#If he does come back it would be to kill the pines with sharp objects

[eyelovveu]

hello! for the billford request could you do Bill seeing Ford again after leaving the theraprism? (whether he escaped of genuinely got better is up to you)

omg yes

I think bill would just randomly teleport to ford to tell him about his great achievements 😇🙏 and ford would definitely be shocked cuz he thought bill was dead

Bonus:

[yandere-romanticaa]

It was neck and neck, but this old man won! It's your time to shine daddy Lilia!

Yandere alphabet.

ft! Lilia Vanrouge. 💚

A - Affection: How do they show their love and affection? How intense would it get?

Lilia is very touchy feely and he makes sure that his arm is at least around your waist if he's close to you - he can't help himself, you're just that cute! And I wouldn't describe it as intense per say, just a tad suffocating. He'll leave you be if he sees that you really need it but chances are, the two of you will be glued by the hip.

B - Blood: How messy are they willing to get when it comes to their darling?

That's a tricky question because Lilia is quite hard to pin down. If he does create a mess no living soul would ever know unless he just flat out tells someone. Chances are, he probably won't even need to lift a finger - everyone knows who he is so there is no point for his hands to get dirty.

C - Cruelty: How would they treat their darling once abducted? Would they mock them?

Ah, he'd be such a tease, downright cruel even. He'll taunt them for not paying attention to all the warning signs and red flags, actively gaslighting his darling in the process. His words cut deeper then any blade and darling will have to learn that the hard way.

D - Darling: Aside from abduction, would they do anything against their darling’s will?

Honestly? Not really, no. He wants his darling to come to him by their own will, even if it is twisted in the end. It really doesm't matter to him in the end though as their happily ever after is pretty much here.

E - Exposed: How much of their heart do they bare to their darling? How vulnerable are they when it comes to their darling?

It would take Lilia some time to fully open up to his darling. He's used to being the caretaker, not the other way around. But once comfortable he will open up his heart.

F - Fight: How would they feel if their darling fought back?

Lilia would enjoy it a bit at first but if his darling keeps being persistent he will be very upset. Why can't they just live out their lives in love and peace...?

G - Game: Is this a game to them? How much would they enjoy watching their darling try to escape?

He treats it as both a serious matter and a game at the same time. He's curious to see at how his darling will fall for it and despite him messing around he will toughen up if need be.

H - Hell: What would be their darling’s worst experience with them?

Probably the first time Lilia had tortured them. His knowlege of the human body is.... erie, shall we say...

I - Ideals: What kind of future do they have in mind for/with their darling?

Why, marriage of course! Lilia wants nothing more then to spend the rest of his days with his darling. Wouldn't that be a dream come true? Oh, he'd love a family, with lots and lots of kids! He'd be the best dad in the world, he can already see it! With his ambitions set in motion chances are that this will be happening sooner rather than later.

J - Jealousy: Do they get jealous? Do they lash out or find a way to cope?

He says that he doesn't get jealous but really, that's just a lie. This old man just doesn't want to admit the fact that he fears that he may be boring to his darling and anything of the sorts. If he does get jealous, he just cuddles his darling until he gets better. The perfect payment, yes?

K - Kisses: How do they act around or with their darling?

He's the same pretty much all the time, he's protective and affectionate, very sweet too! Just give him some love and he'll go away....~

L - Love letters: How would they go about courting or approaching their darling?

Very old fashioned with a hint of playfulness. This old man knows exactly what strings to pull and there is no stopping him. Once his sight is set on his darling, it is endgame.

M - Mask: Are their true colors drastically different from the way they act around everyone else?

He shows his true colours in a subtle way, no one really figures out what they are once it is too late.

N - Naughty: How would they punish their darling?

Probably by taking away their privacy and then his punishments will get worse and worse. It really all depends on the severity of darling's crime and Lilia can get even stricter if need be...

O - Oppression: How many rights would they take away from their darling?

It all depends on darlings attitude. If they are kept line he will keep himself in line too.

P - Patience: How patient are they with their darling?

Lilia's endless patience is downright disturbing. He is like a spider just waiting to snatch up his prey and then tear it apart with no remorse what so ever. It also helps that he has all the time in the world to deal with pretty much anything so in case his darling ever tries to pull something, Lilia will just figure something out and stop them.

Q - Quit: If their darling dies, leaves, or successfully escapes, would they ever be able to move on?

No. He'd tell himself that he could handle it, that he was used to death, but he could never get past this. Lilia is probably going to cast some sort of spell on his darling to ensure that their souls are conected for the rest of their days. The poor old man just doesn't want his heart to be broken once more.

R - Regret: Would they ever feel guilty about abducting their darling? Would they ever let their darling go?

Guilt is something that Lilia almost never feels and that would be the case here as well. He is doing this for darlings well being, Lilia knows best! And he'd never let his darling go - once they're in his clutches, there is no getting out.

S - Stigma: What brought about this side of them (childhood, curiosity, etc)?

If he is being honest with himself, he is not quite sure. He mostly blames it on his old age and the fact that he's seen so many humans dissapear in a flash, just like that. And if that were to happen to his beloved... He'd mourn for an eternity.

T - Tears: How do they feel about seeing their darling scream, cry, and/or isolate themselves?

A more sadistic side of him would enjoy such a display - please dear, don't stop. He likes to hear all the little noises you make, they're all just so adorable. ~

But if his darling starts giving him the cold shoulder, Lilia won't be happy about it. He'll poke them and scare them, until he can finally get some sort of reaction, even if it wasn't the one he wanted.

U -Unique: Would they do anything different from the classic yandere?

Well for one thing, he is a lot more creative and fun than your average yandere. He gets away with his obvious stalking and his comments go unnoticed by pretty much everyone, even his darling. His magic is also something to behold and any person that at least has half a braincell would know not to mess with Lilia. He may be small, but he really can be dangerous.

V - Vice: What weakness can their darling exploit in order to escape?

Despite his cheery exterior, Lilia never actually shows any weakness. That is mostly because his darling themselves are his prime time weakness, along with Silver, Malleus and Sebek of course. The only real way to hurt Lilia would be to hurt those three but let's be real, darling can't even approach them. The last thing to do in that situation would be if darling starts hurting themselves but Lilia would take all the sharp objects away the moment darling just pricks a finger.

W - Wit’s end: Would they ever hurt their darling?

On purpose? Never. Out of necessity? Definitely. You see, all Lilia wants is for his darling to be happy, and how can they be happy if he is being cruel? He's torn over this, but there are times when he just has to put his foot down and remind his darling of their place, no matter how much it may hurt them.,

X - Xoanon: How much would they revere or worship their darling? To what length would they go to win their darling over?

His darling is pretty much family to him so he'd go to great lenghts to ensure darling's safety. As for winning them over, he can get pretty cheeky but his flirting mostly subtle, blink and you'll miss it, but it still has that long lasting affect of keeping darling up at night. Just like how Lilia wants it.

Y - Yearn: How long do they pine after their darling before they snap?

Once Lilia realizes that he fell for someone he is going straight for the kill. You only get to live once, what is the point of hidding his affections? He will be a massive tease though~!

Z - Zenith: Would they ever break their darling?

He does have a sadistic side but Lilia truly does not want to do this. He fell for his darling for a reason, he doesn't want them to just be a shell of their former selves. His ideal situation is that his darling remains mostly docile with just a hint of the rebellious fire he fell for in the first place. He can break his darling but he doesn't want to. So for everyone's sake, keep it that way.

Tags: @yourlittlerunt , @phantomness @pumpkiethepie, @twst-rose-prisms, @tsuisute, @delusional-obsessions, @teralavey, @minoux-x, @tiaragqueen

[raddifferent]

I'm late but I'm in the middle of switching jobs so who cares! Here's Day Two of @rosemarymonth2021: Fantasy! This is Chapter 1; Chapter 2 will double as the Chapter 4 prompt because I want to finish this fic rather than do medieval with no fantasy elements. It's my writing project and I make the rules!!

Anyways, as usual the link will be in the replies and the fic is below the cut!

The esteemed Duchess Lepidopterina Dolorosa of the House Maryam, Baroness of the Misted Isles, Devotee of the Midnight Spiral, and Serene Lady of the Obsidian Blade, first of her name, was having a bit of a shit day. As some of her many fancy titles would suggest, she was an adept swordswoman, and she had been honored to be invited to the wedding of Duke Egbert’s daughter. She was more familiar with Lady Egbert than her betrothed, another Duchess of the Troll kingdom, despite being a troll herself. That was one of the side effects of spending an inordinate amount of time in the borderlands fighting off the blasted undead, as she found herself doing now.

Her traveling party had been journeying through the Cresting Mountains for a fortnight now, having crossed the mountain peaks worn oddly smooth by some ancient ocean and cracked in half on their tectonic ascent. The scraggly pines of its forests were dense in places and opened into large clearings in others, creating an unpredictable landscape full of pockets of zombies. Three of the party had fallen when the undead felled their horses, and she’d lost sight of the other two of her companions when the pack had separated them. Now, she fought the beasts alone.

Kanaya raised a shining hand, turning some of the undead near herself. She had a moment to catch her breath and assess the situation. A crowd of about fifteen undead humans and trolls had her backed against the base of a thick pine. At her feet lay a pile of bodies twenty-strong. Her black leather boots were shiny with rotting ichor, and splashes of guts, grime, and gore adorned her oiled outerwear. The Duchess twirled her twin blades, each a deep, midnight indigo sparkling with obsidian glitter, and also with a little magic. Her hands were covered with snugly-fit leather gloves, but beneath the animal hide Kanaya knew the sigils of the Church of the Midnight Spiral gleamed on the backs of her hands. Indeed, her skin itself glowed from the inside, although that was more of a side effect of being a Blessed Resurrectionist. Kanaya lived thirty five years, and died, and was brought back by The Bright Light in the Dark Sky to walk again some fifty more years. Those outside the Church would call her another, luckier undead. A vampire.

Her groaning, festering foes began to clamber close enough to swipe at her again. Kanaya whirled and sliced, removing limbs and heads as the undead shuffled within her reach. Eight more fell, leaving seven standing. Kanaya tried to wipe a smear of viscera from her face, but she feared the back of her sleeve only made the mess worse. She was breathing heavily. The dampness on her boots and the height of the bodies was beginning to impede her. She needed to reach high ground, and soon.

Just then, a golden light shone from deeper in the woods surrounding this clearing. Kanaya jumped to the side just as a zombie swiped at her head, leaving her in the perfect position to see a glowing arrow pin her assailant’s head to a tree. There must have only been one archer aiding her, as only one or two arrows came at a time, but they still landed more rapidly than Kanaya’s own battle maidens could achieve. In seconds, the battle had ended.

Still breathing heavily, Kanaya attempted to wipe her blades off on her jacket before sheathing them. She began to walk towards where the arrows had been coming from.

Kanaya was met at the edge of the clearing by a figure in a deep purple cloak. Her skin was a deeper, redder brown than Kanaya’s own, set in sharp contrast to their white-blond hair. Kanaya met her startlingly purple eyes, which were bright, intelligent, and a little mischievous. She had a golden lip ring down the center of her mouth, and a thin golden chain as a choker. Her clothing was modest but fine, Kanaya’s keen eye picking out expensive brocade in the shirt.

“To whom do I owe thanks for such gracious assistance?” Kanaya offered when the stranger did not speak.

The stranger spoke in a slightly raspy voice with a short, clipped affect. “Arrows rained upon your general area moments before, and yet you walk towards a potential source of danger? Moments after your own life was at risk? You must either be assured of your skill, or very stupid.”

“I like to think I am the former, although there is always time to prove the latter.”

The stranger smiled. “You think it is inevitable you will be proven unintelligent?”

“I find it imprudent to assume one will never make a mistake.”

The stranger raised an eyebrow, the corners of her mouth quirking upwards. “Ah, a pragmatist. We may get along yet.”

Kanaya pursed her lips. “I find I get along with people much better if we have something to call each other by.”

“You would still like my name, then.” It wasn’t a question. They seemed to be hesitating. “I suppose you can call me Briar,” she said with a wry smile. “I’m just a traveler in these woods. There’s nothing I have to claim that involves fanfare.”

Politely, Kanaya did not mention the clearly magical bow, or the fine clothing. “I do have a bit of a fancy title, but I think it best not to rattle off the entire thing. Suffice it to say that you can call me Kanaya.” Hopefully, her rescuer would be equally polite about her weaponry and dress.

“May I ask where you’re headed? I wouldn’t mind some company, and you certainly seem like you need the assistance.” The last was delivered with a smirk, which Kanaya bristled a little at.

“I have been traveling with several others, thank you; we just found ourselves separated after that large group of undead descended onto us. I had almost dispatched all of them when you arrived.” She made a sweeping gesture back towards the not-immodest pile of re-deceased zombies surrounding the tree she had been up against.

Briar smirked harder. “So my assistance is not desired?”

“No, that is not-” Kanaya broke off her objection with a huff as Briar began to laugh. “I would, actually, quite like your help locating my companions. However, I would like to know why you would want to help me. You seem to be taking great pleasure in needling me about needing it.”

The other traveler sobered slightly. “I just know what it’s like to be traveling alone, and the drudgery of not having someone to talk to, no stories to tell around the fire or on the road. It can be better to group up, even temporarily, just to kill the boredom.”

“Did you lose a companion recently as well?” Kanaya blurted.

Briar raised a thin eyebrow. “Not recently, as it were. But yes, I have previously parted ways with those whom I enjoyed sharing a story or three.”

“I would be happy to share tales with you, stranger. My companions would likely head towards the closest inn if they were sure they were separated from me, as that was our next destination. Does that align with your path?”

The other woman smiled. “That it does. When last I consulted my map, the next inn was a half-day’s walk up the road. Shall we?”

As they walked up the road, dappled light gently touched the faces of both travelers. Briar hummed an aimless tune, kicking up dead, brown leaves. They traveled in silence for quite some time, neither quite willing to speak up after such an abrupt introduction. About an hour into the walk, Kanaya opened her mouth and was about to begin some sort of small talk about the weather when they reached the top of a hill. Below them, the trees opened up to reveal a path curving down and around a small, ruined stone structure. What had previously been a large castle town now lay in disarray, the abbey wall crumbling and holding nothing at bay. The peasant houses must have been constructed of wood, as all but their foundations had long rotted away. All that remained was a small stone castle with a single, thin spire reaching high into the sky. Small was relative; the property would have held a baron comfortably in his keep with acres of holdings, but from the vantage point it felt like a child’s plaything.

“Well, that certainly looks interesting.” Briar broke the silence with a chuckle.

Kanaya did have to agree. Ruins such as this one, so deep in the woods, were possibly undisturbed, and might have strange and magical treasures hidden within. At the very least, there would be a few monsters to kill, and get some of her frustrations out. “We should explore it. There is still light in the sky.”

Briar’s smile faded slightly. “You know, I grew up not too far from here. When I was a little girl, we were told a tale in whispers. It was the sort of fairy tale that adults would laugh off, but forbid you from speaking about ever again. Would you like to hear it?”

“Right now?” Kanaya asked, the question coming out more incredulously than she intended. “While we’re stopped in the middle of the road?”

The smile was back. “I can walk and weave words, miss.”

“Well then, far be it from me than to stop you.”

“A long, long time ago, a young king killed what he thought was the last dragon in his lands. His fields were free from fiery terror, and his people lived prosperously for three decades. One day, a winged shadow drew over the land again, smaller than the scourge that had last plagued the land, but still enough to wreak havoc. One dragon spawn had survived, and had lived long enough to exact its revenge.”

Briar stopped to hop over a river, holding out an arm to steady Kanaya as she crossed. Her hands were warm, heat thrumming through Kanaya’s thick gear to her palm where she clasped Briar’s. She let go, and they continued. Kanaya’s hand felt cold.

“The dragon landed on the top of the castle of the now-middle-aged king, and told the king that he would leave the lands be, if only the king would offer his daughter. One life in exchange for the kingdom’s safety.”

Kanaya laughed grimly. “I suppose it was an easy deal to make with the dragon staring him down.”

“I suppose it was,” Briar replied. “He brought his daughter to be scooped up in the dragon’s claws and carried away. The kingdom was quiet and safe for another thirty years, until the king’s son had borne an heir and several daughters, and a new ruler was crowned. The dragon once again flew across the land, and once again sat atop the tower and demanded a companion. Every three decades, the dragon would return, larger than before, and more imposing.”

“And how long ago was the last time the dragon came to the land?” Kanaya asked, playing along.

“Well, that’s just the thing.” Briar held a branch up so Kanaya could pass under it. “The dragon hasn’t been sighted in over fifty years.”

“Do you know why?”

The first crumbling pieces of stone that formerly lined the road to the castle began to rise up from the sides of the road. “No one knows. Some of the bravest in our village once described traveling deep into the woods and seeing a castle with a tall tower, a sleeping monster curled around the top.”

Kanaya squinted ahead, trying to spot the castle. “Did you put much stock in their tales?”

“When I was younger? Not really. Now? Also no, not really. I think if a dragon had a castle, he’d sleep inside of it, not on top.”

Involuntarily, Kanaya burst out laughing. “That’s your justification for why they’re wrong? Not that your country doesn’t have a history of missing princesses, or that you happened to live close enough to the dragon’s castle to find it, but not so close that it bothers you?”

Briar put her hands on her hips. “Would you sleep out in the rain and the cold if you had the option not to?”

“I make a habit not to when I have the choice,” Kanaya ceded.

“Then you admit there’s some logic to what I say,” Briar smirked felinely.

Kanaya rolled her eyes, smiling. “Begrudgingly. At any rate, there was no dragon on that tower when we saw it from above.”

“No,” Briar said. “There wasn’t.”

[idjitlili]

You're dead lachance.

Spike btvs x reader

Summary: Being Giles niece, going to America with him, only to meet Spike. There is anonymous request in here, 'getting locked in a room with Spike.'

A/n: slightly in Sundale , but mostly based in Los Angeles, the reader is British, due to being related to Giles. Hey, that's good for me , I'm British too. There's a request from anon but I'm not going to say to keep it a surprise. Malteser is a chocolate ball. How come I can write this much now? But I've got assignment s at are only 2000k words.

Word count:5019 Longest imagine yet.

Warnings: Language, Twilight hate references,period, questioning if vampires eat that answer is no or unconfirmed.

Not even a week ago, you had came home , only for your parental figure to rush to the door to greet you. Not long after that you were packing your suitcase for America , apparently your uncle Rupert had invited you out there. It had quite literally been years seen you had seen him, but not long until you would again.

In fact , it hadn't been even twenty four hours , before you were stood in his magic store. You weren't even sure why Rupert had brought you here. The suitcase that held your belongings , stood at your feet as Rupert  had welcomed you in, unlike your uncle had expected , the shop was completely empty, people wise.

Forced to sit down, while Rupert  made you a tea,informing you that he would get you settled at his home once he finished closing up his shop. What it felt like hours to you ,waiting, deciding it was best to read the book you had brought with you, not that you could really concentrate you just wanted to get cleaned up , in honesty.

Fingers tapping against the pine table , trying to read Boromir's last moments in Lord of the rings, re reading the same paragraph over , and over. "I tried to take the Ring from Frodo ' , he glance strayed to his fallen enemies,20." Re reading those words same words, unable to comprehend them, like your brain was blocked by a tinfoil hat, that's bullshit. Three arrows he had been struck with, yet he was still able to kill twenty highly trained orcs , more than an average vampire could do.

You were no stranger to vampires , you hadn't encountered one to say, but you knew of Rupert  job as a watcher. Though you had watched Lord of the rings many times (or not it's just replace it) and yet you still couldn't pass it , didn't Rupert have workers to clean his shop? Repeating those words , still. "Hello ,love." You almost peed yourself , standing up abruptly launching your book at the thing that had pulled you out of your distracted book reading.

Bragging your lighter from your pocket, self defence lighter, holding in front of you. As the flame lit,lifting your head up at your 'attacker' , only to be met with a smirk and platinum leather wearing man, who had caught your book with ease. "Really a lighter?" British, you had not spoken to one American , since landing.

You had just continued to stare at him not quite certain what to say, until he did again. "So , Boromir ,hm?"  You hadn't notice him step forward , holding your book for you to take back, hesitating you took it from him slowly. "Uh, yes. Thank you,but ,um, who are you?"

"Spike, and you are?"Who names there son after a sharp object? Spike had smugly smiled , placing his in his trouser pockets, it was if he was proud. You didn't get a chance to respond to Spike, before Rupert had reappeared , standing between you and Spike.

"Spike , get away from my niece, I will not allow you to corrupt her." Spike had gasped dramatically, putting his had over his mouth ,"You're related to him? But Blimey he's all ARGH and you're not." Spikes face of disgust when he looked at your uncle, Rupert had removed his glasses and began cleaning his glasses.

"Was that supposed to be a compliment?" Picking up your bags , as Rupert ushered Spike out of the shop, with you behind to lock up, it now being dark.  "It was lovely to meet you , Giles attractive niece.." "Y/n." "Y/n.." Repeating your name back slowly smiling , only if you knew he was an evil defective vampire.

"Quit the flirting Spike, she's not going to be here long." That was the last you saw of Spike , for now anyways. It wasn't even another 24 hours later , your uncle had sent you off to Los Angeles , to Wesley at Wolfram & Hart.

Wesley...you had seen him in years , since he left England. You being younger than him by some years , but you had been friends with him , being connected to Giles and all. You were brought to America to work for an evil law firm not your ideal future.

That was a year ago , not as bad as you had originally thought, Angel the CEO was indeed broody but he was trying to make a difference. In fact , the job paid very well, and all you did really read up on demons and sometimes view bodies for symbols and such.

Perhaps,yes, it did get quite lonely, it  wasn't like you had you mum to make you meals or anything. All you could have was calls from her now and then. Wesley was your friend; but he was too busy flirting with Fred. The others well, you weren't close friends, just friends.

Today was not a great day for you, first you had gotten to work  without lunch, forgotten a jacket, and Angel scheduled a meeting but you had fallen down the stairs three times. Ten minutes late, a huge bruise on your head , ruffled hair and clothing not looking very bodacious.

Knocking on the door to Angel's office three times gently , before waiting for his response to allow you in. Everyone staring at you , your face flushed with embarrassment. "I-I'm so sorry, you won't believe today has been horrible, I wouldn't have been late if I hadn't of fallen down the same stairs three times."

Heavily breathing from all the rushing, head aching like you had just hit your head falling down the stairs, Angel and the others looking at you with slight sympathy. "I've got to get a look at this muppet." That voice, you knew that that voice, until Spike had appeared from the corner of the meeting room , as you and Angel were about to walk into the room.

Almost bumping into Spike as you and him both met the door at the same time. You two would've bumped right into each other, but he passed right though you. Turning back around to see if you imagined that or not, turns out you didn't Spike was stood in front you , looking at you , with gaped mouth which didn't last long until he was smiling.

"W-what?H-how did y-" "Nice to see you again , love. Well, not long after you left I saved the world, and died. No need to thank me , love," Angel had coughed , pulling your attention from Spike charming smile he was sending your way, to him gesturing you to sit.

Spike had not decided to sit down , but to stand behind Angel at an Angel, one to annoy Angel which you could already see in his face , two to be in eye range of you. Not that he liked you , he full loved Buffy, for now anyways.

Angel had officially began the meeting , head-aching still, probably why you couldn't concentrate, concussion. All you could think was , wow Casper the friendly ghost, well you didn't know he wasn't , and that he was a vampire.

So lost in thought ,well no just pain , you didn't hear the calling of your name or snapping of fingers in front of your open eyes.

"Y/n? Y/n?" Only when there is a touch of a small hand on your shoulder , you realise , looking up to see Fred. "Yes, sorry. Um , I hit my head a bit too hard."

"Angel , she needs to go to a doctor. Her head is literally bleeding out , ""Yeah you should've sent her straight away, she fell down the fucking stairs, for a vampire with a soul , you have no compassion." Spike had interrupted Wesley, to criticise Angel.

You had a couple of days off last week , to visit your family, hence you hadn't seen Spike there before that. You had fallen off your chair when you had felt a hand on your shoulder, moving to see if that was Angel or Lorne, but it wasn't.

"Already on your knees for me?" Spike, staring down at you , smirking what a shock. "I'm not even on my knees, I'm on my butt. Plus what you want me to do mime."

"Okay, okay, Hon, let's go take to a doctor." Lorne had helped you up, as Spike had smiled Wider, as you both left, with some calls of sympathy's.

You only had to have you bloody head , in your hairline glued back together. Not surprising when there was blood dripping down your face like a waterfall. Other than that you were back the next day, carrying on your week like you would normally would.

Each week that went by Spike would come visit your office, mostly at lunch, knowing you didn't leave your office to socialise, only to use the bathroom. It had started with him using the excuse that he wanted to see how you were doing , after falling down the stairs, which was quite hard to believe,as he didn't seem like the caring type.

Then it he came to your office to tell you stories  about him saving the world and just recently , almost being killed by another ghost.

You hadn't even seen that when he entered your office he used the door by turning the handle, instead of going through it. Not at least until he had spooked you again ,placing his hand your shoulder squeezing it slightly.  Falling again out of you chair, probably would've smacked the back of your head on your desk.

If you weren't grabbed by your forearms, and were lifted back onto your feet, by rough hands... Spike had scared you to death again, yet this time he had saved your fall.  Pulling a arm from his, looking into his eyes, as you brought your hand to his cheek, your finger tips against his cheek bone. His skin soft, not how you would've imagined.

Cold.

His skin, cold , but now he isn't a ghost? So why does he feel like the other side of the pillow on a summer night. Moments go by ,not many , before you pulled away again. "Fred , s-she figured out how to bring y-you back?" Still wondering why he felt like ice,  also to hide the embarrassment that you had touched his face without asking.

"No, someone sent me some post,"  The distance between you two was more than close, your legs pressed against your desk, Spike's face barely inches away, he must've closed in on you. "Oh lovely,um have you had anything to eat yet?" He had smiled at you , with lust in glittering in his eyes , but not for what you might think, but hunger.

"I have not." Don't turn Edward ,please, no one wants that ,'Oh I'm sorry Bella but you might die if we fuck, because of my huge Thanos sized dick.' "Oh , well I've got , um, some sandwiches, that's if you want to share." You had gently made your way passed Spike as he nodded slightly suggesting we would share, to get into your bag, reaching for your lunch bag.

