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nikethestatue · 9 months

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The Agreement

Chapter 9

Warning: Explicit Sexual Content, Explicit Language

This is NiketheStatue smut. You've been warned.

Elain Archeron

It was Sunday, and Elain was still a virgin.

Azriel hadn’t made any drastic moves to deflower her either, so she existed in her present state, though in the past couple of days, her virginity became more of a nuisance rather than the desired state of being that she wanted to preserve.

Azriel had upped the ante slowly, but deliberately ever since they first kissed and he kept Elain in the state of perpetual arousal as well as expectation. She didn’t know when it would come. When he would pounce. Never mind that the idea of Azriel ‘pouncing’ was absurd, but she already knew him well enough, and was aware that he could be unpredictable, demanding and at times, rough. She’d be willing, but she didn’t put it past him to wrestle her on the floor, tear her dress and take her. Fuck her, as he liked to say. She didn’t dare utter that word yet. Azriel, in turn, was quite comfortable with it, throwing ‘fuck’ abundantly in their conversation. He really had terrible manners, at least when he was at home.

And home this was.

Elain’s too.

She’d learned to think of it as one, and she adored it. Not terribly surprising, as it was a veritable palace, but it was also compact enough that it didn’t feel impersonal. This wasn’t a grand estate out in the country, where she’d have to trudge through eighty-two rooms and cover miles of acreage before she even reached the kitchen.

Their home was palatial, but also comfortable and designed for living, and not showing off. She loved all the modern touches that Azriel outfitted the house with–they were rare and she’d bet that no one else had most of these in their possession. Beyond electricity, running water, flushing toilets, the showers, he also had the kitchen modernised with a unique stove, and a variety of gadgets that made her crazy with excitement. There were handheld machines for whipping cream and egg whites, pans that were ideal for making sauces, all sorts of fancy rolling pins and baking forms that would make any bakery proud. There were presses and grinders, which made life infinitely easier for her and for Cerridwen. There was hot and cold water, and a stove that she didn’t need to crouch over–the way she needed to do it at home.

In the past week she also learned a lot about the Duke of Velaris and many of his ideosynchronies. Some were charming and endearing, others were puzzling.

Even though per their agreement she wasn’t supposed to ‘fraternise’ with the help, she very much fraternised with both Nuala and Cerridwen. The ‘help’ that Azriel had referred to was apparently the many servants that lived and cared for his country pile–Rosehall. It had a staff of dozens, and the twins weren’t considered part of that staff. That led to resentment. The sisters didn’t care much, but Azriel kept them here, in London, and they never went to Rosehall without him.

Azriel collected daggers–ancient, rare daggest, which were kept in the attic, in a special room, behind glass. They ranged from Persian to ancient Greek ones, African, Japanese, Italian, Roman, Viking, Chinese, Indian and everything in between. His prized possession was a dagger from Arabia, which was called Truth-Teller. Legend had it that it always struck true. Nuala said that the dagger came from his mother’s side of the family, a gift to him when he came into adulthood.

He owned exactly 30 suits. They were also all exactly the same–black. He always wore a white shirt, and possessed only two colours of ties–black and cobalt.

He liked Irish whiskey and drank a measure every evening.

He smoked six cigarettes a day. Two in the morning, two in the afternoon, and two at night.

He liked white china, monogrammed with his initials–in black and cobalt, of course.

Otherwise, the house was void of personal artefacts. No portraits of ancestors, no wedding photographs, not one depiction of his lady Morrigan to be found anywhere. Nothing from his boyhood. Barely anything from Eton. One photograph depicted Azriel, and Cassian, and another man who resembled them. They were dressed warmly and the photo was taken somewhere in the snow, with them holding snowballs in their hands. How they got the photographer and his photographic camera over the snow piles, Elain had no idea. The photo was intimate and endearing–the men were smiling.

Elain wanted to ask the twins about the state of Azriel’s marriage, before Morrigan’s accident, but she didn’t think that it was her place. Also, she didn’t think that the twins would betray his confidence if it was something personal.

The house was unusually open–the twins explained that Azriel hated closed or narrow spaces. He liked sunshine.

Nuala was braiding Elain’s hair when she told her ‘his lordship called you his sunshine’. It made Elain blush. And smile. Especially when Nuala said that that was his highest compliment.

In the mornings, Elain was ordered to wear house dresses, no brassiere, and preferably be barefoot, though that was at ‘her own discretion’. And then, once she was ready, Azriel kissed her. He waited for her in the morning, in the hallway between their bedrooms, and she always emerged at exactly seven AM. There, he greeted her, taking note of the dress that she was wearing and how she had her hair done that morning. It was always the same–she approached him, allowing him the time to study her for a few moments, and then he immediately cupped her unbound breasts in his large palms, while she kissed his lips. He expected her to kiss him, and she…liked it. He began fondling her immediately–those warm, dry hands squeezing her breasts, as if telling them ‘good morning’ before one hand inevitably dropped to her waist, where he caressed her hips, then slid over her belly, before resting on her bottom and grabbing a handful. Elain kissed him. While his hands roamed over her body, she held his face between her hands and kissed him. But he always gave her his tongue and she sucked and licked on it. She loved it.

“Good morning, sir,” she’d say at last, when he finally allowed her to come up for breath.

“Good morning, beautiful,” he usually winked at her and bit her lips.

And then, he led her downstairs. By her nipple.

He took a liking to pinching one of her nipples and then led her by it, which was both odd and incredibly arousing. It hurt her, because he squeezed tightly, but she followed him without protest as he tugged on her tit and guided her.

Submission. That’s what he wanted. Complete willing sexual submission.

He hadn’t voiced it, but Elain quickly understood where his needs and desires lie. He was going to order her and dominate her, and she was to acquiesce and happily submit. And that was fine with her. Outside of their sexual experimentation, Azriel didn’t require anything of her. If she wanted to sit on her butt all day long, he wouldn’t have objected. What he cared about was when he told her to bend, she bent and when he told her to spread, she spread. And if she thanked him–even better. He liked that a lot.

She was to serve him at meals–not as a servant–but they took their meals together, and Azriel requested privacy. Therefore, Devlon was no longer attending at dinner. It was mostly because Elain was expected to climb into Azriel’s lap once they had their plates filled with food, and he fed her and himself.

Yes, she was a grown woman, but she adored this strange ritual of theirs. Azriel loved it too, because he was free to kiss her and fondle her aggressively. After every dinner, she sported new marks on her neck and her shoulders, there to replace the fading ones. Her lips were swollen from his incessant kissing. Her nipples were puffy and aching having been pinched and rolled and squeezed all throughout the meal.

When they were finally done eating, she’d kiss him sweetly and whisper ‘thank you for dinner, sir’.

Nevertheless, it was Sunday and Elain was still a virgin.

She was still asleep when she sensed that the door opened and Azriel entered her bedroom. Once she granted him permission, he sometimes stopped by unannounced, but he didn’t make a habit out of it, and respected her privacy. After the first night that they had spent together, he didn’t encroach on her again. Even if Elain didn’t mind at all. Even if she wanted to be encroached upon.

She knew that he was barefoot when he padded across the wooden planks of the parquet floor, before his steps were muffled by the carpet. The bed dipped and Elain buried her face in her pillows, giggling.

“Ahhh, you are laughing, you naughty girl. You are awake and you didn’t even come out to greet me!” he chided her gently, as he climbed over her and straddled her belly, before draping his heavy big body over her and squeezing her in his massive embrace.

She wiggled next to his chest, protesting feebly, “I was asleep! You just woke me up.”

“Uh-uh,” he grunted, dipping his face into her neck and inhaling deeply.

“You smell good in your sleep,” he murmured with a deep satisfied growl.

Elain hasn’t even opened her eyes yet, simply luxuriating in the feel of his weight, in his woodsy, cool scent, which she’d recognise anywhere, in the brush of his stubble against her cheek and her neck.

This was crazy. It had to be.

He couldn’t be cuddling her like this? He couldn’t be waiting for her to awake, so he could kiss and stroke her? He couldn’t be wanting her the way he seemed to hunger for her?

“Good morning, sir,” she breathed, her chest tight.

Happiness. That’s what she was feeling. Happiness, which she was experiencing for perhaps the first time in her life.

Azriel made her happy.

“Good morning, beautiful girl.”

“You couldn’t even let me sleep in on Sunday?” she pouted.

“No,” he said firmly. “I needed your tongue in my mouth…It’s the strangest urge.”

“Can I at least relieve myself? Before I take your tongue in my mouth?”

He frowned, as if he was considering the request, then sighed dramatically and rolled off her.

“Two minutes!” he warned.

“Despot!” she threw at him, as she scrambled from under the blanket. That was met with a hearty laugh and earned her a slap on her bottom.

She did everything in the allotted two minutes–relieved herself, splashed cold water on her face, cleaned her teeth and gave the thick mane of her hair an artful tousle, before pinning it at the nape of her neck.

From her bedroom, she heard a countdown ‘three, two, one…’

She jumped out of the bathing room and rushed back to the bed, and into Azriel’s outstretched arms. He pushed her on her back and pressed his lips to hers.

The man could kiss.

Anything from gentle, fluttering, soft kisses, to passionate, hungry, forceful ones and everything in between, Azriel always kissed like he was ready to devour her. It wasn’t just kisses, it was possession all the way to her soul.

But he also loved when she kissed him as well–in the past 3 days, she’d gained confidence and because he always encouraged her, she often came to him first and just kissed him. It was surreal–to have the opportunity to come to Duke of Velaris whenever she wanted to and pull him into a kiss, and feel him give in eagerly and readily. It was a strange sort of luxury, to feel so wanted and so accepted, and Elain took to it well.

He pulled away for a moment, while he placed slow kisses on her face and neck, and she heard him whisper, “God, I want to fuck you.”

Swallowing, she answered, “then do it. I…I want it,” she admitted breathlessly.

She was panting, her breasts falling up and down heavily beneath his chest.

He looked at her, studying her expression, her face, her words with that penetrating gaze of his, as if he could see inside her head and determine whether she was being truthful.

“Is that so?” he asked at last.

She nodded.

It was true. She wasn’t trying to mollify him, or simply say what he wanted to hear. That wasn’t their relationship. Azriel demanded honesty and gave her voice complete consideration. If she said ‘no’ it meant ‘no’ and he didn’t push–whether it was a sexual matter, or something from their everyday life. Though curiously, they were usually in agreement about most things. There was harmony in their relationship which Elain simply cherished and found so very peaceful and pleasant.

“It is,” she repeated again. “I want it. I want you.”

Azriel smiled and lightly brushed the backs of his fingers over her cheek.

“My sweet darling girl. You’ll get me.”

“Yes?”

“Maybe more than you expected or wanted.”

“I don't think so,” she argued. “Nothing is going to be ‘too much’. Not with you.”

“My pretty innocent girl,” he kissed her lightly on the lips. “I can absolutely assure you that it will be. Now, what are your plans for today?”

