shy, sweet. Such a stark contrast to the fierce hunger he’d displayed going down on you not two minutes ago that you couldn’t help the giggles of amusement that came bubbling from your chest. He broke away from you with a bashful smile, gently resting his forehead against yours.

“You suck.” He mumbled, pouting childishly.

“I’m pretty sure you’re the only one that’s done any sucking.” You teased.

“Who am I to argue with the facts?” He sighed dramatically, feigning defeat.

You laughed loudly, an obnoxious cackle that had to be one of the most unattractive sounds you’d ever made, but it was abruptly cut off when he reattached his mouth to yours. You hummed contently, carding your fingers through the short hairs on the back of his neck. The taste of you lingered on his tongue, and he painted the inside of your mouth with it. Warmth spread through your chest, your heart picking up speed as you melted into his kiss, melted into the warmth that the presence of his body provided you with.

“I lied.”

Your eyes blinked open, surprised by the sudden admission. “Huh?”

The look on his face stirred to life a strange, but vaguely familiar emotion in the depth of your chest. A crimson blush darkened his cheeks and his gaze shied away from yours. For a moment, you were reminded of the little, goofy looking boy that shyly handed you a heart shaped box of caramel chocolates on Valentine’s Day all the way back when you were thirteen. He had the same big sweet eyes, the same crimson cheeks, the same large pink tipped ears.

“I said that just this once is enough...” he swallowed, adam’s apple bobbing as he nibbled nervously on the corner of his lip, “but it isn’t. It isn’t enough.”

“What do you mean?”

He cupped the side of your face, thumb tracing the line of your lip. “I want you. I- I want to be more to you— to be more to you than just a friend.”

You narrowed your eyes at him, offering him a sly smirk. “Are you… confessing to me, Park Chanyeol?”

“Depends.”

“On what?”

He smiled down at you bashfully. “If you say yes.”

“Hmm…” you squinted your eyes and pursed your lips as if you needed to think it over. But you had a feeling that a moment like this was long past due, so you resisted the urge to draw it out and torture him, opting to give him a more straight forward answer to put his racing heart at ease. “Yes.”

“Thank god.” He groaned happily, smooshing your face between his massive palms and tugging you into a deep, but playful kiss that made your skin tingle. You giggled noisily against his lips, draping your arms over his neck to keep him close. “Does this mean I get to eat you out like that whenever I want?”

“Oh, without a doubt,” you snickered as he pumped his fist, hissing out an eager ‘yes’. You grabbed his chin between your thumb and forefinger, drawing his attention back to you. “And next time...” you tipped your head up to nip at the sensitive lobe of his ear, letting a downright wicked grin curl across your lips, “I’ll gladly return to favor.”

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ambiguousdisorderken · 3 years

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in your expert opinion what are some of the most destiel-heavy episodes of spn? i stopped watching around season 7 and have no interest in engaging w the plot of the show at all but i’m in the mood for some gay yearning ykwim

Hi anon! Thank you for reaching out to me about this, I’m, no-joke, very flattered. I’d seen a couple posts on this same question, very thorough and detailed lists on Destiel-centric episodes, but at the moment I cannot find any of them, that would’ve answered your request much faster. So, in advance, sorry, my reply is probably coming in extremely late, but I did write this from scratch, so yeah.

Even though storylines in SPN can be very shitty and hollow, I do feel that to get the full Destiel experience -that long-drawn yearning- one would have to watch the entirety of the show, even if Cas isn’t in the episode or if there’s no explicit mention of their relationship/bond because it gives you a better understanding of them as characters and of how their relationship affects the narrative.

Now, you mentioned you stopped around S7, which is completely understandable and justified given the Dick plot game was very weak and, in my opinion, annoying (so little Cas!). I’m going to start listing from S7 in case you want to refresh your SPN before jumping straight into unseen episodes. Also, since you mentioned no interest in the plot and are specifically craving those sweet crumbs of gay yearning, I’ll skip most one-sided / too subtle episodes and cut to the chase.

Lastly, I hate spoiling things, but you’ve probably seen it all on Tumblr. I tried to keep the episodes’ descriptions short, as it might come in useful. Stuck to key words, quotes and/or little comments.

Season 7

7x01 – Meet the New Boss: Godstiel, sincere apology. Cas: “I'm gonna find some way to redeem myself to you.”

7x02 – Hello, Cruel World: Mourning. Trench coat melancholy. The heart-wrenching eulogy: “Dumb son of a bitch.”

7x17 – The Born-Again Identity: Emmanuel!Cas, reunion, longing, hurt.

7x21 – Reading is Fundamental: Honey!Cas, hug, hurt, reunion, that painful SORRY (board game) scene.

7x23 – Survival of the Fittest: Honey!Cas, forgiveness, adorable, wified Cas. Dean hits us with: “Nobody cares that you're broken, Cas!" but also “I'd rather have you, cursed or not.”

Season 8 (this season is so good and Destiel is the driving motor of it, I swear. If you can, watch it complete.)

8x01 – We Need to Talk About Kevin: Dean in Purgatory looking for the angel. Cas is referred to as “your [Dean’s] angel.”

8x02 – What’s Up, Tiger Mommy?: HUG!!!, Purgatory reunion, face touch, very romantic. Monster: “ You'll find your angel there.” // Dean: “Let me bottom-line it for you. I'm not leaving here without you.”

8x05 – Blood Brother: Cas vs. Benny cat fight lol. Dean: “Cas... we're gonna shove your ass back through the eye of that needle if it kills all three of us.”

8x07 – A Little Slice of Kevin: Cas comes back from Purgatory, but before that Dean starts seeing him in places. Very tragic; hallucinating your dead significant other trope. Has That boner scene. Dean: “I did everything I could to get you out! EVERYTHING!” Cas helps Dean see what truly happened in Purgatory and not his self-altered memories. PACKED!

8x08 – Hunteri Heroici: Hilarious, romantic, intimate. Dean and Cas have an heart to heart. They actually communicate. Cas “I’ll watch over you.”

8x10 Torn and Frayed: They work a case together, and when I say heart eyes…

8x17 – Goodbye Stranger: THIS. EPISODE. Dean “I need you.”

8x19 – Taxi Driver: Separation. Naomi to Dean: "You're hoping Castiel will return to you. I admire your loyalty; I only wish he felt the same way."

8x22 – Clip Show: Lack of trust, hurt, tense interactions. Romantic too (basically, Cas gets Dean an apology basket).

8x23 – Sacrifice: Meaningful conversation and a gay couple hit by Cupid parallel. Dean “So this is it? E.T goes home?"

Season 9

9x01 – I think I’m Gonna Like it Here: Dean prays to Cas IN.A.CHAPEL. Worry, longing, separation. Dean “Please, man, I need you here.”

9x03 – I’m No Angel: Human!Cas and jealous!Dean.

9x06 – Heaven Can’t Wait: Human!Cas TEXT-BOOK LONGING. GAY AS FUCK. Gazing, touching, they even TALK (for real).

9x09 – Holy Terror: Adorable Cas, flirty vibes, happyish, funny. Cas: “Cas is back in town!”

9x10 – Road Trip: Cas comforts Dean, Cas and Crowley bitching at each other, overall protective!Cas.

9x18 – Metafiction. Cas finds out about the Mark of Cain.

9x21 – King of the Damned: Hug, strong boyfriends vibes.

9x22 – Stairway to Heaven: Cas gives up an entire army, for Dean. Metatron about Cas “He's in love………………………. with humanity.”

9x23 – Do You Believe in Miracles?: At this point, it’s canon stated that Cas will do anything and lose everything if that means saving Dean. Metatron to Cas “You draped yourself in the flag of heaven, but ultimately, it was all about saving one human, right?”

Season 10

10x01 – Black: Demon!Dean and sick/brokenhearted Cas in a slutty robe missing his man.

10x03 – Soul Survivor: ICONIC. Angel on Demon action! Cas turns down Hannah because he’s too gay and in love. Intimate Deancas talk.

10x05 – Fan Fiction: No Cas, but Destiel references.

10x09 – The Things We Left Behind: That.Lunch.Date. Deancas introduction to co-parenting.

10x14 – The Executioner’s Song: We get Daddy Murder aka Cain. This is a Pivotal episode to understand Dean’s character development. Plus, it has Deancas interactions.

10x16 – Paint It Black: No Cas, but Dean opens up in confessionary; repressed BISEXUAL AS FUCK.

10x18 – Book of the Damned: Charlie meets Cas. Gay energies everywhere. Cute domestic little scene.

10x20 – Angel Heart: PARENTING! Essential to understand Cas from this point forward.

10x22 – The Prisoner: Just… just watch it. One of THEE Destiel episodes.

10x23 – Brother’s Keeper: No Deancas interactions but it’s the finale, and I recommend watching it because next season takes off literally right from here. No time jumps.

Season 11

11x02 – Form and Void: Could skip to the very end which is when Cas comes back.

11x03 – The Bad Seed: Cursed!Cas. Dean takes care of him, even wraps him in a blanket. He also cradles his face. Extreme Hurt/Comfort. Jacting joices rejoice.

11x10 – The Devil in the Details: Could skip but has Casifer in it. Interesting to see his dynamic with Dean.

11x18 – Hell’s Angel: Casifer. Dean "It? It's not an it, Sam, it's Cas!"

11x23 – Alpha and Omega: Huggg! Cas willing to go on a guaranteed suicide mission with Dean. Very tender and sad.

Season 12

12x02 – Keep Calm and Carry On: ANOTHER HUG! Dean presents his boyfriend to his mom<3 Soft and romantic.

12x09 – First Blood: Reunion hug<3, Cas pining… as in he counts his every minute without Dean.

12x10 – Lily Sunder Has Some Regrets: Direct parallel with canon couple. Crystal-clear mutual affection. One of the best. Angel Ishim to Cas about Dean “I'm gonna help you. I'm gonna cure you of your human weakness same way I cured my own… by cutting it out.”

12x12 – Stuck in the Middle with You: A dying Cas confesses his love. “I love you. I love all of you.”

12x19 – The Future: We find out Dean gave Cas a MIXTAPE!!! Very romantic and full of yearning, also worry and what could be seen as a betrayal (ish…).

12x23 – All Along the Watch Tower: Hands down, one of the most distressing Destiel episodes. Cas dies.

Season 13

13x01 – Lost and Found: This is the worst because you have Dean trying to assimilate Cas’ death. Core of Dean’s widow’s arc. Jack introduction, that’s their new kid.

13x02 – The Rising Son: Widow’s arc (you could skip it, but why would you?).

13x03 – Patience: Widow’s arc (you could skip it, but why would you?). Dean to Sam “He manipulated him, he made him promises, said, ‘paradise on earth’ and Cas bought it and you know what that got him? It got him dead! Now you might be able to forget about that, but I can’t!”

13x04 – The Big Empty: Continuation of widow’s arc and Cas wakes up in the Empty. The Empty to Cas: "I know who you love. There's nothing for you back there." // Dean to Sam “I need you to keep the faith, for both of us. ‘Cause right now, I… Right now, I don’t believe in a damn thing.”

13x05 – Advanced Thanatology: Suicidal and hopeless Dean gets his win. Cas comes back. Gives me the chills.

13x06 – Tombstone: COWBOY BOYFRIENDS!

13x14 – Good Intentions: Happy and fun Destiel scene. So Very Married.

13x23 – Let The Good Times Roll: Season finale, Dean talks about retiring (plans include Cas of course) and just very nice to see them interact.

Season 14

14x03 – The Scar: Reunion.

14x08 – Byzantium: Deanand Cas dealing with their child’s death, then bringing him back by Cas making a deal with the Empty. IMPORTANT EPISODE.

14x09 – The Spear: Cas uses the royal We – married behavior.

14x10 – Nihilism: Dean is stuck in his own mind, and Cas and Sam try to bring him back. Cas “Please, you have to -- you have to try to remember, because the people in your life -- in your real life, out there -- we need you to come back.”

14x12 – Prophet and Loss: Dean gets his very own Dr. Sexy, aka Dr. Cas.

14x14 – Ouroboros: Basically another date (their kid tags along) and They TALK. Very intimate and established marriage vibes.

14x18 – Absence: Shits starts to go south. [ Dean: “Who cares what Jack said? We don't know what happened! But I swear, if he did something to her, if she is -- (points to Castiel) Then you're dead to me. (Castiel looks crushed after Dean says that).]

14x20 – Moriah: Tense and very upsetting. Relationship very damaged.

Season 15 (I would advise watching the entire season because it relies heavily on Destiel. They’re the heart and the emotional motor leading the plot onwards.)

15x01 – Back and To The Future: Deancas’ in the aftermath of their kid’s death. Tension gets worse.

15x02 – Raising Hell: Tension rises, this is very intense. Cas “Dean. You asked, "What about all of this is real?" We are.”

15x03 – The Rupture: Breaking point ends in divorce.

15x06 – Golden Time: Painful phone call which speaks volumes about the current state of their relationship at the time. Also, good to see where they’re standing and how they’re coping.

15x08 – Our Father Who Aren’t in Heaven: Strained relationship so obvious they’re offered couples’ therapy.

15x09 – The Trap: MASTERPIECE. Back to Purgatory. Can (and is) taken as Dean’s love confession (because it is).

15x12 – Galaxy Brain: So married. Little domestic date, you can see LOVE written in their faces.

15x13 – Destiny’s Child: AU!Dean and Sam. Not a yearning episode per se, but AU!Dean? SO GAY.

15x17 – Unity: God reveals that the only act of free will in any universe he ever created has been Cas choosing Dean.

15x18 – Despair: Cas confesses his love to Dean.

#Anonymous #thanks for coming to my ted talk #im posting this at 2:30 am so i'll most likely reblog it at a more reasonable hour ..in case anon is closer to my time zone #why am i even saying this..im sleepy #destiel #answered #destiel episode guide #there might be number/name mistakes because again sleepish.forgive me #long post

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ice-cream-writes-stuff · 3 years

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Here is my version of Super Villians and Super Hero's Au. I was inspired by @britishassistant and their amazing Au! Check it out!

Supervillian Au!

Villain (Y/N)! Aka Dr. (V/N) (Villian name)

A waiter by day, a super villian by night. They are a villian for fun, making interesting gadgets and fun evil schemes. Doesn't go out in civilian often, only for job or shopping and other small activites.

The young villian sighs to herself as she cleans the fancy dinner tables. Wiping them down with a cloth so there wouldn't be any crumbs. "Hmhmhm.~" She hummed to herself, ignoring the golden lighting all over the room as guests chatter. Hearing a small 'bep!'

The woman takes a glance at the fine wood table, nodding at the cleanliness (Y/N) picks up her cloth and starts to head over to the employee break room with a skip in her step. Celebrities and hero's with their costumes on, sat in tables being waited on or are eating high class meals. (Y/N) could care less about their jolly smiles and laughter. But the sickening happy feeling in air made the female smile. Knowing she'd soon leave and go back to her evil lair once she was done with work.

Reporter Yuu/MC!

A intriguing reporter who finds themselves often kidnapped in villainous plots by various villians. Yet is always saved by the super hero's.

Tied and bound to a rather comfortable chair was not how Yuu wanted to spend his afternoon. But he couldn't help gaze in awe at the female villian as she walks out of one the secret entrances wearing a (f/c) knee dress instead of her other outfits. The bottom of her heels clicking against the floor, while her lab coats cape flutters from the movement.

Holding a clipboard in her hands, Dr. (V/N) looked as if she was reading something. The villian sighs frustratedly, but then notices Yuu. Who gave them a polite "hello". The villians shoulders seem to slump, the bubbling, happy-go-lucky attitude she had last time he was kidnapped was gone. Pulling out a remote control, she taps a red button and Yuu is released from the constraints.

"Hello Yuu, sorry. I know I had a huge diabolical plot and- *sigh*. I forgot that I had a to get lunch and now I'm running late to picking up my order. So I'm gonna postpone today's evil schemes. Sorry for the inconvenience- how about I buy you something from the restaurant as a apology?"

Dr. (V/N) blabbers out, while Yuu stared at her as if she was a goddess.

Camera Man Yuuken Enma!

A simple camera man with a not so simple appearance. But don't be fooled, he's a good guy!

Yuuken was setting up one of the cameras for the interview when a pretty woman came into view. A bright smile on her face as she held two plastic bags in her hand. Yuuken was suprised when a (h/c) haired female walked up to him. She was one of the waiters of the establishment that Yuu would be interviewing. The woman passed him the bags in his free hands.

"Here you go! The manger said it was on the house. I even included a few of my favorite desserts in it, enjoy! Keep up the amazing work." The waiter said kindly, shooting Yuuken a gentle grin as they head to the kitchen area.

The dorms are supervillians while Royal Sword are superheros.

(Ask box is open for this Au! I really wanna hear y'alls thoughts!!!)

#twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland x reader #twst #royal sword academy #twst asks #twst au #super villians au #twst yuuken #twst yuu x reader #twst yuu #enma yuuken x reader #enma yuuken

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klm-zoflorr · 3 years

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So made some character sheets for my Yuko babies ocs! I love them, it was so much fun. I really like designing clothes... Plus it helped me flesh them out a little more. Long-deserved characterisation and versions of drawings under the cut because it got way too long :)

So, Yaosa (first pannel) is the one who is raised in the Fire Nation with Zuko. You can check a little bit of backstory there. Lueni (second pannel) is the one who grew up at the North Pole with Yue. You can check her orginal post there, an outfit variation there and a potential grown-up version of her there, or just scroll her tag on my blog.

I have decided/changed it so Yaosa is nonbinary! Idk I was getting those vibes. He uses all pronouns, but mostly he/they. Full disclaimer that I am not trans, and so might be insensitive with my headcanons. Don't hesitate to tell me if that's the case! But we should be fine.

Also I am still not gonna make transphobia a thing in the avatarverse because I just don't like that stuff.

He knows how to chi block, their fighting style is very fast and agile. Ty lee taught them, she is kind of a mother/aunt figure to them. Firelord (!!) Azula kinda is too tbh, Yaosa was sorta raised by a village ahah

I think he's a firebender? I'm not sure if I'm gonna make it canon or not. On one hand it would be fun to have a nonbending royal, on the other I want to show the differences between typical fire nation values and Yaosa's in other ways. And I'm not even sure they'd keep him if he was a nonbender? One thing that's certain is that he isn't a waterbender, or he would get his ass yeeted off the palace in less than 30 seconds

Lueni is a firebender for sure tho, which causes... Problems. If they were both firebenders, she would be the most powerful. She probably has some training in weapons, sword maybe? Knives at least. Idk her shoulder plate would make sense with a sword.

Lueni is definitely the more hotheaded of the two, and the most likely to get into a fight. Doesn't mean she fights everyone she sees, tho, she just has a more headstrong and willful persona, and wouldn't stay silent if you say something that bothers her. Words are her first weapon of choice, she can be pretty commanding (and sometimes acts too much like she's the boss of you and is always right, which can piss people off) and is good at convincing people, althought she hates lying and wouldn't consciously manipulate someone. On the other hand, Yaosa often prefers to watch from a distance and calculate things. He is honest too, but doesn't have as strong a sense of justice (which is only natural given where he was raised). He can use either words or strenght on people, depending which is more likely to work.

So, now that we're done with the headcanons let's talk about the drawings. You can see that I drew variations of clothing for both of them. They depend on their stories (which I haven't quite fleshed out yet) and personalities a little bit too. Like:

Lueni's first two outfits is for when she's still at the North Pole with her mom. The first one is more of an outer wear, second one is a more relaxed/chill/inside kind of clothing. Yes, her arms are exposed! She doesn't get cold very easily, I wonder why...

Her last two outfits are for when she leaves the North Pole (it happens at some point in the story. Idk when and idk why). Since she is from the poles, she has trouble handling high temperatures, and if you add to that all the fire play going on... You can see I added a belt and knee + shoulder reinforcment. I just thought that was a realistic touch for someone travelling around and getting into fights.

You can see her style of clothing is a little bit fancy, but definitely not unpractical (especially the last one) She likes being able to move around, and wouldn't be able to do so as easily with clothes like Yue's princess outfit (and her big skirt). Add to that the fact while she is technically a princess, she's not that legitimate. So she is allowed to not be as proper as she should be, which she is very happy about.

She very rarely lets her hair down, prefering to keep it in a practical ponytail. Plus, she can keep her hair thingie/crown visible this way (she is proud of being apart of her family and royalty, even if there are some points she dislikes). I gave her a bone necklace bc i thought it looked cool.

Yaosa doesn't have different weather outfits since their story happens mostly at the same place, aka in the fire nation/earth kingdom.

However, his style of clothing changed depending on whether he has to act like the Fire Nation prince or if they're left to chill on a boat. I imagined when the story takes place he is on their own Avatar search? Everyone in the family gets a part in this, ahah. Anyway, he doesn't like formality when he doesn't have to be formal, and so doesn't wear armor at all times (or... Ever, tbh. They're kind of a pacifist, fight avoidant too)

So, the first outfit is the typical fire nation armor, of course. Second one is a long, thin cotton coat that I thought fit them pretty well. The short sleeves are maybe more suited for hotter temperatures. He keeps the usual fire nation boots for this outfit. I also added some random bandages on his arm, it doesn't mean anything particular.

The last two are the same outfit, with different poses. I don't have anything particular to say about it, apart from the fact I fcking love it.

I think he has kind of a hermit/wise vibe to him. I really like it, think it fits his think-before-you-fight vibe. Think about a kind of Zuko but without the anger issues. Oh, and he usually braids his hair because this way they don't get hair in their face while fighting, but can also sport a top knot or just hair down (althought less often because he thinks the braid makes him look cool and nice). They have a blue decoration to tie at the end of the braid, it's from Yue, Zuko gave it to them. He always has it on him.

Well, I think we're done. I had a lot of things to say :3 If you ever redraw any of those (don't forget to give credit of course) don't hesitate about harrassing me on every social media so I'll see it xD (my instagram is @/he.artane). And as always, feel free to ask any questions!

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capriciouslyterminal · 4 years

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Wolves Don’t Do True Love’s Kiss

(Aka I wrote an Ishimondo Wolf Among Us oneshot thing instead of editing a paper and I’ve never posted my writing on tumblr before).

~Full idea credit goes to @andy-deer and his amazing art if you like Danganronpa or just cool art you really should follow him~

~Mondo’s the big bad wolf, Ishimaru’s the blind prince from Rapunzel. I know in the original fairytale I think the prince is blinded by thorns but listen a version of him being blinded by snakes lives in my brain from somewhere and I couldn’t not write it.~

~P.S. I don’t know that much about Wolf Among Us and I am sorry about that~

Mondo Oowada had been having the same dream a lot lately, ever since that night he shoved the guy who used to be The Minotaur through the display case of a yarn shop.

Normally he and the other fables didn’t have such violent altercations now that he split off from the pack, but then the detective called in a fucking favor from the big bad wolf himself.

And what else was he supposed to do? When the guy wouldn’t own up to the blood of all those teenagers stuck in his teeth and he wanted to put his horns through the dancing princess turned detective and her naive sidekick?

If he’d known the whole thing was going to lead to a blind prince from another story storming up to his apartment from the DA’s office to yell at him about property damage and chances of exposing the whole fable community at two in the morning while he was trying to sleep of the few times he got gored, he wouldn’t have bothered.

