#Pine Tree Riot

[oer4]

“Weare White Pines Grow Free!” is a short historical fiction story about Ebenezer Mudgett and his role in the Pine Tree Riot, a protest for American independence from England... ~ oer4

[silkdamask-blog]

I will be talking about the American Revolution from a New Hampshire perspective at the Paul Revere House on December 10th

[kneelingshadowsalome]

Anhedonia 2/2

Word count: 5,5 k (part 1) and 4,4 k (part 2)

Pairing: Ghost x F!Reader Tags: SMUT 🔞🔞🔞 Literally just unadulterated, deranged filth, plot is there for decoration. Angst. Hurt/Comfort. Mutual pining, sexual tension (duh), blood & injury, p in v sex, oral sex (m receiving), mutual masturbation, cum all over the place, light humiliation, dirty talk, some praise, swearing, mask stays on, fluffy/reconciliatory ending. Summary: Reader is a Task Force 141 operator and a terrible brat (and suffers the consequences of it later). Enemies to lovers/toxic relationship that takes a healthy turn in the end. Read PART 1 here

"Wha' a good girl you are now…"

His first words hit you like a moan-inducing massage, but you stay silent and steady in your resolve.

"Good soldier, too. We just need to get you to follow orders so that you don't get hurt," he speaks gently.

There it is, finally – a good girl and a good soldier. You have to mentally bind your hands behind your back and place an imaginary gag in your mouth not to chirp and bounce up from joy. It's pathetic, but it's also harrowing: Ghost never meant to fuck with your head; he only wanted to keep you safe. But then he causes another riot in your brain with the next thing he says.

"Such a beautiful sight… You'd make a fine pet."

- - - - - - - - -

You go to offer your apology the next day after sleeping on it.

You feel like you're the most horrible person in the world. And yet, when you knock on his door and call yourself in when only a silence answers, the scalding gaze that locks into you like the sights of a gun remind you why you said what you said.

It's like the man has struck a knife in you, and twists it just to see you squirm. And you do: it's a telltale sign that you've been claimed when you kneel in the middle of his office while he sits behind the same desk he rutted you on less than 20 hours ago.

He says nothing. You wait, equally as quiet, like you're waiting for a pardon from Caesar.

The atmosphere is mellow: his shutters are closed but one window is creaked open, allowing birdsong and summer wind on trees to pass through to his otherwise stale office. It stirs the softest, small smile on your lips as you look at him, adamant and all locked up.

Your knees hurt, but he eventually breaks first: something you hadn't even calculated might happen. The brimstone of his eyes steal a breather to the side, then come back to you with a tinge of confusion in them.

Then he lifts his chin, lifts a hand, a command for you to approach.

Your smile only softens as you go around his desk, and he pushes the chair away with one foot, turns to meet you as you fall on your knees again, then on all fours before starting a slow crawl to him.

His eyes go wide, his head draws back as if you approaching him like a housecat is the most threatening situation he has ever been in.

You have planned this through, and he has the instincts, the sixth sense of a seasoned hunter as he opens his legs wide to make space for you.

He certainly doesn't stop you as you free his erection from the sturdy cargo pants and offer your apology by taking him in your mouth.

He knows what's coming but still gasps and grabs the arms of his chair with white knuckles. You're on your knees, seemingly domesticated, but he's the one begging for mercy before you have even begun. He's heavy in your mouth, but you welcome the weight with greed and a hot tongue.

His thighs travel wide and far, just like yours did last night. The first moan is divine. He eases into the chair while the muscles on his stomach and thighs twitch and shudder.

A pair of boots echo in the hallway behind the door, the sound soon disappearing into the distance. Anyone could walk in at any given moment, and the notion makes your head feel dizzy.

He doesn't say anything, doesn't disclose in any way that he is considering forgiveness.

But eventually, he starts to melt upon your tongue like a snow-covered mountain ridge basking in the sun. Something in the way with which you work him slowly and with gusto makes him send a hand on your head. It strokes your hair softly.

"Wha' a good girl you are now…"

His first words hit you like a moan-inducing massage, but you stay silent and steady in your resolve.

"Good soldier, too. We just need to get you to follow orders so that you don't get hurt," he speaks gently.

There it is, finally – a good girl and a good soldier. You have to mentally bind your hands behind your back and place an imaginary gag in your mouth not to chirp and bounce up from joy. It's pathetic, but it's also harrowing: Ghost never meant to fuck with your head; he only wanted to keep you safe. But then he causes another riot in your brain with the next thing he says.

"Such a beautiful sight… You'd make a fine pet."

You give him some teeth for that. Just the lightest scrape as you arrive near the base of his cock. He hisses, then laughs.

"Careful, love."

It's the first time ever you've heard him properly laugh. The sound implements itself into your core, your spine, your DNA. It's genuine and hearty, and the summer brushes past the open window to your face in a reviving breeze. Combined with the dark musk of his laughter, it makes your heart flip, and a small, tickling giggle bubbles inside you too. It arrives muted against his cock, but it's a magnificent moment – you two laughing together, even if for a second, even if yours is just a huff of an exhale against his pelvis.

"You don't like the idea?" He asks you a question as if you didn't have your mouth full of him.

His offer is alluring – of course you'd like him to take you as his pet. You could get good food and caresses, get to curl next to him when he goes to sleep. He could show you off like a domesticated animal if he wanted to. He could parade you down the street on a leash, and you would only purr as you go.

But while the proposition is enticing, you leave him with no answer, knowing it will only intrigue him if you don't say yes.

"I would be good to you," he starts to slip, and you up the pace a little. Open your jaw as far as it can go to accommodate him as much as you can, the soft hood of his cock meeting the back of your throat.

"So good– nh..." You can almost hear how his head rolls back, and you catch yourself worrying if he might hurt his neck because the chair has no headrest.

You do it again, and again, almost choking while trying to show him how good you are, how well you can take him and what your tongue can do too. You nearly stumble while you're at it, so lost in him, and you have to reach for support to prevent yourself from falling.

Your hand finds his leg, clutches the khaki that hugs a broad thigh. You flinch when a hard, heavy palm descends on top of yours. It brushes a thumb over the back of your hand as his sighs travel through the stagnant air, rampant and unchallenged through the fabric of his mask.

"Be my pet, sweetheart," he prays, growing weaker by the second. It's like a charm that transforms you into a priestess, a Babalon whore, a scarlet woman who adores men before sending them off to war.

His hips buck, he starts to clutch your hand like you're a rope that's going to save him from drowning. The other hand is more gentle in grip, but mercenary in demand as he grabs a fistful of hair to guide you along his length. Your gag reflex almost shoots him out of your mouth, but he is relentless.

He knows you can take it.

"That's it–that's it, luv," he rasps, and every other noise gets shut out of your brain as you go deaf to the sonic world. You can feel his thighs bunch and tremble around your head, the earthquake under your fingers pressed against hard, lifeless textile when they should be scraping his skin instead. He opens like a woman, massive legs spread hungry and wide as he shoots a load in your mouth. Ample, abundant, even if he just filled you to the brim not too long ago.

You drink him dutifully, greedy for the praise of a job well done, but such a thing never comes. He just breathes heavy over you, sounding happy, the happiest man on earth. You lick him clean, although there's really nothing to clean except your own saliva. The cock glistens, jolts happily one last time after you're done.

"I can make you scream on that desk," he offers while his hands release their death grip on you. Your hair gets tucked behind your ear, he even squeezes your hand briefly like you're his most trusted companion. His cock is flaccid, so you assume he's offering his fingers, perhaps even his mouth to you.

You'd like nothing more than to know if he has a stubble under that balaclava. To see if he would kneel on the floor too to shove his face between your legs while you're splayed over that desk. If he would forget about the door too, making it possible for anyone to catch him with his nose up your cunt. For Soap or Gaz or even Price to see how the broody commanding officer is just a thirsty hound dog on a bowl.

But then again, you just worked yourself up to a shattering orgasm. Two times, actually – deliberately, before you came here. The taste of his cum on your tongue will have to suffice; hell, it's almost better than him finally fucking or licking you into a deranged bliss.

You sense another opening, can't just help yourself…

"Thank you, sir. But that won't be necessary."

- - - - - - - - -

You begin to fear that you're the narcissist here. The way you make him twist and turn like a corkscrew, the way it makes you feel to see how he spirals deeper into madness. Even your eyes are too much for Ghost, who avoids your stare on missions but hunts you down at the base.

"What does it take?"

He ruts you whenever and wherever he can, in the toilets if need be, too busy to haul you into his room after a mission. You just so happened to pass him by, and it was the nearest space with a lock on the door.

"What the fuck does it take?"

The static hum of the bright, unyielding light and the smell of chlorite oozing out of tile seams is everything but a romantic setting as he drives into you from behind and watches you through the mirror on top of a small sink – watches how you give him nothing.

You're trying to take support from the white porcelain even though he's holding you firm against his chest with that inked arm wrapped around your middle. You want to spread your legs for him but can't, since he barely had time to rip your pants down before getting himself out as well to fuck you, so you settle for admiring how vulnerable he looks while he tries his all to please you.

"Do I have to take the mask off? That it?" He's far from a calm and collected lieutenant as he sweats black paint and despair. "Ya want my mouth? Just say it. Promise I'll make you cry."

You laugh at him through the mirror. It's an involuntary, spontaneous action, and you can't really help it. The man is absolutely adorable… And here you have been, fearing him for weeks without realizing he's just another lonely soul.

He doesn't know your strategy. He doesn't know that it's just you and your hand that are his worst enemy.

"What're ya laughin' at?"

You bite your lip, allow him to see mischief and a quivering smile, wet, adoring eyes paired with simple silence. He could force and command and bully you, but he doesn't do it.

Who's the pet now?

"Obviously, you like my cock," he grunts. "Always wet 'n' ready to go, like a fuckin'–"

It ends in a huff before a potential slur comes out.

Truly a gentleman…

"You let everyone 'ere have a go at you?"

He ticks like a time bomb inside you.

"I'm the last to get to fuck you? Huh? I get the fuckin' scraps, is that it?"

He doesn't need slurs to tear you down, but on the other hand, Ghost only reveals more of himself with the insults and assumptions he hurls at you.

He's desperate, crying for it, longing to be the one who makes you cry and scream and purr. Be your one and only.

"No," you hum. "I'm all yours, Lt."

He blinks a few times, exhausted lids fall to cover most of his eyes, and the stare tells you he has entered a dreamworld.

"I'm–," he groans with a broken voice. "I'm… Fuck–"

You shiver with ecstasy – his orgasm is a better reward than anything else he could ever give you. He collapses again, even more humiliated than the day before, or the day before that. He doesn't seem to care anymore. His hips press you against the cold sink, and you fear the porcelain is going to break under your combined weight. He doesn't slip out. Instead, Ghost tucks his mask on top of his nose to catch breath.

He has a shadow of a stubble, a stern jaw, and the notion makes your walls pulse. Thin lips part to gasp for air, his blazing chest heaves behind your back, threatens to topple you all over the sink and against the mirror already misty from your mingled heat.