“I’ll be busy!” she said immediately.

‘Busy? On Sunday? Are you planning on going to church?”

“Are you?”

“Not much of a church goer I am not,” he chuckled.

“Neither am I. But I have a surprise, and I will be busy,”

“A surprise? For who? Me?”

“Who else?” she asked mysteriously.

“Ugh,” he grunted, “I was hoping to spend the day with you…It’s our anniversary, you know,” he laughed.

“I remember. One week. We’ll celebrate tonight.”

He rolled off her and asked, “dare I ask, will this surprise unavail you to me for the entire day?”

Elain kissed him, because she couldn't help herself and queried,

“Did you have something in mind, my lord?”

“I thought we could take a walk down to the palace,” he offered.

Elain’s eyes lit up with excitement and she immediately perked straight up.

“Surely?”

He smiled at her and her enthusiasm.

“Of course, sweetheart. I promised you that I’d show it to you.”

She wrung her hands happily and he added,

“It is wonderful to experience the world through your eyes. What I take for granted is so novel to you and it is so joyful,”

“But it’s the Queen’s palace, sir! It is exciting! And you’ve met her,”

“I have,” he confirmed. “Only briefly, a few times. Her Majesty keeps away from politics and from London.”

“Ahhh yes,” Elain said sadly. “She is still mourning her dear husband, sweet Prince Albert,”

“My father,” Azriel said, being uncharacteristically frank with her suddenly, “was good friends with Prince Edward,”

“Oh my,” Elain whispered, shocked. It sounded fantastical to her, for Azriel’s father to be friends with the Heir apparent and the Prince of Wales.

“Yes, indeed. My father was among the Prince’s retinue when he took a tour of the Orient. That is how my parents met.”

So Elain was correct–Azriel was only half English. She didn’t pry about the origins of his mother and why his father the Duke would marry a woman from a different culture and bring her here. Azriel did not offer any further information, other than that he was friends with the Queen’s grandsons, which again, made Elain’s head spin.

Azriel sat up abruptly and clapped his hands once.

“Now Miss Archeron, get your fine behind going. Hurry, so I can feed you breakfast and then we’ll be on our way.”

Something inside Elain expanded with happiness, heavy and leaking, like overripe fruit. Her heart beat wildly. She grabbed his hand suddenly and pressed it to her lips.

He looked at him with amusement, but didn’t comment. Elain had an insane urge to tell him that she loved him, but she didn’t want to come off as desperate and wild. Azriel liked order and control, and if she came at him with her heartfelt confessions, she wasn’t sure that he’d appreciate it. Perhaps later on. But not yet.

Nuala was lacing Elain into the corset, when there was a brief knock on the door and Azriel stepped in. He always knocked, but rarely actually waited for a response, and it was the case now. Elain was being tucked into her old corset, which had her standing only in a pair of knickers, her stockings and the corset.

Azriel was all but dressed, his jacket swinging behind his back on his finger, and his waistcoat already buttoned, his tie making his look elegant and formal.

“What the hell is that?” he muttered immediately, his brows knitted at the sight of the corset.

“Miss Elain can’t be parading around on the streets, near the Queen’s palace in a brassiere,” Nuala told him firmly.

“Well, I think that she can and should,” he argued. “I can’t bear to look at this abomination,”

“Sir, I must wear it,” Elain insisted, though she hated every second of wearing the restrictive garment, which made it hard to breathe, and dug into every bone and crevice of her body. Comparatively, her brassiere was a godsend.

Azriel considered it for a moment, and then said,

“Nuala, leave up, please. I would like to speak with Elain.”

Nuala curtsied and wordlessly left the room.

Azriel crossed the room and came to stand behind Elain, his hands laying on her bare shoulders. She sighed and instinctively bared her neck for him, so he could sink his teeth into her skin. Which he did. At once. He smoothed his hands over her sides, running them over the corset, and then rested them on her breasts, though she could hardly feel his touch.

“See why I hate it?” he asked, kissing her neck.

“I hate it too,” she agreed. The lack of sensation from his touch was…disturbing. She came to rely on it for the past few days like it was food.

He stepped back a bit and gathered the laces, as he began tugging on them and tying them.

Sighing, he said, “We both know that you are mine. But I want to ask you about us being in public together,”

Elain didn’t know what to say. The question made her uncomfortable. A little angry. But mostly sad. It wasn’t surprising that he didn’t view her as someone to be in public with. Especially out there–near the palace, where they could encounter those who knew him. She was hired help. A nobody. And he was simply being courteous to her.

“We don’t have to,” she whispered at last. “I don’t want to make trouble for you, my lord,”

Perplexed, he turned her around and asked, “Pardon?”

She looked at her feet and murmured, “I understand, my lord. We don’t need to go. It’s alright. I am sure I can find my way there one day. You are a great lord of the land, and I am,”

“And you are my companion,” he said sternly and then lifted her face to his, holding her chin. “The only reason I asked you is because I want to protect your name and your reputation. I don’t want to besmirch your surname or your identity. If you are not ready, or don’t want to answer questions, it is your choice.”

“So you don’t want privacy?” she confirmed, her voice soft and hopeful.

“No,” he shook his head. “I am happy to be seen with you, Elain. But you are a maid of gentle breeding and I want to be mindful of that. Despite our arrangement, nothing’s changed about your background and your place in society.”

“Then I do not want privacy either!” she said immediately, relief flooding her.

He wasn’t embarrassed to be seen with her.

She wasn’t just a whore for his tumbling. Maybe she meant something to him. And he did say that she was his. That she belonged to him.

“I want you to be sure,” Azriel implored seriously, holding her face in his hands.

“I am sure, my lord,” she assured him. “I am. If you’d take a walk with me, I would only be so very happy.”

“Then so be it.”

Azriel was sitting back on the sofa, his long legs spread wide, his hands resting on his firm flat stomach and he had the look of any man who just had a nice meal, and who was generally satisfied with life.

Elain was attempting to hide her smirk as she observed his relaxed posture and his pleased expression.

They had a fantastic day together.

They’d walked to the palace, which was just as impressive as Elain had thought, despite the fact that Azriel told her that the palace was seldom used for official functions and that the Queen preferred Windsor Castle. Elain didn’t care because Azriel took her beyond the wrought iron gates and she saw the changing of the royal guards, which was an incredible ceremony.

“When Her Majesty passes,” Azriel told her, pointing to the vast square in front of the palace, “I believe the plan is to erect a great monument in her honour in that spot.”

“Do you know what it will look like?” Elain inquired.

“Oh, I am sure it will be–massive,” he chuckled softly. “A grand monstrosity of marble and gold.”

“My lord, you shan’t talk so freely,” she warned him under her breath.

The crowds were sparse on a Sunday morning, with most people attending church. Azriel and Elain wandered around like two heathens, without a care in the world. Who was going to question the Duke of Velaris anyway?

Walking like this with the Duke of Velaris, her arm tucked into the crook of his elbow, Elain felt a proper lady. The corset, albeit bothersome, was the right decision. She wore a dark navy skirt and a cream shirtwaist with a large bow at her neck, and a light linen jacket of pale blue. Her hat was wide brimmed, decorated abundantly with flowers and a thick bow. She carried a small purse and felt elegant, and properly attired–at last.

Ignoring her warning, Azriel told her, “you look lovely today, Elain.”

“I appreciate the compliment, sir,” she murmured with a smile.

“I am not even confident that it is a compliment,” he mused. “You are just lovely like the sun at dawn. I am simply stating a fact. Now,” he looked around, “i should be annoyed at the sight of all these young brawny bucks paying you entirely too much attention,”

And he wasn’t incorrect–Elain had noticed the interest of the young guards who were exchanging glances and looks with her, making her blush.

“But I can't find it in myself to care,” he continued calmly. “Because I know that you are mine.”

“I am, sir,” he smiled at him. “I am yours.”

“You enjoyed the surprise then, sir?” Elain laughed softly, watching Azriel relax on the sofa. He had forgone his jacket, removed his tie, and his shirt was unbuttoned on his chest, allowing Elain a view of his bronze skin and his muscular, inked flesh.

“This was a mighty fine meal, Elain,” he nodded with pleasure. “Your Sunday roast is outstanding indeed.”

She tapped her fingers on her elbow, waiting for more. He knew that she was. She was expecting for him to say what she wanted him to admit.

She’d made a succulent roast beef for the two of them, baked Yorkshire puddings in the beef drippings, roasted potatoes with rosemary and garlic, as well as glazed carrots and turnips. And then…and then she served the most contentious offering of the day: mashed potatoes. Oh they were fine! Creamy and rich, velvety and thick. There was gravy too, thick lashings of it to pour over the potatoes.

“Do you wish me to admit that I was wrong?” he cocked his brow at her.

She shrugged innocently and said, “of course not, my lord. Though you did look like you enjoyed the mash very enthusiastically.”

“It’s good mash,” he allowed.

“Uh-uh,”

Grinning, he added brazenly, “still doesn’t belong with Sunday lunch.”

She stomped her foot with indignation and he laughed out loud.

“I shall never make it again!” she threatened.

“Come on now, beautiful. Be reasonable. Why would you punish me with not cooking your lovely mash?”

“Because I want you to love it!”

“I do love it. The dinner was fantastic. And the marmalade sponge was to die for. Not to mention the whiskey custard. It was everything I didn’t even know I wanted.”

“Is it true?” she eyed him suspiciously.

“Honest to god.”

He extended his arm to her and beckoned her to him, his spread legs taunting and welcoming her because it was a known fact that she loved sitting in his lap.

“Come give me a kiss,” he ordered her gently.

She was still pouting, and he smiled at her.

“My pretty girl, who makes the best mashed potatoes, needs to come to me and kiss me.”

Elain walked over to him, pretending reluctance, which clearly amused him.

“I want to squeeze those puffy tits of yours,” he muttered, eyeing her ravenously. For dinner, she wore a much more revealing gown of the same colours as her day outfit–cream, navy and light blue. But there were roses around the bust, her arms were bare, and the dress was loosely constructed, skimming her curves without hugging them tightly.

The moment Elain approached, he cupped her bottom in his hands and squeezed, pulling her to stand between his legs. He pressed his face into her belly and Elain’s breath hitched, when he inhaled deeply. She knew that he loved the smell of her…well, sex. Sometimes, his eyes actually rolled back at the scent of her and she couldn’t deny him. She stroked his head, caressed the back of his neck, and threaded her fingers through his hair.

‘Do you want to play cards?” he proposed, without removing his face from her stomach, and she could barely understand him.

“Yes! I think that I will beat you!” she boasted.

“Oh, indeed? And what will the winner get?” he questioned, nestling his chin in her mound and looking up at her. She attempted to squirm away, but he held onto her bottom firmly and resolutely.

“Well what do you want?”

He tapped his chin on her pubic bone and said, ‘this’.

She ran her fingers over his cheek and murmured, “you could just take this.”

“I could,” he confirmed.