It really wasn’t his fault The Minotaur couldn’t afford enough glamor to withstand a single punch. And he’d told the annoying little shit as much, but the whole thing inevitably meant that he was seeing a lot of Kiyotaka Ishimaru whenever he was roped into being the muscle behind Kirigiri’s investigations. Which was fine. And normal.

But then the dreams started after that night at the bar, and everything changed.

~*~

He doesn’t know when it changed, when he went from running in the forest of his mind on four feet to two as he slept.

He never lost the sights or the smells of the old forest that had no name. But now he ran it as a man. No matter the wolf he would always be deep in his heart.

It was something like when his brother died. He’d been too young, hadn’t even finished cutting his teeth, when he was shunted from the dreams of hurtling through the night at the front of the pack to hurtling alone through the end of days.

There the isolation was a nightmare, a punishment, but this is not the same. This is a simple shifting of reality.

Sometimes he wonders, looking at the webs of veins stretched under the skin on the backs of his hands in the gray light of morning, when the glamor started to feel more real than his body.

When he grew so used to the delicate tapping of hands, to standing tall and far from the ground, that the memory of the nights spent slinking through the shadows on his belly faded. He would never truly know when that was lost.

All that meant was that now, whenever he had to shift back, it was no longer the shrugging off of a costume like in the early days in this new town.

It was shouldering back into an old coat, ill-fitting and smelling of pine, that stretched at the seams to hold him.

He was freezing now, dreaming, skin unprotected from the winter that could steal the breath from your lungs. He was running towards the tower with a panting in his heart and a frenzied howl in his mind.

~*~

He mentioned it only once, over drinks.

Or, well, more specifically, only Mondo had the real drinks. Something old and amber that burned as it went down. Something served in a glass of gently melting ice that was always refilled whenever he shot a slip of teeth to the bartender and flexed his bloody knuckles while eyeing the shelves of glassware behind him.

The bartender in another life, another place, not that it mattered much anymore, had been a pig. Mondo could tell not just from the swell of his pale throat and the slight tilt of his nose, but the fear that sprang in the air as soon as Mondo had entered that first night in town. The man froze like he was still the prey.

As soon as he’d entered the establishment for the first time, and seen the bartender shakily reach to stroke the brick wall for comfort, he knew the little pig remembered him. Mondo hadn’t paid for drinks in four years, and he hadn’t even needed to threaten to blow down the joint.

Not that he would do that anymore. Now, with cigarettes and cash in the pockets of his long coat, he would have had some complaints for the structure of the building and nothing more to add. Now, he could have figured out how to bring it down with his fist in moments instead of having to empty his lungs.

Getting Kiyotaka within the brickwork bar’s confines had been an accomplishment of its own, a sign of respect for their still growing friendship that made Mondo swell with pride and grin to himself at the sight of an old world prince crammed into a booth at his favorite dingy bar.

The first time he asked for drinks after a successful arrest, and had seen Kiyotaka nod against the neon backdrop of the city with an uncertain smile, he’d practically howled with glee. If he still had his tail it would have wagged.

But getting him to sip anything harder than soda water was a losing man’s game.

~*~

The pines are so familiar he could think of them as his own brothers, feeding the deer whose innards he lived on before he found new villages to savage. Even as he left the skin of the wolf, he would never be free of this forest that still shuddered with his howls if he stopped to listen.

But the tower, crooked and dark against the snowy sky, is new. Rising from the thorny ground as if it had been summoned from Hell itself.

A break in the tree-line, a monument of dark stone frozen in a twisting shudder as it reached for the clouds. The single shining yellow window gleams like an eye watching him approach.

If he saw eyes like than in an animal he’d think it was rotting from the inside out. He wouldn’t eat it, and instead leave it to bleed sluggishly into the soft earth.

The tower is sick.

A man is climbing it.

~*~

He’d been five drinks deep, warm in the belly and ready to curl up by the golden hearth that kept the bar warm, when it finally happened. He hadn’t actually curled up by a hearth in years, and would only consider it after five more drinks.

But needless to say, he was drowning in golden comfort when he’d asked about the tower.

When he felt the air that had been so warm a moment ago freeze as the words left his mouth. A question that had been scratching at the backdoor of his mind since Kiyotaka had pounded on his door and demanded Mondo put on a proper glamor when he accidentally grabbed a hunk of his hair.

“It just doesn’t seem like you,” Mondo said. The words slurred, flowing between his teeth and tongue like a river. “A blind prince of all fuckin’ people. Breaking and entering.”

There was that twitch of an eyebrow, displeasure kept on a tight leash, that made Mondo’s heart clench with fondness.

It was a feeling like he swallowed the sun, his gut full of light, only for it try to kick its way back up out of his throat.

“I wasn’t always–I did not break anything! And I entered with permission.”

Kiyotaka had discovered the napkin dispenser on the table earlier in the night, sopping up a ring of condensation that Mondo had been happy to leave to sink into the table. He made use of it now, and quickly shredded a napkin between his pale fingers.

“Come off it, man.” Mondo chuckled, raised the glass to his lips, and took another swig. “What would permission to break into a tower in the middle of the fuckin’ woods even sound like?”

“I didn’t break into her tower.” Even blind, Kiyotaka knew how to glare with the best of them. Another napkin was plucked from the table, but he worried at it for a bit longer this time.

“She was screaming,” Kiyotaka said. “I was nearby, hunting, and at first I thought it was the wind. But then I really listened. And she was screaming.”

~*~

The man is up higher than the treetops, clutching the stones of the tower with his bare hands. The wind is whispering, the clouds humming in anticipation.

Mondo breaks into the space, and a name rings out like a bell in his throat. He howls with it, staring up at the figure as he runs. He is too far away to catch him should anything happen.

When the man turns to look down, all Mondo can see is the red pinprick of his eyes burning against the grey eternity of the sky. And his hands.

His fingers are bloody at the tips, streaks of crimson left on the stones. He broke his nails against the brick of the tower, flecks of scratched into his pale skin. He surely has been climbing for days and is nowhere closer to the top.

Even as he runs, Mondo knows that though he has hands, he cannot climb fast enough to reach him.

“Stop!” He hears himself roar. “You’ll fall.”

The man looks down, and Mondo feels his smile on the wind. He is weeping, tears freezing before they reach the ground to shatter into icy shards.

~*~

“What did you hunt?” Mondo was not sure where the words came from inside of him.

Kiyotaka’s sightless eyes were pale flecks of ice under his furrowed brow. He crumpled the napkin in his hands, and immediately tried to smooth it out with a regretful twist to his mouth.

“I don’t know for sure anymore…it was so long ago. But there was talk of a wolf, I think.”

He let the space hang between them, gave Mondo a chance to haul him up by his collar with a growl. But the rage never came. Mondo knew him now.

He continued on.

“I wasn’t much of a hunter. But I knew that my grandfather should have–,” his voice melted as it always did when the old king came into the conversation. “It is the royal family’s duty to protect their people.”

The freezing slush of the past seeped down Mondo’s spine. For a second he almost could see his breath, as if the old forest had risen back up around him.

For a second he could almost imagine it. Them meeting there.

He could imagine himself standing on all fours heaving, staring into burning red eyes against a dark and ancient sky. A figure fit to stop his rampaging ways. Not a woodsman, crude and homely, but a prince.

Would he have used a bow? A sword? What would have come first? A slice through Mondo’s belly or Mondo’s teeth in his neck?

But those times were long gone, and the quiet murmur of bar patrons tethered the two of them in the present.

“She screamed, and I followed the sound…and I found the tower. I called up to her.”

Mondo could imagine that with ease. Kiyotaka thundering out of the forest like a madman, yelling up at a witch’s tower to try and ascertain if a screaming woman needed his help.

Kiyotaka trying to figure out the best way to help her as the sun went down and the temperature fell.

Kiyotaka shedding a finely embroidered coat to climb a random ass tower despite any good sense he might have been taught.

His princely fingers, tapered and gentle.

“I thought she had lowered a rope. I didn’t know until I held it in my hands that it was her hair. Sometimes I can still feel the slick weight it.”

His hands clenched, old scars scraped into the pads of his fingertips drawing across the table.

~*~

The man leans back, and with the gentle gasp of the wind, he falls.

Mondo is sure his heart falls with him

~*~

“She was so young. And so frightened, Mondo. I don’t think I’ll ever forget her face,” Kiyotaka said, stricken. “Her hair falling to the floor.”

Mondo was only aware of the thundering breaths he drew in and had to focus to release with care. The howling of the wind was still inside of him, screaming to be let out.

“I promised her I’d help her, find a way to get her out of that place. I had to. It was a single room and it was freezing. In the middle of winter! Imagine it, Mondo, a single stone room is all you know for eighteen years. I think I was the first man she’d ever seen. She stared at me like she couldn’t understand what I was. She held my hands and…and she wept.”

His hands were shaking bad. Mondo focused on his breath and felt claws scrape somewhere down deep with his bones, hiding under the skin of a man.

“I promised her I’d help her because that was my duty to my people. Because she deserved more than to be a witch’s prisoner. I promised her that I’d keep her safe. I just needed a ladder, something so she could climb down. I had to go back for one, and she didn’t want to let go of my hand. I had to pry her fingers off my wrist. She cried after me.” He admitted it like some shame, like something heavy on his chest that Mondo understood.

“It took a full day’s ride to return. I hadn’t realized how far I’d travelled. And as soon as I found a ladder long enough I turned and went straight back. I think I almost killed my horse, but I couldn’t stop to think.”

The words were falling out of him faster and faster. Mondo didn’t know how to stop him.

“When I got back, when I called up to her, there was no sound. She tossed nothing down for me. So I climbed on my own.” His fingertips twitched, a sardonic grin followed them and looked wrong on his face. “But I was too late. I wasn’t fast enough. She was not there to greet me upon my return. But the witch was.”

~*~

The man is caught in thorns. His fine clothes in the style of their homeland torn and dirtied. He is bleeding from his crown and moaning, but he does not scream. His bones are broken, his skin is bloody, his eyes are screwed tightly shut.

Mondo feels something terrible will happen once he opens them.

The snakes are looming, dry static across the ground.

Mondo flings himself into the thorns on instinct bred by his old skin and bellows at the pain of it.

~*~

Mondo suddenly reached out, on instinct bred by his old skin, and felt himself take Kiyotaka’s hand.

The prince of the old world was startled. Mondo heard the stutter of his heart. The gasp of his breath.

Mondo knew a want like a chasm, stretching and straining from his chest through his whole body. It drove him to hunt, to shatter, to shrink his pupils to slits, and to take all the world had with a guttural howl. This want shuddered through his body at the sight of Kiyotaka, golden in the light, parting his lips to speak.

He wants–he wants–he wants–

In a way he had not wanted since the old days.

~*~

He rips into the throats and bellies of snake after snake. He tears scale and muscle with his teeth and flings the corpses away with his hands until the ground is littered with them.

Only when they are all dead, when the root-like curve of their bodies are all he can see, does he turn back to the man. He whimpers and the tears leak from under his closed eyes. He is beautiful.

Mondo takes his face in his hands, feels the sharp press of his cheekbone against the palm of his hand, and moves close enough to feel the warmth of his shuddering breath on his face. Holding him close, their foreheads almost touching.

Mondo feels the venom drip from his lips now, venom from the throats of the snakes that would fall to the man’s eyes and have force him cry out while his body recoiled. Venom that would steal his sight and cast his eyes in icy nothingness.

But it is all he can do to press even closer, feel the man’s heart beat in one with his own, and ghost his lips over the chilled ones.

The man screams into the kiss, and Mondo howls with him.

He always wakes in a cold sweat, and the moon is full and staring down at him from the sky.

~*~

Kiyotaka had continued the story, Mondo had not listened, too entranced by the simple impossibility of holding Kiyotaka’s hand.

“I think she kept her there the whole time, Mondo. And I don’t know what I wanted to do but that woman…she told me I had failed to protect the girl and she–she grabbed me and…”

Mondo could hear Kiyotaka’s heart thundering in his chest. Sweat was pouring down his forehead, tears welling up the creases of his eyes. It was like he could feel Mondo looking at him even as he kept his eyes downcast.

“And I fell.” His voice was hardly a rasp, utterly hollow.

Again, Mondo moved on instinct.

Pulling Kiyotaka to him felt like coming home, squeezing his arms around his back as tight as he dared felt like obeying a rule of the new world. Like casting a glamor.

“Hey man, it’s alright now,” Mondo murmured. Something warm blossomed through the want in his chest, and it coated his voice.

“Mondo.” Kiyotaka’s voice was strangled, his arms hovered above Mondo’s back, as if he were unsure how to put them down.

“None of that shit matters anymore, yeah? You’re here now. With me. And I wouldn’t let anything like that happen to you again, swear on my fuckin’ life.”

Kiyotaka took in a shaking breath that hitched in his chest.

“We’re out of the woods, Taka. You and me.”

Kiyotaka let out the slightest sob, equal parts relieved and haunted, and finally wrapped his arms around Mondo. He surrendered himself into the embrace, and Mondo felt everything inside of him shift as Kiyotaka Ishimaru took up residence within the beating of his heart.

And everything changed, simple as that.

~Thank you for reading this, if you did! And thank you again to @andy-deer for their amazing art which has made me smile any day when I was feeling particularly down~

#danganronpa #Ishimondo #Wolf Among Us AU #My Writing #God is this a struggle to post

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thecandywrites · 3 years

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Blood For Gold Part 10

Woop woop lets see how much we can burn now that the fire is lit. And may I introduce you to Audra’s brothers. From bottom left to right. Axalarize, aka Axal, Azaxie aka Zax, and last but not least Ocearian, aka Ren. Now lets get this party started. Also many thanks to @kriskukko for sharing that orc regency art and to @punkhorse96 for all your amazing feedback.

Blood For Gold

Part 10

The next day, it was decided that you all should take a flight. Now because the Raymond’s were royalty and could afford it, they had griffins and pegasus’ but because all the Voyambi’s had ever ridden were horses, that left the pegasus’ to the Voyambis and Jane and the griffins for the mouras. The Voyambi women were especially excited because while on horses on the ground, society dictated that they had to ride sidesaddle. But anything with wings, meant you had to ride astride and be strapped into the saddle, or fall off and die and luckily Bennie and Calla had extra riding suits and so did you so that all the Voyambi women, and Jane could ride the pegasus and thankfully their brothers also had extra riding outfits for the Voyambi gentlemen.

“Now remember, the higher up you go, the thinner the air is, when it gets hard to breathe, you pull the pegasus down so you can breathe easier and then once you catch your breath, you can pull up again, even if you’re by yourself, if you can’t breathe, pull down, I don’t want you passing out. We’re just flying around the palace. And remember these guys know where home is, even if you feel lost. They can fly home, I made sure to ask Mama Yalin to arrange for you to fly the safest pegasus she has.” You encouraged Jane as you helped her get into the saddle and tie her to it, making sure she felt safe and secure despite her nerves while her older, very tame pegasus was nearly half asleep simply standing there, even their wings were drooping.

Meanwhile Demsey could not take his eyes off of your rear in tight leather pants because flying suits were full body leather suits, lined with fur because of the cold temperatures of higher altitudes with special heels for the stirrups and your leather suit, despite being lined with the most luxurious fur, was still hugging your body like a second skin and showed off every physical asset you had in the most flattering, if not alluring light possible.

“If you stare at her arse any harder you’ll burn a hole through that leather.” Sierge warned Demsey from his spot on his own pegasus next to his brother since they had been strapped in as well, even though Sierge was guilty of the same thing with Bennie as he was tempted to just bite her plump and bountiful arse himself and had to actively keep swallowing his drool.

“Wouldn’t that be nice.” Demsey sighed dreamily which made Sierge snicker a laugh before Demsey seemed to remember himself and clear his throat awkwardly before he watched you finish up with Jane and check in with Callie and Amara as Bennie was helping Kiera herself before you went over to the griffin that Ramsey had gotten for you.

“This is Charlico, he’s a five year old stallion, one of the best in the barn besides Ma’ma’s Hecatarus.” Ramsey proudly announced as Charlico was decked out in a royal saddle with all kinds of accessories.

“Well hello there Charlico, aren’t you gorgeous.” You cooed to the massive griffin who was speckled and spackled with a calico’s colors, who lowered his head to get a good look at you before you reached out and let him sniff you before slowly petting up his beak then gently petting him over his head, bonding with him a little before the flight as he let you pet him.

“Do we have any itchy spots? Show me the itchies.” You invited to him, your voice almost sounding babyish but Charlico seemed to revel in your attentions as you dipped your fingers past his outer feathers to his skin and instinctively seemed to find the right spots as Demsey and Ramsey both seemed to watch on adoringly as Charlico practically became a big puppy before you, letting you scratch and rub wherever you wanted, especially under his chin and around it’s skull as he moved his head around like a swivvel so you could scratch the really itchy spots as Charlico’s eyes fluttered shut in bliss before you went around the saddle to make sure Charlico was comfortable wearing it and making sure none of his feathers or fur was ruffled before you took off the extra safety straps from the saddle.

“Why are you taking those off?” Ramsey asked nervously. Because his own Griffen was decked out in a matching saddle and straps and now he feared you wouldn't match, not unless your own flying skill exceeded his own.

“Because Charlico is uncomfortable with them. I ride with a illeaze saddle back home, so I don’t need these and I want Charlico’s first flight with me to be comfortable for him, well as comfortable as it can be for him anyway.” You answered as you went under Charlico only for him to peek down under himself to see what you were doing under him as you double checked the straps under him before giving him a good tummy rub while you were down there which Charlico really enjoyed before you went around his rear and started scratching around his tail which got him to start kicking his hind leg like a dog as you scratched even harder for a few moments before that particular itch had been sated before you pet down his tail and then back up his body as you kept cooing “good boy” to Charlico as you finished with him as Demsey noticed that Bennie and Calla were doing the same things to their griffins and mused it must have been a moura thing while Ramsey had never been more jealous of a griffin in his life because what he would give to be pet and scratched and cooed to and praised like that. He even paid his whores extra just for that but they didn’t do so genuinely so it wasn't satisfying.

“So what’s an illeaze saddle?” Demsey asked as he walked his pegasus, Alaphonse closer.

“It’s basically a bareback pad but for griffins, only very advanced riders should ever attempt at riding in one, it takes a ton of body strength and endurance to hang on. Because with you, you’re strapped in seven ways from Sunday, with illeaze, there’s only about three to five straps, usually just one clip, most illeaze riders have a gliding suit so they can slip off the griffin mid flight and soar and glide on their own before reuniting with their griffin again in the air.” Ramsey answered proudly before you reached your arms behind you and pulled out your own hidden, folding gliding wings that were disguised as furls on your suit.

“See?” You said as you twirled in place to show them off before you unhooked them and tucked them back behind you as Ramsey helped you get on Charlico and got a little too handsy when he was strapping you in which you barely tolerated as Demsey could clearly see you were not pleased that Ramsey was touching you and to him was more proof that you were not going to be willing in that match.

In fact it burned him up inside, he wanted to strip out of this suit and get off this pegasus and stomp over there and rip Ramsey’s arms off for touching you without your consent but he knew such a thing would be improper, not to mention uncivilized but that’s what his instincts were demanding of him anyway, and they were incredibly strong and almost overpowering his reason as his own pegasus seemed to snort and paw the ground, sensing Demsey’s quiet rage and only when Ramsey left to get on his own griffin did you finally unzip your coat to reveal your silk lined wool layer under the leather which was seductively low cut and the way it was cut and fit to you and with the moura bra and underwear undergarments you were wearing, gave you ample cleavage so as to give your sweating chest some air because you were burning up in this fur lined leather bodysuit in the late morning sun as the temperature slowly rose and Demsey almost fell off his pegasus watching you unzip your jacket and expose your glistening chest and it filled his mind with the most lurid thoughts of stripping you out of it and licking up that sweat with his tongue before his cock grew hard and snaked down his leg along the soft fur and hard leather of his flying suit and hard leather chapps and the leather brace to keep his pelvis practically glued to the saddle and thanks to the beginner saddle he was wearing, no one would know it but it still caused his cheeks to get almost impossibly dark green.

“Are we all ready?” Yalin asked from atop Hecatarus, herself decked out in the royal riding attire in bright red and gold as everyone else confirmed that they were ready.

“Then let’s go, pegasus’ riders, follow Gregori, griffin riders, follow me to the launch pad.” She invited before she turned and all of you followed her single file before she broke out into a run, causing all the mouras to giggle gleefully and the others closely following her so as not to be left behind before she ran down a short runway to a large spring board and her griffin pounced onto the spring board and leapt into the air as Demsey and his siblings watched in awed wonder as all of you followed suit, laughing as you all took to their air and started to climb as the pegasus’ began to trot, canter and then run, flapping their mighty wings to gain lift from a tall ramp, jumping off the end and gliding into the air. Jane and Demsey’s sisters giving a little yelp as they instinctively were ready for a diving, falling feeling but instead felt the pegasus’ gain lift and opened their eyes before laughing in delight that they were flying, their nerves and anxiousness leaving them with every beat of their pegasus’ mighty wings as they watched as the griffin riders began to do acrobatics, loops, and corkscrews and dives as you happily let go of Charlico’s reins and let him do as he pleased as he began showing off his special tricks that he had been taught for you as you let your arms stretch out like wings too and simply laughed and praised Charlico for his skills and tricks and Demsey had never seen any woman look as beautiful, and free and absolutely perfect as you- riding on the back of a griffin, only holding onto him via your legs but otherwise you were as free as any bird as he resolved that you should forever know and have such freedom and pleasure as he soon took a liking to this and got the hang of it before he could see shadows of other great flying creatures flying in, one was clearly a dragon while the others were griffins.

You looked up and nearly stopped breathing when you could have sworn you recognized Axal’s dragon Grevu. Grevu was a striking red and black dragon.

“Charlico, come on, we need to fly closer to them.” You urged your griffen before he obeyed and flew you closer as the whole party started flying faster towards you and from this distance you could hear faint yelling, almost sounding like your name as you also flew faster towards them and the closer you got the more you could swear that these riders were your brothers but you didn’t want to hope to dare to believe it, it was too good to be true but within shouting distance, you heard it, your name, being shouted by your brothers whose voices you could recognize anywhere and sure enough, that was clearly Axal’s dragon Grevu and your brother Axal riding him and Azaxie, riding his griffin Moonclaw, and your brother Ocearian, riding Mistwing and your own griffin, Heavencrest carrying a pack load but clearly enough room for you to ride her on her saddle and your squeal of delight at recognizing them was clearly heard as the others had followed you.

“Heavencrest, come here baby!” You called to her before your brother Axal let her lead go so she could fly to you as Charlico immediately seemed to like her as he started trying to show off to her, flying close to her and spinning in front of her, showing off his dexterity as you hung on and laughed. Every male griffin acted that way to Heavencrest because she was magnificent in color and build.

“Charlico, clasp paws with Heavencrest, I’m dismounting you and mounting her.” You told Charlico as you called Heavencrest to you and told her the same thing as the two then joined claws like eagles and began to dive, turning their wings into a light corkscrew as you eagerly untied and unhooked yourself from Charlico and climbed down his body and legs before climbing up Heavencrest’s legs to climb into her saddle while Demsey, who was honestly scared for you but still impressed by this daring do, dove beside you while Ramsey and Axal did the same.

“Show off!” Axal teased you before you flipped him off which got Axal to laugh as you climbed into the saddle and pulled in her reins and lead and told them both to let go as they did, mere minutes away from the surface before both took flight again. Charlico continuing to fly with Heavencrest as Demsey, Ramsey, Axal, Azaxie and Ocearian flew around you, all your brothers taking turns flying upside down over you to greet you.