Both sitting at the sofa in your handing Spike a sandwich, as you held yours, facing each other, sitting on your calves, well Spike couldn't do that , if you know what you mean. Not long after you had reached for your flask , pouring it into your cup. "Tea?" Spike had grabbed the cup from your hand, drinking a fair lot down, before handing it back to you, mixture of crumbs and tea around his mouth. "You know how to make good tea, not those bloody Americans , milk first , bloody bullshit."

Before anything was said, Lorne had burst into the room , panic washed over his face. "Angel needs you both , quick honeys! We don't have time to spare." To say the least you were confused , never less you all headed to Angel's office and soon enough you were all, Angel, Spike, Fred, Gunn, Wesley, and Lorne were driving to a safe house. 'A rescue mission.' Apparently, you didn't even know who you were supposed to rescue, all you knew was you was all supposed to stay here until they arrived.

Sounded fishy , and you were right to think so, not long after you all discovered it was a trap. Probably just about a hundred vampires, were lurking around the property, waiting...

The floors creaking as you all walked across the the pine wood hallway, not to mention you had barely any fighting stills, all you held was a stake. The others well that ways a mixture of axes , and stakes. Sorry not only vampires in this house, spirits too. Spike had paired off with you , whilst the others did the same , you both walked into a bedroom, which was thick with mould and dust.

Not even one step in the door had slammed shut, Spike had immediately tried the door body slamming against , but it was no use. As you made your way to the window, "Spike.." BANG still going at the door , "SPIKE." Whisper shouting to him, gesturing for him to come over , once he had heard you.

"Vampires..." pulling you away from the window, out of sight." We need to get out of here, now."

"Where? we can't get out of here." Looking around the room there was no options. You don't even get to take a breath ; before the window is smashed in as well of the door, you are both completely circled , 7 vampires.  Before you know it they are lunged for you , gripping your stake tightly , as you fight  a vampire off , with struggle , god damnit. Where's David from lost boys, instead you are stuck with one that's never brushed it's teeth.

Finally stabbing it in the heart. Proof another one bites the dust. Now there was even more dust in this house. The rest of the vampires were dead, you didn't realise that Spike had taken on the rest with no struggle, turning to face you after dusting the last one, his face,his face. He was one of them, he had been dead this whole time , even when he was brought back.

"Y-you're a vampire?" Shocked was to say the least what you were feeling , he had turned back laughing lightly.

"What were you expecting? The Easter bunny?Did you think I was human? This whole time, oh love." It wasn't that you felt like you trusted him less after finding out but still, you're an idiot, no you are not.  "I thought you were because you are my food; Plus I thought vampires were evil?"

"I wasn't going to refuse a sandwich. I have Soul, love. For your information, I got it the hard way, not like that brooding bugger."

"Sorry, Can we go now?" Thus Spike tried the door again, it had opened, both of you rushed out and down the stars , out the doors to find the others in the car waiting , like it was a robbery.

Your lunches with Spike continued even months after finding out he was a vampire; yet now you packed enough lunch for the two of you. Though he could just have his blood, but no he wanted your food. In honesty he was lucky that you actually shared your food with him.

You were sure that Spike must've preferred the company of Fred over you, and there was a day that he didn't have lunch with you. Apparently he had went to see Buffy , yet he was back the next day, why he hadn't stayed with the woman he loved , that was unknown to you. Thus there he was having lunch with you everyday you were at work.

You had even watched Lost boys with him one lunch. "You think I'm like that ponce?" Why the offices had TVs you had no idea. You had told Spike that he had reminded you of David. "W-what, It's not that hard to believe , first both of you have cool hair , two he is evil but the evil that you're like wow he's not that bad , he's cute and maybe he not what he seems. Like Loki, God of mischief." Spike had scoffed, laughing slightly.

"Did you just call me cute? I'm bad , I'm evil, mortals quiver under my wrath." He had made a toothy scrunched face , whilst bringing his hands up like he was a bear attacking, only to make you grin harder. "Okay, now you are a kinky Loki 'quiver under my wrath' seriously?"

"And how would you know what's kinky, love?" His words delivered with a smirk , that made your cheeks redden just by his gaze. "Uh,um, well I read a lot- I MEAN I do stuff all the time like last night.. he had a cane."

"Oh really, he had a cane?"

"Yep thats correct."

"Well that's a shame, love , because I've seen you face stuck in your books , blushing... and I can smell the innocence radiating off of you."

"Hey! Don't go smelling that, so you're telling me that when I have my period you can smell that too? You know what don't answer that, nor do I want to know if you've ever eaten that. Nor do I want to know why I thought of that.." Throwing a Malteser at him, would've hit him if he hadn't caught it in his mouth. 

"I cannot believe you just said that. Love, you have too much time over thinking."

"No doubt , that's why I was never popular , let's pretend I never said that thing and only that compared you to David and Loki, hm?"

"Of course, I wish you hadn't given me the idea,joking I swear."

"Uh, I don't know if you like men or not but when the male part is erected it's one of the most blood filled appendages plus I looked you up, William the bloody, maybe that's how you got your name.." Yes maybe you spent more than your lunch hour not doing work, sitting cross legged now facing Spike completely , who just had turned his upper body from the tv.

Angel though, you'd think he was just happy , happy that Spike wasn't in his office constantly annoying him. It wasn't easy for anyone to keep Spike entertained. "I do not suck cocks nor have I ever , love, I have nothing against those that do,but I assure you that my terrible poetry is the only reason for the name, "

"Nothing to do with you killing hundreds of people?"

"Oh yeah, that too." Nothing more was spoken, you both had went back watching until lunch was over, then you were back to work. By five you had left to go home , not even two hours later you had realised you had left your house keys in your office. You had went to the shops, for some general stuff , hence why you hadn't realised you had left your keys.

Making it back to Wolfram & Hart , around nine o'clock, deciding to get some food , for after you got your keys and got home finally. The security man, Dean, had let you , well no he had was turned doing something and you slipped in, the rest of the firm was dark , everyone had left, or that's what you had thought.

Opening your office door, with your key, why you had it separated from your house key , you don't know , but it was lucky you had one set otherwise someone could've went through your stuff. Well there wasn't much really interesting, ancient books and such. Rushing to your desk in the dark searching everywhere , under your desk, in the draws, the floor.

Finally finding them down the side of the sofa , which you were sat at with Spike, watching Lost boys. When the door swings open , you are quickly grabbed by the foreman's and are shoved against the wall."what are doing here?" The mans voice, aggressive, yet you know who it belonged to, Spike. No very difficult to figure out as you spent at least an hour with him , five times a week, for months.

"Uh, I just left my keys." Spikes grip had loosened on your arms slightly. " Y/n?" Pushing him off of you,"yes, yes it's me , thanks for attacking me, " It was pitch black in your office , only the light from the moon , now on your face , part of it anyways.

"Well, Bloody hell, love you shouldn't be in an evil law firm by your lonesome , especially at night."

"What you are going to eat me now?" Spike wasn't even a foot away; if he was a live you'd feel his breath on your face. Instead the cold air surrounded you, Spikes arm above your head closing you in, only being able to look at his face , an outline of it. "Oh, you'd just love that, wouldn't you,pet?" You had scoffed lightly at him.

"Shut up, my foods getting cold , and I don't like it in here." Ducking under Spikes arm, grabbing your food and key, before making your way out your office and the building. Spike following you ,but the security guard was gone and the door was locked , no way out.

"Well isn't that bloody brilliant."

"There's no way we are getting out of here , till morning ,"

"Can't we call someone?"

"I don't know , do you have anyone's number?" That was it , you both had headed back to your office , found some candle, since the electricity had been turned off, at on the floor with your food. You weren't sure why he decided to stay with you , maybe it was just that you had food.

Your back against the sofa , as you both ate , you were in no doubt that you were talking tomorrow off. You knew you or Spike was going to have to sleep on the sofa, ah yes perfect, back pains. "Why were you here so late anyways?" After finishing your mouthful of food, why Spike would want to lurk here at night , that was unknown.

"Just snooping through Angels stuff, then I heard you, so."

"Ah, of course." Smirking at you , leaning back his palms behind him, sideways on from you, uh , you're not Ryan Reynolds? Actual um, sorry but you're hotter. Your food all gone , except the small amount of drink left.

"Honestly this couldn't be a better day, my keys fell down the side of the sofa , and I didn't realise until I went home. Then this happened , and now we are stuck here, when I could be at home, sleeping."

"It's not so bad, you could've been stuck here with Angel, love."

" You really don't like Angel, I'm not surprised he makes small problems seem unsolvable. Yet within a couple of hours , all is fine. Actually that sounds a lot like me, over thinking everything. But yeah Angels is a bit of an arse."

Spike only smirking at you, in return.

Glancing at your watch , 12:03 , you were only lucky that Spike was able to pick the lock on the toilets. Otherwise you don't know what you would've done, ah yes, peeing yourself in front a rather good looking , dead man. Leaving your office to go pee again , before returning rubbing your eyes as you walked through the door.

"Are you going to get some sleep, love?" Spike had cleaned up all the rubbish, throwing it all away, you wouldn't expect that from dead guy, former mummy's boy. "Uh, if the sofa wasn't built like a rock, yes , but since that's the case no." Settling back onto the floor, careful not to catch on fire, as you crossed passed some of candles.

Instead of Spike replying yet , he had stood up and made his way to the sofa , plopping himself onto it, with poof. "You got to be joking love , you clearly never have lived in a crypt." W h at was it wish vampires living in crypts , or complaining that their huge cold dick will spilt a human in half. Turning to face the sofa, not being able to see Spike, letting out a dry laugh.

"Yeah that doesn't convince me, are you just so old that you don't remember that every day at lunch that I sit on that sofa with you?" Spike had sat up to look at you with a glare ,yet again scoffing. "Well then , Pet, how about you come lay on me, I'm very comfortable."

Without thought you had gotten up , and thrown yourself onto Spike, both groaning as your back slammed into Spikes chest. He was lucky really that your butt bone , not tail bone, the top of your leg one, didn't smash into his parts. Instead he had wrapped around you so you were stuck in place. "I see what you are doing."

"And what is that?"

"I body slammed you, now you're cuddling with me? Mental , you're an ice cube, yeahh sureeee so comfortable, I love being engulfed by Vanilla ice."  Not that he looked much like Vanilla ice but it's a little funny, not really but.

"Hey, I won't stand to be your cushion , with your bullying."

"Didn't you kill hundreds of people? And you get defensive when I call you Robert van Wrinkle?" Turning your head to look up to Spike who was looking down on you, shuffling so that you were laying next to the sofa back and on Spike with your hand on his chest.

"Love,I'll eat you, try sleep." This isn't a Loki imagine when he kidnaps you and it turns out he's a vampire , and he gets busy and drinks your blood for a fetish. Spikes arms around your shoulder , eventually falling asleep with your head on his chest.

Everything was fine, until Wesley and the rest of them had came looking for you. As you was supposed to be in a meeting with them in the morning , so was Spike but they were worried for you.

"Couldn't they do that at home?"

"Can I poke them with a stick?"

"Ah yes, poke the mass murdering vampire , very smart ,Gunn. "

No consideration of being quiet, you both had been woken, it wouldn't be that surprising if Spike was pretending to be asleep , to avoid talking to people he didn't like very much except Fred.

Waking up to see a bunch of people just smiling at you at , wasn't the best. "So, Spike what about Buffy?" Sitting up ,before standing up from Spike, must've hurt having a whole body on you all night , maybe it didn't effect him because he has super strength? Spike just turned to sit on the sofa , unimpressed facial expression, hunched.

"Buffy has her own life, I'm not apart of it."

"I-is this all you came her for? To wake us? And   taunt? I'm taking the day off ," No uncertainty that you wanted to get home, and shower and eat. You had looked back at Spike who had looked back , standing up. "I'll drive you."  Grabbing your bag, before bow in front of Angel for whatever reason. "Thank you so much for locking us in an evil law firm all night. Bye Fred, Wesley, Gunn , Lorne."

"Bye hon." Lorne was always a sweetheart , wishing that every guy was like him, kindest soul and very much cute. Spike and you had left after you had sent Lorne a smile. Walking out with bed hair and day old clothes , not that Spike had offered his arm but you were still holding onto to walk.

Walking past Harmony, she had sent daggers your way, why doesn't she just kidnap Orlando Bloom or something. Gripping onto Spikes arm tighter , walking down the stairs, not falling this time, thankfully. Before you made it to Angels' car park, and got into one of this favourite cars. "Uh, are we supposed to be taking Angels car?"

"What? It's mine, love, what are you going on about?" Opening the the car door at the same time , settling in the seats before slamming the door shut. The windows of the car , made from the same glass that wolfram & Hart was supplied with, since the cars were supplied by wolfram & Hart for Angel, a vampire. That also meant that Spike could drive in the sunlight protected.

"Okay, okay." Once you had made it into your building car park, Spike had walked with you up to your door. Being finally able to unlock your door, with your shopping ,lucky there wasn't any fridge nor freezer items. Turning back to Spike who just stood at your door, grinning slightly.

"T-thank you for staying with me yesterday, and for driving me home." A small blush upon your face, it wasn't unknown to you that you had developed a crush on Spike , how couldn't you? "That's alright ,love." Still stood in front of you, looking into your e/c eyes , you staring into his brightly lit blue ones. He was waiting for you to say or to do something.

Leaning to the side of his face, to press a peck onto his pale toned cheek. Instead of course , he had turned and you ended up pressing your lips , onto his briefly. Pulling away red cheeked , Spike now smirking at you again. "H-hey um, do you want to come and watch Lord of the rings with me?" You weren't sure what you was supposed to say after kissing someone accidentally.

"I would," thus that you held your door open wide, "I invite you into my home."

Therefore, you watched Lord of the rings with a dead man.

[caiminnent]

golden decay [pre-slash kylux, rated T]

PROMPT: definitely just a cold (@badthingshappenbingo​, 9/25) & golden decay (courtesy of @flashfictionfridayofficial, though not a submission for it)

SUMMARY:

“A fuss over nothing,” Hux bites out, sniffing. Doesn’t look that way from where Kylo’s standing. “I’ve got a cold. Dizzy spells and coughs are hardly unusual.”

“The flowers are unusual,” Kylo points out, not unkindly.

FANDOM: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy

TAGS: Hanahaki Disease, Pining, Armitage Hux Has Feelings, Oblivious Kylo Ren, Pre-Slash, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Canon Compliant

NOTES: Ostensibly written for another 24-hour, <1k prompt: "golden decay". I'm well-past both the deadline and the word count limit; but who's counting?

1K || ALSO ON AO3

He finally spots Hux on the officers’ deck, en route to the living quarters.

Relief spreading through him, “General Hux,” he calls out. Hux turns his head with a faint scowl, slowing his pace just enough to let Kylo catch up.

Kylo’s stomach sinks at the sight. Hux looked the same as always from across the room; closer, the deeper set of his eyes turns his face skull-like, his natural pallor an unhealthy shade.

“Hello, Ren,” Hux greets him as Kylo falls into step—clears his throat. “How was your mission?”

“Bad,” Kylo admits. Hux’s going to get the full report soon enough; no reason to hide it. “Not as bad as you look, though,” he adds before Hux can comment on it. That’s not why he hunted Hux down. “I hear you finally dropped on your bridge.”

“A fuss over nothing,” Hux bites out, sniffing. Doesn’t look that way from where Kylo’s standing. “I’ve got a cold. Dizzy spells and coughs are hardly unusual.”

“The flowers are unusual,” Kylo points out, not unkindly.

Hux falters—steadies himself before Kylo can reach for him. Sending him a side glare, “How do you know about that?” he hisses, quickening his steps. “You can’t—you haven’t even been on the ship for weeks.”

“It’s the newest gossip,” Kylo lies. With Hux’s discretion, he doubts anyone but Phasma and the medical personnel has a clue—and those don’t break even under Kylo’s push. “I think there’s a betting pool about who it is.”

Hux’s nostrils flare, the tips of his ears turning an ugly red. “My private matters are no one’s business.”

“Your officers don’t seem to think so,” Kylo pushes just to watch his scowl deepen. “Would you tell me who it is if I asked?”

“Why? Did you place a wager, too?”

“No.” He wouldn’t even know who to bet credits on if there were a betting pool. The only one Hux is remotely friendly with is Phasma; but she wouldn’t have told Kylo about Hux’s condition if it were her.

“Petty curiosity, then.”

It’s not—

Well, okay, it is. Kylo is kriffing burning with the need to know whom the stone-hearted General loves so deeply it took literal root. Who could blame him?

“I’m only concerned for your health, General,” he redirects. “The First Order needs you at your best.”

“You can rest assured I am taking the necessary steps to ensure I will be. I’ve got a—” Hux nods at a petty officer as they pass, pausing until she’s out of earshot. “A surgery scheduled in two standard weeks.”

Breath catches in Kylo’s lungs. Surgery. “Is it so serious already?” How in the hells didn’t Kylo notice Hux’s health deteriorating for so long?

“Not yet; but why prolong the inevitable? The sooner these pesky things are out of me, the better.”

“But that’s permanent. If you follow through with it, you can’t love again, ever.”

Jaw locking with a click, Hux’s eyes dart around for unwanted ears in the empty hallway. “Must you speak so loudly?”

Fine. “Does it have to come to that?” Kylo asks in a lower tone. “Have you talked to them?”

“I don’t need to,” Hux says, waving it off. “I happen to know they don’t feel the same.”

Kylo scoffs. “You happen to know.”

“They’ve been chasing someone else,” Hux says tightly. Raising his fist to his mouth, he clears his throat—clears it again, harder this time. “Quite literally. Now, if we could kindly—”

“I could change their mind,” Kylo blurts out. He doesn’t have a clue how; but the thought of Hux with his chest cut open sets his stomach to fire. He will find a way. “Just tell me who it is.”

Fishing out a black handkerchief, “Leave it, Ren,” Hux chokes—coughs wetly into it, his shoulders shaking with the effort to get the flower out. Kylo’s heart lurches with it.

“I could take the name out of your head.”

“Oh could you?” Hux grates out, bunching up the fabric and stashing it away. Kylo only catches a glimpse of a gold before it disappears. “And what would Leader Snoke say when he hears you rummaged through my head for little more than gossip material?”

Nothing. Snoke doesn’t care about Hux as much as Hux imagines, though he probably wouldn’t like Kylo riling up his top general unnecessarily. “I could still find them.”

“How do you plan to do that? Will you quiz everyone on their favorite flower and compare?”

“Sure,” Kylo throws back, shrugging a shoulder. “Mine are Mysess blossoms. How about yours?”

Striding past Kylo, Hux turns to face him—Kylo stops in his tracks. “I don’t care for your insistence, Ren,” Hux says slowly, enunciating each word carefully. The fire in his steely gaze sends a low, odd buzz under Kylo’s skin. “I’ve made up my mind. I’ve got no reason to change it. As far as I’m concerned, we’ve never even had this conversation. Do you understand?”

His heart pressing hard against his lungs, Kylo nods.

Hux nods back, pulling away. “Now, if we’re quite done here, I’d like to retire to my quarters. You must have missed your bed as well, I’m certain. I’ll be waiting for your mission report once it is ready.”

Hux turns and leaves without waiting for his response, sharp steps echoing through the empty hall. A part of Kylo leaves with him.

The report. After that disaster of a mission, he needs to get it out of the way as soon as possible; but Hux was right on one account: It has been a kriffing long time since he slept on a bed. Things will make more sense once he gets some rest.

He hopes so anyway.

As he turns to his own wing, something on the floor catches his eye—the handkerchief.

He glances at the small bundle, then the corner where Hux disappeared. If he hurries, he can catch up with Hux before Hux reaches his rooms and hand it over without another word. That would be the end of it, for both of them; Kylo would pretend not to know Hux’s love is killing him and Hux could pretend everything is fine all the way to the operating table.

No. No, Kylo can’t—not with what’s at stake.

Kneeling, he picks up his best chance at finding the bastard responsible for Hux’s circumstances with careful fingers. Hux can make light of his methods all he wants; a person’s tastes in nature gives away plenty about their origins. If the flower is exotic enough, Kylo could narrow down the possibilities into a small pool with Phasma’s help.

Unless the object of Hux’s affections is tasteless enough to like roses or lilies best, that is. Hoping against hope that he won’t find some generic plant, he gently unfolds the handkerchief, revealing—

A full Mysess blossom.

[itsbenedict]

Two-Faced Jewel: Session 8

Welcome to the Hotel On-The-Floor, Yeah

A half-elf conwoman (and the moth tasked with keeping her out of trouble) travel the Jewel in search of, uh, whatever a fashionable accessory is pointing them at. [Campaign log]

Last time, the party identified the culprit behind the murders in Barley and Wheat, but... well, it's complicated. The culprit was apparently being coerced by a dragon, and they managed to talk him down rather than fight. If they want that to stick, though, they'll need some kind of plan to get rid of that dragon. And... is it really worth bailing this guy out, anyway?

Saelhen, Oyobi, and Vayen all start discussing their plans in Elvish, which it doesn't seem like Arnie understands. Oyobi advocates for just killing the guy, but is a little less keen on the idea once Vayen advocates for the same. Saelhen would rather give the guy a chance, and points out that there's not much point to killing him as long as the dragon is still around- they'll need an answer for that, and the answer to a dragon is probably just as good an answer to Arnie.

Looseleaf, oblivious to their Elvish chatter, describes the basic plan to Arnie.

Arnie: "So you're, what... you're gonna get the church involved somehow? What're you gonna tell 'em?" Looseleaf: "Well, probably also Deathseekers," Looseleaf thinks, out loud. "We'll tell them there's a dragon conducting sacrificial rituals at the site of an altar to the god of pain. We'll get the church involved by virtue of proving to them that there's a dragon fucking around with divine shit, and we'll get the deathseekers involved by convincing them that there's a dragon stacked to the gills with cool magic items, which we'll prove by bringing them one of said items." "The important thing is to get going as soon as possible, right? There's a time-limit here measured in, uh... human... corpses..." Arnie: "Wait, how are you gonna get one of its magic items?" Looseleaf: "How do you think, mister 'I work for the dragon so he gave me a bunch of magic items to serve his dread will'?" "We'll bring the deathseekers that magic cloak you said you had." Arnie: "Uh, that's..." "Mine, though."

Eventually, after a persuasion roll or two, Arnie agrees to loan them the cloak, as long as it comes back in one piece. He also tells them how to safely retrieve it from the laundry room- as long as they exchange some dirty laundry for the clean cloak, they'll be happy and won't attack. He's got plenty lying around downstairs, which he heads down to grab.

While he's downstairs, the party confers, and decides to all go together to the nearest city- Cauterdale- to ask the local Deathseekers for aid. They figure Arnie's not a flight risk, since he doesn't have anywhere to run and a draconic boss who'll hunt him down if he tries.

(As they prepare to leave, a natural 20 on a perception roll alerts Looseleaf that Vayen has ransacked Lumiere's personal library, stealing- specifically- Lumiere's books on gods and divine magic, for some reason. She doesn't make any objection to this, though- Vayen's a creep, but it's not like they weren't all on board with looting the dead guy's tower.)

With Arnie's bloodstained laundry in hand, Looseleaf heads upstairs and retrieves the cloak without incident. She tries it out, and...

The result of her crit failing her Wisdom saving throw on the magic item is... nothing, apparently. That's always good to hear! The cloak appears to work exactly as intended! She's wearing a very fancy outfit.

Further experimentation reveals a few limitations- first, the cloak's shape is illusory, so it can't become armor or anything with particular utility. Second, it can get overly literal if you ask it to copy an outfit outright- you have to use your imagination properly. Third, it seems to get tired the more you ask it to change, so there's some limit on how often you can update your wardrobe. Those appear to be the only drawbacks!

So, with Arnie temporarily kept from murdering people, the party gets back on the road.

Saelhen du Fishercrown: For caution's sake, Saelhen calligraphs a piece of paper to say WE HAVE NOT BEEN TORTURED TO DEATH, and sticks it on the door on the way out.

As they make their way northeast, they make some Animal Handling checks to keep hold of their giraffes, as something seems to spook them. Looseleaf gets a critical success and is able to calm her giraffe right away... but the party ranger, who is proficient in neither Animal Handling nor Nature nor even Survival, because what kind of monster hunter needs to know that boring crap, has no idea how to handle an overexcited giraffe and is thrown from her mount with a critical failure.

Benedict I. (GM):There's a small sign by the road, heading off west towards what appears to be an actual forest. The prairie is giving way to a somewhat hillier and more forested terrain here, but the forest is thicker than anything you've seen on your way there. And as you're approaching the crossroads marked by that sign, your giraffes all try to bolt for it. Looseleaf is able to realize that they've been forced to graze on grass for miles, and when they see the trees, they get overexcited. Vayen and Oyobi get completely thrown from their mounts, and you have to follow them down the road a bit to catch up with them and rein them in. Looseleaf: Haha, oh, well, hopefully they don't try and spend the rest of the whole day grazing a pit-stop is within tolerances but we really do have to make it to Cauterdale sooner rather than later. Many lives are on the line! Saelhen du Fishercrown: Good thing Looseleaf can radiate peace at them! Benedict I. (GM): Looseleaf is able to beckon them back before they completely get out of reach, and pretty soon you've got them calmed down- but you've lost some time. There's a choice to make here, now: continue on to Cauterdale, but make the last hour or so of the journey in the dark- or rest at the location marked on the map near here.

On the map, where the sign marked "Umbrella Village" points (shut up, I don't even play Resident Evil, don't worry about it), is simply a warning that reads "EVIL WITCHES- AVOID!!!"

Oyobi and Orluthe inform the others that "witches" usually means "druids"- and Zero cashes in something from character creation. Looseleaf's background as an academic provided her with a book on some historical topic, which was never allocated because at character creation he didn't know enough about the world to decide on something interesting. Here he declares it's a book on the history of druids!

Benedict I. (GM): Druids, from what you've read, are sort of like clerics. They channel a divinity of some sort- which is typically revered as Mother Nature, or Gaia, or... every druid you meet is going to have a different name for it, because while it needs to have a thing to call it by, it is emphatically not a god. Druids have a complicated relationship with Ccorde, who's ostensibly the goddess of environmentalism and hippy communing with nature type stuff- but most druidic traditions regard this as a false claim on a divine domain. Nature is untamed and wild and exists on its own terms, a vital force that is not to be tamed with rules- people must forge their own relationships with Nature. The author of the tome you acquired was herself a cleric of Ccorde, and the tone of the book is defensive on that subject. The author's curiosity outweighed that defensiveness, though, and there's a long section dedicated to the theoretical differences between the channeling of Nature and the channeling of Ccorde- in particular, there's no common dispositional element with druids. Whatever Nature is, it's willing to act through anyone who puts in the effort. The author didn't seem to know anything about animism, but you suspect druidic practice might be related in some way- that their nature-spirit-channeling abilities may be a form of animism. The book is unfortunately light on the practical details of druidcraft, as the author prefers that the reader eschew the practice in favor of fealty to Ccorde.

