#Lyrian || Replies ||

[dryadalismagicae]

@reilinwarad​ || LIKED for a STARTER with Lyrian

"Heavens - - if this weather doesn’t let up soon we may just begin having issues-” Minus the fact one was already entirely soaked through to the bone; “Far be it from me to crave any materialistic possessions but a rather hot bath wouldn’t go amiss right now-” 

[kaaras-adaar]

"Kaaras-" His approach is slow but the smile upon his face obvious, "-- just in case either of us gets pulled away to duties in a few days..." He hands over a bouquet of roses he'd had hidden behind his back and a bottle of wine: "Happy valentines"

Random asks || always accepting

There was never telling when the Inquisitor may be pulled away for some sort of dire mission, or a healer may be wrists deep in a difficult surgery. The time that they managed to share together at times felt fleeting, but well worth the waits for when they both happened to have time.

When Lyrian approached, there was something telling about the way his hands were tucked behind his back, but when he offered the bouquet of stunning roses and a bottle of wine, Kaaras felt his heart warm in his chest.

That was so very kind of him, despite the fact that he could not drink the wine. That was not Lyrian's fault, he likely should have told him by now that he could not drink alcohol.

Long ears lowered coyly as a blush touched Kaaras' cheeks. "Oh, you shouldn't have," he replied, taking the flowers and pressing them to his nose. Roses were his favourite flowers, so of course he was enamoured.

"I'm afraid I can't have the wine, but please, keep it. I would hate for it to go to waste, and the gesture is appreciated." He leaned forward and down so he could plant a kiss on Lyrian's lips, his nose brushing against the other's before he leant back up.

"And please, don't feel embarrassed. I should have told you earlier that alcohol and I do... not agree," he chuckled lightly.

[bucknastysbabe]

Okayyyy but a thot that’s living rent free in my head right now is Criston returning to the keep from battle and he’s all dirty, covered in mud, blood, cuts n bruises and the first thing he does is fuck you like a wild animal

A/N: BARK YES AWOOOO YES👹👹So I’m using I guess a nameless oc but I’ve written two other fics w her. Aemond’s twin reader. Angry bitey sort.

Rating: Explicit

Tags: Rough sex, pnv!sex, Targtower!reader, age difference, breeding kink, toxic couple, insults, dirty talk, caretaking afterward, DIRTY NASTY MUD AND BLOOD AND ASH BOINKING, they’re possessive as fuck and mean but in love OKAY

You were wrapping up a wound on your arm, already down to the barest of clothing. The approaching clopping of hooves sounded from outside the tent. It was him, returned from the last vestiges of battle, likely was giving orders for the final leg. Criston stepped inside the tent, slinging a helmet to the side with a sharp crack.

He was bloodied and bruised— ash from dragonfire and dirt from the battlefield caking his white armor and tan skin. He never looked more gorgeous. Your mentor oft said the same thing, loving the smell of the battle on your skin. You tidied up the wrappings and asked, “Need anything?”

He eyed your arm and gruffed, “No. M’fine. What happened?”

You shrugged, “Little Darry prick nicked me. He didn’t last much longer. We near Harrenhal by morn.” You held back the shudder at the remembrance of the melted down towers in the distance. He stepped closer, taking your wounded arm in a gloved hand, dark brows furrowing. Criston idly sighed, “Sometimes I do wish you didn’t have the thirst for blood. Keep you up in my tower.”

You pecked his lips, smirking at his serious expression. Teasingly you replied, “Ah yes. The Lord Commander and Hand of the King keeps his liege’s sister as a mistress. That would be great. You know we’re meant to die on the field.”

Criston grabbed your waist roughly, pulling you tight against his armored frame. He pressed his forehead to yours, growling, “I hate when you say that. Let me take you now. Enjoy the victory.” He nipped your bottom lip and held out his arms. It was like second nature unbuckling his armor.

His gauntlets fell with a soft clank. You moved to remove the pauldrons but a rough hand stopped yours. Criston shook his head and ordered, “No, now, said I need you now.” He flipped your lithe frame onto the battle table, hands greedily running downwards, grabbing your ass through the undone leggings

He yanked the thick leather down with a grunt, you frowning at the lack of control in the situation. You hissed, “I don’t want that armor pinching me.” He slapped an ass cheek, dismissing your complaint. You guessed he was going for the quickest route— unbuttoning what he could and unlacing breeches.

He murmured, “Gods, you’re wet already. Don’t even need to prep, spilling blood gets the princess sopping for cock.”

You exhaled sharply as his thick length entered with a slick noise. “I could say the same for you, harder than v-AH-lyrian steel back there Cole,” came your lame red-cheeked retort. He laughed and grabbed your wrists to pin at the small of your back, fucking into you with smooth glides. You regrettably whimpered and he cursed, “Shit- sorry, sorry, I’ll kill Lord Darry for you.”

“Good,” you growled, unable to glare at gorgeous dark eyes, cheek on the table. The Hand of the King and Lord Commander held your wrists in a more gingerly fashion when you tightened down on his prick. His other big hand pushed you apart to watch his ruddy cock pump in and out.

You squirmed and moaned, wanting to ride the fucker into the dirt, begging wantonly. Criston merely laughed and yanked your braids, “Take my fucking cock princess, seen you do it before. You can get your piece when we take Harrenhal from that slimy prick Daemon.” The man fucked rougher at the thought of your relative, blunt tip of his prick abusing the soft roof of your cunt— sending out a reeling cry.

Everyone knew you were fucking Criston. Or when he was fucking you. Made no difference in war. You just wished he’d take off that damn white cloak so he could be yours only. No dirtied oaths or lies. Rutting in tents like animals. A proper bed.

When did you get so soft and syrupy?

It made a bit more sense when your lover was grabbing both sides of your slim hips, panting, “Fucking hell, hah, never had anyone as perfect as my girl. Being so good for me, gods.” He trailed off into nonsensical moans and babbling, hips still roughly snapping, fingertips driving into your flesh.

You reached back to grab a thicker wrist, rasping, “Turn me the fuck around so I can see you!” The Dornishman slid out suddenly, an embarrassing whine echoing in the tent at the feeling of emptiness. Calloused hands manhandled you around, perching your bare ass on the edge of the wood.

He slid back in just as soon as he left, smirking. Long fingers held your chin, another hand at the small of your back. You wrapped your legs around his slim waist, holding his intense gaze. Criston growled, “S’that better my love? Godsdamn spoilt.” He grinned against your lips, noses nuzzling.

You gripped at shorn hair, internally lamenting the loss of his glossy curls. Another casualty of war. Breathing against his curved lips, you took a nip of his lower lip, drawing blood. He groaned deep, hips stuttering as your tongues and lips intertwined with the tang of iron.

“You’re such an ass,” you moaned, barely heard. Criston slapped your cheek again, harder this time, digging his hips brutally into yours. His cock was nestled against your damn cervix, rubbing fractious nerves. He spoke quickly, speeding up the pace to a frantic rhythm, “And you’re a slut for my cock, loves dirty blood, just like her.”

You yanked his hair hard this time, biting down on soft neck angrily. It would leave a dark mark, indents of teeth. Good. He laughed manically while you couldn’t help but lose yourself to the pleasure— as much as it made you fucking nuts to get a mention of the royal bitch. The first Targaryen he had.

Criston spoke softer this time, lips searching out your pouting ones, a big hand massaging your peaked breasts. He sighed, “You- oh fuck- you know I-I’m fuuucking gods! Fucking with you sweetness.” He blinked a couple of times, smashing his mouth to yours. Warmed armor pressed tightly to your bare skin.

He hiked one of your long legs higher, praising nonsense between heated locks of lips. You gasped, “Don’t mention the bitch again!” The little death was near now, your belly awash with tingling nerves, clit throbbing and cunt wonderfully tightening. Your next insult was drowned out by hoarse cries, the familiar raspy tone of your own voice.

How he drove you to pieces. You shook, legs twitching whilst locked around his trim waist. You cried out a final time, a high keen of his name. Slutty and drawn out— not something the ‘bloody princess’ would sound like.

Criston fared no better, somehow closing further into your frame, mouth agape. His hands found your blotchy cheeks, trying to lap and suck at your mouth but too busy grunting and moaning to do much of anything. Grabbing his firm ass you hissed, “C’mon Cole, Ser, fill me up yeah? Want to fill a royal womb?”

That was your payback for the mention of the bitch of Dragonstone. Criston wanted to breed you up so bad, own his destiny, have little princes and princesses. No more common-born marcher steward’s son. He whined through his nose, lashes fluttering.

“No- gods, sh-shut up,” he panted.

“Can’t you see it? Pretty little babes with my eyes and your hair?,” you said with a sigh, eyes moony and wet with emotions, overstimulation, the inevitable feeling of everything being a waste.

He pulled out, brows knitting in pleasure-pain, covering your belly with his hot seed as he moaned in short, desperate bursts. Criston didn’t dare slump but he pressed his sweaty forehead to your own and bemoaned, “I want it so bad.” You pressed a chaste kiss and sighed, “I know.”

He backed off, the post-orgasm plummet hitting hard. Reality. You reached around for one of his discarded shirts, gingerly hopping off the table. “Criston, sit down, quit pacing, I have some hot water over here.” He gave a mournful look, sitting down on a stool.

He remained stony while you unbuckled and unlaced his armor, undergarments. The Hand remained naked, horrid bruising lining his abdomen. You dipped the cloth in the fire-heated water and began to wipe his face, chastising, “You said you were fine.”

“I am, bruising is nothing new. You know that.”

“Pompous arse.”

“Wonder where you learned it from.”

You snickered softly, a gentle moment between you two. A side only Criston ever saw, a side unraveled really. He stared with intent, hand idly curling into your braids, the platinum turned dull ash to rust from battle. You raised a brow with a ‘Hm?’ He tugged the end of the fishtail and stated, “I love you.”

Tags: @bambitas @aemonds-holy-milk @fairysluna @sugarpoppss2 also @sylasthegrim (since you’re kinda in a cole era surprise???)

[ka0ila]

|Enemity

genre- angst, smut, mafia au, dark romance, enemies to lovers¿

pairing- mafia!straykids x mafia!reader

type- series

warnings- smut, degradation, death, murder, blood, childhood trauma, virginity, dark, mention of rape, guns.

m.list

tags- @hann1bee

A winter morning,

My parents were shot.

That look on his face, i can't forget.

Those suffering eyes, i can't forget.

Blood, all over.

my face,

my clothes,

the floor.

everywhere.

The tall, muscular expression-less man stepped inside, looked at my brother and i, bent down and grabbed my dad by his hair and made him look towards him,

"i told you,hazlurt, i did. i warned you, i did and now, you're gonna pay it with your own life and your poor little wife." a disgusting smirk displayed on his face. He started walking towards my mom, all of a sudden, two men came in, held me and my brother, grabbed our jaws, and made us look towards our parents. Lyrian was sobbing, badly. The muscular man, grabbed my mom by her hair, "poor little thing, gonna pay for your husband's mistake, yeah?" my mom winced and he slapped her.

"stop! Valzart, don't bring her into this, don't hurt her, i beg of you!" my dad screamed, with a little energy he had left.

"not so fast, you know what i wanted Hazlurt, but you and your fucking loyalty towards your pitty little job is gonna get you, and your family killed." he snapped back.

He took out a knife and placed it on my mom's collarbone, "hey, i'm gonna engrave my name on your skin, infront of your husband, isn't that so exciting?" he said chuckling, dad tried to get up, he just couldn't and then Valzart, the muscular man, placed the knife on my mom's collarbone, "Stop! please" Jeongin shouted crying. Valzart looked towards him, "oh hey, you pity little momma's boy, it's alright, i'm not hurting your momma, it's just something she paying for because of your daddy's actions" he said and a disgusting little smile displayed on his disgusting face.

'C'

'R'

'I'

'S'

'T'

‘O’

‘P’

‘H’

‘E’

‘R’

Bahng Christopher Chahn.

The leader of straykids.

The engraving looked deep, my mom was screaming, even i wanted to look away i couldn't because one of his men was grabbing my jaw and made my look at my mom struggling, when i tried to close my eyes, he slapped me. Jeongin passed out hearing my mom scream, and yelp in pain, it was too much.

I was just a 8 year old kid, too small and understand or to express emotions.

"poor little girl, wanna know what daddy did? your daddy tried to betray us, and him being this poor little spy, tried to leak something very important, that's wrong right? betraying, betraying is wrong right, little one?"

Suddenly, someone hit him from the behind with a wooden stick,

It was my brother, Jeongin,

he mouthed 'run'

i looked around,

everything was so slow,

everything was echoing,

blurry,

hazy,

Jeongin held my hand, and

we ran.

BangChan

I can never in my fucking life forget his filthy name.

A mafia, A well known filthy mafia.

Known to be 'heartless', 'cold', and definitely not merciful.

Killed more than half of the top mafia's including Ogumai Kamasaki.

nearly no one was able to dream surpass The Great Harlenlando Eziquas, but he did.

My biggest enemy since i was eight.

…

"you came, RaIz." (Y/N) Hazlurt said while sipping her imported wine. "you called, Hazlurt" Jorian replied back smirking, Lileth raised her left eyebrow and smirked as no one ever dares to call her by her surname. "daring, aren't ya?" (Y/N) said in a stern tone, leaving goosebumps on Jorian's body, "here for a good reason, my lady."

"very well." (Y/N) said as she kept her wine glass on the back marble table infront of the pool. "what made you call me here, my lady?" Jorian said as he moved his hand to grab his whiskey glass. "nothing special really, just for my own personal pleasure" (Y/N) gave him a stern look, and smirked. As she moved towards him, he moved when step back. Soon, he was pinned down by (Y/N), "what are you planning to do to me?" Jorian said with lustfull eyes.

"Kill you just like you killed my brother's girlfriend"

"you know she deserved it." Jorian said with a scared but stubborn tone, with a wish to live. "oh? well then, you deserve to die" she placed her pistol's pointer inside his mouth and shot him. Jeongin was in the pool, looking at the drama. He was satisfied with what happened, flipped his hair; spread his arms and fell back on his back inside the water.

…

with a bang, i submersed myself in the water, he deserved it, he deserved to die, he deserved to die because he killed and raped his own sister and my girlfriend, the only girl i've ever loved in my entire life. i've had so many girlfriends but all of them were only for my own pleasure, but i fell in love with Miuka.