“What are you doing here?!” You asked Axal as he was the first to do so.

“We were invited to come by your hosts, we couldn’t stay away.” Axal informed you before he finished the loop and flew next to you.

“Ah, I see,” you nodded. Under Ramsey’s order no doubt. He really was pulling out every stop for you, but you weren’t going to refuse such a precious gift, no matter who was giving it to you.

However it was in the air that Axal and Ramsey first got to lay eyes on each other and both seemed to stare in wonder at each other.

Axal was himself, rather ridiculously handsome and being pansexual, was attracted to most individuals, but Ramsey’s heart leapt for joy while his stomach lurched as they continued to stare at each other. Here he had avoided getting married because he had always wanted the happiness of his parents, but he could never find the perfect fit. Finally seeing you two years ago, he had felt an initial pull towards you and because of all the pressure his parents had put onto him to marry, he had excused himself from it saying that his perfect bride had already married another. When Edward had died not even a year later, his father had burst into his room and happily announced that in a year- you would be free to wed him and his perfect bride would be available yet again and the pressure was back on.

But at the same time, he had never felt such panic, immediately trying to ease the sensation by throwing himself into his vices and when he saw you at the Savoy, he knew it was now or never, and everything was coming to a head because if he did not secure you, he was done for, you were it, you were the last hope he had of saving himself. But seeing Axal, Ramsey immediately knew that marrying you was going to be a mistake, because as perfect as you seemed to be, he was forcing a connection with you and he could feel your hesitance and reluctance and while he could understand and sympathize with you, he didn’t feel he had much of a choice, it was either marry you or lose everything. But just one look at Axal and it was like lightning struck but in the most blissful way, there, surrounded by the heavenly clouds and crisp clean air, there was the perfect being, his match, riding the most kick ass dragon he had ever seen in his life and he couldn't help himself, he swooned. He already knew just in that instance that his family would not look kindly to it, would not accept this twist of fate.

Meanwhile Axal stared in awed wonder at Ramsey, feeling his heart and soul alight with joy. There on an amazing griffen, sat a handsome man, mature, striking, distinguished and best of all, royal. He could tell by his clothes and saddle, the classic red and gold while he was in the same exact shade of red and black himself, complimentary if he said so himself.

“Hi, what’s your name?” Axal asked as he flew next to Ramsey, upside down over him actually, a feat, especially while riding a dragon and a stunt for anyone.

“I’m Dauphin Ramsey Raymond, and you?” Ramsey asked back.

“Hi, what’s your name?” Ocearan asked Jane as he rode above her, also upside down, showing off his own skill as she gawked at him as she had never seen a man so handsome before.

“Axalarize Saharrazat, Divan of Kilan, Audravienne’s twin brother, but you can call me Axal, thank you so much for inviting us.” Axal answered. “Those are my brothers, Azaxie and Ocearan, Zax and Ren for short, the rest of my family is coming by train, we decided to come early by flight, obviously.” Axal pointed to his brothers who had somehow zeroed right in on Charlotte and Jane after saying hi to you then introducing themselves to Yalin and Gregori and saying hi to the others.

“Hi, what’s your name?” Ocearan asked Jane as he rode above her, also upside down, showing off his own skill as she gawked at him as she had never seen a man so handsome before.

“Countess Jane Morrigan, and you?” She called back.

“Ocearan Saharazat, Divan of Kilan, friends call me Ren, which you're welcome to too, it’s a pleasure to meet you- your grace.” He greeted before turning his griffen to ride side by side with her.

He did not have the same gold eyes you did, but his eyes were the very color of the ocean, she mused it must have inspired his name.

“How often do you fly?” He asked.

“Never, this is my first time,” Jane confessed.

“No! You’re a natural! You look like you were born to do it.” Ocearan insisted.

“Thank you but I’m quite scared actually, I feel at any moment I might fall off.” Jane admitted even though her legs were squeezing her pegasus so tightly, she worried she might break it’s ribs.

“Even if you did, I would catch you, you can count on that.” Ocearan insisted and Jane couldn’t help it, she giggled then laughed as her cheeks stained rose as she finally felt herself relax a little.

You were so overjoyed to be reunited with Heavencrest though, you weren’t paying a lick of attention to anyone else as you had her flying in a loop, unhooking yourself at the apex of the top, flipping in the air and then landing in the saddle again at the bottom of the loop, giving your body the work out of its life but laughing your ass off doing so while Demsey noticed that Axal and Ramsey were in conversation and distracted and chose to stay as close to you as he could, just watching as you did feat after feat with your griffin, while Charlico was doing feats as well in unison with Heavencrest as you seemed to flip from one griffin to the other in the air. It was like watching a fearless acrobat and you never looked so happy or so at home, it was like watching a night blooming flower finally open up, it was incredible.

But you looked over at Demsey and noticed he was gasping for breath before you latched onto Heavencrest.

“Demsey! We need to dive!” You hollered at him as all the happiness and joy that had overwhelmed you one moment vanished and was replaced with worry when you noticed how hard Demsey was gasping for air.

“What? Why?” Demsey asked, his voice failing as his eyes became a little bloodshot from the strain of his body for oxygen.

“Because you’re not breathing right and you’re about to pass out, we gotta dive, come on, fly with me,” you invited him as made a trill call to Charlico who soon flew to Demsey’s other side as Heavencrest and Charlico helped lead Alphonse down lower as steep as you dared with Demsey and just as Demsey heard and barely got a chance to register what you said- everything faded to black and he passed out and went limp on the saddle, but thanks to the saddle he was in, only his arms laid limp at his sides as his head lolled back and forth as you just shook your head, reached over and took the reins and had Charlico guide you back to the barn and it wasn’t until you landed and you were leading the pegasus back to the barn when he awoke and jolted awake and yelled.

“What the?!” He asked as he startled awake.

“Hey, welcome back to the land of the living.” You greeted over your shoulder as you led Alaphonse, your jacket open and hanging off the back of you, revealing only your silk lined wool under garment, with the sleeves rolled up, revealing your forearms as you led the pegasus, while Charlico and Heavencrest practically frollicked together in the landing strip, playing like cubs despite their saddles and loads.

“What...what happened?” Demsey asked.

“You stayed too high for too long, there’s less oxygen the higher in the air you go and you didn’t dive fast enough to the richer air and passed out. So I had Alaphonse fly you back while Heavencrest and Charlico flew on either side to make sure you would be ok. Thank the gods you were wearing a full saddle and fully strapped in.” You answered as you patted his strapped- in and chapp covered leg.

“I’m, I’m sorry.” He apologized running his hands down his face because as soon as you were done showing off your own skill, he was going to try to show off too but no, he passed out like a weakling, and cut the flight short for both of you. The opposite of his plans and intentions.

“For what? It happens all the time, I’m actually impressed you lasted that long in the first place, most only last a few minutes, you lasted almost an hour, that’s a very impressive feat, probably due to your orcish heritage, used to adapting to any and all climates.” You reassured him.

“Yeah but you’re grounded with me, you were happy and free up there and the last thing I wanted to do was pull you away, you could still go back up, really, I'm fine and recovered and can take Alaphonse back.” Demsey confessed and if there weren’t servants quickly walking over to you, you would be jumping up into that saddle with him and kiss the sweet man.

“Aww, thank you, I greatly appreciate the sentiment but do you have any idea how much energy and strength it takes to fly the way I do? A ton. And honestly, I’ve had my fill for today and I haven’t flown in about two years, it was the perfect reintroduction into it. And you gave me the perfect excuse to get away from Ramsey, thankfully he’s still distracted with Axal and actually I haven’t been able to spot them since Ramsey got off his own griffin and got on Grevu with Axal, they flew off to who knows where, Gregori and Yalin are at least flying with your parents, they’re over the trees on the other side of the palace.” You informed him before you looked over to see Heavencrest get mounted by Charlico.

“Ugh, really?” You asked rhetorically as Charlico was very vigorous in his mounting, crooning loudly.

“What are they…oh.” Demsey began to ask before he seemed to realize what was going on.

“They’re making cubs, but the problem is I probably can’t afford that stud fee.” You muttered as you just shook your head and kept on walking.

“You know you don’t have to keep walking me, I’m sure there’s more room on here, I could at least walk you over to Heavencrest so you can ride her back to the stables or just walk you back if you wish.” Demsey offered before you paused and gave him an appreciative glance over your shoulder.

“Sure.” You readily agreed as you put the reins back into his hands and then took his outstretched hand and nearly squealed in delight when he easily pulled you up to ride behind him in the saddle before you sat behind him, pressing your front up to his back after untying all the straps in back that tied him to the back of of the saddle so that your front and his back could be flush together before he quickly turned the pegasus and clicked his teeth to get it into a canter and was so happy to feel you hold onto him as you easily moved with him in the saddle as he went across the field to where Heavencrest was now splayed out in the grass with Charlico in a state of bliss next to her, covering her with his wing so their bodies were next to each other.

“Aww, I don’t have the heart to break that up. Heavy Baby,” you whistled before she lifted her head and looked over at you.

“Shield.” You instructed in maranai just as the other servants were once again coming closer before she and Charlico got up and put their wings up to shield you and Demsey from view.

“Go, run for the woods. Go, go, go!” You urged with a giggle before Demsey gladly kicked the pegasus into a run as it ran the two of you into the thick woods besides the landing strip and once you were well out of sight, Heavencrest and Charlico put their wings down and quickly ran away from the servants and took to the air before the servants could get a hold of them before the servants just gave up and returned to the stables as Alaphonse seemed to find and follow a little trail in the woods as your run soon slowed to a canter then a trot then a nice walk.

“Thank you,” you thanked Demsey appreciatively from behind his shoulder.

“For what?” Demsey asked turning his head to the side so he could try to see you over his shoulder.

“For doing this. I wasn’t sure you’d go for it honestly.” You answered.

“Why wouldn’t I?” Demsey found himself asking because he couldn’t fathom a reason why he wouldn’t want to do this with you. Honestly he was liable to agree to anything you suggested, also something about you just smelled heavenly, like soap, some kind of deodorant or perfume but your own personal scent was tantalizing in his nose and he was trying to turn his head off his shoulders trying to get a goof whiff of it. It was turning him on like nothing else had. It somehow smelled familiar and comforting yet thrilling and he couldn’t understand why.

“Because you’re a proper gentleman, and isn’t part of the English culture that a gentleman never be alone with a lady?” You asked.

“Well…yeah.” Demsey sighed tiredly as he seemed to remember that as he winced.

“Then thankfully we are under Dorierra’s rules where such a thing is perfectly allowed and accepted. Besides, I have the strongest conviction that my honor is perfectly safe in your presence, even when alone.” You reassured him.

“Good, because it is.” Demsey smiled proudly as he seemed to sit a little straighter and prouder and to feel you rest your head on his shoulder was just plain heavenly before they heard a bough breaking from a tree which made Alaphonse spook and bolt in one direction as the bough came crashing down right where you had been as you hung on to Demsey even tighter to stay on before Heavencrest and Charlico guiltily slinked down the trees, both of them making the ‘sorry’ noise that sounded like like husky whine.

“Really? Both of you on one branch?” You asked them as you noticed the two sets of claw marks in the wood as you slipped off Alaphonse and went digging in the cargo strapped to Heavencrest because if you had to spend another minute in this suit, you were going to melt into a puddle of sweat.

“What are you looking for?” Demsey asked as he began to get out of the riding jacket off at least, because even he was getting overheated.

“A different outfit. because even though we’re in the forest, it is a very warm spring day, we are going into summer and the heat even here is getting oppressive while wearing fur lined leather suits.” You answered before you found what you were looking for.

“Shield.” You commanded again before Charlico and Heavencrest laid down but put their wings up to shield you again so you could change in privacy.

“Oh my gods that feels so much better.” You crooned as you peeled off your leather suit and your wool underlayer and put on your brother’s pants and shirt before you slipped your boots back on.

“Shield down.” You told Heavencrest before she and Charlico both put their wings down just as you were stuffing your suit into where you had gotten your brother’s clothes after you got some other clothes from the same pack.

“Want to change too or melt in that?” You offered as you held out the change of clothes towards him.

“Will they fit?” He asked.

“You’re not that much bigger than my brothers, it’ll be fine.” You reassured him before he tried untying himself from the saddle before you put the clothes down and helped him untie himself as you got to all the ties he couldn’t reach on his legs and feet and even behind him, untying the thick waistband around his waist before he finally freed himself from the saddle and got off and took the chaps off his legs.

“What does that word “dire” mean?” He asked as walked over to where Heavencrest was laying on the ground before they put up their wings around him which made you laugh.

“It means “shield” in marinai, I was asking them to shield us with their wings, obviously.” You answered from behind the wall of feathers before you sat on the other side of Heavencrest and continued to look through her packs curiously before you found a metal canteen, thinking it was water and helped yourself before you coughed and sputtered when you realized it definitely wasn’t water before you whooped happily.

“What?” Demsey stuck his face through the feathers to look around to see you on your knees with a canteen.

“I thought this was full of water, it’s not, it’s liquor.” You answered as you held up the canteen.

“Want to try it? It’s good.” You offered it to him before he reached out a bare arm to take it from you and you could smell his body odor from his armpit and it both turned you on yet was a very comforting, if not familiar smell and you could not, in your head, understand why that was, but the gods be damned you were ready to pounce on him through Heavy’s wing as he took it and took a sip.

“Whoo! Yeah, that’s pretty strong, but yeah, it’s good, it’s sweet.” He answered before he handed it back and retreated to finish getting dressed.

“It’s spiced rum, flavored with liquors made with other tropical fruits.” You answered. “We call it rum punch, it’s very popular in Dorierra, it’s best when mixed with fresh juices from said tropical fruits,” you informed him.

“So what do I say when I want the shield to go down?” Demsey asked as he finished getting the clothes on, grateful that there seemed to be little ties to things so he could custom fit it how he wanted and needed it to.

“Dire lisafil.” You informed him.

“Dire lisafil.” He tried to repeat before Heavencrest and Charlico obeyed and let their wings down and folded them up before he stepped out of the way so Charlico could lay beside Heavencrest again before you and Demsey decided to sit at the trunk of a tree while Alaphonse continued to munch on the nearby foliage.

“So can I ask you a somewhat personal question if it means I have your confidence to keep your answer in my discretion?” You asked as you set the canteen down between you.

“Sure, anything.” Demsey invited.

“Why don’t you like Lady Whitesale?” You asked him.

“Oh that’s a loaded question.” Demsey chuckled before he grabbed the canteen and took another swig because it was the tastiest alcohol he had ever drank.

“Uh, well, for one, she’s disingenuous, she did her best to push a friendship my sisters but at the ball at Havenfield when we took up company with Calla and Bennie, she showed her true colors and snubbed us and alienated us from the other orc families in the court when we chose their company over hers. So she’s vindictive and spiteful whenever she’s not being two faced.” Demsey confessed as you nodded in agreement.

“Yeah, good job dodging a bullet with that one.” You offered which got Demsey to laugh.

“Thanks, I also agree with that sentiment and even if Bennie and Calla had not come I still would have never pursued her and she was only after me for my title anyway, she had nothing to her character that recommended her if I’m being honest and candid. Now can I ask you something kind of personal? But also know that I will keep your answer in confidence?” Demsey returned hopefully yet easily because talking to you was like talking with a dear friend and conversation came so naturally and flowed effortlessly.

“Go for it.” You invited, delighted he used your wording.

“Why don’t you like Ramsey?” He asked and you couldn’t help but laugh in turn.

“Also a loaded question, but for starters, he is very desperate to have me as a wife as soon as possible and I don’t know why and the harder he pushes the deeper I dig my heels in because I can’t fathom why a Dauphin, which is basically a prince, his age, with his status wasn’t married at least a decade ago and have kids already. Yalin told me a while ago, that he’s been a rake for most if not all of his youth and adulthood and he has had his own… I think the English term is benchmark or standard- is too high, he wants perfection in a mate who is both perfectly English and perfectly moura which I am neither because the two couldn’t be more different, which you’ll see over the next two weeks or so and he can’t find this perfect mate because she doesn’t exist, at least to my knowledge and she warned me to steer clear of him once she learned what I wanted and even warned me not to go to the places he frequents on the days he does just so that he wouldn’t try to snatch me up on sight because he has not one, two or even three mistresses, but five, one at the all the high end whorehouses and spends quite a bit of money paying for his illegitimate heirs, all eight of them, some the oldest ones are actually Jane’s age because he started using the whorehouses young with his father which, ew.” You shuddered and pretended to gag at the idea of going to a whorehouse with one of your parents.

“But somehow between her telling me that which was only a few weeks ago, because you remember that note you returned to me? I went to the Gold Finch and she was there and she was the most senior moura there and instantly she was like a mother hen and I flocked to her and we had a wonderful heart to heart and I told her about my situation and what I wanted, I wanted a marriage of the first order, a love match and she agreed and she even agreed to make me a list of suitors who would fit what I’m looking for because breed or station or title doesn’t matter to me, personality does, but she never did give me that list and now between then and the ball at Havenfield, something happened and she changed her tune and her attitude completely and now I don’t trust that what I’ve confided in her is no longer safe or strictly in her confidence. I don’t know if Ramsey somehow convinced her to change her mind or what but I can’t get her alone to talk about it with her. But now I trust her even less than I did. And now that my brothers are here, and Axal especially is here, tells me that either Bennie, or Calla but I’m betting Bennie because she was the second most valuable moura bride in the stables while I was there, because moura brides are given a particular number value, and then once I left, she’s been queen of the roost because now she’s the top bride so I’m guessing that it was her that told them to invite my family and for me, it’s not that hard to understand why they’re here.” You sighed tiredly as you took the canteen back and took another pull from it, welcoming the sweet burn that followed.

“Ok, you’re gonna have to explain the why to me because I don’t follow.” Demsey petitioned.

“Ok so, in Dorierra, every potential bride is given either the same or better education than any scholar or professor in the world. We are taught everything under the sun. And everything we are taught is put down into a document called a master resume, or simply master for short and the paper is a document that’s about this big.” You gestured with your hands to show how big the document would be and it would have been like a poster sized document.

“On one side it’s everything I’ve ever learned, who taught it to me, what I excelled in, what I was proficient in, on the other side it’s my lineage, my family tree tracing back at least a millenia and can usually be traced back to the beginning of the stables. Well Ramsey got a copy of that document. He referenced it at the ball no less than a dozen times. It’s a very expensive document to even get a copy of, most suitors don’t even get to see the master because the matchmakers- will cherry pick, like pick and choose which talents and items to create a report, to show that potential suitor based on the suitor’s culture and customs of what will best appeal to them. But the master does not show what that particular moura bride actually likes and enjoys, it gives us a personality type but that’s it. I was taught and raised to be a queen, an empress, a sultana, but do I want to be any of those things? No. I have no desire for it, no ambition or hunger for a political life because I have had more than enough intrigue in my life at Broadcove to last me at least five lifetimes. But Ramsey took one look at my master and thinks that it still applies, like it’s the gospel truth about me and it’s not, he has not made an effort at all to actually get to know me for me and he projects onto me and he won’t give me a chance to tell him otherwise.” You explained.

“He actually wants me to advise him on court life and how to gain more power and more standing in the house of lords and with the common man which I am very removed from both and the very mention of that left me running towards the bathroom to just escape him because my very soul revolted against such an idea and I can not begin to tell you how much I don’t want to do that for the rest of my life. Because as a queen and an empress, that’s a given, but as a sultana, no, if the sultan empires were still standing, I would be taken into a harem- which means a palace only for the women of the household, because once I would marry a sultan, I would then enter his harem full of women, his mother, his sisters, his brother’s mothers because sultans have a harem of wives and concubines and they have sex with all of them and have at least 50 to a hundred children if not more by at least two to six dozen wives and concubines. And once you enter that harem, the only way you leave it is by death. Now while harems are safe in that no other man except the Sultan and his family and eunuchs are allowed in the harem. It’s a fight for survival among the other women to gain the Sultan’s favor and keep it when you’re competing with all the other women and it’s all about alliances and once you have a son, getting your son on that throne and keep him alive long enough for that to happen because regicide and murder among brothers is very much a standard practice. And I can’t begin to tell you how much I would dislike even that life.” You explained as Demsey simply sat and listened attentively.

“And the thing is, I’m a very jealous, possessive person- at least in a romantic sense, which is actually rather odd considering my moura heritage but I digress. If I’m going to marry someone, I want all of them the way they can expect to have all of me, all of my loyalty and fidelity and love and devotion. One of the biggest reasons I agreed to marry Edward was because he had never had any mistresses and he only married me after his wife died, who he had been faithfully married to for most of his life had and he just wanted a kind, pretty pet to keep him company in his last years which I was happy to do. But it was under the agreement and understanding that when I survived him, I would be free, I wouldn’t have to return to the stables to do it all over again, be sold as a pet for some other old, rich guy, over and over and over again, there are some brides who have been through the stables eight times, each time they go through them their price goes up because they’ve had more and more “experience” in different courts and allies in every single one, they’re the ones who have brought in millions of pounds for the country because the bride price, that’s how the family makes their money and income and it’s the bride price that keeps the country going and it’s ridiculous because we are both oh so precious and rare- but still, just...cattle to the stable masters, and that’s why the moura contract is so protective because we’re meant to be resold and repackaged over and over again. Isn’t that pathetic?” You asked rather rhetorically.

“I finally have the freedom to marry who I want, who I find agreeable and attractive who might actually love me for me so I can do the same for them and I realize that I am not the same person I was when I left Dorierra two years ago. And I fear that now that Axal especially is here, that my brothers and family have been brought here to remind me of who I used to be and what I am, but at the same time- all of that isn’t enough for me anymore. “ You insisted.

“There’s no real, lasting happiness in that life because what are gowns and jewels compared to loyalty and fidelity, trust, equality, respect and confidence? And while the Dauphin is the most eligible bachelor in England and I could live in a palace, it would only be until Ramsey’s eyes wandered to someone else, someone younger and prettier and more accomplished who actually lives up to their master, with his heart following closely behind and then I would be stuck in a cage, a large, gilded one with a measure of security and comfort but one without warmth or love or trust or respect, and he’s wealthy enough to file for a divorce, and if he divorced me I would be ruined and penniless and shattered, I can’t live like that, he’s already too old and set in his ways and I can already tell I’m not the one to change any of that. I can’t stand a power imbalance or hypocrisy, because while Ramsey probably never would give up his lovers, the heavens forbid me from enjoying the same. And men like Ramsey who are obsessive are dangerous anyway.” You snarled.

“It starts as out innocently enough as not wanting me to dance with anyone but him, like at the ball, it was not lost on anyone because he didn’t even let me dance with you that night- that he wanted me and all of me all to himself and he even sent his sister to go with me to the bathroom, so that even there I couldn’t be free and I can almost guarantee you that if I were to marry him, I would almost immediately give up every male friend, I would have limited contact with my brothers and no contact with any male staff for fear that I would ever be led astray by another man. That’s how obsession turns into danger, because then that leads to me being secluded and alienated from anyone and everyone but him, making him my whole world which is again- very dangerous, especially emotionally. It’s the worst kind of trap.” You predicted as you tried not to cry as Demsey blinked in surprise as he suddenly realized that too.

