#Bare Root Trees

[greenwoodnursery1]

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[whatudottu]

Combined with the mortifying realisation that loopified Odile (now named Nokosu) took me multiple hours to draw the first time, I decided to try and make one speak in Japanese :) :) :)

The Japanese sentences will be under the cut plus a more literal translation and some research notes-

自分は遺残の神である。「遺す」と呼んでもいいし、「残」の字を使ってもいい。お前 の草白鳥は、すでにお前 の小烏から 「イサ 」という名前を取っている。二人の人間に同じ名前を使うのは混乱しないか？ヴォーガルド語の「サ」の発音は「ザ」に近いので、特に必要である。そうだろう？

or in Romaji

Jibun wa izan no kamidearu. 'Nokosu' to yonde mo īshi, 'zan' no ji o tsukatte mo ī. Omae no kusa hakuchō wa, sudeni omae no ko karasu kara `Isa' to iu namae o totte iru. Futari no ningen ni onaji namae o tsukau no wa konran shinai ka? Vu~ōgarudo-go no 'sa' no hatsuon wa 'za' ni chikainode, tokuni hitsuyōdearu. Sōdarou?

Literally translated Nokosu says;

I am the god of remains. You may call me “Nokosu", or you may use the [Chinese character] for “remain". Your grass swan has already taken the name “Isa” from your little crow. Isn't it confusing to use the same name for two people? It is especially necessary since the pronunciation of “sa” in Vaugarde is close to “za”. Wouldn't you agree?

And for the explanations of a monolingual English speaker with barely even surface level understanding of Japanese.

Throughout my entire journey, Jisho.org kanji dictionary has been my saving grace and backbone in my choice of Nokosu's name and what first and second person pronouns one uses. My initial goal was to find a name for survival or persistance which lead to me finding terms like; 存続 (sonzoku) meaning survival, 存 meaning exist and 続 meaning continue; 耐久 (taikyuu) meaning endurance, 耐 meaning the affix -proof (of bulletproof or soundproof), 久 meaning long time; and finally 遺残 (izan) meaning persistence, 遺 meaning bequeath, 残 meaning remainder.

To kinda help expand my knowledge of the terms I was using, I also used a combination of google translate (primarily for the pronunication of words less the actual translations) and DeepL to kinda get the sweet deets and found that izan had meant - a more common definition - remains. It. Was. Perfect.

Perfect save for one thing... Isa- Sure, Isabeau is his full name and written down Isabeau and Izan are unique enough, but technically functionally the 'sa' in French (and thus in Vaugardian) is more voiced than the 'sa' in Japanese and sounds more like the 'za' in izan, and to have Odile refer to Nokosu as Izan when "only [Siffrin] call[s] him Isa" is an in-game quote; to say I was miffed was an understatement.

But then... I turned to words that use those individual kanji and hoped to mix and match to find what I wanted.

My first direction was to turn each kanji into hiragana to find their pronunciations and piece together a word from that; 遺 in isolation is noko, 残 in isolation is zan. Finding the term no ko zan-kiri (のこざん切り) on google gave me 'chopped into pieces' which well- look at my design that's a lot of pieces! のこ残 or nokozan (turning the first character into hiragana of course) lead me to 'remnants of a servant's body' as it's main translation on DeepL, but it also provided 'backbreaking exertions' as well as 'remnants of a defeated soldier'. Plus using DeepL again izan itself full kanji gave me 'vestiges' 'bequest' 'afterlife' and the ever present 'remains'.

None of these however were getting me closer to an ample replacement for izan however, not until I returned to jisho.org to pick out words from a list using either kanji.

Turns out, both 遺 and 残 can be pronounce 'noko' so long as it is followed by the hiragana す or su. And guess what either spelling of the word translates into? The 遺す version meaning to leave (behind), to bequeath, and the 残す version meaning that same thing but more, to leave (undone), to save/to reserve, to stay (in the ring).

SO! SO! That is how Nokosu came to be named! But- what about the Japanese phrase I wrote?

Well- let's stay on the Nokosu theme now that any Japanese readers in my audience have already processed the meta-joke that can only really exist in Japanese writing (or maybe not a joke but like... a fourth wall acknowledgement). Nokosu already introduces oneself as 遺す though doesn't mention how to spell it (since it's already spelt out to the reader), then introduces the second variant of the spelling exclusively referring to the second kanji of Izan 残 as zan. Maybe it's not really a joke but it'd kinda be like the 'you use he/they, it's in your profile' equivalent.

I suppose an attempt at a joke was Odile thinking 'a very wordy Expression', but that's mostly from observing that translations through DeepL stopped run on sentences occuring from English to Japanese so... I have no idea if constant uses of commas isn't particularly Japanese, at least the joke would be that Nokosu is particularly more chatty than Odile might normally be.

And once again, people who know Japanese may have noticed the use of jibun (自分) and omae (お前) for Nokosu's pronouns. Lowkey I was thinking initially of making Nokosu's first person pronoun oira a la sans undertale 'country bumpkin' but found more interesting things with jibun and omae that I settled on those versions. jibun, a neutral formality pronoun literally meaning 'oneself', when used as a personal pronoun (like Nokosu does) it's with a sense of separation of distance to the self; I also found out in my translation hunt that jibun can be used as a second person pronoun which is very fucking fitting given who Nokosu talks to, but that's specifically from in the Kansai dialect and - well - I can't say for certain where Odile hails from especially since Japan in ISAT is Ka Bue, but she'd be well educated enough to connect the dots that Nokosu lays down. On the other hand, Nokosu's second person pronoun is omae (Fist of the North Star fans will remember it from the very iconic 'omae wa mou shindearu'), which is incredibly informal and very rude when said to elders (though in age technically Nokosu is older) as it's meant to express the speaker's higher status in non-casual relationships.

To note, though omae can be used by both genders, it and jibun are mostly used by men and in the case of omae it's more commonly used to refer to their wife or lover. This has a little extra significance to background headcanon where Nokosu calls Odile Nanafushi (七節) or literally walking stick AKA a stickbug as ones version of 'Stardust', but sometimes Nokusu would split the word in half and refer to Odile as 'Nana' which in English sounds like one is referencing a grandma but (BUT) I'm specifically using the French term which translates to 'chick' 'babe' 'girlfriend'. So when I saw that omae can also be used for that purpose, it really goes to show that at some point Nokosu had the time to perfectly craft a version of oneself that does get on Odile's nerves and has the gall to get away with it at least initially under the assumption that one is an Expression.

I've been trying to make this flow from one point to another but I don't know how to jump to Japanese nicknames, at least not the metaphorical ones that I used here (and took inspiration from the Word of God Odile nickname for Siffrin 'Little Crow'). What little I do know about Japanese nicknames is that they may take alternate readings of single kanji as a nickname or repeat a character, though that is in reference to Japanese names in the first place. I did see something about the metaphorical sort of nicknames that have connotations in the language itself but- honestly this is my most monolingual English moment yet. I will explain however what I did decide.

草白鳥 or kusa hakuchou is the character for grass 草, and the kanji combination for swan 白鳥. In DeepL however 草白鳥 translates to grasshopper and though I signifcantly lack the cultural context to know what grasshopper symbology has in Japan, I do know in English you call someone a 'grasshopper' because they're tall. But why start with grass swan at all? Well- maybe it's a stretch for whatever fantasy time-period ISAT takes place in to use an internet term but, 草 has been used in internet slang to mean lol or haha since 'w' is also a version of lol or haha, and when spammed like so - wwwwwwwwwwwww - it looks like grass. The reason for swan would be because of I guess this idea of beauty? Less due to Odile specifically considering Isabeau beauty and more so taking note of his care to his appearance - whether it be how he presents his perception of his appearance or how he makes people belief a different thing about what his views about his appearance are, white swan or black swan - and that whatever the case is, he does take pride in maintaining that appearance; a retroactive meaning to the nickname, especially when Isa starts more casually bringing up the fact he *had* Changed, would be an incidental reference to the ugly duckling, who ended up not being a duckling at all and was a swan all along. Whether the nickname actually works or not I don't really know, but what it boils down to Odile's nickname for him (and thus Nokosu's only title for him beyond fighter) would really mean 'funny (tall) beauty' which would probably fluster Odile to admit it as Isa would hearing it.

An interesting thing I found while finding kanji for little crow (specifically 小烏) was that there is actually kind of already a word for it already, Kogarasu Maru or 小烏丸, AKA "Little Crow" which is a unique tachi sword rumoured to be crafted by a legendary swordsmith like-! I don't know if that was at all intentional on Insertdisc5's part (and if I should change the pronunciaton of the romaji version of the original text to kogarasu), but beyond Siffrin's little habit to collect every little thing that shines and doesn't, what do you mean there's a unique tachi sword named 'little crow' that's like literally so Siffrin-coded I SWEAR TO GOD!

Oh, and I played ISAT in Japanese to get the correct spelling of Vaugarde and 語 (go) is just the suffix for language AKA the difference between Nihon the country and Nihongo the language okay BYE!

[nobodieshero-main]

AHRIAAAA

[teddy-bear-naps-and-random-snaps]

[wizardlymoss]

Holy is a word that can not be defined, and our definitions will always be different because when you think of holy. you think of saints and angels. when I think of holy, I think of you.

[somniaxperdita]

☠ ― Send "🌷" and the MUSE will tell you whatever the hell they want. II ACCEPTING!!! II @countlessrealities said: 🌷

"Bald."

This is directly at Blitz because it's the first thing that's popped into her mind. It isn't really an insult or a compliment. To the hellhound she's stating a fact and nothing else.

[a-hermit-pining]

LADS Men React a Picture of You with Another guy

Request: Hii!! I love your writing so so much (pls never stop)!!! How do you think the lads men would react to the following scenario: mc makes one of her girl friends dress like a guy and post that on her story/moments (to ward off an annoying co-worker, like what Caleb did in uni, but mc didnt want to bother the guys with this request so she asked Tara or another one of her girl friends). The picture, though, is convincing enough to make even the lads men question if she actually does have a partner and who tf is he. I think Xavier would absolutely malfunction since they are also neighbours lol

AN: I am taking a break from the ship event to gather some inspiration. But this was super fun to write. Thank you for sending in such an amazing idea.

Warning: Potential Spoilers. Be Mindful 👺

Pairing: Lads boys x fem reader

Genre: fluff and angst

(I do not own these characters)

Summary: Waking up after an amazing girls' night, you and Tara spent the morning taking silly photos, making all kinds of concerning faces, until inspiration struck.

"Wait, wait, hold on," Tara grinned, pushing her short hair back. "What if—"

Moments later, you were both giggling uncontrollably, staging fake hard launch photos in your bed. The blurry, cozy results? Surprisingly convincing.

"Oh, this is gonna blow up at work."

Tara rested her chin on your neck, wrapping an arm around you for the final shot. The picture was better than you imagined, so naturally, you posted it to your story before the two of you rushed to get ready for work.

And just like that, your social media went up in flames.

Rafayel:

623 missed calls. 200 texts. 82 more missed calls.

All hours after your post.

Who is he? Why are you in bed with him? Is he your boyfriend? What is his name?

You barely have time to breathe after your meeting before the onslaught of texts floods in. Even the comment section of your post hasn’t been spared.

Thomas is already on the case. Rafayel is whining, sobbing, crying and absolutely not afraid to play dirty to get you back.

He's already planned a hundred ways to nip this budding romance at the root.

He thinks he has the upper hand, feels kinda smug about it too.

Still… there’s a twinge of heartbreak. A little ache for having to wait longer for you, for the idea that you might have chosen someone else. But if nothing else, Rafayel is persistent.

So, of course, he’s already forgiven you.

But don’t think, even for a second, that he won’t complain about it.

He’s still mulling over it, dramatically painting all his canvases black, getting ready for his villain arc, when you finally call him back.

"A prank?"

He is indignant.

He cried over a prank.

All that effort… for nothing.

"IT’S BEEN 800 YEARS. JELLYFISH ARE WALKING. NAKED SEA TURTLES ARE CLIMBING TREES. SHARKS ARE EATING GRASS—FOR FREE. "

AND RAFAYEL?

RAFAYEL CRIED OVER A PRANK.

HE WENT FULL VILLAIN ARC FOR A LIE.

HIS CANVASES ARE BLACK. HIS PLANS FOR REVENGE? RUINED.

ALL BECAUSE YOU AND TARA WANTED TO PLAY GAMES.

He might never recover. Might. But first, he needs to call Thomas back before his "investigation" starts a national crisis.

Xavier:

He had just returned from a long night of fighting Wanderers when his phone chimed with an alert.

Half-asleep, he smiled at the sight of your name, already thinking of how he'd respond once he changed and collapsed into bed.

That smile froze the moment he saw the picture.

The phone slipped from his fingers, landing on his face. But he didn’t even wince. Too numb to feel it.

His vision blurred. His chest ached. Tears welled, unbidden.

Genuinely heartbroken. So weary. So tired. For a moment, he was shattered.

Did he have the strength to wager another lifetime?

His time was already running out. His strength faded with each passing day. He had selfishly wanted this spring with you...but this was better for you. You were too kind, too caring to bear his loss.

Perhaps this was for the best. His lips trembled at the thought.

You had someone now, someone who would not bring you grief. And you looked so happy in that photo. He stared at the blurred curve of your smile, tracing it with his gaze.

Somehow, he managed a small smile too.

And then he folded into himself. And slept.

For days.

So long that you started to worry, noticing his absence at work.

Until, finally, you barge into his apartment, breathless and frantic, only to find him asleep, moonlight spilling across his face, eerily still.

Your heart plummeted.

"Xavier." Your voice trembled as you rushed to him, fingers shaking as you took his hand.

For a terrible, suffocating second, he didn’t move.

And then, his brow twitched.

Air rushed back into your lungs.

Zayne:

This was to be expected.

He was never what you needed.

He often failed at words. His gestures, too vague to be understood.

You deserved someone who loved you. Someone who had the courage to say those words out loud.

Not him.

Not someone who could hurt you. His scars only grow deeper with time.

So he accepts it. Buries himself in work.

If he could not be your lover, then he would play his part as a friend.

Pays extra attention to your health. Pours over your reports. He must. Because he is no longer close enough to watch over you himself.

And weeks later, when you finally visit him, he keeps up the act—cold, distant, unbothered.

He does all the tests. Runs all the checks. Everything is routine.

But you see it.

The dark circles, deeper than ever. His skin, paler. Cheeks, sunken. His shirt, unwashed.

"You're coming home with me."

Your voice leaves no room for argument as you take his hand. "You never call. You only text about my reports and nothing more. We need to talk."

You tug him forward. He follows, until he stops.

"Your boyfriend won’t like it," he murmurs, staring anywhere but at you.

Silence.

"What boyfriend?"

You blink at him, dumbfounded.

Sylus:

Sylus spits his coffee, choking as he stares at the pictures.

Does not buy it.

That’s clearly not a man.

Yet somehow, he keeps going back to it, again and again.

It’s only when Luke and Kieran peer over his shoulder that his denial starts cracking.

"Ooooh, boss has got competition," Luke chimes.

One minute, they’re laughing. The next, they’re outside the mansion, the door slamming shut behind them.

Luke blinks. "That explains..."

Kieran yanks him into a chokehold for getting them banished for the day.

Inside, Sylus switches to wine.

The day has been too much.

Not a man, right? he muses, scrutinizing the photo, before accidentally pressing the heart button.

And then, he all but chews the glass in his hand.

He’s not worried.

He just suddenly feels the urge to burn his entire closet because nothing looks good enough.

He doesn’t care.

He’s just made a few calls, just to make sure you’re not involved with anyone sketchy. Unless, of course, it’s him.

Then, like an absolute idiot, he gets a panicked call from an associate.

The only person who’s been in your apartment? Tara.

Sylus stares at the image. Facepalms.

That evening, when he picks you up from work, he looks exhausted.

As if a few hours have aged him years.

When you ask, he waves you off, dodging every question.

You raise a brow. "Are you sure? You look—"

"I said it’s nothing," he snaps, before sighing, dragging a hand down his face. "...Can we just go home

Caleb:

Storming to Linkon.

Geared up to blow up the entire apartment complex.

Spends five minutes struggling with the locked door before finally getting it open.

Marches in.

Stops. Sighs in disapproval at your empty fridge.

Good thing he packed snacks. Leaves them on your counter. You’ll thank him later.

Then, back to the mission.

Collects all forensic evidence needed. Marches out.

No time to waste.

Supervises the DNA administration.

Hair sample. Used coffee mug. Both next to yours.

He will find the bastard. He will take him out.

And then, he will whisk you away to Skyheaven, to console you once you learn of your tragic, mysterious loss.

Grief will bring you closer.

Every intern running tests is sweating.

So are the lead scientists, who have been personally forced to oversee this insanity.

No one is messing with the colonel today.

And then, finally, the results land on his desk.

Caleb stares. Dumbfounded.

Is he to fight both men and women for you now?

You better watch out for Tara because he does not discriminate.

[byfawn]

THE CHASE

౨ৎ — beware of primal play, cnc, degredation, rough sex, hair pulling, breeding, creampie, and unprotected sex.

the forest is thick, the air heavy with the scent of damp earth and pine. you’re panting, bare feet sinking into the mud as you sprint between the trees, twigs snapping underfoot. your heart hammers in your chest, adrenaline burning through your veins. you shouldn’t have run. you definitely shouldn’t have taunted him. but the second those dark eyes locked onto you, predator to prey, you couldn’t help it—you had to make him chase you.

a low growl rumbles through the trees behind you, sending a shiver down your spine. "thought you could get away, little slut?" simon’s voice is rough, dripping with menace. you whimper, stumbling over a root, but you don’t stop. can’t stop. you know what happens when he catches you.

a hand snags your wrist, yanking you back hard. you crash into him with a gasp, his body all hard muscle and heat. his grip is iron, fingers digging into your flesh as he spins you around and slams you into the dirt. the impact knocks the air from your lungs, leaves and mud sticking to your skin.

"fuck, look at you," he snarls, looming over you. his mask is off, those sharp eyes burning with hunger. "all dirty and desperate. knew you wanted this. knew you’d let me hunt you down like some fucking animal."

you whine, squirming beneath him, but he pins your wrists above your head with one hand. the other grips your thigh, hiking it up around his hip. you can feel how hard he is already, the thick outline of his cock pressing against you through his pants.

"s’that why you ran?" he growls, grinding against you, making you moan. "wanted me to fuck you in the dirt like the filthy little thing you are?"

"yes," you gasp, arching against him. "yes, simon, please—"

he doesn’t make you beg for long. a rough hand tears your clothes aside, and then he’s pushing inside you with a brutal thrust, stretching you open. you cry out, nails scraping at the ground as he fills you, hot and thick and perfect.

"fuck," he groans, hips snapping forward. "knew you’d take it like this. fucking made for me, ain’t you?" his hand fists in your hair, yanking your head back. "love it when you play hard to get. love it even more when i ruin you for it."

you’re so wet it’s obscene, the slick sound of him fucking into you mixing with your choked moans. every thrust drives you deeper into the mud, dirt caking your skin, but you don’t care. you’re too busy unraveling, too lost in the way he’s using you, owning you.

"s’that it?" he taunts, voice rough. "gonna come just from this? from being used like a cheap little fucktoy?"

you nod frantically, tears pricking your eyes. "yes, yes, simon, i’m—"

he slams into you harder, cutting you off with a gasp. "say it. say how fucking sick you are for this."

"i’m sick," you sob, clinging to him. "i love it, love being yours, love—"

your orgasm crashes over you, violent and overwhelming. simon groans, his thrusts turning erratic as he chases his own release. "gonna fill you up," he growls. "mark you up so fucking good. then i’m gonna make you walk back home just like this—dripping with me."

the thought sends another pulse of pleasure through you, and you tighten around him, milking his cock as he spills inside you with a ragged groan.

for a moment, all you hear is the sound of your ragged breathing. then simon leans down, lips brushing your ear.

"next time you run," he murmurs, "i’ll make it even harder for you."

[buckysleftbicep]

little rabbit 𐙚 b.b

pairing: new avenger!bucky barnes x fem!reader

warnings: nsfw, 18+, minors dni, primal play, chasing, unprotected sex, rough sex, overstimulation, oral sex (f rec), light degradation, loads of aftercare (please take care to read the warnings)

summary: you wanted to play prey and bucky was more than happy to hunt.

word count: 2.3k

author's note: hi loves! this fic reminds me of the foot pursuit challenge on tiktok, where partners get their significant other to chase and catch them and my gosh, i get why being chased (consensually) is a kink. based on this request | requests are open!

and suddenly my pants are gone

The forest swallowed you whole.

Dusk draped itself over the trees like a velvet veil, thick and breathless, shrouding everything in deepening shadow. Every snapped twig beneath your bare feet echoed loud in the quiet.

Still, you ran. Low branches clawed at your arms. Thorns kissed your legs. The thin fabric of your dress snagged and fluttered behind you, a ghost of surrender, but you didn’t stop.

You couldn’t. Not when you could feel him.

The weight of his presence stalked you from behind—unseen, but undeniable. The almost inaudible crunch of leaves. A shift in the air. That creeping prickle along your spine that told you that he’s close.

Bucky had given you a five-minute head start. It was a mercy. Time enough to let your pulse spike, to feel the adrenaline kick into your bloodstream. Not fear—never fear. This was anticipation, sharpened to a razor’s edge. Because you had asked for this. Planned it, begged for it. Every line, every rule, every dark little detail etched in the safety of shared trust.

He would chase. You would run.

And when he caught you… you were his.

You ducked beneath a low-hanging branch, stumbling over roots slick with moss. Your breath came in short, frantic bursts, chest heaving as sweat kissed your skin. The air felt electric, every sound amplified—every rustle, every breeze, every bird gone silent.

Then— A sound. Too heavy. Too close. Intentional.

You twisted mid-step, eyes wide, just in time to catch a blur of movement before something crashed into you, full force.

Not something. Someone.

You hit the ground hard, bark and soil tearing at your skin, the wind knocked from your lungs in a startled gasp. But even before you could react, you knew. His weight settled over you—solid, hot, commanding. Breath brushed your ear. A metal hand wrapped around your wrist and dragged it over your head, pinning it into the dirt. His other hand found your waist, gripping hard, keeping you still.

“Got you,” Bucky growled, his voice ragged and low, more breath than sound.