And the mask was lifted for a whole other reason than to catch some precious air.

He presses his lips against your bare neck, breathes you in with mouth slightly open. Pants, like a tormented beast.

"You almost got killed," he whispers on your skin. Your heart leaps, and he still doesn't slip out…

"Took that blast and those bullets f' me."

Your heart flutters; it competes in rapidness with the blinks of your lashes. He's gentleman enough not to raise his head as you swallow some panic.

"Why did you do that?"

You can't tell him it wasn't even that heroic. That the ultimate reason was just to get his attention. To get him to proudly acknowledge what a good, talented little soldier you are. His girl.

The thick, softening heat inside you is too much. It shouldn't be this close, he shouldn't be this close. Tears are not allowed; they would be the end of you. The end of the fucking world. Your doom.

Claustrophobia makes it a shaky business to tiptoe him out of you, to slither and struggle out of his embrace and yank your pants up, fight your way through the cramped space and out of the door.

- - - - - - - - -

He suspects something.

And of course he does: the man is not a clandestine operations expert for nothing.

You usually do this in the morning, knowing you won't get another chance before he steals a moment with you. But this morning, you slept in and know that you're in the biggest danger ever. If he catches you before you're satisfied and immune, you're dead.

Everything's been fucked up ever since you met him. He's like a sickness, and you've fallen ill. You're practically bedridden because of him.

You have to use a toy because your hand is not enough anymore, and you fear that one of these days you will climax while he's inside you.

The funny thing is, you forgot to lock the door.

Maybe it's a subconscious wish – to end this sickness and receive some healing.

And the perfect healer walks in like he owns the place. Owns you.

Your heart shoots up your throat at the sound of a door opening to your most sacred space while you're most relaxed, spread naked on the bed, nipples perked up and pointing to the sky.

You forgot to lock the door…

The chant arises right before he emerges like a dark mountain after opening that weak, thin piece of plywood that separates you from civility and prudence.

You forgot to lock the door you forgot to lock the door–

He freezes the exact moment his eyes hit on you. He's a northern slope that never catches sunlight while you're at your weakest, most vulnerable, leaking around a toy made out of plastic, trembling naked and full of goosebumps from the sudden cold he emits.

"You fuckin' little…"

His chest rises and falls, then he slams the door shut, locks it without ever taking his eyes off you.

He understands the mystery to the full. It unravels before him clear-cut like the steps of a mission he knows by heart before even entering the field. You can't move, can't speak, but you clench around the lifeless substitute of him, far smaller and a thousand times more tame than what he has on offer for you. The throb is simply a reaction to how he looks at you while he realizes the entirety of the childish trick you've managed to pull, a game – some stupid little antics of a stubborn, lovesick girl and nothing more.

"Alright then. Let's hear it."

"Mhm-"

He takes a step, chest puffed up and shoulders wide, eyes burning under the chalked white skull.

"Go on then. Get on wit' it."

You obey like never before. He watches how you push the lavender-colored toy fully inside, up to the hilt, and let out a shy, sad whimper. The first of many cries to come.

Ten soldiers in one man approach your bed, stand tall all around you as you gaze up at him like he's a god. He's panting by the time he gets himself out of his jeans. His eyes scourge you as he takes his cock in hand and starts to pump in sync with you.

He makes more noise than you do at first. You make him falter by changing the speed from slow and languid to shallow and quick. He tries to keep up with you like it's a race, eyes darting from your quivering mouth and wet stare to your soaked pussy.

You sigh and moan, fuck yourself sloppy, dirty, and he looks like he's about to lose his mind and burst.

"Good girl," he says with a charred voice, a soft rasp that hits you with a delicious heat. "Such a good fuckin' girl."

You swallow tears and love, give him moans and sighs, even a high-pitched mewl or two.

Somewhere along the way, you notice you're following his cue and rhythm instead of your own, and the way the angry bulge of his tip disappears into and reappears from his fist dries your mouth right up, makes your eyelids heavy. You're breathless and incoherent, far too close to the mountaintop — already were before the actual mountain even walked through that door.

You have to slow down to brace yourself for the pleasure that swells.

"Oh– oh my god…"

Your sigh is a final admission: how he is a literal god to you. His hand claps against his balls as he pleasures himself, angry as fuck and as relieved as anyone could be when they find out that their heartthrob is just a delightful little minx instead of a cruel, heartless woman.

Everything shakes and quakes and shifts, your insides shudder, your walls grip lavender when they want to grip a man. The skull tilts, the man who compels you is like an avatar of death, but his eyes are hazel longing.

The scream is celestial, wreathed in needy pain, and his shoulders sigh and shake as he watches you come for him.

"Yeah… That's it, fuck that's sweet." He doesn't slow down, quite the opposite: he beats his flesh like a maniac as you slowly but surely come down, squirm on the bed, still clutching the toy as your pussy throbs around it. If it was his cock, you fear the grip would never release him.

"Here comes," he gives an announcement, weak and breathless, rough and mean. Ropes of cum hit your breasts, neck and face, and his eyes are those of a fallen angel. Your chest rises and falls in shock and adoration as he works himself to the last of it, drips of heat dropping on the sheets, the last spurts not powerful enough to reach you from where he is standing.

When he's done, he raises his hand, like the strings of hot lust are some sort of an art piece you're supposed to gawk at.

"There ya go luv," he wipes his hand clean with you, on you. The sticky semen coats you from face to navel, and you half expect him to smear it all over you.

But he doesn't.

He forces the heavy, teary cock back inside the confine of his pants like he's mad at himself and not you.

Then he drops down like a shadow, making you quail again – one hand sinks with a fist on the pillow next to your head, the other sweeps all gentle across your belly and down over your mound. He takes hold of your hand, uses it to ease the toy slowly out while leaning over you, keeping you as a prisoner with his hawklike stare. He pulls more than just the small, harmless toy out of you: a moan or two, a final confession, but he's not pleased. You two are far from even, and he knows it, and he's fucking done. You can see it in his eyes that he's ready to quit.

He leaves you empty and barren, with just a toy to keep you company, heads for the door like a storm cloud.

"Simon…"

He walks away, much slower, but still. Leaves a memory of your shared hate and love on the doorknob as he turns it, as you start to panic.

"Don't leave," you wheeze.

Don't leave me.

Tears prick and burn your eyes as the room turns into a dismal, empty space at the very thought of living without him from this day forward.

"Please."

He opens the door a crack. Probably to let the ghosts out, because after opening it and hearing your heart-wrenching, helpless sob, he closes it.

By the time he turns and walks back to the bed, you're crying like a baby. Finally crying for him, utterly exposed. It's not the way either of you had meant for things to go, it's not the sobbing and wailing he wants.

Still, you expect him to feast on your tears as well, watch with glee how you curl into a fetal position while covered in his cum. You don't want to see it, so you close your eyes before he rapes you with his stare.

"Sweetheart."

But his voice shatters a heart. So tender that it washes over you in waves as you repeat it inside your head like a lullaby.

"Sweetest…" he trails off into somewhere, some obsidian space that stretches out before you, between you, until you cross that space with no effort at all. Meet him in the middle.

"Yes, love..?" Your own shaky voice is a mirror of his compassion as you pledge yourself to him. A warm hand brushes your cheek not seconds after, dries a tear away, adds to the heat that pangs on your face.

You open your eyes to dare a peek up. He has the same wet look in his eyes as he did when he found you in the rubble, bleeding for him.

"You did well today," he says, voice laced with love. You don't know if he means you did well at work or on this bed just now. What makes the praise scary is that it's authentic, the way he adores you with both word and touch. It breaks you into smaller pieces still, and your voice comes out as a needy whimper.

"Really?"

"Yeah."

You hope he would take you in his arms, just the way he did weeks ago. You still remember how it felt to succumb to his warmth and the soft tang of gun oil and smoke that always surrounds him. Now you're only shrouded by the scent of tears and salt.

"Must be due to a good leader," you whisper.

He cocks his head, the hand halts, hovers over you, a last suspicion.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

Your hands are crossed over your chest, palms on opposite shoulders, shielding you from him. But you open them as he lays down and settles beside you, takes you in his arms, and presses your head to rest on his heart, underneath his chin. The massive palm covers half of your head, but the predatorial weight is gone. He only feels like home.

"Look at you, ya silly little thing… Always gettin' yourself into trouble." He brushes your beef off with a few words and an imply that you're just a blameless, stubborn little thing who he can't be mad at even if he wanted to. And it feels like the sickness finally starts to pass, that it was just an odd inflammation, a passing fever that made you so delirious. You anchor in, slither an arm under his to take support of the bedrock of his back.

He caresses you, makes you sob in his shirt from the sudden overdose of gentleness. His cum dries somewhere between your skin and his clothes as he swallows, then asks you about the mission that went wrong.

"Why did you do it?"

He's not an idiot. Surely he knows why by now. He only wants to hear it because he's stubborn like you, but also in desperate need of love and affection.

"I think you know why." You're exhausted, only able to breathe through your mouth, but the bitterness from your tone is gone. Lost, somewhere in his shirt that smells of ferrous solitude. You wonder what your combined scent, your togetherness, will smell like. It must be something sweet. Promising, like a refreshing summer rain.

"Yeah."

He caresses you slowly now, until his hand comes to rest on top of your head, making sure you won't escape his sanctuary.

"Never do it again," he commands, so soft, voice only a smoked whisper. "Love. I need you to promise me."

"Mh."

"Promise me."

You're feeling sleepy and spent, and he's to blame for it – he simply feels too good. You decide that your first kiss can wait just a little while longer. It's only wonderful; to have something lovely and pure to wait for.

"I promise…"

You drift off to sleep, cradled by the safe slopes of his mountain.

[fangirlingpuggle]

So a good name—if you don't have one—for your Ford-thinks-the-twins-are-his-and-Bill's-children AU is Gaslit Falls.

Because that's really all that's happening in this AU:

Ford is convinced that Dipper and Mabel are his children and desperately trying to get custody over them while simultaneously trying to figure out HOW and WHEN they were conceived.

He's a human male senior citizen. Bill is a 2D demonic triangle. The math ain't mathing. He's coming to some alarming conclusions each more outlandish than the last.

Stan: If you're so sure they're your kids, who gave birth to them? Answer that, Pointdexter.

Ford: ... I'm working on that. (Translation: I don't know, I don't want to know but I HAVE TO KNOW FOR PEACE OF MIND.)

Bill gets gaslit by The Axolotl themself after Weirdmaggeddon while in Theraprism. I figured that with The Axolotl being the Big Good to Bill’s Big Bad, they wouldn’t intentionally say that the twins aren’t his kids but they also wouldn’t NOT say they aren’t? If you catch my meaning.

So The Axolotl is being unhelpful and vague and while Bills knows (does he really?) for a fact they aren’t his kid’s—he’d remember having kids (would he? He and Ford had some very crazy karaoke nights, both blacking out a couple of them together)—everything culminates into Bill trying to convince himself they’re not his children. Now matter how much Pine Tree reminds him of Sixer whenever he starts chewing on his pens or Shooting Star wreaks havoc just like him, Bill insists on living in perpetual denial.