“Yeah, I mean, don’t get me wrong, they’re my family and I love them almost immeasurably, and I have missed them dearly and I’m looking forward to seeing them again, but I’m not going to allow myself to be pushed around. Not anymore.” You insisted as you shook your head no adamantly.

“Men have freedom of movement in this society and you can wake up one day and decide to change your life and you can just do it, nothing but perhaps your own wealth would stop you. Women on the other hand, they’re treated like property, like chess pieces, it’s the same here as it is in Dorierra and while at least in Dorierra I would have a bit more control and a little more freedom, I would still be subject to a system, a cycle, that I can not change, the cycle’s goal is to groom young women into professional pawns for powerful men who care not if that pawn stands or falls with every move on the board and I know I deserve better than that but until I can find a match who agrees with that point point of view- I just get to suck it up and choose as carefully as I can and use all the wisdom and discernment at my disposal because I don’t...I don’t want Ramsey, I don’t like him, I’m not attracted to him, I gave him an inch by agreeing to be his friend and he’s taking a mile which I resent. If he would be honest with me as to why he’s so hell bent on taking me for a wife and treated me like an equal and an ally instead of a new broodmare he wants to buy to complete his stables, it might be different. And if he tries to use my own family against me to either guilt me or push me into marrying him I’m just gonna leave, sell everything I own or hell, pack it up and just go to the nearest moura mountain colony and live there, I now have Heavencrest, my beautiful means of escape if I want it and I have skill enough to keep a roof over my head if I need it. I know what it means to be alone and on my own, and I’m not afraid of it if it means my own freedom. But feeling so alone in a room full of people is one of the worst tortures. Everyone else be damned.” You insisted, so happy and relieved to get that off your chest.

“Oh,” Demsey murmured in realization as he couldn’t help but agree with every single point you made as he was half tempted to just get on Charlico and just fly you to the closest colony with you. He needed to rescue from Ramsey if it was the last thing he could do. He didn’t care if you didn’t chose him now, you just couldn’t be with Ramsey, that was like offering up a lamb to a wolf and you had been the sacrificial lamb to the Morrigans, never again.

“Then count me as a friend who will not let that happen to you either.” Demsey insisted as he knew immediately that he would no longer ever see or use Miss Audra Draft and he was at peace with that. He would wait for your friendship to grow into something more only if you wanted it but he was content to wait however long he had to for you. You deserved all of himself.

“I will if you will do me the same honor, I will also try to protect you from any other Lady Whitesales, no matter what other shapes or forms or names they may have.” You smiled as you shared a happy contented smile of understand and as much as you wanted to offer yourself up to him and crawl into that inviting lap but that was probably inappropriate as you simply found his hand with yours and held his hand comfortably and it was the most divine feeling, just sitting in the woods with someone who understood you and sympathized with you and who actually saw you for you and you felt seen and heard for the first time in your life, just then you heard Grevu give a sounding call before Heavencrest lifted her head off the ground and looked to you expectantly as you sighed in defeat, you had been found.

“Yeah, go ahead, answer it.” You begrudgingly said to her before you reluctantly let go of Demsey and got up and dusted your butt off and walked over to the saddle to put the canteen away before you got into the saddle as Demsey seemed to pick up on your cue and got back onto Alaphonse before the dragon came in through the hole in the canopy that Charlico and Heavencrest had created and landed rather gently onto the ground where Ramsey quickly got off and came over to you.

“So this is where you’ve taken my dear Audra, I almost had to call in the calvary to find you.” Ramsey insisted as he looked you over and immediately noticed you had changed clothes and you could see the worry in his eyes and on his features before he turned an accusing eye towards Demsey before you grabbed his face and had him return his attention to you.

“Actually I took him here to get us out of the sun and out of those fur lined leather suits, I was sweltering in the heat so I got into the packs that were on my griffin Heavencrest, and Heavy knows the shield command so the griffins made sure to shield both of us with their wings to give us privacy to change, so there was no breach in proprietary, I assure you. Besides, I would never dream to encroach or call into question the good duke’s honor, nor he mine.” You quickly and firmly insisted to Ramsey who seemed to accept that without any further compliment as relief washed over his features which made you smile in relief as well.

“And you would be right to do so, he’s one my most honest, trusted and honorable members of court.” Ramsey praised, since that obviously would please you.

“Which is quite the achievement in itself.” You praised with a pleased grin, prouder and brighter because of Ramsey’s praise on Demsey’s behalf as Axal looked from you to Demsey and caught on that something had definitely transpired and could already instantly tell that Ramsey was fighting a losing battle because Demsey was- clearly- your type.

“By the way I think I owe your family quite a bit of money. You see Charlico has already covered Heavencrest so I’ll need to pay his stud fee, however much that might be.” You informed Ramsey.

“Oh no need for that at all my dear Audra, I mean look at them, they’re a pair, obviously, it’s natures way.” He insisted.

“Are you sure?” You asked wearily and fearfully because if it wasn’t going to be a monetary fee, another fee would be expected and you were not willing to pay whatever that fee might be considering that fee might be your marraige hand.

“Absolutely. I’ll even arrange for Heavencrest was it? For her to stay in a double stall with him. I mean look at the pair of them, they’ll make the most beautiful offspring.” Ramsey insisted, happy that at least he had an in with Charlico. Griffins mated for life, this was a sign that Audra was for him that her griffin would want to mate with his and that their riders should follow suit, no matter how much he had already, instantly clicked and befriended Axal even though his soul was wanting so much more than friendship in that respect.

“Oh, um, ok.” You reluctantly agreed as you nodded but let your shoulders drop and simply went back to Heavy and got in her saddle again.

“Audra, get off Heavy and get on Grevu with me, it’s been too long since you’ve ridden him.” Axal immediately piped up and took off his belt that was clipped in with Grevu’s saddle and scooted back into the long saddle to make room for you as you smiled in appreciation and climbed up Grevu.

“Hi Grevu, I’ve missed you, you been a good boy? Huh?” You cooed as you pet his face as he moved his head closer to you before he put his nose behind your butt and nudged you up into the saddle as you giggled before Axal wrapped the belt around your waist before you clipped it in and turned Grevu around before he climbed up the trees and leapt up into the air.

“Why are you upset that Ramsey now has Heavencrest in a stall with Charilco?” Axal asked.

“Because now he has the power over my escape if I wish it. This was why I didn’t take Heavy with me to Broadcove because I knew Richard would do who knows what to her to keep me in line and keep me grounded. Now I fear Ramsey is going to do the same.” You answered back over your shoulder.

“Does Ramsey really remind you that much of Richard?” Axal asked in alarm.

“He’s been obsessive over me since he saw me in a restaurant only a few weeks ago. He refused to let me dance with any other man but him for the whole ball we attended just the other day and he even got a hold of my master and went behind my back to my dress shop and ordered dresses for me without my knowledge. He’s obsessive and controlling and dangerous.” You insisted to Axal as you flew Grevu around the palace as you watched Demsey and Ramsey fly out of the foliage and quickly fly over to the barn.

“So you don’t like him or want him.” Axal realized.

“Nope, but I can’t be rude, his parent’s are my hosts for me, Calla and Bennie for the next six weeks.” You answered.

“I see, so if I was attracted to him, you’d be cool with me going after him.” Axal began.

“If he’s your type, go for it, by all means, he’s all yours, please take him off my back and my hands, but if you could also find out why he’s so obsessed with me, that would be much appreciated.” You invited before you had Grevu land on the runway and trot over to the barn.

“Considerate done, I’ll even try to get you Charlico.” Axal offered.

“You can try all you want, I don’t think the Dauphin is the giving type.” You warned him evenly.

“But what about that gorgeous green fellow you were with on the other hand?” Axal asked.

“He’s a close friend and he’s a good man, if you try to tempt him away from me, I’ll slit your throat myself.” You warned which got Axal to laugh.

“Still territorial I see.” Axal teased.

“Yup, that will never change about me.” You confirmed proudly.

“Good, I’m glad to hear it, stick to your guns.” He praised before he helped you off Grevu.

“Make sure this one eats especially well.” You urged the servants who warily came and got the dragon and began to taking him over to a cart so that the things packed on him would be unloaded and brought into the palace as the dragon simply stood still and let them

“So you and Ramsey hit it off that quickly huh?” You asked Axal as you walked over to Heavy to reconnect with her while another double stall was made ready for her since her pack had already been undone and brought to the same cart of things as you checked her over, making sure she was still in pristine shape as you scratched all her favorite spots between her colorful plumage as she ruffled her feathers so you could get to everything.

“What’s going on in here?” Yalin asked as she walked her own griffin back into the stables.

“This is Heavencrest, she’s Audra’s griffin and Charlico matched with her and even covered her already, isn’t that wonderful mother?” Ramsey reported and even you could hear his nervousness.

“If that isn’t acceptable, I can always try to pay for Charlico’s stud fee, or offer you a cub if she ends up taking it.” You offered.

“No, no, not at all, it’s natures way! They were clearly meant for each other, that’s wonderful. Of course they should always be together from now on. Really if you wish to keep Heavencrest stabled here you’re more than welcome to or we can always loan Charlico out if you wish to keep her at the little stable that Mirador has until other arrangements can be made.” Yalin insisted with a proud and meaningful look to her son as you simply just shook your head and hugged Heavencrest who practically laid down and enveloped you and made a purring sound.

“Why is it making that sound?” Demsey whispered to Axal as they both resigned themselves to lean against the wall and watch the scene unfold.

“The same reason cat’s purr, to comfort.” Axal murmured back.

“I’m Axalarize by the way, Audra’s twin brother.” Axal introduced himself.

“Demsey Voyambi.” Demsey said as the two shook hands.

“Stay with her will you,” Axal urged Demsey as he pushed off the wall and decided to “turn on” his charm to Yalin and Ramsey.

“So again, a thousand thanks for extending the invitation to us your excellency.” Axal greeted with a flourishing bow.

“Oh stop that, you can call me Mama Yalin, I understand you go by Axal? Like a cart axel?” She asked.

“Axal is short for my full name Axalarize Dilathia Saharrazat Divan of Kilan of Dorierra. Which is a mouthful I understand, so simply Axal, those are again my brothers, Ocearian Amythius Saharrazat, and my other brother Azaxie Adosius Saharrazat. The rest of the family is coming by train and will be here the day after tomorrow. We decided to leave immediately after your conversation with us via messengerari yesterday morning, as soon as we could get packed actually.” Axal explained as you sat inside Heavy’s embrace and were ready to start a fight with Bennie for going behind your back because other than Calla, no one else would have your own parents exact messengerari number because their brothers were too absorbed with flirting with the Voyambi sisters and Calla you didn’t think would do such a thing as going behind your back without at least running it by you first.

“So bring it in Mama Yalin.” He invited as he gave Yalin a great big hug, so show me all the wonderful things about your Palace of Windsor, because when you said a palace, you meant a palace!” He insisted as he put Ramsey under one arm and Yalin under the other and walked them out of the barn towards the house before Demsey dared to sit down on the floor next to Heavy and gently pet her and get as close to you as he could.

“What’s wrong?” He murmured quietly.

“You know how I was telling you about how obsession can lead to danger?” You said as you lifted your face out of Heavy’s colorful feathers and smoothed them and let your head rest over them you wiped away your tears.

“If Heavy’s here with Charlico and if they’re going to be a mated pair and if they won’t let me pay for Charlico’s stud fee or agree to the other term which is offering one of the cubs. But since they won’t accept that, they’re going to probably use Heavy as leverage to really get what they want. I didn’t bring Heavy with me to Broadcove because I knew Richard would hurt her or abuse her the way he tried to with me when I wouldn’t cooperate with him and I would rather he be a thousand miles away but safe. And I don’t want to be rude but this whole situation just gives me anxiety. And leaving it open ended like “other arrangements” fries my nerves and what I don’t want anyone to think is just because Heavy and Charlie over there have immediately bonded that their chosen riders should too, I’ll load Heavy up right now and leave under the cover of night tonight if that is what they’re thinking.” You vowed.

“Can I have your permission to help or try to intervene in any way?” Demsey asked hopefully.

“Like if push comes to shove, I will happily help you load up everything and create a diversion if I have to, I would prefer you stay but if you feel that strongly, you should listen to your instincts.” Demsey advised before you reached down and grabbed his hand and brought it to your lips and kissed the back of his hand sweetly.

“Thanks.” You thanked him.

“I’m sure it’s just...I’m sure I’m just overreacting to the abuse I suffered at Broadcove, the Raymonds may be perfectly innocent and I may just be imputing bad motives. But I would rather not wait until it was too late to find out either way.” You admitted before Demsey got an idea.

“How about this, when you get a chance to go back to your room tonight, pack up like you would be leaving for the closest colony tonight. Only put everything into like a trunk if you can. Then come and get me and I’ll get it and put it in my room and you just say the word, and I’ll help you escape and they will think nothing of me dragging a trunk down to the stables and getting Heavy ready for you and then just leave me a list of instructions or even leave a note that you want Amara or Callie or whichever of my sisters you prefer to get everything you have that way it can all be brought to Whydahh and I’ll ship it to wherever you end up. I’ll even personally bring it all to you if you’d let me.” Demsey offered sincerely.

“I think you’re the first real friend I’ve made outside of Dorierra.” You confessed.

“Deal.” You readily agreed before you finally couldn’t wait anymore and crawled into his lap and just hugged him tightly..

“Thank you Demsey.” You thanked him as he held you tightly, wishing he had the courage to just admit his feelings for you already and admit to everything. But you obviously needed time and a more gradual approach to romance.

“The first of hopefully many many more to come.” Demsey reassured you.

“It’ll be ok, someway, somehow, it’ll be ok.” Demsey assured you as he gently rubbed your back the way he would his little sisters while comforting them and even though he tried to make this as platonic as possible, his heart, mind and soul were begging and pleading for more while his own hope soard that he had a much bigger, fighting chance for your heart than ever before. This wasn’t a hopeless fight that he had no hope of winning. This was basically every knight in shining armor fighting the evil king for the princess locked in a high tower fantasy he had ever read as a child coming to fruition. He was going to prove to you through his actions that his feelings for you were genuine and even if you didn’t choose him, you would be free. And your freedom is all that mattered.

#Blood For Gold #Blood For Gold Part 10 #wooo gay panic ftw #Did anyone else catch on?#I tried to be subtle.#But yes #gay #it's about to get so gay #up in here #regency era orc period drama #regency orcs #orcs #orc love story #moura

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ingek73 · 4 years

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Here Are 20 Headlines Comparing Meghan Markle To Kate Middleton That Might Show Why She And Prince Harry Are Cutting Off Royal Reporters

Over the years, Meghan has been shamed for the same things for which her sister-in-law, Kate, has been praised.

Ellie Hall

BuzzFeed News Reporter

Last updated on January 13, 2020, at 12:00 p.m. ET

Posted on January 13, 2020, at 10:40 a.m. ET

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex (aka Prince Harry and Meghan Markle) didn't just shockingly "step back" as senior members of the royal family this week — they gave the UK media a big "fuck-you" for years of what they said was biased and unfair coverage.

The couple's new website on breaking up with years of royal protocol laid out — among a lot of other things — their media strategy, stating that they will no longer participate in the traditional royal press system that grants exclusive access to a select group of UK outlets.

Britain’s royal correspondents, they said, are seen as reliable sources of information. "This misconception propels coverage that is often carried by other outlets around the world, amplifying frequent misreporting," they wrote. Removing themselves from "royal rota" coverage has sparked an outcry among UK media and drew a protest from the National Union of Journalists.

This isn't a new complaint from the royal couple — they just took an unprecedented step to do something about it. Harry and Meghan have said publicly that they believe they have been treated unfairly by the UK press since the moment news broke of their relationship — that they are bullied, that there are racist undertones to coverage of them, and that they have been held to a different standard than Harry's brother and sister-in-law, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (aka Prince William and Kate Middleton).

The UK media outlets that currently make up the royal rota are the Daily Express, the Daily Mail, the Daily Mirror, the Evening Standard, the Telegraph, the Times, and the Sun.

Here is a look at 20 stories from these outlets that appear to show a double standard between press coverage of Meghan and Kate. BuzzFeed News has reached out to all of the outlets featured below for comment.

Kate: "Bumping along nicely! The Duchess was seen placing a protective hand on her tummy as she exited the event." Daily Mail: March 22, 2018

Meghan: "Personally, I find the cradling a bit like those signs in the back of cars: Baby on Board. Virtue signaling, as though the rest of us barren harridans deserve to burn alive in our cars." Daily Mail: Jan. 26, 2019

Kate and William: "Prince William was given one of the green fruit – wrapped up in a bow – by a little boy who's mother is suffering during her pregnancy too... 'He said he'd take it to [Kate] and see what happens – and said good luck for [the boy's] mummy.'" Express: Sept. 14, 2017

Meghan: "The pregnant Duchess of Sussex and so-called 'avocado on toast whisperer' is wolfing down a fruit linked to water shortages, illegal deforestation and all round general environmental devastation." Express: Jan. 23, 2019

Kate: "Royal sources said yesterday that the Queen understood and endorsed William and Kate’s decision not to spend Christmas Day with her. One said: ‘Her Majesty understands that it is a dilemma that many young couples face and acknowledges how close Catherine’s relationship is with her family." Daily Mail: Dec. 16, 2016

Meghan: "The fact is the Queen expects to have the family around her for the festive season... to the Queen, for whom the tradition of the family gathering is a key date in her calendar, Harry and Meghan’s absence will be a matter of great sadness. It will also be a source of frustration." Daily Mail: Nov. 13, 2019

Kate and William: "Creating their own companies will allow William and Kate to bring out, should they ever chose to, myriad items of officially-endorsed merchandise from tea towels to coffee cups... Kensington Palace officials said they were doing the ‘sensible thing’ in protecting the couple’s rights." Daily Mail: Jan. 17, 2014

Meghan and Harry: "The Sussexes want to stamp their name on dozens of products including T-shirts, hoodies, journals and gloves for their newly-created foundation Sussex Royal... Experts said Harry and Meghan were actively preparing to quit the Royal Family months ago by filing trade mark applications to commercially protect their brand." Daily Mail: Jan. 9, 2020

Kate and William: "Prince William yesterday backed brother Harry’s brave admission of his mental anguish — and blasted the monarchy’s 'stiff upper lip' tradition... William said: 'There may be a time and a place for the ‘stiff upper lip’ but not at the expense of your health... '

"'Catherine and I are clear we want both George and Charlotte to grow up feeling able to talk about their emotions and feelings. Over the past year we have visited a number of schools together where we have been amazed listening to children talk about some quite difficult subjects in a clear and emotionally articulate way, something most adults would struggle with. Seeing this has really given me hope things are changing and there is a generation coming up who find it normal to talk openly about emotions.'” Sun: April 19, 2017

Meghan and Harry: "Meghan Markle and Prince Harry have bucked royal tradition once again with their latest TV interview — in which they claimed they were 'existing, not living.' The couple ditched the stiff upper lip of previous Royal Family generations and flew the flag for 'Generation Therapy' as they revealed their emotions to the world - but were they right to do so?

"What you make of 'fragile' Prince Harry and Meghan's comments may depend on your generation. Sun parents and kids reveal what they think of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex airing their emotions in public - and whether they have the right to moan in such positions of privilege..." Sun: Oct. 23, 2019

Kate: "It was reported that new Duchess of Cambridge requested her favorite scented candles and toiletries from luxury fragrance brand Jo Malone be delivered to scent the Abbey. A selection of candles, handwashes and lotions was requested, specifically in citrus spring scents including Orange Blossom, Grapefruit and the ever-popular Lime, Basil & Mandarin." Daily Mail: May 4, 2011

Meghan: "'Meghan wanted staff to go around with these atomizers, like spritzer guns, and spray the chapel with scent before anyone arrived. Royal Household staff stepped in and told her office politely, but firmly, that this was the queen's chapel and it simply wasn't appropriate. I don't believe they said no because they thought it could affect the chapel in any way. It was simply the principle of the thing. This is a place that has held royal weddings, funerals and even contains the royal vault. I don't believe a request of that nature had been made before.'" Daily Mail: Nov. 30, 2018

Kate: "As far as bridal bouquets go there was nothing particularly regal about Kate Middleton’s modest arrangement of simple, seasonal flowers. Like the bride herself the bouquet was effortlessly elegant and understated.

"Yet behind that modest posy lay a secret story. Kate, the commoner-turned-duchess, had painstakingly selected blooms with real meaning. She is evidently well-versed in the language of flowers, a little-known romantic relic from the 19th century.

"Hence the use of lilac in her bouquet, which signifies the first emotions of love, the lily of the valley meaning a return of happiness, hyacinth standing for constancy, myrtle meaning love and the ivy, which represents fidelity. Then of course there was the suitably named Sweet William, which is shorthand for gallantry." Express: Aug. 29, 2011

Meghan: "[Meghan Markle] was holding a wedding bouquet which flowers were replicated in Princess Charlotte and the other bridesmaids’ flower crowns. Express.co.uk can now reveal the children’ crowns were made of flowers that can be deadly, especially for children. Meghan’s bouquet was made of forget-me-nots as well as sweet peas, lily of the valley, astilbe, jasmine, and astrantia...

"Lily of the valley is a highly poisonous woodland flowering plant and ingestion could be deadly... As Meghan’s bridesmaids were so young, having this flower on their heads could be considered a dangerous decision. Other brides have also used this flowers including Kate Middleton, Princess Eugenie and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall." Express: Oct. 13, 2019

Kate and William: "The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh missed the small family affair. The decision is understood not to have been taken on health grounds, and to have been mutually agreed by the Queen and the Cambridges some time ago. The Queen, 92, has a busy week ahead, with high-profile celebrations in central London marking the centenary of the RAF on Tuesday, and a visit by US President Donald Trump in Windsor on Friday." Daily Mail: July 9, 2018

Meghan and Harry: "The situation has surprised some senior staff at Buckingham Palace, who feel that the duke and duchess should have planned the day better. ‘There is huge support for the couple in not wanting to conform to tradition. They are young, they are striking out on a different path from other members of the Royal Family and there is enormous goodwill for them. But they shouldn’t do that without regard for tradition,’ said one. ‘Her Majesty was already scheduled to be in Scotland for her annual Holyrood Week and had a prior engagement at the weekend. There is a feeling amongst some that they should have been more accommodating about the date.’" Daily Mail: July 4, 2019

Kate: "It is a fashion conundrum not many of us will ever face, but what exactly does one wear for tea with the Queen? The Duchess of Cambridge met this challenge head on yesterday by co-ordinating her outfit with the Queen’s powder blue ensemble... The Queen, on her first official event to mark her Diamond Jubilee, was dressed in a pastel hat and two-piece coat dress with military-style rows of gold buttons designed by Angela Kelly. Looking relaxed and elegant, her outfit was perfect for what looked like a fun official engagement with the girls." Mirror: Feb. 14, 2013

Meghan: "The Queen's aides had told [Meghan] she would be wearing a green hat as a mark of respect to those who died in the Grenfell Tower fire. The Queen is said to have been 'baffled' when Meghan turned up without a hat as she didn't realize she was supposed to wear one too. A senior aide said: 'I don't think the Duchess fully understood. This was not a request. Those are for others to make, not the Queen.' The Queen's staff are said to have noted the Duchess's mistake or 'lack of deference'" Mirror: Oct. 29, 2018

Kate: "We see a woman in her prime: stylish, confident and positively radiant, nailing outfit after outfit in the style stakes — and it’s a joy to witness... That old uniform of girlish dresses, tan tights and nude heels has been replaced by dazzling super-chic outfits to satisfy even the most exacting fashionista." Daily Mail: June 16, 2019

Meghan: "Proper royalty is about tradition and duty, self-effacing service and loyalty — year after year after year, season after season... That is not to say that a monarchy cannot or must not move with the times — simply that it has to resist the temptation to be buffeted by passing cultural trends. Fashion is the exact opposite. And as fashion’s most famous bible, Vogue exemplifies the transient nature of the beast." Daily Mail: July 29, 2019

#meghate #meghan markle #kate middleton #duchess of sussex #duchess of cambridge #double standards #brf #royal rota #tabloids #buzzfeed

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sweetvixen1996 · 4 years

Text

FUN WAYS THE MCU CAN START INTRODUCING X-MEN ELEMENTS (NOT INCLUDING WANDA VISION):

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.3

Mentions of the Starjammers- a team of space pirates led by Corsair AKA Christopher Summers who is the father of Scott Summers/Cyclops, Alex Summers/Havok, and Gabriel Summers/Vulcan.