Okay! So, they head down the road to stay at the druid village for the night- and notice something odd on the way, after some Nature checks. They notice that the dirt road they're going down seems to divide the forest in two- between a sparse, ivy-choked pine forest to the northeast, and a dense, healthy-looking deciduous forest to the southwest. You usually don't get such a sharp delineation between forests like that.

And Looseleaf notices... that their map doesn't show a forest on the southwest side of the road. The road is supposed to just go along the edge of the pine forest. Also, Looseleaf can see the trees' spirits there, and there's something... not quite right.

Benedict I. (GM):The left side of the woods- there does seem to be some ambient magic. Your Sight Unseen ability doesn't exactly detect magic, so much as it lets you see spirits, including the spirits of spells- but what's going on here isn't a spell effect. It's just that the spirits of these healthy-looking deciduous trees don't quite match their physical forms. Their spirits seem... sickly? Frail? Like they're not full trees, not trees that grew in their places from fallen seeds. There's something false about them.

Looseleaf: When you said 'the left side of the road is full of healthy-looking deciduous trees and the right side is full of misshaped thorny things' you know what the first thing i thought was it was, 'the left side is the dangerous side.' i didn't say it out loud but i was totally thinking that, and i am glad to have been vindicated.

The weird forest doesn't seem to be attacking them, though, so they head onward towards Umbrella Village, which seems to be built entirely on the pine side of the road. It's kind of cool-looking- every inch of available space, on the lawns, roofs, and walls, is covered in fruiting vines and various plants. The whole village is a carefully-cultivated ecosystem.

The villagers seem surprised to have visitors- apparently it's not a common occurrence. They seem normal enough, though- while they don't have an inn, they direct the party to visit the village elder, who might know where the best place for them to spend the night is.

(Oyobi once again crit-fails her Animal Handling check, and is unable to prevent her giraffe from ripping a tomato plant off the side of someone's house, which gets her scolded. Why are you a ranger, Oyobi?)

They head down to the village elder's house, which is unique in not being overgrown with crops- and knock on the door.

The door is answered by a little lizardfolk girl, who doesn't have any idea what she's supposed to do about there being... people... here? People she's never seen before? Who don't live in the village? What???

Benedict I. (GM): "...Who...?" "GRANDMAAAAA," she calls back into the room. Which she didn't really need to do so loudly, because there's an elderly lizardfolk woman sitting right there next to a small fire.

Looseleaf: Oh, and Looseleaf was about to ask if the little girl was the elder. Never let external appearances color your preconceptions, and all that. Benedict I. (GM): "Eh?" "Gramma there's Mysterious People!" "They don't exist!" The old woman gets up. "Who's... oh, visitors?" The little girl looks confused. "Vizza-what?" Looseleaf:"Indeed, we are emissaries from the Faraway Phantom Lands of Nonexistence," Looseleaf says in deadpan to the girl. "Behold as my incorporeal voice from out of the thin air astonishes you!" To the old lady, Looseleaf says. "Excuse us. You must be the elder?"

They inquire about a place to stay for the night, and the elder... checks the weather. Looseleaf, who has Druidcraft as a racial ability, also checks the weather, using a fancy little snowglobe spell!

Looseleaf: "I'unno, does this help?" Benedict I. (GM): "Oh, goodness. I thought you were from outside- do they..." "That's very well-done, really, and you smell delicious, but..." Saelhen du Fishercrown: uh Benedict I. (GM): "Well, it ought to be fine." Saelhen du Fishercrown: "...hmm," says Saelhen. Benedict I. (GM): "Just put your bedrolls out anywhere- we're not doing rain tonight." "Well, anywhere in town, anyway." "You shouldn't set foot in the Mysterious Woods." Saelhen du Fishercrown: "Ma'am, rest assured that we have less than no interest in Mysterious Woods."

So the party beds down in some soft pine needles, making use of Looseleaf's recently-acquired Extremely Comfy Pillow and a few bedrolls. They have a druid elder's assurance that the elements won't be a problem, so... nothing wrong with camping!

And as they're going to bed, Looseleaf rolls a 21 on Perception.

Luckily, Looseleaf fails her unarmed strike roll, which would do no damage even if it hit because her strength mod is -1. So she does not do any damage to...

Benedict I. (GM): So, you kick out at the mouth full of sharp teeth. Saelhen du Fishercrown: Fwff, goes Looseleaf's puffy moth footsie. Benedict I. (GM): The mouth full of sharp teeth goes "Eeek!" and recoils before you make impact, and you see the little lizardfolk girl scamper away into the darkness. Looseleaf: "What." "Wh- how dare you bite me! I am an emissary of the Phantom Lands and all that or whatever." "Come back here and explain yourself to My Imperial Nonexistingness!"

The little girl, affronted, explains that if she's not real, then it's not bad if she bites her!

Vayen: Vayen stirs. "...Shouldn't kill a child," he mumbles. Saelhen du Fishercrown: "...this is a new dream," remarks Saelhen. "Better than the dreams about dad." "Vayen's even deciding not to kill someone. This is super neat, subconscious, keep going."

Saelhen argues that maybe Gramma doesn't know what things taste good, because sometimes grammas think things that taste bad taste good, like bell peppers! The child has no defense against this devastating logic bomb, and scampers off into the darkness, indignant.

Next time: the journey to Cauterdale, and the menace of the bobbledragon.

[hopelessromanticspoonie]

750 Follower Celebration! Loki x reader fluff , prompt 22. They have been friends forever, reader always had Lokis back, even from childhood. But that didnt stop Loki from being a tease all the time... Reader being insecure and shy but with the most stunning singing voice in all of Asgard

Wooo! Thank you so much for sending in this request! It was such a joy to write (as evidenced by the fact that this is a full length one shot OOPS). I hope you enjoy!

Safe Haven

The one time you didn’t feel the anxious jitters of insecurity knocking at your knees was when you sang.

You knew the bright taste of confidence on your tongue when your voice rang out throughout the room, carrying tales of recent splendor and war to the hundreds of those in attendance of the celebratory feast. When so many looked upon you in wonder as you used your well-trained gift to entertain them before the true revelry had begun, you shone your brightest. 

But that high couldn’t last forever, and soon you were leaving the small fire-lit stage to allow everyone to focus on each other, laughing and toasting over honeyed mead and bittersweet wine. And that was when you felt most ill at ease, knowing that you didn’t quite fit in with the boasting warriors and their admirers, nor the wizened academics who conversed quietly amongst themselves.

Thank the Norns for Loki, who caught your eye in the crowd, standing almost a full ahead above the rest. He had been your near-constant companion since your childhood, a spot of brightness and a safe haven wrapped in a dark and emerald green package that turned most others away. But you knew the heart beneath the thorny exterior, warm and inviting and not without laughter, from your years spent exploring all that Asgard had to offer, finding secret passageways in the palace and secreting yourselves away. Him, to practice magic and study in peace, and you, to rehearse, providing a pleasing background accompaniment to his workings.

You slipped through the crowd, shooting sheepish smiles in the direction of those who praised your performance, feeling your cheeks flame from the attention. He held out a glass of your favorite wine, elegant fingertips brushing yours when you gratefully took the drink from him. Holding it gave your fidgeting hands something to focus on. You had always been told that restlessness was most unbecoming of a lady of noble birth, not that you’d care. But it still nagged at the back of your mind.

“You look positively pallid, Little Lark,” Loki commented, concern edging his tone despite the boredom painting his harsh features.

You took your place beside him, your backs to a pillar, surveying the festivities from the edge of it all. “You know how I detest these parties. I do enjoy performing, but the attention afterward is most unsettling.”

He grinned, quirking a fine black eyebrow in your direction. “Perhaps it is not only your otherworldly voice that draws their focus.”

Over the last century or so, Loki’s attentions had turned into something more than the easy friendship you had grown used to. It was unsettling at first, to be the object of flirtation from someone of such a high status, of such regal beauty that to look him fully in the eye made your breath catch in your throat and your heart squeeze. But when he never made any further advances, you took it as harmless banter, sliding into the new roles of your relationship with all the ease and grace of a poorly shod horse. Anything became easier with time, however, and it wasn’t as if Asgardians were lacking that commodity.

Nothing could come of it, anyway. Your birth, while high in Asgardian society, wasn’t that of one who could truly tempt a Prince.

So you easily rolled your eyes, nudging your shoulder into his upper arm. “Ah, yes, these so-called wiles that you insist I possess. How foolish of me to have forgotten them.”

“Indeed, as I have not,” he replied, his velvety voice dropping to a pleasant timbre that sent a chill down your spine.

You clenched the stem of your glass tighter for it, casting a glance up at him to see that he was watching you with such intensity that you were lost in the depths of his eyes. The flicking firelight from the torches scattered around the grand hall added a pleasant warmth to his porcelain skin, and the sharp cut of his cheekbones and jaw cast interesting shadows over his face that captivated you.

“Ah, there you are! Loki, have you been hiding away your songbird from the rest of us?” Thor bellowed, breaking the spell between you.

You tore your gaze away, taking a deep sip from your glass as you dipped your head in polite greeting to the Prince and his friends, Lady Sif and the Warriors Three. Their faces were flushed red with drink and merriment, eyes somewhat glassy as they rolled between you and Loki. They paid little mind to the maidens draped along their arms, and you knew that few men were brave enough to attempt wooing Sif.

“Apparently not effectively enough,” Loki replied, swiping a glass of mead from a passing servant with a cutting glance that would kill if he had such abilities.

Thor seemed unbothered by his brother’s coldness, taking a hearty swig from the tankard he held clutched in one hand. “We were telling our companions of the battle that we won only days ago, but I was having difficulty recalling your part in the ordeal.”

You caught the hint of disdain beneath Thor’s easy words, played off as a jest between siblings, but very disrespectful when presented in mixed company. It made your jaw clench, and you quickly finished your glass of wine before handing it to Loki, who made it disappear without comment or moment of hesitation.

Loki’s smile was serpentine, with too much harshness in the pull of his lips and the hardness in his eyes. “Besides assisting the Allfather and his advisors in the strategy of the battle?”

Volstagg sank down onto a table behind him, pulling his female companion onto his lap and wrapping her in his arms. “With your tricks, you could have been absent from the fight entirely and none would be the wiser. It would be the sort of thing a silver-tongued serpent would excel at.”

“Just because he isn’t a great brute like you, does not mean that he does not have the skills necessary to best any enemy before him. There is much to be said for cunning and forethought, especially as he is planning your actions on said battlefield,” you snapped, your hands balling up into fists at your sides. You continued before you completely lost your nerve, already feeling it slip at the shocked attention of the group, “He is your Prince, and you would do well to remember that. He deserves equal respect to that of Thor.”

You felt the weight of their eyes upon you, watching you as your eyes shifted between them, unsure of who was safest to land upon. None was heavier than Loki’s beside you, but you had spent all of your bravery in your outburst. Unable to face the scrutiny any longer, you dipped your chin to Thor before turning on your heel and storming away, needing a moment of fresh air to cleanse the panic from your lungs.

It was bitingly cold outside with a faint breeze blowing about slowly falling snowflakes. You had always loved Asgard in the winter, the warm copper and gold of the city blanketed in brilliant white that cast a hush over everything. It never lasted, horses and footsteps muddying the snow and turning it into a foul gray-brown slush, but the moment was nice while it lasted. The crisp air bit at your lungs and your skin. The fine silk dress that floated from your skin with each movement was quite beautiful, but hardly practical for remaining in the elements for an extended period of time.

The scent of pine and spice, rich and inviting, enveloped you just before a heavy cloak settled over your shoulders. Loki. You would know the earthy aroma of his soaps anywhere. He adjusted it around your arms before coming to your side, leaning a hip against the stone balustrade so he was facing you, arms crossed over his broad chest. As always, he seemed wholly unbothered by the bracing cold.

“Am I going to face punishment for speaking to one of the Warriors Three so candidly?” you asked, digging your hands into the warm fur lining his cloak. The warmth was needed, but it didn’t stop the icy grip around your heart as the consequences of your actions began to race through your thoughts. It had been incredibly disrespectful of you, and in public, no less. Even if you weren’t reprimanded for it, you may lose your tenuous position singing for the royal festivities. Not to mention the dishonor it would bring to your family name.

“They laughed off your anger quickly. No harm was done to their fragile egos,” Loki assured you. He tilted his head to the side, studying you closely. “You need not defend me from them. They are fools.”

“But I must. They treat you as the dirt beneath their boots, and it boils my blood. You are deserving of far better treatment than Thor and his boorish friends bestow upon you,” you insisted.

An unreadable expression crossed his face, and he shifted closer to you, close enough that you could feel the warmth of his breath fan across your face and radiate out from his body. His hand came up beneath the cloak to encircle your wrist, branding your skin with the light touch. “You honestly believe this to be true,” he said quietly, awestruck, searching your eyes.

This close, it was difficult for you to form a coherent thought and keep your eyes from trailing to his lips. Would they taste of the alcohol he had consumed moments ago? Surely that was your own imbibement speaking, causing the flutter of excitement in your chest and the color on your cheeks. But somehow you managed to piece together a quiet, “Of course. They are blind to the man you truly are.”

His fingertips grazed your cheekbone as his free hand left his side to brush a stray lock of hair - cold and wet from the falling snow - off of your forehead. His touch lingered, his hand falling down to slip beneath the hem of the cloak and grasp the back of your neck gently. “And who am I?”

It was a challenge, a question that demanded an answer by his soft yet firm tone. You dropped your eyes to the pulse racing in his neck, unable to think when staring into the face of such heartbreaking beauty. “A good man, one of thought and care. Loyal, to those who have earned it, and even to those who haven’t, for a time. Cunning, obviously, with intelligence that rivals that of anyone I know. And my dearest and oldest friend.”

The clearing of his throat drew your attention, and you were then transfixed by the tenderness smoothing across his face. “I am honored that you think so highly of me. But, I believe that I would be more than a friend, if you’d allow me?”

And when you said nothing, unable to process the intent behind his words, he lowered his head, first resting his forehead against yours. His nose rasped against your cheek, and you closed your eyes when the sight of his sooty lashes falling against unblemished cheekbones began to blur.

His lips, you discovered, tasted of bittersweet mead. Surely there must be some remaining on his tongue, for you felt thoroughly intoxicated as his hands dropped to wrap around your waist beneath his cloak, pressing your body into his. He swallowed your breathy sigh, holding you up against the weakness of your knees at the molten heat that rolled through you. At some point your arms wrapped around his shoulders so your fingers could tangle in the hair that brushed against his neck, eliciting a groan from him that stole your breath away.

“Will you allow me, Little Lark, to court you as I have desired for so long?” he asked after the kiss was broken, lifting his head just enough to see you clearly.

You rubbed your thumb over the leather covering his chest, emboldened by the throb of your heart in your kiss-swollen lips. “I am not of advantageous birth. It will not be a favored union.” You loathed to say it, but you had to, anyway.

His answering smile was full of so much happy mischief that you couldn’t help but match it. “Let them balk or whisper their grievances. You have been the only one in my sights for centuries. Say you’ll be mine?”

“I have always been yours, Loki. Why do you suppose I continue to perform in your colors?”

Lust darkened his emerald gaze. “Kiss me again. Like you mean it this time.”

The mirth on his lips was the sweetest nectar of all, banishing any frustration, anxiety, scorn, or melancholy that you had felt moments before. Because this was Loki, and he had always been your safe haven.

***

Little Bit o’ Loki Taglist: @myownviperroom @grahoundart @darealbellabelleoftheball @boubouinscarlet

Whole Shebang Taglist: @yespolkadotkitty @just-the-hiddles @nonsensicalobsessions @vodka-and-some-sass @he-is-chaotic-she-is-psychotic @myoxisbroken @blah666 @brokenthelovely @myworddump @polireader @wiczer @littleredstarfish @the-broken-angel-13 @xxloki81xx @jessiejunebug @tinchentitri @sllooney @devilbat @vikkleinpaul @bouquet-o-undercaffeinated-roses @angelus80 @wolfsmom1 @kthemarsian @toozmanykids @silverswordthekilljoy

[gutterclan]

The Sanctuary Pack: Names

Like I said in that ask, I’ve been workin on Wolf Names!

Seeing everyone actually “doing worldbuilding” for their packs instead of just having them lie in a ditch & cuss like humans has inspired me lmao so. Baby’s First Wolf Worldbuilding: How do the wolves of Sanctuary get their names?

If anyone wants to use any of the names or conventions I mention here, please go right ahead!

[this ended up extremely long so. it’s under the cut]

Naming Rights:

Typically, the mother of a litter names the pups. 

Usually, the breeding male only contributes his genetics, and doesn’t raise a litter himself. Mothers are therefore considered closer to the pups, and get naming dibs. 

This rule isn’t set in stone, however! A breeding male who does help raise the pups may sometimes get naming rights, or an especially strict pack-leader might demand to name all pups born into their pack (this is a pretty huge infringement in wolf society, and would point to an unjust or even tyrannical leader).

For litters with no mothers or multiple mothers, naming rights go to the birth parent(s), if applicable, and/or are split between the parents. For instance, Harvey, Eight, and Bella’s litter had two moms (they were adopted by Rover and Seven), and they split naming rights! Rover named Harvey and Bella, and Seven named Eight.

As a sign of goodwill, the mother may grant naming rights to another animal.

This right is almost exclusively given to animal that was important to the pup’s birth or early survival. For instance: Seven let Finch name her pup, Rime, because he agreed to be a surrogate for her and Rover. 

This contribution doesn’t have to be so direct, however! If a cougar shared its kill with a pregnant wolf, or a lone-wolf shared their den to shelter a whelping mother, the mother might choose to grant naming rights to the animal involved. Between wolves, this is considered a pretty big deal: In a way, it’s like welcoming the namer into your family, or at least your pack.

Other animals don’t always understand the Naming Right, and frequently decline (very offensive in the wolf world), or else name the pups something that’s normal to their species, but strange by wolf standards (for instance, owls are usually named in short, soft sounds that a wolf would find nearly impossible to produce).

Wild vs Captive Names

Captive Names

Because many of the wolves in The Sanctuary Pack were born & raised in captivity, they have names a wild wolf would probably consider pretty strange! Captive names follow no strict convention; whatever the humans (or other captive animals) around decided the wolf should be named- that’s what it is!

For example:

-Seven’s litter were all named in birth order; "Wolf One, Wolf Two” etc by the wildlife conservationists who raised them. She was Wolf Seven out of eight.

-Rover claims to have been nameless until adolescence, when she escaped captivity and was given a name by a feral dog in the human settlement she lived in afterwards. Honestly, who knows if that’s true.

-Hat Trick was named by the human who reared her: she was the third in a litter of three (a hat trick is when a player scores three goals in a single hockey game) (Hat Trick definitely doesn’t know this. She does not know what hockey is).

Wild Names

Wild names, on the other hand, are names wolves might typically have if they were born & raised in the wild. Broadly, wild wolves are named after things that exist in the natural environment, but I think this varies a lot from pack-to-pack! Different packs packs will follow different naming conventions, and some packs may follow multiple of these conventions, or none at all!

If names are passed down family or legacy names, the name almost always passes matrilineally. 

Some different wild naming conventions include:

-Pups are named after their appearance (Dacite is a grayish wolf; she was named for a type of grayish rock).

-Pups are named following the same theme as their mothers-- lineage can be traced back through these names. 

For example: Oriole named her daughter Grackle: both of these are species of blackbird. 

-Pups are named for a trait/virtue their mother wants them to have.

 For example: Dace is boisterous and confident; a bit of a bully. Her mother Saturn wanted her to be a less of a jock, so named her after something small and unassuming

-Pups are named after some element of the time & place they were born. Many packs also give each pup a nickname, derived from the birth name, that shares a common sound across a family. This gives the otherwise random birth names an element of connection/legacy.

 For example: sisters Vulture, Carrion and Incisor might be nicknamed Renvul, Orion and Sorin, with the ‘rin’ sound being universal across the family group.

-Pups are given multi-part names. This is especially common in larger and older packs, where many shorter, common names have already been used. Parts of these names are usually ‘legacy’ names, passed on like human surnames, or shared pack names. These wolves may go by their full names, or just a nickname. you’ve read warrior cats, you know whats up w this one

For example: in a pack called the White Pines pack, a wolf might be White Hawk’s Claw (they likely go just by “Hawk”), where ‘Hawk’ is unique, “White” is shared between pack members, and “Claw” is shared between family members. A sibling could be named White Sharp Claw, and an unrelated pack member might be called White River Rapids.

Wolves may also only have a two-part name, usually consisting of a unique name combined with either a pack or family name. Like-- Squirrel Flight, or Yellow Fang, for two completely random examples.

-Pups aren’t named until adolescence or adulthood, and are named for a feat they have performed, or trait they’ve proven to posses. Rarely, these names are changed later in a wolf’s life, as a mark of either great shame or great honor.

Trait names can be simple or more complex, and may list traits directly or metaphorically (eg, by comparing to an object or animal with a certain trait). Wolves with these usually don’t go by a nickname.

For example: Keen-Eye, Swift, Light-Step, Valor, Lark-Tongue, Headlong

Feat names are usually compound, and vary in length. Wolves with these mostly go by nicknames. There’s some power-play here, however: high-ranking wolves are more likely to be called their full name, uptight/prideful wolves might insist on being called their full name, and wolves named after an impressive feat- or horrible crime- might be called their full name as a mark of respect or shame. 

For Example: Brings-Down-Bears (likely called by full name, honorable) Bone-Carver (”Bone”), Flood-Swimmer (”Flood”), Mends-Wounds (”Mend”), Flees-The-Fight (likely called by full name, shameful).

Significance

Wolf-names signal more than just who an individual is.

 At a minimum, both wild and captive names say a lot about where a wolf comes from; a captive wolf’s name obviously betrays their background, but a wild wolf’s name also says something about them! 

Even setting aside differences in naming convention and pack culture, a desert wolf might be named Dune, Saguaro, or Fennec, and if they travelled to the mountains would stand out among wolves named Trout, Lichen, and Cedar. 

Names can also, as mentioned above, signal who a wolf’s family is (legacy names), the circumstances of their birth (gifting name-rights), and the culture of their birth pack. There’s a lot of history wrapped up in them!

On a meta note, this is why I have a rule never to change the names of wolves I get in trades (if they’ve been named). Their names tell a story about the packs they come from, even if their previous owners didn’t write them lore!

Changing Names

Wolves sometimes change their names, or the naming schemes they follow, after a serious life event. This is a pretty big deal; as discussed above, wolf names have a deeper significance than just as identifiers. As a wolf, changing your name- or even just the things you name your pups-  essentially represents cutting yourself off from your family or your past and declaring a new affiliation.

For example:

-Finch hated his time in captivity. He changed his name from Fincher when he escaped to the wild. While only a small variation, this switch between what was clearly a captive name to a plausible wild name was Finch’s way of declaring himself free of human control. This is also why, when he was given the change to name Seven’s pup, he gave her a wild-sounding name: Rime. He doesn’t want to pass on the legacy of his captivity.

-Saturn and her siblings were all named after celestial bodies. While she kept her own name, she parted with her birth pack on ugly terms, and no longer considers herself a part of that family, so doesn’t use their naming conventions. She named her own pups, Dace and Grayling, after fish.

[aenwoedbeannaa]

Stone Hearts | Geralt x Reader | Parts I - III

Summary: A/U(ish). When fate landed you at Kaer Morhen, you were mostly just happy to have meals to eat and a place to sleep. But, as it turns out, fate may have led you to much, much more. (Basically, you and Geralt are students at Kaer Morhen together. These stories chronicle your lives together.)  

Word Count: 7k+

Warnings: Violence, smut, the usual.

A/N: I originally planned on posting this as a series of short stories all at once, but as it is such a long story, I decided I’d split it up into groups of stories instead. So, this one is Part I, II, and III. Let me know what you think – and thank you, as always, for taking time to read my work 😊.

Thank you so much to @jesseswartzwelder​ for the request/amazing idea!

If you enjoy my work, consider reblogging this post following me for more Witcher fics here and on my personal/original writing blog here. You can also check out my masterlist! 

Part I

The sun is hot, bearing down on the crowded courtyard and making you sweat through your leathers even more than you usually do. Still, you refuse to give any inkling of the fact that your blood is absolutely boiling, like your body is burning itself away. You know that it is more than the hot sun—you’ve started taking a new elixir, and ever since, you’ve been aching with fever. One moment, you are burning out of your skin, the next, you are shivering and sweating at the same time.

Your feet move of their own accord, purely out of instinct, as you dodge and parry, pirouette and deflect. You try as hard as you possibly can to breathe deeply and slowly, so as not to exert yourself even more. And yet, the sharp sound of dulled iron striking dulled iron reverberates you your head, loud enough to make you want to flinch.

But flinching is not an option. Not with Geralt, anyways. You don’t like losing, especially to your de facto partner. As usual, the two of you are the last pair left sparring, the others standing around drinking deeply from waterskins or laying on unclaimed ground nursing whatever wounds they incurred over the course of the day. You wish you were one of them, but only a little. If you are honest, you love being the center of attention; you love being one of Kaer Morhen’s Golden Children. You thrive one it.

“Getting tired, Witcher?” you quip, avoiding a slash of his blade with a rolling dodge, landing on your feet in a flash and only just missing him with your next attack.

“Not a chance, Witcher Girl,” he responds with a parry leading to an attack of his own. You manage to block him with the flat of your blade, but you can tell that you are off – not enough for an ordinary eye to see, but Geralt does not have the eyes of an ordinary man.

He’s got you backed up nearly to the wall, leaving you less room than you’d like, and distracting you enough with his smile, a dangerous flash of white, that you nearly lose your footing. But after another turn and other quick flurry of attacks and counterattacks, you do lose your footing – but it has nothing to do with Geralt’s smile and everything to do with a sudden blinding pain that seems to start in your head and travel down your body at lighting speed. You crumple to the ground.