The sound of him went straight to your core.

You squirmed beneath him—reflex, instinct, desire. “You said five minutes,” you panted.

He leaned down, mouth brushing the edge of your jaw. “You had four.”

A breathless laugh escaped you, cut short the moment his hand slid up and curled around your throat. Not tight. Not yet. Just enough to anchor you. Enough to make your breath catch.

His other hand traced down the torn side seam of your dress, slow, deliberate. Fingertips dragging fire across your skin. His touch was reverent and rough all at once, equal parts worship and promise.

“Look at you,” he muttered, voice thick with hunger. “Mouth open like you’re already fucked.”

You didn’t answer. You couldn’t. He didn’t want you to.

Instead, he kissed you—if it could be called that. It was teeth and tongue and breathless desperation. His stubble burned your chin. His mouth stole the air from your lungs. It was a claiming, not a kiss. And when he pulled away, you were already dizzy.

“Get up,” he said roughly.

Your brows furrowed. “What—?”

He didn’t wait. Didn’t explain. Just hauled you to your feet and spun you around so your chest hit the nearest tree trunk with a thud. His hand flattened between your shoulder blades, pressing you forward, and you barely caught yourself before your knees gave out.

Then you felt him.

His cock, already hard, already leaking pressed hot and heavy against your ass through his pants. He rutted against you once, slow and deliberate, making sure you felt it. The power. The possession.

“You made me chase you,” he murmured, lips grazing the shell of your ear. “You made me earn this. You think I’m just gonna take it easy on you now?”

His teeth scraped your neck, and your head dropped forward against the bark with a shudder.

“I’m gonna take my time,” he growled, fingers already hiking your dress up around your hips, exposing your thighs to the night air. “And you’re gonna take everything I give you.”

Your breath hitched as rough bark scraped against your chest, grounding you. The tree was unyielding, but so was he—pressed flush behind you like a furnace, all sharp heat and coiled restraint on the verge of snapping. You barely had time to catch up before his hands were on you—gripping, dragging, claiming. One curled possessively around your hip. The other fisted the neckline of your ruined dress.

And tore.

The sound of fabric splitting echoed in the dark like a gasp. Cold air kissed your bare skin, sending a shudder through you—part from the chill, mostly from the anticipation. The dress fell in tatters around your waist, exposing your breasts to the open night.

Bucky made a low, guttural sound behind you. “Fuck,” he rasped, voice strained and rough with hunger. “You’re so fucking perfect.”

You didn’t answer. Couldn’t. You were too busy shaking as he dropped to his knees behind you, slow and heavy, like a man worshiping at an altar. His metal fingers dug into your thighs, spreading them apart with forceful ease until you had no choice but to brace yourself against the tree.

Then—his mouth.

A single, filthy lick dragged up your center, and your whole body jolted like you’d been shocked. You cried out, loud and unfiltered, legs already trembling.

His breath hitched against you, rough and heavy, sending vibrations through your core that made your legs tremble.

And then he devoured you.

His tongue was relentless—sloppy, fast, desperate. Every stroke made your knees weaken, every flick against your clit sent stars dancing behind your eyes. He sucked, licked, teased, and when he pushed a metal finger into your dripping heat, you almost collapsed.

“Bucky—fuck, please—”

He didn’t stop. Just added a second finger, thrusting deep, curling up until your thighs started to quake. His other hand held your ass in place, keeping you pinned as you instinctively tried to pull away from the overwhelming pleasure.

“Too much,” you gasped. “I—I can’t—”

But he didn’t stop. Not until he chose to.

But when he finally pulled back, your whine of protest was almost pitiful.

He stood, chest rising fast. You could feel the tension rolling off him in waves—his breathing uneven, hands rough now as they grabbed your hips again.

His voice was a low snarl against your ear. “You think you get to come?”

Your whole body clenched, heat rushing to your core like you hadn’t just been on the edge of release.

“You ran,” he continued, biting down on your shoulder. “You teased me. And now you think you get to fall apart without permission?”

You whimpered. “Please…”

He grabbed your jaw, tilting your face toward his. “You begged for this. Remember?”

You nodded weakly.

“Said you wanted to be used.”

Then you felt it. The thick, hot weight of his cock nudging against your entrance—bare, leaking, ready.

“Then take it.”

He slammed into you with a single, brutal thrust.

Your scream tore through the woods, raw and involuntary. There was no gentleness. No easing in. Just the full length of him stretching you, filling you, splitting you open as your breath hitched and your eyes fluttered shut.

He didn’t pause. Didn’t let you adjust. Just snapped his hips into yours, over and over, fucking you hard enough to make your body jerk forward against the tree.

His grip bruised. His rhythm was punishing.

“Fuck, you feel good,” he groaned. “Tight little cunt—jesus—meant for this.”

Every thrust forced a choked moan from your lips, your forehead scraping against the bark. His metal hand snaked around to grab your breast, pinching your nipple between cold fingers until you sobbed.

“Say it,” he demanded. “Tell me who you belong to.”

“You—Bucky, you.”

His mouth found your neck, biting hard, and that was it. You shattered. The orgasm hit you like a freight train—violent, sharp, sudden. You cry out as you clenched around him, body going rigid, stars bursting behind your eyes.

But he didn’t stop.

He kept fucking you through it, deep and fast, chasing his own release. You were limp, barely holding yourself upright, when he finally slammed into you one last time with a grunt, his cock pulsing as he filled you. Warmth spread between your thighs, dripping down as your muscles twitched.

And then, for a long moment—silence.

Only his breathing. Only yours. The wind through the trees.

He stayed pressed to you, his chest against your back, forehead resting on your shoulder. When he finally moved, it wasn’t rough. It was careful.

He pulled out slowly as you whimpered. His hands smoothed over your waist, then wrapped around you, holding you upright.

“You okay, sweetheart?” he murmured softly, lips brushing your skin. You nodded, too dazed to speak.

“Still with me?” A hum was all you could manage.

He didn’t move at first. Just stayed close, breath still ragged against your neck, one hand on your waist like he was grounding himself with the feel of you.

The heat of him clung to your skin, everywhere, your chest, your thighs, the slick mess between your legs. Your pulse hadn’t steadied yet, and neither had his.

His forehead came to rest against your shoulder. “You okay?” he murmured.

You nodded, your voice slow and slurred. “Yeah. Just… give me a second.”

He didn’t rush you. Just waited. His hands softened where they held you—no more grip, no pressure. Only presence. Only warmth.

“I didn’t go too far?” he asked after a pause, quieter now. Like he needed to hear it.

“No,” you said softly, eyes closed. “You didn’t.”

He let out a slow breath, tension finally slipping out of his frame. Behind you, he shifted carefully, pulling out with a gentleness that made your breath catch. The stretch still ached, your thighs trembling from exertion, and the cool night air wrapped around the places he’d left warm and ruined.

You pressed a hand to the tree, steadying yourself.

“Come here,” he said gently, and when he turned you around, you didn’t resist.

Your legs were unsteady, but he was solid. You let yourself fall into him, cheek to his chest, breath still shallow. He held you with one arm wrapped around your waist, the other cradling the back of your neck. His chest rose and fell beneath your face in a steady rhythm, anchoring you.

It was quiet for a moment. Then, without letting go, he said, “So… I take it that worked for you.”

A soft laugh escaped you, hoarse and tired. “That was insane.”

“You sure?” His tone was light, but you felt the nerves under it. “Didn’t think I was gonna find you that fast.”

“You nearly tackled me.”

“You said run,” he said, lips brushing the side of your head. “I took that personally.”

You smiled, breath catching slightly. “You were scarily good at that. Honestly.”

His fingers threaded gently through your hair, grounding you. “You weren’t exactly innocent either. All wide-eyed and breathless. The dress helped.”

You huffed a laugh. “Told you it’d rip.”

“And I said I wouldn’t tear it.” “You absolutely tore it.”

He grinned into your hair. “I’ll buy you another one.”

You nodded, letting silence settle again, warm between your bodies. Then, softer, he asked, “You really okay?”

“Yeah,” you said, and this time you met his eyes. “I liked it.”

His expression shifted—something softer in the lines of his face, something quieter. “Good,” he said, brushing a kiss to your temple. “Because I didn’t know how to stop once I had you.”

The confession hit low in your chest, but not in a bad way. It settled deep.

“I know,” you said.

For a while, you just stood there. Breathing. Letting the night move around you while everything inside you slowed.

Eventually, he shifted. “Come on,” he murmured. “Let’s go inside. Get you cleaned up.”

You blinked, then grimaced. “My legs feel like jelly.”

“I’ll carry you,” he offered, already crouching.

“You don’t have to—”

But he didn’t let you finish. Just swept you up without effort, arms secure beneath your legs and back. You looped your arms around his neck and let your head rest on his shoulder as he started the walk back through the woods.

The world was still and dark around you. The crunch of leaves beneath his boots was steady, the rhythm of it soothing. His chest rose and fell beneath your cheek, and his grip on you never wavered. It was careful. Thoughtful. Safe.

After a while, you brushed your fingers along the line of his jaw. “Thanks for doing this,” you murmured.

He glanced down at you. “For what? Nearly fucking you into a tree?”

You let out a tired exhale, half a laugh. “For making it feel real. And then making it feel safe again.”

His eyes softened, and he didn’t hesitate. “You never weren’t.”

You nodded, eyes closing. You knew that, but still, it meant something to hear it out loud.

The compund's lights came into view, glowing soft and golden through the trees. He shifted you slightly in his arms, settling your weight.

“I’ll run you a bath,” he said. “You want food?” You groaned. “God, yes.”

He smirked. “Didn’t know primal play gave you an appetite.”

“It’s the trauma,” you deadpanned, and he laughed, a real one, low and warm and full.

You smiled, the sound vibrating against your skin.

“Next time,” you murmured, voice already slipping toward sleep, “you better give me more than five minutes.”

He huffed. “You barely lasted four.” You smirked, eyes still closed. “Didn’t say I didn’t enjoy it.”

His hand moved in slow circles along your back. “Yeah? Because I’d do it again. However you want.”

You just nodded, the edge of sleep tugging at you now, soft and easy. “Just like that,” you whispered. “Don’t change a thing.”

He pressed a kiss to your hair, steady and certain. “Wasn’t planning to.”

a/n: i hope you guys enjoyed it! i love you all, and please stay safe out there!

[greenwoodnursery1]

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[classyrbf]

THERE'S SOMEONE IN THE WOODS! — GETO SUGURU

KINKTOBER WEEK ONE

SYNOPSIS...walking home from a halloween party, you decided to take a shortcut, but an eerie feelings creeps up your spine and it feels like eyes are watching your every move

INFO...stalker!geto x fem!reader, for the sake of the story everything is consensual, a fantasy between geto and reader, stalking, groping, fingering, ripping clothes, sex in the woods, choking, hair pulling, oral (m!receiving), deep throating, rough, name calling, degradation, slapping, spanking, not proofread

OTHER...likes and reblogs are appreciated

kinktober 2024 masterlist

The wind howled in your ears and the moon was illuminating your every step home. You were cold, the costume that you had on was no help, shivering as you hugged yourself tightly. It was a stupid idea to go to a Halloween party without thinking of how you were going to get back home. Everyone was either drunk driving, or their cars were already filled with other passengers, and to put the cherry on top…your phone had died so you couldn’t call anyone to pick you up. You mentally cursed at yourself for staying so late in the first place, it had to be at least three in the morning. Everyone else was asleep and done with their trick or treating activities, lights off at every house in your sight.

“Fuck me,” you sighed, stopping when you came to a fork in the road. You took the left path knowing that it was a shortcut to your house and you didn’t plan on walking any longer than you needed to in these godforsaken heels. The wind brushed against your exposed skin, goosebumps climbing their way up your body. The further you stepped into the forest, darkness began to surround you. The large, twisted branches allowing very few rays of moonlight to shine through. Tall trees hovered over you, casting shadows. You’d be lying if you said this shortcut wasn’t one hundred times creepier at night compared to day.

Leaves rustled in the wind, branched snapped under your feet and you couldn’t help but look over your shoulder every five seconds to make sure no one was following you. It felt like eyes were watching your every movement, dark figures in the tree line stalking you like prey, waiting to pounce. “It’s all in your head,” you mumbled to yourself, walking faster. Though, your words were no help. Your eyes darted in every direction, barely paying attention to what was in front of you causing you to trip over a tree root sticking out. You fell to your knees, wincing in pain when you saw little blood droplet stain your stockings. “You gotta be kidding me,” you whined.

As you sat there on the floor trying to regain yourself, you heard a twig snap in the distance. With wide eyes, you got up as quickly as you could and looked around. “Hello?” You called out, your voice echoing through the forest. And just like that, you heard it again. Your feet moved before you could even think and you began to run as fast as you could in the shoes you were wearing. It would be better to take them off but you couldn’t stop now.

Your breathing quickened with each passing second and just a few feet behind you, you could hear footsteps. Fear struck your heart and you could only focus on the clearing up ahead. You weren’t sure if you were imagining it or if it was some animal, but you weren’t going to stop and check. Something didn’t feel right and that’s all you needed to know to get your ass out of here. The clearing was only so close now and your chest burned from the cold air that filled your lungs. Your heartbeat thumped loudly in your ears and the pain from your busted knee dissipated from the adrenaline rushing through you.

The streetlights came into view and just before you could make it, you felt a hard tug on your dress, a rough hand pulling you back into the darkness and covering your mouth as you screamed into it, squirming around in his tight grip. Each kick and punch to his body didn’t do a thing and the clearing soon began to grow smaller. “Shh, shh, shh.” His breath tickled your ear. “Don’t be scared,” he whispered. He pushed you up against a tree, slowly appearing in your view. You couldn’t quite make out his face, but his tall silhouette, muscular frame, and long dark hair was quite obvious. “Promise me you won’t scream? If you do, you’ll be in big trouble.”

Your entire body was shaking, weak. You had no idea what was going to happen. You didn’t know if he had a weapon, but you didn’t want to find out the hard way. He slowly removed his from your mouth, and let out a chuckle with how hard you were breathing. “Please don’t hurt me,” you sniffled, tears pouring from your eyes. You felt your body was glued to the tree, any sudden movement would make you drop. “What do you want? I don’t have any money…here,” you handed him your phone, “take it, it’s all I have.” More tears streamed down your face.

He looked at your phone with disinterest before looking back up at you. “Don’t you recognize me?” He questioned. You meekly shook your head no. “I guess I did a good job then,” he laughed. “I thought you noticed me but I guess not.” He brushed his hand against your cheek, wiping away your tears. “I was watching you the whole night. Watching you get drunk, dance with your friends, kiss random strangers, and I kept thinking how pretty you were. Ever since you walked in that door.” He gripped your chin tightly, leaning in closely in the crook of your neck.

You whimpered, eyes squeezing shut as he smelled you. “Please, let me go. I’ll do anything.” You weren’t sure if negotiating with him was going to work, but you were willing to do anything in order to just go home. But, he completely ignored you and continued rubbing up on you. His hands roamed freely, down your stomach and back, up to your tits where he gave them a squeeze. It wasn’t until he moved away from you that you saw some of his features. His chiseled face, and dark, narrow eyes, his slightly tan skin, and plump lips. His hair flowed with the wind, the leaves falling from above.

Within a split second, he pushed his lips onto yours, roughly kissing you, his tongue forcefully pushing inside your mouth. His hand wrapped around your throat, pinning you to the tree while his other hand reached under your dress to rub your cunt through your stocking and panties. You whimpered into the kiss, pulling away to catch your breath. “These are in the fucking way,” he grunted, ripping your tights with one hand. He pushed your panties to the side, smirking as he ran his finger up and down your slit. A small gasp left his lips when he could feel your juices coat his finger. “You’re wet. This turn you on? Being chased and caught in the woods so some stalker could fuck you?” His slipped his finger inside, watching the way your jaw fell open.

“You’re just as sick as I imagined,” he let out a deep chuckle, curling his finger inside of you before adding another. He still had you pinned against the tree with your legs spread, your dress bunched up at your waist while he thrusted his long, thick fingers inside of you. “You’re sucking my fingers right in.” A smirk formed at the corner of his lips, your pussy squelching the faster he went, your juices dripping down his fingers.

A small whine escaped your throat looking at the man in front of you. You weren’t sure whether to be scared or turned on. Maybe you were both. Was it wise to entertain this? That question ran through your head over and over. He leaned back towards your lips, hungry for another kiss, swallowing your moans and whimpers. Without thinking, your arms wrapped around him as your legs grew weak, nearly falling from how good his fingers felt inside of you.

His dick strains against his slacks, damn near painful from how hard he was. “Get on the fucking floor.” He slips his fingers out from inside you, pushing you down to your knees and against the tree. You look up at him confused before he sticks his fingers in your mouth, making you taste yourself on your fingers. He’s quick to undo his belt, unbuttoning his pants and pulling them down along with his boxers. Your eyes widen as his dick springs out, swollen red tip, and pulsating veins on either side of his shaft. Precum drips from the tip and he smears it over his cock, slowly jerking himself off to the sight of you sucking his fingers.

“Stick out that tongue for me, baby. Open up.” He removes his fingers from your mouth, grabbing a fistful of your hair before he slaps his heavy dick on your tongue. “Good fucking girl,” he sighs. He rubs his dick all over your face, slapping you with in, pushing it between your lips. He grips your hair tighter, pushing your head down onto his cock. “Fuckkkk,” he moans as feels your warm tongue rub along his shaft and your throat squeeze around him. You immediately gag as he goes further, eyes watering before you gag again, your nose touching his pelvis. “Stay just like that, don’t you fucking move.” He holds your head down for a few seconds before he lets go, allowing you to breathe.

You gasp for air, letting out dry coughs as he laughs at you. Strings of spit connect from your mouth to his dick, dripping down to his balls. His hand grips your hair again and you let out a pained whimper. “First time taking dick down your throat, huh?” He mocks you, stilling laughing in your face. You stare up at him with tearful eyes, wiping your mouth of all the spit. But before you could blink, a sharp pain spreads across your cheek, your head jolting to the other side. Did he just slap you? “Did I say you could wipe your mouth? No, no I don’t think I did. I like it messy, so get used it.” With force, he shoves his dick back in your throat.

You throat closes in around him again, gagging. Tears stream down your face as he fucks your mouth. Glug glug glug glug. You place your hands on his thighs in attempt to get him to slow down but he just goes harder, the back of head pushed against the tree and trapped between his thighs. He pushes your nose against his pelvis once more, spit dripping down your chin and from his balls. “Ugh, fuck! This throat feels so good!” His abs tense up and your eyes roll into the back of your head before he removes himself from your throat.

You’re coughing again, chest heaving up and down while you sit there on your knees trying to catch your breath. “Please, I can’t, my throat hurts.” Your brows furrow.

He grips your chin, forcing you to look up at him. “Someone’s gotta teach you how to suck dick properly, baby. I don’t give a fuck if your throat hurts,” he harshly says. He slaps his dick against your face, smearing your spit all over. “Come on, impress me.” He stares down at you with those dark eyes. You’re quick to understand that he wants you to suck his dick yourself. “Remember, I like it messy.”

Both hands wrap around his cock, jerking him off as you move your wrist in a circular motion, taking the rest of him in your mouth. Your tongue swirling around his head, gathering as much spit as you could. You look up at him, taking him slightly further down your throat before coming back up. “That’s it, keep those eyes on me. Don’t you dare fucking look away.” He grits his teeth, eyes rolling back when you bob your head up and down his shaft. Your jaw grows tired, pulling away to give yourself a break, your hands still gripping his length.

Streaks of mascara stain your cheeks, your lip stick smeared across your lips. He reaches down to pet your face, admiring the view. He can see that your scared, but he can also tell that you’re enjoying this. It only makes him want to get your blood pumping more. “Make me fucking cum. Put it back in your mouth.” He places his hand on the back of your head, pushing it down, your throat accommodating to his size. “You’re such a quick learner. Taking it like a fucking whore.” He bites down on his bottom lip, thrusting his hips at a sharp pace. “Open up that throat. Come on,” he growls.

You body jolts forward as you gag, your nails digging into his thighs as he pushes your nose against his pelvis. You can feel him twitch and pulsate in your throat and before you know it hot spurts of cum coat your throat. “Uh huh, fuck, fuck. Take it, baby. Mmmph!” His jaw goes slack, holding your head down until your slapping his thighs to breathe. Luckily, he lets you pull away after he drains all of his cum. You barely have time to recover before he’s snatching you back to your feet, spinning you around and pushing you against the tree. “Did such a good job sucking my dick. I wanna know if this pussy can do the same.” A swift slap to your ass makes you whimper, holding onto the tree for support while it scratches at your skin.

“Go slow, please,” you beg. You wish you would’ve never said anything because your words only added fuel to the fire. It’s been a while since you’ve slept with anyone and slipping him that piece of information made him do the opposite of what you asked for.

“Go slow? Huh? No, no.” His hand snaked around your throat, pulling your back against his chest while he whispered in your ear. “I’ll do what I want with you.” He smacked your ass again, tearing off your panties and tossing them somewhere into the woods. “Say you want me to fuck you,” he ordered. You silently stood there in his arms, biting down on your bottom lip as you braced for whatever he was going to give you. “Say it!” He huskily whispered, rubbing his shaft up and down your sopping slit.

“Fuck me,” you meekly spoke.

“What was that, baby? I couldn’t quite hear you.” He kissed your jaw so softly, his other hand reaching down to toy with your puffy clit. He let out a blissful sigh as your moans, continuing to rub it in circles in such a teasing manner. “Say it again.”

“Fuck me, please,” you said a little louder this time. “Ah!” A yelp left your lips when he slipped inside, pushing his entire length in, the burning stretch making you wince. “Oh fuck!” You whined. His thrusts were brutal, his cock reaching your deepest points. His arm wrapped your torso, holding you up while simultaneously pulling you back on his cock. The sudden sensation of him inside you became so overwhelming, you couldn’t help but squirm in his grip.

The sound of skin to skin echoed through the woods and your lewd moans along with it. Ripples of pleasure shot through every part of your body. Your hands reached out for the tree, finding stability to hold yourself up. His breath shuddered against your neck, desperate moans and grunts filling your ears. “You’re so fucking wet—nnngh fuck!” He growled. His fat tip kissed your cervix with each thrust, tears pricking your eyes before spilling over. Suddenly, he slowed down his thrusts, going harder and slower, allowing you to feel every throbbing inch.