“I am going to go bathe and change, and then we can play cards. And I will definitely win.”

He laughed.

“Of course you will.”

She was finally able to disengage from his embrace, and he kissed the inside of her palm, before Elain left the dining room.

In her bedroom, she removed her lovely dress, which was uncomplicated enough for her to complete the task herself, without anyone’s help. She dressed scandalously–and according to Azriel’s preferences. He didn’t even like her to wear a chemise atop her brassiere, and she wasn’t, right now. He forbade petticoats, garters, long drawers, or any other piece of clothing which he considered ‘unnecessary’ or ‘superfluous’. Elain’s wardrobe was full of lacy and satin brassieres, alarmingly tiny underwear, see-through negligee that was just feather-light things of gossamer, silk stockings from Paris, short silky chemises which were more appropriate for seduction, rather than daily wear. Everything that she possessed was delicate and expensive and unfailingly erotically charged.

Pinning her hair up, so she wouldn't get it wet, she stepped into the shower and turned on the water. Even her soaps and shampoos were based on Azriel’s preference, and somehow he gauged that her preferred scent was always jasmine, and he had jasmine oils and soaps and honey-scented lotions mixed, prepared and shipped for her from Paris.

Elain soaped her body up, her hands feeling the slightly rounder shape of her hips, her softer belly, her slightly larger breasts. Only a week, and she already gained weight, which pleased her. At least she no longer looked like a 12 year old boy. The weight gain was only barely bringing her shape into the proper womanly form, but she still enjoyed the feel of it. She ran her loofa over her arms and her stomach, thinking and hoping that her sisters were doing well, and that Nesta had received the ten pounds and obtained new lodgings for the three of them, and was feeding Feyre nutritious foods. Elain knew that next week, she’d need to send more money, so that Feyre could go to a physician and hopefully get the medicine that she needed.

She closed her eyes and threw her head back, allowing the water to beat down her body. It was blissful.

Therefore, when the bathroom door suddenly flew open she let out a scream. She didn’t even have time to shield her body before Azriel strode into the bathroom, wearing only his shirt and trousers, and without pause, walked into the enclosure. Elain shrieked, but he was already on her, his eyes wild and hungry, his jaw tight. He didn’t even seem to notice the water that was pouring over him, saturating his shirt and trousers at once. The material stuck to his toned muscular form, emphasising all the contours of every brawny slab of sinew on his body. His arms bulged, his stomach was full of sculpted slabs.

He was everything, everything that Elain ever wanted. The sight of him next to her, unhinged, uncontrolled was both terrifying and beautiful.

“Let me see you,” he growled low.

Shivering despite the hot water, she stepped back, plastering her back to the tiled wall.

“My beautiful girl,” he whispered, his eyes dark and needy, as he surveyed her naked body. Tiny droplets of water fell from her puckering nipples and he cupped her breast in his hand, drawing his thumb over the nipple.

“Your pussy is smooth,” he noted, looking down, his gaze devouring the sight of her proudly pink, hairless sex.

She’d heard this word before, but never ever would’ve uttered it. It was…Elain wasn’t sure. But it was strangely sensual to hear him call it that. For some odd reason, she liked it.

“Spread,” he barely managed to order and her thighs parted for him, even though Elain thought that she might just die. Of embarrassment? Need? Want? Who knows. Her brains were like scrambled eggs in her head. She was standing naked in the shower with a fully dressed Azriel, spreading her legs for him. She guessed that they wouldn’t be playing cards tonight.

“You are gorgeous, lass,” Azriel breathed, as he drew the backs of his fingers over her belly, down to her bare mound, and then whispered, “wider…”

She took an awkward side step, opening her legs for him, exposing her plump, delicate folds, while he rested his hand on her waist, squeezing it firmly. Then his index finger slipped to her slit and he dipped inside. Elain shuddered so violently, that his hold on her strengthened, as if he was afraid that she’d faint right then and there. But she wasn’t in a fainting mood. No one’s (obviously) had touched her like that before, and this was heavenly. His finger only just glided between her lips, barely inside, but it kept touching and pushing on some incredibly sensitive part of her that made her jolt and whimper with pleasure every time his finger came in contact with it.

“What…oh…god…” she moaned, “what is this? What is this…”

He smiled at her and let go of her waist, as he began to unbutton his shirt one handed, his finger still inside of her, but this time, he pushed at that spot more intentionally.

“That, sweetheart, is the source of your pleasure,” he murmured with a smile. “You didn’t think that it would feel good…how’s that?”

“It’s incredible,” she panted, wanting more pressure, firmer, harder. She wanted him to rub it. Instinctively, she somehow knew that if he rubbed her, it would feel even better.

She felt exposed and needy, and the only word that she could think of was ‘more’.

He rid himself of his shirt, tossing it down on the wet floor, while barely taking his finger off of her, and then started on his trousers, unbuttoning them quickly and ably with one hand. Elain wanted to touch him, wanted to slide her hands over his muscles, his chest, wanted to trace her fingers over his black tattoos, but she seemed to have lost all function of her limbs. All she could feel was his finger, circling around and over the nub inside of her, making her dizzy.

“I want to watch you climax,” he murmured, stepping out of his sopping wet trousers, “want to hear how you sound when you come.”

“What?” she asked dumbly, not knowing what he was saying and not caring. Because…oh lord, there it was–his thick, enormous member. As his trousers came off, so did his undershorts, and there he was, in all his naked glory. His cock was thick, long, jutting out, standing at attention for her. It made her oddly proud, that she was the cause of his arousal. That he wanted her. He would–she was a naked woman in front of him, but there was something else beyond just simple biology. Azriel wanted her. Of that she was sure. But she had no idea how that massive cock of his would ever, ever fit inside of her. It was an impossibility.

His arm snaked around her waist and he lifted her off the floor, the thumb of his other hand firmly rubbing her now.

“Need you to come to loosen you up,” he whispered in her ear, and Elain didn’t know what he meant again, but that didn’t matter. He grabbed a towel from the hook, and threw it over them, while she clumsily attempted to dry them with trembling hands.

Azriel tossed her on the bed, and climbed onto it next to her.

At last, Elain reached out to touch him–his warm, damp skin, the firmness of his body next to her. He seemed so huge compared to her–everything about him was big and hard, and she felt like a slip of a girl, awkward and clueless. It was embarrassing. That she was so stupid when it came to these matters, but when and where would she have learned about sexuality? But she lost her train of thought because…

IT came.

A wave inside of her.

Cresting. Rising. Reaching.

What was this incredible, indescribable feeling inside of her? This intense tension? Everything in her womb was squeezing and pulsating and growing and she was hot and breathless and then…oh…then she creamed, because she couldn’t stop. She couldn’t. She screamed with pleasure the likes of which she never even imagined. Nothing in her life compared to this feeling. She was stunned. Weightness. Boneless. Pulsing and throbbing and panting.

Azriel’s thumb pressed on that magical spot with brutal strength, teasing her continuously, while she convulsed and cried out, sobbing pathetically into his shoulder. It didn’t stop for a few long moments, until it finally did.

All her spasming muscles began to relax and she fell back on the pillow, breathless and with dark spots floating in her eyes.

Above her, Azriel’s beautiful face was looming over her, a smile on his lips.

“Well, lass. Now I know what you look and sound like when you come.”

“Come where?” she questioned.

“Come into yourself. Your body. This is always for you, lassie. Your pleasure.”

His lips descended on hers and the kiss was rough. Elain wanted to thank him, but he wouldn’t let go of her, kissing her with wide, generous swipes of his tongue, his hand firmly squeezing her tit. He was hot next to her, his long member pressing into her thigh, burning into her. For some reason, she didn’t think that he’d be so hot.

Elain kissed him back, not knowing what to do with her hands, which seemed to be everywhere at once–his hair, his neck, his arms, his back, his chest. She couldn’t stop touching him, while she sucked on his lips and his tongue with strange desperation, illogically afraid that somehow, for some reason, he’d pull away.

Sensing that, he whispered into her mouth, “I am here, beautiful. I am not going anywhere. I am going to take you over and over and over tonight.”

And she nodded eagerly, not ever knowing what she was agreeing to. Over and over. Yes. Yes, please.

He brushed her damp hair back and then flipped her over and heaved her on top of his body. Elain’s heart fluttered madly in her chest, because she wasn’t expecting to be on top, but she straddled his stomach clumsily, pressing her hands into the pillows by either side of his head. His hand cupped her bottom, and he grabbed it roughly, kneading her cheek, the tips of his fingers sliding into the crevice, making her feel strange…it was deliciously dirty, that he was touching her like his.

His tongue swept over her nipple and it felt amazing. Elain loved it when he played with her breasts, but his mouth on her breast was something unexpected, wonderful. He held her tit to his mouth and then he sucked. He pulled the whole thing inside and he sucked. She buckled atop of him, shocked, but he only slapped her ass, ordering her to settle down without uttering one word. He sucked hard and sloppily, rubbing his tongue over her nipple, pulling more and more of her breast into his mouth, his teeth pressing lightly and keeping her in place. And those wicked fingers of his–slipping deeper into the crack of her butt, exploring, sliding, gliding.

“My lord,” he moaned, her arms trembling as she supported her body on top of him. He slapped her bottom again, and it stung, but so good. She’d be happy forever if he could just suck her nipples, bite and milk her breasts with his mouth, and finger her between her butt cheeks.

Who was she?

“Please, my lord, please,” she grunted mindlessly, her hips gyrating over his stomach, as she felt her dripping onto him from her slit.

“You like this, pretty girl?” he pulled away from her breast, and she moaned at the loss.

“Yes, yes…please! Please, more,” she begged him. She was begging and she didn’t even care.

“Do you like my fingers in your pretty little bum?” he teased.

She nodded frantically. She did.

“Say it,” he urged. “Tell me what you want.”

“I can’t,” she cried out, all flushed and flustered.

He shrugged and said,

“Suppose we’d have to stop then…”

“No! No,” she pleaded, “don’t stop. I want more.”

“More what?” he insisted.

“Suck me…suck my breasts. Touch my bottom.”

He pretended to think about it, and then said,

“Are you going to be my good lass?”

“Yes, of course,” she nodded, her eyes wide and pleading. She was shaking all over, tension and need sweeping over her body in waves.

“Take your lovely tit,” he instructed, “and feed me with it. And that will free my hands to play with your bum.”

Elain frantically squeezed her breast in her hand and offered it to him, though he made her actually feed it to him and put it in his mouth. She felt the slick, smooth head of his member between her parted thighs, and she lifted her bottom to him in silent invitation.

“Good,” he approved. “Give me the other one too.”

She pushed her other breast into his mouth, and he began to suck both of her nipples at once. And below, his warm, heavy hands pulled her cheeks wide apart, exposing her to the cool air.

How she yearned to be his good girl and please him. She wanted him to be happy with her, with what she offered and how she obeyed him.