Geralt drops his sword before you even hit the dirt, rushing to you side and placing a calloused hand gently on your shoulder, speaking urgently, “Y/N,” he says as he gently pushes against your shoulder to turn you over, “Are you alright? What happened?” What has him so worried is not that you fell – the two of you never went easy on one another, and each took your share of tumbles. No, he is worried because you had been steady on two feet one moment and wincing, dropping your sword, and thudding to the ground after it the next.

You have, of course, told him nothing about the extra elixir. You’d tried so many at this point that you’d grown into a sense of security, like something that couldn’t possibly harm you. After all, the really deadly shit was saved for the Trial of the Grasses – but even then, the strong ones usually made it, and you are one of the strong ones. But, no matter how many times you tell him not to worry – he always, always does. The same way that you worry about him every time you learn they’re giving him new mysterious concoctions to try.

He is you closest friend, and he has been since the moment you walked onto the grounds of Kaer Morhen and he punched Eskel in the face for lobbing an ill-timed joke at the very timid new arrival and making you cry.

Vizimir was not happy with any of you, and all three of you managed to earn yourselves extra cleaning duties that week. Geralt for punching Eskel, Eskel for making ‘unnecessary remarks,’ and you for crying. Coincidentally, that week was also the week that the three of you began a friendship that spanned even to this day.

You blink up at him, unable to speak, though you want to. Something is wrong, you want to say, Get Vizimir. But, try as you might, you aren’t able to make your mouth form the words. Instead, you just stare up at him with wide eyes. His brown curls are stuck to his brow with sweat, and his eyes are searching your eyes for an answer you can’t give him. You are also vaguely aware of other students abandoning their carefully staked out plots of grass to come and see what the fuss is about.

The only other girl, Estra of Ard Caraigh, chews her lip nervously as she looks on, though you can’t see her. The two of you aren’t particularly close, mostly because she is two years older, so you are surprised when you hear her voice from the growing crowd of onlookers, “They gave you that elixir, didn’t they? The one that’s to make sure you can train every day of the month?”

In your bleary half-consciousness, you see a flash of long auburn hair as she rushes to your side, pressing a hand to your forehead. Her face blanches and she turns back to shout to no one in particular, “Get Vizimir, NOW.”

You try once more to make some sort of sound, but all that comes out is a choked sob. You had not cried since your first day here, and the fact that tears were streaming down your face seemingly of their own accord was mortifying. The only thing that kept your from screaming in pain was Geralt as he took your hand in his own and held on tightly, leaning down to whisper that it was all going to be ok in a voice surprisingly calm given the red-hot fire burning in his eyes and his tightly clenched jaw.

Part II

Your fingers tap the glass impatiently as you peer out the window, checking for signs of life on the road that winds from the gate of the Keep out into the forests surrounding Kaer Morhen, twisting its way through the wilderness surrounding the Snow Pine Mountains. If you’ve calculated correctly, Geralt should be returning today. He left nearly two weeks before with one of the Witchers to help with a contract on a Drowner infestation plaguing a nearby town on the banks of some manmade lake.

Leave it to Kaedwen. Perhaps the people of Kaedwen had grown too comfortable. With Witchers nearby, there wasn’t much to fear from monsters, was there?

This particular excursion was his reward for being the first to return from the Trial of the Medallion – the chance to muck around in the swamps for a few days, cutting down drowners at thirty crowns a head.

Thirty crowns a head.

You still remember a time when thirty crowns seemed an unobtainable amount of money; money that could have lasted your family near a month if it had to. To think that once this was all over, you would be able to fulfill contracts earning multiples of that for each monster slain. Being considered at once a poor victim of a stolen childhood and a mutant freak who had no place existing was a small price to pay for such a steady income.

“Show me a lake, and I’ll show you the drowners,” as Vizimir would say.

Pulling yourself back from the objectively horrifying daydreams of hacking drowners to shreds in return for a sack full of coin, you resume your vigilance.

Accounting for the four days ride from Kaer Morhen, maybe five if any monsters appeared on The Path, and then three days at most to deal with the drowners, and then another four to five days ride back accounting for the supplies they’d be carrying back from the village, he should be arriving back today. Unless of course… No. You cannot allow yourself to even consider the possibility that anything had gone wrong.

You tell yourself you that the nervous energy that has you buzzing is simply born of boredom, or maybe out of frustration that you’d have to spar with Eskel today. After nearly two weeks pouring over books, Vizimir had finally determined that it was time to get back to swordsmanship and, most importantly, sparring. It was about the only thing that broke the general dullness of school.

And without Geralt, you tell yourself, sparring will be just as dull as the bloody books. You determine that this is at least a half-truth. Geralt was the only sparring partner quite at your level. So, it went without saying that sparring with anyone else was dull, mostly a waste of time. In your opinion, fighting an easy fight is not fun. And that’s not even your ego talking; it is purely factual.

And a bit of ego.

And then there is the separate issue; the fact that you hadn’t exactly realized – or had at least pretended not to realize – just how much time you spent with Geralt until he was gone. You’d been happy for him when he won the Trial of the Medallion, of course, but you hadn’t been quite as thrilled when you learned what the prize was. Sure – it was a chance for him to escape form the stone fortress for two weeks, a chance to get out and see the world. But drowners, no matter how easy to kill, could always be dangerous. Or maybe you were just upset that the second place winner – that just so happened to be you – didn’t get to go along as well. You’d finished only second behind him; it seemed unfair.  

Despite its unfairness, it was reality. So, instead of out hunting monsters, you were stuck here while time dragged on at an excruciating crawl.

You’ve got other students with whom to pass the time, but to be honest, exploring the grounds of Kaer Morhen Of course, you still have your other fellow students to pass the time with – which you do – but it’s not the same. There is a bond between the two of you that far surpasses your bond with anyone else. No matter how adamantly you try to ignore it, there’s just no way around it.

You sigh in frustration and turn away from the window; you have too many things to do, regardless of how absolutely tedious everything is. Studying with Vizimir, of course. And you’ve got to spar today. At least that is somewhat interesting – even if none of the other students can quite match you; with the exception of Geralt. It is a convenient way for you to explain away any feelings. Perhaps sparring with people who cannot keep up is just boring. As much as you enjoy winning, there’s no excitement winning against people you could probably best in your sleep.

You pull on your last bits of armor – a belt with a small sheath for your dagger, and of course your leather jerkin. Your dulled iron and silver are slung over your back. You won’t receive your silver – a real silver sword – until you pass the trial of the grasses. It would, of course, be a waste to supply every one of Kaer Morhen’s students with new silver swords, considering the unfortunate reality that a majority would never need one.

Gods, you hope you need one.

You move silently through the ancient hallways, bracing yourself for the certain boredom that will greet you in the keep’s library. It is a large room full of old books, most of which are yellowed with age and feel as if they might fall apart beneath your fingertips. Vizimir explains that new books are not necessary, because monsters never change.

“Wonderful of you to finally join us, Little Vampire,” Vizimir says as you push open the wooden door to see several students sitting at the old tables all in various states of half-sleep. You just shrug in response and make your way to an empty chair. You earned the nickname Little Vampire after, during the week you spent delirious with fever, you apparently bit Vizimir’s hand hard enough to leave a scar when he tried to force a potion down your throat.

“Probably off waiting for Geralt,” you hear Stefan say under his breath to Eskel, who is sitting in the chair next to him. You pretend not to hear him; you’ve given up on trying to explain your relationship with Geralt to your peers. And anyway, it would be impossible to explain even if you tried – you cannot even explain it to yourself.

But then, you hear Eskel mutter, even quieter – “He probably won’t be back until tomorrow. Off spending that hard-earned coin the right way.” You know that it shouldn’t bother you; Geralt can do whatever he’d like. And what you’d learned from hearing Eskel and the others when they spoke about their time outside of Kaer Morhen, there was a very specific way they tended to celebrate. It wasn’t your place to be upset about it. And, yet, here you were.

Whatever, you tell yourself. He’s only following the Code. That fucking Code.

* * *

“Fucking hell,” Eskel spits, pushing himself up from the ground, heavily favoring his left ankle. You smirk, sheathing the blunted blade. You don’t need to say anything – knocking him out of the fight as quickly as you had spoke volumes.

“And all this time, we thought Geralt was just letting her win, eh, Eskel?”

You turn and narrow your eyes at Stefan, their dark amber burning like coals as you bore into him. You aren’t daft – you are fully aware of this particular rumor, as ridiculous of a rumor as it is.

“Would have been quite the charade to have been pulling off all these years.”

You have a hard time suppressing your smile at the familiar baritone, but you turn around with witcherlike reflexes regardless. And Code be damned, for all the elixirs they’d given you, emotion flooded you. You refuse to call it love; to be a Witcher and admit to such a feeling would be laughable. But you will call it joy – joy at seeing your absolute closest friend in the world after all this time.

A whole two weeks.

Not wanting to make yourself, and Geralt by extension, the butt of jokes for the next month, you stop yourself from barreling toward him and throwing your arms around his neck like you want to, you settle for smiling instead.

“Finally,” you drawl, “A real challenge.”

Your friend smirks, arms crossing over his chest.

“I’ve just returned, and the first thing you want to do is cross swords?” he fakes offense.

“Of course,” you retort, “This is Kaer Morhen, after all.”

“Damn,” Geralt responds, “Thought it was Ban Aard.”

Several others who had abandoned their activities to listen laughed at that one – you included. Fucking mages and their fancy schools, preaching about the importance of magic Witchers’ reliance on it. Ban Aard and Aretuza were the butt of a good number of jokes at Kaer Morhen, like Kaer Morhen certainly was to them.

“Enough standing around and talking,” you goad, “Grab your sword, Witcher.”

You ignore the hushed conversations around you as Geralt replaces the silver sword slung over his back with a dull iron one.  The usual nonsense – something about the two of you thriving on attention and showing off and something else about the two of you needing to “just fuck already.”

He seems to be ignoring the group just as you are, reading himself as you do the same.

“Alright, Witcher,” you smile dangerously, “Let’s see if those Drowners sharpened your skills."

Part III

“It just doesn’t feel real,” you muse, turning over your shoulder to glance at Geralt who sits with his back flush against yours, “Only two days until the Trials.”

“Mhm,” he answers from deep in his chest. While you have chosen to cover up your panic and fear with excitement and fierce pride, Geralt has turned to philosophizing – existentialism and cynicism being his philosophies of choice.

“Geralt…” you mutter, wishing that you could get more than a syllable or two out of him. “It’s going to be ok.”

You are trying to convince yourself just as much as you are trying to convince him. And, given your tendency to turn everything into a game of logic – very useful in calculating opponents next moves – chances are high that you are correct.

“We’ve both responded well to all of the elixirs they’ve given us, hardly any negative reactions at all,” you expound, but Geralt scoffs, making your mouth snap shut.

“Yes, except that one time two years back when you almost died.” His voice is laced with worry, and though you are facing opposite directions, you know exactly what his expression by his tone alone. His eyebrows are knitted together, and his amber eyes are narrowed such that from a distance, someone might not notice that he was undergoing mutations at all. His lips are pressed into a tight line, and his curls fall into his face. That, combined with his bulky form, would make anyone stay away. Anyone except for you.

“That was one time,” you press, “One elixir out of hundreds. It’s a better record than most people.” Kaer Morhen was your home and you truly wanted to become a Witcher. If you’d been left alone in Crookback Bog, you would have died years ago. And if you’d grown up in some backwater village or in the poor district of a city, plague or pox could’ve taken you. For you, the potions and elixirs and the mutations they induced were just the inevitable tradeoffs to life here. If you couldn’t survive the trials, you couldn’t be a Witcher, and if you couldn’t become a Witcher, you’d be on your own with no skills to speak of, no way to make a living. At least Kaer Morhen gave you something akin to a family – it had given you Geralt.

“I don’t care to remember any details of that week,” he mutters, looking at the ground and shaking his head, “But I… I can’t stop thinking about it. About you laying there burning with fever, calling out in your sleep.”

You are stunned. Geralt, while not as closed off as the other students and Witchers liked to say, was not apt to speak with such emotion. You can’t remember the last time you heard him stumble over his words like that – or if you ever had, for that matter. You open your mouth to speak, about how that was quite a regular occurrence for Kaer Morhen’s students as they underwent mutations, but he is already speaking again before you can get a word out.

“You kept saying that you were on fire, your bones were on fire,” you pick at the grass as he continues, “And the elixirs to help the pain only made it worse.”

Truth be told, you don’t have much memory of that week of your life. You were delirious with fever, and only remember brief moments that you could not definitively place in the “real” category or mark them off as hallucinations. But, as he speaks, some memories do pop into your mind. One in particular where it took three grown men to hold you down and force one of the elixir’s down your throat. Vizimir started calling you Little Vampire after that, thanks to the fact that your perfectly average canines managed to dig so deep into his hand that he still had a scar. Now, you supposed, you understood why Geralt didn’t like that one.

“I just… I can’t…” as Geralt stumbles over his words, you cannot tell if you are hearing his heart hammering or yours. You follow your immediate urge and turn around to sit next to him, both of you now looking out towards the grounds of Kaer Morhen through the trees. You’ve had this secret meeting place for years – a place where the two of you would go to talk or just to sit. A peaceful place, away from the constant chaos behind the castle walls.

“Geralt,” you say, placing a hand on his shoulder and shifting so that he is facing you, “You’re the strongest of all of us. Even Vizimir said…well, you remember!” You are referring to a conversation you overheard one evening when you were prowling around places you shouldn’t be. He was talking to one of the other instructors, the two of them comparing notes.

“Geralt, Y/N, and Eskel will be this year’s Three, mark my words.”

“There’s no need to be scared,” you add after a moment, voice quiet. You hadn’t known he was so scared to undergo the mutations. He was always the best in your training exercises, always the strongest, the fastest, the one getting all the special elixirs. You hadn’t even thought that he might still be worried.

Quite suddenly, he turns, placing his hand over the one of yours that is resting in your lap, “I’m not worried for myself. I just… I can’t… It makes me so angry to think of them putting you through that again.”

You look down, staring at his hand on top of yours, which is suddenly the only thing that you can focus on. Relationships at Kaer Morhen aren’t forbidden, but they aren’t common. There had been a handful of moments like these – none of them that went farther than stolen glances and they always left you feeling somehow empty, aching for what you couldn’t have.

Silence stretches between you. The only sound either of you make are the thundering of our hearts and carefully controlled breathing. Though, you notice, each time Geralt breathes in, there is a slight unsteadiness to it, a shakiness, as if he is trying as hard as you are to keep your breathing in check.

Finally, you draw a breath that would be noticeably shaky, even for a person who hadn’t undergone all of the mutations that the two of you had. You tear your eyes from your hand to look up at him and say, “I’m an adult, Geralt. I’m going through the trials willingly.”

Geralt doesn’t respond, just clenches his jaw and lets out a huff, so you continue, “We’ve always known about the Trials, I agreed to it when I came here, and I’ve continued to agree to it every time that I’ve taken any of their elixirs. I’ve...We’ve been training for this for our whole lives. Without Vizimir I would have died without getting a chance to experience real life.”

“I know the speech,” Geralt shoots back almost immediately, pulling his hand away and leaving you feeling hurt.

“Geralt.” You are struggling to keep your voice steady. You can’t decide if you feel like screaming or crying, so you keep to the Code and shove both of those urges down as deep as is possible given the situation. “It’s not my fault we have to undergo the mutations, so don’t fucking snap at me.”

“Fuck,” Geralt says, shaking his head and burying it in his hands, “Y/N, I’m sorry. I know.”

He is silent for another moment before he finally lowers his hands and looks up at you. You realize in that moment how close you are, your faces only inches apart. You can see the gold flecks in his amber eyes and the stubble on his cheeks and have to fight to ignore the urge to reach out and see how his skin feels beneath your hands, and what his eyes would look like if you did.

But then, he reaches out with one hand, hesitantly and ever so gently, to cup your face. You shiver as the pad of his thumb brushes just beneath your lower lip and the very corner of your mouth. Time feels suspended, as if the two of you are floating on some separate plane where the day of the Trials will never come and the two of you can just stay right here, just as you are, forever.

“I hate the idea of you undergoing the Trial because I can’t stomach the thought of losing you, Y/N.” The words are like a punch to the stomach that is somehow pleasant, knocking all the breath out of your lungs.

He leans even closer, until your foreheads are touching. “I know the Code, and I know I’m not supposed to, but I love you.”

You breathe in, memorizing the smell of him. You’ve only ever been this close during sparring exercises. You decide you like this a lot better.

“When I had the fever… The one thing that kept me, you know, here was you, you know,” you breathe. You’ve never told him because you know that no matter how much he had pretended to hate it as of late, he sticks to the Code. The Code, which doesn’t look highly on Witchers being in relationships – especially with one another. “And that’s why—and you’re the reason I know that I’ll survive the Trial.” Your eyes have drifted down, unable to meet his as you confess this – the secret you have been hiding from him for so long.

He is silent for a moment, frozen there with his deliciously warm hand on your face before finally letting his and slip lower, resting under your chin and gently tilting your head up so that he can meet your eyes. “Fuck the Code,” he says, eyes flashing before pressing his lips to yours.

It is your first kiss, and it is pure bliss. Your lips fit together like pieces of a puzzle and the sensation has you drunk with pleasure before he even deepens the kiss. And, when he does, you are ready. You part your lips for him, and he greedily explores your mouth. You keep thinking that it can’t get any better, but yet it does. You moan involuntarily as his hand slips from your chin, ghosting along the curve of your neck and coming to rest on your shoulder, calloused thumb sweeping across your collar bone.

His touch is electric, leaving your skin feeling hot and charged, and longing for more. Your arms wrap around his neck, pulling yourself flush against him. He responds with an appreciative grunt, moving his hands to explore your body, starting by sweeping down your sides, just barely grazing the sides of your breasts in the process.

With his hands now firmly wrapped around your sides, he breaks the kiss, leaving you in a huff of frustration and disappointment – you hadn’t had nearly enough of him. But before you can get too out of sorts, his lips touch your neck and you moan, tipping your head back to grant him complete access. You don’t even have time to worry about the fact that you have no idea what you’re doing – that you have never done this before – because Geralt is so thorough, so in control of the situation. It’s like he knows all the right places to touch, and exactly what to do with his mouth to have you breathing heavily, small sounds of pleasure slipping through your lips.

Tentatively, you begin exploring his body with your hands. You love the way that his muscled form feels beneath your fingers, and it makes you want to explore every inch. As your hands move down his chest, you find yourself tugging at his shirt. You don’t know if it is an involuntary reaction to his teeth grazing your neck as his lips continue down to your collarbone or whether it is simply a feeble attempt to pull the fabric away because you would very much like to know what his sculpted abdomen feels like beneath your fingers without the offending material in the way.

Geralt’s hands, on the other hand, have gripped your white linen shirt, identical to his own, and already began pulling it over your head. You raise your arms to make it easier for him, and the moment it is off, you greedily reach for his own tugging the material up and over his head. For a moment, you just stare at him, drinking in the sight of him shirtless before you. It wasn’t as if you had never seen him this way – but you had always done your best not to look too long, afraid that he would notice as question why.

However, he interrupts your moment of slightly embarrassing admiration when he wraps his arms around you, hands grazing your hyper-sensitive skin. You sigh, content to let him touch every inch of you. Encouraged by this, his hands wander up to unlace your bra and you bite your lip in anticipation. You cannot wait to feel his hands on them, arching your back, willing him to make faster work of it.

He grins as he slips the material off your shoulders, grin turning into more of a smirk as he sees you staring back at him with wide, expectant eyes. He slides one hand up your back, easing you down so you are laying beneath him, eyes drinking in the sight of you naked form and making your feel suddenly exposed. But, given the way his pupils dilate, he likes what he sees as much as you do.

He leans over you, lowering himself so that he can bring his lips to yours once more. You greedily bite his lower lip, hands back to their game of exploring as much of his body as you can reach. And then all of a sudden, you feel his stubbled cheek graze against yours as he leans to growl in your ear, “You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do this to you, Witcheress.”

His words add fuel to the fire burning in your core, and you whimper as his fingers brush your nipple. It feels so delicious it is almost painful. You’ve never even allowed yourself to fantasize about this scenario, as much as you may have wanted to. You never thought it would happen – and you weren’t one to dream of impossible things. And yet, here you both were.

“Geralt,” you breathe, completely lost I the feeling as he kneads and pinches your breasts. And then… his lips. The feeling of them against your breast and his tongue flattening against your nipple is warm and soft and better than you could have ever imagined it feeling. Your eyes roll up into your head as he makes use of his free hand to gently twist and pinch the bud not currently receiving the attention of his tongue.

Heat pools in your core, twisting and tightening and aching for his touch, and, oh gods, for his tongue. Any nerves you thought you would have doing this for the first time have evaporated. There is no room in your pleasure-drunk mind for nervous thoughts.

Once again, seemingly able to read your thoughts, he slips a hand between the two of you, unfastening your belt and unlacing your trousers. For a brief moment, your mind blinks to a thought of just how practiced his hands are – but you don’t dwell on it for more than a split second. You are burning with need, and you could care less how many women Geralt has had before you – if the stories of the young man’s exploits on those rare occasions when Kaer Morhen’s young Witchers in training were given leave to take on smaller contracts here and there under supervision of elders – it doesn’t matter to you right now.

It matters even less when his hand slips into your waistband, expert fingers finding their way to where you need him most. His finger dips between your folds, gathering the wet heat pooled there for him, humming appreciatively against your chest as he lets his finger trail back up to the little bundle of nerves. His touch is perfect parts gentle and firm as he circles the small bud, making you cry out into the open air.

“You like that, Witcheress?” he asks gruffly, swirling his finger again and making you buck your hips against his hand. Making yourself form words is pretty much hopeless at this point, with his finger dancing over the hard little nub that no one save yourself has ever touched before, but your pleasured cries are more than enough answer for him.

He loves watching you like this – writhing beneath him, hips moving of their own accord, eyes blinking open and closed again. He especially loves your little gasps; the way your pretty mouth stays open in a constant ‘oh’ as he works you with his fingers. Your ragged breathing turns him on even more; your breasts rising and falling at uneven intervals as he increases his pace and pressure. And, oh gods, he loves the groan that escapes your lips when he does.

“Gods,” you say with a great deal of effort, “That feels… G-geralt!”

He watches you as your body tenses for a moment, amber eyes fixed on you as he watches you fall apart, already committing this image to memory; the first time you’d come for him. You are still twitching as the aftershocks of your orgasm wrack your body when he grabs your waistband and tugs your pants off roughly, breathing in your scent and greedily taking in the sight of you.

Your thighs tremble as he presses his lips to the inside of your calf, peppering the soft skin with kisses as he moves his way up your leg. You are still reeling from your orgasm, but already you need more. His hands follow his lips, massaging the seemingly always sore muscles of your legs and making you sigh with pleasure.

You reach down to run a hand through his hair, and he lifts his amber eyes to meet yours as he moves to your other leg, pressing kisses across ever inch of your skin. His tongue traces the crease between your thigh and your most intimate area, and your hips thrust towards his face of their own accord. But then a thought enters your mind, and you tug at his hair, “Geralt.”

“Yes, Witcheress?” he says, locking you in his intense gaze.

“I should… Shouldn’t I? You know…?” You can feel his bulge through his pants, and you are eager to touch him, to feel his hardness with your fingers, your tongue, and inside of you. But for now, Geralt clearly has other plans.

“Shh, Witcheress,” he says, nipping gently at your inner thigh with his teeth, “I’m not done with you yet.” His words send your mind into a whirl as his hands slip under your thighs to your ass, letting his shoulders hold your already quivering legs apart so that you are completely exposed to him. You whimper as he blows cool air on your heat, making you shiver.

“I’m going to fuck you,” he says gruffly, eyes locked on yours once again, “But first I want to taste you.” He lets his tongue just barely graze your clit, and you whimper again, on the verge of begging. “I think you’d like that, wouldn’t you, Y/N?”

You can only whimper in response, your need for him an almost painful ache in your core.

“Hmm?” he rumbles, looking up at you with an impish grin, “Didn’t hear you.” You cannot think of a more beautiful sight than Geralt – the boy who was your first friend and the man who you fell in love with little by little until you were mad with it – looking up at you as if you are the only person in the world.

“Y-yes,” you whimper, voice laced with need.

“Mhm,” he growls, finally running his tongue from your opening to the little bundle of nerves. The feeling of his tongue touching you there has you seeing stars. It feels even better than his fingers as he explores you, paying particular attention to the places that make you gasp and tighten your grip on his hair.

He takes his time, savoring the way you taste, better even then he imagined – which he often had despite his efforts not to think of you that way. He’d tried to stick to the Code, he’d tried everything to keep his mind busy – every time he made a trip out of Kaer Morhen, he’d tried to distract himself, but now, as he explores you with his tongue, breathes your scent, feels your soft skin beneath his fingertips, and hears your soft gasps and moans, all he can think is that he has abided by the Code for way too fucking long.

You are absolutely lost in the feeling of his mouth on you. And, when his lips close around your clit, sucking it into his mouth and attacking it with his tongue, you cry out so loud you are almost convinced everyone back in the Keep can hear you, not that you care. He moans against you, delicious vibrations making you cry out again.

His hand has been traveling closer and closer to your entrance, and you find yourself desperately moving your hips, urging him on. This time, he obliges without teasing, seeming as if he couldn’t pull away from you if he wanted to.

He groans along with you as he slips a finger inside of you, stretching you gently. He takes his time here, too, slowly pumping his finger in and out, committing to memory every place that makes you gasp and writhe until he finds that spot. He adds another finger, focusing on the sensitive place inside of you. Your eyes screw shut as he curls his fingers in time with his tongue; he has turned you into a senseless mess.

The pleasure is too much. Every muscle in your body tenses before finally, you release. Your back arches as you cry out, thighs trapping Geralt in place as you ride out wave after wave of pleasure until finally your body goes slack and you fall back against the grass, breathing heavily.

For a moment, Geralt doesn’t move, yellow eyes drinking in the sight of you lying there slowly coming back to your senses. When your breathing has somewhat returned to normal, he slowly kisses up your body until he reaches your lips, capturing you in a kiss that seems to last forever, but still not long enough. You can taste yourself on his tongue and it drives you mad.

You are already reaching down, desperately and clumsily attempting to yank off his pants, wanting there to be nothing between the two of you. He helps you with the task, kicking off his boots and tossing his remaining clothing to the side. You watch him, eyes committing every muscle and every scar to memory, and finally you allow yourself to look lower.