“Ah!” You squealed when he slammed his hips against yours, only to slowly pull back out again. Each hard jolt of his hips sent your body forward, your knees already ready to give out. “Ah!” You screamed in pleasure, reaching down to grip onto his forearm.

His hand shot over your mouth, muffling your cries and moans. “Go ahead and scream, baby. You think someone is gonna hear you? It’s just me…and…you.” Each of his words were punctuated with hard thrusts. You moaned into his hand, your eyes screwed shut. He could feel you clench around him, letting out a blissful sigh. He pressed against you, going as deep as he could and stayed there. A sharp gasp escaped your throat, eyes widening as you tried to move your hips. “You’re mine now,” he breathily whispered.

“Mmph! Mmmph!” As he began pounding into you again your eyes rolled back, feeling him in the deepest parts of you. “Please, please, please,” you cried, voice breaking through your tears. Your mind grew hazy, too clouded to even think clearly. His thrusts were so sharp, so animalistic. He roughly grabbed your chin, forcing it in his direction before planting a hungry, sloppy kiss on your lips. Both of swallowed each others lewd moans, gasping for air between wet kisses.

“You’re gonna cum, aren’t you?” He rasped, staring into your eyes. All you could force was a nod. “Yeah? Gonna cum all over your stalkers dick, baby? Do it. Give it to me. Show me how dirty you are.” He pressed deeper, your entire body trembling. The feeling your pussy pulsating around him only fueled him to go faster, his grip on your entire body tightening while you came. “That it’s—f-fuck!” His voice trembled.

Your entire body quivered with pleasure, high pitched whines spilling from your lips, barely able to form proper words. His brutal pace sent your mind into a spiral. Each greedy stroke sent him closer to the edge, his thrust growing sloppier and his thoughts growing dirtier, thinking of filling you up with his cum and watching it leak out of you. “Oh my god! S-slow down! Gonna cu—nnngh!” Before you could even say it, you were already cumming a second time, your orgasm ripping through your entire body and sucking the air of your lungs.

“Yes, yes! Cum on my dick. You’re gonna make me cum, baby. Fuck your self on my dick. Work for it.” He pushed your weak body against the tree, his chest rising and falling as you so desperately fucked him, throwing your ass back. He looked down, watching the way he disappeared inside your messy cunt, creaming around him and sucking him in. You circled your hips, moving back and forth, feeling your ass ripple against his pelvis. “Fucking work for it.” His hand swatted your ass several times, the stinging sensation that lingered on your skin making you whimper. “Atta girl. Right fucking there…shit, baby. Just like that, just like that,” he whined, reaching down to squeeze the plump flesh.

Low guttural groans collided with your moans, echoing through the lonely forest. He was so close to cumming, you could tell. His big strong hands took ahold of your hips as he pushed himself all the way inside of you. “Ah…oh fuck…mmph—s-shit!” He shuddered, hot spurts of cum painting your walls. You pushed back into him, biting down on your bottom lip, not wanting one last drop to go to waste. After several seconds, he slowly pulled out, trying to catch his breath. He forcefully grabbed you, standing you upright even though your entire body was shaking.

After coming down from your high, you realized you just fucked your stalker and let him cum inside you. Hell, you didn’t even know his name. Both of you stared at each other, eyes searching deep within. You were left confused, speechless. You flinched when he brought his hand up to your cheek, gently stroking it with the pad of his thumb. His eyes flickered down to your lips, placing the most gentle kiss on them—the most gentle one since you’ve met him. Yet, you found yourself kissing him back. “Who are you?” Your voice broke the silence, nervously scanning his features.

His lips quirked up into the slightest smirk. “Just the boy who saw you at the Halloween party.” From the very beginning he was never going to give you his name. “Your stalker.” He seemed to take pride in his words, now smiling at you.

You gulped, blinking up at him. “My stalker.”

taglist (closed):

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[helenanell]

Butchered Tongue | Remmick

Remmick x f!reader

(Although, reader is mentioned as having an Irish father, so this does lean towards being an OC.)

Summary: Lost and alone in Mississippi, you go to a bar and sing a song of Irish rebellion. Something follows you home.

Notes: Angst, sexual tension, Remmick being alluringly dangerous, manipulation, heavily features discussion of colonialism and the British Empire.

This story is based upon and inspired by the song ‘Butchered Tongue’ by Hozier, as well as his earlier ‘Foreigner’s God’. I wanted to explore Remmick’s backstory and the pain and history of English colonial rule in Ireland. I have done my best to research, but I am English (I can only apologise) so if you spot a mistake I’ve made in terms of the history please let me know!

WC: 4.4k

I was not going to write for Remmick, but then I read the phenomenal work of @ay0nha and @spikedfearn and was so inspired, so go and read their far superior stories! Here's my attempt.

America will be cruel to you.

That was what you had been told before boarding the ship bound for the New World, dragged, kicking and screaming, by your parents. 

You had sneered at those who had warned you with those words. A place was not cruel, only people.

London, your home, held no malice within it; it did not consume with a slavering maw. Yes, the Thames was filled with blood and filth, polluted with the sorrows of the doomed and drowned, but the current had no say over what it carried. It was burdened by the evil acts of men.

That was why your mother and father had wanted to leave: other people. Not because of the earth beneath your feet or the smog-thick air.

That was why you had not listened to the warnings. You would not be wary of America, only the people that you found within it.

New World. That was another lie. 

An ancient tree found in the middle of the forest was not new because you had not seen it before. Its roots that were embedded deep within the earth, had likely felt you coming. You were small and insignificant in its shadow. It should be revered. Respected. 

But men would see something beautiful and take an axe to it, burn it for warmth and then turn their noses up at the piles of ash left behind. Then they would demand someone else clean it up.

America was not new and it had not been ‘discovered.’ It had been invaded. Stolen.

That was why, when you had found yourself settled in Clarksdale, Mississippi, you had set about asking its true name; the name it had always been known as to its native people.

But no one could or would tell you. No one cared, or thought to care. 

A year after you arrived, your mother was taken by sickness, a consuming kind of ailment that left her with barely the skin in her bones by the end.

Then, your father went. Everyone else said that was from the drink, but you knew it was a broken heart: your mother was gone and he was homesick, not for London, but his true home, the place of his birth. He had died yearning for and dreaming of a free Ireland.

It was only when both of them were long-since buried and you were utterly alone, that you finally learnt the origins of the name of the county, Coahoma.

It was derived from the Choctaw word, ‘Co-i-humma’ which meant red panther. According to the old man who had told you, the upper Delta was ‘infested’ with them.

You hated the word infested when he used it, mostly because you had heard it said with the same derision by people speaking of the Choctaw. As with the panthers, it was their home. You couldn’t infest what belonged to you. 

You hadn’t wanted to come to America, but how could you leave? And where would you go? Like you father, London had been where you had lived, but it had never felt like home.

But Ireland…you felt you had no claim or connection without your father. You were half English, but that could not be heard in your accent; a reminder of tyranny. You would likely not be welcome. 

Nowhere was safe, so you simply stayed put. You stayed trapped in Mississippi. 

Your antipathy for your existence was what drove you to the local bar most nights and if you could, you would get up and sing, or recite a poem.

Irish lyrics that told of the joys and despairs of the Irish people and yet all of the words were English. 

Irish Gaelic had been cut from your ancestors mouths, which had left your father mute when it came to what should have been his native tongue. And you were too.

Most of the time, your peformances were met with bemusement. Occasionally the locals would cheer or clap, but it never felt right. They didn’t understand; it only ever felt like they were humouring you. 

It was why you had stormed out of the bar at closing time in a foul mood.

With the low-light of evening ceding its rights on the landscape, the warm hues vanished from the street as you walked down it. Nothing gold-edged anymore, just shadow-bound. 

Also bound to you was a stumbling lecher, who seemed to feel that your reluctant conversation with him in the bar had been an invitation to walk you home. 

Benny dragged his feet, kicking up dust that clung to your moisture-slick skin. The sun had departed,but its heat remained and that felt like a dirty-trick to you. 

You had never adjusted to the climate and whenever you were in the grip of the sweltering heat, it left you feeling as though you were teetering on the brink of madness.

But something in the air that night had sympathy for you and it thrummed with its own insanity.

Your skin prickled when Benny drew up to your side and your fingers twitched, aching to lash out and slash at his skin.

‘Come on, baby.’ he drawled, hot, disgusting breath on the side of your face as he leaned in. ‘You sang so pretty, but giving me a smile would make you beautiful.’

You kept your eyes forward, grimacing at the stench of him. He had been festering in the back corner of the bar when you arrived, so God only knew how long he’d been there. All day, probably. He was hot and foetid, like something left to ferment.

You had almost reached your home, so you wanted to shake him off. You couldn't be sure that he wouldn’t force his way inside once you unlocked the door.

‘I have a way you can make me smile.’ You said, your voice sickly sweet. 

‘Tell me. Anythin’ for you honey.’ 

It was a struggle not to gag as Benny flung his arm around your shoulder, fingers digging in like you were a peach he was prodding to feel its ripeness.

When you turned your head to glare at him, his nose almost brushed yours. You smirked nastily.  ‘I will grin from ear to ear if you stop following me home like a stray dog.’ 

His smug expression disappeared from his face with a violence, almost as if you had reached out and torn it right off. It gave you a sadistic rush of satisfaction, heart beating a little quicker beneath your flushed skin.

Before he could open his mouth again, you shrugged off Benny's hold and kept walking, picking up your pace.

You had just reached the wooden steps of your front porch when you heard footsteps scrambling to close the distance. You underestimated how fast he could move in his intoxicated state and didn’t turn around before Benny’s hand clamped down on the nape of your neck, fingers twisting into your hair. 

‘Now why did you have to go and be so nasty?’ He hissed in your ear, ‘you should be grateful for the attention. Everyone else thinks you're strange. Lonely little girl with her strange songs, parents dead and rotting–’

Benny broke off into a cry when you lifted your elbow up with violent force and slammed it into his stomach. You were released from his hold as he stumbled back, doubled over and gasping. He looked up at your with the promise of retribution in his watering eyes. 

‘You whore-’ 

What happened next unfolded too quickly for your eyes to keep up with. One moment Benny was spitting venom at you, prepared to strike, and the next he was down in the dirt.

There was a man who had appeared like an apparition, pale and lined in spectral moonlight, the edges of him silver and shining. He had his boot pressed against Benny’s neck, who was on his back and scratching madly at his attacker's leg.  

‘That is no way to treat a lady.’ The man glowered down at Benny and pressed his boot down even harder. A strangled gurgle came from his captive’s throat. ‘You should apologise.’ 

You watched with an unmitigated, dangerous thrill when the man's boot lifted off Benny’s neck and he sputtered out a barely coherent apology. 

The man who had appeared from nowhere turned to you with a charming grin and a feral glint in his eyes.

‘Miss, did you find that apology sincere? Because in my humble opinion it was severely lackin’.’

On the ground, Benny had raised himself onto his hands and knees, his panicked breaths no doubt had him inhaling yet more dust and dirt. His face was as red as a tomato and seemingly fit to burst like one under the strain. 

But some malicious instinct that was foreign to you rose up and took hold of your tongue. 

‘No.’ With a smile growing on your face your eyes moved back to the mystery man who was considering you with searing intensity. ‘I don’t think it was good enough.’ 

The words had barely left your mouth before the man grabbed Benny by the scruff of the neck and hauled him to his feet, the tips of his boots dragging in the dirt. He held him up before you like a scolded puppy. 

‘Apologise.’ The man shook his prey in his grip and if you weren’t so perversely entranced by the display, you would have questioned the inhuman strength he seemed to possess. 

‘I’m sorry!’ Benny shouted, fear flashing in the whites of his eyes, ‘I’m really sorry! I-I was rude and crass-’

‘And you shouldn’t have laid your filthy fuckin hands on her.’ The man snarled. ‘Go on now, repeat it.’

‘I-I shouldn’t have laid my filthy f-fuckin hands on you!’ Benny was so distressed, he sounded as though he was being choked. A dark patch spread on the crotch of his pants, liquid running down his legs. 

‘Really? You're gonna piss yourself now?!’ The man exclaimed derisively. He wasted no more time and tossed Benny away, throwing him as though he weighed no more than a pebble. 

You laughed in crazed disbelief, both at the ease the man had thrown Benny and how he then scrambled away, whimpering and mewling. 

Your gaze moved over to the man and found him glaring at the fleeing drunk. His lip was curled, his teeth far too pointed to be natu–

‘I’m terribly sorry, I’m afraid I may have gotten a little carried away,’ the man said, sounding far from apologetic as he met your eye. 

You had been in the middle of a thought, but his attention had dispelled it. 

He was so very handsome, with unruly brown hair that fell just above his eyes which in the darkness seemed to be blue shot through with green, or perhaps the other way around. It was the colour of the roiling ocean. He wore a striped shirt with the top buttons undone, revealing a smooth expanse of chest. Suspenders held up his pants and rested on his broad shoulders. 

When he stepped closer to you, he moved with such intention that it was as though he’d long-since charted a course to you. His closing of the distance felt inevitable.

It was the very reason you felt so instantaneously drawn to him that you knew to be wary. When you retreated a step, your heels hitting the edge of your porch, he smiled knowingly and held up his hands. 

‘Ma’am, I know my behaviour may suggest otherwise, but I promise you that I come in peace.’ 

‘Where did you come from?” You asked, narrowing your eyes at him. 

You and Benny had been walking the street alone and it was quiet enough that you should have heard any approaching footsteps, especially at the speed at which this man had appeared.

‘If you speak of my physical body, then I came from right here. But if you speak in terms of belongin’ to a place…well, that has a long, painful answer that not even this dark night can outlast.’

Your brow furrowed at the strange winding nature of his words. ‘Were you following us?’

The man hummed impishly. ‘I was followin’ you.’

Your heart faltered in your chest and struggled to regain its rhythm. You knew then that you had not escaped an attack, not really, because this man, whoever he was, was the true assault. An assault on your senses and upon your will.

‘Why?’ You asked tersely, grateful your anxiety could not be heard in your voice.

The man placed a hand on his heart, signalling his supposed sincerity. ‘I just could not bear letting you go without telling you how beautiful I found your singing.’

Caution was supplanted by hostile suspicion as the hairs on the back of your neck stood on end.

‘You weren’t in the bar.’  You said.

It was a small, packed place and you knew you would have remembered seeing a man like him.

‘My name is Remmick.’ 

While his smooth, sultry voice worked to lull you into submission, you would not let him get away with refusing to answer you. 

‘You weren’t in the bar.’ You repeated sternly.

Remmick tilted his head tauntingly. His smile grew. ‘Well, maybe I dreamt of you then and that’s where I heard it.’ He stepped closer, so close the two of you were almost toe-to-toe. ‘Maybe I’m still dreamin’. Yeah, that's the only way to explain it.’

‘Explain what?’ 

He leant down, eyes set upon yours. There was a flash of something, a firefly against the darkness of his irises, a red glow. So very red. But then you blinked and it was gone. 

‘Well, why was an English lass reciting ‘The Wind that Shakes the Barley’?’

Those words snared you, wire tightening around your throat. His voice had changed, no longer a Southern drawl, but an Irish lilt. And his tone had become abrasive, harsh enough to draw blood. There was anger in his eyes.

But, defiance bloomed within you, fed on soil rich with the anger of the last few years of your life. Rebellion unfurled. 

‘Why is an Irish boy pretending to be southern?’ You countered heatedly.

His lips pulled back in a sneer, revealing sharp, slightly crooked teeth. ‘Boy, is it? Oh, no darlin’, I’m no boy. I was born beneath an Irish sun that still shone on land that your people hadn’t yet stolen.’ 

‘Those are the words of a madman.’ You answered, breathing growing ragged at his proximity.

The Empire had first invaded Ireland hundreds and hundreds of years ago.

‘Oh, yes, mad is what I am. Mad with grief.’ You gasped when his hand shot out and grabbed your chin. He moved in closer, lips brushing your cheek until he pressed them to the shell of your ear. ‘And what is a lunatic to do, when he hears a song of Irish rebellion fall from English lips? Full, pretty lips, aye, but English all the same? All your lot know how to do is steal, isn’t that right?’

‘I didn’t steal it,’ you say, finding strength in indignation, ‘my father taught me the poem. He said I should know it, seeing as I was descended from the fighters.’ 

Your ancestors fought and died in the Rebellion in County Wexford in seventeen ninety-eight, when Irish rebels revolted against oppressive British rule. They were violently struck down, countless ending up in mass graves, barley oats in their pockets that then grew up out of the earth. The poem, named after the rebellion, was written sixty-three years later by the poet Robert Dwyer Joyce. 

The poem was one of the first things you remember your father teaching you. He had been born in Ballymurn, not far from Wexford. Hundreds of years had passed and his family hadn’t moved far from the sight of that rebellion.

Remmick's grip tightened for a second, nails digging in as a warning, but then he let go. He pulled back just enough to peer down at you, the sweat-slick front of your dress brushing his shirt.

‘Oh, an Irish girl?’ He taunted. He was evidently still riled, but there was a sort of excitement shimmering in his eyes. ‘An Irish girl with an English accent, singing of rebellion in a bar in Mississippi.’

You narrowed your eyes at the challenge in his voice. He didn’t believe you. Or at least, he didn’t want to. 

‘Afraid to get your hopes up?’ You goaded.

‘What exactly would I be hoping for?’ 

You smile teasingly. ‘A mad Irish boy, who claims to be hundreds of years old, approaches me with anger when truly he is just sad. Sad and alone. You are seeking something, aren’t you? Some piece of home?’ 

He chuckled, but it was brittle. When he reached out his other hand and took your flushed cheeks into his hold, thumbs brushing the line of your jaw, you found yourself not trying to flee, but fighting the instinct to lean in. 

‘Is that what you are to be, love?’ He whispered. ‘Are you to be my piece of home?’

‘You miss it,’ you said, voice hoarse with pain that was not yours, but what you felt from him. 

His eyes ran over the curves of your face, mapping them as if he’d find a glimpse of Ireland there.  

‘I miss it,’ he affirmed darkly, fingers pressing in, ‘but what I miss I can never return to. I miss living without a foreigner’s God in my mind, without my tongue mutilated to speak the language of the invader. Both mind and body torn apart. I am eternally bloody and bleeding.’

When his voice cracked, you found yourself reaching up, your hands curling around his wrists, not to pull him off you but to keep him there.

Unbidden, the poem poured out of you as it had in the bar, only this time it was without music and your only audience member was him: 

‘I sat within a valley green, 

I sat there with my true love,

My sad heart strove the two between,

The old love and the new love, -

The old for her, the new that made

Me think of Ireland dearly, –’

You were cut off when Remmick swayed forward, almost as if in a trance. He bent down and dipped his head low, his hot breath fanning against your neck. When your recitation stopped, he let out a disgruntled huff, almost animalistic. When his next words came you felt the shape of them on your neck where he pressed his lips.

‘Don’t stop.’ He murmured, teeth scraping your flesh.

You swallowed down your trepidation and kept speaking. As you did, his lips stayed pressed on your neck as if he was using them to feel your pulse:

‘While soft the wind blew down the glade

And shook the golden barely

‘Twas hard the woeful words to frame

To break the ties that bound us

‘Twas harder still to bear the shame

Of foreign chains around us

And so i said “The mountain glen

I’ll seek next morning early

And join the brave United Men!” -’

When you stopped, he planted a proper kiss on your neck. Then his tongue met your flesh and he dragged it up teasingly, gathering drops of sweat until he reached that tender spot just below your ear. It was tantalising in its promise, but already a mere promise was not enough.

As if he tasted your impatience on your flesh, Remmick chuckled, the noise vibrating right down into the core of you.

‘Eager little thing.’ He whispered into you ear, nipping at the lobe. 

Growing burdened by the heat rising in you, you moved your hands to mirror his on your face and cupped his cheeks. You repaid him in kind by digging your fingers into his skin. That seemed to please him no end and he groaned wantonly, pulling you so closer to him. 

‘Remmick,’ you began, ignoring your better sense that was screaming at you to shut your mouth, ‘do you want to come i-’

Before you could finish your request, he pressed a finger to your lips and shushed you, gently, but urgently.

There was unbridled desire in Remmick's eyes, you could practically feel him shake with it. And yet, his expression pinched as he fought against himself.

‘No- no darlin’ you don’t want to do that yet.’ He spoke the last word as if it was a prophecy: you would let him in, but he did not want it to be now. 

‘Why don’t I, Remmick?’ 

You knew why.

Even after only a few minutes spent in his company, you knew there were ample reasons for you to be much more afraid of him than you had been of Benny, and yet you wanted his reasoning. Remmick intrigued you when instinct said you should be horrified.

Remmick pressed a lingering kiss to the corner of your mouth and pulled away, but only by a hair's-breadth, to answer you.

‘Because when you invite me in, you will do so knowing all the ways you will be consumed. I will have you in your bed, I will know every inch of your flesh, but when we are truly joined, I will know all you feel and see all that you have seen.’

It shouldn’t have made sense and yet the words brought you clarity. Perhaps not clarity of his meaning, but of yourself. You knew, in that moment, that you would end up letting him subsume you.

Remmick was shattered, but you would let him embed the broken pieces of himself within you if it meant you were no longer alone. You would bleed to escape the despair of solitude.

‘Why wait?’ You asked, grabbing his shirt and twisting the fabric so hard that another of his buttons came undone. ‘Tell me the truth of it now and you will have me now.’

Remmick took your mouth in a bruising kiss and it was soon followed by a sharp pain when he bit down, hard, on your bottom lip. You barely tasted the metallic of your blood before his tongue came and gathered it up, licking you clean. He groaned into your mouth as his hands landed on your hips, coasting down to squeeze your backside.

‘You still don’t understand, do you?' He said, 'My lust isn’t for your body alone. Once I have fucked you, I will not slip out into the night. I will live in the darkness of you and you in mine.’ 

‘You sound like a madman. Again.’ 

‘I told you already, I am mad.’ 

Then, with jarring speed, Remmick pulled away and shoved you back. It sent you sprawling painfully onto the steps of your porch. Spine hitting hard-edged wood.

Equally disorientated and outraged, you looked up at him, prepared to hurl more than a few nasty words, but they all died in your throat. 