"Jeongin?" I heard my sister call out my name. For some reason i just didn't want to answer."I.N?" If she ever gave anyone a nickname, it was me, if she ever cared about someone, it was me. So, not many know i'm her brother as it's 'danger' for me. If people get to know about it, i'll be all her enemy's target. So, we're 'cousins' in the eyes of people, 'cousins with enmity' it's for the best i guess.Jorian Ralz, a man who worked under Bang Chan. When i found Miuka's dead body in our room, i saw his initials on her neck. Ever killed body under him, had those initials engraved. Whether it's his men, or him. Even if his men kill someone for their on pleasure or need, they had to engrave his name on the dead body. It's creepy; having your name engraved on someone's dead body you don't even know of, but it did make people terror him."yeah?" i said looking up at her swimming towards the edge. "are you satisfied now?" she said while ruffling my hair with a smile. "mhm, thankyou" i said and gave her a quick smile. She nodded and walked inside. she takes a bath everytime she kills someone. The moment she left, the staff came in, cleaned up that place, picked up the body, and took it somewhere, i don't even know what they do of all these bodies. Now, let's get to the police.The police, government, or anyone doesn't talk about the mafia's especially, (Y/N) Hazlurt and Christopher. Everyone knows about their rivalry, people who tried to interfere are now, well, dead. 'Being an enemies to lovers fan, i'd like them to fall in love and fuck everyday all around the villa.' is what Miuka used to say. I never said anything, Bang Chan ruined my family.

…

"fuck" she moaned as i inserted my second finger inside her. I looked in her dark brown eyes. I was moving my fingers inside her just the way she liked it, by her tightness,

i knew she was a virgin. She was squirming under me and i fucking loved it. I loved how i was controlling the amount of pleasure she was receiving.

She was flushed, her face looked adorable and sexy at the same time. Her black hair strands on her face, her mouth wide open, Moaning my name everytime i hit her spot, her arched back, her shivering body,

i loved it.

"i'm gonna cum" she said with teary eyes and barely audible. I stopped moving my finger, "beg for it" i said with a cold rough tone with my two fingers still inside her,

stretching her out.

She looked flustered, i was definitely her first. "please" she said whining, "please, what? what do you want me to do?" i said looking at her, she failed to maintain an eye contact.

She threw her head back, shut her eyes, and begged, "Please sir, pump your long fingers inside me, hit my spot over and over again, finger me like it's the end of the fucking world, just please let me cum, fuck"

she said and let out a loud moan when i suddenly started moving my fingers in a fastened pace with letting her complete and inserted my third finger. 'sir' definitely caught me off gaurd.

Soon, she came all over my three fingers, i made her look at the mess she made and the condition of my room's bedsheet. I inserted my fingers inside her mouth and made her taste herself.

I started moving my fingers in and out, the sound of the gags, oh how much i loved them. She looked at me those teary eyes, gagging on my fingers. Oh, how much it turned me on. "Do you want me to fuck you?" i asked her looking deep in her eyes, "i'm not ready"

she said stuttering in between the gags, i nodded and took out my fingers and got up.  "im so sorry, but i'm just not ready" she started sobbing. why was she apologising for not being ready? i frowned and sat back down taking her into my embrace.

"why did you apologise for not wanting to have sex right now?" i asked her after i made her stop crying, "it just, it just ruins the mood, and it's such a big turn off for you, i fear it's gonna make you not want me.." she said while looking at me sitting in my lap, hugging me.

"i won't get mad at you for not being ready, lair. Keep that in mind, always. Don't push yourself into something you're not ready for." She gave me a heart warming smile and kissed me. “you know, never mind” with that she kissed me again, with lust.

i was taken back a bit, did she think i’d lose interest? did she feel forced? all these thoughts muffled as i started losing control. i flipped her over,

she groaned as i slapped her ass cheek, everything was happening so fast. i was about to grab a condom when she said “i’m on birth control”. I pulled down her soaked panties, and started unbuckling my belt. “such a whore, such a whore for me, say it” she was flustered.

“i’m your whore, only yours.”

“yeah that’s right, you’re my fucking whore, mine”

i aligned myself infront of her entrance, i started rubbing it with the tip of my cock. i heard her whine, oh how much i loved her crying and whining. “are you sure?” i asked her as i huffed. “yes, yes, yes sir, please sir, just enter” she said in adrenaline. i chuckled and started submerging myself inside of her tight little hole, my hole to ruin. i heard her groan in pain,

“it’ll be pleasurable, adjust, it’s okay” i couldn’t be rough on her first, even if i wanted to ruin her and see her cry, i couldn’t. i gave her time to adjust, pumping slowly in and out, she was crying, “you’re huge!” she cried, i chuckled. “speed up” she said, “okay.” i said. I started pulling in and out of her dripping glistening pussy, what a sight.

“mmh- fuck.” she cried as i fastened my pace, i just couldn’t hold back, i couldn’t, her cunt was just so addictive.

“fucking cunt, wants me to go faster and then fucking cries, such a fucking loser” she clenched around me, “oh? you love degradation? such a fucking slut, my slut” i said fastening my pace, i was losing it,

the way she clenched around me, it was fucking me up, it was making me lose my mind, it was just so fucking addictive, i couldn’t hold back, i just couldn’t.

“i’m gonna cum”

“not now”

“please”

“shut the fuck up slut, you cum when you’re told”

“pleas-”

i slapped her ass cheek before she could complete her sentence.

she was a whimpering mess, crying, begging, begging for me to allow her cum, oh how much i loved it.

“cum.”

…

Jeongin, my next assignment. He doesn’t know i’m an assassin, he doesn’t have to.

i’ve been assigned to bring him, dead or alive.

He’s important they say,

he fell in love with me, but did i?

did i fell for his godly beauty? did i fell for his charisma?

i’m unsure.

last time i fell in love was when i was 11.

first and last.

…

“cum” he said. i left out a cry and whine, of both pleasure and pain. i lost my virginity to my assignment, i’m good as dead now.

[zannolin]

or start at the beginning.

Fic Summary: Ferrin is pale and, Jason realizes, trembling almost imperceptibly, pupils blown wide. He’s bitten clean into his lower lip at some point, and blood trickles from the corner of his mouth.

“It’s gone,” Ferrin says, sounding far more lucid than he looks, but somehow very, very far away. “They’re gone.”

Jason blinks. “What now?”

“What,” rasps the displacer, “did you do?”

And then, of course, he promptly passes out.

(or, jason accidentally drags ferrin through deep well to the beyond. this has some...unexpected consequences. also known as jason walker's guide for what to do when a stray displacer follows you home.)

Chapter 2/3: circumstances

“What are you going to do about any of that?” he asks. “What are you going to do, really, if you get back to Lyrian?"

Swallowing past the sudden lump in his throat, Jason asks, “What would you do if you had to stay here?”

Ferrin sucks in a sharp breath, as though Jason punched him in the gut instead of asking a question. Suddenly, he won’t meet Jason’s eyes. He says, very softly, “I try not to think about that.”

“Well,” replies Jason tiredly, “there’s your answer.”

(in which difficult conversations are had.)

[jake-kiszkas-smirk]

Here Comes the Sun (part 26)

Danny Wagner X Fem OC X Josh Kiszka

18+ only, minors DNI

Warnings: talk of death and dying.

Danny's POV

"So whats the plan after your appointment?" I asked, carrying the bowl of cereal over to Rose who was wrapped in sheets on the pallet of pillows we both slept on.

"I have to pack for my trip with Josh, we leave tomorrow." She said as she took a bite

"You haven't packed yet?" I asked in shock, she was usually a plan ahead type girl

"Daniel, you've been keeping me a little distracted" She smirked over and I nodded with a grin

"Are you complaining, because you weren't complaining last night...or this morning" I said returning her smirk,

"Never," She leaned over and kissed my cheek,

"Are you nervous about your appointment today?" I asked as I tried to read the expression on her face

"I was, but I talked to Thorne, he's had stitches like 3 times and he said it wasn't that bad to get them taken out" she said as she stirred her cereal

"You still want me to come with you?" I asked, she looked at me like I was insane

"Of course I do, why... do you not want to?"

"No of course, I do, I was just making sure" I laughed, she nodded as she looked back to her cereal,

"Danny," She paused as if looking for words, "When I get really bad, like really, really sick, I hope you know I don't expect you to stick around and take care of me. I've been looking into it and it's going to get really bad, and I just...I don't want you to have to deal with that." He voice had started to falter,

"Rose, I want to be there for you, doing all I can, I love you and I want to be there with you for every part of it, whether its laughing, crying, or just being in your presence. I want all the time with you I can get. " I pulled her close to me, cradling her face against my chest

"I just don't want you to remember me like that" she sniffled. I felt tears welling in my eyes, thinking of her like that, close to the end.

"What if I promise to only remember the good things. Our first date, the night I met you at the party, the time you ran me over with your longboard, or these last 2 days." I said, holding back my tears as best I could.

"Only the good things?" She asked, holding me tighter

"Only the good things" I repeated, kissing the top of her head. She nodded,

"Also, I wanted to say thank you." she said pulling back a little,

"For what?" I asked,

"Well, for last night obviously, but also for treating me more normal. I know it's hard for you cause you worry about me, but I really appreciate the effort." She said taking my hand,

"I've really been trying, I promise to keep treating you as normal as possible." I said, and she smiled softly,

"I love you" She said pulling me into a kiss,

"I love you." I replied

*******

We sat in the office waiting for the doctor to come in. She picked at her nails so I took her hands in mine and gave her a reassuring smile.

"You're gonna do great, you've handled everything they've thrown at you so far, this is going to be a breeze." I kissed her forehead.

"You always know what to say Danny Wagner, how did I get to lucky." She said, causing me to blush, and just then the doctor walked in.

"Hello Rose, if you lay back on the exam table this should only take a second and we can get you out of here." He said with a smile as he put his gloves on. She hesitantly did as he asked and looked at the instruments he was picking up.

"So, the other night when I was reading you that book, it said something about a double agent," She looked at me, her eyes lighting up at the fact that I was actually paying attention, "Have you figured out who it is yet?" I asked. She winced slightly as the doctor started removing the stitches from her scalp. "Cause personally from what I read I think it's that guy...his name started with an 'L'?"

"Lyrian?" she giggled at me forgetting the name, but then her eyes got wide, "Oh my gosh, that would make sense!" She said excitedly, "Wait a minute..did you skip and read the end after I fell asleep?" She glared at me playfully,

"I swear I didn't" I smiled back at her, still holding her hands. "I am interested to figure out who it is though" I admitted,

"We can start reading it together if you want," She said sweetly, her eyes glimmering. I knew she loved reading, and the fact that she wanted to share that with me made my heart melt.

"Yeah, I'd like that" I said. The doctor rolled his chair away,

"All done, your boyfriend did a excellent job of keeping you calm, he's a keeper." He smiled. I stood in shock for a moment over him calling me her boyfriend.

"I know he is" She grinned up at me. The doctor gave her some instructions for monitoring the rest of the healing process and we were out the door.

"Rose?" I asked as we walked towards the car,

"Yes babe?" She asked, looking up at me,

"Am I your boyfriend?" I asked shyly. "The doctor just said it and it made me think,"

"You're my Danny," She replied confidently, "You're so much more than my boyfriend at this point, you're like..I don't even have the words for all that you are to me." she paused,  I felt my heart swell, "But if you'd like me to call you my boyfriend I will"

"I just like how it sounds, I guess because at one point thats all I wanted." I shrugged "Just hearing you say it makes me happy"

"Well.." she grinned as she turned in front of me, "Will my boyfriend take me to get a slushie on the way home?" I couldn't hide the toothy grin on my face,

"Your boyfriend would love to take you to the slushie place on the way home" I knew she was partially teasing me, I opened the car door for her and smacked her ass as she got in. She rolled her eyes and I stuck my tongue out at her as I walked around the front of the car. We stopped by the slushie place and she got blue raspberry and I got cherry. We could never choose which flavor we wanted so we would always get one of each and switch drinks halfway through. We got back to the apartment and slipped our shoes off, we put on comfy clothes and I helped her start packing.  Making sure she had her medications and emergency contacts updated was my priority.  Once all that was in place I started helping her fold clothes.

"Are you excited for the trip?" I asked as I folded a pair of jeans

"We don't have to talk about this" She said as she situated stuff in her suitcase

"What do you mean?" I asked confused, she stopped and turned to me,

"I just know you don't really like hearing about stuff with me and Josh" She said with a shrug, "So we don't have to talk about it." 

"If I'm honest, I'm starting to get used to it.  I know I make you happy, and I know you love me.  I'm confident in that." I paused, trying not to sound too cocky, "But I know Josh also makes you happy, and he also loves you.  You deserve all the happiness in the world, and we both give that to you, so I'm fine with it.   Maybe just leave out some of the details if you talk about him" I added as I rubbed the back of my neck nervously.

"Why are you so perfect?" She asked as she walked over to me, holding my face as I sat on the edge of the bed,

"Because I love you. And I want you to have everything you want in this world." I said, placing my hands on her hips.  She shook her head in disbelief and pulled me into a deep kiss.  I'd never get tired of her kisses.  "I am going to miss you though" 

"I'm going to miss you too, It's only 4 days but I promise to call you every day," She said, leaning her forehead against mine.   I nodded as she pulled away and kissed my nose before turning back to her suitcase. She grabbed her headache pills and took one with a glass of water on her dresser.

"You ok?" I asked as plainly as possible,

"Yeah, just a small headache." She replied as she closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

"Do you want to take a shower? Those always seem to help?" I offered,

"I think I might" She said quietly,

"I can cook you some dinner while you're in there" I said motioning to the kitchen,

"Will you come with me? I'm scared I'm going to get dizzy" She said as she walked towards the bathroom. I was proud of her for admitting she might need help.

"Of course I will angel." I said, "I'd never turn down a shower with you" I winked, trying to make light of the situation. She gave me a soft smile as she turned into the bathroom. We both stripped down and I turned on the shower. Her lids where already getting heavy as we stepped into the stream of water. She stood facing me, closed her eyes and leaned her forehead on my sternum as we wrapped our arms around each other. The stream of water was hitting the back of her neck and she took a deep breath. We stood there for a really long time before I felt her knees buckle slightly and she abruptly lifted her head,

"I fell asleep" she said with a dazed smile, her pain medication obviously working.