It takes you a moment to realize that you’re staring, eyes wide as you consider the size of him. Not that you have anything to compare it to, but he is huge, and, considering the only thing that had been inside you before this day are your own fingers, you shiver at the thought of it. He lowers himself back onto his elbows, eyes finding yours as he brushes stray strands of hair from your sweat-soaked forehead as you blink up at him through your lashes, chewing your lower lip, feeling equal parts nervous and impatient.

As your heart hammers in your chest, he leans down to press his lips against the sensitive spot at the crook of your neck, positioning himself between your legs. You whimper as he teases you with the head of his large cock, sliding it from your entrance to your clit and back again, pausing there when all you wanted was for him to push himself inside you.

And all at once, he does. You draw in a sharp breath at the mix of pain and pleasure. He holds still for a moment, letting you adjust to the size of him. You hadn’t thought it’d feel this good. You’d not had much in the way of women to tell you about things like this here at Kaer Morhen. Most of what you learned, you learned from the boys – and you’d learn to take anything you heard from them with a grain of salt. But this – gods. It felt like pure bliss.

Finally, he slowly drew out and thrust back in again, groaning into the space between your neck and shoulder. By his third thrust, you were already raising your hips to meet his, wanting more, faster, harder. But Geralt was taking his time, despite your fingers raking his back, leaving red marks that could be mistaken for claw marks, in all honesty.

“Geralt,” his name spills from your lips in something between a sigh and a moan. He responds by kissing your neck, then moving up to kiss your lips, the two of you lying there, drinking each other in, hips moving harder and faster as he fills you up over and over again, somehow hitting every single spot inside of you, making you whimper beneath him.

You are both sweating, breathing heavily, and clawing at each other as if your lives depend on exploring every part of one another. His thrusts are even, though. A perfect rhythm that has you repeating his name over and over like a prayer. Each time, he hits that spot, and you feel that tightening in your belly, like a coil. And then, all of a sudden, it snaps, and you are lost in a sea of pleasure.

He finishes almost immediately after you, thrusts growing more and more sporadic as he finishes inside you.

The two of you lay there, half-clothed but unworried. No one will stumble upon you out here. Code be damned, you are in love. And for tonight, you are just that – not two people about to undergo the Trials, not a future Witcher and Witcheress – just two young lovers, all tangled up together, staring up at a sky fully of stars, watching the moon rise over the Snow Pine Mountains.  

Taglist: @fairytale07, @geeksareunique, @jesseswartzwelder, @haru-ririchiyo, @unnamedmaincharacter, @lazilyscentedwerewolf, @stretchkingblog97, @curlyhairedandconfused, @valkyriepuff, @comicbeginning, @alwayshave-faith, @hp-hogwartsexpress, @angelic-kisses13, @holyhumorliteraturelight, @nogitsunelichen​

(Let me know if you’d like to be added!)

[fanfickittycat]

The Price

TITLE: The Price CHAPTER NUMBER/ONE SHOT: Chapter 10 AUTHOR: fanfickittycat CHARACTERS/PAIRING: Roman Godfrey x OC GENRE: Romance, Smut FIC SUMMARY: Ginger makes a deal with popular bad boy Roman, if he helps her up the social ladder by pretending to be her boyfriend then she’ll be his dog in return RATING: M AUTHORS NOTES/WARNINGS: Spitting in people’s mouths and Christmas

The news of my parents getting snowed in at a relative’s house came as a huge disappointment. I had waited for the annual tradition of decorating the house and tree to come around and the weather had postponed any chance of doing so.

“You can do it by yourself” my mother had suggested, and I had been appalled by the suggestion. 

“It’s a family tradition” I insisted “it needs to be done with the family.”

“Maybe invite some of your friends around instead” she sounded irked by my protests “or what about your gentleman caller?”

I groaned at the term and then proceeded to listen to my father in the background of the call object against Roman and I being home alone together. After a few minutes of listening to my parents (and then my aunt and uncle) debate if I was mature enough, or if Roman was to be trusted I hung up the phone and wandered around my depressingly empty house. The tree stood naked in the living room; only a smattering of pine needles embellished the floor and served as the sole Christmas adornment in the house. The whole scene only became more pathetic and dismal when I tried to play seasonal music. 

 So my fingers ended up twitching. My new friends who were much nicer had plans already, or the snow had meant that travelling all the way over to mine would have been too much. Only Roman was left to contact and he didn’t pick up when I called.

“I’m an adult” I reasoned, even though I was far from being grown up in any sense of the phrase. The reindeer sweater my grandma had made for me three years ago didn’t help, but dammit, I was not going to let it stop me from trying to retrieve the boxes of dusty decorations from the attic. Now, me tripping with the box almost stopped me, and the tears the threatened to fall after the accident made it almost possible for me to give up but I didn’t. Mostly because a rapping at the door meant that I couldn’t cry, lest I wanted to scare away the carollers, or children from the elementary school who always sold wrapping paper door to door this time of year.

 I looked through the peephole like I had been taught to do when someone knocked on the door and my parents weren’t home. It was Roman, with a light coat of snow decorating his hair.

“Wow,” he said when I opened the door “you go out in that thing and I’ll have to start fighting guys off left, right, and centre” he poked the knitted red nose on Rudolph, and I felt the cold of his glove on my abdomen. I shivered and quickly pulled him in to get him out of the cold.

“I like it. It makes me feel Christmassy.”

“How old are you again?” I swatted his arm playfully and he laughed, dodging my attacks easily “are your parents in? I didn’t see their car in the drive.”

“They’re stuck at my aunt’s,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest as we walked into the living room where the box who tried to kill me sat. 

“Home alone, huh?” He tried to sound nonchalant about it but I could practically hear the grin in his voice.

“I didn’t call for that,” I said, fiddling with my hair “I just… Look, nobody’s home and we were meant to decorate and now we can’t.” I tried to avoid Roman’s gaze “I guess I thought that maybe you’d like to help decorate.”

He was quiet for a moment which was surprising when you truly considered how much Roman loved making fun of me. I peered at him cautiously, confused by his silence as his eyes moved around the room.

“I don’t know how much help I can be,” he said, sounding remarkably earnest “I’ve never decorated at Christmas.”

“What?!”

He looked down at his slacks and brushed them with the palm of his hand “my mom always paid people to professionally decorate the house so…” he trailed off, only punctuating the sentence with a shrug of his shoulders.

“Well it’s not hard,” I said, trying to sound encouraging “you just have fun and try to make things look pretty. You should be good at that, you always look pretty.”

He finally cracked a smile “you better not tell Peter that otherwise, I’ll never hear the end of it.”

“Can’t help it if you’re a pretty boy” I teased “Roman Godfrey: the prettiest boy in Hemlock Grove; no, in Pennsylvania; no wait, the prettiest boy in America.”

“I can always leave” he mock threatened, standing up again only to have me join his side and squeeze his hand.

“Please don’t.”

He pursed his lips and considered me thoughtfully “fine. Show me how Christmas decorations work, puppy.”

 Roman, it turned out, was terrible at arts and crafts. The paper snowmen that I had shown him how to make were meant to look whimsical, with a little bit of string tied to them so that they could be hung with ease. Roman’s looked like Frosty had been hung. The stringing of popcorn onto thread had ended with Roman licking pinpricks of blood off of his finger.

 “Are you a vampire?”

He smiled slyly “duh.”

 He ended up finally being useful by being tall enough to put the star on top of the tree, though he didn’t see it as a big deal. He was better at decorating the tree, and clearly had an eye for aesthetics. The way his forehead creased as he debated where to hang the ornaments was a sight to behold, and his cautious hand moved carefully around the tree to find the best place to put the stars and baubles. 

“It looks great” I clapped my hands in excitement, unable to contain my glee when Roman plugged the twinkling lights in.

“It’s… okay, I guess” he admitted, “but only because I‘m such a natural at this.”

I rolled my eyes, earning me a playful nudge in the side.

“Do you want anything to drink?” I asked, “I have a hot chocolate mix.”

“Only if we can add this” he pulled out a bottle of bourbon and I wrinkled my nose.

“My dad drinks this kind of stuff,” I said, giving it a cautious sniff. 

“Then your dad has good taste,” he said flippantly “come on, live a little puppy.”

I ended up letting him add a splash into the hot chocolate, and I had to admit that it paired well with the drink. The warm milk and added alcohol made my throat warm, and I leaned my head against Roman as we drank.

 “Does your mom really pay for people to decorate your house?”

“You’d be surprised where money can get you.” He stroked my hair absentmindedly, telling me about one year where a decorator had accidentally dropped one of the artisan glass baubles that had been flown in from Venice, and his mother had lost it. His impression of her was uncanny.

 “Yikes… I was really about to quit scooping ice cream to decorate your house” I teased, lapping up the last of the hot chocolate, and placing my mug next to Roman’s empty one on the coffee table.

“Hmmm,” he mused, letting his fingers trail down the side of my neck to play with a tendril of my hair “maybe you should quit your job and be my personal, full-time pet.”

“I’m already your pet” I mumbled, still feeling halfway between pleased and embarrassed to be saying the words.

He was contented by the words but continued “yes, but think how cute you’d be curled up at the end of my bed. You could bring me my slippers in the morning.” He curled a strand of my hair around his finger and then let it go before repeating the action.

I scoffed “Oh yeah? What else? Feed me scraps of ham when I give my paw?”

“See” he squeezed my cheek “now you’re getting the gist.” I rolled my eyes, attempting to shake his hand off of my chin but he didn’t let go. His fingers gripped lightly, and I watched with a dry throat as his eyes lingered on my lips.

 “You know what I’d do if I got to come home to you, my little pet?” He mused, and I bit the inside of my cheeks, waiting for him to tell me.

“Well, let’s see…” He started, letting his finger trace my collar bones “I would come home and you’d be waiting by the door like a good girl. I’d have to praise you, wouldn’t I? How could I ignore you when you’re being so sweet for me? I’d just have to let you sit on my lap.” His hand trailed down, landing on my hip and curling around. He tugged, gently at first and then more forcefully. I crawled onto his lap, straddling him as though it was second nature. My Christmas playlist had since finished, and the only sound was the crackling of the fire I had insisted we turn on. One of his hands remained curved around my waist, whilst the other snaked up my back, petting my hair. I relaxed against his touch though I trembled in anticipation.

 “Just like this” he ghosted his lips over the side of my neck, pleased when he heard me gasp. His tongue darted out, drawing a tantalisingly slow circle on my skin. He pulled back and admired the blush he had managed to draw out from me. 

 “Puppy” he crooned, silently commanding me to meet his gaze. His pupils were blown, and a wolfish smile on his face only further complicated my breathing. The navy turtleneck he wore that I had admired before now irritated me. I pawed at it. 

 “Take it off, Roman.”

 “You first,” he insisted, letting his hand slide under my jumper and rest on my side. He drummed his fingers lightly, taking pleasure in me clumsily trying to take off the garment. He watched, eagerly devouring my new found flesh with his eyes. He hummed in approval, caressing up along my back; feeling the sharp edges of my shoulder blades; revelling in the softness of my abdomen; pressing his lips to the area below my collar bones. My hips began to writhe crudely, enjoying the new sensation with no abandon. It was only when Roman began to fiddle with the clasp of my bra that I pulled back a little. He tossed the article of clothing to the side carelessly.

 “Roman…” I murmured, looking down at my exposed form. 

 “You’re so pretty” he mumbled, lowering his head as his tongue pressed itself against my nipple, coating it in wetness. I couldn’t help but gasp louder, surprised by how the feeling shot down to between my legs. He retreated a little and blew on the damp skin, enjoying the way I shivered. I clawed at his back again, prompting him to meet my gaze.

 “Roman you promised” I tried to pull up his roll neck again, only to be pinched suddenly by him.

 “Remember your place, dog,” he said, though not unkindly “you have to do something for me first.”

 I groaned “isn’t this enough?” I looked down at my half-naked body. He laughed and tutted.

 “Oh trust me it’s very much appreciated, but I wanted a little something more. Surely a good, little pet like you doesn’t mind? Don’t you want to do this one tiny thing for your owner?”

 “Yes,” I admitted quietly, biting my lip when he asked me to repeat it louder “yes, I want to.” He closed the gap between our mouths, kissing me in a way that had me curling my toes in mere moments. His lips moved so effortlessly with mine I lost myself easily. His mouth opened a little, persuading mine to do so too. 

 He pulled back again, earning a groan from me. “Open” he commanded, and I did so without thinking. He leaned in again and spat in my mouth. “Close” he directed and then said, “swallow”. I was so shocked I couldn’t help but follow his instructions. He watched, gauging my reaction to the act. I was caught between being turned on by the gesture and being disgusted at myself for enjoying something so lewd. 

 “Again,” I said, feeling more brazen than before, pressing my palms into his chest and leaning in desperately. He grinned in victory, stroking my hair in appreciation. He looked almost proud.

 “I thought you were trying to get under my shirt.”

 I whined, “why can’t I have both?” I was stopped when the garment was taken off and observed, entirely enthralled with the vision of Roman’s body. His skin was such a pale shade that if he was still enough he could easily be a statue. I smiled, biting my lip to hide my giggles.

 “What?”

 “Nothing. Just…” I shrugged “do you need to wear like, SPF 5000 or what?”

 “Bad dog,” he said, pinching my side again but he was smiling too.

 “No really, what’s it like to know that Jack Frost is your real dad?”

 “Stop. I’m warning you.”

 “Sorry, I know how much it hurts that they turned you down for the role of Edward Cullen.”

 “That’s it.” He turned us over so my back was against the floor and he was on top of me, pinning my wrists above my head. I yelped and laughed, struggling against his hold on me. I panted, aware of our state of undress, but not caring all the same. 

 “You’ve had your fun” he warned, smiling wickedly “but don’t forget who’s in charge, dog.” He reached over for a leftover piece of ribbon from decorating and tied my wrists with a practised hand. 

 “You’re no fun” I complained but stayed put. We both knew I could easily manoeuvre out of the flimsy bow but I was excited by the move and I knew he was too. He reached under my skirt and pressed the pad of his finger against the soaked material. I bucked against his touch, seeking something more but he refused.

 “See what happens when you disobey me,” he said, with a smug smile on his face. He lightly danced his fingers up and down the small pathway of cotton, and I exhaled sharply making puppy eyes at him in an attempt to convince him. He shook his head.

 “Please” I begged, looking at him up through my eyelashes.

 “Aw,” he said, his voice dripping with mock sympathy “you’re all wet, puppy. I bet you’d love it if someone was able to help you out with that, especially seeing as you’re all tied up.” He laughed darkly.

 “Roman, please.”

 “Please what?” He continued, moving his digits lethargically over my centre. I whined again and he blinked innocently, moving his face closer to mine as though inspecting for the cause.

 “Please touch me.”

 “I was under the impression that I was.”

 “You know what I mean.”

 “No… No, I don’t think I do.” I pouted and he sucked my bottom lip, even daring to bite once or twice. He pulled back, looking at my swollen lips and the frustrated tears in my eyes.

 “Alright,” he conceded “let me throw this dog a bone.” He hooked his fingers onto my panties, dragging them off before giving me the direct pressure of his finger against my clit like I so desperately wanted. He tried drawing different patterns; circles, lines, zig zags before he could judge which one would be best. The fire beside us was already hot but the blaze burning inside of me threatened to be brighter. Roman added one finger and then another, working up a rhythm that my body craved. I could feel the tightness in my stomach and the curling of my toes telling me that my orgasm was approaching, but it felt as though I had lost grasp of it and I wasn’t able to reach completion. I was annoyed but opened my eyes when I heard Roman shift to remove my skirt and his trousers. 

 “I want you to cum with me inside you,” he said in explanation to my bewildered face. A wave of affection flooded me. He drew up one of my knees letting it press against his abdomen. I could feel him, hard and hot against my opening. He looked to me and I swallowed, nodding my consent. He pushed in, and my head fell back giving way to a moan. He took a moment to let me adjust to him. My walls fluttered around him, making him mutter ‘fuck’ under his breath. Just as easily as before he found the right rhythm, and my knee untucked itself and wrapped around his back. He took the hint when my heel pressed into him and started to go harder than before. His name became the only word I could say, and even then I couldn’t always manage to say it in full. The feeling in my stomach returned.

 “Roman…” I warned, listening to the sound of his thrusts become more erratic as he reached his climax too. I couldn’t be sure if we came at the same time, but I remained dazed and dazzled as my orgasm crashed upon me. My mind was totally, perfectly blank. Roman’s hot breath on me and the pounding of my heart were the only things keeping me from floating away. 

 I watched, listlessly as he fumbled to remove my restraints. He kissed my cheeks and the tip of my nose, making me giggle.

 “You there, Ginger?” I butted my head against his chest, and he put his arm around me. He talked a little, making sure I was okay before retrieving us a glass of water and some Christmas cookies I had baked that morning. He let me lick the icing off of his fingers before I relaxed against him, savouring the bliss I felt. 

 “Hey,” he said softly, prompting me to look at him. The sweat had made his hair stick to his forehead and he looked uncharacteristically defenceless. He looked down and then back up at me, clearing his throat nervously as he did so. 

 “I…” 

 “Are you blushing?” I asked, watching in amusement as he flushed a pink that I knew wasn’t sex or fire-related.

 “Shut up dog, I need to say this.” He rubbed the back of his neck and then exhaled audibly before speaking “I love you.” He crinkled his nose “God, that’s cringey to say out loud. How do they do it in movies? I-”

 I cut him off with a kiss “I love you too Roman.” He opened his mouth and then closed it again, leaving his sarcastic comment to the side. I basked in the light of his love, feeling more than I could have ever hoped to. 

[dishonoredrpg]

Congratulations, REY! You’ve been accepted for the role of THE HERMIT with the faceclaim of LUCY BOYNTON. History loves a revolutionary, and there’s no doubt in my mind that this sentiment will extend to Marceline. I could feel her desperation to be part of something bigger than herself -- maybe even larger than her father’s ambitions -- they practically leapt right off the page. I felt for her in her loss, ached for her in her need for revenge, empathized with the pain and appreciated her determination to change things for the better. The Hermit has the potential to be small-scale, but you’ve taken her far beyond that, and I cannot wait to see what Marceline does on the dashboard! 

Please review the CHECKLIST and send your blog in within 24 hours.

OOC

NAME: Rey PRONOUNS: She/Her AGE: 25+ TIMEZONE, ACTIVITY LEVEL: PST. Because I am currently working from home, I would say on a scale of 1 to 10, I am a 7. I try to log on at least once a day. ANYTHING ELSE?: Just how much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood!

IN CHARACTER

SKELETON: The Hermit NAME: Marceline Ash Pelagius FACECLAIM: 1. Lucy Boyton 2. Lindsey Morgan AGE: 22

DETAILS: I’ve chosen the Hermit because she reminds me so much of the French republican youths that got involved after the French Revolution (as most famously depicted in Les Misérables) and I’d love to dig into the historical parallels. Like Enjorlas, Marceline is born into wealth, but she sheds herself of this reputation and becomes a bleeding heart for the revolution.  (Also like Enjorlas, she’s a “charming young (wo)man who is also capable of being terrible.”)

Revolutions rarely begin with noble aims, even if the outcome might not suggest so. For Marceline, revolution begins with vengeance. Her attempts to get closer to the Fool and the guards of the city in order to avenge her father’s death opens her eyes to the social and political inequalities of the kingdom. What was once simply about revenge is now about so much more. She’s a woman who knows she wants to kill a king, but her reasons for deciding to do so only keep growing with time. Before long, she begins to assume her father’s radical political beliefs: tear down the monarchy and replace it with a republic. I find myself drawn to dedicated characters with unyielding drives - especially ones whose moral compass seems so set but will in actuality change at the shift of a tide in order justify their end goals.

Marceline is very much  a person to be reckoned with. Her fight becomes a fight against her own grief, her unknown magic and the monolith of monarchy. Each of these seem to be an immovable object, but she is the unstoppable force that beats against them. The Hermit tarot card can signify someone who is taking too much time for self reflection or too little. In the case of Marceline, she is someone who thinks she knows herself well enough to simply act; she is so set on her path that true self-reflection is something she doesn’t spend enough time on.

BACKGROUND:

You know this is not a rebellion, you know it’s a revolution.

You are born of a noble house, the only child, last of your name. Your mother is revered in court as the Keeper of Coins. She has a mind for finances and business, though you inherit the steel of her spine and the cut of her jib more than anything else. If you trace her lineage far back enough you’ll see that before nobility came piracy and maybe that’s why she’s always been so good with gold. She’s a smart woman with a sharp eye that upholds her family’s reputation by being someone that can sniff out a poor deal or a tampered book with ease. She’s never really sailed the seas, but you can see that she misses it. And thus, so do you. Most of your lullabies are sea shanties and you take your first steps along the banks of Tyr’s Tear. You cannot remember a time when you didn’t know how to swim. Your mother, for some hidden reason, knows how to fight and she is the one to teach you how to use a sword. ‘A cutlass’ she clarifies the first time you call it something else. ‘There’s language used correctly and then there’s language used beautifully.’

Meanwhile, your father is hopelessly bound to the land. More specifically, he is hopelessly bound to his books. He is an academic that is fortunate enough to be born into nobility. His father lived a long life as a trusted advisor to Octavius Valmont. A former educator at the Bard’s College, the birth of you brings about a new chapter to your father's life causing him to leave the college and spend most of his days in Tyrholm writing, reading, and discussing matters of political science. How he wooed your mother you’ll never know, but because of them you’ll never doubt what love is. If you had to guess though, your father enchanted your mother because no one used language more beautifully than him.

Your father has a secret though. When you are four years old, you learn that you’ve inherited it. The two of you are Inferi magi.

The fastest way to someone’s heart is through conspiracy and you and your father are bound by this secret you share. He’s spent his whole life hiding this, and he teaches you to do the same. You hate being anything other than outspoken, anything other than untruthful about what you think and who you are, and the only anchor is you know how much he hates it too. The two of you hold tight to something the world hates and work to make it a gift more than a curse. This is what connects you to your father. Inferi magic is destructive, but your father shows you that sometimes that is the way of life. He tells you about the pine-trees that depend on heat to crack open their seeds. He talks about entire forests that are born from the ash of forest fires. Sometimes, in order to make something stronger, you must burn it down; sometimes, in order to make something last forever, you must destroy it. You know the story of the wolves and the snakes, he’s told you it over and over again to lull you to sleep, but he tells you it again now. Political structures -  you are five so you say ‘what’ and he replaces the phrase ‘political structures’ with the words ‘Kingdoms, like Tyrholm’ and you say ‘oh, okay’ - Kingdoms, like Tyrholm, get better, continue surviving, by being torn down and rebuilt. Just like the wolves and the snakes.

‘Let me teach you little one, how revolutions begin.’ He tells you instead of bedtime stories.

Your father believes in revolution, in a way that is before his time. He wants to dismantle the monarchy and in its stead assemble a republic government. His political ideology stands stark amongst the beliefs of this world and you are young enough to be enraptured by the optimism of it. Your mother, far better at playing society’s game than your father is, tells him not to speak so loudly about such things when you are not in your home.

And it is a nice home. For all of your father’s gripes against King, it seems the current system has given you and your family everything you need. You have all the flourishes that come with wealth: a respectable reputation, a lavish upbringing, a thorough education. You’re a lady and the dresses and the etiquette and the social gatherings don’t let you forget it. In many ways you are like your father, you debate and you discuss and think deeply on things with little regard to how that reflects on your station in life. Your mother is the opposite. She teaches you how to lie and survive within the status quo.

You are ten when your father begins writing pamphlets - ‘purely educational,’ he defends - about what a republic is. At least once a month he meets with a handful of like-minded people who are interested in discussing such things and their conversations often go late into the night. They sit tucked away and hidden in the back of a low-lit tavern - and you know these things because you are wily enough to try and follow him one night. Your father catches you and drags you back to the manor by the scruff of your neck like some stray kitten. Your mother is furious - at the both of you.

You are sent to bed without any supper and your father sleeps in the library that evening.

So goes your life. You become your mother’s apprentice as the Keeper of Coins and she makes it worth your while by teaching you to spar in the evenings. Your footwork improves more quickly than your mathematics, but you’re not too bad at either. Your life as a lady blooms. More lessons, more competitions. You find love, a first love, so you don’t understand that there can be different kinds, and even sour kinds. All you’ve ever witnessed is the warmth between your parents, even in their bickering, and so the most naive parts of you believe this to be true of all love.

This routine is almost enough to make you forget about the plights of the kingdom and that you live in a gilded cage.

Your father gets bolder in his commitment to a radical political movement. You’re 15 when you start staying up late to help him proofread the pamphlet he writes. The two of you start taking camping trips to the Volkun Forest, so that you may discuss such things freely amongst the trees. Out here, if the wrong word slips out or if a little bit of magic pushes through your fingertips, there is no one to pass judgment. Out here is freedom.

You take these trips and your father returns, only to lock himself in his study for the next three days. Sometimes you’ll press your ear to the door when the house is quiet and hear nothing more than the quick and furious scratching of a quill across parchment. Not too long after there will be fresh sheets of radical ideas floating through the city.

When you are 17, the fabric of your world is ripped apart at the seams. Your father’s ideas are labeled as treason and the King’s Guard ambushes you in the middle of the Volkun forest. They run your father through with a broadsword more times than necessary to kill him and he is left in a bloody, bloody heap. You manage to survive by playing dead. It’s a decision you replay over and over and over again. The anger over it lingers for years. You should have leaped to your feet and fought, and instead - you chose a coward’s route.

You dig a grave for your father using only your hands and still, somehow, you manage the return home.

The rage in your mother’s eyes when you tell her complements your deep sorrow. She dries your tears and you dry hers, but both of you agree that no one else will see you cry. Your magic burns in you that night, so hot and unknown that you throw yourself into the river to temper the flames that lick your blood. Your lack of training has never been more apparent than now. At such times you’d ask your father what was happening to you and even if he told you that he didn’t know, the shared loneliness made it bearable. He is not here now, and you must weather this alone.

Your mother doesn’t speak for 13 days. At first you think she will never speak again, you have heard of those that die of heartbreak, but you soon realize that she is scheming.

“I know what we will do.” She says on the thirteenth day and you nearly drop the sword you are polishing.