Remmick's eyes were alight with red, the burning end of a cigarette in the dark. His teeth had changed too, as sharp as dagger. And then there were his hands…instead of nails he had claws.

‘This is what becomes of a boy from Ireland when his soul gets trapped, darlin’, he said darkly, ‘My soul is shaped by the hand of oppressor’s and I cannot be rid of it, even in death. I will never go home and I can never be home, not even in my own mind. I was drawn to your sweet song, the poetry of pain and resistance. Now, you must decide if you want to resist the pain of me.’

‘Would it change anything? If I chose to resist now?’

‘No. But it will be oh so delicious to watch you try. Do that for me, won’t you? It’ll make it so much sweeter when you finally give in.’

‘What are you?’

‘I am exactly what you said. I’m lonely.’ He began to step backward and his eyes did not leave yours. ‘Lock your doors, sweet girl, there’s all sorts of evil that might try to get in. And unlike me, it won’t ask nicely.’

As he was absorbed into the shadows and became one with the darkness, his voice remained reciting another part of ‘The Wind that Shakes the Barley’:

‘While soft winds shook the barley,

While sad I kissed away her tears, 

My fond arms ‘round her flinging, 

The foeman’s shot burst on our ears,

From out the wildwood ringing, –

A bullet pierced my true loves side,

In life’s young spring so early,

And on my breast in blood she died

While soft winds shook the barley!’

You did not sleep that night. Not true sleep, anyway. Remmick stalked your dreams, remaining in shadow even in your subconscious mind.

You awoke aching. You ached with the desire for him to return. You ached with pain, the same sort of pain when your bones grew as a child: uncomfortable, inevitable and signalling a great change to come. 

You did not trust Remmick and knew to fear what he was. Maybe you even resented him. Yet you did want him to return to you.

Maybe you would welcome him in, or maybe you would leave him scratching at the door. 

You had a bone-deep knowledge that he would seduce you eventually, but even the illusion of that choice made you feel more alive than you had been in years.

You didn't know it yet, but the man who brought death had reminded you that your heart still beat. He would also be the one to stop it. 

But when? 

And what would come after life?

Thank you for reading! Comments are so very welcome, author's thrive on feedback!

Part II - Fall On Me Like Night

[mill3rd]

LIGHT OF THE LORD

synopsis. a woman of divine beauty, grace and fairness has plagued remmick’s mind and being. no matter where he goes, what time he’s in—you’ve been around every corner. he cannot escape your watchful eye. he knows you aren’t human but you are no vampire like him. and while he finds everything about his situation frustrating, he finds you quite intriguing.

tags and warnings. remmicks pov, hes pining unknowingly, mythical ambiguity for the most part, temporal ambiguity so lots of time skips, readers race isnt specified or specific to the story, know-it-all gf vs quickly humbled bf, fluffy, bit angsty, some discriptions of feeding

wc. 10k

© MILL3RD 2025 — all rights reserved. mature content. please do not steal my works

1,385 years. one thousand, three hundred and eighty-five long, excruciating years in which remmick had no choice but to endure your presence—your seraphic presence. seraphic, not in beauty, but in that maddening way you carried righteousness like armor, wisdom like a curse. your face, ageless and untouched by time, only deepened his resentment. the more he was forced to see it—those eternal, untarnished features—the more unbearable you became. there was nothing soft or lovely about it anymore. your immortality was a wound that never healed, and he bled quietly beside you for centuries.

you came to him first in the rawness of your glory—nude, your flesh supple and unnervingly perfect, like something carved from the dreams of old gods. it was only weeks after the catholics had spilled into ireland, clinging to their bibles and breathing scripture like smoke. remmick, newly turned and still trembling in the dark, didn’t yet understand what he was. he thought he had died from the wounds carved into him by war and man, and he sobbed like a child beneath the stars when he saw you approaching—not through the river, but on it. your bare feet pressed the water’s skin as if it were solid, each step leaving behind a shimmer like fireflies or some underwater bloom. the stream itself was dull, lifeless. it had never glowed before. it never glowed again. only when you walked toward him like it was the most ordinary thing in the world did it come alive with light.

“the lord does not encourage such violence,” was all you said. or perhaps not to him at all—your voice was distant, almost drifting, as if carried on mist. it felt less like a warning and more like a half-forgotten thought, spoken aloud without meaning to. weightless, airy, like you were reminding yourself of some rule you no longer believed in, repeating it out of habit more than conviction. the words hung in the air, delicate and hollow, and remmick wasn’t sure if they were meant for him or the sky above.

your words unsettled him. the lord. even hearing the name turned his stomach. after everything he’d suffered—everything he’d lost—invoking the man upstairs felt like a cruel joke. it was tone-deaf, sanctimonious. so when you opened your arms, all light and grace, offering some divine comfort, he recoiled like you were poison.

“stay away from me!” he snapped, stumbling backward. “i ain't interested in walking with god’s so-called vessel.”

his voice cracked, thick with fury and something raw beneath it—betrayal, maybe. or grief.

you merely frown and watch as he scrambles off deeper into the trees.

remmick wandered deep into the woodlands, far enough that the moon vanished behind the thick weave of branches overhead. the air grew colder there, denser, and the only light came in faint silver slivers where the canopy broke. he let the owls guide him, their low, rhythmic hoots echoing like warnings through the underbrush. every step tangled him deeper in roots and bramble, the trees growing close and ancient around him, as if they were watching.

then—a sound. sharp, low, guttural. a growl, too deliberate to be the wind. it came from ahead, thick in the dark. his eyes adjusted, and he saw them: teeth gleaming like shards of polished bone, bared in a snarl that pulsed with threat. a wolf. broad-shouldered, fur rippling like smoke in the moonless dark. remmick froze.

good, he thought. maybe now, finally, it would all end.

but something inside him stirred—deep, primal, and hungry. not fear. not relief. hunger. sharp and sudden, like a spike to the gut. his throat burned. his limbs ached to move. and before he understood what he was doing, he stepped forward, slow and silent, toward the wolf.

it blinked, muscles tense, and backed away—eyes locked on him, more confused than afraid. it knew something was wrong. it sensed something unnatural.

remmick kept moving, drawn not by instinct to survive, but by something darker, something ancient coiled now inside him.

before he could even think to lunge, a light broke open behind him—blinding, radiant, pure white. it wasn’t overwhelming. no, it was no different to the faint light of a flame. it was just unnatural underneath the shade of the canopy. the wolf didn’t wait. it bolted, tail low and body vanishing into the underbrush with a panicked rustle.

remmick turned, breath sharp, pupils blown wide as his eyes locked onto the source.

you.

you, this insufferable, god-touched creature, glowing as if the stars themselves bent to your will. no flame, no torch—just you, radiating light as effortlessly as a flower bleeds scent. it was unnatural. it was maddening.

remmick let out a low, guttural growl. his body trembled with hunger, pain pulsing in his torn flesh like a second heartbeat. he was wounded, starving, half-mad—and there you stood, pristine, untouched, a walking symbol of everything he’d come to loathe.

he squinted at you through the harsh light, eyes narrowed, seething with anger and exhaustion. “wha’dyou want?” he snapped, voice rough like gravel. “i thought i told you to stay away.”

you didn’t answer. instead, your gaze drifted lazily to his face, head tilting slightly, eyes calm—almost amused.

“you are drooling,” you said, voice soft and unbothered.

remmick wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, scowling as he turned away. “can’t blame a man for being hungry,” he muttered, bitterness coating each word like tar.

you only smiled, a slow, knowing curve of your lips, and without a word, followed him—silent, steady, undeterred by his resentment. his anger rolled off you like water on stone.

“you will have to learn how to control that hunger,” you said, voice light, almost distant, like the words weren’t really meant for him alone, “you are not the man you used to be. not anymore.”

there was a quiet finality to it, as if the truth had already settled in the soil around you, waiting for him to catch up.

“what am i then?” remmick asked, voice rough and brittle, like dried bark about to snap. there was a weight behind it, something choked and bruised, the kind of heaviness that clung to a man who’d wept alone through too many sunless nights—because the sun, once warm and welcoming, had turned its back on him completely.

your expression didn’t shift. your voice was steady, almost cold.

“inhuman.”

“an’ what about you?” remmick’s voice cut through the air, a mix of frustration and suspicion. “you look human, but you ain’t one.”

you nodded slowly, your gaze steady, almost serene, as if every word you spoke was steeped in something far beyond him.

“a keen observation, remmick,” you replied, your voice soft yet filled with an ancient grace. “i am not human, nor have i ever been. i merely wear this face, this form, for as long as my time among mortals endures.”

remmick jumped at the sound of his name, the echo of it like a whisper from a past he hadn't invited. he never told you his name. never gave you the right to know it. yet, there it was, hanging between you like a thread woven from the air itself.

the world around him swayed, and it wasn’t from too many drinks of ale or beer. it was something far heavier.

“how did ya know my name?” he demanded, voice tight with disbelief, as his hand shot out, gripping your shoulder with an urgency that bordered on panic. “what even are ya? there’s something... unorthodox about you. nobody radiates light like that! and absolutely nobody galavants around naked, óinseach!”

you regarded him with an almost sorrowful expression, lips pressing together in a faint frown.

“i apologize,” you murmured, your tone gentle but laced with something ancient. “i can tone down my appearance if it frightens you.”

remmick froze, his pulse stuttering in his chest. then, before his very eyes, you shifted—your form bending, stretching, warping, as if reality itself could no longer hold the weight of your true essence. a blur of faces spun before him—his younger sister, laughing beneath the sun; his mother, her tired eyes soft with love; his wife, her smile warm, full of memories that felt like a dream; his older brothers, strong and brash, voices echoing through the corridors of his past; and his daughter, her innocent eyes full of questions, a life he’d lost forever.

each face flickered in and out of your shifting form, leaving a trail of aching familiarity in their wake, and remmick’s breath caught as the weight of it all settled over him.

a terrified yell ripped through remmick’s throat, his body jolting with a surge of panic as he stumbled backward, scrambling away from you. his legs carried him without thought, driven by instinct, his heart pounding in his chest like a drum of war.

he didn’t dare to look back. the images—the faces—clung to him like a curse, and the sight of them twisted something deep inside him.

this time, you didn’t follow.

you stood still, an immovable figure in the shifting darkness, watching him retreat with quiet understanding. your gaze lingered on the space where he had been, serene yet filled with a sorrow that was not yours to bear.

that was his first encounter with you and now he wears you like a burden. you didn’t show up for days after that and remmick began to believe you were a fever dream. something he made up due to delirium.

but then, just as suddenly, you appeared—the sound of waves washing softly on the shore marking your arrival. your natural glow was the only light beside the pale moon, soft and unearthly, illuminating the world around you in quiet brilliance.

remmick groaned in frustration upon seeing you, his shoulders sagging in resignation. “i thought ya’d have written me off by now. labelled me a lost cause.”

you shook your head, the motion slow and graceful, your presence like a steadying breath in the chaos of his mind.

“no,” was all you said, the simplicity of it carrying a weight beyond words.

without waiting for him to respond, you sat down beside him, where the sand darkened with the lingering traces of water’s touch. the cool salt air swept over you, and the ocean’s rhythm seemed to pulse in time with your being. the salty water kissed your skin, as though it had been waiting for you to arrive.

“i found some clothes so i would not stand out,” you chirped, your voice light and carefree as though nothing had transpired between you. remmick didn’t want any part of this conversation, but you were relentless.

he nodded, barely looking at you, pulling his head closer to his knee. “good on ya.”

“i wanted to give you space after our last conversation,” you continued, tone softening. “i realize i was... insensitive. and for that, i want to apologize.”

remmick raised an eyebrow, the bitterness in his voice sharper now. “if i accept it, will ya leave me alone?”

you laughed—a sound so unexpected and pure that it caught him off guard. the first time he’d heard it, and it was like a breath of wind through still air. “not forever, no. but for now, will that suffice?”

he sighed, letting go of the tension in his shoulders for a moment. “i forgive ya then.”

and just like that, you were gone. not with a quiet fade or a dramatic burst of smoke, but simply—gone. one second, remmick could hear the steady beat of your pulse, the rush of blood flowing beneath your skin, and the next, the world was empty, save for the sound of waves and the distant echo of his own heartbeat.

he waited in silence, the stillness of it pressing in on him, until his hunger clawed at him again, and he turned his focus to the water, waiting for a fish’s heartbeat to break the quiet.

it took remmick a long time to understand what he had become: a vampire. it wasn’t until he encountered others like himself that the true weight of his transformation hit him. in their eyes, he saw only the reflection of something monstrous—unnatural, evil. but remmick wasn’t evil. his life had been stolen from him, ripped away in a moment of violence, and now he was left to survive on instinct, just like any creature would.

that wasn’t evil. it was simply the harsh truth of nature’s cold hand. survival, stripped down to its most primal form. natural selection.

they taught him what it truly meant to feed, the raw satisfaction that came with fully indulging his hunger. feeding on humans—it felt strange, yes, but it also felt right, as if his body had been designed for this purpose and nothing else. there was no one to tell him there were other ways, no gentle voice reminding him of the choices he still had.

in truth, he hadn’t seen you in a long while. he hadn’t felt the comforting warmth of your light, nor the unsettling pull of your golden blood since that brief encounter at the beach. he had told you to leave him be, and you had listened—something he hadn’t expected but couldn’t help but feel grateful for.

still, as time passed, something gnawed at him. it was subtle, like a missing note in a melody, a strange emptiness in the quiet that followed your departure. part of him was glad you were gone, but there was another part—a part he couldn't ignore—that felt... unsettled.

when you finally appeared, remmick was nestled at the edge of an ancient castle ruin, tucked into the jagged rocks and rubble. the moonlight filtered through a gaping hole in the stone wall, casting silver beams across his form, and he lay there, eyes closed in quiet stillness. moonbathing, he called it. though, when you approached, he shot you a disgruntled look, clearly annoyed by the interruption.

“moonbathing?” you asked, your head tilting in quiet curiosity, “i understand that the sun darkens the skin, but why would you try to tan in the moonlight?”

remmick shrugged, not bothering to lift his gaze. “ha'fta keep my pale complexion up to date," he muttered with a dry smirk, clearly unbothered by your confusion.

“so you have no intention of tanning?” you ask, still standing in the frame of the hole in the wall. remmick shakes his head, “if i tried to tan, i’d get a little more than sunburn.”

you nodded slowly, a thoughtful motion, but before you could speak, remmick waved a hand and grunted, “move outta the way. you’re blocking the moon.”

he hadn’t exactly told you to leave, so you quietly stepped over the rubble, your movements as fluid as mist, and settled down beside him, folding your body against the cool stone as if it belonged there.

“do you know about constellations?” you asked after a pause, turning your head to face him, your voice gentle, like a breeze trying not to wake the earth.

remmick kept his eyes closed, but he could feel your gaze on him, steady and curious.

“no,” he muttered, “ya gonna give me a random fact o’ the day?”

you smiled faintly and nodded, undeterred by his sarcasm.

“many constellations are tied to the zodiacs,” you began, your voice slipping into that melodic cadence you often carried when speaking of old things. “twelve of them form a path the sun appears to follow throughout the year. the ancients charted them to navigate the seas, tell time, even predict their fates. and if you look just there—” you lifted a hand, pointing skyward “—you can see libra, the scales. it is faint, but present. balance, even in darkness.”

your words trailed off into the night, soft and steady, like starlight dripping into silence.

remmick grunted, finally cracking one eye open to glance at you. “fascinating,” he muttered dryly, “write a book about all that and they’ll string you up as a witch.”

“no one knows i exist,” you replied, calm and matter-of-fact, as if discussing the weather.

remmick sighed and let his head fall back against the stone. “iontach. so i’m the lunatic talking to the ghost nobody else can see.”

“i am not a ghost either,” you said with a soft smile, the kind that barely touched your lips but somehow warmed the space between you. “i am sure you have figured out what i am by now.”

remmick let out a dry chuckle, the sound low and a little hollow. “my best guess?” he said, eyes fixed on the sky. “i’m seein’ things. you’re not real—just something my mind cooked up to keep me company when the silence gets too loud.”

“if that is what you believe,” you replied, your tone quiet, unreadable—neither confirming nor denying, as steady as still water.

then, without another word, you rose, movements fluid and precise. you stepped lightly across the scattered bricks, your figure momentarily silhouetted in the moonlight as you reached the jagged hole in the wall.

“until next time, remmick,” you said over your shoulder, voice echoing just slightly, like it belonged to the night itself.

remmick watches as you disappear but he swears your hand lingers on the brick for a second longer. he’s left in silence now until your words echo, until next time. he groans, what about never?

he does see you. again and again and again. your visits get more frequent until you’re both caught unexpectedly in war. the eleventh century. remmick thought he had escaped your watchful eye and found himself hitching rides with strangers in their carts, hiding under thick velvet rugs until nightfall where he bid his goodbyes and wandered off. he should’ve known you’d find him.

remmick stood at the edge of the treeline, deliberately keeping himself in the shadows, avoiding the last vestiges of sunlight that hung stubbornly in the sky. his eyes scanned the valley below, where the battle raged fiercely, men clashing in a frenzy of steel and blood. the air was thick with the sounds of war—shouting, the clang of weapons, the stampede of hooves. it was chaos, but he was content to watch from afar, detached from the madness.

and then, as if summoned by some unseen force, you appeared. he didn’t need to see you fully to know—it was the light that gave you away. a soft, golden glow that seemed to push back against the fading daylight. it clung to you, hovering just at the edges of your presence, and for a brief moment, it felt like the world itself dimmed just to make room for you.

“ain’t bored o’ me yet?” remmick muttered, his voice laced with annoyance and something else—something he refused to acknowledge.

you didn’t answer immediately. instead, there was a slight rustle in the air, a shift in the atmosphere as you moved closer. when you did speak, your voice was serene, effortless. “not at all.”

he couldn’t see it, but he could feel the subtle shake of your head, the shift in the air that told him you were amused. you always were, always so certain and unbothered by his disdain.

he huffed, rolling his eyes and returning his focus to the battle below. you were like a persistent, unavoidable breeze—always there, no matter how much he tried to ignore you.

its silent between you two as you both experience the rage of the battle of hastings below, the cries of men filling the air as blood stains the earth beneath. the dying light of the sun casts long shadows across the field, and the sky is a mixture of fading reds and purples. you stand at the edge of the treeline, your presence almost otherworldly, that strange divine glow surrounding you like a halo. it's the kind of light that would make anyone believe you're something holy, untouchable, perfect. but remmick doesn't care about any of that.

he stands next to you, his arms crossed, eyes bored as they track the chaos below. his face is hard, indifferent—he's seen enough of human suffering to not bat an eye at it. to him, they're all just ants. he turns his attention to you, though, the faintest hint of annoyance crossing his features. it’s the same thing every time. you show up, radiating light, acting like you’ve got a hand in this world’s fate. he’s sick of it.

you speak, your voice a soft, almost ethereal whisper. “do you ever wonder if they know what they are fighting for?”

remmick scoffs, the sarcasm dripping from his words. “i’m sure they’re all very aware of their ‘noble causes,’” he mutters. “but it don’t matter, do it? they’ll die anyway.”

you give him a sidelong glance, those piercing eyes of yours studying him like you always do. “do you think death is all they’re meant for?”

“i think most of them wan’ it,” he responds flippantly, his gaze flicking over to the chaos below. “or maybe they're just too stupid to know when to stop fighting.”

you shake your head, a quiet sigh escaping your lips, your tone almost sad. “you’re so jaded, remmick.”

he looks at you then, an eyebrow raised. “and you’re so holy.” he leans against a tree, crossing his arms tighter. “if you think they’re all so deserving of your pity, why don’t ya help ‘em out?”

you ignore his question, your gaze fixed on the battle once more. it’s almost as if you can’t help yourself—you have to watch, to be present. but then something catches his attention. the flicker of an arrow in the last rays of sunlight. it's a fleeting thing, but remmick notices it.

before he can react, the arrow strikes you.

it’s quick. too quick for him to fully process. he hears you gasp, and then you stumble slightly, your hand clutching at your side. the arrow, so perfectly aimed, has found its mark in the divine part of you, piercing through the space where your beauty and immortality should be untouched.

he doesn’t react immediately. instead, his gaze lingers on you, observing the way your breath hitches as the golden blood begins to seep through your fingers. his mouth curls into something that might have been a smile, but there’s no warmth in it. there’s nothing but quiet satisfaction in the knowledge that he’s right.

you’re not as untouchable as you think.

“oh, look at that,” he murmurs, the words coated in a kind of cruel humor, “a little scratch. guess you ain’t as perfect as everyone thinks.”

he watches for a moment longer as you stand there, your form still glowing faintly even as blood drips from you. you’re not the same now. you’re broken. you’ve been touched by the same death that touches everyone, and for some reason, that gives him a sense of relief.

you look at him, and there’s a flicker of something in your eyes—concern, maybe. or maybe just a question. but remmick isn’t interested. he’s never been interested in your divine presence. he’s only been stuck with you because you follow him, despite the fact that he wants nothing to do with you.

he takes a step back, turning his gaze away from you. “well, i’ve seen enough,” he says flatly, his voice devoid of any emotion, “you’ll be fine. immortals like you don’t just die from an arrow.”

he called you immortal because he didn’t know what else you were.

and with that, he turns, disappearing into the trees, leaving you there. blood staining the ground, your divine light flickering weakly.

he doesn’t care if you survive. in fact, a part of him hopes you don’t.

he leaves you there, under the dying light of the sunset, and walks away without a second thought. the darkness of night soon envelops him, and for the first time, he feels a strange sense of relief. maybe this is what he wanted all along—an escape from your presence, from your light, from the divine pressure of your existence.

he doesn’t look back. he doesn’t even think about it. he’s long gone, disappearing into the night.

remmick hadn’t seen you in over five hundred years. for a while, he thought the peace would last. the solitude had been... bearable. a century of living on his own terms, without your relentless light or your judgmental eyes, was a relief. he wandered through europe, a ghost in the shadows of history. he watched the rise of new dynasties, the endless wars of vikings, the decline of the roman empire, and the brutal reign of genghis khan. centuries passed, each one feeling like a whisper in time, and he thought he had finally outrun you.

but the renaissance? that was the point where it all fell apart. it was the 16th century in france, and somehow, against all logic, he had managed to convince the royal family that he, too, was royalty—a lost prince from some forgotten kingdom. he was skilled in deception, after all, and no one really questioned an enigmatic figure like him. they believed his stories, and the royal family, desperate to flaunt their connection to ancient lineages, eagerly threw a ball in his honor.