She held her breasts between his lips, her nipples raw and swollen from his insistent sucking and nipping. He bit her, not altogether gently, making her gasp and moan, as he pressed his fingertips around the tight, tiny hole of her bottom, exploring it roughly.

Elain wasn’t sure how she knew, but she knew, so she asked softly, “Sir, will you take me in my bottom too?”

Azriel didn’t answer, busy with his sucking, before he finally pulled away. Elain’s nipples were aching like crazy, never having been handled so hard before, and they were swollen and wet from his saliva, resembling small cherries. He was pulling her cheeks so wide apart, it was a little painful, but she loved it. She loved all the aches, the unexpected mix of pleasure and pain.

“On your back, sweet lass,” he nodded curtly and she scrambled off of him, eager to do his bidding.

He looked her over, kneeling near her legs and smirked, smoothing his hands over her belly and her waist.

“Beautiful,” he approved.

Elain didn’t think she was anything resembling beautiful. She was a mess of panting flesh, her breasts big and swollen, her slit wet and leaking, her hair wild, her breath irregular.

“Show me that virgin pussy,” he murmured softly, kissing her lips alongside his request. “Knees up, hold them, and spread wide.”

Elain swallowed a panicked breath, but he added, “I want to see everything.”

After a brief moment of indecision on her part, he pressed, “now, sunshine. Show me that pretty hole where we’ll put our baby.”

She licked her lips and then raised her legs and hooked her arms under her knees.

He pushed her knees even further apart, as far as she could hold them, and then he yanked her hips up and onto his lap.

He cupped and juggled her tits in his hands, pinching her nipples and then rolling them between his fingers, while she just lay there, spread out in front of him.

“Look at your delightful virgin pussy, sweetheart,” he smiled. “I am going to ride it until you forget how to walk.”

“Sir, please…” she murmured.

“Please, what, sweet pea?”

“Do you like me?” she asked shyly.

“I adore you, pretty girl,” he assured her. He twisted her nipples until she winced and then let go.

“Your member is so large,” she said, biting her lower lip. “Will it…I mean, will it go inside? Will it fit?”

What Elain didn’t expect to happen, was for him to grab his thick shaft and slap it over her wet slit.

She gasped in shock, because he did it again, whacking that girthy appendage of his over her open sex, jerking her upright. He slapped it again and again, landing between her lips with precision, the head of his cock hitting her sensitive nub every time, as she panted with pleasure. The sounds of him slapping her with his dick were squelchy and wet and obscene.

“Take it,” he murmured warmly, but sternly.

Elain took it.

He rubbed it in her slit, gliding in her wetness, before smacking it over and over again.

“Do you like it, my sweetness? Do you like the thick cock?”

She nodded, almost in tears. Because she liked it. God help her, but she loved it.

“Show me how much you like it,” he encouraged her. ‘Show me how you like what your lord does to you?”

Elain didn’t know what he wanted exactly, but she was overwhelmed and wanted to express her gratitude somehow. So she rolled clumsily and pressed her lips to the tip of the member, kissing it gratefully.

“Thank you, sir,” she whispered, and then dipped lower and kissed the heavy sack of his balls. He stroked her head and said, “very good, my darling.”

His flesh, even the most intimate parts of him, tasted just fine. There was a salty sheen to it, a very pleasant musk that was all him, and he smelled delicious. Elain wasn’t put off by the act of putting her mouth on his most private of parts. It felt absolutely natural. He wouldn’t have needed to ask her, because she would’ve done it gladly on her own.

“Everything feels amazing, sir,” she admitted.

Azriel lifted her face to his and kissed her lips, stroking her jaw and her neck with his thumbs.

“Take me, sir,” Elain begged, as she rained kisses upon his face and his mouth.

Azriel maintained an envious level of self-control, though his cock was huge and bobbing right at his navel.

“Let me see you, sweetheart,” he urged her. “Let me see inside of you,” and he pushed her lightly back on the bed, where she frantically resumed her spread out position, clutching her legs under her knees.

“It might hurt,” he warned, as he splayed his palm over her slit, and she muttered, ‘it’s alright…it doesn’t hurt…it doesn’t matter.”

He settled between her legs and leaned over her to kiss her again, before swiping his tongue over her swollen nipples and tweaking them with his fingers until she whimpered.

“Why does it feel so good?” she cried out, shuddering and arching her back.

“Carnal fornication is feeling nice?” he teased, and she watched him in awe, as he gripped his long cock and gave it a couple of thorough swipes. It was incredibly erotic, watching him like this, naked, somewhat vulnerable, yet still completely in control. She watched him do the most natural, and masculine thing that she could imagine, and it looked so enticing to her.

Azriel meanwhile dipped his fingers into her opening and pulled. He pulled hard. Elain choked back a loud moan, because he stretched her widely and ruthlessly, opening her up for his lewdly personal inspection, peering straight inside.

“You can do it, sweet girl,” he encouraged her gently. “Show me everything…”

She was trembling, feeling her hole pulled apart, the air around them cooling her insides. This was the most grotesquely inappropriate act that she could’ve imagined him doing, and yet, here she was, four of his fingertips inside of her, turning her inside out, and she allowed him to watch her, admire her, strip her of all her inhibitions.

This wasn’t them just making a baby.

This was Azriel Night possessing every part of her and her giving it to him. This was him moulding her into what he desired and giving it back to her tenfold.

He looked inside of her, gushing, “you are so pretty, sweetness. My pretty, lovely girl.”

“Do you like it, my lord?” she breathed.

“You have the most delicate, gorgeous virgin pussy,” he vowed, and then leaned over her opening and kissed it. Elain gasped and buckled against his mouth, but he pulled back and whispered,

“I can see your innocence, pretty girl.”

“You can?” she exclaimed.

He nodded.

“It’s lovely, like the rest of you. Perfectly intact for me. I am sorry in advance that I am going to destroy it with my dick.”

Elain gently stroked his hand, his fingers, which still tugged her hole apart, and said, “I want you to, sir. Please take it…It’s yours.”

“I know, Elain. All of you is mine,” he couldn’t tear his eyes away from her opening, lightly swiping his finger inside, but not penetrating her deeply. “I can see so deep inside of you, sweetheart. You are doing so well for me. But I am not going to put my fingers in you,”

“That's alright, sir,” she agreed.

“I want my cock to be the first thing you feel inside this pretty tight pussy.”

She nodded.

Whatever he wanted, she would give. Whatever he needed, was on offer.

“Come on, on your hands and knees, gorgeous,” he ordered, finally letting go of her hole. “You need cock inside of you. Cock and my seed.”

Elain turned for him the way he wanted, arching her back for him and spreading her thighs in a most natural way. It was as if she was meant to be here, offering herself to him. It was shocking to her to see her reflection in the mirror on the wardrobe’s door. She caught a glimpse of herself and hardly recognised her own image staring back. She looked wanton. Willing. Needy. She couldn’t have thought that she’d ever look like this–so destroyed, so hungry, so subdued. But here she was, with her ass up in the air, her arms extended in front of her, presenting her sex to him, so he could destroy it.

His knees parted hers easily and he slotted behind her, his hot, long shaft throbbing against her slit.

“I’ll take you like this,” he said simply and she nodded. Perhaps it wasn’t what she was expected or imagined about her first time, but with Azriel towering behind her, her thighs dripping, everything tensing and clenching in her, she was perfectly happy with this position.

“I will hurt you,” he explained simply. “It’s not what I want, but I will. You are tight and small, and your virginity is well-intact.”

“I know, my lord,” she murmured. “Please take me. I need you inside of me,” she pleaded.

“Watch us,” he pointed to the mirror. “I want you to see you losing your virginity to me. It’s not something every girl gets to watch.”

He rubbed his cock in his hand a few times, and then rubbed the head in her wet slit. And then, Elain gasped, as she felt the thick, smooth head pop into her opening, stretching it immediately. Lord have mercy, it was only the head. He was so big. Heavy. Nine inches? Something like that by the looks of it.

It hurt.

Elain screamed loudly, because he pushed in. Slowly, but he pushed. And pushed. And pushed. She felt herself tearing. Her position allowed him to slide in so deep that she lost her ability to breathe. It burned and stretched her, his shaft scorching hot inside of her.

“That’s it,” he encouraged softly, gently. “That’s it.”

Her eyes welled up with tears, but she panted loudly, while he pressed her lower, making her arc her back even further, so she could take more of it.

“My beautiful Elain. You are all mine,” he caressed her bottom, her waist, while his cock battered through her bluntly. “Your virginity is mine. Your pretty pussy is all mine too,”

“All yours,” she sobbed tenderly. “You are mine, Azriel. Mine.”

She’d never called him by his name. Not until now.

Not until she felt so full of him and he claimed her as his.

Azriel ran his hand from her neck down to her bottom and she watched the two of them in the mirror. He was so dark and powerful behind her, and she was pale and small, with her ass cheeks squeezed in his massive hands. He was smiling down at her, looking between their bodies, where they were joined.

“Take it all, pretty girl,” he told her. “You are perfect. Everything I ever wanted.”

She adjusted her hips against him, and that allowed his cock to plunge all the way.

“There you go. That’s all the way in.”

It was incredibly painful, but Elain wouldn’t trade the experience for anything. The pain was perfect. The stretch was brutally perfect. The weight of him, the girth, the sensation of the pain that he was offering her, was mixed with perfect pleasure.

“You are a dream,” he grunted hoarsely. “My perfect girl.”

Elain managed to find his hand on her butt cheek and threaded her fingers with his.

“Ride me, my lord,” she urged him. “Take what belongs to you.”

Her face was a mask of pained joy, eyes hooded and dark, her lips open in a silent plea.

“I will go hard on you, sweetheart,” he promised darkly. “Hard, but slow. You will feel every inch of me. Will remember every move of my dick inside you.”

“Az,” her name came out garbled and personal. She shortened it. No one else in his life called him Az, but Cassian. “Use me…”

Azriel smiled and then pulled out of her completely, before sliding back in fully. And again. And again. Deep, long, slow thrusts. Elain was moaning loudly, unconcerned about anything. She didn’t care if anyone heard her. Azriel pushed her head down, all the way to the mattress and she pressed her cheek into the pillow. He lowered his head to kiss her parted lips, as she panted, with his cock fully enclosed inside of her.

“It hurts,” she moaned into his lips.

“I know,” he nodded, and kissed her again. “Is your little pussy so sore?”

“So sore,” she nodded and pouted. He laughed and kissed her again, his hips pounding steadily against her soft, tender ass. “But it feels good,” she added.

“I’ve never deflowered anyone before,” he confessed, “but your pussy is perfect. Every day, beautiful, I will ride it every day,”

She bounced compliantly between him and the bed, their flesh slapping wetly against each other, while he kept kissing her cheek, her hair, her eye, her mouth, meeting her tongue with his in a heady dance. She caressed his hands with hers, while he squeezed her hips, her buttocks, her thighs, probably leaving marks on her skin.

“Please, Az,” she whispered, “ride me every day.”

“I will. I will never get enough.”