Introducing the Shi’ar, a very importance alien race in the X-Men mythos. In fact, Professor Charles Xavier actually has a daughter (kind of), Xandra Nermani, with a member of the Shi-ar royal family, Lilandra. Lilandra’s sister, Deathbird, was is married Vulcan and pregnant with his child.

Black Panther 2

Ororo Munroe/Storm- An omega-level mutant once worshiped as goddess, Storm and T’Challa were once childhood sweet-hearts and were actually married for sometime -making Storm queen consort of Wakanda- in the comics before divorcing due to a number of factors including working long hours and the Avengers being dicks to the X-Men. Storm was the first major female character of African descent in comics and is regarded by many as being Marvel Comics' most important female superhero so even a mention or allusion to her would be awesome.

Namor- There have been a lot of talk about Namor showing up in, or even being a villain, in BP2 and that would be an excellent introduction of King of Atlantis into the MCU. Namor is half-mutant and half-atlantian so he tends to have an interesting relationship with the X-Men which can best be summed up as -he doesn’t hate them as much as he hates other surface dwellers. In fact, Namor even developed quite the endearing relationship with the Young X-Men member Loa, whose grandmother he was friends with. It was even hinted that Loa herself was actually Namor’s granddaughter.

Adamantium- Most famous as the unbreakable substance that coats the Wolverine’s bones, adamantium was created in a lab by Dr. Myron MacLain for the government in an attempt to reproduce the vibranium alloy he had made for Captain America's shield. It is stronger than vibranium but not nearly as versatile. Considering Shuri’s own genius, it would make sense for this metal to be metaled.

Gentle- Nezhno Abidemi was the son of a Wakandan woman and a Russian man. All his life Nezhno was persecuted and rejected, even by his own mother, because his father was an outsider, and it was from him whom Nezhno inherited his X-Gene. Nezhno was raised at the Royal Court of Wakanda. When his mutant powers manifested, Ororo Munroe, the new queen of Wakanda, advised her husband King T'Challa to send Nezhno to the Xavier Institute learn how to control his powers. It would be kind of neat for the one of the first mutants in the MCU to come from Wakanda.

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier

Weapon Plus Program- Within the MCU, the Weapon Plus Program is an attempt by the US Government to recreate the super solider serum the created Captain America that eventually led to the creation of the Hulk and the Abomination. However, this program would go through several iterations with Weapon X is the tenth iteration of the Weapon Plus program. Weapon X’s most (in)famous creation would be the Wolverine.

Bucky’s Flashbacks- Logan AKA the Wolverine is an OLD man and fought in many wars, including WWII. On several occasions, Logan fought alongside Captain America and Bucky... sometimes they even rescued a young Magneto from the concentration camp he was trapped in.

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

America Chavez- While not confirmed, it is suspected that America Chavez AKA Miss America will be in Doctor Strange 2. One of Chavez powers is the ability to open doorways to other dimensions so perhaps, with these powers we can see dimensions such as Limbo (a hell-like dimension ruled my New Mutant character Illyana Rasputin/Magik) or even the infamous ‘Punch Dimension,’ from which (according to some sources) Cyclops optic beams come from.

The Eternals

Origins- LOOOOOONG story short, the experimentation on primitive humans that created the Eternals also gave humans the capacity to become mutants, meaning that the two groups of characters are definitively linked by a shared creator. Specifically, the X-Gene was engineered by Oneg the Prober (whose name I really hope they change).

Black Knight- The Black Knight that will be appearing in the film, Dane Whitman, is the latest in a long line of warriors to wield the cursed Ebony Blade and one of the previous Black Knights was a man named Eobar Garrington who was various close friends with the omega-level mutant Bennet du Paris/Exodus, who would grow to become one of Apocalypse’s greatest servants. Perhaps a family story or two would make mention of this fearsome creature.

Apocalypse- Speaking of the Mutant Immortal, the Externals are likely some of the only beings old enough and strong enough to have met old En Sabah Nur and can still talk about it. Also, part of what makes the Big A such a threat is his access to Celestial technology, including a snazzy set of armor. Oh the stories they could tell...

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shesawriter39049 · 5 years

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|TROUBLE| M|1 OF (?)

PAIRING: OC XJimin/Namjoon/Yoongi ....Now how that happens..you’ll just have to wait and see…

High school/Drift racer AU

Running Back Jimin-

Point Guard Yoongi-

Not soo “Mr. Perfect” School President Namjoon-

Wild child Cheerleader OC...

***They all drift on the weekends *****

SMUT/Humor..ish.../mentions of drugs/alcohol

**Written all in good fun, for purely nostalgic reasons...the men in question are grown as all hell IRL and that’s all that matters lol! So for this particular AU yes... strap yourself in and take yourself back on a ride for a NEW highschool experience! ****

4.5K

Based off my headcanons I made for this threesum..it will play on those “characters” IE...my version of an Americanized..non art school BTS!

***I paint a very detailed picture...aesthetic wise for all three of the boys and the OC…(STYLE wise) I never get into physical looks with my OC’s***

It was 7:25 in the morning, I.E too damn early as three cars eased in one after the other to the already full parking lot, yet for some reason there normal spots remained untouched. The school itself was a “school of choice” and often attracted people of all walks of life due to its exceptional sports program. Everything from a Range Rover to a rusted out beater filled the lot, the students just as diverse as the cars. A white BMW 430i, led the pack, followed by a sublime green challenger scat pack, and ending the brigade was a very well taken care of satin black 70 Chevelle, two white pinstripes lying along the hood! The threesum almost making a untentional triangel, ironically enough the BMW eased into the spot that read “Reserved for class president”. Not even giving it a second thought before doing so, yet, it’s the first day of school and elections havent even taken place yet. Presumptions for him to assume for the third year in a row he’d reclaim his title!

Black loafers graced the gravel, lying beneath a pair of light gray slacks, which were tucked into a loosely fitted cotton polka dot dress shirt which sat slightly unbuttoned. A thin black Gucci belt laced around his waist. Hair currently ash blonde, messly waived out of his face, while cat eye glasses framed his button nose. Was Namjoon Kim a TA...or a Junior in high school!? Were still trying to figure that out too, the tiny bud of a joint pinched between his fingers kinda answered that question though. Leaning down to rub the end against the concrete to halt the remaining smoke, giving himself a couple sprays of cologne before throwing it into his black leather backpack. Placing his ice capp on top of his car before popping his trunk..removing 4 bright orange cones...placing them on either side of his car..

“This motherfucker!!” The playful scoff, in combination with the most dramatic eye roll you’d ever seen in your life came from the one in the scat pack as he sipped on his Bahama Mama. A pair of Puma RS-X TRACKS laid on his feet,accompanied by a pair of extremely tight,distressed, dark wash “Copper 9” skinnies. With the way your school's star running backs thighs were set up you’d swear these bitches were painted on. Ya know... the amount of rips that laid along his thighs mixed with how low the white Calvin Klein V-neck sat..the combo would definitely be a write up if worn on a female student! Well... actually…. nah, your school was very laxed on dress code just due to everyone constantly breaking it and your principle basically giving up! Jimin's caramelized complexion glowing under the sun.. his dark wavy locks locks sat tucked behind a backwards red Supreme snapback! A set of rhinestone 2G plugs sat in his ears while an array of other piercing traced of the outer frame of his lobes. Arms and fingers, also coated in a menagerie of gold and silver accessories.

Lounging casually against the hood of his car, a smug smirk tugged on his pouty lips observing the way his best friend gave his car one more one over before grabbing his coffee, dropping his gaze down to his watch. The diamonds visible from across the lot... strutting his way through the brigade of cars as if he owned the entire school.

“Is he aware that when he does that dumbshit...it just makes me wanna fuck his shit up!? I've never been so tempted to kick a car in my damn life!” and last but not least..that growl came from the proud owner of “The Creeper” AKA the Chevy Chevelle… lazily making his way in the running backs direction. A fitted black and white “DGK” baseball jersey draped his frame,paired with black skinnies to offset the primarily white jersey. His burgundy locks tucked under a matching black “DGK” bucket hat, all white Jordan 11’s dusted his feet. Of course the look wouldn't be complete without a “Tropical” Red Bull and his earpods wedged in both lobes..which essentially let you know he really didn't wanna be bothered. A helpful hint with Yoongi, wait for HIM to approach you...

Still trying to figure out why school couldn’t just start in November..or in layman's terms...during basketball season. Since that’s the only reason he comes anyway...just needing to keep his grades up so he can continue leading the school to their third consecutive championship. One of if not the best point guards in the state...you didn’t have to necessarily be the tallest to succeed in basketball you just gotta know your angles!

Sharing an all knowing smirk with the fellow athlete as the two of them coly strolled towards Namjoons car, casually kicking the cones one by one away from the premierter in the process. A gritty chuckle leaving their lips as they did so… before nonchalantly making their way towards the building, “Well, aren't you sexy…” The words purred from Yoongi’s lips making Jimin’s head snap around, but the minute it did he already knew the point guard wasn’t talking about a girl per say. But a car, a royal purple Camaro that clearly had drag tires on it….

“Fuck yeah she is….” The level of arousal that dripped from there lips ...at the site of a car was almost comical, yet not at all surprising. Incase you havent noticed they all have a thing for cars..even Namjoon’s BMW. It may look like the car of a businessman but thanks to Yoongi and Jimin under his hood was straight fire! The car itself peaking interest as neither of them had seen it before, and considering the fact that they raced every Sunday night...they’d know if there was another drift car in town! Shrugging it off for now, already well aware they’d see the owner at some point in the day….

The minute they entered the building it was just utter chaos, the school itself was huge, spread along three floors. Typically hovering a little under 2k kids a year between all four grades, it was clear as day who fresh meat was. The building clearly more than overwhelming as they ran frantically through the halls, a combination of excitement and fear dancing along their faces! The pair smirking in amusement as they maneuvered through the crowd, unbothered wasn’t even a strong enough word to describe the two of them.

“Hey Park over here!!!” Jimin didn't recognize the voice, that shot through the air, yet he still adjusted his direction to follow the sound anyway. Not too surprised to see it was a couple underclassmen with cameras in hand. Probably on the school newspaper, or the yearbook committee...Jimin didn't care either way. You put a camera in that boys face and the charm goes on full blast! Quickly tossing the remainder of his drink in the garbage so he had freedom to ...I guess pose, suddenly this must've became a photoshoot in Jimin’s mind! Eyes turning into tiny crestins as he smiled in the youngers direction, not hesitating to switch up his angles, poses, the stairs somehow became a prop...suddenly he was taking his hat off.......all he was missing was a damn fan!

“Yoongi you tooo….” Words slowly dying off his tongue at the glare the point guard gave him in response. Though he ultimately ended up complying due to a sharp nudge to the ribs from Jimin.

“Stop being a little shit!” Growled through clenched teeth as he continued smiling and posing for the camera.

“How about you stop telling me what the fuck to do?!” Reaching up to give Jimin one hell of a purple nurple ripping a low growl from his throat. Triggering the first genuine smile and chuckle to leave Yoongi’s chest all morning, as he glanced over in his direction.

“You said you wanted me to smile…” An almost menacing tenor rang through his throat as he spoke, still grinning ear to ear, gums on full display .

“You fuckin sadist!!” Nudging him in the shoulder before both randomly deciding they were done with this little importue photoshoot. Heading back to their initial mission..Tv production ...or as Yoongi called it..an extra hour of sleep before school starts!

“OH! So what your saying is you didn't enjoy that? “ Brow arched at the implied question cutting him off with another one before he even had a chance to respond.

“So now the rumors about our star running back #81 being into BDSM suddenly aren't true!? You suddenly lost your pain kink!? How about a little breath play action? Choking? Would you care to confirm or deny this accusation Mr. Park!?” Shoving his Iphone in Jimin’s face as if it were a mic..a shit eating grin playing on his lips…

The smirk that crawled up Jimin’s face at the sound of that should’ve already told Yoongi he was going to wanna kick his ass “Oh yeah, I fuckin love it ..in fact..your mom sounds soo damn good calling me daddy I just-” Insitnally cut off by Yoongi shoving him into the nearest locker, ripping a loud cackle from Jimins throat..laughing until he was almost weezing eyes completely dissapered into his face!

“Cool, I’m glad we decided moms are fair game this year..especially because your father travels a lot..I’m sure mama Park gets lonely...” Playfully wagging his tongue in Jimin’s direction earning a well deserved dual middle finger from the running back!

Stumbling their way down the hall as they, kicked, nudged and shoved each other in the process if people didn't know any better they’d really question the terms of their friendship! The pair finally danced upon there missing link, a combination of fondness and embarrassment laced along there face as they watched Namjoon network..or flirt..or both depends on perspective!

“Yes, of course I’m very confident in that and I think I did a very good job last year, and the student body will remember that..and hopefully vote accordingly when the time arises…” Flashing the girl to his right his award winning dimply smile...nothing subtle about the way she damn near melted at the sound of his voice alone. Namjoon knew what he was doing though as his hand soothed over her shoulder. Eyes burning into hers, as he awaited her to remember how to breathe and close out her podcast recording.

“KIM NAMJOON!!!!” Squawked from Jimin’s lips..he didn’t even have to turn around to know who it was..just the simple stylization of his name alone let him know it was probably only one of few people!!

Glancing over his shoulder in there direction, ya know it’s funny..if you saw the three of them separately..you probably wouldn't assume they’d be friends. Unless your basing it solely on ethnicity, even there styles screamed different ‘Cliques” if you will. First you got Jimin who dresses like a...tendy, slightly boujee skater, Yoonig, who leans more towards “High end” urban street/lounge wear..and finally Namjoon. This boy either looks like he’s heading to a corporate meeting, or like he just got a Champs endorsement..there’s NO inbetween. Yet this threesum have been best friends since the 6th grade and wouldn't have it any other way!

“Yeah...were actually gonna make shirts that say “Daddy Joon for president…” so ugh look out for that merch coming real soon, I’ll slide the link on my Instagram..make sure you're all following me, it’s “ParkJimin81” in case your not…”

Tongue playing at the corner of his mouth as he casually draped his arm over the brunettes shoulder after shamelessly plugging himself .Now it was his turn to make this poor girl's knees go even weaker. Dropping his gaze down to meet hers not missing the way her body shuddered slightly at the contact. Or how her eyes zoned in on his cherry stained lips, a smug smirk tugging on his cheeks, as he slid his hat off, ruffling his figures through his hair. “Aeygo” left his tongue in response to how blatantly flushed the underclassmen’s face was before abruptly moving in Namjoon direction. “Alright playtimes over baby boy we gotta go!!” Tugging him down the hallway...