A plan forms. Together, the two of you plot. How do you kill the men that struck down your father? How do you kill a king? It’s decided that you will join the guard. You abandon your engagement. Like that, you abandon your life. Your reputation is ruined and your mother barely scrapes by.

You move out of the familial manor, out of safety for your mother. She’ll still write you letters and you will still visit to sleep in your childhood bedroom, but the two of you agree to keep these instances to once in a blue moon. You move to Lowtown. You know that one of the men you want six-feet under is the Captain of the Guard.

When you first ask to enlist, they think you are pranking them, trying to pull the wool over their eyes because some noble has dared you. When you don’t leave though, that’s when they grow from disbelief to skepticism. ‘Why?’ You are asked. ‘Because I dream of a better world.’ Of course you’re met with laughter. You, however, refuse to lie. You stay steadfast in your plot. You wait for their amusement to die down before challenging the man nearest to you to a spar - if he wins you’ll leave and never bother them again.

That evening, you bring your cutlass and you win your way into the Guard.

After all is said and done you hear a stray spectating guard say to another, ‘She fights like a pirate.’

No one can stop you once you are a woman decided. You spend the next few years putting your head down and doing the work. You become the youngest lieutenant the Guard has ever seen. You are not intimidated by this, you swallow it easily with the knowledge that you are here with a higher calling. The truth has a tendency to make things harsh and unwelcoming, and yet it is the very thing that makes the men here listen to you. They look at you and see someone unwavering in their honesty, merciless with their virtue. It earns you a level of respect that most lieutenants spend their whole lives scrounging for. The world may not be fair, but you intend to make it so. That is seen and that is respected. They listen to you, but more importantly, they trust you. You make it clear that you’ll take an arrow for any of them, parry whatever blow comes their way. When a man is struck down in the field, you’re one of the first to volunteer to tell their family. They start letting you do this by default, your stoic demeanor and steady nature prove to be the exact temperament needed to weather a storm of their family’s sadness. Every time you do this - every time you confront a freshly widowed bride, a newly motherless son - you promise to take care of them. You won’t let their death be in vain, you say. You find yourself caring for all these families as much as you care for your mother. In this way your family grows, and it no longer feels like you are last of your name.

All of this goes without mention of the elephant in the room. Your job puts you in painful proximity to the Fool, one of the men that killed your father. However, these days it seems you’re on the same team in more ways than one. Together you lead the Guard, together you declare you’ll fight in the same revolution. You seek forgiveness within yourself, but your heart finds it hard to go back on a judgment once it has passed. You know that striking him down would be a poor move on your part tactically, that it would scatter the men, that it would lead to a different kind of revolt. You don’t want to tear your new household in two just. So you take his name to that list of names you intend to make your way through and shift it to the bottom. That night you begin a new list, one of additional grievances to call upon that specifically the Fool is responsible for and you decide that you will savor and remember these grievances when the day of his death finally comes.

You’re intense, you ache for revenge, you age for revolution. Those that would think less of you for the latter are nowhere nearby; they’re far off in some ivory tower. Those that surround you are bolstered by it. Each breath is spent on the growing rebellion, each action is dedicated to felling an empire and an unjust king. You are a flame that keeps your friends warm, you are a fire that chases your foes into action.

Living amongst the Guard has taken you out of luxury, out of a life of nobility, and placed you in the thick of a growing revolt. Each citizen of Lowtown comes with their own history, of a life earned through hard work and skill, and you realize that a monarchy is bullshit. Power to the people, you think.

It’s difficult to remember the girl who existed before your father died. But try and you remember. You’ve still got your family crest, it reminds you of the sea. A mutt wanders onto your path one patrol of the Volkun forest and you swear it looks part wolf. You take him in. Two weeks from now he’ll chase after a snake on your hunting trail and even you will say “Oh come on” at the heavy handed metaphor life has thrown your way. In these ways, the world continues to remind you of who you are.

And then, only on quiet lonely nights do you let your mind wander, galloping through the memories back to the day your father was butchered before you. You clawed your way back to the city, clawed your way back to your mother. You’ve defied death once and so hell nor heaven scares you anymore. Buried deep within all your noble intentions is an undeniable truth: you have your revolution, you have your decided aims for a republic, but you would put it all on the line, just to get back at the men who killed your father. You pray to the wolves and snakes you will become a better person.

You are not a revolter, you tell yourself, you are a revolutionary.  

PLOT IDEAS:

Marceline doesn’t believe in kings. As the revolution grows, there are plenty that want to replace this king with a new one. Who will take Septimus’ place? The Emperor, the Chariot, the World? None. Marceline thinks that’s just trading out one cage for another. As mentioned: down with the monarchy, up with a republic! Marceline believes in the ideals of a republic, the same ideals her father believed in, and she wants to work to stoke that fire in the same way he did. It might be a moment before she returns to distributing pamphlets or standing on soapboxes, but natural rights and equality for all citizens of Tyrholm is something that she is determined to fight for. She will try to convince every revolter she comes by of her radical ideas and even when they turn her away, she’ll find a way to stay. She’s always been a woman bad at understanding the word no. I’d like her to try and convince as many people as she can and I think this has the potential to be an interesting plot. Not everyone is going to agree with her and I’m sure it’ll cook up a new batch of allies and enemies. Her father wrote and distributed pamphlets against the king and in favor of a whole new political structure, and Marceline would like to get this radical political movement going again through these handouts. However, Marceline is not the same wordsmith her father was. She’ll do it, if she has to, but I would love for her to find that person to help her write a new round of Enlightenment principles with. In general though, Marceline will be at the forefront for a push for a republic. It’s an ideology that she’s willing to die for. In the long run maybe this even causes a schism in the revolution between those that want another king and those who want something else entirely. TEMPERANCE: Marceline breaks off the engagement, returns the ring that is given to her, leaves without a word. Marceline knows she loves the revolution more, but still her love for Temperance lingers. From where she’s standing, it seems as if her former fiancee has had no trouble moving on and so Marceline is doing her best to drown herself in work and other people. If she could pick one person to convert in favor of her ideal vision for the future, it would be her. But the more Marceline stays with the Guard, the more she sees that Temperance is blind to her own privilege. She wishes Temperance could see things her way. If Marceline ever had to pick between the revolution or Temperance, she would do her best to try and save both. Marceline has left the life of nobility behind, but I would love to see the life of nobility try and drag her back in through her undeniable love for this for this woman. THE FOOL: Until a new republic is built, Marceline still has to live in this monarchy, and there is plenty to do here. There’s her own vendetta, for Marceline will do anything that’s necessary to track down and kill the men that killed her father. Fool kills Dad. Hermit kills Fool. That easy, right? Wrong! Things are already messy as is because both she and the Fool are revolters and thus technically on the same side in more ways than one. Because of this, Marceline needs to find cleverer ways to retaliate against him. Their relationship is a complex one as she is always quick to undermine him, but still sees him as her co-partner in leading the Guard. For a girl who believes in keeping a judgement once it is passed, I want to push the boundaries of her decided vendetta. As she lies in wait, I imagine Marceline trying to be close to anyone that the Fool knows. I’d also love her feelings for him to grow and for her to have to wake up every morning and have to conscientiously decide that she wants to kill this man. I want the Fool to make her change as a person so that by the end of this she’s either consumed by hate for this man or consumed by love - no in between.   THE MOON: The Moon is possibly the only friend Marceline has outside of the Guard.  Every time Marceline ventures Volkun forest, she brings back something new for her botanist friend. There’s a comfort she feels with this one - one she hasn’t felt since her father was around. Something tells her it’s magic, but Marceline knows the dangers of asking about such things. Still, she will do everything to maintain a friendship with the Moon, as she is one of the few people around whom she is utterly at peace. I see them growing close because of the revolution, and I can see them growing even closer if they ever choose to tell each other about their magic. Ever since the death of her father, Marceline has completely turned away from the magical side of herself, but that does not mean the magical side of her does not exist. I see her magic being a grab bag of abilities that she has absolutely no control over. (And per admin discussion, I have some ideas on this.) She feels utterly lost, but Marceline does everything she can to avoid letting anyone know about this side of her. (She always tells the truth, except in this instance.) There’s probably less than a handful of people that know and while I would like this number to slowly grow, I imagine the Moon would be the first. Ultimately, I would like Marceline to come to terms with her magic and see how it influences her thoughts on the war and the revolution. Eventually she’s going to come to understand that her magic might be able to help her take down the king. She might even like to try and travel to Hypatos sometime to seek out mentors. Maybe this is somewhere she and the Moon journey together. Marceline is willing to train up anyone who wants to learn how to fight, be they part of the Guard or not. If you’re part of the revolution, or even if you take no particular side, she thinks you have a right to be able to defend yourself. Just expect to eventually get an earful about some radical political ideologies. Marceline hates pirates and bandits. She cannot stand either of them, especially when they terrorize her Guard. She wants to make a statement to show that the Guard won’t turn a blind eye to being messed with. She’s willing to offer both groups a shot at joining them against the king, but if they refuse, she won’t hesitate to go against them for the men they’ve harmed. In the meantime, any pirates or bandits should steer clear of her as she won’t go easy on them. Marceline sees every single guard as a member of her family and when a guard dies she makes a commitment to look out for that guard’s family. I don’t want this to be easy for her. I’d love to try and throw her up against her own moral compass while trying to stay true to a promise she’s made.

CHARACTER DEATH: Totally cool with you killing my character. My character’s dog however, needs to live forever.

WRITING SAMPLE

There are those that shared his beliefs that come knocking at their door to share their condolences. Marceline and her mother had vowed not to show their tears to the public so Marceline’s mother greets the guests with solemn eyes and a quiet nod of thanks. Marceline doesn’t even make it out of her room. Her father’s death is still too fresh, too heavy on her heart and it’s difficult to be confronted with the fact that someone the world keeps turning.

Marceline is coming up on three days without sleep. Her throat is sore, her eyes are raw, and they are both nothing compared to the dead thing in her chest. She tries to sleep, but etched onto the underside of her eyelids are the faces of four men that she will never forget. She knows grief is nonlinear, but she wishes it would leave for a while and return later when she feels a little stronger. Finally, utterly exhausted, her body gives up on her and she falls into a restless sleep.

There’s a full tangerine moon in the sky and Marceline wakes up in delirious pain. She finds herself on the floor, covers still tangled around her legs. She’s rolled off her own bed. She is still herself though - and that’s what matters. She can see through the haze of pain her hands, her fingernails, the bits of dirt underneath them.

What is this pain? It’s her magic, she thinks, or maybe it’s her grief. She’s buried this part of herself so often, that she forgets about it until it makes itself known. It pulses in her blood with such unpleasantness that she cries out for her father before remembering he is too far to hear her.

She doesn’t want to do any of this without him.

The pain licks up and down her spine. She can feel this Inferi magic coursing through her blood, taking her immense sadness and twisting it. This is in no ways normal, but each time she’s had to face it she’s always had her father.

Marceline kicks with trembling legs at the covers still wrapped like mummy bandages around her body. She crawls to the chair at her desk and grips at the chair leg with her sweaty hand. The wood begins to glow red - at least she thinks it does -  and she knows she is going to set it on fire if she doesn’t move it. She grabs higher, pulls herself up, grabs the curved back of the chair until her feet are flat against the wood floor.

Marceline takes a shaky step, then another, and then she stumbles with the inertia of pain out the door of her bedroom. She nearly collapses as soon as she reaches the bannister of the stair. Her torso hits the wood and the impact blows another wave of fire all through her, knees crippling - she catches herself before she hits the ground but the world spins around her.

She is going to die. She is going to die. She is going to die.

And whatever it is inside her is going to kill and destroy everything in this house. How did she ever think she was going to survive in this word three days without her father?

She must though, she must.

Another wave of pain throws her to the floor. She curls into herself; her sadness magnifies and triples tenfold. Like a wave it washes over her, and then recedes. Here, she will die here -

And then Marceline gets up.

Only this time, it is her magic rising from inside her. It surges through her, hardening the muscles in her legs. She slaps a bloody hand on the counter and straightens up. She breathes hard: in and out, in and out, in and out. As her eyes close, she hears - she swears - the steady beating of wings, as it reminds her swelling heart to keep beating.

She crunches her way out of the hallway, down the stairs, and then out into the garden where the moon hangs low. It is watching her, she feels it. Its light pours over her bloody form with every step she takes. At first she steps slowly, she eases her toes into the cool grass. But then faster, steps more steady, and then even faster, until she is running away from her family’s manor, towards the river, as though she could flee from her sadness.

But she is fleeing towards the moon.

Her magic gives her strength and gives her pain. It roars in her chest now, harmonizing with her grief. She hates it, she hates it so much, hates how it makes her hide, hates how it’s always been a mirror of her emotions.

She remembers her father and how he could look at a burning thing and see the growth that will come after. She’s never going to see him again and there are precisely four men to blame. She can’t stop her tears as she splashes to the banks of the river and falls to her knees inside the reflection of the full moon, which dances on the surface of the water. Her hands press into the sand. She fists the rocks and shells. She is probably going to die. And she should fight it still, but her magic is the only part of her father that is still left.

She doesn’t want him to be gone, and it’s the last thought she has before it feels like she goes up in flames.

Marceline falls forward into the river.

The next morning, she wakes to the sound of the water, as it kisses at her toes and her ankles. Slowly, Marceline blinks her eyes open to the sunlight appearing over the river. The pain is over. Her body felt peaceful and brand new. Three days of mourning and now - rebirth. She feels like she’s just shed her own exoskeleton. She’s done it all on her own too.

A raven picks at the hem of her blouse and forces her to sit up to shoo it away. Tyrholm is still here. She is still here. She breathes in like she needs to remember what it is like to have her lungs expand. Both her magic and her grief, she thinks, are strange, strange things.

EXTRA

A few extra headcanons: While growing up Marcline’s mother would temporarily stay in Noble quarters at Castle Tyrholm. Marceline and her father lived in the Pelagius manor in Hightown. After her husband’s death, Marceline’s mother moved out of the Noble quarters and returned to the manor. Her mother is still Keeper of Coin for the king. Marceline lives in Lowtown but makes sure to visit her mother in Hightown at least once a month. She writes letters often. One does not simply become the youngest lieutenant of the Guard without being a skilled swordsman. Thanks to her noble upbringing, she’s had access to top tier mentors and tutors. What Marceline lacks in size and sheer strength, she makes up in swiftness and cunning. In fact, Marceline’s noble upbringing has left her with a handful of random skills that she is never sure she will use again. She’ll spend most of her evenings these days in the Barracks playing cards or drinking with the Guard. They are her pack. Marceline is slowly starting to pick up where her father left off with his pamphlets. Marceline has a mutt that is probably part wolf... no one really knows. But his name is Little Wolf. He’s her hunting dog (and possibly her best friend.) He follows her around plenty while she is on patrol. He loves members of the Guard and hates the aristocracy.

A few stray musings: Look, I’m not saying she wants to inspire the French Revolution of this world. But... yes okay that’s exactly what she wants. Big Enjorlas from ‘Les Mis’ vibes. Mixed in with some Hamilton. There’s a touch of Isabella from Shakespeare’s ‘Measure for Measure’ thrown in there as well. “So men say that I’m intense or I’m insane.” Most likely to yell “Wake Up Sheeple!!” in the middle of a crowded ball. Bisexual AF.  

[bloodraven55]

The Linguistics of Bumbleby III

Alright, we’re on the home stretch, y’all. This is the third and final part and it includes V4-V6 because it didn’t seem worth splitting them into two separate parts. That does mean this one is slightly longer, though, just so you know 😅

PART THE THIRD

Here we have Volumes 4 and 5, a.k.a. the conversations that Blake and Yang have with other people about each other.

One, Blake and Sun's talk in V4C11. This one's fairly simple. Blake says that she loves her team like she never thought she could love anybody, and that she thinks about them every day. Her voice only cracks when she says Yang's name, indicating that though she means all of them Yang is the person she misses the most. 

Two, the initial RWY conversation and Yang and Weiss' talk afterwards. Yang claims not to want Blake around, but then admits that she "needed [Blake] there for [her]." This contrast between want and need highlights that although she’s conflicted Yang would still rather Blake were there if she had the choice. Then Weiss explains why she believes Blake left, giving Yang greater perspective on why Blake did what she did. But this is all fairly straightforward, the noteworthy part is...

Three, Sun's "[...] and I can promise Yang would say the same" and Weiss' "[...] and I'm willing to bet Blake feels the same way." More clear parallels; a friend of theirs reminds Blake and Yang that the other person does care about them despite the literal and metaphorical distance between the two of them. Most striking, however, is that there is no precedent for Sun bringing up Yang here. Immediately before he says that he makes the very romantically charged declaration of "I would do it all again if it meant protecting you"... and then instead of following up on it he kills his own romantic moment by referencing Yang. Combined with the fact that he is flagrantly conflating his own (widely accepted to be romantic) feelings for Blake with Yang's feelings for Blake, this scene is meant to tell the viewer that Sun has realised that Yang has those feelings for Blake, and he wants Blake to be aware of Yang's feelings too so that she can fix her relationship with Yang.

The summary of this third part can be mostly boiled down to: Blake and Yang both pine for each other and are angsty about the idea that the other one doesn't return their feelings, and Sun and Weiss become best wingman and wingwoman respectively.

PART THE FOURTH

Okay, we're near the end now, I promise. The last scenes I want to cover are from Volume 6. This section might not go quite as deep with the analysis since a lot of things became much more obvious by this point, but hopefully this part will still be fun with a few interesting observations nonetheless.

One, the conversation on the train in V6C1. Not too much to go over here. Yang is awkward. Blake is awkward. It's a whole mess of awkwardness. But there are two things I would like to briefly touch on.

First, the way Yang says "Blake, you don't have to do that." This line could have been delivered in an angry or bitter tone to show Yang's lingering doubts about Blake rejoining the team, but it isn't. Instead it sounds almost sad, and a little uncomfortable. What the viewer is supposed to take from this line in particular isn't so much that Yang is still mad at Blake for leaving, but that Yang doesn't want Blake bending over backwards and doing things for her to try and make it up to her.

Second, "I'm fine... we're gonna be fine." Yang initially frames her answer only in terms of herself, but then shifts to referring to both her and Blake. It's not just their individual wellbeing she's talking about, it's the state of their relationship. This is an olive branch, if you will, letting Blake know that even if she's hurt she does still want to see if they can fix their bond.

Two, "Good to see you're not rusty." This comment serves two purposes: 1) it shows that Blake and Yang's dynamic hasn't been irrevocably damaged as they're still able to share the playful banter they did before, and 2) it establishes that Yang's still casually flirting a little.

Three, each of them calling out the other's name first in V6C2. In a moment of panic and fear, Blake and Yang are each other's first thought. Take from that what you will, but it emphasises how much they care about each other even after everything that happened during/following the Fall of Beacon. So far all of these moments are telling the audience that there is something to be repaired here; Blake and Yang's connection is presented as weakened, but far from broken.

Four, the barn scene in V6C5. Oh boy, oh boy. First there's Yang answering Blake's "Are you okay?" with "I don't know", which is not at all the same "I'll be fine [...]" she gave Weiss in V5C6 and "I'm totally fine, I'm great" she failed to convince Ruby or Weiss with in V5C8. Even just earlier in V6 when it's in front of the others she tells Blake "[they're] gonna be fine", but when it's just the two of them she admits that none of those answers were true where she didn't with anyone else. Combine that with the fact that Blake starts opening up about what her relationship with Adam was like later in this scene when before she didn't even tell Sun he was more than someone she worked with and only vaguely described what he was like to the rest of the team after Yang's fight with Mercury, and it's pretty obvious that both of them only really feel comfortable discussing their most intimate feelings with each other. Lastly, also compare the sharp "We're fine" Yang gives Blake here to the reassuring "We're gonna be fine" in C1; while this scene demonstrates the strength of Blake and Yang's bond, it is also its lowest point. From here it can either snap completely, or be mended to become stronger than ever, which is what we get starting with...

Five, V6C10 a.k.a. the gayest scene in RWBY so far. This exchange is just as awkward as the one in the first episode, but for somewhat different reasons. It's flirtatious and lovestruck - there isn't really any other way to describe it. Blake is shy and almost bashful; she teases that "stealth isn't exactly [Yang's forté]" then panics and immediately backtracks with "I mean, you're great, and I'll hurry back." It's all totally unnecessary to reach the objective of the conversation (which is just to convey that Blake is going to disable the tower alone) and it can't be reasonably interpreted as anything other than romantic. The most striking part for me, however, is Yang's "Go." It's one tiny word, yet it serves perfectly to make it clear to the audience that by now Yang trusts Blake not to leave again, and not only that but she trusts Blake to leave and then come back. This interaction is needed in order to move their reconciliation forwards so that they are a united front when...

Six, Adam happens. If subtlety was set on fire and thrown out the window never to be seen again before, then now its remains have also been trampled on by a raging bull just for good measure.

Adam is exceedingly open about the fact that he sees Yang as a rival for Blake's love, and hates the fact that Blake has, as he perceives it, chosen Yang over him. He tries to manipulate Yang by arguing that Blake "made a promise to [him] once that she'd always be at [his] side", but when Yang instantly sees through him he resorts to asking Blake if he "just wasn't good enough for [her]" to which she very rightly replies that "it was so much more than that." Adam's jealousy reaches its most undeniable, though, when it culminates in him screaming "What does she even see in you?!" at Yang. It's a phrase that is never used except in the context of romantic interest, and it removes any remaining doubt that this isn't a personal conflict for Adam. It could make sense for him to hate Yang because she's a human, but he never brings that up and instead repeatedly highlights himself that it's her connection with Blake that he despises.

The other part worthy of note here is Blake's "[...] we're protecting each other" speech, which serves as a direct counterpoint to her earlier declaration to Yang of "I'll protect you", and completes their V6 trajectory from the start with Blake's guilt putting them on an uneven footing to this moment in which she recognises that they need to stand as equals instead. (And I'd like to clarify that this issue was never about Blake seeing Yang as weak--heck, her word for her is "strength"--it was about her feeling like she owed Yang something in truth for the loss of her arm to Adam and needing to let go of that unhealthy mindset.)

Seven, the aftermath of the Adam confrontation. It's only a couple of lines of dialogue, but it says an awful lot. The fact that Blake's first instinct is to reassure Yang that she won't leave again or go back on her word when Yang is already holding her demonstrated just how deep Adam's manipulation ran, and Yang's response is equally significant. She could say "It's okay" or "I forgive you", or something else that would validate Blake's guilt in the process of absolving it, but she doesn't. She says "I know you won't", which is infinitely more powerful because it demonstrates that she isn't just offering Blake forgiveness, she's also making it clear that there was nothing to forgive in the first place since Blake's actions were well-meaning and a result of past abuse.

Eight, and last but very very far from least, "we were there for each other." This is the conclusion of this whole arc in Yang and Blake's relationship. This line emphasises that they are closer than ever before, and that they're finally back in a healthy place from which they can move forward.

The summary of this fourth part can mostly be boiled down to: yeah, they’re in love.

Well, there we are, guys. We have reached the end. Sincere congratulations to anyone who stuck around this long, because this got very very long, but I hope it was worth it 😊

[helshades]

Tip of the Nose : You Be For Men, My Scent

Does perfume really have a gender? Not remotely likely, says the purist, and don’t come telling me that virility smells like those pine-shaped car deodorant thingies. Everybody knows that real men smell of lavender.

This article is actually a rewrite of my response to this post, which my dying aging computer ate right before I thought about saving three hours worth of work. I’m not entirely sure what burning frustration and bitter regret are supposed to smell like, but if someone wishes to bottle it, they may as well name it Parfum de Hel.

On a side note, one of the participants to the earlier conversation had me blocked for some previous reason—probably unrelated to perfume discourse—so I could not reblog the initial post; nor am I willing, out of politeness, to simply caption the discussion. Therefore, here is the original post, and following is the segment I will more precisely address:

@thatiswhy:

Also, maybe I hate the mainstream cotton candy uwu line for women but don’t want to smell like a fucking frat house trying to deo away the smell of vomit on the carpet. You know what I want to smell like? White musk, and leather, and cedar, and sandalwood, and old parchment, and vetiver, and various teas, and juniper, and citrus, and cypress, and cashmere wood, and maybe in the summer like orange blossom and jasmine or fresia. These notes, while mostly present in women’s perfumes, usually are combined with overbearing fruity or flowery tones that make it smell like an aging late 17th century courtesan’s drawers, or “oriental” scents that make the whole thing reek like a 1920’s opium den. (Seriously, I have walked into a perfume shop, asked to be shown something fresh, woodsy and clean, and had Gabrielle shoved under my nose, which smells like rosewater-flavoured Turkish delight.)

Let women smell of non-jellybean scents, you cowards.

That being said, I have found all but two scents for men (to date) that don’t smell absolutely abrasive. (I’m suspecting the cheap synthetic ambergris.) 99.9% of the stuff directed at men smell as if I had one of those scrubbing metal wire thingies shoved up my throat. So no, I don’t want to shop at the men’s section, I want to be given the opportunity to find a scent that doesn’t say 80’s cartoon for girls and/or I read palms for a living.

There are many things to address in this fertile, if angry, intervention, and like often I’m starting by the end and by making a remark that has little to do with the subject at hand: I don’t think, my darling Tatty, that the ‘abrasive’ harbinger of olfactory doom you perceive in most ‘masculine’ fragrances would be synthetic ambergris, cheap or other. All ambergris today is synthetic, to begin with—well, not all, but natural ambergris is so terrifyingly expensive that we’ve got to forgive perfumers for furnishing us with only an approximation. Ambergris is extremely rare a substance; think around €10,000 per kilogram, in the lower estimation. Back in 2016, a nearly two-kilo block found by a man who was walking his dog on a Lancashire beach sold for £50,000… People have become millionaires over ambergris, although most of the time one only finds small quantities of it at once.

   Now this ambergris is a very curious substance, and so important as an article of commerce, that in 1791 a certain Nantucket-born Captain Coffin was examined at the bar of the English House of Commons on that subject. For at that time, and indeed until a comparatively late day, the precise origin of ambergris remained, like amber itself, a problem to the learned. Though the word ambergris is but the French compound for gray amber, yet the two substances are quite distinct. For amber, though at times found on the sea-coast, is also dug up in some far inland soils, whereas ambergris is never found except upon the sea. Besides, amber is a hard, transparent, brittle, odourless substance, used for mouth-pieces to pipes, for beads and ornaments; but ambergris is soft, waxy, and so highly fragrant and spicy, that it is largely used in perfumery, in pastiles, precious candles, hair-powders, and pomatum. The Turks use it in cooking, and also carry it to Mecca, for the same purpose that frankincense is carried to St. Peter’s in Rome. Some wine-merchants drop a few grains into claret, to flavour it.