He was thrusting deep and heavy into her, but her passage was now well-stretched for him, and she took it eagerly. She was sore–she wasn’t lying–but it also felt indescribable.

“Open your mouth, sweetheart,” he coaxed her. She did, looking up at him from the awkward angle where her head was pressed. “I am going to give you my fingers,” he explained. “And you will suck them. You will be sucking nice and deep, because once I fill you with seed, you will take me in your mouth,”

She nodded impatiently and muttered, “yes, yes, give them to me.”

He grinned down at her and pushed two fingers in her mouth, which she swallowed immediately. Behind her, he bent his knee to find better purchase, as he filled her pussy over and over with his thick cock, this thrust mercilessly deep and hard. She snaked her hand up his calf, squeezing his knee, and then up his thigh, holding him tightly to her.

“Good?” he asked.

Her mouth was filled with his fingers, but she nodded quickly. He was making her lose her mind, as she sputtered over his fingers, the steady pounding making her clench all around the shaft, it felt better than good. It felt better than she had words in her vocabulary to describe it. Azriel kissed her wet, slobbering mouth, without removing his penetrating fingers from it, and she loved it. Loved how he enjoyed every part of her. Loved how free he was. How accepting.

He pulled out of her, looking into her hole and murmured proudly,

“Oh, we stretched you good, pretty girl! It will be a while before you can take me easily and without pain, but you are doing so well.” He kneaded her ass cheeks roughly, as he pushed back in, his thrusts becoming harder and harder, as he drilled into her without pause. Elain was choking on his fingers, lapping at the scars, crying and crying out, tears pouring from her eyes. Her nails dug into his thigh, as she hooked her arm under his knee, holding on to him desperately.

The first climax that she’d experienced earlier was nothing compared to the avalanche of pleasure that was crushing through her right now. It was sweeping over her body, making her toes curl, making her wail and shake beneath him, as he fucked her through it. He fucked her. This gorgeous man of her dreams was everything she ever wanted, and he was here, inside of her, making her into a puddle of panting, slobbering goo. She was his. Wholly. Her passage milked him greedily, clutching at him, clenching, wanting more, taking whatever she needed from him. The pleasure was borderline torturous.

“That’s my good girl,” he encouraged her. “My good Lainey. Give up your sweet pussy to me. Let me fill you up, sweetheart.”

She was nodding frantically and he finally withdrew his fingers from her mouth and slapped his lips to hers, kissing her savagely, while she felt him hot and throbbing inside of her. He tensed, his movements coming in erratically, until finally Elain felt him flood her with his seed. It was warm and wet and she buried her face in the pillow, smiling to herself. She made him spill his seed. She. Little Elain that no one ever paid attention to. She made the Duke of Velaris climax inside of her and fill her with his seed.

Everything was wet and aching and hurting when he fell on the bed behind her and brought her with him. He was still inside, his cock pulsing in her, as he wrapped her in his arms.

“Az,” she whispered, kissing his scarred forearm.

“Yes, sweetheart?”

“I am a woman now…”

He chuckled and kissed the back of her head.

“You are not a virgin anymore,” he stated. “But maybe not a woman yet.”

“Will you make me one?”

“Of course,” he pumped her a few times, making her moan. “I’ll make you my woman.”

“You feel so wonderful in me,” she admitted, while he kissed her neck, and bit her ear.

“What else did you like?” Azirel inquired, filling his palms with her breasts and fingering her nipples.

“I liked everything. Absolutely everything.”

“Even when I slapped your pussy with my cock?”

“Yes,” she turned to face him. “It was good. Everything was wonderful. Do you want to slap it again?”

He chuckled.

“You are my eager little thing. Don’t worry, Ellie. I will. Your little slit will be slapped regularly, so you never forget who you belong to.”

“To you,” she breathed, kissing him rapturously. “Only to you.”

He nodded and cupped her between her legs possessively.

“Mine.”

“Yours.”

“Now, pretty girl,” he eyed her and the state of her. “Are you ready for more?”

“Please, Azriel. I am ready for more.”

#the agreement #elriel #elain archeron #azriel #azriel and elain #pro elriel #elain x azriel #elain #Elriel fanfiction #Elriel fanfic #my writing #my fanfic #acotar fanfiction #chapter 9 #victorian england #Victorian AU

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roxineedstosleep · 1 year

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As much as I love Oscar Isaac Harvey can you imagine this man

Rag dolling BANE around because He hurt Bruce?? Lowkey new fave hc is that Harvey can wrestle and he gets DOWN,,,

This man here has managed to make a blacklist among the city's own criminals (a much darker one than Jason's later Red Hood creation) just for the idiots who have had the airheadedness to want to attack Bruce.

Batman? Ñe, Harvey and Bruce himself understand that Bruce as Batman had it coming to him for dabbling in that heroism stuff. There was no way he'd ever have an enemy or get into trouble along the way.

But Bruce? Bruce tries his best to make things right, from the personal to the business side of things.

Harvey, this Harvey, is the kind of guy who doesn't hesitate to use force and brains to arm and set fire to anyone who has the audacity to touch his billionaire emo. Batman may take a hit, but Bruce deserves nothing but support and happiness.

If the game gets a little dirty? Well, good for him, because he doesn't mind a stain or two on his favourite shirt and just has to be careful not to get the Persian rugs in the mansion dirty.

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nation-of-bros · 2 months

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Hi. Even though I don't share your ideas about politics, vaccines, climate, etc. (I say this for intellectual honesty), I found your idea of androphilia curious, even if extreme. There is, however, one inconsistency that I would like to bring to your attention. I think that the culture that expressed your concept of androphilia in the highest and most all-encompassing way is not the Eastern Muslim world at all, but a civilization more than a thousand years older, namely Ancient Greece. Searching for androphilia in Islamic culture, as you did, involves forcing it, when instead among the ancient Greeks already mythology, that is, the highest expression of their religion, contained this theme, even if sometimes modern culture did not allow us case: think of the warrior loves of Achilles and Patroclus or of Theseus and Pirithous, or the myth of Caeneus, who was a woman transformed into a man. For the ancient Greeks, loving other men increases one's virility, one's honor, one's strength, while the sole love for women makes one weak and weak. There is an entire oration by an author of the late Roman period that celebrates the androphilic ancient Greeks who managed to defeat the Persians, who were inferior because they were heterosexual; even Alexander the Great, who also had an androphilic relationship with Hephaestion, completely conquered and subdued the Persians. You can read the oration here: https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Dio_Chrysostom/Discourses/21*.html. No Islamic people has ever expressed androphilia in such a strong and explicit way. Even gymnastics and wrestling, which you consider your nation's sport, originate from the Greeks and not from the Arab world. In the Middle Ages, Muslim culture itself drew considerably from Greek culture for its literary works and technologies, whose superiority it recognized. In short, the Greeks were declared androphiles, a thousand years older than Muhammad, inventors of the fight, they subjugated the eastern peoples and knew how to combine strength and wisdom. I would take them as a model of the perfect androphilic society. Certainly this would involve a total rethinking of aesthetic categories on your part, given that modern Western canons descend directly from the Greek ones and are therefore also in this case much, much older than your ideal (bald head, hair, belly, etc.), which for the Greeks it was a total disgrace. Make of my suggestion what you like: I have never insulted anyone who thinks differently from me. However, I invite you to observe that the roots on which our Western civilization is based (because the ancient Greeks are this) are far more androphilic than the Arabs or Persians ever were, and our European aesthetic canons are the fruit of that truly androphilic culture.

Thanks for sharing your opinion! I like to use this as an opportunity to justify my worldview.

The West can never be a role model!

The list of topics at the beginning shows that there is much more disagreement than just a different image of men. In my opinion, it is confirming that you represent the Western system opinion – I guess as an academic – and at the same time defend the West's image of men. As you yourself stated, I have an absolutely clear position on these topics and expect the same from my bros, because for me these are indicators to measure mental fitness. Of course, you are welcome to see it differently and continue to get the dirt of some criminal mafia-like pharmaceutical companies injected into you, or believe that 0.039% CO2 in the atmosphere, 96% of which is of natural origin, would be a reason to give up our industry and destroy any prosperity.

Just the other day I read how Green Maoists in Germany are slitting the tires of thousands of SUVs because these cars are supposedly "harmful to the climate." Then more news about athletes and other prominent persons, who died suddenly and unexpectedly; or that "non-binary" teen from Oklahoma, whose death is certainly not due to violence, as this clientele in particular was very willing to pick up several boosters. And here too I wonder how you can defend the West, which wants to turn everyone into androgynous, sexless and emotionally dulled grays through LGBTQ+ ideology, brain-destroying chemicals in vaccines, and a completely dysfunctional selection, regarding whether reproduction or social life. I just have to look at our politicians who are the epitome of incompetence lacking any basics. How can this dirt make it to the top of the most powerful states?! How can Western men willingly let these scum tell them what to do?!

From this context, it is impossible for me to accept the Western canon of values, even if it is just some reference to its roots.

The official historiography is completely falsified

I can very well understand your reverence for ancient culture. However, there are also a few problems here: You always talk about “Greeks”. But the people you are referring to are called “Hellenes”. Today's Greeks don't really have much in common with the ancient Hellenes, apart from language. It is also often forgotten that there was a major period in between, that of the Byzantine Empire, which is the true origin of Greek-speaking settlement around the Mediterranean and in Asia Minor. Most likely, all of the supposedly "antique" looking buildings originate from the Byzantine period and later served as inspiration for an ancient "Hellas"; or they are even remains from a much older civilization technologically superior to us.

But ancient Greece as portrayed in official school textbooks is just a modern fiction that aimed to create a glorious past for itself, much as it was typical for European nobles to imagine a family tree that goes back to some ancient personage or tribe, to cement their claim to power, especially among usurpers.

What hardly anyone knows today is that the "ancient" appearance of Greece emerged at the time when Prince Otto of Bavaria became the first king of Greece. He was incredibly fascinated by the Hellenistic world through childhood stories; and then, unsurprisingly, went wild during his reign and had everything in Greece redesigned according to his fantasies. In this way, typical medieval post-Byzantine cities became ancient-looking landscapes with the recreated ruins of old temple complexes. It is also significant that all sites in Greece are unquestioningly declared to be ancient. For example, when medical tools are unearthed, it is immediately said that they are "testimony of the great ancient Greek culture", although they could just as easily have been medical equipment from the late Middle Ages or the 17th century. Most of what can be seen in our museums today is probably incorrectly dated and only cements an existing false image of history.

I am therefore a critic of historical chronology according to the views of Wilhelm Kammeier, Uwe Topper and Heribert Illig, who spent their lives going into the archives that still exist and studying the original sources. They recognized contradictions to the official interpretation and had to realize that many centuries simply could not be proven and were thus extremely questionable. For example, a development took place in a century, then abruptly there was no progress for a long time, total stagnation with no finds, and suddenly the development continues where it left off 150 years earlier. The most obvious conclusion here is that these were centuries added later, possibly in the monasteries of the late Middle Ages or later on a larger scale by the Jesuits. This may sound strange to begin with, but we must not forget that the Church had the monopoly on education in Europe until the 18th century and in fact no one except the clergy and nobility could read and write.