Then The Axolotl makes a comment about family visitation rights and Bill almost causes another riot.

YES!!!! I love this so much

Yes Ford 'I don't want to know BUT I MUST'

And the Axolotl just sitting there smiling while Bill spirals.

[shadowdaddies]

I'm going to self project here, but can I request Fenrys beating the living sh*t out of reader's abuser? I need this... as self-care ngl

I'm not sure why I spent so long building the backstory for Reader but it was fun and I kind of want to write a series based on it now? Anywho, Fenrys does a little more than beat up the abuser👀 I got carried away oops

Hope Reborn

Fenrys Moonbeam x Reader

Warnings: mentions of violence, slavery, just very canon-typical trauma beware

During Adarlan’s conquest of Terrasen, you tried to escape to the Southern Continent with the man you had been in a relationship with, following his lead on a path he had charted for the both of you through the Perranth Mountains to head south.

It was outside the city of Perranth when Adarlan soldiers stopped you. Knowing that your attire immediately gave you away as Orynthian, you took your partner’s hand, ready to flee for your lives back into the forest. The pain of losing your home, your family, your culture, hadn’t broken you yet. But as the man you loved held out his hand for a couple coins, yanking you toward the soldiers’ waiting arms, you shattered. 

The one person you had left in this world, who you believed that you could trust, had sold you for a couple pieces of silver. He walked into the forest, never turning back. Never seeing the beatings, the unspeakable things the Adarlan soldiers did to you on the way to Endovier.

You became a slave in the salt mines, learning the language of Eyllwe from those imprisoned alongside you. One girl, a few years younger than you, was also from Terrasen. The two of you would talk and reminisce on the fields of pine trees and memories of Orynth. Her name was Celaena, and when she was taken from Endovier to the king’s castle, you weren’t sure that you could handle losing one more person in your life.

Months passed as you labored away in the salt mines, reflecting on the family and friends you’d lost, and the man who betrayed you. As you dared a look around the dirt yard, eyeing the guards as they taunted the other slaves with their whips, you became resolute in your plan for vengeance - against your former lover, against the guards, against the king.

So when you woke up that fateful morning to see the riots had begun, you grabbed your pick axe, cutting down any guard who dared to stand in your way as you ran for your freedom. You were one of the few who survived the riot, but at this point you were a shell of the human being you once were. You didn’t know light or love. You only knew survival. 

Learning your lesson from before, you stole drying clothing from a nearby village and began your journey southeast towards Rifthold. You found a life in the city as a barmaid in a tavern while you slept in an abandoned apartment, biding your time while you created a plan.

The perfect opportunity fell into your lap one rainy night, that you had no idea would change your life forever. You were leaving the tavern after a long shift, your cloak tugged over your head moreso to avoid any men approaching you than to keep your hair dry. 

A woman running down the street caught your eye, and you stopped to watch as she leapt into the arms of a man. Her own hood fell down, revealing reddish-blonde hair as the couple embraced for a long moment. You were about to turn away, eager to escape the rain when the woman turned, locking eyes with you.

A choked sob escaped you as you recognized her. Tanner, healthier, happy - but you would know those distinct golden-turquoise eyes anywhere. She must have recognized you too, for Celaena bolted towards you, pulling you in as you were hugged for the first time in years.

“How are you here?” she said through tears, glancing over her shoulder as three other people slowly approached behind her. 

You smiled, sniffling as you wiped happy tears from your eyes. “I got out during the uprising. How are you here?”

Celaena looked towards her friends, giving a slight nod to the two males in particular before turning back to you. “Will you come with me?”

That small piece of hope inside of you sparked at her offer, and you found yourself nodding, letting yourself be led into yet another unknown. You followed the group up to an apartment, where Celaena sat you down and explained who she really was.

Your world tilted on its axis as you were filled with more hope than you had since the conquest of Terrasen, immediately swearing allegiance to Aelin, your queen. You traveled with her group to Skull’s Bay, finding your purpose in preparing Terrasen for war against Erawan, and to reestablish your home.

It was in Skull’s Bay that you met Fenrys, the most beautiful male you had ever seen. You formed an instant connection, drawn to his jovial nature. He was incessantly kind and positive despite everything that he had been through, the perfect balance and glimmer of light that you had been searching for your entire life. 

And yet, all good things seem to be ripped from you. Fenrys and Aelin were taken from you, leaving a hole in your heart that could never be filled, never be rebuilt. If not for Rowan’s determination, his drive to find his wife, you might have been broken completely. But your new family gave you the strength you needed to find Aelin and Fenrys. 

As a human, you didn’t know if you were capable of having a bond, but what you felt for Fenrys - how you swore you could feel his pain, how he missed you while he was with Maeve - was as close to a bond as you could imagine. It wasn’t a spark of hope that flared in your chest when you reunited with Fenrys when he escaped Maeve, it was an eternal flame. You knew that you would marry this male one day.

When that day came, and you stood beside your husband as part of Queen Aelin’s Court in front of all of Terrasen, the last person you expected to see what the man you once loved. The man who sold you into slavery, standing to the side with the rest of the courtiers.

Rage filled you, at him, at Adarlan, at yourself, at the world for allowing a man so vile to not only survive, but seemingly thrive. You hadn’t realized how much your grip on Fenrys’s hand had tightened until your husband winced - but instead of pulling away, he lifted your hand to his lips. 

Pressing a gentle kiss to the back of your hand, Fenrys’s onyx eyes found yours, drawing you from those dark thoughts. “What is it, my love?” he asked, voice so soft you could melt into it.

You swallowed thickly, forbidding yourself from giving that spineless excuse for a man another look. Taking a deep breath, you pulled Fenrys in for a hug as you murmured your confession into his shirt. “You know my first love? Who sold me to Endovier? He’s here. In the blue jacket.”

Fenrys stiffened under your touch, fae instincts taking over as a low growl formed in his throat. You swore you felt the temperature in the room rise as your husband honed in on the man like a predator. 

“What do you want me to do?” he whispered, voice lethally quiet as he held you close.

Looking up, you couldn’t help the genuine smile that brightened your features as you savored the feeling of this male, who you knew would do anything for you. This male who gave you the love you never dreamed was possible. 

“I don’t want you to do anything. I have everything I need, and more,” you whispered back, standing up on your toes to pull him in for a kiss. 

Fenrys gave you a wolfish grin, seemingly satisfied with your answer before he dared to look back into the crowd. His gaze flicked to where Rowan stood on the dais, the two in silent communication, before Rowan declared court dismissed. 

“I have some matters to take care of with Rowan, and I will be back shortly. Alright, my love?” Fenrys questioned, a kiss to your temple before you nodded, heading back to the sitting room where Aelin and Lysandra shortly joined you.

Time passed as you relaxed, enjoying chocolates and discussing books with your friends when Rowan stumbled through the door, Fenrys behind him. The two males had blood staining their shirts, busted knuckles quickly healing as they noticed your concerned expression. 

Clearing his throat, Fenrys brushed his blonde hair from his face as he strode towards you in an attempt at acting nonchalant. 

“Fen, love, what did you do?” you drawled, arching an assessing brow as you sipped your tea. 

“Nothing. Rowan and I had some matters to attend to, as I said,” he shrugged, reaching for a chocolate from the table in front of you. Understanding dawned, and you gasped.

Reaching for his bloodied hand, you pulled it towards you as you examined the wounds. “Fenrys Moonbeam! You did not hit that man, did you? I don’t need to worry about him anymore, love.”

Rowan snorted from where he lounged on the arm of Aelin’s chair. “He didn’t just hit him,” Rowan paused, green eyes focusing on you with sincerity. “And trust me, you will not have to worry about him ever again.”

Alarmed, you glanced to Lysandra in disbelief, your friend shaking her head as she lifted a chocolate to her mouth. “I wouldn’t ask them to elaborate if I were you,” she muttered, popping the dessert with a satisfied moan.

Rubbing your temples, you stood, wrapping Fenrys’s arms around you as you buried your head against his warm, toned chest. 

“Are you mad?” he whispered.

With a deep sigh, you looked up, brushing back his blonde curls behind his ear as you admired his glittering black eyes, all anxiety leaving your body. “Officially speaking, I don’t condone your actions. But I love you, and whatever I did in some past life to deserve someone like you...” You trailed off, drawing the back of your hand down his cheek. “Thank you for giving me hope, Fenrys Moonbeam.”

[goryhorroor]

weird how these very american conservatives have issues with violent protests at college, but don't realize this country was built on them. there was the whiskey rebellion in 1791, the stamp act 1975 riots, knowles riot in 1747, liberty riot of 1768, pine tree riot of 1772, boston tea party (destroying property), the literal burning of the ship peggy stewart in 1774, and many many more. it's weird that this country was built on protests whether violent or not and these people getting angry at the violent protestors (and yes there's also peaceful protestors) don't realize the way america even became a country is because of these protests

[spacehippieface]

A monstrous tripod, higher than many houses, striding over the young pine trees, and smashing them aside in its career; a walking engine of glittering metal, striding now across the heather; articulate ropes of steel dangling from it, and the clattering tumult of its passage mingling with the riot of the thunder. A flash, and it came out vividly, heeling over one way with two feet in the air, to vanish and reappear almost instantly as it seemed, with the next flash, a hundred yards nearer. Can you imagine a milking stool tilted and bowled violently along the ground? That was the impression those instant flashes gave. But instead of a milking stool imagine it a great body of machinery on a tripod stand. [...]

Seen nearer, the Thing was incredibly strange, for it was no mere insensate machine driving on its way. Machine it was, with a ringing metallic pace, and long, flexible, glittering tentacles (one of which gripped a young pine tree) swinging and rattling about its strange body. It picked its road as it went striding along, and the brazen hood that surmounted it moved to and fro with the inevitable suggestion of a head looking about. Behind the main body was a huge mass of white metal like a gigantic fisherman’s basket, and puffs of green smoke squirted out from the joints of the limbs as the monster swept by me.

Let's talk tripods! Every artist and fiilmmaker has different interpretations of the fighting machines. It's not hard to picture a towering three-legged alien death machine, of course, Wells gives us a good picture of what they look like, but I want to go over a few depictions of them and compare them to his written description, in no particular order, because I think it's interesting, and I think WOTW might actually be a special interest:

Wells drew this one himself. It's a stick figure, of course, but this was how he pictured them. I especially like the little guy going "oo-er!" at the sight of it, almost in polite terror.

The BBC version. To me, this one owes a bit more to Transformers design-wise, and moves like the Cloverfield monster, like the MUTO, like a lot of giant monsters we've seen in recent years, terrestrial or otherwise. But they are still menacing, and they actually make a clear "aloo!" noise when calling to each other. I've got to give them that, even though the BBC screwed up the Martians, the cylinder, they kept going on about Russia, the whole "you can't marry her, you're already married to your cousin" bit. It was a mess.