  Who would think, then, that such fine ladies and gentlemen should regale themselves with an essence found in the inglorious bowels of a sick whale! Yet so it is.

— Herman Melville, Moby Dick (1922), chapter XCII, ‘Ambergris’.

In perfumery, ambergris is distilled into an alcohol-based solution known as ‘pure amber’ which, when exposed to air and sunlight, can be separated into several derivatives, notably terpenes and steroids. In fact, ambergris is mainly constituted from ambrein (25–45%) and epicoprosterol (30–40%). Ambrein is progressively degraded by sea water, sunlight and air into several compounds which are chiefly responsible for its smell, notably ambroxide and ambrinol. Modern perfumery uses ambroxide as a substitute for natural ambergris, which is easily synthesised from… a type of sage plant! To be exact, from sclareol, a fragrant chemical compound found in clary sage (Salvia sclarea). Sclareol kills cancer (yes.), and also it smells really good, with a sweet, balsamic scent very reminiscent indeed of the most important notes of natural ambergris.

Ambergris is essentially mucus naturally produced by certain sperm whales (it is believed that less than 5% of the species produces ambergris, possibly the largest of them, which prey on bigger animals) to protect their intestinal tract from lesions caused by the passing of sharp objects, chiefly undigested squid beaks: eventually, the whale excretes this soft, blackish, pungent concretion which is going to drift for a long while before landing on the shore, where it’ll spend maybe years drying out and hardening under the sun and the air. The colour lightens to a golden grey, and the smell gradually sweetens to a salty musk with whiffs of honey, tobacco and leather—depending on the block, the notes will vary in proportions and in potency.

Almost needless to say, then, that the number of perfumes using authentic ambergris isn’t especially high. Conversely, synthetic ambroxide is a beloved template of the modern perfumer’s palette, one of the reasons being that it helps stabilise scents very well. So popular, in fact, that specialists speak of 40% of the perfumes created in the last thirty years using it! Ambroxide was first synthesised in 1950, by Max Stoll for Geneva-based Firmenich SA. That means that Aimé Guerlain had to use natural ambergris when he created the masterpiece Jicky in 1889 (the oldest perfume in the world to be sold without interruption since its creation), even though Jicky was amongst the very first perfumes to use synthetic ingredients! Most notably, Jicky pioneered a great use of several synthetic molecules, chief of which vanillin, the synthetic vanilla which had been discovered in 1874 by German chemist Ferdinand Tiemann. (The first perfume using synthetic ingredient was Houbigant’s Fougère Royale in 1882, using coumarin, one of the key molecules of tonka beans.)

According to the legend of Jicky, it was composed by Aimé Guerlain (one of founder Pierre Guerlain’s two sons, and the second generation’s in-house perfumer, whilst Gabriel was the manager; then came Gabriel’s own sons, master perfumer Jacques and manager Pierre. The last family perfumer was Jacques’ grandson Jean-Paul, who retired heirless in 1994, after which the company was sold to soulless, tentacular multinational LVMH, much to the dismay of Guerlain aficionados all over the world) ... in memory of a broken heart he suffered in his youth as he came back to France after studying in England without his lady love, the lovely ‘Jicky’. Though mostly advertised to a female clientèle, Jicky shocked many a respectable woman of the time by its daring use of sensual animal musks (ambergris, musk, castoreum, and the devilishly sexual civet) at the heart of its balms, spices and aromatic flowers, most especially lavender, luxurious iris, sultry sandalwood and hot leather... Until the 1910s, when women’s press began recommending it, Jicky was quite the sensation amongst... English dandies... and Marcel Proust, of course. (In 1925, for the International Exhibition of Decorative Arts, Jacques Guerlain presented a twist on Jicky, in which he had removed lavender and woods but added bergamot and, especially, a massive dose of ethylvanillin [three times more potent than vanillin!]: Shalimar was born.)

Men and women used to wear the very same perfumes. Until the 19th century, really, the market wasn’t segmented and there was no such thing as a masculine scent. When the European courts started bathing again and heady perfumes fell out of fashion to the benefit of lighter, tarter, fresher fragrances modelled after the famous Eau de Cologne (1708), women wore them too. The French Jean-Marie Farina who became with his own Eau de Cologne (1809) the official perfumer of the imperial court furnished Empress Joséphine as well. It was for Empress Eugénie, wife of Napoleon III, that Pierre Guerlain created his 1853 Eau de Cologne impériale in the famous ‘bee bottle’ (with his 69 bees symbolising the Empire), which earned Guerlain the envied title of ‘Patented Perfumer of Her Majesty’.

The real difference in perfume usage that occurred during the 19th century was actually a matter of social marking via the use of perfumes of varied qualities, complexities and prestige: if perfume remained an element of luxury, now the aristocracy wasn’t alone in this privilege; moreover, clothes weren’t so elaborate and expensive anymore, and social differences were expressed in subtler ways than before the Revolution. In Paris, House Guerlain furnished a more aristocratic clientèle, whereas the upper-middle class went to Roger & Gallet (successors to Jean-Marie Farina), Lubin or L.T. Piver; meanwhile, middle-middle and lower-middle classes patroned Bourjois and Gellé Frères. The lower-middle class also went to ‘perfume bazaars’ that proposed the same products on sale, plus low-quality products.

The first respectable (only) concurrent to French perfumery was actually England, thanks to the well-earned reputation of its barbers, who created their own fragrances, at once discreet, elegant yet tenacious. Those were scents designed to be applied on the skin as tonics in the first place, after an expert shave, and as such they were based on aromatics, chiefly lavender, made from the essence of the delicate English variety: in the beginning 20th century, Frenchmen often wore Yardley’s 1873 English Lavender, precisely, and it was something of an ubiquitous odour in cosmetic products more specifically destined to men, such as soaps and creams.

It is no wonder, then, that when Ernest Daltroff created the first ever perfume only for men, judiciously titled Pour un homme, in 1934, for House Caron which he co-founded with his brother Raoul in 1904, the fragrance was based on lavender, tenderly joined in matrimony with sweet vanilla and lying on a respectable, tranquil base of an ambre accord (vanilla, benzoin, labdanum, the ‘oriental’ assembly created by genius François Coty in 1908 Ambre antique, the family namer of ambrés perfumes) sandalwood and musk. Legend has it that Ernest, who loved lavender, added the vanilla to please Ms. Félicie Wanpouille, Caron’s artistic counsellor, whom Ernest might have loved even more than lavender. She had joined Caron in 1906 and their collaboration produced some of the most beautiful perfumes of the time, and most original: in 1919, they created the first ever leather-scented perfume, Tabac Blond, in 1927, Ernest made En avion as a gift to Félicie’s friend the star aviatrix Hélène Boucher... They also invented the ‘loose powder’ technique in make-up.

Félicie never left, but Ernest did, along with Raoul, when the Nazis invaded France: the Daltroff brothers were the sons of Jewish Russian immigrants, after all. Since Caron exported a lot of products and had opened a shop on New York’s 5th Avenue, Ernest emigrated to the United States in 1939. He never came back, and died in Canada in 1941. But Félicie Wanpouille stayed, in spite of the Occupation, keeping Caron afloat; 1941 was also the year she got the genius idea, since she couldn’t pay the heavy taxes the Nazis imposed on Jewish-made goods, to rename Pour un homme into Pour une femme, a name which it kept until the war ended. To this day, Caron remains one of the very houses to be devoted entirely to perfume—and free of any multinational’s influence, for that matter. (They’ve not, alas! remained free from the clutch of Reformulation, but that is a story for another day.)

There are two very good reasons why Tabac Blond bears this name. The first was purely commercial: in 1919, women were beginning to smoke, but they smoked almost exclusively blond tobacco from Virginia, which was considered too feminine for men. The second was that blond tobacco exhales honeyed mossy notes which the perfume evoked tantalisingly alongside the darker leather, the cooler iris and the warmer amber, meaning that it was the perfect perfume to cover the smell of tobacco smoke. Two years later, Molinard released the wonderful Habanita, in a small bottle shaped like a cigarette lighter, as an oil to dab the tip of your cigarette so as to make women’s clouds suaver (it was released as a proper perfume in 1924, and long advertised as ‘the most tenacious perfume in the world!’, not without reason).

It wouldn’t be illogical to consider that if there are masculine scent in the first place, it’s probably because femininity went through some drastic changes from the late 19th century onwards, especially as a consequence of the two World Wars. The daring, tobacco-covering orientals which the flappers favoured were a direct reaction to the dreamy flower ideal of the previous decades, notably the artificial immobility of the Victorian woman and her continental equivalents, which the Roaring Twenties more or less exorcised with a call to adventure and independence. Women wore more perfume and more daring perfumes; it was only expected that men would start wearing perfume, real perfume again.

Something really odd happened in the 1980s, but maybe that, too, was to be expected: a kind of paradigm shift occurred in perfumery, as the laundry detergent companies which had become extremely rich and powerful thanks to the combined power of advertisement and mass consumption bought most of the perfume houses, perfume started imitating cosmetics more than the reverse. Once upon a time, the cosmetics industry would copy, or try to, the scents most popular in perfumery, like L’Oréal’s Elnett hairspray famously reprised Chanel’s  Nᵒ 5’ aldehyde overdose. Now, trendy perfume smells like shampoo or body spray.

It seems, nonetheless, like the ancestor of all terrible men’s perfumes that smell like body spray—the men’s version, the kind that makes you want to claw your own nose off—was the otherwise respectable Drakkar Noir by Guy Laroche (1982). So beloved by the public that every hygiene or cosmetic product targeted towards suddenly attempted to smell like it. Drakkar, however, was a good perfume, even if by today’s standards it would be perfectly unwearable for one’s entourage (in a vicinity of approximately 30 metres). ‘Powerhouse’ doesn’t begin to describe the type of scent that was popular in the late 80s and early 90s. And then they started using Calone™. Like, a lot of it. Have you ever smelled calone? Wait, you have. You’ve hated it. Calone in itself was a great chemical revolution: finally, the possibility for perfumers to imitate the very odour of water! Bring in the marine-like scents! Bring in the marine-like scents... I kinda want to throttle Calvin Klein for Escape (1991). Whatever you do, do not, I repeat, do not approach anything subtitled ‘Sport’. It’s worse. It’s way worse. (These days, calone is used to give a ‘watermelon’ aspect to everything, but chiefly summer flankers of denatured classic feminine perfumes. A hint: it smells like shampoo. Everything does.)

You can blame advertisement for convincing men to wear perfume on top of extremely pungent deodorant, too, but me personally, I strongly resent women who think classics are ‘too feminine’ and want to shop at the men’s section of their local perfume supermarket because it’s supposed to be ‘gender-defying’. It really isn’t. That’s not what equality is about, getting to smelling just as bad as the dudes, it isn’t. Even more importantly, perfume is not gendered; marketing is. Skin chemistry varies noticeably from person to person and our hormones do play some role in what we smell like, and therefore in what one perfume will smell like on different people, but apart from that, any sex-based olfactory discrimination is but a marketing ploy to exploit a segmented market so that the members of one household purchase and consume as many differentiated items as possible. Mainstream perfumery these days is mostly hopeless: the Thinking (wo)Man would be well inspired to turn to ‘niche’ perfumery, which isn’t always that confidential but presents the great advantage of being generally more creative and personal. Websites exist where people exchange ideas and samples and there is a whole alternative market for scents that allow people not to ruin themselves buying a full bottle of certain great fragrances. Overall, it is a nice way to get to wear something that feels like a personal choice.

[tothewaterhq]

LEON DE CASTANHEIRA // SCORE OF 9

"Exactly what we expected from a de Castanheira."

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori:

mors et fugacem persequitur virum

nec parcit inbellis iuventae

poplitibus timidove tergo.

“How sweet and right it is to die for one’s country:

Death pursues the man who flees,

spares not the hamstrings or cowardly backs

Of battle-shy youths.”

The words played on in Leon’s mind as he walked into the familiar room. The words had become sort of a family mantra or a motto over the past few years. Leon was born to a family of Capitol loyalists, a family that fought on the side of the Capitol against the rebels. He had always been told that that The Hunger Games is most of all, a sacrifice - a just punishment for a lost war. Joaquim de Castanheira believed that there are two people in the world, cowards and warriors. He did not raise his children or his grandchildren to be cowards. So the boy strolled in with his head high. He prided himself on his bold confidence, his ability to exert a sense of purpose, he wore the grace of his name like a velvet cloak on his back. He was a future breadwinner. He strived for perfection, and for victory and knew that nothing; and no one will take that from him.

“It does not make sense for you to die trying. You are a de Castanheira.”

Hair brushed back Leon presented himself to the Gamemakers the only way he could, and the only way he knew, with the utmost respect.

“Leon de Castanheira. District Two. Son of António de Castanheira, Victor of the Forty-Second Annual Hunger Games, nephew of Brutus de Castanheira, Victor of the Forty-Sixth Annual Hunger Games, and grandson of Joaquim de Castanheira, Victor of the Fourth Annual Hunger Games.” he bowed to the panel of Gamemakers, sponsors and a selection of other important Capitol representatives. He knew they were aware of his history, his family reputations. But he needed them to know that he was the next to be immortalised in history he was the next great de Castanheira.

Now was his time to shine.

Leon looked around at the stations available, all of them and walked over to the traps and snares one to retrieve wire, a single sharp knife from that station before heading to the fire making station. He had spent a lot of time at that station, mostly because he thought the trainers were hot (pun not intentional) but the more he engaged with it the more it’s uses became apparent, and the more he became interested. Fire was so destructive but not a tool a lot of people used, especially careers. He wanted to be different. He needed to be different.

And that information was enough to make it Leon’s new favourite thing. He took a cut the wire, cut the heads off of matches and pine resin gathered from the bark of pine trees which was neglected on the station during training until Leon asked what it was.

“It’s one of the most flammable natural occurring things. If you get your hands on it you’ll never go cold.”  

He ground it down to a thick paste with a large stone until it became a heavy dark paste. He knew he was taking his time but he guessed they probably weren’t used to seeing careers bother with such stations during their private training, he had their attention - they were curious, he could feel their heavy gazes on his back.

“Don’t worry.” he almost said. “The fun is about to begin.”

Both his father and grandfather were famed for their sword fighting. He could hear the gasps and hums of surprise when he picked up a bow. He knew probably Goldie but definitely Calix had probably just used one before him so he had to show them something different, he had to make it count.

“Maiming is accidental. You do not shoot to main, you throw to kill. Accidents should never happen”

He coated three arrows with the heavy paste and put them in his quiver as he made his way to the obstacle course.

“Do not hesitate. Hesitation is a sign of fear. Those tributes will be savages. And just like a savage animal, you put them down.”

He was coming to the end of his performance, the final crescendo. Suddenly he was running. Bow in one hand, he let his long legs and steady footing guide him through the highs and lows of the blocks as he let his arms and his mind do the hard part. He caught sight of the spear station on the other side of the room, paused for the briefest of moments and shot his first arrow. It landed dead centre in the target, but before the audience could appreciate the masterful shot, he had already shot to another, higher part of the course. Perched precariously on a tall tower block, he looked at the swords station, saw the dummy and shot an arrow through the head. And another second passed he was gone from there too, he leaped from that block to one further down and landed with the silence of a professional. But he was a skilled bowman. He had been holding a bow for as long as he could remember. The bow was just an extension of his own arm, he could shoot even if he lost an eye. He moved again, this time shooting another arrow through the slim neck of another dummy at the knives station. The variety of the short distance shooting and long distance shooting avoiding the precariously placed objects and instruments between them wasn’t even the hard part.

He was rapid, he was quick and he was precise with his shooting. He didn’t need to check to see if he had hit the target, he knew it would and he moved on. He shot another arrow at the archery station - another dead centre before jumping off the obstacle course and grabbing the first of his last three arrows.

They felt heavier than the others but the balance was still fine. Violently dragging the tip across the floor like a match as he stalked further forward towards the archery station, the flammable paste ignited from the friction and he loaded the arrow barely a second later and shot it at the target which began to flame immediately. And he did the same with another arrow hitting it in the same place making the fire brighter, and the final one until the entire target was aflame.

Leon was finished. He put down the bow and looked down at his hands, there were minimal burns, nothing he felt at least - but the adrenaline that was running through his body was something else. He had done well, he knew he had done well and that he had put on a show.

“de Castanheira’s do not fail. Only succeed.”

“Thank you for your consideration. And… I apologise for the mess.” he gave them all a smile, it was the smile that everyone fell in love with and he hoped it would be the perfect touch before his final bow.

[massmurdera]

2018 best (and some worst)

2018 was the shittiest year of my life personally and I was a trainwreck almost instantly. I was real hopeful going in, but I got my heart broken as badly as I could get (and it somehow just kept getting worse). Ugh. It’s boring to articulate, but it was a never-ending Russian nesting doll of heartbreak, disappointment, and frustration. But I made more positive changes in the last 12 months than I did in the last 12 years. So that’s something.

TV Funniest go-to show: Desus and Mero (wish they didn’t go on hiatus when they left for Showtime) Favorite shows: 1) Big Mouth 2) Atlanta 3) Killing Eve 4) Bodyguard 5) Haunting of Hill House

Other shows I enjoyed: American Vandal; Homecoming; Americans; GLOW; Better Call Saul; Succession; Cobra Kai; Kominsky Method; Corporate Meh: Barry; Sharp Objects; Who Is America?; Daredevil Favorite Comedy specials: 1) Rory Scovel 2) Bert Kreischer 3) John Mulaney

MOVIES 4 ½ stars: Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse; Sorry to Bother You 4 stars: Quiet Place; Hereditary; Mission Impossible: Fallout; Blackkklansman; Deadpool 2 3 ½ stars: To All the Boys…; Incredibles 2; Game Night; Revenge 3 stars (solid rental): Game Night; Upgrade; Revenge; Ant-Man; Hold the Dark 2 ½ stars (OK rental): Black Panther; Avengers Meh: Love Simon; Support the Girls Probably Good but bored the shit out of me: Roma; First Reformed; Eighth Grade Hated: Mandy; Ballad of Buster Scruggs 

STILL NEED TO SEE: Bad Times at El Royale; Bodied; Creed 2; Death of Stalin; Favourite; First Man; Free Solo; Green Book; Halloween; If Beale Street Could Talk; Minding the Gap; Solo; Star is Born; Vice; Widows

MUSIC Favorite Records: 1) Brian Fallon-‘Sleepwalkers’ 2) Story So Far-‘Proper Dose’

1975 has great songs but they have too much filler in their records. Damn good songs: Foxing-‘Nearer My God’; Wonder Years-‘Pyramids of Salt’; Thrice-‘Beyond the Pines’ PODCASTS Favorite Podcasts personally: -Filmdrunk Frotcast (Movies/comedy) -Dollop (history PLUS comedy) -Bill Burr’s Monday Morning Podcast (one-man rant from the best comic alive) -Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend (comedy + conversations) -Rewatchables (Movies/comedy) -Bill Simmons (conversations) -Pardon My Take (sports + comedy) -Chapo Trap House (leftist politics + comedy) -Press Box (media) 

Intercepted’s takedown of George HW Bush is great. That show and Citations Needed has its moments. I think if you’re a historian/leftist, the best podcasts are Hardcore History or Common Sense (Dan Carlin), Citations Needed, Intercepted, Chapo Trap House, and the Dollop. Dan Carlin is the one you can enjoy if you’re on ANY political spectrum—and the Dollop is not too far behind; that’s truly the most special when it hits.

Other: My Favorite Murder; Revisionist History; Matty + Nick; Hound Tall; We’ll See You in Hell; Binge Mode: Harry Potter; Bertcast/Open Tabs; Gladiator: Aaron Hernandez

Re-listening to Walking the Room for the 3rd time; that’s my favorite podcast of all time. Late pass: ‘Embedded’ series on Trump is amazing. Doesn’t come out often but when it does? Fascinating and goes in on Trump stories that don’t get talked about. Podcasts I’d recommend: In the Dark; RFK Tapes; Slow Burn (S2 on Monica Lewinsky scandal is great)

‘In the Dark’ is by far the best. S1 in 2016 I prefer over S2; check out both.  Podcasts I’m going to check out: Crimetown: Detroit; Serial S3

Vince Mancini (Filmdrunk/Uproxx) has an annual best list on the best investigative/true crime podcasts each year that are the best lists I’ve seen. Best Dollop Episodes of the Year (must-listens on serious subjects): Donald Trump; the Resnicks: Water Monsters; George HW Bush; John McCain; Wells Fargo; Erik Prince & Blackwater 

The above subjects deal with subjects to be genuinely outraged about versus faux things to be outraged about everyday (Russia; Louis CK or what a comic said) and the way the media talks or ignores subjects completely. The way it’s done is so great (Dave reading a topic coldly while his friend interjects with commentary—and then in the end coming together with a South Park-esque take on what the fuck is happening)

Other: Feinstein and the Flag; Levittown: the White Suburb Funniest episode of the Dollop:  1908 New York to Paris Car Race (live w/ James Adomian). Hands down the funniest. Dave purposely saved a great one for the fucking great and underrated James Adomian.

I can tune in and out of some Dollop episodes, but when it goes in on a subject or has a particular guest, you know it’s going to hit.

BOOKS Favorite book: City of Thieves by David Benioff Late pass great: ‘Slaughterhouse Five’ Pretty good: ‘Devil in White City’; ‘Lexicon’ Meh: ‘Sirens of Titan’ Hated: ‘the Bell Jar’

Best twitter follows/online writers: Justin Halpern; Drew Magary; Brian Grubb

BEST EVENTS: 1) Gaslight Anthem 59 Sound 10th Anniversary 2) Boston Calling: the National, Menzingers, Queens of the Stone Age, the Killers 3) Bert Kreischer @ Wilbur: near front row 4) Bill Burr @ TD Garden 5) Pats-Titans playoff game

Biggest regret and disappointment: Moving my ‘ex’ into my friend’s house in January (with the hope that I’d be living there half the time too)—only for her to end up wanting NOTHING at all to do with me that same day after I helped her unpack out of nowhere, threaten suicide in a non-joking manner in front of her new roommates and my friend after a political argument at the end of the first night she moved in, get with someone we work with behind my back almost instantly (a bland and lame cokehead who got busted for cocaine 18 months prior and faced 7 years in jail), try to fuck my friend when I was mid-conversation with them both first time seeing her 3 months after it all ended—and for her to eventually date my friend’s roommate who my friend warned me would try and fuck her but I didn’t take seriously because I thought he wasn’t good looking, tiny, just vaped all day long, and kind of a douche. Cool. Awesome.

I mean, that’s a simplistic breakdown of it all and how I feel about it when I’m angry. It’s more complex and fucked up than that and I could write a book on it to elaborate my thoughts, good and bad. It’s genuinely heartbreaking to articulate it and I withheld that from her:  part of the reason why I moved her into my friend’s place (she didn’t know him or anybody) was because I wanted her in my life and didn’t want to lose her. Instead, it felt like I locked myself out of a party, I’m banging on the door and it’s cold outside, but nobody hears me. It’s just that feeling constantly. At the same time, it’s also very simple: she just wasn’t that into me, valued me, gave a damn, respected me, or cared. It’s NOT as angry or mean as it sounds. It just is what it is. Do NOT move the person you’re seeing into a friend’s place. If it doesn’t work out, make sure you can get a clean break. Oh, and probably do NOT date at work if you can until you know one of you is leaving (or, in my case, she leaves 10+ months after it’. I fucked both up and it’s been impossible to move on. Thankfully, she just left work 2 weeks ago and there’s less anxiety, mental work (thinking about her all the time which I still do but it’s not on maximum overdrive) and tiny heartbreaks each day. I mean, I was devastated when she told me she was leaving and there was finality. I miss her and have missed her all this time, but it’s a good thing: there was nothing I was getting out of it. But still: why did she say yes to moving into MY friend’ s place if she was just going to do a 360 heel turn, be an asshole and resentful towards me out of nowhere, never bother seeing the place I moved into/what I did with it?. Just a disaster of my own creation. I like to think in time I’ll get over it all and move on. I highly doubt I’ll ever see or talk to her again. I refuse to ever go back to my friend’s house for a variety of reasons and I had those thoughts even before the Cinco de Mayo party, but definitely after. I just don’t belong there and it hurts. And I know she’s uncomfortable too if I’m there even if she says otherwise.

Best thing personally: my brother got married, his wedding, friends, and my family. It’s cool to see my brother have his life together, be married into an awesome family, and meet a nice girl. I’ve seen my brother have his heartbreaks, but it’s nice to see him finally have peace and consistency. He’s got a really great house near where the Pats play (closer than where we’d park to games), works 4 days a week and makes bank too. 

BIGGEST CHANGES I MADE moved out to a place of my own in late January-it’s my uncle’s 3-decker, which he intends to pass on to me. So I’m saving $ by being here and it’s decent. The drawback is that it’s 3rd floor and inhospitable during the summer when it’s an oven with no windows where they should be to put an AC unit in (I just stayed at my parents: I would have toughed it out but I desperately need sleep for school). But yeah, I’m over 30 and needed a place of my own. I’d love to live in Boston, but it’s completely fucking unaffordable unless you work 2-3 jobs.

One annoying thing: my driveway gets egged EVERY day since May. We have fake cameras, but pretty sure it’s the next-door neighbor and not some punk kids on their way to school. It is enraging. Who eggs a house everyday? And it’s literally only my car or the lady next to me, not even close to the street. I keep on looking at the trajectory of the eggs and it’s fucking ridiculous. Luckily, because of school (and because I was away during the summer), the egging doesn’t happen until after 8-10 AM.

I’m 10 minutes from my parent’s place (halfway to my workplace and gym as a cut-off place), 5 minutes from the school I attend, and centrally located to things I want to be (Boston, my brother, Cape Cod, possible job changes or to where I intend to move if I can)… went to school to be an electrician-In school 715 to 1245 Monday-Friday. Pain in the ass schedule and tiring, but a big change. I suck at being handy. Most people are sons of people in the trade or went to trade school. Then there’s me: never picked up a drill or a hammer. But I’m working on it. 