"Why don't we get you in bed then, I caught you this time but I don't want to drop you." I suggested, she nodded slowly. I turned off the water and helped her dry herself off, wrapping a towel around myself, clothes were optional at this point, no one else was here. I picked her up, not risking her walking the measly 15 feet to her bed. I placed her in the bed,

"Here, lets braid your hair really quick so it doesn't tangle" I said as she moved to lay on her stomach,

"You know how to braid?" She asked in a surprised but groggy tone. I couldn't help but laugh, as I covered her with the comforter, pulling her hair from under it and combing my fingers through it

"Yes, not well, but a little." I said as I started, separating the strands and crossing them. Her eyes closed as I finished braiding it, securing it with a hairtie I had on my finger. I got up, opting to go look for something to cook for dinner for when she'd wake up.

"Where are you going?" I turned around a little shocked, I thought she had already fallen asleep,

"I was gonna-" I started

"Stay with me," she said, scooting over and pulling back the blanket, welcoming me into the bed with her. She closed her eyes again, knowing I would oblige. "I want my boyfriend to cuddle with me." I rolled my eyes with a smile as I dropped the towel from my waist and crawled in next to her, pulling her against me,

"You're never going to stop calling me that now are you," I whispered as I kissed her jaw,

"Nope." She said, pulling me closer and sighing deeply before falling asleep.

*****

The next morning we got up really early so I could drop her off at Josh's place. I made sure she had a good breakfast and carried her bags out to the car. I held her thigh all the way to Josh's house, wanting contact as long as I could have it before she left. I knew Josh would take good care of her, but I was still a little nervous she'd be so far away from me if anything did happen.

"You're going to call me every day right?" I asked sheepishly, she put her hand on top of mine,

"Yes Babe," She said in a calming tone, she must have heard the nervousness in my voice, "I'll be fine."

I nodded, trying to compose myself as I suddenly felt very emotional. Her eyes lingered on me as her thumb moved over my hand,

"What if I text you every few hours, will that help you feel better?" She suggested. I swallowed hard as I nodded, trying to keep my emotions at bay.

"You got it, anything for my Danny." she winked. We got closer to Josh's house and she suddenly leaned forward in her seat, digging through her bag, "I almost forgot, read this while I'm gone so you can catch up and we can read the rest when I get back" she handed me the book I had bought her. I parked in Josh's driveway and flipped through the pages and saw all her little scribbles and notes in the margins "If you still want to read it together" she added shyly

"Absolutely I do, I can't wait to read it with you." I said leaning over the console. We both got out of the car and I helped her put her suitcase beside Josh's car. "I hope you have the best time, I love you." I said pulling her into my arms and holding her tightly.

"I love you" She said, tilting her head up so we could kiss. I kissed her for a long time before finally willing myself to pull away. I gave her one more kiss on the forehead before turning and making my way to my car. My eyes were stinging and for a moment I couldn't understand why I was getting so emotional, but I couldn't let her see it. When I got in my car and started driving it hit me, tears falling down my face. If it was this hard to tell her goodbye for only 4 days, how was I supposed to tell her goodbye forever.

[grumpygreenwitch]

The Fairy And The Prince #66 + #67 + #68 + #69 + #70 + #71 + #72

Part 1 - Part 2 - Parts 3 & 4 - Part 5 - Part 6, 7 & 8 - Part 9 & 10 - Part 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 & 16 - Part 17, 18, & 19 - Part 20, 21 & 22 - Part 23, 24, 25 & 26 - Part 27, 28, 29 & 30 - Part 31, 32, 33 & 34 - Part 35, 36 & 37 - Part 38, 39, 40 & 41 - Part 42 & 43 - Part 44 & 45 - Part 46 & 47 - Part 48, 49, 50 & 51 - Part, 52, 53 & 54 - Part 55 & 56 - Part 57, 58, 59 & 60 - Part 61, 62, 63, 64 & 65 - Part 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71 & 72

THIS IS IT. 103K words and I don’t even know how many months later, and it’s done. If you stuck it out with me, THANK YOU. Thank you from the bottom of my soul. If you enjoyed it, just a little, and would like to let me know, I’d appreciate it. If you hated it, I would like to know as well. When I first started writing this, I meant to go back and forth between it and Ser Lyrian’s story. I also thought it’d be a short story, a speed writing. It... is not. The size of it boggles my mind somewhat, and I’m the one who wrote it. If you came this far with me, and would like to do me a kindness, there are five questions I always ask of people who read my writing and express a willingness to go the extra mile.

1. Favorite Character? 2. Least Favorite Character? I’m interested in the character you love to hate, but if you have a character that’s just boring, I want to know about that, too. 3. Favorite Scene? 4. Least Favorite Scene? Meaning a scene that plodded on or was poorly written. 5. Anything else you liked/hated?

Adam managed. He even found the time and the energy, somehow, to scrub at his battered clothing, and to replace his missing sword with the traveling blade kept with his saddle. The peeping, chirping sparrows that made their homes in the vastness of the stables came to greet him; to them he'd always been Adam, and he always would be. They didn't care about crowns or Compacts or trials, lucky them.

He didn't meet any of the stable-hands he heard working in other parts of the vast building. He did meet some few people on the worn path going down to the stables, but sleepy and elderly and blind his horse was still a very large creature, and they scrabbled out of his way, staring in disbelief. Someone ran back up to the palace, and Adam kicked the charger into a light trot; even the jarring gait of its arthritic limbs felt good, felt real and solid against the Prince's own aches. "Trout, would you go tell them I'm coming?"

The pixie took off like a bird. He could hear the ruckus slowly growing somewhere in the depths of the castle as he rode up to the gate, frowning minutely when he realized the closer he drew, the more exhausted he felt, as if he were dragging miles of chains all unseen behind him. Had they snuck up another test on him? Were they truly cheating at the very last possible moment? He'd ride the horse to his bed if he had to, the charger seemed to have no problem carrying him.

His concerns scattered when he reached the palace gates, and a smile as sunny as the dawn broke over his face when he saw Dane standing there, tall and broad and wrapped in priest-blessed armor.

Trout flew back to Adam's shoulder and perched there. Dane caught the reins of the gelding and looked up.

"Dane," Adam greeted.

"Highness," Dane replied.

With a muffled groan Adam slid off the saddle. His ankle tried to give out on him; Dane's hand snapped out to steady him, and Adam caught onto his shoulder. They traded a very small smile, and Adam felt suddenly lighter, as if he were young again, at a time where such things as crown and loss hadn't mattered.

No one stopped them as they made their way through the palace, coming back much as they'd gone the day before, even if Adam was a little poorer in fairy gifts in his pockets, and infinitely wealthier in grime. Somewhere behind him a ruckus was growing where the impromptu messenger who'd caught sight of him on the path to the stables delivered his news.

Adam didn't care. He opened the door to his rooms.

He paused, and after a moment he had to laugh.

The same breakfast on the table, laid out exactly the same to the last plate and spoon. The same books on the desk, quill trimmings on a small bowl. A fire in the hearth. The wash basin ready, steaming faintly. Even Culli-maid's and Beli's clothing were the same, a miracle he would have never believed after seeing the state of Culli's house slippers the night before. He had the feeling that his bed would be rumpled down the same to the last wrinkle on the sheets.

Beli had been pacing restlessly, and Culli had been sitting by the fire, her basket of mending on her lap. It went flying when she sprang up to her feet. That, at least, they didn't have to change; they'd been just as anxious the day before.

"Hello, Culli," Adam greeted her.

Tears spilled down her round cheeks, and she couldn't speak for a moment. "Good morning, Highness," she managed at last.

He swept her into a hug that dislodged Trout off his shoulder, and she sobbed. "Has it killed you, not to make the bed?"

"Oh, it needs changing anyways, Highness," she protested, laughing through her tears.

Adam held her a moment longer before stalking up to Beli. "Look at me," he demanded.

"I can," Beli told him.

"Look at me!"

"I can!" Beli's smile was the brightest Adam had ever seen in the solemn young man. The pale brown of his eyes was bright through tears he refused to cry until Adam caught his face and stared at him; he caught his Prince's shoulders. "I can. I can see you. I can see you just fine."

"Beli." Adam dragged him into a hug as well.

"Don't think this will save you from doing the books with me," Beli warned him in a choked whisper. "Welcome back, Highness."

Adam stared all around them, at this tiny Court of his, his friends, half his world that he'd come so close to losing. He still felt exhausted, crushed, as if he were carrying a millstone on his back, but even that couldn't crush the simple joy of being home, being among friends, being safe.

"Adam," Dane called in warning, and the young Prince turned. There, on the doorway to his rooms, stood the Queen Dowager. She was wearing an exquisite quilted robe over her sleeping clothes, and a long, elegant shawl over it all. Her silver hair hung in a long braid at her back. Without the pomp of her rank she looked tiny and fragile, like a porcelain figurine. There was a single maid with her, likely the only one who'd been dressed and present at that early hour.

Adam left Beli and nodded to Culli, who moved over to further push the door open. The Dowager and the young Prince met by the hearth, and Adam bowed very low before her. "Majesty, good morning."

There were tears caught in the deep blue of her eyes, Adam suddenly realized, but she drew herself up proudly. "Good morning, my Heir."

Something immense snapped so loudly that Adam flinched, instinctively whirling around to cover the Queen, hand going for his sword. The Dowager cried out and staggered, and both Culli and her maid rushed over to catch her. Dane and Beli were instantly by Adam. "What's wrong, what's happened?!"

Adam tried to step back and nearly fell into the hearth. He felt light as air, light as a feather in a stiff breeze. The world, beautiful though it was, shone to his eyes with nearly blinding new colors, with light and life he'd never seen before. "Didn't you hear that, can't you see that?"

"He can't. They can't." It was the Dowager who replied, leaning on the young maid and drawing herself up carefully straight. "The Compact is fulfilled, and the seal in our bloodline's magic is broken. Now, now we are as we were always meant to be." She gestured lightly, and power gathered and spiraled around her fingertips; the smile she gave Adam was radiant. "Thank you, my Heir."

***

Life turned into a whirlwind after that.

Adam insisted on making one last visit alone. He hadn't known what to expect, but after seeing how hard it had been for everyone he'd left behind, he'd wanted to give his oldest nemesis the grace of discretion. Everidge Leminy had wept like a child at the news.

The priests of the Night-Mother and the Tree-Father had come, and before two vast audiences of worried, hand-wringing nobility, Adam had gone through all the tests. He'd been pulled this way and that, brought to far too many meetings, asked a deluge of questions though no one seemed to be listening to his answers, introduced to endless rows of people. Adam smiled and nodded and did as he was told.

He bid his time.

He still found the chance, on the early morning of the first true day of summer, to sneak out of his room and the palace altogether. He ran into the woods and to the clearing where the green pixies nested. Barefoot, in nothing but pants and a light shirt, he climbed up the linden tree and nestled in the familiar crook of a strong branch, watching the vast green sea of the woods ripple in the morning breeze. "I heard you," he murmured. "When I was lost, and I had nothing else, and I called out, I heard you. What a nanny you've been," he teased wryly. "There's not a time I can name when danger came looking for me in these woods that you weren't there to ward it off."

The tree swayed lightly in the breeze, a green, sweetly scented cloud all around him.

"Thank you," he said simply.

Stay, the tree begged in the song of the breeze.

"I can't," he replied, caught off-guard and strangled breathless by the endless well of the tree's heart, that even then would ask him to forgive. To heal.

He stayed there as long as he could, but in the end he had to go back. He was dressed in rich royal finery, fussed over, fawned over.

On that first true day of summer, Prince Adam of the Realm was named Crown Prince and Heir before the worthies of the realm. A great celebration was thrown. He smiled and greeted people and let them fuss over him and make much conversation about their daughters and nieces and sisters and cousins.

He bid his time still.

The next day, for the first time, he made his way to the Chamber of Council. During those two months between his birthday and his coronation, Adam had spent every moment he could spare with the Queen Dowager, with Master Leminy, with the Genealogist and with teachers who'd seen very little of him before. Nine years of education had taught him the theory of the laws and politics of the realm, but in truth none of the princes had any actual practice with the ruling bit of, well, ruling. None of them were firstborns, none of them were heirs to their own family holdings; Adam, himself, was the youngest of several children.

Though neither the Dowager nor the Master of Scions approved of what Adam wished to do, neither would oppose him. They had made very careful plans for that first meeting. Adam walked in to find most of the seats empty, as expected. He'd taken the throne at the vast horseshoe table and been mostly ignored, as expected. The fact he'd ousted the Earl and Duchess sitting at both his sides to allow both the Queen Dowager and Master Leminy to take their places had made them grumble, but there were so many empty seats that it seemed a non-issue.

The first issue, on fisheries and taxation, came up. It was, the Dowager had told him, an old issue. The coastal lords didn't want to pay taxes; they wanted the fisherfolk to pay them instead, leaving their coffers untouched. Adam remembered the kind, warm welcome of the folk who worked the gull-winged ships of the realm. He refused the tax. The lords threatened to override him.

He snapped his fingers and the very long and seal-laden scroll burst into flames.

The chamber went breath-takingly quiet.

"All this time," he said into the silence. "All this time you've known the price the Crown paid to keep the rest of you safe, and still into the grindstone you sent your children, just for a shot at it. And in the meantime, you schemed for power and acted as if the only reason you'd given your loyalty was fear. Fear of magic. Fear of power. If you want to be ruled by fear, I can absolutely do that. I've learned a little about fear from the Court Beyond the Woods. I'm happy to put those lessons to use with you."

"How dare you speak to us so!" One of the nobles shouted, surging to his feet and gesturing sharply at the Dowager. "Do something!"

"The Duke of Cherst misunderstands, perhaps," the Dowager replied mildly, "who answers to whom here."

"Perhaps the Duke is not aware," Adam examined some of the documents before him idly, "that people can burn just as well as parchment, provided the right amount of power is applied." He leveled a hard, dark stare on the man, who didn't need to know it had taken Adam two weeks to be able to pull off that bit of showy magic without setting on fire everything else in the vicinity. "Sit down."

When the ashen-faced Duke obeyed, he threw the list aside. "Fear is a poor way to rule," he said into the silence. "I want to rule with you, but make no mistake, mine is the crown. Mine is the right. I have bled for it, I have faced madness and darkness and death for it. I will hear your voices, and I will take your words into account, as long as you speak sense to me. But you would do well to remember that the power of our armies is meant to be used against our enemies abroad. In here, within our lands, the power is magic and the magic is mine." He stared at them all. "We're not taxing the common folk. If that's your business here today, it's concluded. The answer's 'no'."