The Edward Gorey illustrations. O is for Ogilvy, burned like the flag. P's for the Parson, oh, what a drag. Sorry. This is basically a flying saucer with legs. Bit silly,but the tentacles are there, and the legs aren't the stiff kind Wells hated. Which brings us to...

Warwick Goble's illustrations from the original publication of WOTW in Pearson's Magazine. Wells famously hated these so much that when WOTW was published as a book, he wrote a segment into the story ragging on these stiff-legged water tower tripods. I think Goble took the milking stool description too literally, his tripods are always drawn tilted.

The 2005 Spielberg tripod. Great. Massive. Scary. Everything is there. The tentacles, the Heat Ray arm (two even), the suggestion of a head, even the basket. Say what you want about this movie with its excessive amount of Tom Cruise and young Dakota Fanning screaming, but the tripods are fantastic. Damn near perfect even. I think Wells would be very pleased.

The 1953 design. I am very fond of these, they're a great classic sci-fi ship, but they're more akin to the flying machines than the tripods. The filmmakers try to loophole their way out by talking about invisible electrostatic legs (which you can see when the machines initially appear) but I'm pretty sure they went this route because the film was getting more and more expensive and the budget wouldn't extend to stop-motion for the legs. Still, a wonderful creation, the goose neck/cobra head design for the Heat Ray is a good touch and my god, the hissing, ticking noises these things made. Love them.

The Jeff Wayne musical design. My favourite. My beloved. My nightmare fuel. Totally iconic. I'm sure when most people think WOTW, their first thought is the legendary album cover featuring one of these monsters melting the Thunder Child's valiant heart. Doesn't make them book-accurate though. The Heat Ray is built into the chassis, it's all one unit rather than a separate head on a body, the basket was given to the handling machines, and they are stiff-legged in stills. But they're scary in motion, and their howls still give me the jibblies. OH GOD, THOSE HOWLS. Opening Horsell Common And The Heat Ray on the Highlights album with that scream isn't fair!

Henrique Alvim-Corrêa's illustrations for the Belgian publication, and Wells' favourites. The effects of the Heat Ray are chilling, and they're definitely sinister when there's a lot of them just standing there or coldly blasting humans. But I'm just not sold on those googly eyes, they make them goofier. Although when these designs were used for the War of the Worlds 1913 indie game (which I still need to play) the eyes were just blank. Redemption!

[lokisgoodgirl]

A Clandestine Christmas: Clandestine F*cks [Avenger! Loki x Fem.Reader]

Part of the Clandestine F*cks Collection Part of the Winter Warmers Collection A link to my Masterlist is HERE Summary: Off the back of a stunning festive revelation, Loki shows you a hidden room in Stark Tower. Warnings: 18+ Minors DNI. Smut. Language. Patchy historical references. Humour. (w/c 2.9k)

It was mid-December. The communal quarters of Stark Tower were being adorned furiously in winding wreaths of pine, gold ornaments flashing in the afternoon sun through the panoramic windows. You stood back from the tree in the corner, fluffing a branch absent-mindedly. You could hear the low conversation of the Asgardian brothers behind you, enjoying the rare hum of interaction untinged by sarcasm or pointed barbs. “...Stark said the belt he shall be fashioning for my Yuletide gift will be the perfect thing to contain my unrestrained godly manhood. A contingency if you decide once again to withdraw the phallus enchantment at a time which is of life or death importance.” You heard Loki scoff, as Thor continued. “You know... if it is necessary for critical missions. First dates and suchlike.”

Your lover made a sharp intake of breath, a scathing and very un-festive comment sure to follow. "Like a ladies sport brassiere, but for your ridiculous penis?" Loki goaded. You rolled your eyes, fluffing the branch a final time before turning to prevent the exchange escalating further. “-Guys, Morgan’s coming over later, so no talk about Santa being fake or anything alright?” Your intended audience remained silent. The brothers were perched at the breakfast bar; Thor enjoying a well earned break from helping assemble the decor ahead of tonight’s party. Your boyfriend, not so much. They were both dressed snugly in hand knitted jumpers, a gift from Scott's grandmother to the whole team. Thor’s was bright red, two candy-canes woven in a haphazard ‘T’. It was far too small for him, the weave stretching dangerously with every movement of his broad shoulders. It won’t last the night, you thought with a smile. Loki’s was a rich green, a sprig of holly resting on the tip of a white ‘L’ emblazoned garishly on his chest. It fit perfectly, because of course it did. The blonde’s face turned pale, his eyes widening. You noted his sudden panicked gaze shifting towards his brother, flicking through a magazine and munching carrot sticks. He showed no signs of interest. “Santa?” Thor mumbled, brushing invisible crumbs from the counter-top. You mean, Santa...Claus? ‘Sinterklaas’? ‘Der Weihnachtsmann’? ‘Père Noël’? ‘Noel...Baba’?” An awkward silence followed; your eyes narrowing as you regarded them with increasing suspicion. “That nonsense is still circulating this realm? How quaint.” Loki smirked, flipping the magazine closed and folding his arms on the counter. Thor grimaced, closing his eyes. “What do you mean?” you said, tilting your head. Loki's smile broadened, leaning forward on the counter-top, his beautiful eyes glinting. “My brother doesn’t like me talking about it. Top secret Asgardian business, you see.” He winked, tapping his nose.

Thor huffed, encircling a strand of bushy tinsel round his neck. “Well if you insist on being so forceful, Loki…” he said, resting his hands on his meaty hips. “Loki is at fault for this realm’s obsession with this ‘Santa Claus’. There, I said it.” “I invented him.” Loki said proudly, picking up another carrot stick. “You most certainly did not brother, he was invented by father and myself to prevent mass rioting within the realm at your hands.” The dark-god grimaced, rolling his eyes. “So dramatic, brother. It was just a bit of fun.” Thor toyed with the tinsel around his neck while Loki crunched the carrot elegantly poised between his thumb and forefinger. Seconds passed in silence. “So...is no one going to tell me what actually happened?” you said slowly, sliding on the barstool opposite the brothers. Thor opened his mouth, silenced by a sharp ba-ba-ba from his brother. “I think not. You will taint the glorious details of the original story with your bias.” Loki said between gritted teeth, turning back toward you with a renewed spark. “Bias...” Thor scoffed, throwing an end of tinsel over his shoulder like a scarf. Loki cleared his throat. “A while ago, my brother and I were spending some regrettable time on Midgard-” “-Father was tired of your childish antics, Loki. It was a time-out.” “Hush.” Loki sniped, rolling his eyes. "We were marooned in the old countries and I was feeling rather affronted by the whole situation and may have spun some yarns to a few curious children who passed our way in a moment of uncharacteristic bitterness.” “How long ago are we talking?” you said warily, as Loki’s smile grew. “About a fifteen hundred years, give or take.” he said coyly. Thor grimaced at the memory. “Loki told a group of naïve village youngsters that in several weeks hence, during the lowest point of winter; gifts would appear if they left their fathers boots outside their dwelling. A ridiculous notion.” “It was just a bit of fun.” your lover repeated innocently. “There was nothing else to do, and those little shits were asking for it. They made fun of my helmet.” “You intended to thieve the boots of those villagers, brother. Do not deny it.” Thor grunted, throwing you a knowing look. Loki huffed. “Well, regardless...by the time Thor found out, the rumour had spread so that every child within a hundred miles seemed to know about this miraculous benefaction and so action had to be taken... apparently.” “Father was furious, thanks to that brown-nose Heimdall.” Thor grimaced, the memory clearly etched deep. “He summoned us back to Asgard immediately-” “-and I was, naturally, delighted. It meant no more dreary, mirthless winter dearth on this sub-par terra.” Loki busied himself with a loose strand on the sleeve of his jumper, before looking up doe-eyed. “No offence, darling.”

“A lot has changed in a thousand years.” you quipped, seeing another smirk tug at his lips as you said it. “If you say so, my love.” he murmured, sarcasm hanging in the air like the scent of cinnamon as he snapped the rogue thread and made it vanish. Thor leant forward, his voice deepening as if recalling a battle tale. “Father demanded that Loki and I fulfil the oath we made to the children of the old country-” “It was no oath.” Loki snapped, jawline flashing in the glow of the twinkling lights surrounding you all. Thor chuckled incredulously, his eyes widening in disbelief at his brother’s selective memory. “Did you not swear to them by the Nine that it was true?” he said, raising his eyebrows. Loki folded his arms. “Potentially. But it was just a bit of fu-”

Thor waved a hand, silencing his brother’s protestations. “Father insisted that Loki fashion trinkets enough for a nation of children, it was...oh, thousands. You should have seen him, Y/N...tinkering away for ten whole days and nights using all manner of magic to fashion carved animals and rudimentary affectations.” Thor became glassy-eyed, his annoyance turning to nostalgia. Large hands grasped at memories of the presents, twirling the imagined items through his fingers; the twinkling lights from the tree reflecting in his wide, excited eyes. “Little dolls and hoops and boats, oh brother, do you remember the hours you spent in the palace workshops with only candlelight for companionship?” “And you, as I recall.” Loki said, his own indifference softening. “Not that you were much help.” Thor let out a pffft, shaking his head with a smile. “You know very well Father forbade me from assisting.” He swivelled on the barstool, facing you across the breakfast bar once more. “My role was to be more logistical, you see. Loki was to create the gifts, I was to deliver them.” “Deliver them?” you gasped, leaning forward in amazement. “Oh yes, Y/N.” Thor nodded solemnly. “But Father concocted a bit of a ruse. It was during the changing of the guard in terms of religion and all that malarky so we had to be...subtle.” “Clandestine.” Loki corrected seductively in your ear, his unexpected warm breath making you shiver. “Not my brother’s strong suit, darling.” You jumped as his hand slid around your waist, resting of your stomach. You hadn’t even seen him move from across the breakfast bar and circle behind you. His firm chest pressed against your back, feeling yourself melt against the rough wool of his jumper. Your eyes fluttered shut, before Thor cleared his throat. “Yes, well...enough of the old lore was in circulation that we couldn’t stir the metaphorical pot much to my dismay. Father was adamant. So Loki was in charge of disguising me in a more...unrecognisable form than my typical unique brand of perfection.” “Ruddy-cheeked and old and soft in the belly. And a wholly ridiculous beard.” Loki smirked against your cheek, his eyes trailing his brother’s face. “I may have used a certain someone for inspiration, considering his interference.” he purred, making you giggle. Thor huffed, “Like I said, unrecognisable brother.”