“Andddddd THAT ladies and gentlemen, was a free lesson on how to clout chase and be a hoe with Jimin Park..he’s here 5 days a week..for at least 4 of the 7 hours of the day! But if you wanna learn how to do that thing where he looks like he’s going to rip every hair follicle out of his head...we can probably set up some private facetime sessions for like 20 a pop! Lemme know..Yoongi Min, manager and the only functioning brain cell for those two! Thank you!! ” Extending his hand dramatically, dropping down to a sad excuse for a curtsey, bowing a couple times before tailing after his friends!

~~~~~~~

The boys managed to make it to the halfway point...they all had fourth hour together which meant they had the same lunch period. Which was ironically enough B lunch..none of them were actually signed out by there parents as they casually walked out the back doors. Not even remembering the last time they actually properly got signed out for lunch. The parking lot buzzing with students, during the summer months a lot of the time lunch was actually spent in the parking lot. Hints why there was one school security guard outside.. he wasn't doing much, though. Hell Larry actually looked like he was smoking a damn cigarette!

“Whoes car are we -fuck I knew it! I fuckin knew it” Swatting at Namjoon’s chest, smiling ear from ear compaly obviouslious to the current abuse. While Yoongi and Namjoon glared in his direction...

“Could you not abuse your president…I’m fragile...” Gently dusting his fingers over his pecks..

“Man! First off your the biggest motherfucker here! And if you don't shut the hell up about this damn election, you havent even won yet!” The phrase left Yoongi’s tongue with more bite than Namjoon expected, faltering back in surprise. Eyes blown out as he dramatically clutched his chest

“Alright FIRST off, RUDE!” Pausing to make sure there was enough emphasis on the fact that he was clearly offended! “ And are you doubting my skills Min Yoongi!? Listen I don't need this type of negativity in my political-”

“Oh for fucks sake!! Nobody cares about your damn election right now Namjoon!! Look!” Physically grabbing the taller of the threes head between his palms...turning it to the far left.

“On top of the hood of the Camaro..I told you little shits I saw her at the scrimmage!” Nothing subtle about the way Jimin pointed you out in the sea of cars as you reclined against your hood. Posing for a couple pics for Instagram with some friends, long story short 2 years ago your dad took a different job and you guys moved an hour and a half away. Due to the size of the school you transferred to you guys were still in the same division. So you saw each other occasionally on game nights or on the weekends and during summer break!. But nothing compared to bullshittiing and gossping all day in class with them, or actually being on the same team again! No surprise to anyone that you made varsity cheer for the third year in a row…

“Troubles backkkkk….” The words left Jimins lips sing song like as he gazed over in your direction, a cheeky little grin starting on his lips, before seamlessly shifting down the line.

“Well boys, I think Y/N deserves a formal welcome back..and who better to do so... then your class president, and two of the schools top athletes?” The grin on Namjoon's lips quickly changed from innocent to pure mischief as he glanced in his buddies direction!

Your LBD was without a doubt breaking every centimeter of the dress code, it looked like a standard cotton bodycon dress for the most part. But the very bottom flared out slightly almost like a skater skirt...which was currently playing “Chicken or go” with the wind! The leather chunky heeled booties didn't do much for that either. Only making your legs look longer and your dress look shorter, an oversized distressed denim jacket hung loosely off your shoulders. Finishing the look off with a pair of extremely tiny sunglasses so much so that they were actually useless..nothing more than an aesthetic! Hoops damn near the size of your head hung from your ears, hair half up, half down. A messy top knot sat in the middle of your head while the rest laid in loose curls..the sun catching your overly glossed lips and highlight perfectly as you posed along the hood.

Eyes zoning in on the pack making there way in your direction, you'd be lying if you said you hadn't already scopped them out prior to. The four of you followed each other on social media so you were well aware of how good purbirty was to the three of them over the past couple years! In addition to the fact that you guys weren’t necessarily super close but you were..comfortable if that makes sense! Naturally running within the same circle...so when you’d come down for the weekend, or summer break you’d still hang out or at least run into each other at parties!

You were always known for being a little bit of a wild child, the girl that was always down to cause a little trouble, and so where they..soooo it worked out! Only this time around, you got the opportunity to spend the majority of your summer abroad, so it was a bit of a surprise to most that you were coming back to finish out your junior and senior year!

“Well, well, why am I not surprised your all still connected at the hip?” A playful smirk tugged on the corners of your lips as the pack swarmed you, Jimin closing in first. Not hesitating to scoop you off the hood and into his arms for a hug, wrapping your arms around his neck.

“Hiii..” slipped past your lips and into his hair, as the sweet musky scent of his cologne filled your nose in the process. A slight squeal leaving your lips as he twirled you around before placing you back on the ground.

“Hii, welcome back...” He naturally carried a very warm tenor to his voice,not the deepest but it was effective, calm..inviting...intimate.You could damn near feel every muscle in his body when he picked you up. Puberty hit Jimin damn near perfectly..even though you’d never tell him that!

He was always a little..’thick” I guess you'd say,nice ass, thighs..and the cutest chubby cheeks even though he hated them! Now..he turned all that into muscle..still thick just toned..Jawline chiseled to the GODS, you could damn near cut glass! Like I said, you saw them damn near evrry sumemr, but it seems you miss one and now it’s like..FUCK!!!

“You missed us that much you had to move back aye? Or was Brighton a little too...boring for you?” A smile that was almost too damn smooth played on his lips as he glanced down at you. Tongue slowly grazing against his teeth,reclining against the light post adjacent to your car. Funny how it was a question yet his tone indicated as if he was telling you, you missed them and you moved back because you got bored...

“Meh, I don't know about all that, but the three of you aren’t the worst ammently this town has to offer so I won't complain. Also you already know..lifes far from boring if I’m involved...” Casually flipping your hair over your shoulder as you shifted back along the hood of your car, eyes now zoning in on the other making there way in your direction.

“Princesssssss..” Namjoon sauntered over to you..moving past some random that appears to just be observing or taking notes...it hard to tell. Fuck, did his voice get even deeper!!!??? How many times is this boy going through puberty shit!

Taking in his frame from head to toe, a slight snort leaving your lips at his attire, hopping off the hood swaying in his direction. Letting your hands play with the collar of his dress shirt…”You do know you don't actually work here right? And like this whole student body president gig means nothing when you drive off the lot?” Brow arched at the implied smart arsed question, a smirk playing on the corners of your lips as you watched him roll his eyes. Ripping a cackle from both of his best friends lips in the process.

“I’m soooo glad someone else gets it!!!”

Instantly whipping a middle finger in Yoongi’s direction without breaking eye contact with you.

“Aww Joon! I’m glad you finally pulled that thing outta your ass!”

“Yeah, yeah, fuck the both of you! Now give me a damn hug girl!!” A playful growl ripped from his throat,as it was his turn to scoop you into his arms. Giggling into the side of his neck in the process, eyes fluttering open in enough time to see Yoongi damn near salivating over your car. Palm coming over to caress the curve in your hood, yes, there was something extremely sexy about how delicately he stroked the frame of your car.

“Hasn’t anyone ever told you not to touch something that doesn't belong to you without permission Min? ” Lashes fluttering in his direction, your tone of voice let him know you really weren't bothered

A smirk playing on the corner of his lips as he gazed over at you, still not removing his hand from your car though. “I mean ..yeah they have..but to be honest I don't really wanna touch...I wanna ride her..” Eyes locked with yours as he said it, you knew what he meant, he was a car guy, and right now he had a car boner! But he also knew what he was doing in the obvious change in tenor as he spoke…

“Oh yeah?” Brow quirked in amusement as you sauntered over in his direction, Namjoon and Jimin overseeing in silence.

“Mmmmhmm...she’s sexy..what can I say...I’m a man..I like sexy…” Kneeling down slightly trying to see if there;s anything under the frame of the hood.

“Is he stock..or a tease?” This time the question came from Jimin, as he slowly started to circle the perimeter of the car

“Hmm..why don’t you find out yourself? Reve her up a little..she’s a big girl..she can take…” Wiggling your key fob in Yoongi’s direction. A cheeky grin spreading across his lips, which looked extremely wet right now....

“Shit, you don’t have to tell me twice, get it baby girl!!” Extending his hand to catch the keys

“You two are more than welcome..I’m riding shotty though, my whip, my rules…”

The pair didn't even have to think about it before hopping into the back seat.

The minute Yoongi revved up the engine and they heard how sweet your baby girl purred, a literal moan swept through the car. Triggering a gritty cackle to leave your chest “I told you she's no bitch!!!!”

Easing out of the parking lot, and making his way down the main road, which was essentially all rural, your city itself was initially a resort town. Downtown itself was huge but for the most part there's just a lot of trails, backroads, lakes,and land, a lot of land..beware of mounds of horse shit in the road during the warm months!

“Do you mind if I smoke in here?”

Eyes whipping back in Namjoons direction dramatically as if you hadn't seen him hit a bong at a party “Oh my god our future class prez smokes!? Shit, I might actually vote for you instead of actually running my damn self!”

The look on Namjoon’s face was utterly priceless, while Jimin and Yoongi damn near weezed…

“Ohhhh shittttt…” Jimin’s entire body slouched into itself as he laughed until he was practically in tears!

“You would not….” Tone blatantly daring taking on a more dominant effect that your use too! But you didn't care shrugging nochanaly in his direction.

“Aww what’s wrong Joonie? Worried because for once you might have some actual competition, or because you may actually lose!? But don't worry I’d make sure you were like my treasure or something ...”

Reaching over to grab the joint from between his fingers positioning it between your lips, if you didn't know any better you’d swear he damn near growled in response. Turning your head in Jimin’s direction who leaned down to light the joint for you. Taking a long slowly drag before pulling it back from your lips, coating the tip in the leftover residue from your lipgloss.

“Nah, not even, phased honestly go for it baby ! To be real I’ve been craving a little competition anyway...and don’t worry there will be no hard feelings on my end. I’ll still invite you to my celebration party at my lake house because I gotta respect you for at least trying!” Smiling down at you before snatching the Joint out of your mouth with zero warning, placing it between your lips. Causing you to blow the cloud of smoke dead in his face, eyes shifting into tiny slits as you glared back at him.

“Don’t fuckin’ tempt me Namjoon…” Tone taking a sassy turn as he was now testing your patience.

“Oh no I’m not tempting I’m begging..and I don’t do that often..please..please be a good girl for me and do as I say...and run for class president!” Intentionally taunting you as there was now an almost whiny condescending tinge to his voice. shooting you a quick wink before reclining in his seat.

A short scoff leaving your lips in response, hating how quickly he could get under your skin “ Oh don’t worry..I’ll be damn good for you!! Game fucking...on..Joonie...you wanna play we can play...speaking of…” Brining your attention to the driver's seat

“Min, what the fuck are you doing? I thought you wanted to ride her not babysit her...I know you don’t baby stroke the gears on your Chevelle like this. Show me what you got..put in work, I bought these tires for a reason sir!

Adding a purposely taunting tone to your voice as you glance in his direction, knowing damn well you were pushing his buttons. Observing the way his eyes glanced up into the rearview mirror, catching Jimin’s, the pair sharing a smirk before a deep slow breath left his body. Adjusting the grip his handheld on the gear shift, lowering your steering wheel and reclining his seat back even further.

“Alright kids buckle the fuck up, you heard her, she want’s it fast and loud....well.. daddy’s about to have a little fun….” Eyes shifting in your direction briefly..

“I’m waaaiiitingggg….”

You could see Namjoon in your peripheral pulling out his phone, aiming it at the additional speed gauge you bought for the car since nothing under the hood, including the engine was stock. It legitimately felt like your body melted into the seat as he seamlessly alleviated for 45 to 60 to 75-to 90....before you knew it he had her purring at a solid 150 and it barely even felt like it!

“ FUCKKKKKKK YEAH!!!” Ripped from your throat once you felt him flour it, feet hammering straight into the floor! Going a good 4 miles, at full blast before actually approaching a more…”Civilized” part of town.

A loud howl ripped from Jimin’s chest as Yoongi drifted down a slide street that was actually a dead in...which lead to the parking lot of a roller rink. Purposely easing in sideways as your tires rutted along the concrete, cradling the wheel until he completed 3 seamlessly donuts. Still, hovering at close to 100mph before slowly bringing her down, gear shift by gear shift, all four of you starting at each other breathless in complete silence as your car finally came to a halt….

“Holy shit I have to fucking PEE!!” Swatting at the back of your seat until you scooted over, almost onto Yoongi’s lap so Namjoon could hop out of the car. Passing Yoongi the joint in the process so he could finally hit it too now that he was parked.

“She’s fucking NASTY!!!!” Yoongi glanced over at you between puffs..placing the joint in front of your lips which you welcomed. Leaning down to take two more puffs, slowly inhaling a cloud of smoke releasing the remainderer through your nostrils.

‘Oh...” Leaning down again, causing you to lean forward thinking he was going to offer you the joint again ...but instead “Welcome back by the way..you were missed..” Taking another slow drag before releasing a cloud of smoke from his lungs, concentrating the smoke in the direction of your lips. Reclining your jaw slightly, sucking in, recouping the remaining cloud of smoke . Fuck, when did Yoongi get so damn smooth!?

“Thanks, I’m glad to be back honestly” Clearing out your lungs a little before continuing “And thank you! I told youuuu..she’s my little baby...a straight beast!” Chest swelling with pride, even though this wasn't close to half to what she could do.

“There’s a race...this weekend...Either after the first game on Friday orrrr sunday night...that parts still undecided!I think it’s too late for a buy in but...you definitely need to come...it’s at the trail down by Marine city.”

Nose scrunching into your face at the location...not too fond...at all..you hated the drive even on the bus for games !

You reaction caused Jimin to smile over at you , already well aware of your issue, as he ruffled his fingers through his hair. Slowly tailing his way down to caress his neck “You could always ride with one of us if you want-”

“Shit!!” Namjoon hopped back into the car slamming the door behind him, luckily you still hadn't fully shifted off of Yoongi’s thigh or else he would have crushed your ass! “I think I saw a -”

Before he even had time to finish his thought...a blacked out charger pulled in..unmarked but the sirens said it all….

“Everybody out of the car!!”

THAT’S ALL SHE WROTE FOR THE INTRO CHAPTER!!! If you like it and you want me to continue with this fourseume..then “Like” this..leave some feedback and come hit up my ask box!

NOTE- IF I continue this..it will be a one shot series..as in it won’t go into EVERY detail of day to day life but have a main focus. I.E the first game, the drift race, the election, Namjoon /Jimin’s birthday ETC…I’m also still undecided on how the smut is going to work between the 4 of them. There could be an array of scenarios that take place as “smut” means any type of sexual activity, so that’s not to say she’ll go the full 9 with all three of them...or maybe she will...IDK!!!! LOL

NOTE- I know realistically they would be staggered year wise, but to make it easier I’m making them all juniors (If I add in the other boys in another series, Hoseok would be a Junior while Tae, and Kook would be Sophomores and Jin would be a senior)

ALSO- The boys are all going to graduate at 18 or In Yoongi’s case he turns 19 right after!

Love you guys as always,

Rocki!

#jimin #jimin smut #namjoon #namjoon smut #yoongi #yoongi smut #jimin au #namjoon au #yoongi au #bts #bts smut #bts au #bts high school au #bts x reader #bts x you #kpop #kpop smut #kpop au #park jimin

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silasmadams · 4 years

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My Problem with a “Darker Shade of Magic” by V.E. Schwab

So I’ve been meaning to talk about V. E. Schwab’s A Darker Shade of Magic. I know it’s got plenty of love behind it and its got its fair share of fans but I can’t for the life of me love this book and yes I mean only the first book because that’s as far as I read in the series. I have a similar relationship to this as I do Children of Blood by Tomi Adeyemi in that I completely understand why people like it, I just don’t.

I’m also going to give a trigger warning that I will be talking about sexual assault, violence, and general gore so if that makes you uncomfortable give this a skip. I’ll give a trigger warning again when I’m about to speak in-depth on the previously mentioned subjects. I will also warn you when I’m about to head into spoiler territory, though I won’t be going into particularly big spoilers.

Summary

For those of you that don’t know, A darker shade of Magic is the first book in the Darker Shade of Magic trilogy by V. E. Schwab. It’s about three separate Londons, Red, White, and Grey. Red is the London with lots of magic, it’s the pretty and bougie London. White is a cesspit of violence with very little magic forcing its inhabitants to cling onto any magic they can for dear life. Their leaders are cruel and it's not uncommon for them to be usurped. Generally to get ahead in White London you need to be vile. And Grey London is our world's London roughly around the 1800s, since King George III is alive but very old and dying. So the conflict is about Black London, the fourth London that was cut off from the others because their magic consumed the people and the land. Kell an antari, a super magical person, is able to travel through the three londons and he ends up getting caught up in some big conspiracies and power grabs. Interesting premise right? I agree but the execution ehhh. Ok, let’s start first with the pros of the book.

Style

Her style isn’t anything too extravagant. But that doesn’t mean that it’s bad. It’s nowhere near bad. She’s got quite a few descriptions that really draw you in. Her opening lines are damn near perfect. “Kell wore a very peculiar coat, It had neither one side, which would be conventional, nor two which would be unexpected, but several, which was, of course, impossible” [pg 11]. It doesn’t reveal much but it sort of tosses this thread out there for you to follow into the larger narrative. It’s got almost a rhyming quality to it, a rhythm that you can feel yourself saying as you recite the lines aloud. It gives you just enough to keep you invested but not enough to reveal anything of importance. All of the writing in this book has a similar draw to it, it’s simple and intricate all at once and it’s very precise in what it’s trying to say. When Schwab describes something in the narrative, you can imagine it very clearly. Just listen to how she describes the marketplace. "The subtle scent of flowers was lot beneath the aroma of cooking meat and freshly cut fruit, heavy spices and mulled wine. A man in dark robes offered candied plums beside a woman selling scrying stones. A vendor poured steaming tea into short glass goblets across from another vibrant stall displaying masks and a third offering tiny vials of water drawn from the Isle, the contents still glowing faintly with its light..." [pg 45 and 46]. Overall Schwab knows her craft and it’s clear that she’s confident in her writing because she should be, she’s got the technical and stylistic aspect down to a tee.

Setting

The setting is amazing, but and there is a big but which includes minor spoilers so run away now if you want to read this book. I will say that it’s a good book, it’s just not a good book to me. If you’re into other world fantasies and cross-dimensional travel you’ll probably like this. I’m into that too but the problem is that this book has a lot of missed potential for me. So if the previously mentioned description sounds interesting or if the summary I gave sounds interesting to you, leave, go read the book and come back. If it doesn’t sound interesting or you don’t care about spoilers then I guess stick around if you want.

So the premise is amazing. These three different Londons that all exist in different dimensions that only a select few, two people to be exact, can travel to are vastly different from one another. Their landscapes, their people, their overall geography, it’s all completely different, the only overlapping aspects that they all have are their names and the two travelers that can move about their kingdoms, those two being Kell, one of our main characters and Holland, one of our main antagonists.

I think Red London is overall well done, Schwab captures it perfectly. A land of flowers and joy with obvious problems and tensions but out of the three London’s is clearly portrayed as the best. So I’ve got no qualms with that.

What I found upsetting though was White London and Grey London. For White London, it was this hellscape of a city that had so much room to be this horrible torturous place and Schwab touches on it, she grazes the surface of it ever so slightly but she never manages to hit the mark completely. When you tell me White London is a grimy and gross place filled with power-hungry bastards and bitches what’s to stop me from going “well isn’t that just normal London aka Grey London but with magic?” I needed more of White London, I needed more of that seedy underbelly to better contrast with Grey London. With Grey London, we see the horrors of the land through the character of Lila Bard who has a difficult life, who needs to survive on her own in this terrible place, no offense London. I think the best way to have fixed this was to have more focus on Holland, the character that was from White London. If we were to have three POVs from Holland, Kell, and Lila, instead of just Lila and Kell, this problem could be solved. It would convolute the story because of the twist about Holland and his involvement in trying to help the twin rulers of White London take over Red London but I feel like that’s an ok thing to lose in order to gain a better understanding of White London and have a more fleshed out narrative of all three kingdoms.

Characters

I hate these characters. Ok, that’s kind of a strong word, I don’t hate them. I don’t hate all of them at least. And I know plenty of people love and adore these characters, I’ve seen the artwork and the time and effort people put into these characters and it’s all amazing but I just do not get the hype. I didn’t like them.

See, my thing is that I hate characters that don’t reach, what I see as their true potential. Which is just a roundabout way of saying that I hate characters that are boring. I mean I can enjoy a badly written character as much as the next person but the thing is that a boring character is not enjoyable for anyone, especially when you see threads of a character and know that they can be something more. Now I haven’t read either of the other two books so maybe the characters are different there, I don’t know. All I know is that I either found the characters to be boring, cliche, or just annoying.

The first character to make this most egregious mistake on the part of being boring, would be none other than Kell. So Kell is the adopted Prince, the older brother of Rhy. He was taken away from his family at a young age and brought up in the palace because he was an Antari, which again is a super magical person that can travel through the different Londons and is an expert in various other types of magic, natural or otherwise. So Kell loves his brother and he has issues with his adoptive parents because he feels that they see him only as a tool. Now, this is good, this has potential. The problem here is that we never see moments of the King and Queen treating Kell badly and they don’t even need to necessarily treat him badly they just need to drop hints of how they clearly favor Rhy. And I didn’t see those hints. As far as I could tell, both boys were treated relatively equal, Kell had a lot more work on his plate but that was because he’s an Antari, he’s the only Antari. To really drive home that feeling of isolation and of Rhy being his only real family among the royals there needs to be more memories of their childhood where the King and Queen picked Rhy over Kell and it was because of them seeing Rhy as their real son and Kell as more of a soldier. There is also the issue of Lila just dismissing these feelings that Kell has about his family not loving him but we’ll get to that in a bit. All that aside, Kell just isn’t interesting. You could replace him with a cardboard cutout and I wouldn’t know the difference. He’s just not an engaging character, he’s got the threads of an engaging character but he himself is not one. Whenever I was back to his POV I didn’t know whether to groan out of boredom or to just be glad we weren’t in Lila’s head. I decided to go with the former because Lila is fun to hate, Kell is bread, he’s not even toast, he’s bread, soggy bread. Ok, that’s enough.

Now Lila, Oh Lila. How I despise thee. I get what Schwab was going for with this character. She was the badass cross-dressing thief lady that could cut you down. Lila is an orphan that had to fend for herself after her father basically tried to sell her off. She’s got a good introduction and it bleeds into some good first few chapters. Now warning I’m about to talk about sexual assault and just general violence so skip to the next paragraph if you don't want to read that. In one of the earlier chapters, Lila comes home, her home being a docked ship that she stays at. The ship is owned by an older man who she basically pays rent to. When she gets back, the guy, Powell, asks for his cut. He’s drunk out of his mind which is also not unusual for this character. When she says she doesn’t have anything to give him today, he responds by saying he can take something else from her, clearly implying sexual favors. So she straight up fucking murders Powell "Dead. Dead... and making a mess... She crouched, wiped her blade on Powell's shirt, and recovered the silver from his pocket. And then she stepped over his body, retrieved the revolver from its drawer, and got dressed" [pg 69]. And then to cover her tracks, she sets his boat on fire and dips. "Lila stood on the dock and watched the Sea King burn. She stared up at it, face warmed by the fire that danced on her chin and cheeks the way the lamp light had before the constable.'It's a shame,’ she thought. She'd rather liked the rotting ship. But it wasn't hers. No, hers would be much better" [pg 70]. Come on, tell me that’s not a great anti-hero introduction? Because it is.

That being said, the more time I, as a reader spent with Lila, the more I realized I hate her. I mean at least I felt something towards her, unlike Kell. So the first problem with Lila is that she is the epitome of “I’m not like other girls” Every chance she gets to put down anything girly or to put down other women she takes. Or, she just jumps at the chance of being called not like other girls. Which Kell often obliges in. And, this would be ok if it was criticized within the story, if it was properly examined why she feels this way, because there could be a lot of reasons, one of which could be that she realized behaving in a more aggressive or traditionally masculine way allowed her to have autonomy and allowed people to not talk down to her but to be afraid of her. There are a lot of ways in which this could go but it didn’t. And there’s nothing wrong with liking more traditionally masculine things, the problem is the way in which Lila clearly needs to put other women down in order to feel special about herself. I also mentioned earlier about my issue with how Lila undermines Kell’s feelings of his adoptive parents never really loving him and seeing him only as a tool. Again, this could have been played up a little more and Kell could have properly called her out instead of just being the meek bread he is and letting her essentially tell him that his emotional struggle doesn’t matter cause he’s rich. I get where Lila is coming from in this scenario and I do like that she treats him like that in terms of his emotions because it’s very telling of her own upbringing. The problem is that she very clearly makes it about herself and her problems. This could have worked better if she simply dismissed his feelings, got angry at him for basically swimming in cash, and then stopped there. We should have gotten an insight into her thoughts of why she feels this way or have it implied why she feels this way, rather than have her outright say it, because in this case, when she voices that and shifts everything back to herself it feels very purposeful and mean on her end rather than it just being her natural reaction. Instead of going “oh my life was terrible and way worse than yours” it would work better if she just called him a brat, told him to shut up, and then moved about her own business. That could also add a more interesting dynamic to these characters by having Kell be the emotional one and Lila be the one who Kell has to urge out of her shell by being the emotional support. It would be a role reversal of the traditional way most romances go, and again, I think Schwab was trying to do that, but the execution of it fell flat. My final gripe with this character is that she isn’t feral enough, and if Schwab had just made her more feral, this character would fit in perfectly. What I mean by feral is, exactly that honestly. She was too put together, too suave and cool and always knew what to say. If you’re gonna tell me this street urchin type orphan in 1800s London is cool and suave I’m gonna call bullshit cause no way this girl isn’t straight up feral and ready to bite someone’s nose off at the drop of a hat because that’s what she’s gotta do to survive. I just wish Schwab had gone down this route instead of the Lila we got, but oh well. It is what it is.