"But, Majesty -" A woman protested.

"Your reasons better be exceptional, Duchess, because I have a full day planned ahead for us and you're already costing us lunch. Let's hear them."

She went quiet.

"Hm." Adam gestured. Leminy's secretaries began passing around scrolls. "These are the new taxes and levies; you'll find there's also -" The chamber had gone to chaos at the sound of that dreaded word, and Adam sprang up on his feet with a shout. "Enough!"

Every goblet, pitcher and inkpot shattered. Cracks appeared on several of the glass panes in the windows.

"Levies, yes. You'll find they're generous. There are also exemptions for the provinces that meet the quotas included."

"Majesty," a younger man pointed out hesitantly. "These are quotas for uncured iron and rowan wood army lengths."

"They are." Adam dipped his head politely. "There are thirteen graves behind the palace temples. There are just as many if not more scattered across the realm. That doesn't include the common folk that had the miserable luck of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The crown is done with the Court Beyond the Woods. We go to war." Before they could get into too much of a fit over those news, Adam pitched his voice to carry. "And because I know first-hand how fragile a matter royal inheritance can be, I will be wed before we march." He gave them all that hard, heartlessly level look. "Consider the choice of my queen a further potential exemption."

"Majesty," a stately woman with far too much make-up smiled graciously at him. "Surely this is a course of action best discussed with all of your ruling lords, not just us measly few?"

Adam popped his lips thoughtfully, as if the meeting weren't going exactly as the Queen Dowager had predicted. Well, barring the glass shattering. At least he hadn't had to escalate to kicking a chair; they were bloody solid and he wasn't sure he wouldn't have broken his foot in the doing, no matter what she said. "Exceptional wisdom, Baroness. On second thought, meeting adjourned. We meet again in one week's time. Enough time for those who wish to travel to do so."

And with that, he swept out of the chamber and left them to their panic.

***

Prince Canemore made one last trip into the hidden keep beneath the Old Place. He made it wearing traveling clothes, his very best; he had very far to go, on a trip he didn't wish to undertake, to a goal he didn't wish to reach.

He found the gateway leading into his secret garden empty, cold and dark. Rubble covered the space beneath it; though he didn't know it, it had been painstakingly carried, one piece at a time, from beneath the empty plinth where the dancing lady had once stood.

Beyond, the frozen summer garden had gone to autumn, against all his power, matched at last to the seasons above. At the center of it, in the perfect clearing, the golden, gilded cage stood, twisted and broken, bars pried apart by the force of the wild growth of the amethyst vine.

Of Linden there was no trace.

He threw the garden into winter and darkness as he left, and stalked away, never to return.

***

His books had been absolutely right, Adam found out: war is not a quick affair. He found his time full from dawn to midnight, accounting for meetings and supplies, oversight of troops and manufacturing. He never faltered when he spoke, and neither did those around him: their enemy was the Court Beyond The Woods, not the woods themselves. The Courts could be powerful allies just as they could be dire enemies; he would point at the winged, golden creature perched on his shoulder whenever the question came up. Trout had already bit someone's fingers off when they'd waggled them too angrily in Adam's face, and no one cared to find out how well it could wield those silver-tipped lacquered hair-pins.

Before he knew what had happened, autumn and winter had come and gone, and spring loomed again. His birthday, the celebration of the Compact being fulfilled, was planned to be a massive celebration, a masquerade to dwarf all others before. The entirety of the realm, it seemed, wanted to attend.

"They're dusting off every relation they can find, as long as they're young and female," Adam protested vaguely as he suffered through one more fitting. "There's girls pouring out of every cellar and cupboard."

"You can't blame them, Adam." The Dowager was directing the seamstresses and examining the Heir's costume with a stern look. "You're the one who opened that door."

"It seemed the thing to do," he admitted.

"Oh." She shooed the seamstresses away so she could speak to him so very, very quietly. "You could try for friendship, Adam. Even a broken heart can have friends."

He managed a wry smile at that. "It can. But it wouldn't be fair to her. She'd expect love. No, it's better like this. She gets a crown, I get iron. Beli, any new contenders on the guest list?"

The Dowager gestured the seamstresses back to work. From his desk in the Prince's rooms, his Seneschal answered. "Not really. It's hard to compete with the fact that Lord Bagley has both the mines and the foundries. There's just one. Their counteroffer is... clever."

He brought a set of papers for Adam to examine, and the Heir looked very surprised. "You're joking!"

"I thought it might be an issue -"

"No, no." Adam found what the letters were telling him, at the very least, amusing in the extreme. There was light and animation to him that had been missing for months. "At least I'll be able to tell her apart from the others. How goes my personal project?"

"The engineers are working the axles and wheels. Water's heavy, Adam, I didn't realize how heavy until they told me. Carrying that much water, and a person to boot? That's hard. They're thinking of sleds at this point."

"As long as they think of something," Adam winced when a pin stabbed him, and looked up swiftly when the door opened, suddenly hopeful.

Dane, just coming in, shook his head as he'd done every morning for nearly a year, and wilted to once again see hope fade from his Prince. Every morning he went into the woods to wait. Every morning he came back having met no one, not even the pixies. They'd abandoned the clearing of the linden tree, and no one could find them.

No Needlemaw.

No Boul.

Adam turned, expression gone to stone. "Well, now I just have to meet the ladies and we'll see what we'll see."

He was eventually allowed to escape the fittings, only to be snared into a few more last-minute meetings. Then it was Culli who rescued him, only to shove him into a bath, though she did manage to sneak in a meal, the first of his day, for all that it came at the price of his dignity, having to subject himself to the ignominy of being scrubbed like a toddler just so he could use his hands to eat.

Clad in his costume, the circlet on his head, an incredibly itchy domino tied to his face, he took his place at the entrance to the palace's grandest ballroom, to greet the mass of people pouring in and be introduced to all their marriageable relations. He wouldn't, couldn't, leave the party without a betrothed; a number of concessions had been granted to the Council of Nobles in exchange for that promise. No one wanted war, and no one could budge the Crown Prince from it, so they were all working as best they could to minimize any potential fallout from it.

Trout, on his shoulder, solved half the itchy part within five minutes, by biting off the domino's feathers and gleefully flailing around with them. Adam couldn't very well be stern at the pixie when the Queen Dowager herself, standing just behind him, could barely keep from laughing aloud at the fierce creature's antics.

He was introduced to the young lady Bagley, grand-daughter of the Earl of Bagley, who stammered through half her greeting and forgot the other half, overwhelmed. She winced openly when Trout spit out a feather. Adam sighed.

Behind her came the first familiar face in that sea of strangers, and the young Heir couldn't help but smile. "Prince Rickard."

Rickard flushed under his elaborate mask, all the more so when the Crown Prince offered his hand, preempting a bow. He took it, and couldn't help a little smile. "Prince Adam."

Adam grinned, the first honest gesture to cross his face since the gala had started.  Rickard was costumed as a bull, in violets and reds, and the silver and gold that his family boasted were stitched on every velvet and satin seam. He'd grown into a young bull, too, though he couldn't match Dane in either height or breadth of shoulder. The hand gripping Adam's was powerful, but the callouses Rickard had earned from his years spent at the palace were fading. Still, it was the sight of the man that gladdened him. "Prince Bully," he murmured.

Rickard's discomfort vanished under a very inelegant snort of laughter. "Prince Twerp," he retaliated. "Where are the others? I know there's a few that... made it."

Adam gave him a disbelieving look. "As far away from the palace as they can be," he replied. When his one-time torturer gave him an uncomprehending look, Adam gestured all around. "Every girl of marriageable age in the realm is here, Rickard, prowling for blood. Until you got here, I was the only available bachelor." He watched understanding, horror, and panic flicker over what he could see of the young man's features and jerked him suddenly close. "No running. We die as men," he whispered, and let him go.

"Oh, gods," Rickard squeaked. In all of the ruthlessness and machinations he'd once wielded and devised, this apparently was a trap he'd not seen coming.

He was none too gently elbowed by his companion, and the Crown Prince's mouth twitched. "Duke Lagrace, won't you introduce me to your companion?"

Rickard cleared his throat and gestured to the elegant white, silver and gold doe next to him. "My sister, the lady Elizabeth Lagrace, Majesty."

Elizabeth Lagrace curtsied with great grace. "Majesty," she murmured. She was, astonishingly, built along the same powerful lines as her brother, softened by the fact she'd not spent her formative years trying to survive in a cutthroat court, or learning to fight with every weapon and tactic created by man. Adam could only see that she had her brother's eyes, but her hair was lighter, a riot of golden curls artfully oiled and pinned over her head with an exquisite silver clip.

Silver, gold and priests. The Lagraces would back the Crown Prince's war without hesitation for a shot at the crown. Adam expected nothing less than the lethal predator that her brother had once been behind the dainty doe's mask. Elizabeth Lagrace was one year older than Adam, but they'd been so sure of their offer that they'd sent none of their younger ladies.

"The lady's costume is radiant as a star." Adam took her hand and kissed the lace of her gloves. "I wager it pales before what it hides."

"The Heir's costume seems to have grown lopsided," she replied evenly. "Shall I make a note to stay only to one side of you if I wish my hair to stay of even lengths, Majesty?"

Adam barked a laugh. "They grow them merciless in Lagrace," he noted in amusement at the siblings. "I should like a dance with the lady, if I can find her in the chaos later?"

"I will be found, Majesty," she assured him, lacing her arm through her brother, who was scowling in an entirely brotherly fashion at the Crown Prince. She all but dragged him off.

"Better than Bagley," the Queen Dowager murmured.

"Perhaps a little too much," Adam agreed.

"Adam, what are you looking for? Bread in milk?"

"A queen that won't resent my absence from her life. That one has her brother's wits. If she also has his drive, she absolutely would."

But then who would be coming up to him but Arditty, and he swept her off her feet and spun her around, her lace butterfly wings fluttering with the wind of his delight. She introduced him to her flustered husband and their son, who was young enough to be shy of the firebird stranger, but old enough to do his bow without aid. Adam made her promise him one dance before the endless cavalcade resumed once again.

The first dance, however, went to the Queen Dowager. It was the one move Adam knew couldn't be ascribed to politics or diplomacy. Likely they thought it was an invitation made out of family love, but love was the one thing they knew would never grow between them; they had both done things too terrible, lost too much, to be willing to offer more than affection and loyalty and friendship. But they could indeed be friends, and hers was the wealth of knowledge and courtly savagery Adam knew he would need in the days to come. He would have asked the same of Master Leminy, but the Master of Scions had begged leave to retire, and he'd looked so worn and fragile when at last he'd known himself free of his terrible duty that Adam hadn't had the heart to refuse him.

They moved sedately to the music, the swan and the firebird, and Adam was surprised to find out he'd put on a few inches on her. When had that happened?

He danced a merry jig with Arditty, bringing her back to her husband breathless and laughing, and taking the time to tell him wicked tales of her besting the higher authorities of the palace when they'd been younger. He left them in each other's arms and went on to dance and dance and dance some more, until he found himself wishing for more conversations on supply trains and iron forging just so he could sit at a table and rest his feet. Trout brought him a handful of grapes and Adam didn't ask where the pixie had got them. A special pocket had been stitched into the costume because Adam would not have worn it without, and Trout dove into it, safely away from the noise and crowds. Adam envied him.

He danced with the lady Bagley, and managed to get a timid smile out of her. Rickard was under siege when he went to request a dance from the lady Lagrace. She took his hand with a little curtsy; the music began, and they danced in silence for a few moments before she spoke. "You really aren't here at all, are you, Majesty?"

"I beg your pardon?" Adam jerked himself sharply back to the present.

"Here, at the party," she specified, then added. "You're as far away as if you'd flown to another land."

"I am here now. The Lady Lagrace has my undivided attention."

She scoffed. "I know better, Majesty. Don't insult my intelligence and I shan't insult yours."

"Noted," Adam replied, his curiosity roused. "Is this how the lady means to draw my interest? Veiled insults?"

"Nothing I said would be new to you, Majesty. I asked Rickard to tell me all he could of your time in the palace. I wrote to any of my friends who had family here during that time. No, I shall simply be honest."

"Honest."

"Yes. And share with you my observations."

"Do." The dance spun them momentarily away from one another, then brought her back into his arms.

"You're never going to love your queen."

Adam's jaw tightened until a muscle twitched along his cheek. "The lady Lagrace is correct. 'Correct' and 'bethroted' are quickly becoming mutually exclusive."

She smiled. "Would it help if I admitted I've been mistaken for a while now, and didn't realize it until I met you?"

"Do I truly wear my heart on my sleeve like that?"

"Gods, no. You're one of the hardest men to read I've ever met."

Adam hesitated as he spun her. "Thank you?"

"You're welcome. No, you see, I thought at first you wanted a queen that would love you, even if you don't love her. But I was wrong. You know how cruel that would be -"

"Dangerous."

Her head cocked minutely.

"Cruel and dangerous. I don't need a wife that'll stray. Thrones have fallen for less."

"Ah. Cruel and dangerous, then. And you are many things, Majesty, but you're not cruel. You're simply not here at all. Whatever wife you choose will have to live with that absence. It would break Miriana's heart, you know. Lady Bagley. She might agree to a loveless marriage, but your absence would destroy her. She'd die thinking she failed in some way she can never understand."

"So I should choose you?"

"Lagrace has the best offer to your future military endeavors," she replied coyly.

"You don't strike me as the sort that would abide my not being there."

"Oh, I'm sure it would drive me mad every now and again. But I would have the crown to keep me warm in that empty bed. See, marking your absence and letting you know I do are two different things, Majesty. I'm quite sure you'd never find out how I felt about it. Until I met you I was also fairly certain I could make you happy, but now I know no one can."

The dance ended; Adam held onto her. "And why would that be?"

"Because it's not that you can't love, which is what everyone believes, what I believed until I met you. But that you already love someone, and can never have them." She shrugged gracefully in his grip. "I come into this fight knowing I'm already beat, Majesty. And I'm alright with that. How many girls here can say the same thing?"

She stepped back and Adam let her go. He danced, again and again, but it all came to him in a blur where he didn't register faces or names or music, his feet moving out of training as Elizabeth's words careened through his mind.

You already love someone, and can never have them.

For a while, caught in the whirlwind storm of preparing for war, Adam had forgotten.

Suddenly there was no hiding, and the pain was there, like a fist around his throat, like a dagger through his heart.

Linden.

"Mortal prince?"