Moreover, the chronology critics found that for every ancient event you can also find a similar one from modern times. But even medieval greats like “Charlemagne” may never have existed.

Most ancient texts are modern fictions

Many of what we now call "ancient lore" are simply fictions of Italian humanists, for whom it was a popular sport to invent such texts under Latin or Greek pseudonyms. This was often a medium to differentiate themselves from the stronger north by attaching a primitive past to it: Wild Germanic tribes who lived in longhouses with their animals and were simply inferior in every respect to the great civilization of Rome. At this point you will understand why, as a German, I am already vomiting and simply refusing to identify with this forerunner of the West.

I don't think this primitive image of Germanic people is true in any way, especially since there is also evidence that German cities are significantly older than assumed. Consequently, this Western classicism as a supposed “retrospective” is thus a means of cultural oppression.

In addition, it seems pretty silly to me to identify with those ancient Greek legends, which is why I still avoid seeing myself as a "European". That's just an idiotic fantasy term from some fiction of a Greek setting. It's not much different if we would call Europe "Middle-earth" after Tolkien. I would much rather prefer the name "Germania", because it was the Germanic peoples who subjugated and shaped the entire continent, and not some donkey republic called Greece!

My roots are not Greek!

Furthermore, I think that the ancient Indian culture from which Muslim architecture emerged is superior to the Western one. The shapes, patterns, warm colors are truly much more organic, more inviting. On the other hand, cold classicism adorns every western government building and thus became representative of an empire that functions according to unrestrained exploitation, mindless materialism and blind obedience to authority; all things that I fundamentally reject!

It is also known that Germans, Iranians and North Indians share a common Indo-Germanic heritage. I am even of the opinion that my Germanic ancestors most likely came from Central Asia, and later mixed with the subjugated farming peoples of Europe, which went down in common Germanic mythology as the war between the superior Aesir ("Asia"?) and the rural Vanes. The linguistic connection between Germanic languages, Persian and Hindustani / Sanskrit is a well-known fact and can only be explained by a common origin or a common phase of proximity. In addition, you can still find tribes in Iran and Central Asia today that are not very mixed and appear surprisingly Germanic with light eyes and blonde or red hair. There is even the theory that the Germans are descendants, a reincarnation, of the ancient Assyrians, but I have not yet found any solid evidence for this. So it's easy to see that there are much more reasons for me to turn east!

You forgot their Greek dicklets!

Those homoerotic and supposedly "ancient Greek" stories are definitely very nice, but I just have to shrug my shoulders here and ask myself: Are they fiction or did this setting actually exist? Perhaps these stories were just the only way to express homoerotic ideas by publishing under a Greek or Latin pseudonym in a time when sex was considered fundamentally immoral and limited to procreation. And since the church itself relied on ancient greats to justify its claim to power, ancient authorship was the only way to express itself freely in literature. In contrast, the pre-colonial Muslim world was much more sexually permissive, homoerotic and bisexual. If I had had the choice back then, I would have definitely preferred a life as a Muslim man in Al Andalus over the Western Christian crap with their chastity and poor hygiene!

And if you really want to uphold the ancient Hellenic male ideals, then please don't forget their glorification of mini dicks:

At that time they wanted to distance themselves from the animally hairy Anatolian beasts with their large monsters. That included tiny dicks, for whatever reason…

If you look more closely, the overall features even appear very androgynous; maybe some alien ideals, since the "gods" were also smooth and small-dicked, if they ever had genitals; in order to be closer to their divine creators by distancing themselves from the lower, more earth-typical tiervolk (animal-like people).

Sorry, but I'd rather stay true to myself and watch my dark blonde Germanic beard grow longer and longer, parallel to my belly, while my baldness continues to work its way to all sides. That sets me apart more, because I don't want to be a dead, smooth statue of the West with androgynous features, but a real man!

Muslims are more collective and androphilic

My country is literally flooded with Turks, Arabs, Afghans, North Africans; therefore I can very well observe the difference between these and western men. While Western men prefer to be alone, you will almost never see a Muslim not surrounded by some his bros. And you will never see women in their midst as they are either well hidden or at home. Cunts are effectively out of sight, so all eyes are on their brothers. You are thus more likely to receive a compliment from a Muslim about how beautiful your eyes are or how great your beard is. In the Middle East you can even see them hugging or kissing, which is already considered totally gay in our culture. They simply think more of their own kind and stick together closely in men's groups, while Western dudes are simply loners who reject any contact with one another as "wrong". In short, Muslims are much more androphilic than Western men; hence I have to disagree with you at this point too.

I'm honestly not interested in your stories about some smooth androgynous Hellenic world conquerors, because they're just stories that I have no connection to and whose veracity I generally strongly doubt. I'm a realist and pragmatist, and the current reality is just completely different. Identifying myself with something that supposedly took place 3,000 years ago is, as I've already said, not much better than cosplaying Tolkien's Middle-earth. It's silly. Especially since, as an East German, I have a significantly more anti-Western viewpoint that I will never give up. I feel more connected to my Arab and North African brothers than to anyone else on this planet because, not least, we share common destinies as unpleasant nations that the West wants to destroy. There is therefore no reason for me to adopt your canon of values.

Last but not least, I have already described in my other essays that I fundamentally want a synthesis between our cultures, between Germanic, African, Arabic, Persian and other Central Asian nationalities; a new androphilic culture that combines the best of the existing ones, embodied by a brotherhood and new shared way of life that focuses on love between men. This also includes the question of the best model of life for us, such as gender separation and the preference for masculine women in order to gradually adapt their external physiques to men without losing the ability to give birth; here, secondary male sexual characteristics are good indicators. For example, in the Arab world you can already find some women who are naturally quite bearded and thus form a good basis for better reproductive partners compared to weak Western women, who are often physically overwhelmed by just giving one birth, although they are perceived as more feminine (possibly because they are too weakly built due to incorrect sexual preferences over the last thousands of years); whereas Arab and African women calve much more easily. So, unlike you, I don't want to reject heterosexuality, but rather make it androphilic.

—

By the way, wrestling was not invented by the Greeks, but is much older and even typically oriental.

#androphilia #androphilic #love #histroy #islam #muslim #essay #reply

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eijakushingomel · 4 months

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#3 Pokemon x The Ember Knight

•Probably sets in the current timeline of The Ember Knight.

• There were special forces in the Western Kingdom called the Knights, created from the medieval time and still ongoing. Basically, like the knights in The Ember Knight, but only with Pokemon and modern timeline.

• Najin, Lauzun, Luzian, and Tyr joined in, obviously. Nagyunn wanted to go on a journey, but he's poor, so he landed some job as a professor's helper, and he got it because he's super smart. Also because it was Fadiyan who took him in.

• Fadiyan was a former Knight before she retired and became a traveling professor, bringing Nagyunn with her.

• Each of the Woodion's apprentices got their starters by themselves when they were young. Since Woodion was a small village and technology wasn't so modern yet, most people there got their partners straight from the wild.

° Luzian wrestled with her soon-to-be Oshawott and won. She was drenched for a whole week.

° Tyr fed a Meowth once and it chose him to be its partner.

° Lauzun's Axew was a gift and he took care of it since it was still an egg.

° Nags found an injured Fennekin and helped her.

° Najin tried to scare off the same Torchic that had been stealing their food. It backfired, and they both were a crying mess until Nags intervened.

• The pokeballs were constructed of wood (apricorns and tumblestones), ya know, since they lived in old days. The creation of pokeballs made of apricorns was quite hard, especially in a small village like Woodion. So people tend to have one pokeball - one partner thingy.

•There were also beliefs about why everyone tends to get one pokeball other than it being totally expensive. For example, there was a belief that the first pokemon one got will affect greatly of the said person's future and their personalities. Which was why kids often only befriended the wild pokemon they met and only caught them after they were older and certain of their choice. This, of course, implies to the Woodian's apprentices and Nagyunn. Although Lauzun gotten Axew since he was very young due to private reasons.

° Luzian had a Netball, very expensive, and the last gift from her dad before he passed away. It's totally for content and not because I wanted a pokeball matched her hair colour.

° Lyamin had a Moonball. Laurun had an Ultraball.

° Wadrin got a Quickball. Also, it's not because blue and yellow pokeball fits him better.

° Masterball did not exist yet in this timeline, but Regia may or may not create it sometime in the future.

° Both Jiroon and Ludika got a Healball for their partners. Jiroon's Kirlia was a female, fyi.

° Quaring caught her Mawile by accident while it was sleeping using Dreamball. She never let Mawile go despite she didn't want it in fear it might attack her once it was free. Somehow, they bonded, though.

• Each pokemon had their own personalities. Najin's Combusken (Kē) acted tough but quick a soft hearted fellow. Nags' Fennekin (Fō) was regal and composed most of the time.

• Most of the apprentices' partners evolved during the war between the Eastern and Western Kingdom.

° Tyr's Meowth (Mian) evolved after he fought his sister's Persian.

° Wadrin's Pikachu (Peron) never evolved, though.

° Nags' Fō evolved to Braixen after they battled against Regia's Reuniclus. For whatever reason, Regia took interest in them and challenged them.

° Najin's Kē evolved to Blaziken after their battle against Laurun's Haxorus.

° Due to the fact they came from the same evolution line, Fō was quite close with Ludika's Delphox. They became even closer after she evolved to Braixen.

° Like its trainer, Zuis' Lucario was the observer in the group. Unlike its trainer who was weaker than the Knights, Lucario was strong like any other of its kind. But it was often seen laidback or simply be the referee in battles.

° Fidorance's Arcanine had numerous scars all over its body. His Arcanine was a standard war animal, yet it was often used as emotional support to those who were in need. I guess I just want to put some resemblement between Fidorance and Arcanine in emotional and personality ways.

° Previously, Bishorp didn't belong to Waron yet. It belonged to her old friend before she passed away. Waron never stated Bishorp was hers despite holding its pokeball. It often did its own thing and never bothered Waron unless there was some battling. Waron never commanded it to do something. It joining Waron in battle was its own will.

° Why am I making this when I haven't finished reading The Ember Knight yet?

Darn.

I'm so hooked up in this.

Might as well make some shorts. No promise, tho.

Anyway, any idea what Crimson Hippo Hinsher's pokemon might be? What about Candentia? Or Daljan? Or the Mother of Dragon?

Oh my gosh why am I so into this?