Loki kissed your cheek, his sultry tones entirely unnecessary to the situation. “There were too many gifts to manage in one trip through the bifrost, so we saddled a chariot to Sleipnir and one enchanted sack later, our plan was in motion.” Thor cleared his throat again, fiddling with the sleeves of his jumper as Loki’s kisses worked down your neck; a small whimper escaping your lips. “Delivery was rather swift if I do say so myself, minus one or two...setbacks.” the blonde muttered, as Loki erupted in a gruff snort of laughter against your skin. “Setbacks? You mean your clumsy attempt to gain access to ill-gotten snacks on your journeys through the Norwegian tundra?” Thor shrugged, pulling a thread from his chest. “I hear that in future years the people of the realm started leaving said snacks out in anticipation of such a need.” “Yes, brother. To avoid their dwelling being raided through any available opening. I mean really, that year how many chimneys did you find your festively plump arse entrapped in, brother? Seven? Any other fool would have stopped after the first. A ridiculous display.” Thor stood, his finger waggling in Loki’s direction. Your dark lover rested his chin on your shoulder, stooped flush against your back. The feeling of his warmth against you was one you never wanted to lose. A smile pressed against your cheeks as you bit your lip, Thor’s indignation in combination with his ridiculous sweater building a bubbling roll of laughter in your belly. “So...how many years did you do this?” you managed to choke, squeezing Loki’s arms tighter around your midriff. Thor shrugged. “Five or six...dozen, perhaps...and then the parents of this realm sort of, took over gradually. Good thing, too...the way it’s spread.” “Thank the Norns.” Loki huffed, burying his face in your hair. You could feel him sigh against your skin, inhaling your scent theatrically. Thor cleared his throat louder, averting his eyes from the sensual scene unfolding in front of him. “All this talk of snacks has found me rather peckish I’m going to...to…” Loki’s hands wandered, his thumb grazing the curve of your breast through your own initialled Christmas jumper. The world faded as Loki’s mouth found yours with a quiet groan, his tongue slipping between your parted lips. From beyond the haze, you heard the kitchen door swing shut as Thor departed. Alone, at last. “Come here” Loki growled, his eyelids heavy with simmering lust as he pulled you down from the stool. You giggled, casting a glance around the living room sparkling with festive cheer. The warm glow of fairy lights nestled in vibrant pine cast shadows on Loki’s features, the corner of his eyes creased with the same mischief tugging on his lips. God, how you loved him. He led you across the room towards an inconspicuous door you had always assumed was a closet, a small ‘No Entry’ sign placed centrally upon it. A wave of citrus and pine hit you as Loki turned the handle and opened the door, revealing a small but perfectly formed room. Soft lighting flooded the opening, the warm glow reminding you of a fireside. Rolls of festive wrapping paper hung on the walls, exquisite ribbons draping downward from spindles in fluttering splashes of gold, red and green. Neatly packed boxes of bows were stacked on shelves, divided by size and colour; labels and a selection of fountain pens lined perfectly against the wall on a solid mahogany desk.

You gasped, “Is this Pepper’s wrapping room? I thought it was a myth.” “Hidden in plain sight, darling.” Loki winked, pulling you inside and closing the door behind him with a soft click. His hands ran over your hips, manoeuvring your ass back against the solid desk. “Loki, we shouldn’t…” you murmured between his ravenous kisses, the words sounding even less convincing in the air than they did in your head. “Correct.” Loki growled, unzipping the side of your skirt with devastating slowness. “But when has that ever stopped us, my love?” The fabric slid down, pooling around your ankles. Loki’s fingers toyed at the waistband of your thick pantyhose, rolling them below your hips. You sat back on the desk, extending one leg as he slid the 200 denier down your thigh, raising your calf and placing a deep kiss on the bare skin. He did the same on the other side, his piercing gaze never leaving yours in the low light. You could feel a sea of wetness pooling in your panties, the need for him growing with every intentionally teasing touch of his fingertips. You crossed your arms across your chest, tugging the jumper upward. Loki pushed them gently down. “The festive sweaters stay on, love.” he purred with a wink. The god sank to his knees, widening your legs. He hummed, sliding a wide palm up your naked thigh and trailing a finger through your glistening folds. “Darling” he growled, “it’s been over a year, are you truly still this desperate for me?” Before you could answer, two fingers slid inside you; making your head fall back with a groan. “Yes, Loki” you gasped, as he pumped them firmly back and forth, his thumb circling your swollen clit. "Lucky me." he murmured, before his lips fastened to the centre of your desire. He lapped at the trail of sticky arousal smeared against your skin, caressing every crevice. Muffled approval rumbled in his throat as he slowly removed the fingers, his tongue delving deeper into the warm heat he craved. You grasped the sides of the desk, resting back on your elbows as you balanced your feet on his thick thighs. Loki shook his head gently back and forth, nose grazing downward as he pleasured every inch of you with whoreish abandon. Even his eyelashes would be wet. “God...baby, yes..y-es, f-fuck…” you sighed, feeling his fingers tighten around the soft flesh of your spread thighs. He suckled gently, wide strokes of his tongue rolled over your slit. You would never know how he could be so fucking good at this. A hand wound in his hair, pushing him deeper against your needy cunt. He growled, the vibration against your clit making you pulse. In a flash, he rolled you backwards, pushing your calves backward so you were completely exposed.

Flat on the table, you craned forward to watch his tongue work your pussy; every lick accompanied by a dark, delicious moan. His eyes were closed in blissful concentration, strands of long hair trailing against your bare skin. The furrow of his brow betrayed the lust you knew was straining against his trousers out of sight. He was always so fucking hard for you. So fucking hard for me, you thought; whimpering as you watched him work with your mouth open. Panting. Loki sucked your clit gently, sending jolts through your body, legs twitching. “Loki…” you keened, trying to thrust your hips upward. He chuckled against your plump lips, sucking them between his teeth in response. Your lover pulled them back gently, releasing them with a wet slurp. “Come in my mouth, goddess.” he whispered, placing another languishing lick up your centre.

Your head fell back against the desk with a thud, hands gripping the edge beneath you. Hot cum flooded Loki’s tongue, his moans of pleasure matching your own as you juddered like a dying thing beneath lingering suckles. You saw stars, murmurs of his name all you could muster as you felt a glow of seidr radiate from his body. He rose above you, his huge cock standing proudly up against the comically unsexy green sweater. You laughed, covering your mouth as he bent over your body; silencing your mirth with a hungry kiss. “You dare laugh at a god’s attire? How rude…” he purred playfully, running a hand down your thigh as you wrapped your legs around his waist, drawing him closer. You both groaned as he entered you, the veins of his thick manhood rippling across every inch of your channel, fizzing with post-orgasmic bliss. Your hands slid up his cheekbones, the perfect symmetry of his features dazzling as his face twitched with the need to thrust deeper. “Loki?” you murmured, making him pause. He looked down with concern, eyebrows slanting. “...I love you.” you said, as his features softened. “I love you too, my precious one.” he whispered, placing a kiss on your forehead as you thrust your hips upward; sheathing him to the hilt. He moaned loudly, a guttural grunt of your name. “F-fuck, darling…” he gasped, beginning to pump in and out of your soaking core. Every hit of his pelvis was magic, every pulse sending new sparks shooting through your blood. His hips met the backs of your open thighs with wet slaps, hot breath mixing with yours; the two of you panting in rhythm. Loki’s thrusts became sloppy as you tugged the back of his hair, a dark growl thundering in his chest as he buried his face in your cleavage hidden beneath the fuzzy jumper. “Do you want me to f-fill you Y/N?” he asked through staggered breaths. You nodded frantically, the angle of his heavenly cock making your back arch against the wood. “Will you ever tire of having your god’s seed..uhhh, yes...d-dripping down those exquisite t-thighs?” His voice quivered with the effort of forming words, the rhetorical question hanging in the air; buffeted between grunts and whines of feral desire. Loki tumbled over the precipice of orgasm with a deep moan as you squeezed your walls tight around his girth. He bottomed out as you rocked back and forth against his hips, feeling the thick slick of his cum spreading along his length before he collapsed against your chest. The sound of his heavy breaths filled the small space, your heart soaring as he raised his chin to rest above your heart. “You are my everything, darling.” he whispered, placing a kiss on your parted lips before sliding out of your pussy and waving his hand. The familiar feeling of his magic rolled up your lower body as he made both of you presentable once more. “Now remember, you don’t know this place exists – alright?” he winked, helping you down from the desk. You brushed a strand of tinsel from his chest, your fingers lingering on the firmness snug beneath the garish festive sweater. You took the few steps over to the door, opening it a crack and peering out to make sure the coast was clear. “Shit.” you whispered, whipping back to Loki with a wide-eyed stare. The door swung open. “Pepper can never know about this.” Tony said gruffly.

His eyebrows rose sceptically as he stood with his arms folded, resting against the sofa.

You and Loki looked at each other, as a smirk curled the corner of Tony’s mouth. “Honestly, how you guys got away with this shit for as long as you did is beyond me. Maybe you’ve lost your touch.” A burning heat spread over your cheeks, hearing Loki chuckle incredulously beside you. "We were simply..." he began, promptly cut off.

"-I think that particular ship has sailed, folks." Tony sighed, pushing himself away from the sofa. "Sailed and sunk. The SS Sinking Sluts..."

You pursed your lips, as Tony straightened. “Just do me a favour, Laufeyson...make sure you didn’t leave a present of your own in there." he murmured theatrically. "I could handle Steve and the car with the whole racoon business- but Pepper...?” Tony pointed knowingly at your lover before spinning on his heels, walking leisurely towards the door as Loki rolled his eyes. “No Asgardian stuffing on my wife’s ribbons, Laufeyson. Check it once, then check it twice. That’s an order.” he shouted with a casual wave, before disappearing around the corner.

A/N: Thank you @lokischambermaid for concocting the intricacies of Thor's 'magic' belt with me🤣 @lady-rose-moon @gigglingtigger @holymultiplefandomsbatman @muddyorbsblr @xorpsbane @lokikissesmyforehead @simplyholl @fictive-sl0th @ijuststareatstuffhereok89 @loopsisloops @thedistractedagglomeration @loveroflokiforpoeticjustice @123forgottherest @joyful-enchantress @sititran @jaidenhawke @silverfire475 @mrsbarnes32557038 @michelleleewise @vbecker10 @imalovernotahater @thomase1 @morriggannlostinfandoms @ladylovesloki @marygoddessofmischief @ravenwings73 @filthyhiddles @peacefulpianist @maple-seed @yelkmelk @wheredafandomat @mistress-ofmagic @five-miles-over @goblingirlsarah @ozymdias @peaches1958 @your-taste-on-my-lips @lokisgirll @lokidokieokie @kikster606 @peachyjinx @peachyymallows @soldeloki @tbhiddlestan83 @trickster-maiden @trojanaurora @ladyofthestayingpower

[bluestar22x]

Finding Eden: Chapter 1

Summary: Zach stumbles upon you under attack

Pairing: Zach Wellison x F!Reader

Rating: 18+

Warnings: Attempted sexual assault, violence, death, fowl language

Word Count: 2,300(ish)

Author's Note: I've watched all of Zach's scenes and I'm very excited to take my shot at writing his character. I've enjoyed the fics I've read based on him.

xxx

October 2017 (4 years after the end of the war)

Seated on the recently fallen trunk of an old pine tree Zach Wellison struck another line down on a mostly empty page in the leather bound journal he had spread out on his lap.

Fifty-two days.

He'd traveled a thousand miles on foot through rough terrain in under two months. Not bad.

He closed the journal with one hand and chucked it into the backpack leaning against his right leg along with the black ink pen he'd been using before standing up.