"Adam?"

He was sitting, and there was a cup being pressed into his hands. The storm of sound and color of the party came back to him, painfully overwhelming in ways the world hadn't been since he'd learned to master his perceptions of it with his magic unchained. Trout was a warm press against his cheek, and Dane was crouched before him, splendid in the official armor of the Captain-of-the-Guard he was still years from becoming.

"What happened?" he asked hoarsely, dragging off the mask and rubbing at his face. He was sitting on the stone bench that ran along the railing of an oval balcony, one curtain drawn, the other open, and he felt cold to his soul.

"You stopped. Like a clockity-clockwork toy," Trout told him. "You said not to bite you so I called Dane."

"Ugh." Adam buried a hand in his gold-dusted hair. "Did anyone notice?"

"Only that you're tired. The Dowager is making your excuses."

Adam buried his face in his hands. "I really thought I could do this, Dane."

"You're doing fine, Adam. What happened? Trout said you were just talking, no one's come at you with a weapon. And Culli's got the kitchen locked tighter than Beli's purse-strings. It can't have been poison."

"It was words, Dane. It was just words, and suddenly I just remembered everything I'll never have anymore, and I couldn't breathe. I remembered that I miss my other friends. That I never said goodbye to Boul, that I never even saw Needle. That Linden..." He swallowed thickly and threw his head back, eyes closed and hands gone to fists.

"I'll get you out if you want, Adam. Just give the word."

"I never wanted this," Adam whispered.

"I know."

"Well, gods help me if Lady Lagrace figures it out." Adam downed the cup in one gulp. "Trout, thank you for not biting me." The pixie's wings buzzed and its slender chest puffed up proudly. "I need a favor from each of you."

"Name it," Dane said simply.

"I need you to find an alcove, close the curtains and douse the candles. Trout -"

"I'll go find them!" The pixie arrowed away.

"Adam, what are you doing?"

"Making sure I've done one thing right since I came out of the damn woods," the Crown Prince replied, rolling to his feet and tying on the domino with a gusting, weary sigh. "Go on. I suppose I can get in one more dance while you get it all set up."

He was halfway through a dance with a young girl who was giggling so hard out of nerves that Adam had yet to get her name out of her, when he caught sight of Dane waiting for him. The dance ended and she curtsied and fled, leaving him free to meet his friend. "I wonder if their parents told them I eat young marriageable girls for breakfast or something. I know I'm not that terrifying to look at."

"You aren't. The crown you're wearing is." Dane led the way.

"Ugh." Adam followed. "You'll want to wait outside, Dane."

"Adam -"

"This is stranger than Needlemaw."

Dane's jaws worked a great deal around words he would have never told Adam, but was seriously considering telling his Prince. In the end he stepped back and closed the curtains, leaving the Heir in nearly perfect darkness.

"Sluagh?" Adam asked quietly of the dark.

"Oh." Several sets of eyes suddenly filled the dark with their pale, blight-haunted light. "You did ask after us. We did not know what to think, when the pixie told us."

Adam had to laugh a little. "I did. I wanted to know... that you're alright. That you're finding the scraps and the bones left for you."

"Yes." The pairs of eyes moved through the dark. One drew close and suddenly stood up, towering over Adam. He could just make out, in the light of Sluagh's eyes, the faint upper outline of its muzzle, neither human nor animal but something more and something else. "Hunger is less now, because of you."

"You can never not be hungry, can you?"

"No," Sluagh admitted. "We are hungry to the marrow of our hollow bones, to the knots in our empty muscles. We can eat until we gorge, and gorge we have, thanks to you. But there will always be hunger to us."

"Then I'll ask something else. Are you content?"

Sluagh stared down at the Crown Prince. "This is important to you, this answer. Not because you will use it against us, not because it brings you power. But because we... matter to you."

"Yes. You've been watching people, Sluagh, you're learning how they think."

"It seemed important. You were... new to us. There have not been many new things in our lives. And you were neither enemy nor food. It is important to learn, when someone is not either of those things."

"How old are you?"

"We don't count time as you do. We have been since before the War. There was no palace. We are not certain there were any of your people on this land. There were more of us then."

"What happened to them?"

"We ate them."

"I don't know why I even asked," Adam admitted sheepishly. "And no one's tried anything against you?"

"No. The Court Beyond the Woods is quiet. Waiting. They will see what you do, first. Perhaps they will leave, and things will be as they were before. Peaceful. Small. Better."

"I would accept that," Adam said. "I would count it a victory if they left and never came back."

"Ah, there is the shadow that follows you," Sluagh breathed. "Your crown of blood and sorrow and black ice. Until now it was hard to see."

"Hatred."

Sluagh nodded. "We do not feel hatred. We see it, know it, but do not feel it. We do not think it would be a good thing, to feel it, for all its power. It wounds you in ways no one can help." They paused. "And we would help, if we could."

"To know that is almost as good as the help itself, Sluagh. Thank you. I'm sorry if I called you away from something important. This is the first time I've had time to think on all that I should have done and didn't."

"It is fine, bones do not run," Sluagh replied blithely, their head cocking. "Here comes your pixie. Let us give you a gift on this, the day of so many of your births, when you are finally many. Truly a first among your kind." The fairy threw out their spindly, long arms, and bowed with unearthly grace. "We are Sluagh. We greet the mortal king, crowned in loss and wit and heart. We pledge him our service." Sluagh straightened up and crossed their arms. "Be he fair to us, we will always be fair to him." And then the dark fairy was no longer there.

The sound of Trout's wings came, muffled, past the curtains, pausing after a moment. Adam opened the curtains to find the pixie perched on Dane's gauntleted fist.

"It's tin and paste," Dane explained at the Heir's look of disbelief. He rapped his knuckles on the shiny, shiny gauntlet.

"It's gross." Trout was rubbing its hummingbird tongue against the tiny tabard Culli had made for it.

"Trout, please don't lick Dane's armor. Words I never thought I'd say, but here we are." Adam went out to dance and converse and occasionally sneak away to scarf down whatever food and drink Trout and Dane managed to sneak him. He found himself dancing with the Dowager once again at some point close to midnight.

"Any luck?" she asked him.

"I think it might have to be Lagrace," he replied. "Bagley is apparently the sort to get attached, and hurt later from it."

"And Lagrace?"

"She's the sort to not give a damn."

"A dangerous game, Adam. If you should grow to love -"

"I won't."

"If you should grow to love Bagley," she persisted, her tone clipped, "she would at least love you back. Lagrace never will."

"If I were capable of it, I would have never survived the trials," Adam said simply, and she could give him no answer to that.

"I will speak to her father," she said resignedly at last.

The dance ended and everyone clapped. The bells of the temple, the heavy brass of the Night-Mother's and the smaller copper ones of the Tree-Father's, called out midnight.

Conversations and music and the general hum of the party petered out under that double onslaught, until there was a rare moment of silence when the bells at last stopped ringing. In it, the thump of the Seneschal's staff on the marble floor seemed as loud as if he'd cracked the stone with it. "Queen of the Courts of Spring and Summer, her Majesty, Titania."

The entire immense ballroom might as well have been a painting. Even the servants ferrying food and drink had frozen in place. No one could believe what they'd just heard.

Adam closed his eyes and felt inexplicable laughter bubbling up inside him. The year's worth of training in remaining unreadable and stone-faced was the only reason he could turn around and look towards the entrance of the ballroom without looking like a madman before the elite of the realm, drawing in a deep breath through gritted teeth. "Well." He laced his hands at his back and waited to see the shape of this new trick against him.

He faltered almost immediately. He could remember, in vivid detail, Queen Conemara. He had drawn her a few times in his journal, and though he knew he was no artist, he was also certain he'd been faithful to the blinding, painful light and brittle, icy beauty of the Queen Beyond the Woods. Conemara would have been like a clay cup before the gilded chalice that was the Sidhe woman moving through the parting crowd.

She was nearly as petite as the Queen Dowager, of a height with her and even more delicate-seeming, as if she were made of the finest gossamer. Her skin was the pale, soft color of a quail's eggshell, her features sharp and inhuman but without any of the painful starkness that made it hard to look at any of the members of the Court Beyond the Woods. There was a subtle, gentle softness to her, detracting nothing from her inhumanity but making her a flawless, enthralling beauty. Her eyes were green and violet behind the merest hint of a domino. She was dressed in a gown that put to shame the richest costumes the wealthiest nobility in the realm had been able to conjure, all the more absurd because she was a humble spring meadow, a hundred shades of green dotted freely with violets and daisies and bluebells, with larkspur and clover, with fluttering butterflies and bumbling bees. Her hair was a rich crown of vivid crimson braided in a stern, motherly fashion. Her crown was gold, and on it winked a gem of every color known to mortals, and a few they had yet to find. Her wings were a summer sky, the finest spun clouds, sunlight dappling through the trees.

She moved with gracious surety through the crowd, never hesitating as she approached Adam. Dimly the Heir noticed that Dane had rushed to his side, that the Dowager was hurrying to him. Trout clambered up on his shoulder and shifted restlessly, wings slicked flat against its body.

There were three more fairies with the Queen - no, four, Adam realized. A tiny blue pixie perched on Titania's shoulder as Trout perched on his, wings flicking idly as it peered with great interest at everything and everyone around them. He tried to look at those escorting the Sidhe Queen, but his head shied away from them; they looked human enough, and that was enough for Adam to know that they weren't, but even his magic couldn't penetrate the Queen's glamour.

"The throne of Faerie greets the Crown Prince, the Heir to the Throne of this mortal Realm," Titania's voice was a song in the stunned silence. She curtsied with grace that made the heart glad to behold.

Adam bowed with as much formality as he knew. "I am beyond honored to welcome the Queen to the palace, to this party. She honors us with her presence, and even more with her greeting. I'm not sure we can do justice to her visit, but we will surely try." She smiled at him, and Adam felt his heart trying to swell with pride, as if she were a doting mother and he a child who'd done well at a difficult task. He gritted his teeth until they ached.

Linden.

"Your welcome is gracious and warm, Prince Adam. More, because we know it's offered under dire circumstances."

"My moods do not affect my manners, Majesty. I'd be a poor excuse of a future king if I allowed them to do so."

"Ah, one could hope to find such poise and sense of station among our own," she murmured. The Dowager reached them then and, astonishingly, a sunny little smile broke across the Sidhe Queen's flawless beauty. "Charlotte."

"Titania," the Dowager replied, trying not to sound breathless.

Adam blinked at her, and all at once he felt like a fool. All those years and it had never occurred to him that 'Dowager' was her title, not her name. He felt color creeping over his face.

"It has been brought to our attention," Titania's voice suddenly rang clear and sure like a silver bell over the gathering, "that the Crowned Heir of the Realm feels Faerie has deeply slighted him." She pinned those green and violet eyes on him. "Deeply enough that he feels war is the only solution."

Adam saw the question in her eyes, felt it in her power as it reached for him, but unlike Conemara, she didn't force her way in. She waited, as courteously as a guest at the gate. Before her he set the broken half of his heart, the other half shattered and gone. "Majesty, I do," he said simply.

Her eyes went soft and bright. "Oh, your heart," she whispered. "Is peace not an option?"

"I sued for peace," he admitted. "I sued for peace twice. Before the Court Beyond the Woods, before Queen Conemara and Prince Canemore I sued for peace. I asked for one thing. They could not, or would not, give it. I will, if need be, sue for peace a third time before the Highest Queen of Faerie. But that would be a third, and I fear it might be... discourteous."

The Faerie Queen smiled wryly. "It would. Particularly when the fault for this terrible situation lies completely with the Court Beyond the Woods."

Adam recoiled minutely. The entire gathering gasped; no one had expected to hear one of the Fair Folk, particularly their Highest Queen, admit to being wrong.

"When we sent the twins here, it was our hope that being alone, forsaking the joys and merriment of the Highest Court, would teach them the... poise and sense of station that they lacked at the time. Instead it would seem their character flaws have grown into unforgivable behaviors and abhorrent mannerisms." Titania pursed her lips. "The Court Beyond the Woods is no more. They are Queen and Prince no more. They are simply Conemara and Canemore." She looked at Adam. "Would that make peace an option?"

Ah, so that was the trick, then. Adam's smile was brief, thin and bereft of humor. "Majesty, it would not."

The nobles caught their breath. Next to Adam, Dane shifted nervously.

"Hm." Titania looked unsurprised. She tapped long, shimmering nails against the rosebud of her mouth. She had better offers in mind, Adam was sure of it; she hadn't got to them yet, that was all. "Our daughter offered you her brother's life, and you refused it. We will not repeat that mistake. Does the Crowned Heir remember what else she offered? It would help us greatly."

"Knowledge, wealth, power. Majesty, I hardly know what to do with the power I already have. I want no wealth but what keeps my people and their homes safe. I want nothing that she offered."

"Well, we would offer a palace greater than this one by a hundredfold, hidden in the woods," Titania mused, and the Dowager gasped tinily. "But it is not ours to give."

"It does miss its mistress, though," Adam murmured.

"It doesn't!" The Dowager hissed.

"It does," he persisted. "I didn't tell you?"

"I didn't think to ask," she admitted.

"For twenty thousand years we have watched you mortals." The Sidhe Queen's voice filled the immense hall. "We have laughed with you and cried with you. We have raged against you, taught you, learned from you. We have shared so much with you. What we have never done, not once, is win a war against you." Her green and violet eyes passed from spring to summer and back again, spiraling slightly, and for a moment it was nearly impossible for Adam to stare at them, they were so like those many-colored, shattered eyes. His hatred, his sorrow, his rage all rose up inside him until only the force of will that had brought him to that moment kept him from screaming until he lost his voice.

"Adam." Her voice was suddenly very gentle, like rain against the black ice of his hatred. She had reached out to touch his cheek with the tips of three fingers, warm like summer sunlight.

"Please don't do that." He stepped back minutely, his voice strangled. "It hurts too much."

"Ah, it must be a family thing, to give away your heart the once, and never again," she murmured, pulling away her hand and looking knowingly at the Dowager. "Tonight, on this day of celebration for your birthday, you are seeking a consort, I'm told."

"I am." Adam shrugged minutely. "A throne without an heir makes people nervous, and wars have a habit of killing without much care as to who dies, peasant or king. It's better for the realm to have that matter settled."

"And if such a consort asked you for peace?" Titania asked, and stepped gracefully aside.

Adam felt the world tilt out from under his feet. Dimly he was aware that Dane had caught him, was holding him upright, but he couldn't understand anything beyond that.