#the ember knight #nagyunn #najin #qilin #fidorance #lauzun #myusa #luzian #wadrin #tyr #pokemon

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popsixsquishcicerolipschitz · 7 months

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Motahar Mazaheri

#Motahar Mazaheri #Coach #Wrestling Coach #Asian Sports #Asian Wrestling #Iranian Wrestling #Persian Wrestling

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aboutanancientenquiry · 8 months

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Raymond Kierstead "Herodotus and The Invention of History", Reed Magazine, September 1, 2011

"Herodotus and The Invention of History

By Raymond Kierstead | September 1, 2011

“Herodotus of Halicarnassus here displays his inquiry, so that human achievements may not be forgotten in time, and great and marvelous deeds—some displayed by Greeks, some by barbarians—may not be without their glory; and especially to show why the two peoples fought with each other.”

To the historian, these opening lines of Herodotus’ Histories represent something akin to a sacred text, the beginning, it is sometimes argued, of the practice of history, or at least of history as a critical mode of inquiry into the past. Like many claims of origins and intellectual paternity, the venerable cliché that Herodotus was the “father of history” may be a bit suspect. Perhaps he had Greek predecessors who deserve the name historian, such as Hecataeus of Miletus. Perhaps there are other traditions of historical writing that ought to take precedence when we consider the formation of the historical imagination over time; the Biblical history of the Jews comes immediately to mind in this case. Yet there is an argument to be made that Herodotus, in weaving together the stories of his and other cultures, in taking the conventions of Greek religion and Greek epic and making those conventions meaningful to contemporary or near-contemporary events, in constructing a dense narrative of those events, and, finally, in his prodigious questioning of his world about its memories of the past, “invented” history. And this is the case I’ll try to make today.

Herodotus’ history of the war between Greeks and Persians dates from roughly the mid-fifth century. By this point, we are in a period when Greek culture had been quite thoroughly penetrated by critical modes of thinking, first in the realm of philosophy as part of the intellectual legacy of the Ionian Greeks. In the case of Herodotus, who, to some degree at least, shared in the so-called Ionian enlightenment, critical intelligence was directed to human affairs in time. With Herodotus we encounter the beginning of the historian’s attempt to wrestle with the concept of time: to give shape to time and to memory and to impose a certain order upon the seeming chaos of human actions over time. In his opening lines, Herodotus not only evokes the idea of war narrative in an epic mode, not only an interest in the totality of human experience, but perhaps above all he evokes the idea of explanation, “why the two peoples fought one another.” In so doing he established history at its very “birth” as an explanatory enterprise, an interpretive discipline. However good the stories that are the heart and soul of his work and however compelling his narrative, Herodotus was no mere storyteller. His “invention” was designed not only to entertain, but also to compare, to explain, and to interpret.

This “invention” has not always been admired. Near-contemporaries such as Thucydides and later classical historians such as Plutarch were contemptuous of Herodotus’ work. Even in later antiquity we uncover the great insult to Herodotus’ work: “The Father of History; The Father of Lies.” Stories of naked queens and children served up as pies were thought by later practitioners of the historical art to demean history as a serious intellectual enterprise. This mélange of conventional stories and conventional wisdom, improbable events and equally improbable conversations, gossip and hearsay, condemned Histories as hopelessly unreliable and unscholarly.However, and fortunately for us, we stand at the far side of that 2,000-year divide and are part of a historical culture within which Herodotus’ reputation is secure. Indeed, strange to say, we inhabit an intellectual and cultural world where Herodotus may be considered something of a hot subject: an important figure in debates over diversity and Eurocentrism, and even a bit player in the Academy Award–winning film The English Patient. I am afraid that my subject is somewhat less trendy. I want to try to measure Herodotus’ achievement from the perspective of a modern historian and to search out certain affinities between his strangeness and our strangeness.

We can begin to measure Herodotus’ achievement by brief consideration of the intellectual traditions that he inherited. He was located in a culture that was shaped by myth and epic, and there are some good reasons, as we shall see later, to regard Herodotus as standing squarely in that dual tradition. Thus Werner Jaeger in his classic, Paideia, wrote: “His work was the resurrection of the epic tradition . . . or rather it was new growth from the epic root.” But the very word “invention” that I have chosen to use in analyzing Herodotus’ achievement argues for innovation more than resurrection. For the idea that human societies require history, that it is an inevitable part of cultural baggage, is anthropologically false. Although one may argue plausibly that all societies depend to one degree or another on tradition—i.e., the need to relate past and present—myth and poetry may serve this purpose well enough. Historical inquiry ought not to be understood as simply the inevitable evolutionary outgrowth of other modes of thought, let alone as part of a broader evolution from primitive to more advanced culture.

There were possible influences on Herodotus, influences conventionally attributed to his Ionian background. Thus Charles Fornara takes us a step beyond Jaeger when he writes that, “Herodotus perhaps united epic theme with Ionian method.” Historiographer Herbert Butterfield argued that the very geographic situation of the Ionians between cultural worlds, at a crossroads of trade, on the fringe of a great empire—“the meeting place of Mediterranean civilizations”—impelled an interest in other peoples and thus the origins of a kind of historical inquiry. It is in this ethnographic context of an attempt to understand neighboring peoples that one best observes Herodotus’ remarkable capacity to describe other cultures and their differences (they pee that way; we pee this way). Herodotus, with his keen observation of cultural detail, was a master at drawing cultural boundaries between Greek and barbarian, democracy and despotism, West and East, Persian and Scythian. But, in assessing his ethnographic method, it is equally important to note that Herodotus understood that those boundaries were permeable. Egyptian civilization could, for example, be a source of Greek civilization. At a more general level, Herodotus had the capaciousness of mind to transcend ethnography and recognize that there could be, at certain moments in time, similar elements of greatness and of baseness in very different civilizations. That meant that the known world could not simply be divided antithetically between Greek and barbarian. There was great value in, but, also limits to, the ethnographic analysis of difference that is so conspicuous a part of Herodotus’ achievement.

Herodotus also stood heir to the tradition of Ionian critical thinking or rational inquiry. He openly recognized the influence of the late sixth- and very early fifth-century “historian,” Hecataeus of Miletus. Hecataeus was a questioner of traditions who sought to purify and rationalize the legendary inheritance of the Greeks and to purge some of the miraculous from the received tradition. For example, a King Aegyptus was said by tradition to have had 50 sons and a certain Danaos 50 daughters. Hecataeus concluded that each had 20. His attempts to sort out legends and stories and to establish the most likely and most commonsensical solution clearly shaped Herodotus’ method of inquiry and generated a tradition of separating fact from fancy, what some would see as the very essence of historical practice. This is evident in Herodotus’ skeptical treatment of ancient stories about the origins of the wars between Greeks and barbarians. Herodotus’ keen analysis of the differences between Eastern despotism and Greek liberty may well have derived in some fashion from speculative tradition among Ionian thinkers on the responsibility of climate for the character of states. In short, we can place Herodotus in a broad intellectual setting, as long as we understand that none of the Ionian traditions comprised history as such. For better or worse, as is inevitably quoted in lectures such as this, “there was no Herodotus before Herodotus.”

Herodotus’ unique invention, history, may be understood in several ways. He told an epic story of war and great deeds that was at bottom a human story. In the tradition of Hecataeus, Herodotus sought to separate fact from myth, to query his sources, to get the story right. In so doing, Herodotus established what would be the fundamental framework and subject matter of this new form of inquiry. History would deal with near-contemporary and contemporary events. As in epic, war and the causes of war and the clashes of cultures at war would be the essential subject matter of history. It would examine political life. In a certain sense, history would be polis literature, that is, a serious reflection on political cultures from the perspective of Greek political experience in the fifth century.

In the latter aspect as least, Herodotus reflected less his Ionian background, his generally cosmopolitan outlook, and his profound interest in cultures than his acquired Athenian allegiance. As the late Moses Finley wrote, “His political vision was Athenian and democratic, but it lacked any trace of chauvinism. He was committed, but not for one moment did that release him from the high obligation of understanding . . . Nothing could be more wrongheaded than the persistent and seemingly indestructible legend of Herodotus the charmingly naïve storyteller.” Though one must add here that his history, as a reading of book I suggests, stands somewhere at the boundaries between artful storytelling and explanation.

In sum, Herodotus defined the boundaries of his invention, history, and tied that invention to the Greek, and particularly fifth-century Athenian, passion for the political life and for political understanding. No more than we can understand fifth-century tragedy outside the polis can we understand history in its earliest manifestation outside of polis political culture.

In establishing a narrative of the Persian Wars, in separating many facts from myths, in devising enormously complex chronologies of events, Herodotus laid fair claim to his posthumous title, Father of History. On occasion, however, one encounters a fairly naïve interpretation of Herodotus that confuses the achievement of this eminent fifth-century Greek with certain modern ideas about the possibilities of scientific history, ideas that held that historical statements or generalizations derive from the true facts of history, patiently accumulated and clearly arranged. In this light, Herodotus’ prodigious attempts to sort out truth from fiction and to compare and criticize different accounts of the same event look indeed like the beginning of an evolution that, with some unfortunate detours, culminated in modern historical method. Now, only nonhistorians suffer the delusion that history is in any sense a science, a discipline in which one argues in a simple linear way from fact to generalization. The human mind—alas, even the historian’s mind—is more complicated and interesting than that. In fact, a careful reading of Herodotus suggests that he probably has far more in common with his friend Sophocles, the fifth-century writer of tragedy, than with any post-Renaissance or modern historian. Although this might appear to be a negative comparison and judgment, it is certainly not meant to be. The narrowest conceptions of history as an empirical discipline have long since been consigned to the trash bin reserved for intellectual silliness, and modern historians increasingly appreciate not Herodotus’ prodigious fact-grubbing, worthy as it may be of admiration, but rather his imaginative capacity to give shape to time—time being the historian’s medium and the shaping of time the historian’s principal task.

The great originality of Herodotus was most certainly not his empirical method, but rather, as I argued near the beginning, his attempt, once he got his selected facts in order, to interpret and explain the human past. The intellectual power of his opening sentence rests on his determination to find reasons for the great war, reasons that would explain the greatest of human events. The stories and facts that Herodotus patiently gleaned in his travels and oral interviews did not lead inexorably to his historical explanations or to his reasons. Rather, I would argue, his understanding of the deep patterns of divine action and of human history made sense of the facts and events he discovered, fit into a pattern, and then recounted. If Herodotus has a special affinity to modern historians, I would suggest that it rests on his discovery that facts, however fascinating, do not speak for themselves. Time and again, Herodotus tells us he has selected out what was worthy to be remembered. His principle of selection—selection being the key to historical architecture—depended very much on his sense of patterns in history, on his sense of the shape of time or those forces that order human events.

What do I mean by patterns? One such pattern Herodotean history shared with, if it did not borrow from, tragedy: the idea of the general instability of the human condition, of the reversals of fortune that were the human lot, and the associated political idea of the rise and fall of states. Another, related, pattern had to do with pride and fall and punishment. Time was the working out of such archetypical patterns. Historic time was, then, not unlike tragic time, a point made most obvious in the first book of Herodotus’ history, particularly in the story of Croesus. History, as the story and analysis of human things, could never penetrate and understand the divine and fated processes. History could, however, as an incomplete and partial science or field of knowledge, read some of the signs of those processes working in the world. Perhaps this is the thrust of Momigliano’s statement that, “even if we did not know that Sophocles was a friend of Herodotus’, we would perceive the latter’s connections with the former in moral, religious, and political feelings.” In sum, from Herodotus we begin to perceive that though the gleaning of facts may be the first crucial step in history, it is not history. History is accomplished only when time is given shape and when explanation and interpretation occur.