“to celebrate the visit of prince remmick i,” they announced, and the court was abuzz. everyone was charmed by the mysterious foreigner, the one whose origins were as hazy as the fog that rolled across the french countryside.

as the night stretched on, lit by shimmering chandeliers and the glittering eyes of aristocrats, remmick found himself drifting through the crowd, always watching, always smiling with that knowing smirk.

he should have known. he should have known that your light would pierce through the shadows of his false life. and yet, he didn’t hear your footsteps, didn’t see your radiance until you were already standing before him, like a vision from another time, another world.

"ain’t bored o’ me yet?" remmick asked, half-amused, half-resigned. he starts the greeting the same way he started the last one you had.

you smiled softly, as if you'd never left, "not at all," you replied, your voice soft as always, yet carrying a weight he could never ignore. you seem to remember too how he greeted you.

remmick’s fingers curled into his palm, nails digging into the flesh. how long had he really been free? how long could he ever escape your watchful eyes?

the music swirled through the air, soft and alluring, as the orchestra in the corner of the ballroom played their delicate tune. the sound of strings filled the grand hall, echoing off the gold-trimmed walls. remmick held you close, his hand firm on your waist as he led you in the dance, effortlessly twirling you through the sea of guests. each step felt like a rhythm he had known forever, like he'd danced this dance with you a thousand times, even though it was only now that he realized you were real—more than just a haunting image from his mind.

you moved with an ethereal grace, laughter bubbling from your lips like a song he couldn’t help but chase. when he spun you, the light caught in your hair, and for a brief moment, it almost felt like the entire room faded away—just the two of you, floating through time. his chest tightened as you laughed, that soft, knowing sound, and he couldn’t help but notice how your presence filled the space around him. he’d never let himself feel this before, not for someone like you.

but before he could think on it too long, the dance shifted. your hand slipped from his and suddenly, you were in the arms of another man—an older figure, no doubt a noble, with a grasp on your waist that was far too close, intimate. you laughed again, a bright, airy sound that made remmick's stomach twist and churn.

this is the moment remmick realises you have a physical manifestation and you truly weren’t apart of his imagination.

he stood still for a moment, watching as you moved away, the warmth of your hand no longer in his, replaced by the weight of something heavy that clawed at his insides. his eyes narrowed instinctively as you, effortlessly, slipped into another’s embrace. the man held you close, spinning you with a tenderness that made remmick’s skin prickle.

it shouldn’t matter, but it did.

he swallowed down the odd bitterness that had risen in his throat. it was absurd. he wasn’t allowed to feel this way—this possessive ache. but still, he couldn’t help himself, watching the way you laughed in his arms, the way your eyes shone so brightly for someone else.

remmick shook his head, forcing himself back into the present. the princess he had been dancing with swirled into his arms, but his gaze never wavered from you. he couldn’t look away. it was as if the room had ceased to exist around him—there were no voices, just the sound of your laughter and the light that shimmered around you.

he knew it was futile to hold on to any of it, but for as long as he could, he would keep you in his line of sight, hoping you wouldn’t slip away again, like you always did.

as the music reached its final notes, remmick's gaze never left you. he watched as you slipped gracefully from the arms of your partner, your presence like a flicker of light lost among the throngs of well-dressed nobles. the man—his face now blurred by the growing distance between them—seemed unaware of the way you had subtly detached yourself, drifting into the crowd of silks and velvets, where the shadows danced just as intricately as the guests.

remmick felt an inexplicable urgency seize him. his fingers grazed the princess’s hand, and with a smooth smile, he pressed his lips to her delicate knuckles in a gesture that seemed far more rehearsed than genuine. “my apologies, princess,” he murmured, the words slow and languid, “but i’ve promised myself a moment alone. something about cutting the cake, you know? a royal tradition, i suppose.”

she blinked, clearly satisfied by the excuse, her smile warm and unsuspecting. “of course, prince remmick. go enjoy your cake.”

and with that, she was lost to the crowd of swirling dancers, her attention already diverted. remmick didn’t waste a second more. he gave her a lazy bow and watched her retreat into the gilded glamour of the ballroom. then, with a fluid, practiced motion, he slipped into the labyrinth of bodies around him, the rich fabric of coats and gowns folding into a soft blur of color.

he didn’t care about the cake. he didn’t care about any of it. all that mattered was finding you again before you vanished into the shadows once more. his heart pounded as his feet carried him swiftly through the crowd, his eyes darting over the sea of faces, seeking that unmistakable glow that had haunted him for centuries.

there. between the columns of the balcony, under the flickering candlelight. your silhouette, radiant even in the midst of so many others, a beacon amidst the chaos. remmick’s pulse quickened, a feeling—half desire, half something darker—stirring deep in his chest.

“long time, no see…” you breathe, your voice soft as you stand at the edge of the courtyard, staring out into the cool night. the moonlight catches the edge of your dress, making it shimmer in a way that feels almost too ethereal. “remmick.”

he swallows, his throat dry, and his eyes track the curve of your silhouette in the dim light. there’s something about the way the dress clings to you tonight—it suits you better than anything he’s seen you wear before. he can’t help but notice, even in the midst of everything else, how striking you are, even when you're so distant.

“yeah…” he hums, his voice rougher than he intends. “how long’s it been?”

you don’t turn to face him, but he knows you’re listening. “ah, five hundred years. it was quite the break from your presence,” he adds, with a hint of bitterness that slips from his lips before he can stop it.

you give a small nod, the movement subtle, but it feels like you’re acknowledging something deeper, something unsaid. your gaze doesn’t waver from the distant horizon, the city lights far below barely flickering. “it was quite the goodbye. if i remember correctly, you left me to die.”

remmick laughs, a hollow, cold sound that doesn’t reach his eyes. “you remember correct. i’m quite fond of that memory, actually.” the words fall out like a joke, but the edge to his tone betrays him. there’s something about it that feels unfinished, unsaid.

you remain silent for a moment, your eyes still lost in the night. then, slowly, your head falls into your hand, your fingers pressing lightly against your temple as if to hold back something that could break through. remmick watches you, his smile fading, the silence stretching between them.

he doesn’t say anything more, because he knows—no words would make this any less complicated.

so, he let’s you speak first.

“why did you leave me like that?” your voice is quiet, but it cuts clean through the space between you. you still don’t turn to face him, your figure leaning into the cold stone railing like it might offer some kind of answer he won’t give. the moonlight brushes your skin like a veil, softening the tension in your shoulders, but remmick can still see it—the weight you carry.

“i got quite the scolding after that,” you add, almost like an afterthought. “that was your… one hundred and fifty-sixth second chance.”

the number hangs heavy in the air. remmick shifts behind you, a half-sigh caught in his throat. he wasn’t keeping count—but of course you were. of course you would remember every time he failed to live up to whatever cosmic expectation you held over him.

you don’t sound angry. not really. just… tired. like the years haven’t worn you down, but his choices have.

“glad to know someone’s keeping count,” remmick mutters, easing in beside you. the stone railing presses into his spine as he leans back, angling his body just enough to catch a glimpse of your face in the moonlight.

your eyes drift to his—slow, reluctant—and for a moment, something catches in his chest. if he still breathed, it would’ve hitched, tight and sharp. you weren’t supposed to look like this.

he’d seen your face in every imaginable light: serene, righteous, unreadable. you always wore that same celestial calm like armor. but now… now you just look exhausted. not weary in the way mortals age and sag with time—but a deeper sadness, old and quiet, like the fading echo of a hymn long forgotten.

remmick isn’t sure what unsettles him more: the silence between you, or the way you won’t quite meet his gaze.

he swallows when you don’t respond, the silence stretching longer than he expects. so he tries again, voice lower this time, almost unsure, “if i’m on my one hundred and fifty-seventh chance… why didn’t you give up ages ago?”

you still don’t answer, and that unsettles him more than any sharp retort would have.

he shifts beside you, the corner of his mouth twitching in a crooked attempt at a smile. “seriously. you should probably reevaluate your standards after that.”

it’s meant to be a joke, light enough to pull you from whatever place your mind’s wandered to—but it lands heavy, as if even he knows it doesn’t quite cover the question he’s really asking.

after a long, deathly silence, you finally lift your head and meet his eyes. there’s no lightness in your expression—just that same quiet, ancient sorrow that’s lingered beneath your skin for centuries.

“do you want to know what i am?” you ask, voice soft but unwavering. “i am sure you have been wondering for a while.”

remmick lets out a dry chuckle, one corner of his mouth curling up. “you’re right about that,” he says, eyes scanning your face like he’s searching for the answer there.

“i am an angel of the lord,” you say, finally standing upright, your voice calm, absolute. “i was sent down to watch you—because god knew you would be trouble. that you would walk on both sides of the line between chaos and order.”

remmick stares at you like you’ve grown a second head. his eyes narrow, brows knit in disbelief, but somewhere beneath the confusion, it starts to make a horrible sort of sense.

“an angel?” he mutters, almost to himself. “an actual angel’s been breathing down my neck this whole time?”

he lets out a bitter laugh, scrubbing a hand down his face. “no wonder i couldn’t stand you.”

“you say that in past tense,” you note, stepping toward him, “it could not be that you havee grown fond of me, could it?”

remmick smirks, “it could be.”

“you are angry. i have seen it,” you say quietly, stepping down from the balcony into the courtyard, your voice almost drowned by the hush of the wind through the hedges. you gesture for him to follow, and after a beat, he does—reluctantly, hands in his coat pockets, expression unreadable.

you walk side by side beneath the open sky, your glow washing over the stone path, brighter than the moonlight itself.

“when everything first happened—when the celts came, preaching christianity,” you begin, eyes forward, “it was not meant to be violent. but vikings... they are unpredictable, as you know. they brought fire to what should have been light.”

remmick stays quiet, glancing sidelong at you.

“god wanted someone to keep a close eye on you,” you continue. “he saw your heart. the way you could bend the world. not out of malice—but defiance. if left to your own instincts, you would unravel the threads of his design.”

you look at him then, calm, steady. “so, he sent me.”

remmick stops in his tracks, brow furrowed. “i’m sensing a but,” he mutters, voice dry. “there’s always a but.”

“but,” you say, and the word hangs in the air like judgment, “after a while, he realized you could not be saved. not in the way he intended. salvation was never going to come easy for you.”

remmick stiffens under your gaze, caught in the weight of your eyes—ancient, unwavering. he doesn’t need you to say it. he knows exactly when that shift happened. the moment everything inside him twisted beyond repair.

you step closer, your voice softer now, though no less resolute. “it took me five hundred years to convince him to let me walk the earth again… to stay in your shadow. because even if you could not be redeemed, you still needed watching. without guidance, you would leave only wreckage behind.”

remmick clenches his jaw, but doesn’t look away.

“i thought,” you add, quieter, more human somehow, “if i told you the truth this time… maybe you would finally be open. maybe you would stop running long enough to let something reach you.”

the silence that follows is thick with everything unsaid.

“you seriously believe i can change?” remmick asks, his voice low, edged with disbelief.

you don’t nod. instead, you shake your head slowly and keep walking, the gravel beneath your feet crunching softly beneath your light steps.

“no,” you say. “you cannot change what you are. that isn’t the point.”

your voice is calm, measured, not cruel—just certain.

“what drives you is not redemption,” you continue, “it is motive. it has always been motive. family… yes? connection. people who see you. who understand you. who can stand to be near you without fear.”

you glance at him, eyes catching the dim moonlight. “that is what keeps you from falling completely.”

your voice fades as you round the edge of a hedge, soft as mist, leaving remmick behind for a moment in the quiet. he blinks, then stumbles forward, hurrying to catch up, boots crunching against the earth. there’s something in the way you move—slow, graceful, unbothered—that makes him wonder if you see him more clearly than he’s ever let on.

he walks beside you in silence for a beat, eyes narrowed in thought. then, low and uncertain, he asks,

“why’ve i been given another chance?”

the words feel foreign in his mouth, like they don’t quite belong to him.

“partly because i begged for it,” you admit, “but also because the fates favour you.”

remmick raises a brow, “favour me?”

you nod, slow and deliberate.

“they do,” you say, voice like distant thunder softened by the night. “you have been offered two paths. one carved from selfishness, where every step takes you closer to your own undoing. and the other…”

your eyes lift to the stars, catching their faint shimmer.

“the other is compassion. it asks more of you, but it gives something in return—quiet, contentment, maybe even joy. and one day, if you choose it, you might find yourself watching the sunrise not with dread, but with purpose.”

“so you know how i go out?” remmick asks and you nod, confirming his assumption. he wants to bombard you with questions but you hold your hand up, “we should head back.”

he listens without a protest.

before you part with him at the balcony entrance, you offer him some words of advice, “do not take my words lightly, think about your actions and do not rely on me to tell you what to do.”

remmick watches you as you glide through the crowd, mingling effortlessly with the nobility, your light drawing them in like moths to a flame. it’s a scene so far removed from him—so foreign—that the ache he had felt earlier surges back, tight and gnawing at his insides. it pulls at him, twisting his stomach in ways that leave him feeling hollow, desperate.

he tries to shake it off, but the hunger claws at him, demanding attention. he stumbles away from his place, moving quickly through the high, echoing halls of the palace. the walls, steeped in rich history, stretch endlessly before him, their reflection of his shadow twisted and distorted as he moves through them, a ghost within his own skin.

the overwhelming scent of life all around him hits like a wave, drowning his senses. the guests, oblivious, stand in clusters, their warmth and the steady pulse of their blood flooding his senses. it's all he can focus on now. the desire to feed is primal, insistent. there’s no escaping it, no distraction from it. not when the banquet is brimming with potential prey.

at the end of the hall, a figure catches his eye. the princess, the one he danced with earlier, stands alone for a moment, separated from the throngs. the hunger takes over before he can stop himself, and he jogs toward her, the rhythm of his steps faster than he intends.

“your highness,” he greets, bowing low, his voice smooth, almost too smooth. she smiles, a demure expression. she asks him about the cake, her voice light and innocent. he tells her, with a playful tone, how divine it was—how it tasted like nothing he had ever known.

she seems to believe him, her eyes sparkling with curiosity, but her guard is down, naive to the danger she’s unwittingly stepped into. with the fluid ease of someone accustomed to getting what he wants, remmick guides her away from the crowd, leading her into a quiet, dimly lit chamber.

the door closes softly behind them.

he doesn’t waste time. with a practiced movement, he presses her against the cold wall, his fangs sinking deep into her neck. the warmth of her blood fills his senses, and the ache, that terrible, gnawing ache, begins to fade with each drawn breath. he feeds greedily, thirstily, until there’s nothing left to take.

when it’s over, the room is silent, save for the faint echo of his own breath. her body slumps in his arms, lifeless, pale. he lets her fall to the floor, her blood staining the carpet beneath her.

remmick stands over her for a moment, his chest rising and falling as he surveys the damage. a small flicker of something—guilt, maybe? regret?—crosses his mind, but it’s fleeting.

he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, his hunger sated, but the emptiness inside remains. the cycle repeats. it always does.

he’s not going to change.

not long after that night, remmick fled paris—your footsteps trailing his despite his growing resentment. he never lingered anywhere for long, slipping through cities like smoke through fingers. yet, somehow, you always followed. unwillingly bound or stubbornly tethered, you were there.

he dragged you through the winding streets of spain, the frostbitten stretches of russia, the misty peaks of the balkans. he even wandered through the dense, humming cities of asia for a time, lost in a sea of languages and lanternlight.

but no matter how far he roamed, his footsteps always led him back to ireland. something about the damp green hills, the crash of waves against the cliffs, the ache of memory in the stone—his heart answered to it like a song half-remembered. it was the one place that still felt like his. or at least, where the ghosts felt familiar.

you’d washed up on the english channel in 1888, clothes heavy with salt and divinity, and drifted through london’s smoke-stained streets before finally making your way toward ireland. but your journey was delayed—four months, to be exact—by a detour you hadn’t planned.

a pitstop, as remmick called it.

he confessed with a twisted grin that he’d developed a taste for the blood of london’s street women. easy prey, he said. no one missed them, and no one looked too hard when they vanished. they came willingly, and their fear made their blood taste as sweet as it was tangy, he added, and left quietly.

you spoke to him as you always did—with the calm patience of eternity. you reminded him of light, of the path laid by the divine, of mercy, and restraint. you quoted scripture, invoked parables, and offered him alternatives. but he only scoffed, sharp-eyed and smirking.

“nothing beats an easy target,” he muttered once, licking the blood from his fingers as if it were honey.

and that was when you realized: some pitstops aren’t delays. they’re tests.

remmick came home that final night drenched in blood, the crimson soaking through his shirt and shining beneath your glow like oil on water. you didn’t ask where he’d been. you already knew. he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and flung the bloodied fabric into a dark corner of the hostel you’d both occupied for months. you didn’t meet his eyes. instead, you recited, quiet and firm,

“violence shall no more be heard in your land, devastation or destruction within your borders; you shall call your walls salvation, and your gates praise.”

remmick snarled at the sound of scripture, his lip curling as if the words burned him, “i told you to quit spewing that holy bullshit around me, angel.”

he said your title like a curse, like something he’d spit into the dirt.

still, you smiled—an expression that almost reached your eyes, though it never truly did.

“you live in a world built from devastation and oppression,” you said gently, stepping closer, “but the real prison, vampire, is the one in your own mind.”

remmick, in a sudden fury, swept a plate of fine china off the rickety wooden table. it sailed past you and shattered against the headboard of your borrowed bed, shards of porcelain raining down like splinters of his frustration.

“ain’t nothin’ wrong with my mind,” he barked, chest heaving. “i’m livin’ off what i know. what i am!”

your frown deepened. the glow around you dimmed, like a flame shying from wind.

“rough night?” you asked softly.

he groaned, dragging a hand down his face, smearing blood across his jaw.

“nearly got caught,” he muttered. “some fella interrupted my meal.”

you nodded slowly, walking toward the mess he’d made, stepping carefully over broken china.

“you have built quite the reputation for yourself,” you said. “jack the ripper, they are calling you now.”

remmick scoffed, holding up a hand as if to physically reject the accusation.

“that ain’t me,” he said. “there’s a difference. he—he guts ‘em. rips ‘em open like game. i just puncture the neck, nice and neat. drain ’em sideways, clean as i can. i got some standards.”

your eyes narrowed. “do you?”

“for my kind, i do,” remmick mutters, casting you a sidelong glance as he sinks onto the edge of the bed. the frame creaks beneath his weight.

he feels it again—that phantom pump, the ghost of a heartbeat that only stirs when you’re near. if blood still moved through his veins, it might’ve rushed to his face, warmed his skin. instead, he remains pale, a static figure carved in cold ash and shadow.

you don’t move. you stand there, still as a monument, graceful and ethereal. divine. everything about you—your poise, your silence, even the way the light bends to wrap around you—makes his chest ache with something unfamiliar. something like longing.

your glow brushes his skin like the edge of sunlight, and in that moment, he swears he can feel your heart. or maybe it’s his own, trying to remember how to beat. he shakes his head, breaking the moment like glass.

“i’m leaving tonight,” he says, voice flat. final.

you just watch him—silent, as always—as he picks up his old acoustic guitar. it fits in his hands like it was always meant to be there, an extension of him. he’s always had a gift for music. even in the earliest years, before he knew what he was, he’d whistle back at the birds when they sang at sunrise, tap rhythms into the bones of tables, the sides of carriages, the hollow of his own chest. it was instinct. but once he found the guitar, it all came together.

remmick doesn’t look at you as he starts to play, but you can see his shoulders ease. his fingers move fluidly over the strings, coaxing out a tune that feels older than this life. you pull out a chair and sit, the wood creaking softly beneath you. no words pass between you. for once, there’s no biting sarcasm or divine reprimands. just the melody, soft and unhurried.

he plays like it’s the only honest language he’s fluent in. and you listen, like it’s the only time you truly hear him. it's brief, but in that moment, there’s peace.

remmick knows it, you know it. you’ll follow him wherever he goes.

remmick stayed in ireland for three decades, tucked away in green hills and rain-soaked stone villages. of course, you were there—always there. disappearing for weeks, months even, only to reappear when he least expected it, glowing like a bad omen he couldn’t shake.

then came 1921. something called to him—a sound, delicate and haunting. a woman playing an instrument so beautiful it made his dead heart ache. he boarded a ship of irish immigrants bound for boston, chasing the echo of her melody. he claimed he wanted to reconnect with his roots, to find the family he’d left behind. the truth was more selfish.

the voyage was a disaster.

desperate to reclaim what he thought he’d lost—music, love, belonging—remmick tried to turn them all. everyone on board: children, parents, the elderly. but vampirism is no gift, and none of them survived the transformation. blood ran like wine below deck, and the woman with the gifted hands? lost to the chaos. he never even learned her name.

when the ship docked three days later, reeking of death and silence, he slipped off unnoticed. another new instrument slung over his shoulder like a trophy. the only thing he managed to save.

but you? you were gone.

no glow in the shadows.

no soft footsteps trailing behind him.

for once, he was truly alone.

the last time he saw you—really saw you—was at a juke joint deep in the mississippi delta, about twenty years later.

he’d been lingering just outside the shack, half-shrouded in trees and night, the thrum of blues rolling out of the open door like the sweet aroma of pie out a window. his mouth was wet, glistening—thick ropes of blood and spit clung to his lips, soaked into the collar of his shirt, cooling on his skin.

he was a mess. a predator fresh from the hunt.

but even in that haze, he felt it. that pull. that warmth.

you.

your light slipped through the trees before you did, soft and steady, brighter than the porch lamps and louder than the music.

he didn’t need to feel warmth anymore to know it was you.

he’d always know.

"i should be more surprised that you’re here," remmick groaned, not bothering to turn around. he didn’t need to see your face to know what expression you wore—he could picture it perfectly: the sharp furrow of your brow, the disappointment etched into every line.

he leaned against a tree, dragging a bloodied sleeve across his mouth.

"why now?" he muttered. "gonna try and talk me down again? throw a bible verse at me like it’s some kind of holy water? think i’m gonna suddenly grow a conscience 'cause you showed up glowing?"

his voice was tired, bitter.