Behind the Queen of Spring and Summer, shining like the first true kiss of dawn on a night-dark land, was Linden, his friend, his love, his heart, willowy and slender, a willow's grace, an oak's strength, a linden tree's beauty. They were wearing a gown that shimmered through every color of their shattered eyes; Titania was a spring meadow, but Linden was the summer woods, where flowers hid amidst a sea of green, where the sky shone blue and perfect, where sunsets were fire and dawn was golden treasure. They had put on a slender domino made of bark, dotted with bejeweled insects picked out with fantastic accuracy in emeralds, sapphires, rubies, obsidian.

But they were Linden. His Linden, the white fuzz of their hair very short on their head so early in the season, faint green freckles on their sharp brown cheekbones. Adam's Linden, all that was kind and joyous and fierce in the woods, perfect down to the one bark-covered hand. Linden, surrounded by a flock of green pixies, crowned with a circlet of living vines with a single stone blossom nestled between the green leaves, an amethyst heart just peeking through the gray.

"Linden," Adam heard himself say, and the black vastness of icy hatred inside him cracked, his heart struggling in a darkness that had swallowed it for far too long.

"Adam," Linden said, and there were tears ruining the elegant glitter someone had sprinkled so very carefully on their cheekbones.

Titania lifted her hand, and blew lightly, scattering a stirring of dust like golden motes in the air. The Dowager gasped. Adam wheezed for breath.

Needlemaw, the illusion that had hidden her broken, was suddenly on Adam's other side, holding him up when he would have slipped from Dane's grip and fallen. "Come, now," she urged him, "where's that muchness of ye gone that yuir knees go to jelly for naught but a wee bit of glamour!"

"Needle," Adam gasped.

"Aye."

"Needle!" Adam cried out and dragged her close, close enough to bump their foreheads together, so close that he could smell her charnel-and-soil scent, and he felt as if he could not breathe, as if he were drowning in the blackness with which he'd armored himself. He clawed at nothing, trying to escape it -

A gentle, rough hand the size of his chest caught the front of his costume and lifted him effortlessly back onto his feet. "Adam."

Dane, for whom the Queen's glamour still persisted, swore under his breath at the all-too familiar voice, the abrupt pong of a bullfrog's croak, both coarse and gentle. Adam had to laugh. "Hello, Boul," he managed, and realized he was crying. "I'm sorry. I'm being a baby and can't even greet you properly after missing you like someone cut off a limb."

"You always greet me before," the young troll said. "Now, I greet you." He offered his hand in the human fashion. "Like the first time."

Adam, surrounded by his friend both mortal and fae, fought himself to his feet and then collapsed again. "I can't breathe."

"Breathe with me." Suddenly Linden was there, and it really was Linden, kissing their prince, their Adam, sweet and sure and patient, with a love that had known itself so clearly, so certainly, that it had never doubted its time would come. Under the taste of that kiss, lemon and honey, sunlight and summer, wind and laughter, the ice of Adam's hatred didn't stand a chance. It was gone as if it had never existed, and Adam gasped in a huge breath, as if he'd been drowning for the past three years and had only reached the surface there, in that place and moment.

Linden caught Adam's face between their hands, both sun-browned, one smooth, one rough. Adam clung to those hands and brought himself to his feet. Linden laced the fingers of one hand with his, and the young Heir turned to face the Sidhe Queen. There was one more person with her, but Titania had not broken the glamour on them.

"Majesty."

"Crowned Heir," she nodded graciously.

"You asked me a question." Adam found his voice rough, and swallowed to try and keep it from breaking. "I have been asked for peace before. I would not grant it to a friend." He looked at Dane, but his childhood friend looked so profoundly happy for him that Adam knew the prospect of war was not even a thought in Dane's head. "Nor would not I grant it to family." He glanced at the Dowager, who gave him the tiniest nod, her eyes once again filled with tears she refused to shed.

He looked at Linden, who squeezed his hand, and turned to face those green and violet eyes. "But if the right consort asks for peace, I will grant it."

"I ask," Linden whispered.

"It's yours," Adam answered, and they fell in each other's arms.

***

The gala continued. No one had a single solitary clue as to how to handle what had happened, but they also knew that the Queen of the Spring and Summer Court had come expecting a party, not for all the guests to stampede in a panic at her arrival. And so the party carried on.

"Charlotte."

The Queen Dowager had retreated to a seat behind an elegant floral sculpture, where she was nursing a goblet of mulled wine. She looked up into the unchanging face of an old and dear friend, and smiled. "Larkspur," she greeted, offering her hand.

The Sidhe Queen caught that hand in both of hers and crouched before her mortal friend. "Oh, Charlie, why didn't you say something? Why didn't you call for help?"

"I honestly don't know, Larkspur," the Dowager admitted, finally allowing her tears to fall. "Pride? Grief? By the time I realized what he'd done, it was done. I couldn't figure out how to fix it on my own, and then I was too ashamed to admit to it, and you'd gone back home -"

"I would have come back for you. I would have come back for the sister of my heart, you know that."

"I know. Look, I was young, I was in love, I was heartbroken. Common sense was nowhere near my first priority."

They both laughed, sheepish and quiet. "I want to give you something, Charlie, but I won't if it will hurt you."

"What is it?"

"It's something you were promised," Titania said. "Promised, and never given. Your people taught mine the importance of keeping one's word." Without actually reaching into purse or pocket, there was suddenly a small velvet box, black and gilt in gold, in the Sidhe Queen's hand. She opened it.

The Queen Dowager went very still. After a long, long moment she drew in a deep, shaky breath, and reached out to brush her fingertips delicately against the ruby. It was a brooch, without adornment or addition, a single ruby the size and shape of a man's heart. Under her fingers it beat, harried and steady. "It's -"

"Yes," Titania confirmed. "He promised it to you, and lied. And so now he must keep his promise, whether he wants to or not. It is yours. And yours it will remain, until you feel he has earned it back."

"Is it wrong of me," the Dowager asked in a very small voice, "to be a little pleased at the shape of your justice?"

Titania laughed. "Never."

***

They sat, all of them, in an open balcony. Adam debated waking Beli, or trying to pry Culli from the kitchens, but decided against it in the end. Plenty of time in the morrow for them to gather once again and come together, at last, the two halves of his world. They shared their stories, the harrowing trials Adam had faced, the infinite patience of Linden's own escape and race to the High Court, only to be met halfway on the Winding Road by Titania. As Linden had predicted, the Queen had been more than glad to welcome the blue pixie back into her Court. She knew its worth. And its news had spurred her to action at last, to correct the unforgivable infraction her children had tendered against a Danu-child.

Boul and Needle were, in theory, there to escort the Queen, and so they'd had to leave when Titania chose to mingle, disconcerting greatly the massed nobles. But the third person stayed with Linden. She was an older woman with very dark skin and very green eyes, bundled up in simple peasant's clothing that was more cozy than elegant. She allowed them to kiss, but when the kiss lingered she cleared her throat pointedly.

Adam squinted at her. "Do I know you?"

Linden laughed. "Adam, how can you not? She didn't come here for me!"

Adam gave Linden a puzzled look, and then turned to face the stranger once more. The woman gave him a look of such profound and utter affection that the Heir found himself flushing faintly, and the last piece of the puzzle fell into place. He rushed over to hug her, and in those powerful arms he found himself made safe once again, as always he had. "Silly me," he said, feeling near tears once again at that most poignant show of loyalty. "You are wearing a costume, you're disguised as a human!"

The linden tree smiled proudly at him, and brushed back his hair. They hugged again, and when he was at last willing to let go, she turned and walked away through the crowd.

"It's hard for her to be away from her place," Linden explained. "But she really did want to come see you, make sure it was all set to rights. She wanted to know you weren't hurting anymore." When Adam looked down, they bumped him lightly. "She said you heard her."

"I did. She's the only one I hear. But if that's all I ever get, that's more than good enough." Linden beamed at him, then leaned on his shoulder with a grimace. "What, what's wrong?"

"These shoes are very pinchy."

"Kick them off? The skirt's so big, no one's going to notice."

Linden did so, and Adam shoved the delicate green slippers under a bench. "Ah!" Linden sighed in relief. "So much better."

"You still look like your head is full of plans."

"Well, not plans. I've done all the planning I can stomach already. You're the one who's good at planning, I just asked myself 'what would Adam do'. That's how I fixed everything. It's just..."

"What?"

"I don't care for the dress. It's lovely, but it's all over the place. I can't walk without crashing into someone, or something. And do I have to be a Queen? That's what Canemore called me."

"Oh, that!" Adam laughed in relief and stood up. "That's why you see all the women go around with their hands plastered down. Shoves the skirts right back out of your way."

"But what if I need my hands?"

Adam popped his mouth thoughtfully, and Linden swatted him for it, and the sheer familiarity of the gesture made him feel as if his heart might burst with joy. "You don't have to be anything you don't want to be Linden. Consort's just what you call someone who marries a King, so, yes, if we marry, you're a Consort. But that won't take away from you being Linden. It's just a thing people call you."

Linden's expression brightened up like a sunny day. "Oh, it's like having all those princes running around. Prince is just something you call them. Consort... I could be that, I suppose, as long as I can still be Linden."

"You will always be Linden." Adam leaned close, and they rested against each other.

"There's lines on your forehead that weren't there before," Linden brushed the fingers of their smooth hand over those lines. "Can't I fix that?"

"I don't know. The whole point of this mess," Adam waved a hand at the vastness of the hall and the ongoing masquerade, "was to make sure there'd be an heir. A baby, at some point. I guess." He sounded about as sure of the goal as he did the process, and even less thrilled about it.

Linden brightened up. "Oh, I can do that!"

"You can?"

"Yes, of course, it's easy." Linden seemed to think. "Though we're going to need a few cabbages."

8/29/2022 7:55 PM X 1/3/2023 3:48 AM

[kaaras-adaar-a]

Lyrian knew Kaaras was a busy person and thus he had asked for a box to be placed upon his desk within his quarters for his return. Inside read a simple note of "Happy Valentines" and, alongside it, a bracelet he had so intricately braided from hairs from his Halla's mane. And to clasp both ends together was a silver ram.

It was beautiful. Kaaras didn’t second guess for a second who it had been from. Only Lyrian would have crafted something so intricate for him, and known to add a personal decal of a ram. It made it that more special that he felt his cheeks warming.

Awkward at receiving gifts, he was glad he was there alone so he could go through the emotional process of it all. He wasn’t one to receive many gifts, at least not before his new title of Inquisitor. But those weren’t half as genuine as what lay upon his desk. 

Moving the bracelet over his wrist, he connected it carefully so it fitted comfortable. He planned on wearing this often, and it accompanied the rings over his fingers. He would make sure to thank Lyrian personally and spend some time with him this evening. Just the two of them. 

[ghostinthelibrarywrites]

Can we see spies who are soulmates and a drunk confession at a library?? Your choice of ship (I love your writing)

Here's a Yennskier soulmate AU where your soulmark appears on your wrist the first time you touch your soulmate skin-to-skin. Approximately 2K, rated M, no warnings.

“What the fuck were you thinking?” Yennefer growls as she yanks Jaskier into the Duke’s library, slamming the door behind them. With a flick of her finger and a muttered spell, she locks and seals the door so no one else will be able to get in.

Jaskier giggles and leans against her, eyes bright and glassy with drink. “Darling Yennefer, how can I think of anything in the face of your beauty?”

Yennefer growls at him. Had she known, when Phillipa Eilhart offered her a position with the Redanian Secret Service after the debacle with the Lyrian queen, how often she would end up babysitting this blithering idiot, she would have told Phillipa to fuck off. She still might. She told Phillipa that she didn’t want to work with the bard anymore, and all Phillipa said was that they balanced each other out nicely and both their skill sets were needed if they were going to infiltrate Duke Alistair’s home and find evidence that he’s spying for Nilfgaard. 

“Anyway, you’re soulmates,” Phillipa said when Yennefer protested further. “Shouldn’t you work well together?”

“A dandelion on my wrist means nothing,” Yennefer snapped back. “All the soul marks in the world can’t make up for the fact that he’s a buffoon.”

Phillipa shrugged. “Well, you and the buffoon should be on the road for the Duke’s holdings by nightfall.”

One of these days, Yennefer is going to quit and retire somewhere sunny, like Toussaint.

“I got the papers.” Jaskier waves them in Yennefer’s face. “Look at all these letters!”

“Let me see.” Yennefer snatches them from him and scans them over quickly. They’re in a rudimentary code, one that she imagines she could break easily enough in a day or two, but they don’t have time to spend a day or two codebreaking right now. They’ll have to hope that these are the papers they came here for.

“See?” Jaskier crows. “While you were canoodling with the Duchess, I was being useful!”

“I wasn’t canoodling with the Duchess. I was listening to her complain about all the time her husband spends at the hunting lodge. She was sure he had a mistress he was keeping there, so she sent one of her maids to follow him and the girl came back with the report that he wasn’t meeting a mistress, but a mysterious man with a Nilfgaardian accent.”

“The mysterious man with a Nilfgaardian accent could be a mistress.” Jaskier hiccups. "Though given the Duke's tastes, I do doubt it. It seems more likely that he's the Duke's handler."

"Really?" Sarcasm drips from Yennefer's words. "Thank you, Jaskier. I hadn't thought of that."

"Always happy to help a colleague." He tries to salute her and nearly pokes himself in the eye. "Especially a beautiful one."

Before she can think of a properly scathing reply, Yennefer is distracted by people shouting outside. She crosses to the window to see guards mounting horses in the courtyard below while the Duke shouts orders. Stepping back, she says, “They’ve noticed we’re gone, but it looks like they assume we’ve run off. Hopefully, that means they won’t think to search the castle for us.”

“Then I suppose we should hole up here for a bit.” Jaskier attempts to waggle his eyebrows, but he’s so drunk he seems to have lost control of his facial muscles, so it loses some of its effectiveness.

“How much did you have to drink?” Yennefer demands.

Jaskier waves a dismissive hand. “Two or three glasses of wine.”

“Along with half a bottle of vodka?” Because Yennefer has seen Jaskier put away half a bottle of wine without getting more than a little flushed and giggly many times. He shouldn’t be falling down drunk right now.

“Gods, no. Have you tasted the vodka the Duke serves? I’ve tasted better stuff in the dingiest backwoods tavern.”