I’m only briefly going to talk about Rhy, Kell’s younger brother, because there isn’t too much I have to say about him and I feel like this is already long enough as is. Rhy is basically a cut and dry trope of the rich prince boy with a heart of gold. I love that archetype so I like Rhy, but to an extent. He seems to be only that trope and that’s it. There isn’t much more to him. Though he’s not as boring as Kell or as annoying as Lila so that’s a plus. I haven’t even talked about the twins that rule White London or Holland but again this is already too long, don’t need to make it longer and they also involve a lot of major spoilers that I don't want to get into.

Pacing

I know earlier that I said Schwab’s style of writing was very well done, that she clearly had a kind of rhythm for the writing itself, and I stand by that statement but the pacing is not good. It’s all over the place, it’s either too slow or too fast or just nonexistent. I’m going to use romance as an example of how the pacing is bad and I think you can tell that with a lot of books. If they have romance in them, which if we’re being real, they probably do, then the way in which the romance plays out can often be a good indicator of pace. The relationship is wonky so the pacing is wonky. To be honest, the relationship was something I didn’t buy. It went by too fast and when Lila kissed him it felt very robotic like they were just getting together because they were the breeding pair. They had no chemistry whatsoever even as friends. As friends, they were at least somewhat more tolerable, but like romantic partners, I just didn’t see it. The stilted romance was awkward and dumb and again, there was no chemistry, they were just shoved together because they were the only guy and girl and both had a POV. I don’t know the overall pacing was slow, and I don’t mind slow build-up books. One of my favorites, Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor is a very slow build-up book but it’s well done, it doesn’t drag. This book drags and the romance in it drags. When the pace picks up it’s like going a thousand miles an hour. When shit hit the fan in the book, I get that it was supposed to be fast-paced and tense but I was never tense while reading it I just kind of wanted the whole book to end so I didn’t have to keep slogging through it. I guess I just hoped that the ending would tie it all together and fix the pacing which is stupid on my part because that’s not at all what happened.

Conclusion

Well, that’s all I gotta say about it, I gave it three stars on GoodReads.

Buy the book here:

https://www.amazon.com/Darker-Shade-Magic-Novel-Shades-ebook/dp/B00ME0TBFE

Buy it Used here:

https://www.abebooks.com/Darker-Shade-Magic-Schwab-Victoria-Titan/30413099967/bd?cm_mmc=ggl-_-US_Shopp_Trade-_-used-_-naa&gclid=Cj0KCQiA4NTxBRDxARIsAHyp6gDRNRjl8x-ktniE3IUmecyE1lDYlPxglxoLpBAYEt7C3ivyt9PPabkaAmTGEALw_wcB

or here

https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/a-darker-shade-of-magic_victoria-schwab/9043358/item/16041243/?mkwid=MUQmUYQc%7cdc&pcrid=70112856192&product=16041243&plc=&pgrid=18035380632&ptaid=aud-305373123344%3apla-459905910383&utm_source=google_shopping&utm_content=MUQmUYQc%7cdc%7cpcrid%7c70112856192%7cpkw%7c%7cpmt%7c%7cproduct%7c16041243%7cslid%7c%7cpgrid%7c18035380632%7cptaid%7caud-305373123344%3apla-459905910383%7c&gclid=Cj0KCQiA4NTxBRDxARIsAHyp6gDXbz2350Y8Tse02z5fKP_TgnPIH1DXhILOWkgk260VeZzQwUCgXbEaAsH5EALw_wcB#isbn=0765376466&idiq=16041243

Or just get it at your local library.

#a darker shade of magic #book #bookblog #character writing #pacing #a darker shade of magic series #complaing #complaining about books #setting #character analysis #fictional characters #writing style #library #spoilers #mild spoilers

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scvereignty · 5 years

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introduction i.

A D E L A I D E W I N D S O R ( p r i n c e s s o f e n g l a n d )

bespoke houndstooth blazers, watching your mare come second place, exposed lace garters, sipping from a bottle of warm champagne, grey skies, french erotica, a wet slip dress with nothing underneath, white roses, reciting passages by heart at parties, mascara-stained sheets, sitting by open windows despite the cold, black velvet, heavy books by pretentious authors, jewels at the breakfast table, the dirty hem of a long dress, hidden gardens, purple hickeys on pale thigh, smoking in secret, sleeping naked, perfect tennis whites & an immaculate backhand, bows in tangled hair, audrey hepburn films & grace kelly sensibility, placing their hand over your neck mid-kiss and squeezing hard, oversized sunglasses paired with red eyes and dark circles, never wearing the same coat twice, the weight of history, the shot that puts down a lame horse, perfect posture, lingerie and silk in the library, sucking whip cream off of strawberries, making love in the stable, watching the sunrise from the garden in an evening gown.

age: twenty-one

nicknames: di, rosie, little princess

sexuality: heterosexual ( publicly ) / bisexual ( private, exploring )

gender: cisgender female

title: her royal highness

( + ) elegant, graceful, intelligent, clever, intuitive, adaptable, creative, impulsive, sensual, motivated, self-confident, hard-working, mature, modest, reliable, outspoken ( - ) pretentious, aloof, melancholy, judgemental, private, elusive, deceptive, guarded, secretive, unforgiving, sensitive, affected, mistrusting, self-destructive, changeable, indecipherable

UNDER THE CUT : HISTORY, TRIVIA, & CONNECTIONS !

A BRIEF HISTORY ;

the youngest windsor & only princess of england!

i’m currently keeping her actual childhood/family background undecided until i get the chance to plot with her brother(s), but as per the connection description: the siblings were initially v close while their parents were rather absent

notably, adelaide & her brother james had an extremely special relationship. as the eldest and youngest of the brood, from the time adelaide was born, james’s affection for her was almost paternal in many ways — and she loved him to pieces.

literally, like, there are shots of james walking adelaide hand-in-hand into her primary school, and even as they got older, she considered him her best friend and biggest protector. this is highkey inspired by my own grandmother & how she describes her relationship w her own late brother uwu

a charming, odd child, who was labelled as an old soul very early in life. very well mannered and mature, but prone to somewhat unusual flights of fancy

a lowkey trouble maker -- or rather, incredible adept at being subtle. with at least one wild elder brother, it was both easy to learn from their mistakes and appear innocent in comparison

as adelaide got older, that old soul developed some of the troubles they’re ought to. she craved art, passion, love, justice, intense emotion, experience. she engaged in these behaviours moderately and with subtlety, particularly in comparison to silas. she was/is less about wild partying and more about deep experiences, and as such there have rarely been any stories about the little princess and drinking/inappropriate behaviour

she had always had a changeable nature and was susceptible to bouts of depression, but the death of james hit her in a way she has yet to recover from. while the whole family was devastated, no one took it harder than adelaide, who to this day calls him the love of her life

for the two years since his murder, adelaide has been in a poor mental and emotional place. unable to fully move on despite the time that has passed, she has both retreated further into herself and sought out unhealthy methods of coping ( ie. the usual -- alcohol, travel, and occasionally drugs )

hence she’s chosen to come to genovia, a decision that surprised even her parents. remaining in london has kept her in the throes of mourning, so she hopes to let go of some of her grief by arriving somewhere new and attempting self care

reputation & aesthetics tend to be very immaculate and proper, so it’s often a surprise to those that find out the young princess has that darker, troubled, sensual side to her - that she can drink gin straight without wincing, or has bruises and hickeys beneath her silk blouse

has never had any desire to rule/never considered it an option, but instead focuses her life on the betterment of people but domestic to the uk and worldwide through charity & philanthropy

TRIVIA ;

the nickname for her in the uk is “the english rose,” or several variants (“the little rose,” etc) due to her fair complexion & nature. her reputation is very princess diana-esque: a modern, classy woman who devotes her time to philanthropy & charity

considered a fashion icon!

an extremely accomplished horse rider, considered one of the best competitors in britain despite not actively competing in years. she’s down showmanship, jumping, dressage, & eventing. yes, she is the horse girl

despite her tiny height, form, and general fairylike facial features, this girl can drink a surprising amount of people under the table. is this a sign of a Problem? CERTAINLY

if you think you are the most beautiful and/or incredible thing to walk this earth, she thinks you are incredibly stupid. she’ll name 14 pieces of art right NOW that are more interesting than ur looks

makes a habit of calling out those that are arrogant/rude

she started smoking when she was fourteen. her parents still don’t know.

camilla macaulay, grace kelly, and princess diana are probably her biggest inspos

very accomplished liar - she has an incredible poker face

she wears a locket james gave her every day. he had it specially made with an inscription (either a quote from a little princess or the secret garden, i haven’t decided), but since then she’s had the other side inlaid with a photo of him :c

her favourite disney movie is alice in wonderland, which is also one of her favourite novels

PLOTS & CONNECTIONS ;

the best friend: self explanatory! very open to how their friendship came about and when, but someone who knows adelaide intimately, and one of the few that can still read her even when she’s putting on her otherwise immaculate facade

the no-good: someone that would have been her corrupter, perhaps, or thought to be -- until they realized she was not the delicate thing one would seem. could be friends with benefits, drinking buddies, someone who encourages self-destructive behaviours, or any combination of this.

the counsel: young as she is, adelaide knows herself intimately, and as such knows a great deal about women in general -- this muse is coming to her for advice on how to court mignonette (or another lady)!

the lionheart: a dear friend, and someone similar to adelaide insomuch as her old soul, maturity, devotion to philanthropy, etc. someone to either decry or poke fun at the triviality of so much around them

the skinny love: it’s been the wrong time since childhood. but it’s always been the right time to hold terrible affection for each other. how heartbreaking, to keep on watching but never kissing.

the charged: inspired by this gif set. the true terrible influence, unhealthy relationship, disaster in a glass bottle. they infuriate each other, say the worst things that can be said. then they let it out in bed -- or almost go. getting closer every time

the antagonist: preferably a princess or someone of noble enough birth that they could have attended the same academy in their teen years. alternatively, could just be a pair that runs into each other frequently at those fancy aristocratic events. ( x ) is someone that leans into that queen B(itch) trope, or otherwise is confident to the point of arrogance/is unphased by potentially offending others by saying what they want, when they want. adelaide, blank-faced over her glass, calls this person out for their behaviour. as such, an intense dislike starts to brood between the two

the affair: we talking sex, we talking scandal, we talking familial outrage. we can talk more about specific circumstances, but i am very solid on the aesthetic of That Scene in atonement: aka green dress, up against the library walls during a dinner party, walked in on at the perfectly terrible moment. my initial thought was that these two met for the first time when the windsor’s were hosting a dinner/ball/celebration or something in honour of this royal/important family, and adelaide and ( x ) had incredible chemistry -- or at least sexual attraction. it only takes a few hours and several glasses of champagne for them to end up in the library in an entirely compromising position before someone walks in on them and snitches to the family. the whole evening is absolutely ruined, both sets of parents in disarray, and while the press never hear why the night was the fiasco, there are now rumours of tension between the two families/nations. alternatively, this could have been started some time long ago and wasn’t 100% a one-off

the young love: adelaide’s longest relationship, which began sometime in late high school or early college and lasted several years. preferably someone of royal blood, because this was in many ways - especially aesthetically - the Perfect Relationship. not only was adelaide wildly in love with them, but their relationship was public, and the press considered it an incredible feat that a prince and princess would naturally begin dating. this kind of aesthetic, ja feel? everyone that knew them felt they would get married, including adelaide. but for whatever reasons you like, this little prince broke up with her, and subsequently broke her heart & dashed her dreams. prior to james’s death, this was the greatest pain she ever endured. still do this day if she references “my ex,” or compares a man to someone, it’s this guy. despite whatever time has passed between break-up and now, adelaide still treats him with some disdain -- she’s both still hurt, and still harbouring lingering affection for him.

the exploration: the first woman that made adelaide question her sexuality !! i’m open as to what this is, how it happened etc; whether anything physical occurred or they were merely flirtatious and physically close; if it was one-sided or reciprocated, etc.

#genoviaintro #phew ok we done #allp.a

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trustandblasters · 5 years

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Trust Comic Funfacts

(Aka I lost all my progress on the next page, I just pulled a 60/hr work week, I feel like death but I still wanna give you guys content)

So basically a bunch of random little tidbits for the Trust Comic version that may or may not show up in comic.

* Most monsters currently alive do not actually remember the outside world anymore, and many of their phrases/idioms are either relics of their parents or are entirely new for the underground. Those that are still alive and still remember the outside are King Asgore, Toriel, Grillby, Nora, Gerson, Bertram, Frank, Gnash, Rudy, Napstablook, and Flowey. Plus three others I cant talk about yet.

* Grillby eventually builds a fence in the backyard of his house to give the boys a secure place to play when the canine unit is to busy to keep an eye out. He had to extend it when he discovered Papyrus could easily jump over it. Twice. He gave up after that but installed a door for them to use instead of just hoping a fence.

* Nora canonly beat the fuck out of Berdley's mother to get custody of him when he was in his early teens. He had managed to get an internship with Nora since Noelle was transfering and during his initial training Nora picked up that his mother wasnt a very good person. Specifically she was an emotionally abusive Stage Mom.

So Nora beat her over the head with her can when the bird came to berate Berdley at the archive and then used the fact she is technically royalty to strong arm Berdley's mother into giving her full custody. Berdley has recently tried reconnecting with his birth mother with.... no success. He feels he probably turned out to be a much better person because of this.

* Nora knows about the existence of the Dark World, but hasn't gone there herself yet. Elci doesnt know what the Dark World is but has been there and assumes it was a dream. (Related, Asgore and Toriel both know of it as well, with both having visited on occasion before being sealed in the Underground)

* Noelle visits Snowdin a lot, mostly to visit her retired father. She's friends with the Nice Cream Guy and Snowy.

* Nora used to actually go out pretty frequently to Hotland to visit the restaurant in the MTT Resort and also the Royal Scientist Lab. She sends Berdley to get her takeout now and avoids the lab.

* Grillby owns a house with multiple bedrooms originally for his extended family so they would have a place to stay if needed be.

* All the other Fire Elementals thing Grillby is weird for liking cold environments like Snowdin, but he genuinely likes the way the chill feels. Also he likes the aesthetic of a winter town.

* Despite being a fire elemental that genuinely likes spicy foods, Grillby never stocks or prepares any items with Jalapeno in them. There's been lots of theories as to why but when Dogressa asked him (due to having a huge craving for jalepeno poppers) he admitted it's because his spouse was allergic, so he couldn't bring himself to stock them in his business.

* On a related note, some recipies he uses were specifically designed to his spouse's preferences, which still stands despite the two not seeing each other in over a century.

* When Sans and Papyrus became more comfortable at Grillby's house, they would start to explore at night. Since locked doors made them nervous, Grillby put all the dangerous cleaning chemicals in high cabinets that they couldn't reach and had wire lights installed on the ground level so they could see in their late night execution. On days that Sans wasn't doing so well, Grillby would hide snacks and sweets for the boys to find during the night.

* No one actually locks their doors in Snowdin, and when the kids are out playing it's not actually uncommon for them to all burst into someone's house for a quick water break before heading back out. If Grillby's is open it is usually his restaurant thou.

* As they get older, Sans and Papyrus do take up the odd jobs here and there. Usually in exchange for some sort of sweet. The only stipulation they have is the job has to keep them in Snowdin.

For the most part, Sans just helps out at Grillby's, usually bussing tables, doing dishes, or serving the occasional drink. Papyrus is far to high energy to stay in one place for long, so usually he is out with the canine unit learning to do Search and Rescue. Sometimes the towns folk will give him the 'job' of delivery boy. Which is usually just them asking him to run a letter or small box across town and drop it off somewhere random. There is usually nothing in the letter/box, it's just to help him burn off excess energy.

* Papyrus got so scared of "Santa" the first time he came to town that he cried and his in Grillby's coat. Sans nearly blasted "Santa" for it, but the three are cool now.

* papyrus has bitten Nora's tail about three times. The first time she accidentally launched him in the air by reflex, which Papyrus thought was the best thing ever. She only allowed him to do it two more times before stopping him.

* Asgore often sends tea to his friends as a gift. Usually it is Golden Flower Tea, but he does have several plants to make preferred blends such as the harvest moon blend for Nora and a triple mint blend for Noelle.

* Papyrus once said he found a talking flower that Grillby told him was an Echo Flower, assuming it was one of the echo flowers that were kept in the bar or at Dogamy and Dogressa's place. He didn't think much of it when Papyrus said it was a different color.

* Grillby does have PTSD from the war, though he had received treatment and still does sometimes see a therapist for certain stressors.

* monsters have an odd concept of Time due to being underground. There are actually three areas that one can see the sky outside the underground in some capacity (the Ruins, above the Core that is to high to reach due to being the very top of mount Ebott, and an exit way that can be seen from the barrier in the castle at New Home that only Asgore has access to). Due to this, their ability to tell what time it is, is very skewed and relies heavily on magical 'sundials' invented long ago along with repaired human technology that comes from the trash dump.

Due to Asgore being the only one to actually be able to see the sun rise and fall outside, there is a sort of system in place that was erected a few years ago where a device was placed above the core that could measure the sunlight and give an approx reading of the time based on that, which was then projected onto special screens around the Underground. The oldest monsters have tracked the date as best they could, and sometimes compare it to soggy newspapers from the trash heap or when they turn on some sort of tech that can still connect to limited wifi to update the date and time. This information is also projected onto those screens.

* Sans, Papyrus, Elci, Undyne, and Alphys play DnD sometimes after Alphys found some books in a box in the trash heap. Alphys tends to be the DM but will switch with Sans if need be.

#comic wizard speaks #undertale #baby blaster au #i havent picked their dnd info yet #maybe ill upload it when i have the time

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the-darkness-does-not-bargain · 5 years

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Gay Sailors AU, aka What the Water Gave Me chapter 2

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20172373/chapters/47861263

Chapter 2: Running Down to Cuba/Sail Away

The first month of the voyage passes unremarkably. The Princess, despite her initial grumbling, demonstrates an admirable work ethic and a sharp mind. She conducts a full reorganizing of the Swift Wind’s ledger as well as an up-to-date inventory. She calculates the pay bonus for the crew and sees that each of Adora’s swabbies gets their fair and equal part of the profit. She puts the rest toward hypothetical ship maintenance with Bow’s guidance, creating a budget they could consult should the Swift Wind need repairs at any point. She and Bow even become good friends and near-constant companions during this time, playfully bantering back and forth as they go about their work.

Adora admits that she’s impressed, and tells the Princess so. “Well, it’s not a big deal,” Glimmer says, though her pink cheeks suggest she relishes the praise. “I used to do stuff like this with my Aunt Castaspella. Or rather, she did it and I watched, but I picked up a lot from that.” She scuffs the toe of her boot against the deck. “Plus, it wasn’t a bad system that you had before. I just made it more organized.”

“Regardless, I appreciate it, lass. You’ve set us up proper well for when we dock in Salineas.”

Mention of their destination excites the Princess. “Soooo, how much longer until we get there?” She asks, as subtle as a shark chomping on your ass.

“To Salineas, it’ll be another two weeks, but in two days we’ll be docking in Seaworthy to resupply.”

Glimmer tilts her head. “Seaworthy? I don’t think I’ve heard of that city.”

Adora chuckles. “Well, I can’t say I’m surprised. One, it’s not a city, it’s a glorified pile of mud and sticks. And two, it’s not a place where highborn ladies like you should want to find themselves.”

“Why is that?” She leans in, whispering. “Are there pirates?” She just looks more excited.

“Aye, a few,” Adora concedes. “But you’re more likely to find slavers.”

Glimmer pulls back, disgusted. “Ugh, what loathsome criminals. It’s despicable what they do, thinking they can just kidnap people and sell them off to the highest bidder. I’m so glad we never let that happen in Bright Moon.” Adora does not mention that the slave markets in Bright Moon are just underground rather than out in the open. It doesn’t feel like the right time to enlighten the Princess about that. “I feel bad for Princess Mermista though,” Glimmer is saying. “I know she’s outlawed slavery like most of the kingdoms, but she doesn’t have the resources anymore to enforce the ban. When I’m Queen, I hope to fix that.”

“You’ve got a whole laundry list of noble aims, don’t you?” Adora says, softening her words with a fond smile. “You might be the only highborn I’ve ever met who concerns themselves overly much with the woes of commoners.”

Glimmer makes an irritated noise. “Don’t remind me. I’m so sick of the people in Mom’s court, that’s half the reason I left. I know she’s sick of them too, but as Queen she has to play their games. I’ll change that too when I ascend the throne.”

“Mm. Well, for now, you’re a deckhand, not a queen. And I think it’s time we start you on some other tasks.” Glimmer’s eyes light up at that, and she listens attentively as Adora deftly explains the ropes of maintaining the upkeep on a ship.

She did not undersell Seaworthy to Glimmer. It is exactly as she described, a glorified pile of sticks and mud. Ramshackle wooden buildings dot the sand alongside cramped-looking huts. It’s bustling and crowded the way a port town should be, but the people are of a mean and slovenly sort. The slavers are easy to identify, as they are the only people in relatively nice clothes. The pirates are also easy to spot, as they are usually drunk and/or fighting. From where she stands at the helm guiding the ship to the dock, she can already see one nasty-looking fistfight going on at an open-air seaside tavern. To her right, Bow hisses sympathetically when one combatant smacks a half-full bottle of rum against the other’s face, shattering it in an explosion of glass and syrupy brown liquor. “You never let it get to bottle-smashing time,” he says, shaking his head. “Bottle-smashing time is the big N-O.” Adora hums in agreement as she carefully steers the ship close enough for her crew to jump down and secure it.

Once they are successfully moored, she descends from the helm to meet her crew where they gather on the deck. Glimmer is there too, standing next to the bucket and mop she’d been using to swab the deck just moments before. The Princess has taken less well but still admirably to the physical labor of ship care, and Adora figures it bodes well for the girl’s lofty ambitions. “Alright, you lot,” she says loudly. “You’ve got the day and night to yourselves. You’ve been given your pay. I’ll be expecting t’see you all bright and early when we leave tomorrow, so if you drink yourselves silly and miss the ride, you’ll have none to blame but yourselves. And remember the rules: no killing, no thieving, and if I see any of you eyeing the slave auctions, I’ll remove that eye myself. Got me?” She isn’t ashamed to admit she channels some of her old crewmates’ attitudes to drive home the threat. She remembers how Octavia, that great tentacled beast of a woman, used to snarl and shout and wave her axe around whenever she saw swabbies breaking the rules aboard the Fright Zone, the ship where Adora was raised. She won’t wave the Sword around, but she’ll project the same intimidating air.

There is a chorus of assent from her underlings as they all make their way to the ramp. “Glimmer,” Adora calls, gesturing for the Princess to follow her into her quarters. Bow follows as well, being sure to lean against the door securely after they shut it.

“Whaaat is it, Cap?” Glimmer asks, concerned.

“I’ll get straight to the point, shall I?” Adora crosses her arms and adopts a serious face. “Glimmer, it is not safe for you in Seaworthy.”

“What? Are you stopping me from going?” She looks ready to launch into a royal tirade, but Adora raises a hand to quickly put a stop to that.

“I didn’t say that. Don’t go putting words in my mouth. What I am saying is that you’re the Princess of Bright Moon. You’re the highest of the highborn, and you can dress down and grease your hands all you want but you’ll still smell like a noble’s kid. And in a place like this, that doesn’t make you respected. It makes you valuable. I told you Seaworthy is full of slavers and pirates, and I meant it. If they notice you and manage to get you alone…” She doesn’t want to frighten Glimmer but she needs the girl to see sense, so she looks the Princess in the eyes with all the sincerity in her heart. “You will never see your home again.”

It works. Glimmer, for the first time since coming aboard, looks afraid. “So, so what do we do, then? I’m not going to let some lowlife crooks and thugs keep me shivering on my cot, Captain.” But there’s that determination, the fire Adora is getting used to seeing. Glimmer visibly rallies herself, straightening to her full (miniscule) height. “What do we need to make this work?”

Adora smiles. She really does like this poofy noble’s girl. “Well, lassie, what we need is to be smart about this. Bow!”

“On it, Cap!” Her first mate drags the chair from the desk and places it down in front of the Princess. “Take a seat, Glim!”

“Um, okay.” Once she’s seated, Bow places a wash rag around her neck. “What’s this for--- Hey! You just dumped water on me!”

“Relax, girl,” Bow says as he sets a now empty bucket aside. “I’m just getting your hair wet.”

“What for?” Glimmer pouts, crossing her arms.

“Okay, don’t take this the wrong way, Glim. Your hair is pretty but it’s also reeeeally noticeable. We have to do something about it before we go into town.”

“What’s the point? Will they really be able to spot me just by my hair?”

Adora shrugs as Bow starts to work his hands through the girl’s sodden locks, molding them into a new shape. “Pink and purple hair that naturally sparkles isn’t exactly common, lass. You’d be surprised how quickly the wrong people can connect the dots. Don’t worry, it’s just for while we’re here.”

Glimmer allows her hair to be fixed, though her brow scrunches when Bow finishes by securing a bright blue kerchief over her head, hiding all her hair from view. She touches it experimentally when Bow steps away. From her expression, it’s far from ideal, but it’s tolerable.

“That’s good. Just a few more things we need,” Adora says. She goes to her modest footlocker and pulls out a burgundy frock coat she normally keeps for windy days on the water. “Put this on.”