"Time to get back at it," he announced, throwing the pack over his right shoulder and snatching up the semi automatic shotgun that was to his left. He turned in place, glancing down at the large but lean tawny mass that had been lying at his feet and patted his thigh. "Athena, volg rechts [heel]!"

The mass stood, shaking off a red leaf that had swooped down onto her back while she'd been waiting for him and she barked happily before obeying, eagerly stepping into her spot by his side.

He patted her head gently, just above the dark mask that covered her face and he headed north, towards a far way destination he wasn't even sure actually existed.

At least it gave him a goal. Something to encourage him to continue placing one foot in front of the other.

There wasn't much left in the world that could do that anymore. Everyone he'd known before the war was either dead or missing, and he'd been forced to abandon society only a year after the riots had begun.

A motorhome parked in a secluded area in the Sierra Nevada mountains had become his after that for a long time, until a friendly drifter had informed him of a new city being formed in Alaska that was promising a return to before, but better.

Eden. Even the name made it sound too good to be true, but the drifter had insisted it was real, and had a map on him that he claimed he'd been given by a recruiter for the city. A map that marked where the city was.

A map that was now heavy in the front right pocket of Zach's faded and torn up light blue jeans.

With long, purposeful strides he carefully picked his path through the serene forest, eyes always searching, ears always listening.

As beautiful as his surroundings were, with colorful leaves and moss covered rocks everywhere, with nothing but the bright chirps of sparrows filling the air, Zach's old military training always kicked in when he was on the move.

When everything felt safe, too safe, that was when he was most alert.

Though he had Athena by his side and a shotgun hanging by a strap over his left shoulder, being without a comrade, someone to talk to and rely on, was making him wary, like an enemy could be just around a tree at any moment.

They could be, but it wasn't likely. More likely was a big ol' brown bear beating him down for being in their territory, which wasn't anymore appealing to him and equally deserved his hypervigilance as far as he was concerned.

Though he hadn't seen another person for almost a full week, it was actually humans who he ended up stumbling upon an hour into his hike that day.

He heard them before he saw them, so unlike any of the usual inhabitants of the northwestern wilderness.

There were indistinctive shouts from two men, and a sharp protesting cry from a woman in the distance.

A part of Zach, the survivor, wanted to move off away from the noise but the stronger part, the one that had naively signed up to fight a war in the Middle East, had him rushing towards it.

He hid behind trees as he made his way towards them, the barrel of his shotgun in the palm of his hand and his index finger pressed alongside the trigger.

Peering out from behind a thick copse of young deciduous trees he spotted them. Two middle aged men, both of larger statures than his, were hovering over you. You were down on the ground, propped up on your elbows. You looked disheveled, dark red long sleeved shirt partially torn at the shoulder seam, jaw clenched, eyes furious. Even in that state Zach couldn't help but notice your beauty.

"Over my dead body," you spat.

"That can be arranged," the oldest of the two men told you, mouth twisting into a sick grin that could easily be seen despite the wild beard he sported. "But I'd rather have you while you're still fighting. More fun that way."

Zach felt his stomach churn at the words and he jutted his jaw out. The two older men's intentions couldn't be more clear, especially as they started to close in on you like the two predators they were.

He had numbed, to some extent, to many different kinds of violence over the course of his adult life, but one of the kinds Zach had not grown a tolerance for was this.

When the slightly younger man forcibly shoved you against the ground by your shoulders and the older man knelt beside you to reach for the button of your jeans as you struggled against his companion, Zach took action, precisely aiming his shotgun and firing twice in quick succession.

The bullets hit both their targets, the center of each of the mens' heads - if they could be called men.

Their bodies collapsed limply on top of you and you screamed. You wiggled your way out from underneath them quickly, an expression of disgust on your face as you scrambled to your feet.

"Who's out there?" you shouted demandingly, obviously trying to sound commanding, but failing on the delivery due to your nerves.

Zach had two options. He could slink away unnoticed or he could reveal himself to you and risk a confrontation.

Typically he'd choose the former, but you were alone and apparently unarmed, what would be the harm?

He slowly stepped forward into view with his arms raised over his head and Athena loyally stuck by his side, looking up at his face for direction.

"Stay right there," you ordered him, eyes scanning his body up and down, analyzing his appearance. Though a person's looks could be deceiving, a lot of the time that's all people had to go off of before making decisions in this world.

Zach knew you didn't have the weapons to back your demands up but he listened to you anyway, not wanting to come off as pushy. "I'm not a threat."

You huffed and nodded at the bodies at your feet. "They said the same thing."

"I didn't shoot them to save you for myself," Zach promised. "I just couldn't let them do that to you."

Your eyes darted away from his for only a moment, but it was long enough for him to tell that knowing he witnessed their attempt bothered you. He may not have known you then, but he hated seeing it on your face. Embarrassment. Of all things.

"Thanks."

"You're welcome," he said, "But any half decent person would've done the same."

"There's not many of those left," you pronounced.

"I know. I'm Zach, by the way. Zach Wellison."

You stated your name hesitantly, then gestured at Athena. "What's hers?"

He answered and you smiled a little. "The goddess of warfare. Fitting for the current state of the world."

"She is a veteran of the third world war," he informed you.

"And are you?" you asked, nodding at the black inked marine corps tattoo on his upper right arm that was partially peeking out from under the sleeve of his t-shirt.

He shook his head. "Afghanistan. Even if I'd wanted to fight in another war, they wouldn't have had me."

"PTSD?" you guessed. "My father was a marine vet too. Vietnam. Fireworks across town would have him flying out of bed and reaching for a gun that was no longer there."

"That's just good training," Zach argued. "You can take the soldier out of the war zone, but you can't take their training out of them."

He could see you visibly relaxing as the conversation went on, trust being built on his honestly and on the veteran status he shared with your father. Maybe Athena being there had something to do with it too.

"Can I pet her?" you inquired, glancing back down at the dog.

"Sure," he replied. Athena was fairly friendly when she wasn't taking commands. He knew she would be alright with you touching her as long as he was.

You approached Athena confidently but not too quickly, squatting before her to rub her cheek, making sure not to go over her head.

"You know reactive dogs?" Zach quizzed. Most people would've petted a dog on top of the head, no matter if it was their first interaction or not, which was fine for most dogs, but for some it would be seen as a threat.

"My father owned a retired army K-9, a German Shepherd," you explained. "He wasn't as great with strangers as Athena here. He tolerated me though. Athena's a Belgian Malinois, right?"

Zach nodded. "She is. I didn't adopt her from the army though. I inherited her from a friend."

Your expression turned solemn but you didn't say sorry and he appreciated it. It was pointless. Most people had lost all or most of their family and friends during the past several years and as far as he was concerned those two words were far too meager to soothe any of that kind of pain away.

After a few seconds of silence you stood back up and walked over to the dead men to collect a couple knives from their jacket pockets and a glock. "Mine," you said when you noticed him watching you add them to your person. "I ran into these guys yesterday afternoon and I thought we'd parted on friendly terms after trading some items, but turned out they trailed me after. Sneaked up on me while I was having a nap and stole my weapons then...well, you know the rest."

"What are you doing out here all alone?" Zach asked. It wasn't a smart move for a woman to choose to be alone in these times. Equals or not, the reality was that many men were physically stronger than a woman like you and would try to take advantage of it. Those two men would only be the first.

"I was traveling with my younger cousin and his wife," you responded bitterly, "But they had the brilliant idea of trying to steal a car from one of the old settlements the government set up and I couldn't convince them to not go through with their plan. They were both shot on sight by a pair of former policemen patrolling the outside of it. I managed to flee before they saw me.” You tilted your chin up at him. "You?"

"I was traveling with Athena's previous owner, Micah," he answered. "He got bit by a rattlesnake last month. There was no anti-venom at the abandoned hospital we tried raiding after."

"Awful way to go," you murmured, eyes downcast.

"It was." The memories of Micah's final hours had haunted Zach for many restless nights. Though he hadn't known Micah long, they'd become good friends in that time and he'd felt painfully helpless watching the other man swell up and die suffocating, all from a tiny bite he'd incurred because he noticed a snake a little too late.

Zach thought he should've known better, but that was the human condition, right? Everyone needs a connection, even if that means getting hurt when it is lost.

And for that reason, he was driven to make the same mistake again. "Do you wanna travel together?"

If your ears could've perked up like a dog's, they would have. "Where are you headed?"

"Some place in Alaska," he replied. "Micah's idea. There's supposed to be a new city forming up there called Eden. Supposed to be safe."

"I've heard of it," you told him. "It's fiction."

"Micah swore it wasn't," Zach said, pulling the map of Alaska out of his pocket and unfolding it to show you a circled area on it. "He claimed a guy from the place gave him this."

You pursed your lips. "It could be a trap."

"That's a stretch."

"So is this being real," you retorted, pointing at that circled part of the map.

Zach shrugged. "I'm not forcing you to come, but it's not like you have anything better to do, am I right?"

You sighed and kicked up some dead leaves that were by your booted feet. "You're right. Besides, even if it doesn't exist, Alaska in itself is an eden. Supposed to have the lowest violence in the states due to the isolation."

Zach had heard that too, on the news just before the violence in Los Angeles got too bad for the newscasters and reporters to do their jobs. He was sure it hadn't changed. Alaska's environment was tough, especially during the frigid cold winters. Most people wouldn't hack it up there or wouldn't want to.

"How are you planning to get into Canada?" you questioned.

It was a good one. Canada's border patrol was no joke since the last world war, and since they were traveling by foot crossing the country was the only way to get to their destination.

"Like many people trying to escape into a country different from their own," he informed you. "Going to cross late at night and book it to the nearest mountains."

"Sounds fun," you said, a hint of sarcasm in your tone.

Zach grinned. "Yeah, that's why all the cool people are doin' it."

"Well, if they're cool..."

"Is that a yes?"

You gave him a nod. "Let me find my backpack and you can take the lead, Mr. Cartographer."

"Sure thing."

He helped you search for your pack, finding it tossed behind a spruce tree a few feet away, and then you both began your journey, Athena keeping pace between you.

Neither of you truly had an inkling of what you were getting yourselves into.

xxx

Note: Volg Rechts is "heel" in Dutch. The US police and military tend to use commands in either German or Dutch by tradition since many of their dogs were trained in those countries.

xxx

Tagged: @harriedandharassed @morallyinept

xxx

Series Masterlist

Main Masterlist

xxx

[astro-b-o-y-d]

Bill: Haha, yeah, I like the entire Pines family. Ford's my best buddy ever, Mabel's an absolute riot, Stanley...well, he punched me to death, but still, what a guy! And then there's- Bill: Dipper: Bill: Dipper: You don't actually know my name, do you? Bill: Of course I do! It's...Pine Tr- Dipper: It's not Pine Tree.