Yennefer closes the space between them, taking Jaskier’s face in her hands. She ignores another attempt at eyebrow waggling as she looks into his eyes. His pupils are enormous. “Bardling, this is important. Did you have anything to drink except for the wine?”

“Nope.” Jaskier looks offended. “I would never get drunk while on assignment, Yennefer. What kind of amateur do you take me for?”

“Fuck.” Yennefer lets go of his face, reaching up her sleeve.

“What are you doing?” he asks.

“You’ve either been drugged or poisoned. Either way, you need an antidote.”

“But why would they drug or poison me?” His mouth drops open in outrage. “I’m much more pleasant to be around than you.”

Yennefer doesn’t dignify that with an answer as she fumbles for the little leather pouch she keeps holstered to her forearm. The only good thing about these obnoxiously voluminous sleeves that have become fashionable in the past few years is that they make excellent hiding spots. She slips a small glass vial out, sniffs it to make sure it’s the right one, and holds it out to Jaskier.

“Drink,” she says. “It’s a purifying potion. Whatever toxin is running through you right now, this will neutralize it.”

But Jaskier doesn’t respond. He’s looking at her with a misty expression.

“What?” Yennefer demands before glancing down. When she pushed aside her sleeve, she exposed the dandelion on her wrist, with its bright yellow petals and curling green leaves. It’s a shock of color next to her black velvet dress.

“I forget sometimes.” Jaskier touches his own wrist, where she knows there’s a violet flame soulmark hidden under his doublet.

“Lucky you.” Yennefer twitches her sleeve back into place, covering the soulmark, but Jaskier pulls it back again.

“I know we agreed not to talk about it,” he says. “Or rather, you said you’d turn me into an eel if I tried to talk about it.”

“A threat that still stands.”

“But don’t you ever wonder?” Jaskier looks up at her with big, sad eyes. “Don’t you ever wonder what would happen if we just… let ourselves be together?”

“No,” Yennefer says flatly. “Now take the fucking potion. You’re under the influence of something, which is why you’re not already an eel wriggling on the ground.”

“Don’t you feel it too? The pull?”

She breathes out hard through her nose. “It’s not real, bardling. It’s just soulmate magic.”

“But what if it’s not? What if we’re meant to be together and we’re just consigning ourselves to lives of misery by denying it?”

“I’m already consigned to a life of misery by having to deal with you constantly.” It’s far from Yennefer’s best snipe and she knows it, which just annoys her. She’s usually more quick on her feet with her comebacks. “Just take the damn potion. We can talk about this later.”

“But we won’t talk about this later.” Jaskier sighs gustily. “We’ll go back to Tretogor, you’ll hand Dijkstra the papers and portal away, and I won’t see you again until the next time I bribe Phillipa into sending us on assignment together.”

“You bribed Phillipa?” It’s not that Yennefer expects honesty from spies, but she thought that Phillipa would at least be above Jaskier’s bullshit.

Jaskier looks even smugger than usual. “Phillipa is very fond of a particular vintage of Est Est that’s nearly impossible to find these days. I procured her one of the last bottles in existence.”

“Why?” Yennefer demands.

“Because you’re my soulmate and I love you! And I think you might learn to love me too, if you would just give us a chance.”

“You don’t love me.” She’s not sure why she’s still standing here. She has the papers; she could portal away and leave Jaskier to his own devices. “It’s just the soulmate magic ruining the little bit of good sense you have.”

“I’ve loved you since before the soulmarks activated.” Jaskier’s eyes are wide, wet, and far too earnest.

That renders Yennefer speechless for a moment. When she finally manages to speak, all she can say is, “What the fuck are you talking about, bardling?”

“I’ve loved you since Rinde.”

“Rinde was a clusterfuck.” Rinde had been one of the first missions Yennefer and Jaskier had gone on together, a wild goose chase after a rumored djinn that Prince Radovid wanted for its wishes. It was only weeks later, safely back in Tretogor, that they touched skin to skin for the first time, Jaskier casually brushing his fingers against the back of Yennefer’s hand, activating their soulmarks.

“It was.” He gazes off into the distance, looking a little dreamy. “But you were magnificent. You saved both our lives ten times over. You’re the only reason we didn’t get our heads chopped off when we returned to Tretogor empty-handed.”

“I’m the reason we returned to Tretogor empty-handed.” Yennefer was the one who got it in her head to use the djinn for her own devices.

“You were right in that Radovid couldn’t be trusted with that kind of power.” Jaskier shrugs. “I’d known you were beautiful and terrifying since the first time I met you, but I didn’t realize just how magnificent you were until after Rinde. It has nothing to do with the soulmark, Yenn. I just love you and can’t imagine my life without you.”

“Jaskier,” she says a little desperately.

“And it’s okay if you don’t feel the same way.” He smiles shakily. “I just want to be with you, however you’ll let me.”

Yennefer stares at him, torn between the urges to portal away and never look back and grab the idiot’s face and kiss him even more senseless. Jaskier is ridiculous, vain, and self-centered. He causes more trouble for the Redanian government than he fixes. He has angry lovers scattered across the Continent and probably at least one love child. She’s never met a more exasperating person.

And yet, she’s saved his life and he’s saved hers. They’ve dragged each other out of more scrapes than she can count. There have been a half a dozen times where Yennefer’s job would have been so much easier if she had turned away and left the bard to his fate, but she never did.  He’s an objectively beautiful man, so she’s blamed that and the soulmate magic for all the times she’s caught her gaze lingering on his fingers while he plucked at his lute strings or found her own lips curling in an answering smile when he laughs.

If she’s honest with herself, she can admit that there were several times she caught herself staring before the soulmarks manifested.

Yennefer doesn’t have time to be honest with herself, not with a poisoned soulmate, a handful of letters that could be the key to rousting out the network of Nilfgaardian spies they’ve been hunting for years, and a castle full of guards with swords.

“Jaskier,” she whispers, letting her hand settle on the front of his doublet. The fabric is silky beneath her hand.

His throat bobs as he swallows thickly. “Yennefer?”

“You could have just told me how you felt.”

“We’ve known each other for over a decade, Yenn, and I know I wasn’t subtle.”

She leans in close, feeling Jaskier’s breath ghost over her lips. His eyes go wide in surprise before they flutter shut. He leans towards her, lips parting…

And Yennefer pops the cork off the bottle of potion with her thumb before shoving it in his mouth. Jaskier makes a strangled noise of protest, his eyes flying open.

“Don’t spit it out,” she warns. “That’s the only dose I have.”

For once in his miserable life, Jaskier obeys, swallowing the purifying potion. Once it’s gone, Yennefer withdraws the bottle from his lips.

“You… absolute…” Jaskier doubles over with a groan, bracing his elbows on his thighs. “Fuck.”

“It would have been more pleasant if you had just taken it when I told you to,” Yennefer lies. She’s had to take a purifying potion several times, and it’s always like living a daylong hangover in a matter of minutes. It’s never anything approaching pleasant.

“Go fuck yourself.”

“I would, but I’m a little busy carrying this mission on my back and keeping the both of us alive.”

Jaskier’s only answer is a loud, long groan. Taking pity on him, Yennefer summons a chair from the other side of the library for him to sink into, rocking back and forth miserably. After several long minutes, Jaskier sits up, looking slightly green. His eyes are bloodshot.

“Fuck,” he says. “Next time someone poisons me, just let me die.”

“That was already the plan,” Yennefer deadpans.

He glares at her. “That was a dirty trick.”

“Had you just acted like a fucking adult and taken the potion, it wouldn’t have been necessary.”

“I was poisoned.”

“And whose fault is that?”

He huffs. “My memory is perfectly fine. Never fear, you and I will be talking about this after we get back to Tretogor alive and I’ve drunk my weight’s worth of water and maybe slept for a day or—”

His words are cut off in a shriek as Yennefer grabs him by the front of the doublet and yanks him through the portal.

They are never talking about this, she decides.

***

“I knew you liked me,” Jaskier says smugly a month later. They’re crammed together in a lice-infested bed in a lice-infested inn, on the hunt for another one of the Nilfgaardian spies exposed in the papers they liberated from the Duke’s estate. “Deep, deep down.”

Yennefer watches the way the violet flame on his wrist seems to flicker in the candlelight. “You knew shit all, bardling.”

“Nope, I remember clapping eyes on you for the first time and thinking to myself, ‘that woman is going to be madly, passionately in love with me within a decade, just wait and see.’”

“Funny, I remember seeing you for the first time and thinking, ‘I wonder when Phillipa started turning peacocks into men and letting them loose on the citizens of Redania.’”

“She did turn me into a peacock once. It was only for a few minutes, but it was fucking traumatizing.”

Yennefer snorts. “What kind of Est Est can she be bribed with? I’ll get her a thousand bottles if she does that again.”

“There aren’t a thousand bottles left, you witch.” Jaskier presses a kiss to her shoulder, then lifts her wrist to his mouth to kiss her dandelion soulmark. “Anyway, you seem to like me just fine as a man.”

“You have your uses.”

He huffs a laugh against her soulmark. “You can’t pretend you don’t adore me.”

She rolls her eyes at the ceiling. “Well, you did just go nearly twenty minutes without speaking, so I like you far more than I usually do.”

“I suppose that’s the key then.” Jaskier waggles his eyebrows. “You keep my mouth occupied.”

“No, the key is you shutting the fuck up once in a while.”

He frowns, considering. “Nah, I’ve tried that. Not for me.”

Yennefer sighs. “Bardling, you’re incorrigible.”

“You like it,” Jaskier says with entirely unearned confidence, pressing another kiss against her soulmark. If the sensation of his lips against her soulmark does something funny to her insides, that’s no one’s business but her own. Maybe this is just soulmate magic or destiny meddling where it has no business doing so, but it’s hard to care about that wrapped up in her soulmate’s arms, his lips against her pulse point and his heart beating against hers. She can’t think of anywhere else she’d rather be.

At least, until he falls on top of her and starts to snore.

***

Tag list:  @kueble @mollymawkwrites @feral-jaskier @geraltrogerericduhautebellegarde @dawnofbards @thisislisa @mosaicscale @tsukiwolf42 @rockysstupidity @fontegagrilledcheese @kuripon @help-i-need-a-cool-username @julek @flowercrown-bard

[irene-sadler]

what up kids its been a second but in my defense i am workin on a project that is probably actually gonna be published (an academic paper, don’t get too excited) and surprisingly this does take a lot of time

anyway here’s a lil preview of the next chapter of warstory which i am still working on just very slowly

-----------

The soldiers seem to be keeping themselves relatively peaceful, he thinks. He wanders through them, finds Gascon at a table, and sits down without an invitation. The younger man pauses in the middle of taking a drink and blinks at him. “Meve didn’t send y’ here to talk to me, did she?” “What?” Reynard asks, stupidly. “Oh. Never mind, then,” Gascon says, and blithely returns to his drink. Reynard decides, in the interest of general morale, to ignore the comment and move on. Maybe the man’s suspicious behavior is what brings a question to mind. Maybe not; it’s been bothering him for a while. He can’t think of anything else to talk about. “How did you end up working for the Queen?” Gascon’s drunk. It’s the perfect time to ask. The village around them rings with laughing soldiers and the woman herself is nowhere in sight; Reynard doesn’t usually pose an ambush question like this, but now’s as good a time as any. Gascon doesn’t seem to think anything of it. He’s always assumed it was a secret, but maybe he was wrong and just didn’t ever ask. “Used t’ be a bandit,” the younger man replies blithely, stating the blatantly obvious. “Or a mercenary, dependin’ on who had the coin and what they wanted. About a year ago a mystery man with a funny foreign accent gave me this letter t’ carry about and a bucket of money and set me loose on the Lyrian countryside. A barrel of money, if you want total honesty. So much coin that carryin’ that letter and making a nuisance of ourselves was worth any risk t’ us, ‘cause all we did was make more of it. Never did ask him no questions, and who would?” He stops to gulp down half his tankard at once. Reynard squints doubtfully and waits. None of this is especially surprising, to him; he’d formed some theories on the subject early in the campaign, and he isn’t shocked that he guessed right. “Then as I was doin’ this business, I ran into a force I couldn’t escape. That woman’s a terrifying fighter if you’re on the wrong side, you know?” “I guess you do know, don’t you,” Gascon says, after a pause to consider. “She captured me, and a lot of my men. Some of ‘em she strung up, but I went t’ the stockade for quite some time before she one day busts in the door and tells me she knows a thing or two about me.” “What?” “Uh, she knows I’m from Rivia.”

[straysinfiltrator]

Thronebreaker: The Real Ending

The heavy gates of Lyria Castle opened to deafening trumpet calls. Gascon rode in first, his mounted retinue and carriages following with great fanfare. Festive banners flew from the towers, the Lyrian eagle lifted amidst royal blue and red and gold, soaring in glorious agitation. Gascon glanced up in sympathy. He had waited months for this, and it had felt like longer, until his new estates’ affairs were ordered enough to be left in the hands of his administrators, until Meve had finally relented and believed him when he wrote her, yet again, that there was nowhere else he’d rather be than with her.

Guards and nobles bowed as he entered the yard. He nodded to the assembled gathering, then dismounted smoothly and tossed the reins to one of the several stewards who materialized at his side. His hands absently pulled the embroidered silk of his sleeves over his wrists; the chill of irons haunted his memory of the last time he had walked this path.

He scanned the far end of the courtyard, and his heart lurched as he saw footmen snap to attention, then part for their queen. Her face looked at once comfortingly familiar and brilliantly fresh, her smile radiant; she was resplendent in her armor and crown, the consummate picture of royalty. Reynard walked just a pace behind her, silver to her gold, an ever-steady mountain of strength. It would not have been appropriate to simply run up and into their arms, and for once Gascon forced himself to follow protocol, with no small effort.

The rest of the day was taken up by a formal reception, several official audiences, elaborate feasting, and a casually pompous hunting event that took hours and would have left them all starving if they’d actually had to rely on the game they caught for their dinner. It was not until the evening that he finally found himself in the company of Meve and Reynard alone, in one of the castle’s lavish private sitting rooms.

“Some peace, at long last,” Meve said, collapsing into a chair. Reynard poured them all some wine and sat down himself. They toasted, to the old times and the new. Gascon took a sip as he paced restlessly, tasting the sweet sharpness, wondering if nothing or everything had changed.

There was a massive book on the table, open to a page with an elaborately intricate illustration in earth tones. He glanced at it sidelong, intrigued.

“Take a look,” Reynard said, gesturing.