"you always show up when i’m at my worst. like clockwork."

“you are straying from your righteous path,” you say, your face unreadable but your voice heavy with sorrow. “are you sure you want to do this?”

remmick waves a dismissive hand, “i’m sure.”

you shake your head slowly. “you did not heed my warning.”

he arches a brow, a smirk tugging at his lips. “you warn me all the time. how’m i s’pposed to know which one?”

he knows exactly which warning you mean. but remmick aims not just for the best—he strives for something beyond that. his selfish path feels carved into stone, unchangeable. you’ve spoken of another way, a second path meant to offer hope. but he never entertained that hope. not once.

“i know what you think i do not know,” you begin, your voice steady, eyes fixed on the back of his head, “there is more for you, if only you listen to my age-old warning.”

remmick clicks his tongue in frustration, something sharp and bitter rising in his chest.

you continue, voice gentle but firm,

“life is beautiful, remmick—whether you see it or not. and i know you are unable to, not anymore. you have grown bitter, i have watched it happen, piece by piece. but it does not have to stay that way.”

your eyes focus on his form, steady and unwavering.

“you still have time. you can make peace with them, with yourself. you can reclaim what you have lost. not everything is beyond reach.”

you pause, searching for something in his body language—anything.

“do not do this. do not spill the blood of good people just because you have forgotten what goodness looks like.”

your calmness feels like mockery. he snaps—like a wire pulled too tight—spinning around so fast it startles you.

“you can’t seriously expect me to listen to anything you have to say,” he growls, eyes burning, “not after you vanished for twenty damn years just because you finally saw what i was capable of! how are you supposed to be my guardian angel when you’re so unbelievably shit at your job?”

you think your heart breaks—and remmick thinks he hears it. not a dramatic crack, but something quieter, crueler. like dry glass splintering under pressure.

his eyes flash a deep, dangerous red. for a moment, it looks like he’s considering it—really considering tearing into something holy.

he’d been cruel before, callous beyond belief. but something about tonight lands differently.

you don’t shout, you don’t plead, you don’t fall apart.

instead, just a few tears slide down your cheeks, slow and soundless.

and that’s what gets him.

he never thought he’d see the day an angel would cry. from what he knew, you were carved from calm, built to endure without cracking.

but now, standing under the weak light of a crooked moon, he sees it. sees you.

not a symbol, not a mission. just someone deeply, utterly tired.

you don’t let him linger in your sorrow. as soon as you feel the tears, you turn away—too proud to let him see what he’s done. too divine to shatter completely in front of him.

your wings unfurl—slow, deliberate, and unlike anything he’s ever seen. vast and radiant, feathers pure as untouched snow, glowing faintly with a divinity that makes the dark around him feel smaller, weaker. they catch the breeze like sails on a departing ship.

remmick freezes. not because he’s scared, but because he understands.

this is it.

you’re leaving.

and this time, you won’t come back.

a part of him, the part still clinging to something human, wants to call out. wants to say don’t.

but he doesn’t.

he stays silent, hands clenched at his sides, jaw tight as he watches with empty eyes.

you offer him one last verse—your final tether, a hope you quietly beg he'll remember.

“judge not, that ye be not judged. for with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.”

your voice echoes long after your wings do.

with a single, mighty flap, the earth stirs beneath you. dust kicks up, grass bends, and then—

you’re gone.

all that remains is the soft imprint of your departure, a shallow crater in the earth where heaven once touched down.

his heart no longer beats in faux rhythm.

and when the sun finally rises, catching him where the shadows fail, remmick doesn’t flinch. doesn’t snarl or thrash or claw at the light like some cornered beast. he doesn’t beg, doesn’t run.

he just stares.

the light crawls across his skin, golden and relentless, and for the first time in one thousand, three hundred and eighty-five years, he lets it. he watches the sunrise not with fear or hatred, but with something else—something closer to awe.

his inhuman eyes brim with tears, not from pain, but from peace.

he knows you’re near. he can feel it. after all this time, he can still sense the pull of your presence like gravity. maybe you’re watching the same sunrise from some rooftop or ruin, silently praying for what’s left of him.

and maybe—just maybe—he’s praying too.

he imagines his ancestors waiting for him, the ones he lost to time and blood and tragedy, their arms open and music playing. but more than anything, he hopes you're there too.

and as the fire takes him, a slow, searing bloom that begins at his chest and spreads outward like a star going nova, he closes his eyes.

not in fear.

but in surrender.

in peace.

and he smiles.

you stand over the scorch-marked earth where remmick had burned. there’s no trace left of him—no body, no ash, just the faint smell of smoke clinging to the morning air and a body of water that moved indifferently as if remmick was never there.

you do not cry.

you knew this ending. had seen it coming centuries ago.

but still, your chest aches in a way that feels foreign. not divine. not righteous. just… human.

quietly, you kneel by the edge of a shallow stream, its waters catching the soft gold of the rising sun. your hand, steady and sacred, slips beneath the surface. it doesn’t take long. the chain finds you, just like he always did.

you pull it from the water—his gold chain, warm despite the cold stream, still whole.

your fingers trace its pattern, each link familiar, worn from centuries of wear.

you smile. not wide. not bright. but soft. pained. knowing.

“goodbye, old friend,” you whisper.

the wind stirs the trees behind you, and the morning continues.

you would not see his soul in the holy place.

not because he was born into darkness—he wasn’t. not because he was forced to live as he did—though that part was true.

but because remmick’s choices stretched far beyond instinct, beyond what was natural. he had time. he had chances. and every time, he chose wrong. knowingly, willfully.

and heaven does not make room for those who choose to burn.

[teddy-bear-naps-and-random-snaps]

[burgojo]

DISTURBIA. MAHITO / M!READER

summary. in the golden age of jujutsu, mahito had you, and lost you. a thousand years later, he seeks to bring you back.

wc. 9.1k

tags. smut | sub bottom mahito, top reader, heian era!mahito & cursed spirit!reader (manifestation of fear of night/absence of light), reader had a cult/worshippers. mention of blood & gore. mahito with a pussy, size difference, breeding kink, mention of babytrapping. fingering + oral (mahito receiving), doggystyle, exhibitionism (mention of others overhearing), jealousy, praise, multiple orgasms (mahito receiving), creampie, ahegao (?), god kink (reader), temp play (reader is naturally cold)

notes. obligatory ooc warning. also, i made up a lot of lore for the reader('s abilities), so scroll down about halfway to skip it and get to the good part :)

[ requested ]

Deep in the beech forests of Northeast Japan, Geto Suguru stands delicately amongst the verdant green undergrowth. He glances around, petting his large winged cursed spirit absently, and gathers his long dark robes in a hand. He glances over his shoulder.

"Despite your insistence on coming here, you've been awfully quiet. Is it not what you imagined?"

Bent at the waist to inspect massive green leaves as large as his face, Mahito looks up. "Huh? Oh, I was just curious about how they went about their plan. This place is maaassive. How are we supposed to find him? Maybe they cut him up? Sprinkled him from the highest mountain?" He sighs. "Whatever they did – they chose a green place to do it. Hanami would probably like it."

Dismissing his cursed spirit with a wave of his hand, Suguru chooses a direction and begins to move. He doesn't so much as walk as glide, his long skirts and the heavy undergrowth obscuring his steps. The tall, slim beeches are set just far enough apart for one person to slip between their trunks, and Mahito is forced to fall into step behind Suguru.

He flexes his fingers; stretches his arms; kicks ferns. Twigs tug at his hair and he huffs, glaring at the tree that dared touch him. He clasps the section of hair to his chest, dragging his slim fingers through it obsessively.

"You're twitchy," Suguru says without turning around. "You never did say how you heard of this curse. Seeing as you're not busy running your mouth, why don't you tell me now?"

Mahito sighs, skipping over a fallen log overrun with moss. He gazes up at the trees and notices the way the thick emerald canopy filters the sunlight until all that's left is an even, misty glow. Shadows are soft and deep around here.

"Not much to say," he hums thoughtfully, knocking a branch out of his way. "Lotta curses back in the day. Just makes sense to have some hidden around the place."

"Yes, but how did you come across such old records? Surely sorcerers would've kept something like that far, far away from prying eyes."

"Humans get tired. They get clumsy. They misplace things."

Suguru raises a brow. "And you kept it? For a thousand years, without purpose?"

Airily, he says, "So what if I did? You really expect me to act like one of you, doin' things with reason and purpose? C'mon. I liked the pictures on it."

He may think Suguru falls for it, but Suguru is nothing if not perceptive. Mahito flings his arms out too wide. Each stride is too long, each twirl around a slender beech too motivated – no, he sees it all. He's playing at carelessness when it couldn't be further from the truth.

Absurdly human of him, really.

Suguru hums, halting in his tracks. Mahito almost bumps into him. Again – too eager. Suguru lifts a hand, palm down and fingers splayed, and closes his eyes. Thrums of warm sorcery crackle through his veins – weak, barely trace amounts. Expected for thousand-year-old jujutsu. To be able to feel it still was a feat all in itself. Just how intense was the battle that raged here?

"We should be right in front of it," Suguru claims, dropping his hand and opening his eyes. They stand before a slight ridge of the earth, exposed tree roots weaving in and out of rich brown soil. A heavy blanket of moss hangs over the ridge and ivy grows beneath their feet. "Yet... I don't sense any spirits nearby."

"Hey," says Mahito suddenly. "The scroll mentioned a 'tomb'. You said in front of ya, yeah?"

Nodding, Suguru folds his hands within his robes. He watches as Mahito's arm lengthens into a massive cleaver, and he steps back at the wicked smile that spreads across his lips.

Mahito lifts his arm, pale eyes glinting dangerously. "Man, I so hope I'm right!"

With a slam that rumbles the ground beneath their feet and strips the nearby trees of their leaves, Mahito splits the earthen mound before him clean in two, leaving a shallow ravine that extends into the horizon. The soft earth parts like melted butter, soil and chipped wood exploding forth with such strength that Suguru narrowly avoids a pointed root that embeds itself into the trunk behind him.

When the dirt and leaves settle, they reveal the chiselled stone set into the earth. Split not quite perfectly in half – for Mahito loves chaos, and halves are better off-kilter – is a room carved into stone, hollowed out with a single podium erupting from the centre.

Upon the roughly-carved podium is a mid-sized box plastered with ancient seals and talismans. Peeking inside reveals that the inside of the 'room' is covered in the stuff, too – old, yellow, and faded, they flutter from wind they haven't felt in aeons. One peels off and comes to rest gently at Mahito's feet.

"Huh," he says eventually, staring at the cuttingly-familiar brushstrokes. He reaches for the wooden box, soft and rotted with age. The moment his fingers brush the surface, he pulls back with a jerk and makes a face. "Ouch! Spicy."

"Strong seals," Suguru comments, making no move to help. Mahito huffs and blasts the talismans away with a burst of cursed energy, testing the now-bare box with the tips of his fingers like one might with a freshly-microwaved plate.

He cracks the box open. Inside, innocent as a fresh lamb, lays a shallow, red-lacquered suzuri-bako.

"A... writing box?" Mahito murmurs to himself. He reaches in and takes the smooth box into his hands. It feels much heavier than it should, and an oppressive weight shudders through him, dark and cold and familiar. "Geto-san? It's a cage. I don't have the key."

"Let me take a look." Suguru stretches out a hand.

For a fleeting moment, Mahito hesitates – the slightest tilt of the box towards his chest. And Suguru knows.

With a growing smile, Suguru folds his hand back into his long sleeves. "Ah... I see. You know this spirit."

"I—" He pauses. "Maybe. Once upon a time."

"Interesting," says Suguru, "that something as old as this still has an effect on you."

"Nah – boring, actually. I'm old and sentimental." He pretends to wipe a tear from his eye. He chuckles and tosses his hair over his shoulder, tracing the edges of the box. Power tingles against his skin. "Pretty thing, for a cage. Maybe I could just – ease it open—"

Suguru raises his long sleeve to shield his face as the box pulses with a sudden, growling shockwave, forcing him to step back to keep his balance. The ferns sway around his knees.

Mahito clicks his tongue, a pout forming on his lips. "Damn it! This should be simple!"

The second attempt has the birds squawking and flying into the skies as the surrounding trees shudder violently. For the third, Suguru winces slightly as Mahito slams his fist – a giant mallet – against the box, resulting in another shockwave of barbed cursed energy. He lifts a hand, placating.

"Ah, Mahito... Perhaps I can give it a go?" he suggests. "It may need a... sorcerer's touch."

Mahito's eyes widen. Of course! Those ancient douche-canoes probably knew he would come for what was his. It only made sense to weave his name into the seals.

"By all means," he replies, stepping aside. "Take a gander."

Stepping forward, Suguru tugs his sleeve to his elbow and scoops up the box from the floor. He dusts off the cover. "Lovely craftsmanship," he muses and hovers his palm over it despite every nerve in his body writhing and begging to pull away. Some instinctual, ancient force warns him off it. He lets energy seep into the age-made cracks in the seals, and from within, gently burns away the net holding its prisoner still – like taking a lighter to the end of a frayed rope, creating spaces big enough to squeeze through.

The lid cracks open.

Like a floodgate opening, freezing shadows and smoke pour out of the gap, forcing the lid to clatter uselessly to the ground. Darkness bleeds down the walls. Suguru's eyes widen as his pale fingers, deep within the thick black smoke continuing to billow forth, begin to turn blue at the tips, visible frost surging over his skin. Smoke fills the air around them, fading out the sun until it could be a misty grey night. Rivers of shadow pool thickly around his knees until he can't see his feet, and he hurries to set the box on the podium.

As he lets go, a shadowy tendril curls around his exposed hand and arm, burning white frost into his skin. His breath hitches.

A freezing hand seizes his wrist. Inch-long black nails dig rivulets of blood – his red, all-too-human blood – out of him, and his heart plummets at the sight of the hand, wrapped completely around his forearm as if it's a thin piece of rope. On instinct, he yanks back, and the hand comes with.

Then, a flood of smoky shadow spews from the open box – and a cowled figure claws its way out, formed from the very shadows that plunged them into a sudden night. It rises and straightens, towering over them both.

Suguru's arm hurts. He clutches his wrist, his blood coagulating over the delicately-patterned frost, and chances a glance back at Mahito.

Arms spread wide and palms open, an unnervingly breathless smile plastered on his lips, Mahito gazes up at the wispy figure unblinkingly. Wide-eyed and panting softly, he laughs – bright and jubilant, victorious.

"Yes! Yes! There you are!"

He skips past Suguru, giggling madly as he takes one large, clawed hand in both his own. He presses the palm to his cheek as he hops in place, stretching up to reach for the round silver brooch pinning the cloak of shadows together over the shoulder. He hasn't seen his eyes in so long, and this stupid hood is in the way!

Mahito?

The voice comes from within Suguru's head. But, unlike Hanami's, this voice slithers among his own thoughts, slipping between them as light as a ghost. It could've been his own, for all he knew, except for the fact it carries a sorrow so profound it eclipses every other thought – he can focus on nothing else.

—

Everything is on fire. Everything is on fire and it is all because of you.

Of course, the fire was the easy part. One day, perhaps your beloved will forgive you for using such an overzealous amount of cursed energy to make your grand entrance. It completely overshadowed his own.

Everything would change here. It would be your end, or your beginning. Before you stand the most powerful sorcerers in the land, all gathered to rise against you one final time – or die trying.

All so tense. A sigh flutters through your lips as you brush a stray lock of hair out of your eyes. Mahito has influenced you too much – you are bare from shoulder-to-waist, oil-slick blood coating your arms up to the elbows, and facing the strongest adversaries you have ever met. Yet, all you can fret about is your poor hakama, now no more than a shred of memory. You donned your best silks for this, and the first thing the cruel little bugs did was burn it off you.

At the very least, your sashinuki may be salvageable.

"You are strong," a white-haired sorcerer calls above the roar of the flames towering into the sky. "Some call you divine and pray to you for aid, but you do not listen."

"I listen," you reply coolly, and slick back your hair with a blood-soaked palm. "I help them to lose the burden of their regrets and relieve their physical pains. I daresay I help more than you."

"They call you a healer, but what you do is not healing. Once, you numbed a man to his wounds until he fell to exhaustion fighting in your name. You are a spiteful creature. Desperation is your lure."

"If I hear it, I answer. If they think I am their saviour, who am I to disagree? It's a rather pretty title – though, it is amusing to be lord of maggots. I like to watch them squirm."

How did a curse of night, of the endless dark, grow so powerful? Every secret done in the dark, every lie and gnawing shame, was yours. There had always been something different about you, and they were fools to ignore it, even upon your first meeting:

You, tall and regal, kimono the darkest shade of navy blue damask, had been nothing like their other curses. You looked quite human. Perhaps there was something godly in your stride, something primordial in your voice, that cowed them all like children. You spoke to them, soft and paternal, and suddenly, each and every one of them was afraid of the dark and you were their only solace against the monsters beyond the window.

Enchantment, they'd called it, upon blinking awake and finding you gone. Perhaps it was your domain, to cull their thoughts until all that remained was the ancient instinct to fear the black night. Had you heard them discussing you, hands shaking and faces drained of blood, you would have laughed.

—

Suguru's eyes flicker, and the scene flips to a forest clearing.

—

"Mahito!"

The cry of his name is guttural, a thousand voices coalescing into a roar and a shriek. Across the battlefield, he falls, and you catch the flames reflecting in the shine of his widened eyes as he grasps the unfamiliar black blade piercing his chest. His soul writhes around it, pierced by it, unable to slip away unscathed as he has so many times before.

In that split second, your attention lapses, and black chains lash your body, slamming you to your knees. You snarl, straining against them.

"Surrender," the sorcerer before you orders, white hair stained red with blood. Despite his injuries and the loss of an entire arm, he stands tall and steady above you. "We will let him go if you choose to die."

"If I choose to die?" You run your thumb over your knuckles, regenerating three lost fingers. A rather good trade, you think, for taking off his arm in the process. "You'd allow a spirit, able to shape the soul into something inhuman and unrecognisable, to walk free in exchange for my life? My, my. I must be particularly disruptive to your little society."

"You're beaten." His voice is sharp despite his clear exhaustion. He struggles to restore his arm. "No matter how many of us you kill, you will lose first. Give up."

"Such misplaced confidence. 'Choose to die'..." You sneer and the black iron chains wrapped around you tighten, far colder than you are. You have warmed, somewhat, in Mahito's presence. You cannot be bitter about it when it is he who marks your soul. "Hah! Nothing stops you from killing him anyway – so, politely, I decline. There are only so many of you. You will run out of bodies before I do."

As you speak, your image flickers in an attempt to split your consciousness into the deep shadows around you. The chains chew into your skin and you hiss as your control dissipates like a candle blown out.

"Interesting," the sorcerer murmurs, gazing down at you pensively. The red flames swirl behind him. "Interesting that your bond with that curse truly did win us this fight. I admit – I was sceptical it would work. You're... not what I expected."

You turn your gaze to Mahito, crumpled on the ground with his long, straight hair creating a curtain over his features. He grasps the handle of the blade, trembling slightly, and his breaths are shallow and rapid as he attempts to pull it out. He can only whimper in pain – too quiet for anyone to hear. But this battle is a secret under darkness and belongs to you. You close your eyes to his furious cry and panicked breaths as the blade refuses to budge and saps more of his strength with every second.

Run, you implore, and his head shoots up, pale eyes meeting yours. Cursed energy surges beneath your skin, rippling and bubbling with bloodthirst. Run and don't look back. Mahito, you must survive at all costs. Do you understand?

The chains quiver and the links bend out of shape, their strange unearthly metal creaking. Your body strains against it, fingers elongating into claws and mouth growing jagged fangs. Your skin rips and flickers, bleeding dead galaxies. The chains bite into your shadowy flesh, but you grow larger despite it.

The sorcerer takes a step back.

Go, your voice rasps in his head, syllables rough and struggling in the monstrosity of your own body. Mahito's eyes widen as the chains groan, shuddering with effort – and snap.

He pulls himself to his feet, pale grey kimono tattered and stained. He grips the blade lodged in his chest and stumbles away, chasing the safety of the tree line.

You roar, twice as tall as the sorcerers around you, cutting them down with rapid, decisive blows. In his state, he doesn't notice the sorcerer turning in his direction.

But you do. With a shriek, you launch yourself at him, breaking through the ranks of sorcerers trying to stop you in a burst of viscera and bone. You seize the man giving chase after Mahito, and his whip-like technique is nothing against the overwhelming strength of your new form. One slash of your razor-sharp claws and his technique putters out in his limp hands.

Mahito spares you one last, desperate look, before turning and running into the darkness. You pull the shadows closed after him, deepening the shadows around him until you have him in your grasp.

Live, you say wistfully, releasing him from your shadows as far away as you can by a riverbank. He collapses and attempts to slip the blade out from between his ribs. He quivers with effort, and you don't turn back to the sorcerers picking themselves up for one last push. As long as none of them find Mahito, you will accept the consequences of your hedonistic actions. Live for me. Please.

You languish in your prison for one thousand years.

—

Mahito beams, nodding so hard his head threatens to fall off. "You remember me! I knew you would!"

Slowly, as if learning how to move one muscle at a time, the hand cupping his face brushes its knuckles down the edge of his cheek. When it reaches his chin, long fingers wrap around his throat as if to choke – then, they release. Using the first three fingers, the shadowy spirit grasps Mahito's face, turning it further up towards him. The top of Mahito's head only reaches the spirit's ribs – or where they would be on a human.

Mahito, the spirit calls joyfully, lifting its other hand to cup his face with a flourish of a long, wispy sleeve. Draped over him, the spirit's shadowy robes engulf him almost entirely. Oh, Mahito, my darling pale bone-shard...

He laughs, accepting everything with a smile that seems too ancient for someone like him. It's the smile of one who's known loss – not his usual grin of frivolous naivete.

"You look awful," Mahito says, with a little pout and a frown. "Come! I'll get you back to full strength. But I suppose that guy behind me will want introductions. No number of old scrolls or tomes would get him your name."

That name was never mine, the curse declares. Humans could never know me as you do. My strength is not theirs to invoke.

"Alrighty," Mahito says. He spins on his heel, hair bouncing, and points above him, where the spirit stands – floats – behind his shoulder. "Geto-san! This is YN! I knew him back in the day. He had a bit of a cult, too, so I think you'll get along splendidly."