[piper-mcqueen-ask-blog]

Lost Trio/ Hunger Games Victors au

Details under the cut for y’all that wanna hear my ironic and parallel backstories and how they won [TRIGGER WARNING]:

Leo: He's from District 2 [Masonry and Weapons manufacturing] and his arena in the Hunger Games was an active volcano sight. The cornucopia was really just the ring of the volcano. He paired up with a girl called Hazel from District 12 [Mining and coal] for a little while until she was buried underground after an earthquake. Leo's shoulder was burned badly from the first eruption and he lost all hearing in his left ear. The other Tribute from District 2 was a career named Nyssa, who was stabbed in the back by Silena [District 1, Luxury].

He disassembled the mines where the Tributes start and skirted around planting them in peoples hideouts while they fought each other. He also rolled them down the side of the volcano onto the Careers pack led by Octavian, who killed the girl from his district, Gwen, less than a day into the Games. Leo blew up fifteen people and a guy called Beckendorf, who saw the trap and stayed by the bomb anyway until Leo set them all off and won The Hunger Games.

Jason [+Thalia]: He is part of the only family to have two Victors.

Thalia Grace won her games years before by leading the careers pack. Her Games became famous as the last eight Tributes were all female. This is because she and the female careers killed most of the male Tributes. The boy she came with, Luke, stepped off his platform before the Games started in protest towards the Capitol. Her arena flooded after a dam burst and she climbed a pine tree to escape. There were electric eels in the water that killed her ally, Percy [District 4]. Percy had killed a girl from District 12, Bianca, and his death left Thalia the soul survivor.

Jason is a Tribute from District 5 [power and electricity] who was dragged into the Careers pack until it fell apart a day into the Games. This was because his Arena was a desert without food or water that pushed Tributes back into the centre using electric storms and rabid animals. He allied with a boy called Frank, and Reyna, who was from his District, until she was impaled by one of the cacti that burst from the ground spontaneously. There were riots in District 5 when she died. Jason and Frank buried her in the sand. The boys were driven to caves in the dunes by a lightning storm that wiped out a lot of Tributes, including Dakota, who went made halfway through the Games.

Mutts cornered them in the cave. Frank got rabies from a bear hybrid and Jason got it from him after Frank chewed off his arm. He killed Frank and the rest of the wolf mutts. He then ripped apart three other Tributes and lost half his other arm. He was eventually knocked out by a brick thrown by Hylla, who came with Reyna. Hylla died of blood loss, as Jason had bitten her throat. He fell into a coma and was awoken as Victor four hours later.

Jason sustained permanent amnesia and remembered nothing.

Piper: Piper is from District 1 [Luxury]. She is a Career and it was rumoured that her father, who was in a position of power in the Capitol at that time, rigged the Reaping. No enquiries were made, and Piper went through to the Games.

She was part of a quarter quell.

All of the Tributes had had a sibling die in another Game.

This changed the one boy one girl rule. Piper and Drew went in together, as Silena had been attacked by a Mutt snake the year before in an arena based of the Capitol city. Before they got into the Arena, Piper allied with a boy from District 12 called Nico and Clarisse from District 2.

There was a reference to each dead sibling in the Arena, which meant random terrain, a lot unhinged animals, and freakish natural disasters. If a sibling had been killed by another Tribute, it was still worked into the Arena.

A boy called Harley was blown up by a landmine, as well as Connor. His brother Travis was dragged into a pit by a flock of birds that latched onto his feet. He didn't come back out. Castor ran through a lightning storm until he reached the Cornucopia, where Piper had set up base after Drew was dissolved in a lake of acid that Piper had pushed her into. More Tributes gathered at the Cornucopia as ally's. Nico had stabbed a blind boy called Tyson with a trident that he'd been sent into the Arena holding, and then Clarisse was taken down by a pack of mutts with rabies. She killed six of them with her bare hands until the GameMakers had to send more in and one of the mutt snakes got her in the heart.

Piper filled up everyone's water bottles with the acid.

She killed seven of them that way.

Piper slit Annabeth's throat herself, with a jagged bone sword that Annabeth had been sent up with. Her brother Malcom's bones had been torn out by Will, the victor of those games, who was sent in again for the quarter quell with a Trident matching Nico's. Will drank the acid on purpose.

Finally Nico requested to be buried in the dirt after he asked to be killed with the trident. He wanted to die like both of his sisters. There were riots in District 12 after Piper obliged. All three of the mayors children had died in the games.

Piper won her games and went to the capitol afterwards, where she had a string of fancy lovers.

[caltropspress]

DISPATCHES FROM 2ND ST. STUDIOS: Fatboi Sharif & DRIVEBY in session

I went to DRIVEBY’s apartment in Jersey City because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of documenting musical exxxprrrimentation, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I knew witnessing Fatboi Sharif in the studio would be morbidly rewarding—I felt it in my critik’s skull-and-crossbones (memento mori, pirate flag, poison pictogram). It was New Year’s Day in the year of our Lord Have Mercy 2024, and I had to pull myself away from a tree documentary that had, sadly, begun to disappoint. I had opened a stocking-stuffed box of Goobers and was reluctant when Sharif sent the invitational text. I had settled in for the night. But it was my idea to watch the man work his black magikal esoterika hammer-don’t-hurt-them-witches recording session, so I’d be a real punk to rebuff the offer. I got into the Toyota and headed down Route 3 toward Jersey City. I was on the 1&9 in no time—the truest highway to hell, if one ever existed. Ate de Jong could never scout such a location. AC/DC roadside appliance wasteland. Potholes pave the way, but in a De Nah Soul manner. I finished eating the Goobers in the car, by the palmful, and lost one to an erratic lane merge. I motherfucked and shitted at the thought of a chocolate stain on my upholstered driver’s seat, or worse, the seat of my pants. My dad delivered Blimpie’s for thirty-plus years in Jersey City, long before it became Brooklyn-of-the-West, so I know parking spots there are at a never-dream-of-’em premium. I parked several blocks away from DRIVEBY’s studio and cloven-hoofed it while huffing brick air. Texted from outside, but Sharif was already ushering me through a wrought-iron gate (suitable for guttings and impalements) and into the basement apartment: DRIVEBY’s 2nd St. Studios. That gate was like an entrance into a secret garden—overblown and overflowin’ with a riot of root rot, weeds, and (of course) crumbling-but-still-grumbling gargoyles, most with the medieval motif of mooning jutting out from the church buttresses. DRIVEBY’s had a William Shatner’s TekWorld comic next to his speaker. Dusty keyboards lined the floor. Sega Genesis cartridges, a Sharp boombox, and the requisite vinyl collection on bowing crates completed the scene. The space stored antiquated and dead media—ghost machines humming and haunting.

⤧

Sharif told me he’d be recording some tracks for his upcoming album with Blockhead, something for Bigg Jus, and several features. When I arrived, he was in the middle of recording one of the Blockhead tracks. The mic and the iso shield were directly inside the door of the apartment, and I sat on the couch to the left of that. Sharif would be spitting at me, beyond me, as he did his thing—an intimate setting, to say the very least. Beans of Antipop Consortium sat on this same cushion months earlier, I thought. They recorded “Sex With the Leopard Print Lady” here. While I pondered the legacy of stylist berzerkers of past and present, Key & Peele played on the television in front of me. I wanted to make myself scarce, invisible as possible, Brundlefly-on-the-wall, non-participatory, so I watched the “Laron Can’t Laugh” sketch on mute and registered how Laron’s noiseless convulsions and eventual shriek expertly pantomimed Sharif’s vocals. These layers of silence allowed me to hear some of what Sharif was spewing forth and commit it to memory. He spoke of avenging the death of Candyman. The words loom like Tony Todd—tall as a ponderosa pine in a Cabrini-Green courtyard. Caroline crossed eyelids…90 degree pressure… Closing in on 400 degreez, but we’re talking below zero. The winter of our disconnected selves. Sharif tells DRIVEBY he wants his voice to sound “fucked up.” He’s snorting, super sinusy. He wants to cultivate a specific sound—it coats the inner concavities of his skull. He just needs to externalize it into a self-portrait in a convex DAW interface. “The soul establishes itself,” John Ashbery writes. Sharif is shoeless, I should add. He’s black socked as he cuts the song’s first of three adlib tracks. The first is completely muddled, barely audible—a grumbly grumble grumb. The second is a helium-huffed high pitch mania. The third, a yell—“the banshee,” as DRIVEBY calls it. Sharif slackens the headphone wires and walks across the room. He does “the banshee” from as great a distance as possible. You’ve no doubt heard the banshee adlib track before (B.A.T. for short, as in, the hematophagic vampire bat). If you’ve heard a Fatboi Sharif recording, you’ve likely heard a hotly desperate and deranged voice coming from the depths of a hellmouth—sinners swallowed and still writhing, quasi-alive, anticipating rigor mortis. DRIVEBY captures the natural reverb. Sharif asks him to put distortion and echo on the last word of the verse. 

⤧

Fatboi Sharif was reading lyrics off his phone, but by then he was Loosifa loose—engaging me, inviting me to dialogue, reveling in the job.  His feet are light and nimble, like McCarthy’s Judge. He says that he will never die. And, you bet, he dances in light and in shadow. He’s a craftsman and possesses an engineer’s ear, an ant-infested and severed one he probably plucked from a manicured lawn in Scotch Plains, NJ, Jeffrey Beaumont style. For the second verse of the song, he makes an alteration and decides to end the verse earlier than he had written it, stopping at the phrase “role model” because he likes the “swing of it.” Okay, Nuke Hellington. I see you, Benny Badman. A natural performer, the recording session reflects both technical know-how and impassioned delivery. He doesn’t quite lose himself as he does on the stage (or the audience floor where he so often ends up), but he’s unequivocally locked in, as he kids say. Locked in a room with padded walls, more apropos. On the next, he requires a seemingly endless run of retakes. I begin to wonder if my presence is a burden, a distraction. But the session keeps its devil-may-care air intact. Still, Sharif has a sonic vision he yearns to achieve. He won’t settle for less. He eventually gets the take he desires and tells DRIVEBY he’s gonna do three adlibs. These two men work in harmony to develop their songs of disharmony. They’ve been boys, and so that keeps the chemistry alchemical for the duration. Open and honest, DRIVEBY tells Sharif that three tracks of adlibs is “too many.” FUCK THAT! Sharif shouts at him. Sharif wants the adlibs to sound beneath everything—six-feet deep, or “buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways” (unexpressed emotions, that is), as Freud or a Freud-fraud once wrote. Sharif wants echoes. He wants to sound like he’s a signal coming in and out of the radio as you drive through the night. These are the requests he makes, delicately selected from his mental doom board as DRIVEBY adjusts the mix, adds effects. “Do you do a lot of vocal mixing on the spot?” I ask. Sharif shakes his head, points to DRIVEBY slumped over his computer monitor, clicking and dragging, random access memory maybe lagging: “He’s on his Bob Power shit.” Listening to the playback, Sharif tells me he wants to be like Joker in the children’s hospital scene. What kinda clown carries a fuckin’ gun?! I’m waiting for the next Sharif release, crossing my fingers into an arthritic mass of flesh and bone in hopes of his cover of “If You’re Happy and You Know It” appearing on the tracklist. 