Gascon set down his cup and bent over the volume, then flipped slowly through the gorgeously illustrated pages, careful to only touch their very edges. The drawings were shaded in astounding gradients, looking almost painted, and there were even a few that were in full color. And as for the text—

“An account of our journey, and our fight, to preserve for the future,” Reynard said. “Copies have been sent to monarchs across the Continent, as well as important academic libraries. Our friends in Mahakam have shared their latest printing press technology for the illustrations; they seem to think our story will make others reconsider before treading again on their neutrality.”

“It’s incredible,” Gascon said with genuine awe. “I’ve never seen anything like it.” He paged through perfect renderings of Meve and her companions, and landscapes sketched so accurately he felt himself transported back to the places they portrayed. He stopped at a picture of himself; it showed him stashing away a scroll while glancing suspiciously over his shoulder. “Hah! Is that when I stole the document for the dwarf lass in Mahakam? I look pretty sharp in that one, if I do say so myself.”

“It’s a good likeness,” Meve said matter-of-factly. Gascon glanced up and met her sparkling eyes; she pressed her lips together to suppress a smile.

Heat rose in his cheeks. He looked down, turned more pages.

There was an illustration towards the end, showing Meve in full armor, majestic and beautiful as always, sitting on the throne while Reynard stood proudly behind her. Gascon read aloud: “She ruled with an iron hand, not fist, Reynard ever at her side, tempering, supportive. That’s news to me—did you truly manage to temper her, Reynard?”

Reynard made a dismissive sound and waved the notion away: “As if anyone could.”

“Certain passages may have been, shall we say, smoothed over—for easier reading,” Meve said. “But the ‘supportive’ part is right, at least.” She set down her goblet, leaned over and kissed Reynard full on the mouth, pulling him close with one hand on the back of his neck. Gascon watched as the proud general melted under her touch. It was good to see them again, good to see them like this.

Gascon flipped to the next page idly and choked out a surprised laugh. “You had me riding off into the sunset, really? Atop some wild stallion that’s about to throw me off, no less!”

“It seemed like your style,” Meve replied with a bright smile. “Anything understated would hardly do you justice.”

“Can’t argue with that,” Gascon said with a lopsided grin and a shrug. “And I suppose you couldn’t exactly lay out the whole truth, considering the intended audience.”

“Some things are best left out of the history texts,” Meve agreed, rising. “The events of tonight, for example…” She circled Gascon as she spoke, then ran a hand through his hair, firm and sweet and cool. It was the first time she had touched him since his return. The shiver went all the way to his bones. She trailed a single fingertip down the side of his throat; he swallowed involuntarily and felt his heartbeat pounding against the gentle pressure, frantic with craving.

Reynard lounged back into his chair across from them, one arm resting casually on the hilt of his sword. He met Gascon’s eyes and raised his cup in salute; then his lips curved in a knowing smile as he settled in to watch.

[dryadalismagicae]

@palehunt​ || LIKED for a STARTER with Lyrian

"I’ve not seen another pace through the darkness as if it is but broad daylight.” He speaks, attention turning to his left where another cloaked figure - much akin to himself in that regard - stands. The depths of the night surround them, the heavy cover of trees denying moonlight to bless the ground beneath ones feet and yet it appears as if both parties can see the opposing with absolute ease. “Colour me curious--”

[restmyheadatnightcontent]

as long as stars are above you

here’s a little thing for witcher ladies appreciation week! the first fic prompt was fluff/happiness so here is some pure yennefer x triss fluff

______

She tightens the blanket around her shoulders before taking the wine bottle from the table and making her way back out to the balcony, back towards her wife.

Her wife.

It still doesn’t quite feel real, that she has a wife, and that she herself is now a wife. Despite the wedding only being a week ago, it feels as though it happened in a time far, far from now. Ever since the two of them drove away and started their honeymoon, it feels like the universe just exists for them now, that the entire world is theirs to command and is waiting at their fingertips. They haven’t gone far, but the rolling hills and quiet streets are different enough from the overcrowded city they are used to for them to enjoy themselves.

She steps back out onto the balcony, back into the crisp summer night. It is still warm, but now that the sun has set it is beginning to chill and they decided to bring out the blankets.Triss looks up at her with a smile, and Yennefer can feel herself falling in love with her all over again. 

They had met at university, through their friends at a party, and they had hit it off immediately. Triss was kind, effortlessly kind and had this wonderful ability to make anyone feel welcome, and cared for and important that emitted from her like sunshine. And Yennefer, the poor farm girl with her hunched shoulders, blossomed under that light. They were friends for a long time, and Triss was there alongside as she learned and grew, was there at her side during every surgery, and flitted from relationship to relationship. Triss was there when they fell apart, waiting with wine and ice cream. They drifted for a while, both of them travelling across the Continent - Yennefer fought and clawed her way to the top of the Lyrian law firm, fighting for those who no-one would and Triss became a nurse, caring for the people that everyone else seemed to have forgotten about- but they always gravitated back towards one another. They both ended up settling in the same city, and Triss made a speech at her wedding to Geralt, she supported both her and Geralt as they went through the arduous adoption process.

Triss was there when it started to fall apart, a sympathetic ear to listen to Yennefer talk about how motherhood was so much harder than she could ever have imagined, how her and Geralt just didn’t seem to work anymore, when she first uttered the word ‘divorce’ but was terrified about letting Ciri down.

But it all turned out alright, she and Geralt decided they worked better as co-parents and friends, and Ciri was thrilled that she still had two people who cared for her more than anything in the world and that they were no longer hurting each other for her sake.

And then it seemed only natural, on one spring afternoon where she and Triss had been enjoying lunch in her garden, to turn and kiss her. She watched as the blush spread across the freckled woman’s cheeks and the smile that formed against her lips. She could see surprise in Triss’s eyes too because kind Triss, selfless Triss, wonderful Triss, beautiful Triss, still did not think herself deserving of this kind of affection, had resigned herself to the sidelines whilst she sat and watched everyone else get their happy ending. But Yennefer wasn’t going to allow that, she was pulling her out of the shade and into the sun and they had never looked back.

“Thank you, Mrs Merigold,” Triss smiles to her as Yennefer refills her wine glass.

“You’re welcome Mrs Vengeburg,” she replies.

She sits next to her wife, their new rings glinting in the candlelight as she intertwines their hands. Their road here has not always been easy, the journey filled with struggles and hardship, but she knows that she would not change a single step.

Triss leans and rests her head against her shoulder, and Yennefer presses a kiss into her curls. She would not change anything because that journey brought her exactly where she needed to be, here under the stars with the woman she loves, with a family waiting for her back home.

It has brought her happiness.

[corvo-bianco-lilacs]

Calanthe and Meve stared intently at each other, both weighing the prospect of working together to take down two of the Continent's kings, one of whom Meve was related to.

"I know it is not an ideal situation..." Calanthe began, palm pressed down on the table between them, a map covering its surface.

"Not in any regard, Calanthe." Meve replied, formalities dropped between them as the queen of Rivia stood on the other side of the table, hands on her hips, gazing over to Calanthe. "We're discussing my cousin's murder, and the murder of Radovid. There is nothing ideal about it."

"But it must be done... Meve, he KILLED my daughter and left his own child an orphan. Had it not been for Lavinia, we would have never known that Emhyr was Duny... We would have never escaped Cintra's destruction alive." Calanthe retorted, the pain she felt shone hotly in her emerald eyes. "I will not rest until he is dead."

"And Radovid?"

"I can answer that." Lavinia interjected. "He is slaughtering mages. He sacked Aretuza and nearly killed Tissaia, the woman who has been like a grandmother to me, and those who studied there." Her words were hot but true, and her fierce gaze was focused on Meve as she spoke. "I have lost friends to him... I will not lose more."

Meve took the girl's words in, her gaze steady as she looked to Lavinia, before a soft sigh finally pushed through her nose.

"Alright... How can I assist."

Calanthe sighed in relief, thankful to have the Lyrian queen on their side, before the group began to share their plans around the table. Eist offered Meve access to Skelligan trade as a barter for the queen for her assistance to Cintra, while Calanthe promised the queen her support, financially and through her army, when the queen was in need of either.

"I believe we have our plan put together." Meve spoke as their conversations drew to a close nearly three hours later.

"I agree. Now we must share this with the Lodge." Lavinia replied, glancing to her mother who nodded her head in approval.

Yennefer stepped to her megascope and signaled for the sorceresses, who soon appeared as apparitions of themselves in the center of the room.

"We have our plans." Yennefer spoke, addressing the assembled women before them.

[dukeofdogs]

Unused assets found in game files for a quest in Thronebreaker simply titled as “Irrigation project”. Transcription and unused pictures below.

Meve rode down the weed–strewn road leading to Dousterley, Rivia’s poorest corner. There the soil was dry and sandy, the woods sparse and free of game. Dousterley locals knew hunger far too well. Their larders were bare by late autumn, and by the spring thaws they’d butchered the last dogs to survive winter.

“This land never flowed with milk and honey, not even in the best of times…” sighed the queen. “I cringe to think what horrors war has wrought on it.”

“We can soon see for ourselves,” replied Reynard. “Mount Gravel lies ahead. From its summit one may survey the surroundings for many leagues.”

When Meve climbed atop the mount’s peak, she could not believe her eyes.They beheld amber waves of grain rippling in vast fields, plump cows and sturdy horses grazing in vibrant meadows… a parade of rural bounty.

“How… how can this be?” the queen finally stammered.

“Perhaps it is an illusion, some Nilfgaardian… magecraft…” Reynard said, as dumbfounded as his queen.

“If so…” Gascon said as he took a hearty sniff, “They’ve magecrafted a damned fine imitation of the odor of fresh dung.”

The queen sent scouts to investigate. They found the unexpected flowering of Dousterley was not at all the doing of imperial mages – but imperial engineers. They had dammed the River Brynn which flowed through the land and, using a complicated network of irrigation canals, redirected its waters to the dry fields, which they then enriched with manure. They did not need to wait long for their efforts to bear fruit…

“Incredible…” Reynard said, lifting a stalk of wheat doubled over under its ample burden. “Centuries of poverty, hunger… eradicated by a simple canal.”

“Simple, hm, I’m not sure about that…“ Gascon said, sweeping his gaze over the fields. "To plan all this, the connections, dependencies, flows… that takes a clever bean, indeed.”

Yet not all were so impressed by the Nilfgaardians’ irrigation system. The water they’d held back with their dam had once flowed on to Brynndal, an area famed for its prize orchards. Its once fecund apple and plum trees had ceased to bear fruit, their leaves withered and fallen.

“Yer Majesty…” spoke one of Brynndal’s peasants, “We pled an’ pled with the Blackclads… but they said their army needed grain, not fruit. Our orchards weren’t part of the plan. M'lady… I can’t watch the trees my da an’ granda planted dry up an’ die… So please, I beg ye, knock down that accursed dam! Let things be as they were!”

“Steal from the rich, give to the poor,” Gascon said, scratching his head. “Always sounds splendid on paper, but in practice… Am I ever glad I don’t have to make these decisions.”

Destroy the dam.

“One man’s woe cannot be repaired by another’s misfortune,” the queen said after a long, thoughtful pause. “Not even a queen should resort to that. Let it be as it once was. As the gods ordained, not as the Nilfgaardians wrought.”

As the queen ordered, the Lyrians destroyed the dam. The orchards of Brynndal flowered once more, while the fields of Dousterley went fallow… and its inhabitants forever after fondly recalled the days of Nilfgaardian rule.

Keep the dam.

“I was in Dousterley five years past, after a harsh winter,” said Meve. “I saw elders too weak to rise from their beds. Women bereft of hair, children with bloated stomachs. If a few orchards must perish to improve their lives… so be it. That price I am willing to pay.”

The residents of Dousterley breathed a sigh of relief… but the apple growers of Brynndal were outraged by Meve’s decision. Soon the desiccated trees of their orchards served only to shelter bandits, who raided the merchant caravans and robbed the pilgrims passing through Rivia.

[gayregis]

never really noticed it before but dandelion and cahir have a continued theme of rivalry within the hansa. i wonder if it stems from the whole viscount of a northern kingdom vs count of a nilfgaardian province thing or what. they’re both foils to geralt so maybe they’re competing in that respect.

dandelion asking him how he caught the pike in the fish soup scene and calling him nilfgaardian... to which cahir gets uppity and tries to say “my name is cahir and i come from vico—“ and dandelion says “alright, we know all that...”

dandelion laughing at regis and cahir’s names, to which cahir rebukes him with “so what is your real name, since dandelion is obviously a pseudonym?”

cahir not wanting to assume that northerners approve of the practice of abortion, to which dandelion takes great offense

dandelion admonishing cahir for looking over his shoulder while he’s writing

cahir commenting on dandelion’s argument with “do you really not understand anything? or are you talking just to talk?” to which dandelion replies curtly, “silence, nilfgaardian!”

like cahir also seems to prefer “tactful silence” in the company especially with geralt in the beginning so maybe dandelion’s casual nature allowed him to re-adopt his whiny youngest sibling personality that he had at home or something

i really do feel like it stems from their nationalities though. i mean they are both “representatives, but not quite” of respectively the north and nilfgaard... dandelion travels and does not settle in one place for long, so he is not attached to any one kingdom in particular, and cahir, while being adament that he is vicovarian, is the only nilfgaardian as in someone from the empire that they know and interact with as an ally. plus they both have deep knowledge about the political innerworkings of their respective areas — dandelion “knew all the kings, princes, lords and feudal lords from the Jaruga to the Dragon Mountains” and is extremely well versed in the vexillology, symbols, and royal standards of the northern kingdoms, too; he immediately recognized the rivian lozenges and the lyrian eagle. and he seems to be close with some kings like hernwald and venzlav who he judges the personalities and feelings of, e.g., telling geralt “venzlav likes you!” ... cahir was an intelligence officer of nilgaard which should prove testament to how much he knows, he is also well-versed in nilfgaardian symbolism, like when he identified the white scorpion on some fallen nilfgaardian troops’ sleeves. both of them were literally raised in families and settings of nobility and were probably groomed to act appropriately as such.

so yeah basically i think it derives from their political positions ... not that cahir allies with nilfgaard at all, the hansa is non-affiliated politically except for accepting anna henrietta’s graces for a short time, because they deserted meve and fought nilfgaard. but i think the remnants of their upbringings just butt heads with each other and also they have such similarities like being noble and educated that they are just so likely to try and compete with one another