“Um, sure, Captain, but uh…” Glimmer looks Adora up and down. Her eyes are appreciative. “You know I’m nowhere near your size, right?”

“Yeesss,” Adora drawls patiently. “I’m well aware, but this shouldn’t be too big on you. It’s a normal coat on me so it’ll just be a long coat on you. Nothing to be remarked upon.” Once Glimmer’s put the coat on over her working clothes, Adora rustles through her locker for the last and most important touch. “There’s just one more thing.”

“Oh?”

“This,” Adora says, presenting the Princess with a curved knife that gleams in the sunlight. It’s a simple weapon, but well-made. No decorative touches, just a wicked edge sharp enough to cut flesh like butter.

Glimmer takes it from her hand like she’s holding a fragile ornament. “Are you sure?” She asks, displaying a rare moment of self-doubt. “I’ve never really used a weapon before, unless you count a polo mallet.”

“And hopefully you won’t need to use it today, but I won’t feel right about this unless I know you at least have something to defend yourself with. The basics? Go for the gut, and the neck. If you can get around them, strike at the back, as hard and as fast as you can, then get out of there.” Adora rests a hand on the Princess’s shoulder. “Never fight when you can run. It’s different for people like Bow and I, we have lots of experience with fightin’. But you don’t, and scarpering off with damaged pride is better than getting gutted like a fish.”

Glimmer takes a tighter grip on the hilt. “I understand, Captain.”

Adora nods, satisfied. “That’s good then. While we’re off the ship, I’d still like for you to stick close to me. I don’t need ya locked to my hip, but try not to get out of sight.”

Last minute preparations complete, the trio leave the captain’s quarters and climb the steps to the deck once more. When Adora looks around, she notices that another ship has docked next to the Swift Wind. She doesn’t recognize the flag it flies, but the design catches her attention. It’s a bright red depiction of a snarling jungle cat set against a field of black, the quintessential brigand’s color. This is a pirate vessel, and an impressive one at that. While the Swift Wind is a modified Argosy, meant for hauling cargo, this ship is a sleek and well-maintained Chebec, built for speed and maneuverability, a marauder’s two best friends next to sheer firepower.

She can see some of said marauders lazing about on the deck, assuming the majority must be off to drink with the rest of the sailors. Troubling though it is to be right next to such a potentially dangerous vessel, she decides not to worry about it right now. While it’s obvious that the Swift Wind is a cargo rig, the actual cargo itself is hidden away from potentially avaricious attention. It also helps that they don’t fly the colors of any of the kingdoms, and therefore are unlikely to be mistaken as a treasure ship. There’s no reason at all for an outsider to suspect them of carrying valuable black powder or a foreign royal passenger.

She tightens her belt where she’s fastened the Sword in its sheath, and her thumb strokes the handle. The peculiar metal of the pommel warms her skin, like a reassurance. Glimmer and Bow follow at her heels as she steps onto the rickety dock and then to the crystal white sands of Seaworthy.

The fight from earlier has long since wound down, though she doesn’t know who ultimately won. The other tavern patrons are back to carousing as if nothing happened, now with some of her own crew among them. She leaves them to it, walking past the buildings that court the wrath of the tide and heading deeper into the settlement. Bow, well-acquainted with Seaworthy’s layout, is quick to wander. Glimmer, conversely, sticks to Adora like glue. She glances at the Princess surreptitiously. She doesn’t see fear or trepidation, but it’s entirely likely that the girl just has a very good poker face, especially judging by how she keeps reaching for the knife on her belt, as if to make sure it’s still there. Adora chooses not to bring it up. She knows that Glimmer is tougher than the sorry dogs of this pit and that she’ll start feeling more comfortable soon. She allows the girl to knock into her hip every few seconds anyway, until she gets her feet under her.

The place they need to visit is what passes for a general store and trading post in a den of drunkards and outlaws. Seaworthy’s resources are limited, but they only need a few crates of fruit and barrels of fresh water to get them to Salineas. To reach the store, they have to walk by the slave market. It’s far from ideal, but it’s the fastest route to and from, and there’s always a chance the auction stage will be empty today. Adora always hopes and prays that it is whenever she has to walk by. She has a bad history with such places, to say nothing of their inherent horribleness. She quite vividly remembers when some slavers tried to put her in chains and drag her to market, though not this one specifically. That had ended with her killing them, all seven of them, with the Sword. Bow had been with her at the time, also in chains, and they’d both been run out of town in the aftermath. It’s an interesting way to meet your best friend, if nothing else, she thinks, fondly.

They walk around the corner on the correct road and Glimmer stops dead. Adora almost runs into her, and when she gets a look at the girl’s face, she understands. The Princess’s mouth is hanging open, and her eyes are filled with shock and horror. Adora doesn’t have to look to know why. She can hear it. Shouting, the bellow of an auctioneer, the clanking of manacles. A symphony of greed and cruelty. They are not lucky today. The flesh market is in full swing.

“Ah man,” Bow groans, walking up to Adora and Glimmer from one of the other shops. “This is not what I wanted to deal with today.”

“I can’t believe it,” Glimmer whispers. “I mean, I knew they existed theoretically, but I never thought…”

“There’s nothing we can do,” Adora says, though the words are bitter on her tongue. She looks away. “Let’s g---”

A cry from the stage has her turning back abruptly. It’s wrong, it’s too young. Her gaze follows the sound to its source, and she gasps. A kid… a little boy, gods he can’t be older than 8. He’s dressed in little more than dirty rags, and the auction guards have dragged him out of an iron cage full of other kids. The Sword vibrates in its sheath, rattling violently of its own accord. But Adora’s gaze doesn’t leave that little boy, even as she sees several other children pulled out onto the stage in chains. She doesn’t register anything beyond the tears rolling down their dirty faces and the deafening screech of the Sword consuming her thoughts. She hears It speak, feels Its command in her bones. Act Now.

“Captain, Captain!” Suddenly, Bow is there, standing in front of her, and he’s pushing her shoulders back desperately. “You can’t! You know you can’t!”

“There are children on that stage, Bow,” she growls, and her voice is the thousand voices of the Sword, all of them raging and screaming for justice. She tries to pull the Sword free as it hums in her grip, but then Glimmer’s hands are clamped around her own as the Princess does her damndest to stop Adora from drawing the weapon.

“I know,” Bow says, his words cutting through the sobs of the babes, and she turns from the awful scene to meet his brown eyes, finding them full of sorrow. “I know, Adora, but you can’t help them like this. Even with the sword, there’s too many people here. They’ll shoot you dead before you can even get up there! You know they will, they won’t hesitate! Urrgh, help me out here, Glim,” he says as he throws his all his body weight into keeping her at bay.

“Uh! Hey, Captain, Adora, how about we step away for a minute, huh?” Her voice is high-pitched with fear. “Maybe talk a walk, get a drink, go look at seashells? How ‘bout it?” She grunts with the effort of trying to shove Adora’s hand back down and pry her fingers from the Sword’s hilt. “Oh, and maybe we could stop aggressively speaking in gibberish? That sounds like a great plan to me!”

Adora hadn’t realized she was still talking. The common tongue she knows has been replaced by the bizarre language she only hears in her dreams. She only vaguely understands the words coming out of her mouth. Vengeance. Retribution. Balance. Honor. Grayskull. The Sword is speaking through her, acting with her body. She must carry out Its will.

“Oh man!” Bow’s voice is distant from her now, nearly drowned out by the shrieking and sobbing. “I’ve got no choice. Adora, you’ll thank me for this later!” The hands on her shoulders vanish and, freed at last, she puts the first foot forward towards justice and victory and honor for Grayskull and---

Bow punches her squarely in the eye.

Her vision explodes with stars and she stumbles back from the unexpected blow, losing sight of the stage as she falls on her ass. She puts the hand that had been on the Sword over her screaming, throbbing eye and curses so violently Glimmer squeals in shock. “Bow!” She snarls, glaring murderously up at the man’s face. “What the fuck was that for?”

“That was to stop you from getting yourself and the two of us killed,” Bow says unapologetically. He isn’t fazed by her ire, merely raising a single, judgmental brow until she begrudgingly settles down. The Sword is still screeching in her brain, but she can move on her own again and she chooses to stay put. After she sits in the dirt for a minute and takes a few deep breaths, Bow offers her a hand up that she accepts with a huff, and he forcefully turns her body away from the auction. “Adora, you’ve got to go back to the ship.”

“I’m fine now, Bow, I just need some air.”

“Yes, air you can get back on the deck of the Swift Wind, away from here. Come on, let’s move.” He has to stand on his toes to do it, but he wraps an arm around her shoulders and politely but firmly leads her back down the road to the shore.

“I don’t need to be coddled,” she snaps, trying to shrug him off to no avail.

“Um, Adora,” Glimmer, who is walking to her left, says hesitantly. “Do you know how you looked back there?” The harsh remark she was about to make gets stopped in its tracks. Because, truthfully, she doesn’t know. The Sword has never taken control of her body before. It’s helped her in battle, sure, sharpening her reflexes and gently guiding her steps. But this forceful demanding, acting out in her skin, speaking Its words with her mouth and calling for bloodshed in the name of Grayskull GrayskullGrayskullGrayskull? She doesn’t know what that was or what to do about it.

She clutches her head as it pounds mercilessly. The Voices give her no peace, only hounding her to charge and to fight.

No, she doesn’t know how she looked. But if all of this, Glimmer’s expression, and Bow punching her in the face are anything to go by, it was bad. Very bad.

She lets the two of them lead her away from the auction area. Once they get back to the seaside bar, Bow lets her go. “Glim and I will take care of the resupply. You go get some rest, okay Cap?”

“Yeah sure,” Adora says dully. The Sword seems to settles as they get farther and farther from the stage, and it takes all her energy with it when it quiets. She feels like she just swam through a storm. Bow pats her on the back and Glimmer smiles at her reassuringly.

They leave her alone on the beach as they walk back into town. Once they’re gone, her shoulders slump, and she glances dismally down at the blade on her hip. She’s glad that It’s calm again, but now she has a million questions and no way of getting a single answer. Nothing new there, she thinks as she sits down in the sand, wiping sweat from her forehead. The sun warms her skin as she rests and it eases away some of the tension in her body. A stiff drink or three will take care of the rest, she knows.

She shuts her eyes and breathes deeply, taking in the salt air. When she opens them again, she catches a glimpse of dark-furred, pointed ears in her periphery. Brow furrowing, she looks around, but only sees the end of a feline tail disappearing behind a shack far down the beach. Surely…

No. Don’t be ridiculous, she chastises herself, shaking her head. There are plenty of cat-folk that take to the sea, even ones who aren’t orphans raised on pirate ships with big dreams, warm hands, and soft lips. Sighing, she takes this as her cue to finally go back to her ship. As she does, she passes by a group of sailors playing some dice game on the dock. They look up at her she walks by, and she gets a bad feeling from their stares. She meets them head-on, of course, because she won’t let anyone intimidate her (again). The Sword whispers a warning.

One of them, a scorpion-woman even bigger than she, stands up, and Adora’s jaw tightens with tension. The woman, who has short white hair and large red claws and tail, smiles brightly at her. “Hi!” She says cheerily. “Don’t pay no mind to us, unless you’re likin’ to join our game.”

Adora manages to smile back courteously. “Thanks, I’ll be havin’ to pass today. I’ll wish ya a fine bout though.”

“Alright,” the woman says, unfazed. “Bye!” She waves a bulky pincer before she sits back down with her compatriots. Adora continues the walk to the Swift Wind, but she feels their interested eyes on her back the whole way there. She catches sight of the pirate flag waving proudly from the mast of the ship next to hers, and concludes that she just met some of its crew.

She takes a nap as Bow suggested after downing half a bottle of whiskey and pressing a cool, damp rag over her poor eye. It leaves her groggy and ravenous when she wakes up, but she didn’t dream of anything more than the Sword’s constant litany of whispers, so she’ll take it what she can get. She stumbles out onto her deck again to see the sun slowly setting behind the palm trees. Her deck is still empty, with all her workers off getting pissdrunk on cheap alcohol and throwing their remaining coin at prostitutes. They are sailors after all, so you can only expect so much when you give them money and then let them wander about on land.

Bow is probably among them making sure no one drinks themselves to death or unemployment. He’s a dedicated mother hen and has been since the day she met him. She expects that will never change.

She wonders where the Princess has run off to as well. She doesn’t need to wonder long though, as she soon spots a familiar blue kerchief and coat heading down the dock. Glimmer is carrying something in both her hands, bowls by the look of it, and she has to take slow and careful steps up the ramp to avoid dropping them.

“There you are,” she greets Adora. She gingerly holds out one of the bowls, which is steaming and smells like stew. “Bow said this was your favorite, and I just figured you hadn’t eaten anything yet, since the cook is, um, indisposed at the moment.” Adora takes the bowl with a smirk as she ponders what Princess Glimmer with her upper-class manners really means by “indisposed”. Knowing her cook, it could be any number of things, the crazy gob.

“I appreciate it,” she says to Glimmer. “Let’s go sit to eat, unless you’re heading back out.”

Glimmer shakes her head. “No, I think I’ve seen enough of Seaworthy.”

“Not to your taste, eh lass?”

Glimmer rolls her eyes, grinning. “No, but I knew that after what you told me this morning. I dunno though, I suppose for a filthy hovel of flea-bitten vagabonds and criminals, it’s better than I expected.”

“Well, fortunately we won’t be stopping anywhere else like this on our trip. Next stop is Salineas, the gleaming sapphire of Etheria,” she says as she holds the door to her quarters open for the Princess.

“I’m so excited!” The girl squeals in delight. “I’ve wanted to visit Salineas since I was 5.”

“Well, I can safely tell you that the capital will likely live up to your expectations, unlike this old trash heap. I’ve always enjoyed my time there.” Glimmer claps her hands together in enthusiasm.

The stew is fish-based, packed with chunks of bass and mackerel along with shrimp in a thin but flavorful gravy. It is her favorite, and on the first bite she groans in pleasure. “Thank you for bringing this to me,” she says again.

Glimmer shrugs. “Of course, least I could do.” She takes a dainty bite of her own food. They eat in silence for a time until the Princess looks across the desk at Adora thoughtfully. She swallows her spoonful and asks, “So we know why I’m here, but how is it you came to be here?”

Adora shrugs. “I worked on this ship, and when the old captain retired, she gave command to me.”

The Princess rolls her eyes again. “No, I mean, how did you even become a sailor? How long have you been one? Where are you from?”

“Nowhere,” she responds simply.

“Nowhere?”

“I was raised on a ship, one that sailed all year round. Life on the water, moving from port to port, it’s all I’ve ever known. The people I sailed with never mentioned a homeland or other origin. They might’ve plucked me straight from the waves for all I know. Would explain why I can’t bear to leave the sea now.”

“Really?” The Princess is fascinated. “Did you not have a mom or dad?”

Adora shrugs a little stiffly, as Shadow Weaver isn’t a topic she cares to get into. “Not as such, though I guess you could say I was brought up by a woman on the ship.” She swirls her spoon around. “Whenever I asked, she would spin the same tale of finding me as a wee babe, left alone and abandoned to die on a rock, but she would never say where. Told me it didn’t matter and would smack my hands for asking.”

“That’s awful,” Glimmer whispers.

“I mean, it could have been much worse, but yeah, it should have been better I think.”

“What kind of ship was it that you sailed on?”

Now isn’t that a loaded question. Adora looks at the Princess very carefully. She’s spent a month in relatively close quarters with the girl, and she likes to think she’s gotten a beat on her. She’s sure that Glimmer won’t judge or make a fuss, but as for… “Okay, if I tell you this, you cannot tell your mother, ever.”

The other girl leans in. “Ooo, you got it. My lips are sealed.” She even acts out placing a wax seal on her mouth. Adora really does like her.

‘Okay,” she chuckles. “Well… it was a pirate ship.”

“You were a pirate?” She really should not sound so excited about that.

“Not so much one myself, but I lived and worked on their ship. I was just a whelp who cleaned the deck and carried their spoils. When I was older, they taught me how to fight with a sword, but that was it really. I was on that ship until I was 17.”

“Why did you leave?”

Adora covers up her grimace by taking another bite of stew, which tastes like ash on her tongue. Two successive gun shots echo in her mind while the Sword whispers angrily. Fright Zone. Catra. Hordak. Falling. “Oh, well, things change. Are you finished?”

“Oh uh, yeah, I guess.” Glimmer looks confused by the sudden change of subject but doesn’t protest when Adora takes her bowl. She starts to leave through the door when she hears Glimmer turn around. “Were you all alone on that ship, except for that woman?” What the--- Where did that question come from?

Adora glances back at Glimmer, searching her face for any sign of subterfuge or ill intent. She doesn’t find any. The Princess seems honestly curious and maybe even concerned about her. It’s the concern that loosens her tongue to answer honestly. “No, I wasn’t. There was one other girl my age.”

“And where is she now?”

There’s a knot in her throat, one she struggles to swallow. In her mind, she sees a mischievous smirk, hears the feline snicker she remembers so well. Don’t cough up a hairball, Adora. That’s my job.

“I don’t know,” she finally admits. Turning away, she curses how unsteady her voice has become. “I’ll be back once I return these bowls, and then we’ll both go to bed.” Where she’ll be finishing the other half of that bottle.

She leaves the room quickly, too quickly, but she doesn’t care. It’s fully night when she emerges onto the deck. She can see that some of her crew have finally made it back, if only to pass out on the woodwork. Stepping onto the dock, she sees that the gang of dice-rolling pirates has vanished. That should make her feel relieved, but it doesn’t.

It’s oppressively quiet. No sounds disturb the night beyond the gentle rush of waves and the crackling of torch fires. There’re no glasses clinking or drunken laughter, no musicians playing shanty tunes or even footsteps save her own. The Sword whispers another warning as she makes her way to the beach tavern.

A subdued looking bar wench takes the dirty bowls from her and walks off without a word. Strange. Come to think of it, the tavern is unusually empty for this time of night. Only a few people, most of them hers, are sitting on the stools, and even they seem to be affected by the tense atmosphere. Bow is there too, and he waves her over when she notices him.

“What’s going on?” She asks him as quietly as she can. The Sword’s litany has picked up, but now it’s repeating the same word over and over again. Justice Juusticce Jusssticcce…

“I have no idea,” Bow answers, clearly ill at ease. “About ten minutes ago, everyone just started clearing out of here. No one’s on the streets either. It’s like a ghost town out here. And…” he glances about nervously. “I saw a whole bunch of people leaving that ship docked next to us. You know, the one with the black flag?”

“Shit,” Adora hisses, rubbing her tired eyes.

“Yeah, and they looked armed to the teeth. They disappeared going that direction.” He jerks a thumb behind him, pointing down the beach to the same place where Adora saw those familiar pointed ears.

“Damn…” She looks around. Her present crew members are mostly awake, if sloshed, but not all of them are in this particular bar. If someone’s about to set this rathole on fire or worse, they need to book it out of the harbor as quickly as possible, and she won’t leave any of her people behind. “Okay, okay. Bow, you get these lads up and moving back to the ship. Get us ready to leave and be prepared to push us off at a moment’s notice. I’ll go find the rest and bring them back, and then we go.”

“Yes, Captain.” Bow stands, so careful to not even scrape his stool across the sandy wooden floor. He puts a hand on her shoulder as she turns to leave. “Come back soon. And do it in one piece.”

Her smile is more confident than she is. “You know me, Bow. It’ll take a lot more than a few pirates to put me down.” Then she jogs away, trying to stay quick and light on her feet, with one hand grasping the Sword’s hilt.

Bow was right about Seaworthy becoming a ghost town. She creeps down the sandy streets alone, seeing no signs of life beyond the occasional flutter of a curtain. She makes an educated guess that the rest of her crew are holed up in the one brothel in town, a small, scummy, sticky den of iniquity that was nevertheless the richest business in the area after the slave auctions. It is located on the further end of the settlement, close where the ruddy shacks end and the wild frontier begins.

She takes side paths and ducks behind buildings to get there, intent on staying out of sight of any potential threats. But as she tiptoes, swerves, and maneuvers, she sees the shadows move. She is not alone. At one point, she ducks behind a couple of barrels, and from the darkness ahead of her two figures run with their faces obscured by hoods and bandanas. They are armed, one with a short sword and the other with a nasty looking dagger, and both have pistols holstered on their belts. Adora shivers as they pass her by without notice. Gods, she hates guns.

The two brigands turn and rush down the road, and she absently notes that they’re heading in the direction of the slave market. She doesn’t stop to consider them further however, as she’s got sailors to extract. She steps out from behind the barrels and continues on her way.

The guard standing outside the whorehouse nearly pulls his falchion on her when she walks up to him. “State ya business,” he growls in a deep, gravelly voice that doesn’t mask his fear.

Adora holds up her hands in a calming gesture. “I’m just here to pick up my workers. I’m not here for no trouble.”

For a moment, it doesn’t look like he believes her, but then he reluctantly steps back from the door. “Make it quick, then get out,” he says.

“Exactly my intention,” she says as she pulls the door open and goes in.

Finding her remaining sailors is easy. Even here the tension is palpable, and the place is mostly empty of customers. She has to drag out a few of the drunken lummoxes by their ears, but they follow eventually. She tosses a bag of gold at the madam as they leave, telling her to keep the change.

All that matters now is getting back to the Swift Wind. She leads her men along the edge of town, a narrow but straight path where she isn’t likely to lose anyone on the way.

They’re parallel to the auction stage when suddenly there’s a great and thunderous BOOM! She tosses her arms up in front of her face before she’s blinded by the light of the explosion happening not 100 yards away from them. The force of it sends her stumbling back and knocks her unsteady compatriots to the sand. When she finally puts her arms down, she gawks with wide eyes at the roaring fire that has erupted, reaching up toward the starry sky and coming from the stage area.

“Go, get to the ship. Now!” She shouts at her crew.

“But, Cap, what about you?” One of them thinks to ask while the rest hasten to follow orders.

She puts a hand on his shoulder, smiles briefly, and then shoves him in the direction of the beach. “I’ll be there soon. Off with you now!” He swallows, looking between her and the sparkling waters in the distance. Then he nods shortly and runs after the others.

She should follow him. She knows she should. But that fire is massive, it could easily spread to the other buildings. She might not like Seaworthy much, but she has no desire to see it and its residents reduced to ash. The least she can do is try to stop that from happening. The Sword vibrates against her leg, and she feels its mysterious power flood her veins, emboldening and encouraging her. Without further hesitation she sprints toward the inferno.

The closer she gets, the more she sees and hears. It’s chaos, violent, bloody chaos by the auction stage. A full goddamn battle is taking place in the square, with an undulating mass of combatants savaging each other with swords, axes, and guns. From what she can see, some even have torches that they’re waving around and jabbing into the unprotected sides of their foes. The fighting is so intense it’s almost a free-for-all, but she can discern that there are at least two different groups composing the fray: the pirates that she and Bow saw, and the local slavers and their entourage of guards.

From amidst in the tussle, someone sends a hand bomb soaring over the battlefield, aiming at the building behind the stage where the slavers typically caged their cargo and finalized their deals. Adora gasps in horror as the wooden barn explodes with concussive force. There’s a triumphant roar from half of the battling throng, the brigand half specifically. Billowing clouds of smoke fill the air and the flames turn the night sky an evil, hazy orange.

She doesn’t have much time, but if she can skirt around the edges of the skirmish, she might reach the barn and hopefully rescue those trapped inside. She starts to run, dodging stray bullets and throwing knives as she makes her way past. But her progress is stopped abruptly when a bruising, merciless hand clamps down on her bicep. She is yanked backward and put face-to-face with an ugly, pock-marked man with one good eye and at least seven missing teeth. She vaguely recognizes him as one of the auction guards, and raises a mighty fist to send the rest of his teeth right down his throat. She is beaten to the (metaphorical and literal) punch, however, when a hulking crimson claw comes from the left and clamps down on the man’s neck. He releases Adora’s arm to struggle desperately against this one, but it’s no use as he is pitilessly choked and slammed into the sand. He doesn’t get up again, but the scorpion woman from this afternoon does.

“Oh, hey! Nice to see you again! Though, uh, you might wanna get out of here.” The woman smiles cheerfully at Adora, as if the battle raging behind her is barely an afterthought.

“But--- you---,” she digs her nails hard into her scalp, staring in disbelief at this pirate. “You people are going to burn the damn town down!” She finally shouts. She points angrily toward the auction building. “And that! There might still be people in there!”

“Oh, there?” The woman looks at the barn, unconcerned. “Eh, don’t worry about that. We’ve already evacuated that place. There’s no one there now. And don’t be worryin’ about the fire, we’ve got it under control!”

Their conversation, if you can call it that, is interrupted when another of the guards charges the scorpion woman with a scimitar lofted above his head. Adora gets her chance for payback now as she lunges forward and slams the pommel of the Sword into his gut. It’s a powerful blow, laying the man out on the ground where the other woman proceeds to stomp on his head.

“Thanks for that!” She says, beaming. She glances down at their fallen enemy and then up at the vicious fight before them. “Really though, luv, you should leave. We’ve got this handled. Head back to that handsome ship of yours now, okay?” She doesn’t say another word, instead hopping back into the fracas and disappearing.

Adora is left stunned, staring at the place in the crowd where she vanished. It’s only when she very narrowly avoids taking a throwing knife to the shoulder that she shakes off her incredulity and decides the woman is right. She spares a final, worried look at the collapsing barn before she turns tail and runs as fast as her feet will take her. She doesn’t stop sprinting until her feet are clapping against the damp wood of the dock and she can see her crew looking over the sides of the Swift Wind, while Bow stands at the helm. Her ship is unmoored and the ramp has already been drawn up, but she pays no heed, instead barreling to the end of the walk and taking a flying leap, intent on catching hold of the tough oak railing. Her crew, the ever-loyal lot, are there to grab her arms and hoist her up onto the deck as she does so.

Doubled over and out of breath, she gives the signal to Bow, who wastes no time steering the ship away from the dock. Two of her swabbies help her to sit atop a sturdy crate, smacking her on the back reassuringly. She looks up to see Glimmer rushing over to rest a steadying hand on her shoulder. Her glittering eyes are filled with both fear and relief. Adora covers the Princess’s hand tightly with her own, as she gazes out over the ship’s bow at the dancing lights and smoke still pouring out from Seaworthy.

She watches them flicker and spark even as the Swift Wind turns and glides out of the harbor.

#she ra #spop #she-ra #she ra and the princesses of power #my writing #what the water gave me #adora #catra #catradora

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