That piques his interest. That white-haired sorcerer – probably a member of the Gojo clan, Suguru thinks with an achy little throb, if his paleness was a family trait – had mentioned something about your perceived divinity. He wonders why you'd pay attention to any of those ignorant monkeys.

"You're probably thinking about the whole cult thing, right?" Mahito comments offhandedly, tossing and catching the silver brooch he stole from you. Despite this, you haven't pulled down your hood. The straggly ends of the cloak hang by your arms.

"I won't say I didn't wonder."

"Don't worry, it's not a long story." He clears his throat importantly. "Back in the day, we didn't have curtains or anything to hide the results of our actions, so what we did must've seemed like magic or something paranormal to humans. My YN was often seen before and after destruction like plagues and floods, so word began to spread of a beautiful man who would save those he appeared to. Of course, this was survivorship bias. If he killed 'em, not like they could say that to anyone, right? So that's how people began to worship him."

"How fascinating," Suguru murmurs, eyeing you up. "Before, I saw your... memories. Was worship how you grew so much stronger than a normal curse?"

You finally look up, having been concentrating very hard on Mahito and his new appearance. His clothes are strange, but you're beginning to come around to them. Apologies. My body is not quite... complete. Some portion of me may have passed through you as I formed. You touch Mahito's hair, rubbing the strands between your fingers, and he giggles up at you. Perhaps you are right. Evolution was always within Mahito's portfolio, not mine. I should have been constant, unchanging, like the night. Odd, isn't it?

"The form you gained right before you were sealed away – do you still have it? Or was it a result of their belief?" If he could sway you to his side – gain your abilities – it might be enough. Just enough.

You consider his question. Human emotion is potent. I may no longer have shrines made with my image or prayers whispered in my name, but there are infinitely more humans now to draw from. I may gain it back – in time.

"Fascinating," Suguru repeats. He extends his uninjured hand with a kind smile. "Then please – allow me to be your host in this new era. I own a temple with a not-insignificant number of human visitors. It may help you recover."

You glance down at Mahito. He nods encouragingly. "He's not a bad guy to be around, I promise! A little uppity, but with the strength to back it up. You'd be with me. We'd be together again."

You pause, your large hand halting on top of Mahito's head, where you'd been petting him. He blinks up at your featureless face, and shadows waft from your shoulders –  a sigh, or what passes for one with your inhuman anatomy. Very well, you relent, taking one of his ponytails and tugging lightly, I will follow. Be grateful that I bow to you.

"Oh, yes," Mahito giggles pleasantly, leaning into your stomach. He props his chin on your ribs, staring up at you with a grin. "Verily, my lord. When we arrive, I'll even show you how grateful I am."

You cup his face gently, squishing his cheeks. You run a thumb over the stitches below his eye. Dubious little creature... Lead on – we have much to talk about.

—

Recovery, you find, requires mostly time. The first thing you do when you regain sufficient strength is create a new body – one Mahito is familiar with, and which looks almost entirely human. For all your distaste, their physical anatomy is simple and useful, and you can spend less effort holding it together than most other shapes. Geto Suguru, as you come to know him, is incredibly interested in you and your capabilities, almost invasively so, and hates humanity quite a lot. You avoid him where you can.

You enter the room you were given by ducking under the lintel, one which Mahito now shares with you. Once you heard where he used to reside and what it was had been explained to you, you had been firmly insistent he come with you rather than you with him. Sewers, you claimed, were no place for the beloved of a god.

He is at the dresser in a grey kimono, which grabs your attention. He runs a brush through the pale blue-grey hair swept over his shoulder. He opens his eyes at the sound of the door sliding open, a smile automatically tugging at his lips.

"You're back," he says warmly. "What did Geto-san want this time?"

"He has trouble sleeping," you reply, taking a seat on the bed. It is odd, you thought once, that a traditional temple like this would incorporate such modern furniture, but Mahito seemed to like it, so you kept your mouth shut. "I drew him to slumber."

Mahito hums knowingly. "Humans, right? So messy. Him especially. Man, emotionally, that guy is a wreck – gets so worked up over nothing."

Politely, you ignore the invitation to complain. You may be a curse, but you have some dignity. "He freed me from a thousand years of imprisonment, Mahito. It's the least I can do to repay him."

He frowns. "I freed you."

"The seals prevented you from doing very much, Mahito," you say, amused. "If he wasn't there, you'd still be banging away at it. However, you did figure out where they kept me and kept me alive in your memories when no other did. I am grateful for that."

"If you were less judgemental of the other curses, I'm sure they woulda remembered you fondly," he rebuts. "You were too much of a lone wolf. 'Ooh, Sukuna's eating my worshippers 'cause I told him he's not cool! Kenjaku badgers me way too often about his dumb plans!' If you didn't complain about them to their faces, I'm sure they would've been happier to remember you."

You scoff. "Why should I care? I have you."

The tone of your voice warms what passes as his heart. He turns on the stool to face you, setting down the brush and picking up his hair ties. He begins to section his hair into three parts.

"I mean that much to you, do I? Little old me, more important than the favour of the great King of Curses," he coos, rising to his feet. He offers you a hair-tie with a soft smile, and you accept it. He crawls into your lap, sitting with his back to your chest. He hums as you comb your fingers through his hair, fumbling only slightly with the intricacies of a braid. It's been a long time since you've had hands.

"What does the King of Curses have that I care for? He is strong, but has many enemies. He is an arrogant, fickle creature and desires no equal, only slaves and followers." You adjust the thick locks of hair you've left loose to frame his face. He seems to like threes, so you'll keep it similar. "I like to do as I please. He is feared – I am fear."

You consider your next words. "He is also very rude."

Mahito barks out a laugh. "Careful. If he hears that, you'd be sliced up quicker than you can say 'oops'."

"You say he is now little more than a set of relicts. I wonder – if I kicked him around, would he know it and come later to kill me?"

Mahito presses a finger to his lips thoughtfully. "I don't think so. They don't seem to hold any sentience by themselves. Even curses empowered by the fingers don't look like they contain any part of 'him'."

"Interesting."

"Remind me to never let you carry his fingers."

"Of course." You tie off the end of the braid, sitting back to admire your handiwork. A human had come in with something similar, and you'd been too preoccupied with how it might look on Mahito to really care for what Geto was doing.

(You didn't care much for what any of them were doing, truthfully. Their idea for a world of curses was not quite uninhabited enough for you, as the god of the endless night and the perfect, empty void. It was only because of Mahito's unique technique that you let him live beyond your initial meeting, after all.)

"You kept your hair long," you say, voice a low murmur.

Mahito glances over his shoulder, gazing up at you through his messy bangs. A sly smile curls at his lips. "Oh, you know," he waves a hand carelessly, "you liked it better this way."

You prop your chin on top of Mahito's head. He grins. "You always wore it like this?"

"Well, I sat like a rock at the bottom of a river for a couple hundred years, so no, not always. But when I did like to have hair – yes, it was long."

You rest your hand around his throat, like a collar. Mahito smirks, dancing his fingers over your knuckles. "Hey, now... What's this doin', big guy? Careful – I'm half your size."

"You do not have to look like you do. I would adore you regardless."

"How cute! But it's no fun when we're both too big for the bed." He turns in your lap, straddling your thighs, and playfully plucks a thread loose from your haori. He cocks his head to meet your eyes with a smile when a brief scowl crosses your face. "C'mon, lighten up! You're out of the slammer! What better way to celebrate than with me? If you want, we don't have to do it on the bed. Maybe on the floor... Out in the forest... Drenched in human blood..."

"Mahito, Geto is across the hall. You are loud."

"He can plug his ears. I'm sure he's got a curse somewhere in him for that." His grin broadens freakishly. "I also want a curse inside me."

"Mahito," you growl, your grip tightening on his hips.

"Oh, say that again." He shows the whites of his eyes briefly with a teasing moan. He drapes his arms over your shoulders, wiggling around and settling comfortably in your lap. Your shoulders tense. "Such a bore. Hey – I'm better with my technique nowadays. Y'know how much fun we could have?" He leans in with a giggle, lips brushing your earlobe. "Gimme ideas. I'll make you feel so good."

Concentration was always the common denominator. He was once easily overwhelmed – he'd like to think he improved.

"I still tire quickly," you say, and not even you can obscure the annoyance in your voice. "Belief is so hard-won these days. I fear you'll have to be gentle with me."

He giggles, though his expression softens – or as much as it can for him; perhaps 'less-crazed' is a fairer term –and he drags his tongue hotly against your jaw. It's a kiss – his version of one.

"Okay," he sighs dramatically, kicking his legs childishly. "Hm... How about this? Tonight, shall I be your prince, princess, or," he winks, "your master?"

Your lips purse. "Gods do not have princes or princesses. 'Divine right'." You scoff. "Don't make me laugh."

"You'll always gimme your 'divine right', though, yeah?" He wiggles his brows cheekily. "Your sacred sceptre. Your god rod—"

"Mahito."

He sulks for only a moment before perking up again, tugging at your sashes and collar to open you up for his eyes only. He traces the marks on your skin with a hum.

"You and Sukuna have a lot in common, you know."

"He's a fool. I hope that's not what you mean."

He snorts. "Relax. I didn't mean it like that. I like you more, anyway."

"I'd certainly hope so." You flex your fingers, lifting one hand to measure against his waist. "I endured a thousand years of imprisonment for you."

"You're gonna bring that up constantly, aren't you?"

"Only when important. Do you know how small it was on the inside?"

He sighs. "I'm never winning an argument again."

"You've already won my heart."

"Your heart!" He laughs. "What a human thing to call it."

You lean back, allowing him to push your kimono off your shoulders. "Call it what you like. Be what you like. I've spent too long away from you to care for names and titles." You trace the stitches running across his hips. You lift your eyes, and Mahito's breath hitches at the hunger in them. They swirl with empty galaxies and dead stars, and he finds himself subconsciously leaning in, longing for that cold, dark and very gentle place. One day, at the end of all things, you will bring him there, lord of nothing and lord of everything. Perhaps he'll learn how to touch his soul to yours, like bubbles, and you'll never have to leave him again.

"Is this what you want?" he whispers as you strip him bare, his grey silk kimono pooling on the floor. "Me? Just me?"

"I have no need for anything else. Power, armies, what have you... Sukuna, Kenjaku, even this Geto – their plans are so short-sighted. Everything will come under my hand eventually. Until that day arrives, I am content with you."

"So romantic," Mahito murmurs, a coy smile pulling at his lips. "Can I also come under your hand? Pretty please?"

"Must you ruin everything I say with a filthy joke?"

He pushes you backwards onto the bed, hovering over you with a grin. He grinds down on your lap under the pretence of getting comfy and he relishes in your groan. "You just set them up so perfectly for me! How could I not?"

You click your tongue. "I indulge you too much."

"Not enough, I'd say. Took me way too long to get into your pants. Do you know how desperate I was at times? You expected me to see you doused in human viscera and not want you all up in my guts, too... Ridiculous, in my humble opinion."

"Sex is such a human notion."

"You say it like it's a bad thing," he whines. "I have to say, it's pretty fun. You like it, too, don't you?"

"Hm."

"C'mon, we're both here because of humans. We aren't, like, appropriating anything." He reaches down, palming the bulge below your kimono. His grin widens. "If you don't like it, why did you give yourself the parts for it? Ha! Checkmate."

He yelps as you grab him and toss him down onto the bed, pinning him under your weight. He stares up at you with wide, innocent eyes, his loosened kimono gaping at the chest and stomach.

You rake your eyes down his lithe, pale body, humming when his breath hitches at your touch. You glide your hand down his side, tracing the smooth curve of his waist and hip.

You reach down by his hips and part his kimono further. When the silk falls open, you are greeted by a neat patch of grey hair – and glistening pink folds.

He giggles at your expression. He twirls his hair around a finger and bats his lashes, which might be thicker and longer than usual. "Now we match."

Clicking your tongue, you curl your fingers around his slender thigh and part his legs, eyeing him unblinkingly. He's not sure if he should be aroused or offended – you're hard to read and he's never sure what you like. Perhaps that's part of why he stayed – you were like a game – but now, a thousand years later, he can't help but feel... unsure? Nervous?

Afraid?

He wants to laugh at the concept. Him? Afraid of your opinion of him? How disgustingly fragile.

You're talking now, and the sound of it snaps him out of his spiralling thoughts. You've always had that effect on him.

"I'm not sure how we match at all, Mahito," you're saying. "As spirits, we are incapable of siring spawn. I would say we match less."

He whines. "Hey...! I put all this work into looking nice for you, and you're telling me now that you don't like it? Besides, who're you to say we can't have some little curse babies, asshole? There's never been another me – maybe I'm the exception. Maybe I'm better than the rest of 'em."

At last, you lift your eyes. Mahito wants to curl up beneath your gaze – you are terrifying and comforting all at once. "No," you say softly. "You are one of a kind."

A smile splits his face, cocky, and he sits up, leaning back on his palms. His kimono slips teasingly from his shoulder. "Mmhm, that's right... Boy, you sure know how to make a guy feel special."

You tilt your head, considering something. You stroke his thigh, absent-minded, and he presses into your touch. "You don't know for certain – about spawn."

"Obviously not. I was sitting among the rocks of the Shinano River for, like, eight hundred years. You want me to fuck a fish?"

"Why?" You lift a hand as he opens his mouth to snark at you. "About the river, Mahito. Not the fish."

He frowns, his lower lip jutting out slightly. "You told me to survive! I did just that. I'm not sure why you sound so disappointed."

"You, resting in the same place for hundreds of years? Wouldn't you have grown bored? I'm sure it did not take that long to heal from your wounds."

He huffs, crossing his arms. He tugs his leg out of your grasp. His hair falls over his features. "You were dead, for all I knew! When I didn't know much about anything, you were there to teach me. For the first time ever, you were gone, and if they'd managed to kill you, what would they do to me?" He flicks a wrist, sleeve whipping your side. "You told me to live. To survive. So I did, okay? After all, it was the last thing you ever said to me. I had nothing else left of you."

The air is heavy. Neither of you moves a muscle.

"Mahito," you say softly.

He throws himself backwards onto the bed with a bounce and a soft thump, hands over his eyes. He tries to kick you, but you catch his ankle. He scowls. "Stupid. Asshole. Jerkface. Don't say my name like that."

"Mahito."

He gulps as you close the distance between you, your palm pressed to the mattress beside his head. His breath hitches as your hand glides from his ankle to his calf, holding it over your shoulder. You don't quite pin it there, but you leave your palm open, steady against the outside of his knee as it presses against you.

"You've grown soft," you observe.

He crosses his arms and tries to glare. It's a little hard when you're kneeling between his legs, your lips six inches from his own. Do you still taste the same? "No, I haven't. You just knew me before I lost everything."

"Let me return this to you, then." You part his kimono fully, the silk pooling on the bed. You reach for your own clothes, though your eyes remain trained on his. They remind him of a fox, quick and clever and sly. "Can I make it up to you, Mahito?"

He sniffs, glancing aside. His arms uncross. "Fine."

"Thank you."

You're so stupid. And polite. Ugh.

Your fingers travel down between his thighs. His throat bobs as you slide your middle finger between his wet folds, coating it in his slick. He shifts as you thrust it in gently, exploring him. Your warm palm cups him, something possessive in your touch, and as he relaxes around you, you slip a second finger in.

He gasps sharply, his hands shooting up to wrap around your biceps. You halt, buried in to the knuckle. It's hard not to be – his walls pulse around you, sucking you in.

"Am I hurting you?"

He shakes his head. He offers a brief, breathless grin. "Nah. Just feels different. Good different. Keep going."

You nod, sitting back on your heels to watch the way his cunt flutters around you. You stroke the leg thrown over your shoulder, kissing the ankle, and Mahito lets out a muffled mewl as your thumb presses against his clit.

"Sensitive," you murmur to yourself. You glance up. "Have you done this before?"

He licks his lips, steadying his voice. "What, changing myself like this?"

"Yes. For your own pleasure, rather than for battle."

"No," he admits, legs tightening around you. "This is the first time."

Humming, you glance up at him, allowing a smile to grace your features. "Then we can explore it together."

You pull your fingers from him – and with a thoughtful look, you place them in your mouth. Mahito's breath hitches as you swirl your tongue around your fingers, relishing in the taste.

"Sweet," you declare, and place his leg gently down on the bed. You settle at the base of the bed and tug him down by the thighs, staring up at him with playful eyes. "You wouldn't mind if I had a taste from the source, would you?"

He shakes his head, and it tips back with a moan as you bury your head between his thighs. You lap at his soft pink folds, and as you push your tongue inside, he slickens up, walls hot and pulsing around you. He squelches as you push in deeper, slick dripping from his eager hole. He grips your hair with both hands, moaning in delight as you fuck your long tongue in and out of him, curling roughly against the spot inside him that makes his head spin.

"Awh, fuck," he whines, laughing breathily as his spine arches and hot pleasure laps at the base of his spine. "F-Feels even better than I thought it would—! Ah, hah, gimme more!"

You draw your tongue out of him, making him whine and pull your face further into his fluttering cunt. You suck at his clit, lifting a hand to raise the hood of it as your tongue circles and your teeth graze it – he jolts in surprise, hands tightening in your hair. 

"Patience," you purr, tongue laving over his reddened clit. You push it inside him, wriggling about experimentally as his throbbing walls stroke the length of it, hungry and devouring.

"I already waited a thousand years!" he says, almost angrily. His heels dig into your shoulders as he lifts his hips, chasing a high. Your tongue is so long – it massages that rough patch of nerves at the back of his cunt and he seizes, crying your name as you grip his hips and lift him to your lips.

He takes what he wants rather inconsiderately, slick dripping down your chin as you kiss his hot folds. He's practically humping your face, grinding against your mouth and the tongue sinfully deep inside of him. You groan as his moans pitch higher, whorish, and he begins to tremble around you.

So quickly? You're amused. He's missed you more than he's willing to let on.

You fuck him with your tongue, saliva and slick mixing on his fair skin, and he's positively dripping, every thrust squelching and pushing out a sweet gush of pleasure into your waiting mouth. You swallow it blissfully, your thumb circling the wet nub of his clit.

With a wobbly, high-pitched cry, he shoves your face into his gummy cunt and comes on your waiting, writhing tongue, thighs seizing around your head and locking you in place as he coats your chin in his hot, sticky slick.

With your tongue buried deep inside him, flicking about and pressing curiously against his soft walls, he lets out a shaky whine, grinding against you with rough rolls of his hips. It's not an unfamiliar motion. He takes you so prettily, soft smooth folds now dark with lust.

Shakily, Mahito releases you, body sagging into the mattress. He pants and gasps, the tense heat between his legs unbearably achy and needy. He wants to melt.

"S-So… good," he sighs, a broad grin crossing his face. You lap at him lazily, and he twitches. "Mm… Now gimme your cock, 'kay? Nice 'n' deep. Promise me."

"Promise what?" you ask, licking your lips and wiping away his come. Your eyes glint with satisfaction as you set down his unsteady legs and crawl between them, the bulge in your trousers straining in its confines.

"That you'll fuck me up," he whines, turning onto his stomach and lifting his perky ass. He gazes over his shoulder at you, wiggling his hips and spreading his knees further to show off his tight holes. "You can have either one – jus' want you in me, okay? I miss having a big cock in my belly, miss being fucked and filled up until 'm all swollen and can't move." He pouts, his eyes half-lidded, and presses his ass against your bulge, grinding lazily. "C'mon, big guy. Don't you wanna put your baby in me?"

His eyes shoot wide open and his jaw drops as a thick, throbbing intrusion splits his pussy apart. He can't help his eager moans as you set a steady pace, his loosened pussy sucking you in with ease. He scrabbles at the sheets as your grip tightens on his waist and drags him down to match every thrust – he grabs the headboard as your cock kisses his cervix, making his eyes roll back.

"Oh! Y-You're cold – big – so muh – much," he cries brokenly, pressing his palm against his stomach. He shudders at the icy temperature of you inside him, making his hot walls ache and throb with such need that it borders on pain.

On every harsh thrust, he feels you glide against his palm, filling him up so completely that he can barely breathe – that feeling, of every breath physically restricted, makes his eyelids flutter and his pussy clench and flutter. His wet warmth surges down your thighs with his high, and you groan as he jolts and whines.

"You can handle it, Mahito," you note with a soft hum. Your touch grazes his clit and his breath stutters. "You have before, haven't you?"

"I-I'm rusty," he tries to joke, but it comes out flimsy as you shift and he clamps down punishingly around your cock with a moan. "Oh, fuck!"

Your hips snap into him and he fumbles slightly, grabbing one of your hands on his hip. He slumps into the mattress, lifting his hips as you fuck into his swollen heat, slick and soft around you. Little chained moans fall from his lips as he twists the sheets in his fist; his body jolts back and forth with your thrusts, his long blue-grey braid bouncing over his shoulder.

"Feels so g-good," he slurs, legs shaking like leaves. He spreads them, reaching down to split his sticky pussy lips with the V of his fingers. His lower lip quivers as he gazes at you over his shoulder. His bangs are a mess over his lust-blown eyes. "More – more, more, I want more—! Make me yours again, ah, right there—"

"Quiet now," you murmur amongst his choppy moans. "Geto will hear you."

"Wh-Whose fault is that?" he whines, the expression on his face fucked out and deeply flushed. "H-Hah – bet he'd be jealous, anyway! He wants you but you're all mine! Mh—"

You chuckle softly, leaning over him with a palm braced by his head. He feels small like this – protected. He whines into the bedsheets, his pussy dripping down his inner thighs.

"Mahito," you say, almost admonishingly. "Are you jealous?"

"Of that – ah – human? No!"

You trail your lips up his shoulder and neck, nipping at his ear. "Mm, of course. But I do think it would be prudent to watch him carefully. That technique of his may prove... troublesome."

Mahito sniffles, come-slick walls clamping around you and making you grunt. "S-Stop talking about him."

"So you are jealous."

"I just don't like it when you talk about other people when you're inside me." He attempts a glare, but his ruined expression quivers when your cock kisses his womb, tears welling up along his lashes and sticking them together. "Th-That's a normal, hn, r-reaction."

"Would you like me to talk about you, then?"