The idea of Herodotus as the progenitor of a certain empiricist idea of historical method continuously runs aground precisely on the question of the divine shaping of his history. A German classicist puts it provocatively and pithily: “Herodotus was the first and last representative (in the ancient world?) of theological historiography.” Fate and divine will were indeed historical forces for Herodotus, and human events were played out in a moral universe controlled by those supernatural forces. History, as the story of human things, inevitably reflected, however dimly, the divine plan. Yet to characterize Herodotus’ work as “theological historiography” goes too far. However intellectually unsatisfying to us moderns, Herodotus’ capacious sense of history encompassed both the divine plan, patterning, and human freedom and action (in this, not unlike both epic and tragedy). This marriage in Herodotus of a sense of overarching pattern and passionate interest in the human thing—in the earthly city—can be illustrated by the theme of the rise and fall of states.

Greek history in general, and that of Herodotus in particular, was founded on the idea of the general instability of all things. “The very notion of rise and fall,” Jacqueline de Romilly writes, “seems to be rooted in the inner sensibility of the Greeks. “ This insight was the source of what I find to be the Greeks’ most engaging and attractive intellectual characteristic, a grim and unrelenting realism about things, focused on such themes as pride and punishment, that united, as I have noted, tragedy and history around a common theme. In this, at least, Herodotus did not part from tradition. He tried, according to Fornara, “to show that, within the larger design woven by fate, good fortune was unstable and intrinsically corrupting, whether for individuals or for city states.” It was Herodotus’ discovery that the study of human things, of human events, illustrated great moral themes. And such themes were part of his explanatory framework. Before his disastrous expedition against the Greeks, for example, the emperor Xerxes was warned, “You know my Lord, that amongst living creatures it is the great ones that God smites with his thunder, out of envy of their pride. The little ones do not vex him. It is always the tall trees which are struck by lightning. It is God’s way to bring the lofty low” (book VII). Yet even this seminal moral principle did not exclude human responsibility or make less important human action. In the case of Xerxes, Romilly writes, “The pattern of rise and fall . . . had its warrant in God’s intervention, but the link is provided by the overconfidence and the imprudence of the King.” History’s domain was precisely that realm of linkage and the realm of contingency where human choices, mistakes, successes, and disasters served as signs and markers of metahistorical patterns and processes. (One might want to think through the great story of Croesus with this thought in mind.)

The same principle applied to states. The series of episodes, some legendary or even mythic in character, that progressively trace the nature of Eastern despotism and plot the rise and fall of the Persian Empire, suggests the deep patterning of the historical process along familiar lines of crime and retribution, rise and fall, hubris and nemesis. Even Athens, the ultimate victor and principal beneficiary of the Persian Wars, appears to have been an instrument of divine planning and an agent of divine will. In book VIII, for example, we are told of a storm in which the Persian fleet was battered and reduced in size, more equal to the Greek fleet. Herodotus writes, “All this was done by the god, that the Persian armament might be made equal with that of the Greeks . . .” In book VII Herodotus attributes the success of the Greeks in defeating the Persians to the Athenians and declares, “Greece was saved by the Athenians . . . It was the Athenians who—after the gods—drove back the Persian king.”

In my view, it is a misinterpretation of Herodotus and the unity of his histories to assume that in these passages he did not mean what he clearly stated: that Athens, in leading the defeat of the Persians, was doing the work of and enjoying the protection of the god(s). That this was not simply a manner of speaking or a conventional patriotic bromide is, I think, demonstrated by the total structure of the histories from beginning to end, a structure that time and again reveals Herodotus’ ability to link the metahistorical and the world of immediate human action.

Neither individuals nor states are to be understood simply as robot-like instruments of the heavenly script or of the often obscure and rather ominous rules that governed time. If universal rules—rise and fall, crime and retribution, pride and punishment—applied to all and if no individual or state could forever escape destiny, nonetheless there were fully human ways to live and to act in time. “Know thyself,” Herodotus admonishes time and again. That is, know one’s place and that one is not a god, a theme of both epic and tragedy. Know that, whatever the gods may order, moderation, self-control, and self-restraint are the necessary qualities of the good life. The great political theme of fall and decline, had a necessary countertheme: the rise of states. And for Herodotus, the most conspicuous examples of risen states in his time were the two very different Greek cities, Athens and Sparta. Their greatness, displayed in the Persian wars of the early fifth century, raised questions about the divine plan and fate, but also questions at the human level about the conditions of Greek success generally and of Athenian success in particular and whether that success might be perpetuated over time. Herodotus advanced a bold hypothesis: political success was related to the character or culture of a society. The particular genius of the city-state was its adherence to self-imposed law, in other words a certain conception of liberty. It was not climate that explained the dynamic quality of the Greek states aligned against Persia, nor riches, but law that defined a political culture within which liberty, collective self-discipline, and civic heroism could all prosper. To a question about the Greeks posed by Xerxes, Demaratus responds, “ . . . poverty is Greece’s inheritance from of old, but valor she won for herself by wisdom and the strength of the law . . .” (book VII). Romilly writes of Herodotus’ explanation of Greek success: “Early practical experience was turned into a discovery.” Virtuous citizens, informed by law, brought about the greatness of states and, moreover, the promise of stability and the possibility of staving off the decay and inevitable fall that states shared with all organisms. For states, as for individuals, there was then a realm of freedom, a realm of contingency where good cultural traits and sound constitutions potentially made a difference, perhaps assured the rise of states and their longevity. Thus culture and constitutions, and the relations between them, became a major theme of Herodotus’ study.

It is fair criticism of Herodotus that he never fully integrated his levels of explanation, ranging from the metahistorical to the motivations and actions of states and individuals, into a satisfactory whole. This may inevitably be true of “theological history.” Especially if, as David Grene has argued, “there are two worlds of meaning that are constantly in Herodotus’ head. The one is that of human calculation, reason, cleverness, passion, happiness. There one knows what is happening and, more or less, who is the agent of cause. The other is the will of the Gods, or fate, or the intervention of daimons . . . And this power’s relation to man is bound up with a maddening relation between man’s reason and understanding and such ‘signs’ as the Divine has allowed us to have of its future or past intervention.”

With Grene’s analysis, we return to an earlier theme. It is among the historian’s tasks to attempt to read these signs and to relate them to change over time. Yet, and this is the principal point of the lecture, Herodotus’ discovery that the great moral and religious themes that suffused his thinking could be linked intellectually to the patterns of human affairs and actions—to the processes of history—had, perhaps ironically, the effect of advancing the idea that human things could be explained in human terms and that tentative, if not ultimate, explanations could be offered about the way the world works.

At this juncture, Herodotus connects remarkably to a modern historical sensibility. Modern historians generally do not fall into the vocabulary of pride and fall, divine retribution and such. Yet a few, some of the best among them, continue to contemplate the great issue of historical necessity and contingency. Contingency is the historian’s natural field of play, but the idea that forces beyond direct human control and immediate understanding constrain human freedom and agency also informs at least one corner of the modern historical imagination. In this, at least, the modern historian may be far more comfortable with Herodotus—even with his outlandish tales—than with those sober founders of the modern profession who established the “science” of history.

I would like to conclude this lecture on the “invention” of history with a few summary remarks on Herodotus’ historical method. We have seen that there are some snares packed into the notion of Herodotus, Father of History, and the association of his fathering with the emergence of critical rationalism in a modernizing mode. While there is some truth in these generalizations, we shall badly misread Herodotus if we expect to find in him a fact-driven historian who understood history as a sequence of events linked in some linear fashion by cause and effect. Herodotus understood one big thing (yes, historians can be hedgehogs): There were great permanencies that governed universal history, and those permanent things appeared in human history in different times, places, and settings. To his credit, Herodotus thought it important to record and to explain those appearances, and thus he opened the realm of contingency—of human actions—to methodical study and to interpretation.

His selection of facts, then, was not an impartial exercise, a gathering of data in the manner of a modern social scientist. And, to be sure, Herodotus viewed the world and its history through the categories of a Greek mind. But Herodotus did not believe that history was just one damn thing after another. His history was driven by a worldview and by his theories and his understanding of the permanent things at play in the universe. He selected episodes to relate and accepted events as true that conformed to his ideas of the patterning and processes of history, episodes and events that confirmed the boundaries of the world he knew, but also illustrated the transgressions of those boundaries.

As we think about the problem of reading this ancient historian, let’s conclude with an episode from book VIII, an episode that takes place well after the great victories over the Persians, victories won by the Athenian admiral, Themistocles:

The Greeks, since they decided against pursuing the barbarians’ ships further . . . beleaguered Andros with the purpose of taking it. For the Andrians, the first of the islanders to be asked for money by Themistocles, had refused him. The- mistocles put his proposition in these words: “We Athenians have come with two great gods to aid us, Persuasion and Necessity, and so you should render up your money to us.” But the Andrians answered this by saying, “. . . we have a most plentiful poverty of land and two useless gods, who never quit our island but love to dwell in it . . . Penury and Helplessness. These are the gods we Andrians possess, and so we will give no money.” Such was the answer of the Andrians, and they gave no money and were now besieged . . . Themistocles, whose greed for money was insatiable, kept sending threatening messages to other islands . . .

What are we to make of this? Through an earlier conversation at the Persian court, we have learned that the Greeks were a particularly formidable enemy because of their institutions and law-bound culture. We have also learned that from the beginning of their known history the Athenians have been prone to rashness, error, and mistakes. At the height of the Greek, and particularly Athenian, fortunes after the defeat of Persia, we now observe the corruption and the excesses of some of the victors who undertake a brutal little imperialist shakedown of the Andrians and other islanders. We consider the dictum that good fortune breeds pride, excess, and then downfall. Perhaps, as we observe the rapacious barbarity of some of the Athenians, we even question the distinction between democracy and despotism, civilization and barbarism, between us and the other. We wonder if the Athenian political culture, based on self-governance and self-discipline under law, will hold in the face of Athenian success. In thinking like this, we have entered the mental world of Herodotus, the Father of History.

Ray Kierstead, Richard F. Scholz Professor of History & Humanities, Emeritus, graduated from Bowdoin College and received his PhD in history from Northwestern University. In 1956, he received a Fulbright Fellowship to attend the University of Paris and there developed an interest in his principal scholarly field, early modern France. After some years of teaching at Yale University and the Catholic University of America, he joined the Reed faculty in 1978, retiring in 2000. During retirement he has continued to lecture in the humanities program.

These classic Hum lectures were selected by Peter Steinberger [political science 1977–].