I mean, the job IS risky (it’s not an office job) and any job outside of going back to school for a master’s or doctorate to get ahead (I fucking tried!) requires backbreaking manual work that breaks you down in most cases (construction, plumbing and smelling bad to even fixing cars where I hear that breaks your body down). Being an electrician seemed like the least of them all unless you want to be a linesman stuck outside no matter the weather for National Grid or down in manholes—because they pay REALLY well (most people in class actually want those jobs without reservations). I’m fine with being paid pretty well while enjoying myself. I’ll stay away from something monotonous like solar panels or being on a roof all day though.

Jiu-Jitsu-did this for 3 months and loved it. Had to take a break because I can only do weekends and it’s expensive. And I’m too exhausted for 9 AM class come Saturday. After a 6 AM to 12AM schedule M-F, I just completely fucking crash come Saturday. I fully intend on going back and doing yoga too when I finish school in July. 

Most people start doing jiu-jitsu because of Joe Rogan. My answer got a laugh. ‘Yeah, I wanted to try something new. Also, I watched John Wick about a 100 times.’

Therapy-post ‘break-up’ I realized I needed help. I spent a month in February not being able to fall asleep (maybe 24 hours sleep in 3 weeks) before I finally got meds. About a million waking nightmares (holy shit that’s a thing). Constantly crying, particularly on the weekends without her, separation anxiety and just anxiety that did not go away at all: a constant weight. We had a Jim-and-Pam relationship at work, even when it was over—but once she started dating my friend’s roommate, she distanced herself more than ever and it was just fake as fuck. I was frustrated with not finding a job to not passing a test that I studied my ass for 3+ months for that would allow me to leave my job AND the girl. They threw in shit that was not on the study guide at all in the test. Blah. I punched a hole through my bedroom wall (like they do in the movies) and fucked up my hand a bit. 

But yeah, I’m working on my confidence, following through with my goals, challenging myself, making adjustments, facing fears, getting over my anxiety, relationships. I’m proud of how, even without therapy, I handled the girl who was cold and distant: I was ALWAYS warm and welcoming, had a good attitude about it with her. It wasn’t a point of pride to be that way; I just was. If I was around her, the hurt just kind of all faded, however briefly. In the back of my head I wanted to light her the fuck up for how she was acting or NOT acting, but I just didn’t. But it’s hard. I am depressed all the time, but not nearly as overwhelming as I was. I’m really lonesome—and I want to reach out, but I don’t know to who a lot of the time. I feel left out and it’s hard to maintain relationships, but I am trying. It’s hard at 32 but people fade away. You think you’re wiser and more mature that it won’t happen, but it does. It’s just harder to make friends, I guess. I ruminate all the time and think too much. I’m trying to be mindful and in the moment. But I keep on thinking about all the things I’m NOT doing or the things I’m waiting for to happen. But there’s always going to be that. I am doing a LOT and the changes aren’t coming all at once. I like my therapist (I had one when I was in 5th grade and again when I was 19: I didn’t like them: finding a therapist that fits you is the biggest thing)

I realized a lot of the problems I had were patterns even going back to the heartbreak I felt at 18-20 when I was the worst mess I ever was. It wasn’t the girl who broke my heart, but it was me. I should have been better and stronger far before I met her. I wasn’t really living I don’t think. In some ways, I gave up and was sleepwalking through things. But everything I thought I was past just bubbled to the surface. And I had to get it right, something needed to change, and I needed help.

I withheld my problems from everybody because I didn’t want to be a burden. I especially did NOT want to be depressing but I think I became a burden for the girl who broke my heart. She had nothing to give and she was upset at me for talking to her at work and being cheerful, telling stories, or anything. Secretly, I was a mess and it was painful. In a way, I was denying myself and that made it worse.

Here’s the thing: I don’t think I’m that big of a mess. I might be lonely, but I got a good head, attitude, and people generally like me. I make people laugh easily and without trying. I got a lot going for me and I got support.

Tattoos -got the lighthouse tattoo I always wanted since I was 18. I didn’t believe a tattoo artist could carry out my idea. Liked the tattoo artist so much that I stretched it out into a full sleeve. I want to do more and have some ideas. We’ll see.

Other-new car; collecting board games; got tour posters and Pats memorabilia framed WORST POLITICAL: the chaos that comes with Trump-Well, that hasn’t changed. I’ll hate the GOP/Republicans and that goes without saying. I have some small hope with people like Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, but I don’t have any faith in the Democratic party at fucking all: they will rather work with Republicans than work with people who actually want to make an actual change. You kind of just realize how shitty a party they and Obama were and how they are bought/paid for and resistant to any meaningful change. We are fucked.

LOOK AHEAD TO 2019: -finishing school in July and starting new career as electrician -cousin’s wedding and going to Las Vegas for a bachelor party (I’m more psyched for the awesome house we are staying in than Vegas itself) -Pats playoff run and possible end of Brady-Gronk: I’m not hopeful, but I’m going to enjoy my favorite Boston athletes of my lifetime. Couldn’t ask for anything more from them. I just wish Bill Belichick did a better job as a GM and not fucking up nearly every draft since 2006 besides 2010 and 2012. They’ve won 5, but feels like Belichick cost the Pats 3-5 more minimum. Every year you have Tom Brady, you’re in the AFC Championship or Super Bowl. Belichick and Patricia mailed in the Eagles Super Bowl on defense. WTF was that? -doing jiu-jitsu, yoga, taking up swimming, continue following through on my gym program: my goal is to delay having a bad back as long as possible. I’m in the best shape of my life by far, so that’s good. I want to cut some of my gut weight out though: when I bend down to put on my work boots, I feel it. -more tattoos? -dating again (I am struggling so BADLY with online dating and need to work on having better pics: I can’t get a single match/date) -looking at buying a condo or home. I’ve got about $100K saved up and just slowly collecting things in my apartment for the big transition. Still would like to see where I end up working. Ideally, I’d love to have a lake house somewhere decent and centralized.

BOOKS: -Don Winslow wrapping up cartel/border trilogy -new Gillian Flynn?!? -Marlon James’ African Game of Thrones trilogy begins -Stephen King

TV 1a) Desus and Mero returns 1b) Game of Thrones final season 2) Veep final season 3) Lovecraft Country 4) Watchmen 5) Stranger Things 6) Good Omens 7) Devs 8) Fosse/Verdon

NEW: City on a Hill; Deadwood movie; Star Wars; Veronica Mars

MUSIC -Boston Callling -new: 1975, Bruce Springsteen

MOVIES: 1) Once Upon a Time in Hollywood 2) John Wick III 3) Us Toy Story IV 4) Fast and Furious: Hobbs and Shaw OTHER: Avengers; Captain Marvel; Glass; It 2; Joker; Lego Movie 2; Spiderman; Star Wars; Under the Silver Lake; Where’d You Go Bernadette; Zombieland 2

[phaltu]

Your fake dating au makes me live but the idea of an abo offshoot makes me ASCEND. P sure I'd cry tears of joy if you wrote your idea of Shiro taking care of a keyed up Keith after a video but tbh any and all of the them would be fantastic. YOU are fantastic. Thank you for this gift to us and the universe as a whole

Okay I got enough prods about this that I had to write it. I just had to. thank you anon for such kind words and also thanks to everyone for tolerating me thru this all LMAO i love all of you. s/o to @akaiikowrites for the q& a idea.

( couple’s blog tag )

(if you don’t want to catch up on couples blog au - Keith & Shiro are best friends pretending to be a couple, and run a couple blog online where they start setting stretch goals that are exceedingly ludicrous, because they offer to shoot videos on return. Clue all the platonic, pining sex on camera. This part takes place after Keith comes back from a date, trying to see if he can get Shiro out of his system. He can’t.)

a/b/o, nsfw, general disregard for the idea of refractory periods

If you guys have been together for so long, where’s your mating mark? Does that mean the omega’s free ;)?

Keith’s eyes widen at the question. He can feel Shiro stiffen beside him as well, and there’s the same acidic spike in his scent that had been there when he had come home from his date.

As part of one of their incentives, Keith and Shiro had offered to do a live Q&A session. Their friends all know about their venture now, so they’re not too worried about hiding it. It brings everyone great entertainment, despite the fact that they’re forbidden to bring it up around Keith or Shiro. Keith and Shiro feel a little more comfortable sharing their faces and their voices; they’re still not giving out their real names. But they feel like they owe their viewers that much; for the past month they’ve been able to pay rent and buy groceries and pay phone bills without screaming together into the abyss.

The Q&A started out fine; people want to know where they met, how long they’ve been dating, who’s the loudest snorer. The answers to that are simple; at the beginning of Keith’s undergrad, they officially got together two years ago, and Shiro. It got a little raunchy, but they anticipated it and tried not to get too red as they gamely gave answers.

This question, however, they were not expecting. Retrospectively, it should be the most obvious one out of all of them but they’re still fumbling around with this whole amateur pornography thing.

Keith has a faint idea of who Lattunkrox94 actually is, and he is going to kill Lance, Matt and Hunk upon first sight. The chatroom goes off in a frenzy, wondering yeah, why doesn’t Keith have a mating mark? If Shiro hasn’t claimed him, does this mean Keith’s available?

Their silence makes it worse.

It’s when the messages start getting real raunchy that Shiro places a protective hand over Keith’s neck, covering where a mark should be.

“We don’t have one because we don’t see the need,” Shiro grunts. “It’s just a stupid mark.”

A stupid mark that Keith’s dreamt of getting his skin broken by, one that he’s thought about every time they’ve had sex so far. Half of Keith’s fantasies involve Shiro leaving an imprint of his teeth in the crook of his neck, so that everyone knows that they belong to each other.

The chat goes crazy, and Keith has to close his eyes and pinch his nose. He might be overreacting, but he feels like they’ve just poked a huge hole in their story and everyone’s going to see through their façade and stop being their patrons and then Keith’s going to have to go back to doing more night shifts at the security desk at the shittiest residence on campus.

Suddenly, Keith gets an idea. It’s not brilliant. He should probably turn off the mic and consult with Shiro beforehand.

“We were planning it as a surprise,” He blurts out. “If we exceeded our stretch goal by a certain amount, Shiro would mark me in the next video.”

Shiro goes stone-still beside him and– the strangest mix of terror and lust rolls off of Shiro, the second so strong Keith almost chokes. He’s probably sparked some sort of alpha instinct in Shiro, or whatever they call the primal need to claim an omega. If they do it on camera, it’ll be in front of an audience, and Keith has to stop his toes from curling at the thought of how possessive Shiro will be about that.

Suddenly, there’s a rush of people demanding to know how much the goal needs to be exceeded by. Before Keith can do anything, Shiro throws in a number that makes Keith’s eyes widen a little. It’s exactly half their amount of their stretch goal, and too high to be met in the next couple of days.

The trepidation in Shiro’s scent eases, and Keith tries not to read into it. After all, he was the idiot who suggested it. Shiro’s probably glad they don’t have to do anything rash.

Except that they keep forgetting that their subscribers are feverish and strangely hive-minded when it comes to reaching goals.

Shiro’s not made any troubles to hide what he actually thinks about this entire thing. He’s still not happy with Keith for suggesting Shiro marks him on camera, but also gets a funny look in his face when Keith suggests that he gets one of his friends to bite him, and they pretend it’s Shiro’s.

“This isn’t right,” Shiro insists, and Keith crosses his arms over his chest from where he’s sitting on the sofa. “We shouldn’t be doing this for money.”

“It’s just a stupid mark,” Keith echoes Shiro’s sentiment from a few days ago. “If you do it light enough, it’ll only last for a little bit.”

Shiro stares at his hands in his lap, and clenches his fists. Some sort of annoyance spikes within Keith because he doesn’t see it as a big deal; Shiro and Keith have bent each other over enough surfaces by now, all in the name of two best friends making money for rent. A fake mating mark may be a big deal, but they fuck on camera while pretending to be madly in love. He voices as much to Shiro, who looks hurt for a brief moment before shifting his expression into something more stony.

“Fine,” He says, voice tight. “I’ll mark you. But you can’t blame me if you end up regretting it.”

“I won’t,” Keith says. “Try not to look too annoyed when you do it.”

Keith gets that it’s his fault they’re doing this, but there are about a thousand different emotions running through Keith’s brain right now, and he wants to be irrational for a bit. He’s been flopped out on his bed for the past hour, leaving Shiro in the living room to stew for a bit.

Keith has his heat coming up, and he’s staying home for it this time, because he’s too enveloped in Shiro’s scent to have a sane stay at a hotel or in one of the special campus dorm rooms. He’s slowly been stealing some of Shiro’s clothes for his own room, but he refuses to call it a nest.

They haven’t discussed what exactly they’re going to do, but Keith had shrugged and said they’d make more videos, and then pulled his hair out about saying that out loud later that night.

The initial goal stated Shiro would lay Keith out during his heat; in reality, they’re doing it a day before, while it’s still building and weak, so that Keith won’t lose too much of himself into it. But Keith thinks he can do a pretty good job in acting like  his main objective in life is to get Shiro to claim him, to knot him and mate him– especially now that Shiro’s going to mark him as well.

If he wants to, that is. Because Shiro’s been adamant about not wanting to mark him, not letting anyone mark him in his stead and pretending its him, not using makeup, and not rescinding the stretch goal. Keith doesn’t know what Shiro wants. Only what he doesn’t. It’s confusing, and riles Keith up enough that when he hears a knock on a door, he barks out a sharp “What?”

“I brought you food,” Shiro’s voice comes from the other side of the door, and Keith can pick up the faint smell of cheese pizza. He rolls onto his back and stares at his ceiling.

“Yeah,” He grunts out after a satisfactory pause. “Come in.”

Shiro carefully opens the door, and he’s got a box of pizza in one hand and two opened beers in the other.

“I bring offerings,” Shiro says as he makes his way to Keith’s bed. Keith barely shifts his legs to make room, but Shiro plops down anyways. “To say sorry.”

Keith hates that he immediately gravitates towards Shiro, despite being annoyed with him. It’s probably because of the food.

“For what?” He asks,  finally sitting up and reaching for the box. He takes a slice, takes a giant bite of it, and levels Shiro with the most expectant look he can muster.

“I’m not disgusted by the idea of marking you,” Shiro says, then bites his lip like he didn’t mean to spill it out all at once. “I didn’t mean for it to come across that way.”

Keith gives a non-committal shrug; he knows his internal clock has around three minutes left before he stops being mad at Shiro, but he’s not going to rush an apology.

“If it’s what you want for sure,” Shiro says, passing a bottle to Keith. “Then I can do it for you.”

“I don’t mind if it’s you,” Keith replies, taking a sip of his beer. “You know that stuff doesn’t mean much to me.”

A partial lie; marks don’t mean a lot to Keith, but a mark from Shiro will mean everything to him.

“Yeah,” Shiro scratches the back of his head, and he doesn’t quite meet Keith’s eyes. “I just– I wanted to make sure that it was good for you, and not something you were doing out of obligation.”

And that’s when it clicks for Keith that yeah, while he’s the omega getting marked, Shiro’s probably going to feel some type of way about claiming him, especially when they’re just friends. It was Keith too that had initiated this, had blurted it out on the live stream, and he can’t forget this amongst all his angst over Shiro being hesitant to mark him.

“Only if it’s okay for you,” Keith says. “I know I was the one who said something stupid, and I’m sorry for that.”

“Eh,” It’s Shiro’s turn to shrug. “I get it. Heat of the moment.”

Keith can see the moment an oncoming shitty joke lights up Shiro’s brain and shoves Shiro by the shoulder before he can say it. Shiro gives a good natured laugh in return, and Keith makes a face at him. They sit in silence for a few minutes, vacuuming in a couple of slices before Keith speaks again.

“I trust you,” Keith says finally, nudging Shiro. This time Shiro meets his eyes, and there’s something softer, more comfortable in his look. “That’s why I said it so fast. At the end of the day I trust you, but if you don’t want to do it, it’s fine. We’ll think of a way out.”

“You’re my best friend,” Shiro says, wrapping arm around Keith. “I’ll do anything for you.”

It’s not a confession. Keith knows this. But it really feels like one.

Keith’s heats are normal. They don’t get that bad, not as much as they used to when he first got them. And they’re regular, almost like clockwork. He has it down to a T.

Yet somehow, it feels like his heat has come early, crashing against him like an unexpected wave. It’s probably something to do with the fact that he woke up this morning thinking about today being the day he was going to get marked by Shiro. Probably something to do with Shiro having his head buried in between Keith’s legs, swallowing him down as Keith twists fingers in his hair and tugs.

They normally set out a specific play-by-play for their videos before they shoot, so that they don’t fumble around and show their actual inexperience with each other.  This time, they’ve been so caught up in figuring out when Shiro will actually mark Keith, that they’ve decided to just swing the rest. It means that Shiro’s taking Keith to bed like he would a real lover, and it’s slowly breaking apart Keith’s world.

They’re half on the bed, Keith’s legs dangling off the edge of the mattress while Shiro has his knees planted on the ground. Keith’s wet and keening like he’s never been before; his entire body’s screaming for Shiro to fill him, to knot him, to break skin and prove to everyone that Keith belongs to him.

He’s going to get claimed, so, so publicly, and the thought of that makes the fire curled around Keith’s gut brighten. Shiro follows soft suction at the tip by hooking his fingers and searching within Keith till Keith’s arching into Shiro’s mouth without any control. Shiro lets him slide in, and Keith’s pretty sure that this is how he’s going to die.

He almost cries out Shiro’s name when he’s swallows him all the way in. Shiro hums around him and works on opening him up more, and Keith’s trying his best to keep himself steady. Shiro pulls off with a pop and Keith twitches a little at the loss.

“Good?” Shiro asks, and Keith can barely meet his eyes as he nods. “Want some more?”

He’s looking up at Keith, eyes bright and cheeks flushed, and Keith’s trying to find a way to articulate that he thinks his heat might have been triggered, might be breaking through him at this very moment, without having the camera pick it up.  He can feel the fire through till the tip of his toes, and knows he’s growing redder at a steady pace.

Shiro takes a sharp inhale, and that’s all it takes for his expression to change.

“You’re…” He trails off, and Keith lifts a trembling finger to Shiro’s lips.

“Yeah,” He replies, and he can hear the pathetic tint to his own voice. He’s not proud of it, but before he can dwell on it, Shiro’s pushing upwards.

He kisses Keith with a ferocity that catches him by surprise, and he can taste Shiro’s hunger through it. Shiro presses Keith flat against the mattress, and plants a foot on the ground. He nudges Keith’s legs apart with his other thigh, and Keith immediately rolls down on it, moaning openly into Shiro’s mouth.

Briefly, he thinks about the date he went on earlier in the week. The person had been a kind beta from one of his Trig classes. They paid for the date, had carried a good enough concentration, had been extremely sweet to Keith, and Keith sent them off with a kiss on the cheek and a hesitant “I’m not sure if I’m ready”. They had been a good sport about it, just like they had taken Keith’s “My roommate’s an alpha” as a good enough explanation for why he probably reeked of Shiro.

Keith’s glad that he didn’t have to articulate that he’s not been able to ever match the amount of desire he’s felt for Shiro. He’s glad that he’s never had to articulate how he sensed jealousy in Shiro when he had told Shiro about the date, and how that scent had stayed with him as he wrapped a hand around himself later that night and muffled himself against the pillow.

That sends another sharp spike of lust through Keith, and there’s no denying that his heat’s come on early. It feels like his brain’s getting consumed by Shiro, who’s kissing him like he’s ready to devour him.

“Shit,” Shiro murmurs when he breaks them apart and Keith tries to chase him. Keith claws at his back and pulls him closer. Shiro presses his nose against Keith’s neck, and Keith feels the skim of teeth against skin. “You’re not kidding.”

You have no idea, Keith thinks.

But by the way Shiro looks at him, steadily growing darker and more commanding, Keith thinks he might.

Keith’s been with other alphas before. He’s been marked once before, but it faded out with the relationship.

He knows that none of those experiences surpass Shiro. He knows nothing that can happen will ever top Shiro, who’s got Keith’s legs hooked over his arms, nearly bending him in half as he fucks into him at a possessive and punishing pace.

Keith can’t recognize the own sounds spilling out of his mouth, but he can’t recognize much of anything through the fuzz surrounding his brain. He’s honed in on the heat radiating off Shiro, of Shiro in him, big and demanding as he pins Keith down and takes him.

Keith throws his head back to let out a steady stream of pleased noises, and Shiro takes the bared neck as an invitation to bite it. He’s not marking Keith yet, but he’s sucking soft bruises, counterpoint to the way he moves in Keith. Shiro moans against the skin and the vibration of it makes Keith shake. It makes him feel satisfied that his alpha’s pleased, that his alpha’s pleased because of him.

“Shi-ah,” Keith manages to catch himself just in time, an impressive feat given that he’s not sure if he’s capable of saying anything but Shiro’s name.

“Baby,” Shiro pants into Keith’s neck. “Does it feel good?”

“Yeah,” Keith manages to choke out. “Yeah, god, please, please–”

Shiro doesn’t ask what Keith’s begging for; he just presses forward, bending Keith even more, sending stars shooting through his vision. It makes Keith loud, and makes him come so, so close. He wants to reach down and pull himself off, but he wants Shiro to do it more.

“I’m almost-” Keith starts, cutting off at a particularly hard thrust. “I’m gonna–”

Shiro quiets him with a bruising kiss, and it takes the barest touch for Keith to come, for him to spill over Shiro’s hand and for him to muffle Shiro’s name into his mouth.

He thinks that’s the end, that Shiro’s going to ride him through it and finish off himself, but his body thinks different. He’s still half hard, and Shiro shows no sign of letting up. Keith’s feels a familiar sensitivity creeping in, but it’s dull and muted, like his body’s begging to let Shiro keep taking him.

Shiro gives another hard thrust, ducking his head to look in between them.

“I still have to mark you,” Shiro says, voice rough and restrained. Keith’s glad he’s not the only one feeling completely wrecked.

“Do it now,” Keith says, but Shiro shakes his head. Before he can process it, worry shoots through him. It probably makes itself really known, because Shiro drops down to leave soothing kisses against Keith’s jawline.

“I want to make sure they see,” Shiro says, sliding his arms out from under Keith’s legs. “Make sure they know.”

What Shiro wants to do is to hold him up in his lap, using a hand around Keith’s throat to pin his back flush against Shiro’s torso. Another arm encircles Keith’s waist, holding him steady. There’s not much support for Shiro, so he uses his strength to thrust up into Keith. 

Keith’s entire body’s shaking, and he can’t parse whether it’s the heat or if this is just how he’s destined to be around Shiro. Rationally, it’s the heat, but the spark Keith’s been nurturing for Shiro has bloomed into an all encompassing flame. Shiro squeezes the hand around Keith’s throat. It makes him dizzy in the best way, and he lets out a loud whine.

“No one else can have you,” Shiro whispers into Keith’s ear. “No one else can touch you like this.”

Keith tries to nod as much as he can, and Shiro rewards him by shifting his hand off his neck so that he can tug at Keith. The suddenly flow of air and friction against his skin has Keith’s eyes rolling back, but he knows he can’t come again till Shiro marks him.

“Am I yours?” He manages to gasp out, and he can feel Shiro give a pleased rumble behind him.

“You’re mine,” Shiro’s voice has dropped low and liquid, washing over Keith. “And I’m yours. No one else and no one else’s.”

Keith has no idea how Shiro’s managed to remain this coherent; he thinks it might be one of those alpha things, but hearing those words makes him squirm. Keith’s losing his senses rapidly, and he’s starting to feel reckless.

“Shiro,” It comes out of Keith before he can stop it, broken and husky. It doesn’t stop Shiro—and Keith starts to feel teeth on his neck again, positioned right where they need to be to mark him. There’s slight pressure, and Keith digs his nails into the arm that’s choking him. Shiro removes it and uses it to pull Keith closer to himself and grind into him, and Keith can feel the beginnings of a swell.

“I’m here,” Shiro’s voice reverberates to Keith’s core. “I’m here. Tell me what you want babe, tell me that you want it.”

Keith can’t hep it— it’s too much. All he can feel is Shiro, all he can smell is Shiro, all he can hear is Shiro’s voice, all that’s surrounding him right now is Shiro Shiro Shiro.

“You,” It’s the neediest Keith has ever sounded in his life, and he can’t bring himself to care. “I need you Shiro, you, only you, it’s only ever been you, I love you, Shiro, Shiro–”

Shiro bites down hard just as they both tip over the edge, and something within Keith surges at the fact that finally, finally Shiro’s claimed him, and makes him temporarily forget the confession he’s just blurted out.

When Shiro’s knot comes down and he slips out, and Keith’s officially come down from the high of his first wave of heat, Keith wants to bury himself under his own bed and die of mortification. He’s not sure how he’s going to gather the courage or the energy to go turn the cameras off.

Shiro rumbles behind him as Keith voices as much, and rolls them over so that Keith’s half on Shiro’s torso.

“You did well,” Shiro says, and it sounds so much like the voice he had when he was playing ball in their first year of university, that Keith snorts.

“Thanks pal,” He says dryly, and Shiro chuckles. “I’m glad you find this funny.”

Shiro rolls his eyes smiles at him and runs a hand through Keith’s hair. Keith’s eyes close at the touch and he leans into it, enjoying the soft pressure against his scalp. It relaxes him further, even though he’s already feeling boneless from their efforts earlier on. The mark on his neck pulses a little, and Keith’s eyes shoot open.

“Woah,” Shiro says, shifting a hand to Keith’s shoulder. He can probably sense Keith’s panic; it wouldn’t be too hard, because Keith’s dousing in it.

“I said— when you marked me,” Keith stutters, and Shiro raises an eyebrow at him. “I said—”

“I heard,” Shiro replies, moving his hand again, and Keith feels himself get shifted further up Shiro till he’s nose to nose with him.

His expression is indescernible to Keith, but Keith doesn’t get a chance to dwell on it. Shiro pulls him down for a soft, chaste press of the lips. It’s easy, a lot easier than Keith expected, especially when Shiro kisses the corner of his mouth, then the tip of his nose.

“You too,” Shiro says gently. “I love you too.”

Relief melts through Keith. Any half-hearted explanation about how heat makes people say crazy things is immediately forgotten as he slumps against Shiro’s chest and presses a kiss against Shiro’s throat.

“Let me take care of you,” Shiro says, sliding a finger under Keith’s chin and tipping it up so that they’re looking at each other. “Let me be good to you.”

“You already are,” Keith says, but lets himself get drawn in again.