He averts his eyes and nods, tiny, into the sheets. You press your lips to the stitches trailing over his shoulders, admiring the contrast between the dark lines and Mahito's pale skin. You pick up the pace, thighs clapping against his ass, and his moans grow louder, more desperate, as his pussy flutters dangerously around you.

"My Mahito is so sweet to me, greeting me with this little piece of heaven here," you purr with a particularly teasing thrust into his cunt, nuzzling into his hair as he grips your forearms for stability. He nods reverently, lips parting and eyes rolling as you shift your hips and fuck him quick and hard into the mattress. His toes curl as he cries out, every thrust knocking a whiny moan from his throat. "My Mahito did so well, listening to me all that time ago... You're so good at obeying me, aren't you?"

"M-Mmhm," he whimpers. "Yes! Yes, I did, I always listen to you, oh, god—"

"Ah-ah-ah... You've been spending far too much time around humans, Mahito." You kiss his neck, and he shudders, your cock filling his belly until he can think of nothing else. He whines as you stroke his side, fingers fluttering over his stomach.

"I am your god," you murmur. "I taught you. I saved you. Perhaps I can even..." You press the smooth bump in his stomach and he lets out a ruined noise, muscles tensing. "Gods create, don't they?"

A choked, whorish wail rips past his lips. The glide comes easy – hotter, wetter. Waves of heat pulse through his core. His hole squelches as a thick ring of white forms around your base.

"Mahito." You tug his braid sharply and he whimpers as his head jerks back. "If you cry out to a god, it will be my name on your lips. You are mine. I won't tolerate anything less than your total loyalty. Do you understand?"

He babbles, whimpered half-words slipping from his lips. He nods to the best of his ability with your grip on his braid, arousal curling hot and powerful in his gut at the growl in your voice. "Yes!" he cries, his ass ricocheting off your hips. The rough pace makes his knees knock together. "Yes, yes, I'm your bitch, 'm sorry – you're my god – hnn, f-fuck, don't stop—!"

"Good, Mahito. Always so obedient for me."

Perhaps he reshapes himself because suddenly he's vice-tight, throbbing around you with a gooey slickness that tugs pink around your shaft when you try to draw your hips back. You suck in a sharp breath.

"Mahito," you coo, stroking his stitched cheek, and he whimpers, tears clouding his vision. "Let me go, dear. I can't give you what you want if I can't move."

"I don't want you to leave again," he sobs, curling his fingers through yours.  He can't think straight.

If – if he gave you a child, an heir... you wouldn't leave him, right? You couldn't. You liked him for his uniqueness – he wasn't like any other curse you'd ever met. You told him so. With the return of the Six Eyes, each day brings forth more powerful spirits, and you are like Ryomen Sukuna, whatever you say. You, too, are fickle, and you are cold as the night over which you reign. If some other curse – or, fuck him, a human – catches your attention, it's not impossible you might drop him for them.

After all, you're so much older than him. What is he but an indulgent curiosity?

As his thoughts spiral away from him, his body reacts to you – his glossy, silken pussy hugs your twitching cock, and the smell of sex lingers heavy in the air. "Oh god, oh god," he whimpers sweetly, brainless and drooling and pierced on thick cock, "oh, god—"

"Yes," you hiss. "You belong to me." You bury your nose in his hair, skin slapping rhythmically and rocking the bed. You bury yourself in his sloppy cunt over and over again, wrapped so perfectly around you. With a low growl that has Mahito's pussy throbbing, ropes of thick come paint his insides, filling him up and dripping from his hot, slippery folds.

He arches into your cold, firm embrace with a frenzied wail of your name, a sound wrecked with pleasure and pent-up desire. He trembles as he creams around you, milking your cock with a hungry desperation, and the pale curls over his pussy are damp with a filthy mixture of slick and come. He throws his head back. His tongue lolls out of his mouth and his eyes roll back at the feeling of your seed spurting deep within him, his insides so much more sensitive.

Or maybe he's just missed you. Either way, his throat feels raw, and the shattered whimpers that crumble from his lips as he collapses into the bedsheets are all he can manage, his pale eyes half-lidded and fluttering as you continue to pump him full. You stroke his stomach as if he's something sacred and murmur sweet nothings into his ear as he twitches in your arms.

He mewls, panting, as you eventually pull out, his gaping pussy clenching around nothing as your seed dribbles down his thigh. Without your grip on his hips to keep him up, he crumples to the bed in a dazed, soiled heap. His cunt squelches when he moves and he licks his lips, trembling slightly as he raises his head to look at you.

You're beside him now, gazing back with those beautiful eyes of yours. If he stares into them long enough, deep enough, he might catch a glimpse of clashing black holes and dying stars.

That battle an age ago left you with something inescapable. Things used to be easier – you were of the night, and the night was simple with the whisper of something shadowy within the dark. Now you have sparks of something hotter within you. Evolution, change, all of it – Mahito had more of an effect on you than anyone could've guessed.

He presses himself into your side and you wrap his lean body in your embrace. You stroke his hair with a soft hum, combing your fingers through his bangs and tucking them behind his ear.

At last, he speaks up, head resting upon your chest. "I got all dolled up for you," he says quietly. "You made a mess of me. Ruined my hard work."

You kiss his forehead. "Is that not what you wanted?"

"Hey... Don't twist my words."

"I'm sorry."

Silently, he leans up and nips at your jawline, soothing the spot with a kitten lick. He settles back down and you trace the stitches crossing his body, making him hum as you reach the ones following the V of his hips.

"I won't leave you, Mahito. Not again."

He glances up, a fist curling gently on your chest. "Really?"

You nod, staring at the ceiling. He fits perfectly into your side and you clutch him there, protective and possessive in the way he adores. "Yes."

He stares up at you, an unreadable look in his eyes. The corner of his mouth twitches.

"Okay," he says, and closes his eyes with a secret little smile.

[jjkssin]

Embrace of Ruins. Jk

Pairing: King jk x widowed (fem) reader.

Character count: 14,962

Genre: Dark Romance | Historical

Tropes: Dominant , controlling jk, forced proximity, obsession , captive romance, war , fragile female lead, mentions of death, mature.

Summary: When ruthless warlord Jeon conquers a rival kingdom, he slaughters its royal bloodline including the cruel king who once claimed Y/N as his wife. But instead of casting her aside, Jeon takes her as his own, stripping her of her former title and making her his possession. She was never meant to be a queen. She was meant to be his.

The air reeked of blood and burning wood, the sky dark with the smoke of a fallen kingdom. Screams had long since faded into silence, leaving only the sound of victorious banners fluttering in the wind.

The Kingdom had fallen.

This was not just another kingdom swallowed by his empire. No this war had been waged with a purpose far beyond power. It was her. The ghost of a woman he had never seen, only heard of in whispers the famed beauty of the lost kingdom, Y/N.

People had spoken of her ethereal grace, of her skin that glowed like moonlight and eyes that held galaxies within them.

At the heart of the carnage, Jeon sat upon the grand throne, one boot resting on the fallen king’s lifeless body and the golden crown of the fallen king crushed beneath his boot.

The scent of blood and smoke lingered in the air mingling with the screams of the last remnants of a dying dynasty.

His victory was absolute. The kingdom now belonged to him. And so did everything within it.

Including her.

She was a vision in a silk dress , the color of winter’s first snow.

___

Amidst it all, She ran.

Bare feet against the cold marble, her silken gown now soaked in the lifeblood of her people, dragging behind her like a ghostly shroud. The palace corridors, once familiar, had become a maze of death and ruin. She barely noticed the bodies, the shattered glass of once grand chandeliers. All she could hear was the pounding of her own heartbeat, the rasp of her breath and the distant clamor of armored boots in pursuit.

She had seen him.

He had stood amidst the wreckage of her throne room, a wolf in the den of slaughter, dark eyes scanning the ruin with calculated indifference.

He had looked at her like a claim already made, and that had been enough to send her fleeing.

She stumbled through the grand doors of the palace and into the frozen night, her thin gown no barrier against the relentless cold. Snowflakes kissed her tear streaked cheeks as she pushed forward, her breath rising in desperate clouds.

The forest loomed ahead a tangle of frostbitten branches and endless dark. She plunged into its depths without hesitation. The crown she had once been forced to wear had been torn from her head, her hair cascading around her face in disheveled waves.

The trees whispered around her, the wind howling like a grieving specter. Her feet tore through the frozen undergrowth, bare skin sliced by unseen thorns but she did not stop.

She could not stop.

She knew they would come. She had seen it in his eyes obsidian pools that swallowed light, a gaze that spoke of possession and a hunger far more dangerous than the battlefield he had razed.

She tried to be silent, tried to disappear into the vast expanse of snow and night but her body betrayed her. A misstep her foot catching on a hidden root sent her tumbling forward. She crashed into the snow, pain exploding through her limbs as she gasped, clawing at the frost with trembling hands.

She scrambled to rise, but it was too late.

A shadow loomed over her, swallowing the pale light of the moon.

Him.

The air shifted with his presence, heavy with something she could not name. His breath came steady, controlled, unaffected by the chase. He had known this would happen. He had allowed her to run, entertained her futile escape before closing in like a beast playing with his prey.

"You thought you could run from me?" His voice was velvet over steel, dark and slow, as though savoring the moment.

Y/N trembled, her body wracked with exhaustion, yet she found herself inching back, her palms sinking into the snow.

Jeon crouched before her, gloved fingers tilting her chin upwards, forcing her to meet the gaze she had so desperately tried to avoid.

"You should know better" he murmured, his lips brushing against hers. "I do not chase what I do not intend to catch."

The rumors had not done her justice.

She was exquisite, a masterpiece carved by the gods themselves.

Even in her disarray, she was ethereal.

Tears welled in her eyes, but she did not fight. She had nothing left to fight for.

A cruel smile tugged at Jeon's lips as he leaned forward.

"Your king is dead. Your kingdom is mine"

With that his hand moved lower, gliding down the torn fabric of her gown, feeling the tremor beneath his touch. And then without warning, he slid his arms beneath her one under her knees, the other wrapping around her back.

She gasped as the ground disappeared beneath her, the sudden closeness of him knocking the breath from her lungs. Her hands instinctively grasped at his shoulders, clutching at the thick fabric of his cloak as he lifted her effortlessly.

The world around them blurred as Jeon carried her back, his strides slow, deliberate, savoring every second of the act.

His men stood waiting at the forest’s edge, their eyes carefully averted, knowing better than to interrupt.

Jeon was the master of every inch of this kingdom now but she was a different kind of victory.

A victory he would not let slip from his grasp

__

Jeon had wanted her from the moment he had laid eyes on her. A forbidden desire had taken root deep within him when he had first seen her beside the now dead king , a man unworthy of even touching the hem of her gown, much less claiming her as his.

__

The journey from the snow laden forest to Jeon’s kingdom was a silent one. His kingdom loomed ahead like a fortress of stone, walls that could never be breached.

When they finally crossed the threshold into the warmth of Jeon’s kingdom, the heavy iron gates closed behind them with a resounding clang, sealing off the outside world.

He called for his servants, his voice firm and authoritative.

“Take her to my chambers,” he ordered coldly. “Strip her of the dead king’s colors. She wears only what I give her now.”

__

The scent of lavender and jasmine filled the air as the maids scrubbed away the blood, the dirt, the remnants of her former life.

But no matter how many times they washed her, no matter how many hands gently soothed her skin, there were things that could not be erased.

The marks on her body. The scars both physical and emotional that she had borne under her husband’s cruel reign.

Afterward, Y/N was dressed in a delicate white nightgown. It clung to her thin frame, the silk soft against her skin, but it did nothing to ease the chill in her bones. The gown was far more modest than the opulent dress she had worn in her past life but it was far too intimate for her current circumstances.

As the maids finished their task, they led her down the stone corridors of Jeon’s castle to his private chambers.

The room was enormous, warm with a roaring fire. She stood silently before him, her eyes cast downward. Jeon stood by the bed his posture strong, unyielding and as always, a palpable aura of control surrounded him.

He moved toward her without a word, his presence overwhelming.

His eyes narrowed as they settled on her shoulders and arms.

His fingers hovered near her shoulder, brushing against the faded remnants of bruises.

“That pathetic excuse for a king,” he spat, his voice dripping with disgust.

“A man unworthy of a throne, unworthy of a crown and certainly unworthy of you."

Jeon growled, his hands flexing as if he longed to tear apart a man who was already rotting in the ground.

"What did you call him?" he mused, tilting his head. "My king? My husband?" He laughed, dark and mocking.

"No king allows his castle to fall while he cowers in his chambers. And a husband…" He paused, his fingers ghosting over the fading bruises on her wrist.

His expression turned cold. "A husband does not treat his wife like a common whore to be used and discarded. I barely had to lift my blade before he was groveling at my feet, begging for his life like a spineless dog"

Y/N squeezed her eyes shut, the image flashing in her mind. She had not loved the king, but his death had been brutal. The sound of steel slicing through flesh, the gurgled choking as he bled out it haunted her.

Jeon exhaled, stepping back slightly.

"I should make you my whore," he mused. "A slave to warm my bed, nothing more. It would be fitting for the widow of such a disgraceful man."

Her stomach twisted in fear.

"But no," he murmured, as if reconsidering. "Though your husband was a disgrace, you are now mine"

His gaze darkened, something unreadable flashing in his eyes.

"Did he ever touch you properly?" Jeon murmured, his voice turning low, almost teasing.

Jeon chuckled darkly. “Of course not. I imagine he was just as pathetic in bed as he was on the battlefield. Weak. Incompetent.”

He leaned in, his breath ghosting over her ear. “Did he even know what to do with you? Or did he fumble like the fool he was?”

Y/N’s breath stuttered. The air in the room felt heavy, suffocating. She didn’t want to answer. She didn’t want to think about it.

Jeon chuckled at her silence.

“You will no longer be a widow,” he said casually, as if discussing the weather.

“You will be my wife. You wil bear my mark and sleep in my bed and by the time I am done with you, you will forget you ever belonged to anyone else.” His voice low in command.

Y/N's breath caught in her throat. "W-what?

Jeon smirked, amused by her reaction. "You are still royalty, no matter how pathetic your bloodline is. And I do not waste what has value." He reached for her again, his fingers brushing over the fabric of her underdress.

Before she could protest, Jeon grasped the thin strap of her underdress and pulled, the silk slipping from her shoulder with ease.

Y/N gasped, instinctively clutching the fabric to her chest.

"Still shy?" His fingers trailed down her arm, his touch deceptively soft.

"Your husband must have taken his pleasures without care. Rushed. Unskilled."

His gaze flickered over her, unreadable.

"A shame. I prefer to savor what is mine."

Y/N trembled as he grasped the other strap, slowly sliding it down her shoulder. The silk pooled at her collarbones, threatening to slip further.

Y/N’s throat tightened, a tear slipping down her cheek . Heat rushed to her cheeks, shame and something unfamiliar twisting inside her.

"You were wasted on him," Jeon murmured. "But you will not be wasted on me."

His hand gripped her waist, pulling her closer. She gasped, her heart hammering against her ribs.

"You will be my wife before the sun rises. And no kingdom, no force in this world will take you from me."

Jeon murmured, his voice laced with something deeper, something unshakable.

“I could touch you in ways that pathetic fool never could. I could make you beg, make you forget he ever existed.”

His hands slid lower, gripping her thighs holding her still.

“You will know what it means to be wanted,” he promised. “To be craved.”

She closed her eyes as his lips descended, as his touch deepened, as the last of her old self was stripped away like the silks of her gown.

She had been the queen of a doomed king. A nameless ghost in a gilded cage. A woman forgotten by the very man who had sworn to own her.

But Jeon was not a man who forgot what belonged to him.

He pressed her back against the silk draped bed, his gaze burning into hers as he loomed above her, all shadow and heat, all power and intent.

"You will curse me," he whispered, his lips hovering just above hers, "and you will crave me all the same."

His mouth claimed her then, slow and consuming, as if proving his words true. As if sealing the vow between them with something far more binding than marriage, more damning than devotion.

She let herself sink, let herself be undone, because there was no kingdom left to fight for, no crown left to bear, only this. Only him.

And as his hands traced a path of ruin and worship alike, she realized something with aching finality.

She was not lost. She had simply been claimed.

__

The first light of dawn crept through the towering windows, painting the stone walls in hues of muted gold. The warmth of the sun did nothing to chase away the lingering shadows of the night before.

She stirred, her body aching not from pain, but from the imprint of him.

Her body heavy with exhaustion.

Her skin burned where his touch had claimed her, the memory of his hands and his voice still lingering in her senses like a lingering scent, impossible to escape.

She blinked against the morning light, the thick, heavy silence of the room pressing down upon her. The bed was empty beside her, the space where Jeon had been only a ghost of heat.

A low voice broke the silence. “Did you sleep well?”

Her body tensed, her muscles still trembling from the storm of the night before. Jeon stood near the tall windows, his silhouette framed by the light, his presence as imposing as ever.

He looked unchanged powerful, untouchable.

"Get up," he commanded, already reaching for the black silk robe draped over a nearby chair. "We have matters to attend to."

She hesitated, sitting up slowly, the silk sheets slipping from her bare shoulders.

"What matters?"

Jeon turned, fastening the robe around his waist, "Our wedding."

Her breath caught.

Jeon chuckled, "What? Did you think I would leave you as a nameless concubine?" He stepped closer, gripping her chin between his fingers.

She searched his gaze, trying to understand, to make sense of this shift. "Then... I will be the queen of this place?"

"You wish to rule?" His voice was measured but there was an edge of something deeper beneath it.

Y/N swallowed hard. "No. But.." She hesitated, unsure how to put the ache in her.

She trailed off, shame burning in her throat.

Jeon studied her, a thoughtful hum vibrating from his chest. "You are not meant for war," he said at last.

"Not meant for bloodshed and for dirty politics." He tilted his head, his gaze heavy.

"You are meant for me."

His words did not soothe her as he likely intended them to.

She had listened. She had obeyed. She had surrendered in body.

But she would not surrender this.

"I will not marry you," she said, her voice quiet, yet firm.

"I will not be your wife unless I am your queen," Y/N said, her voice trembling but unwavering. "You took my kingdom, my home, my name. If I am to be bound to you, I will not be just another possession. "

His fingers curled slightly, then relaxed. Slowly, he turned, dark eyes locking onto her with something unreadable something slow-burning, something dangerous.

"You will," he said simply.

She lifted her chin, a flicker of defiance breaking through her usual obedience.

"Not if I am not to be queen."

A slow, mirthless smirk tugged at his lips. "Is that what you want?" He stepped toward her, his presence suffocating, the air in the room shifting like a storm about to break.

"A throne?"

She clenched her fists in her lap, her pulse thrumming against her throat. "I was a queen before you tore my kingdom apart." Her voice did not waver, though her breath did. "I will not be cast aside as some nameless wife while you rule alone."

Jeon studied her in silence, the weight of his gaze heavy, assessing. Then, without warning, he moved.

Faster than she could react, his fingers closed around her throat not choking, not hurting, just a firm grip, possessive, commanding. He tilted her head back, forcing her to look up at him, his thumb pressing lightly against the delicate pulse at her neck.

"You speak as though you have a choice."

She gasped softly but she did not break away.

Jeon’s other hand traced the curve of her jaw, his touch deceptively gentle, a contrast to the quiet fury simmering in his dark eyes.

"You were not a queen," he murmured. "You were a prisoner in a cage, a wife to a spineless rat who did not deserve you. You wore a crown but it was never truly yours. "

His fingers tightened slightly around her throat, enough to remind her of his power, enough to send a shiver down her spine.

"And now, you demand a throne beside me?" He leaned closer, his breath fanning against her lips. "No. You will kneel before it instead."

Her heart pounded, her breath shallow, but she still managed to whisper "If I mean nothing more than a body in your bed, end this now."

The air shifted violently.

Jeon’s grip tightened for the briefest moment just long enough to make her dizzy before he released her completely. He exhaled sharply, stepping back, his jaw taut, his gaze dark with something volatile.

For the first time since conquering this land, since taking her, someone had denied him.

And he did not tolerate defiance.

"Very well," he murmured, his voice eerily calm. "If you will not walk to the altar, you will be dragged to it."

Today, she would become his wife.

Not his queen.

He would marry her, not as a political arrangement, not as a necessity but because he wanted her.

He was a conqueror. He alone was enough to rule his land.

__

The silk gown clung to Y/N’s trembling frame, the deep red fabric as heavy as the chains she could not see but could feel in every step she was forced to take. Her hands clenched into fists at her sides, nails pressing into her palms as the realization settled deeper into her bones. The room was deathly silent, the air thick with the scent of incense and candle wax.

Jeon stood before her, a predator draped in black and gold, exuding dominance with every breath. His patience was a thinly veiled thing, stretching dangerously as he watched her remain still, unmoving, unyielding.

"Come forward," he commanded, his voice steady but edged with warning.

Her feet refused to move.

In a single, fluid motion, he closed the distance between them, his fingers wrapping around her wrist in an iron grip. He yanked her forward, forcing her to stumble against his chest.

“You speak of power as if it is something I would give you,” he murmured, his voice deceptively soft, venom laced beneath the words. “You forget your place.”

She gasped, struggling against his grip, but he was relentless, his fingers digging into her wrist as he pulled her through the vast hall.

"You will stand beside me, Y/N," he said, voice cold, final. "But a throne is not something I share."

He did not stop until they stood before the officiant.

A lump formed in her throat, but she swallowed it down, refusing to give him the satisfaction of seeing her break.

Jeon studied her for a moment before sighing, almost in disappointment.

“I was willing to grant you this wedding without force. To let you walk beside me, instead of dragging you like a conquered spoil of war.”

“I did not win this kingdom with patience. I won it with blood.”

Then, louder, he addressed the officiant. “Begin.”

The ceremony was as empty as her heart. No grand feast, no celebration. Just her, him and the officiant bearing witness to the binding of a vow. She repeated them in a hollow whisper, her voice barely her own.

But as he pulled her in for the final kiss, sealing her beneath his name, his rule.

He tasted the salt of her tears on her lips.

For a moment, just a moment, he felt the bitter sting of something less than victory.

Because despite binding her to him, despite claiming her, despite stealing her body, her name. He felt the weight of something he could not conquer.

He had burned kingdoms for her. Killed kings for her. Stolen her from the ashes of a life she never wanted. Yet her sadness was a wound he could not stitch.

Jeon had indeed won the war.

But he had not won her.

__

(End)🤍