⤧

DRIVEBY puts Joker on the TV. It’s the bus scene; he can’t stop laughing. He hands a fellow passenger his card: Forgive my Laughter: I have a Condition. Sharif still sleeps to beats. He’s told this story numerous times to various media outlets, and so it’s beginning to take on the tone of lore. But it’s not. Even wilder, he’s not listening on headphones as he sleeps; he blasts the beats on speakers. Sharif prefers to record late, well into the wee hours of morning. DRIVEBY’s couch often becomes Sharif’s bed. “He’ll have the same beat on for five hours,” DRIVEBY explains. He’ll be in his bedroom, unable to sleep. Sharif grins and tells me, “That’s when I’m in the mindfuck.” Sharif reapproaches the mic. Another Blockhead track. “He told me he made this one especially for me,” Sharif says. The beat sounds like a Gregorian chant in a cavern. Beware of the Shroom Monster. Sharif has managed to amass an intimidating number of releases over the past several years while not indulging us to excess. He’s conservative with his run-times. Clocks ain’t shit to him. Many of his projects are EP-length, but categorizing them in any terms would seem to discredit his ingenuity. As the session unofficially ends and we settle into more casual conversation, Sharif implores DRIVEBY to play selections from their unreleased album, currently on ice like a corpse. I listen and hear of an exorcism of Antoinette, of Elvira and death resurrections, of Basquiat painting in Transylvania, crossroads, and plosive sonic samples from The Pagemaster—a film I have absolutely no recollection of but DRIVEBY speaks almost as highly of as his Fantastic Damage instrumental CD-R. OneShotOnce shows up, presumably for a session, but not before he and Sharif pillage DRIVEBY’s fridge. They feast on cold chicken while I gather myself to leave. 

Images: Astronomical table detail from the Almanach Purpetuum of Abraham Zacuto (c. 1500)

[a-world-of-whimsy-5]

Destined

Pairing: Medieval! Oromë x Fem. Reader ( Ward of the Crown | Second Person POV)

Themes: Medieval! Ainur | Slow burn | Smut (Lemon)| Soft

Warnings: Arranged marriage | Use of a dagger during the wedding ceremony | Blood | Alcohol consumption | Mentions of injuries | First time | Kissing | Foreplay | Some explicit language | Oral (fem receiving) | Penetrative sex | Cream pie

Word count: 4.6k words

Summary: It was an arranged marriage to the lord of High Tree Hall and Hunter’s Pass, a man of little words, one who was known to be as wild as the forests and deep passes he ruled over. How would he conduct himself on his wedding night?

Rating:🔥🔥 | Minors DNI | 18+ You are responsible for the media you consume. 

Full list of the great noble house of Valinor can be read here.

Rules and tag form here | Prompts for requests here.

It was the height of summer; the air was warm and balmy, and the wind blew in hot even though it was near evenfall. Still, it was glorious. The air was sweet with the scents of wildflowers and pine. The sky was a vivid kaleidoscope of gold and yellow and orange and even pink when the minstrels called at your door.

You were given the finest guest manse on the grounds. Oromë would have preferred to have you housed within High Tree itself, but custom decreed the procession. And that he not see you until the ceremony. 

Your chambers were a hive of activity. Maids rushed to and fro with dresses and shoes and flowers plucked fresh from a nearby meadow, taking great care when laying them out over the bed while you bathed and dressed and fixed your hair. Jewels caught the light of nearby candles and gleamed against your throat and ears and wrists. 

"Are you ready, lady y/n?" Lady Nessa said when she arrived to escort you to the Great Hall and your soon-to-be husband. 

You turned away from a silvered looking glass to face her. "As ready as I will ever be."

Nessa smiled and stood by your side while a maid helped you with the final touches for your dress, fixing your skirt and straightening your veil. Another helped drape a heavy cloak around your shoulders. At the appointed hour, you took your soon-to-be good-sister’s arm and let her lead you from your chambers.

By the time you had stepped out into the light, the horizon had turned into a slow burning ember. Deep blue and purple and black now bled into fiery red and orange. The first stars shone brightly overhead even as the sun slowly dipped beneath the tree line. Over you was a canopy of deep green velvet, richly embroidered with black thread, held up by several pages. Minstrels walked ahead, playing viols, flutes and drums and even trumpets while another page sprinkled white rose petals along the path. Beautiful lamps affixed to the low-hanging branches of nearby trees lit the way. 

The splendor of the moment did nothing to detract from the fact that life in High Tree Hall was nowhere as elegant and luxurious as life at Ilmarin, where the gardens were all neat and well-tended and the white marble halls were a riot of color due to the stained glass windows catching the sun’s glorious light. Here there were gnarled trees and ponds and flowers growing wild all over. The manses were built out of rough-hewn stone and mortar and thick wooden bark. The people that lived here were said to be as wild as their lord. 

Their lord. Oromë was liege lord of Hunter’s Pass and master of High Tree Hall. He had been in need of a wife and had asked the king for your hand after seeing you taking a turn in Ilmarin’s gardens not even half a year ago. After your father disgraced himself as a traitor, Eru stood in his place now. He was able to dispose of your hand to whomever he wished. And you could not say a word in protest. 

"My brother is eager to see you again." Nessa smiled. You dared to glance at her. Until a little while ago, it was Nessa who served as Lady of High Tree Hall. After tonight, that great honor would fall on you. If the lady had been bitter about her change in station, she didn’t show it. "He nearly dug a trench in the great hall by pacing about for what seemed like hours. He is that eager for the ceremony to begin." 

Eager to see me? Cannot wait for the ceremony to begin? You wrinkled your brow in confusion. Oromë barely spoke with you. He did not court you, or bring you little tokens. You could count with the fingers of one hand the number of times he had called on you, and that too only when the king was present. His letters, such as they were, had been brief, and few and far between. 

Nessa looked on expectantly, awaiting your answer. 

"I pray I will be a good wife to him," you say hesitantly. 

Nessa gave your arm a gentle squeeze. "Just as my brother prays to be a good husband to you."

You were not so sure. Oromë was known for his many passions and his wrath, and you felt wholly unprepared. Oh, your mother did talk to you upon your flowering many and more years ago, and of course you had listened to the scandalous chatter amongst the maids. Still, hearing talk of the marital act and actually having to go through with it were two different things altogether.

Will he be gentle, even a little? You wondered. Will he treat me with a kind heart and a tender hand?

The music slowly faded when the great doors of High Tree Hall loomed ahead, and the guards threw them open for the king himself. Eru had been resplendent this evenfall, garbed in black velvet slashed with cloth of gold. A heavy gold chain of linked flames had been draped loosely around his shoulders. His crown, an airy confection wrought out of a rare black metal and studded with emeralds, rested upon his brow.

"My lady y/n," he said and bowed respectfully, before extending his arm. "Shall we go in?"

Nessa gave your arm another gentle squeeze before dipping gracefully to her knees. "My king," she murmured, and rose. "My brother awaits you both."

You swallowed and looped your arm around the king’s, your eyes on Nessa’s retreating back the entire time. A blare of trumpets sounded, and you walked in time with the king. Minstrels took up their instruments again, and this time, a sweet, haunting air filled the great hall while a hush fell over the guests. Your gaze went straight to the proud lord standing by the roots of the great Silverwood tree that stood in the center of the feasting hall.

Oromë cut a striking figure. Tall and lean and fierce, with his thick black hair pulled back into a neat bun, he stood out from all of the others. He had been garbed in hunting clothes—all high boots and leather and light mail and soft wool. Heavy enameled green pins depicting a mounted archer in black fastened a thick pelt at the shoulders. A thin scar ran from brow to jaw, barely missing his right eye.  You took a deep breath and tried not to pay any attention to the guests looking at you. Their looks had been kind, but still, the attention was more than a little unnerving. When you looked back at the tree, you found Oromë looking right back at you. The beginnings of a smile played at the corners of his mouth. A warm flush crept up your throat when you reached the tree and the priestess who would join the two of you together, and Eru placed your hand on Oromë’s.

The ceremony itself passed like a blur. You listened to what was said, and said your portion of the vows. At one point, you could have sworn Oromë gave your hand a gentle squeeze. The priestess then unsheathed a sharp dagger and asked you to hold out your hand, palm facing up. The blade barely pierced the skin, but it still hurt. You watched while she did the same for your new husband. She then joined your hands and bound them with a new ribbon. You watched, enthralled, as your blood and his mingled and trickled, staining the thin strip of white silk a deep, deep, crimson.

"One body!" The priestess then declared to the crowd. "One heart! One soul! Bound as one in the sights of Gods and men! Cursed be they who try to tear them asunder!"

As her words rippled around the great hall, Oromë pulled you close and kissed you deeply. You had expected something that was rough and quick, but when his mouth opened yours, it was in a kiss that was tender and sweet.

"Mine," he whispered first, before adding, "Yours."

You looked on, wide-eyed, while he drew back. Guests broke into loud applause and cheers. You turned to face them, and felt a gentle tug on your hand. It was Oromë. He was trying to lead you to the raised dais at one end. You shook your head and rewarded him with a smile. It was time for the feast.

Again, there were differences. Feasts in Ilmarin were always lavish, but more than a little restrained. Here, the food and drink were served freely to anyone and everyone. Guests dined on thick soups and roast fowl and fish caught from a nearby river. There were flagons of ale and flagons of mead and flagons of a dark, bitter beer for anyone who had a thirst. There was wine too, a curiously light vintage that went very well with most of the food. Candles burned bright even as the great hounds of High Tree spread out next to tables and pelts and slept, having had their fill of scraps. Some guests started to fall asleep where they sat as well. Others wandered out of the hall in pairs of two and three and more, to engage in private amusements of their own. Lady Nessa made herself comfortable between Lady Varda and Nienna and Estë, and could be heard laughing merrily. The king stayed for as long as courtesy demanded before making his own excuses and leaving for the night. The revelry grew louder after his departure. 

Lord Tulkas had been singing the entire time, taking deep swigs of his ale in between verses. An auburn-haired woman clad in simple, soft green wool sat next to him, a pin bearing the bloodied hand of House Tarkil fixed firmly over her left shoulder. 

A captain of House Shield’s guard, you remembered. The one they call lady Meássë.

"Never engage him in a game of drink," Oromë leaned over and whispered. "Lord Tulkas will drink you under the table and continue drinking until dawn."

You believed him. Lord Tulkas was known to be able to hold his drink, and many of the others beside him could not. One by one, they made their excuses until his companion remained. 

"What about you, my lord," you observed after stealing a glance at his cup. "You have not drunk anything besides water all night." 

Oromë’s lips tugged at the corners. "Oromë," he insisted, "or husband, which is what I would prefer. As for my not indulging… well, let’s just say I wish to keep a clear head for what’s about to happen later." 

Your skin warmed. What’s about to happen later, he said. Oromë had been talking about bedding you. You turned to your meal, unsure of what to say. You tried to eat, but the cut across your left palm made it difficult to hold a fork. 

"Just use your hands," Oromë said, tearing a leg off a roast capon to show how it was done. "No one will mind. Eat. Please." 

You looked around the hall. Of those who had been eating, many used their hands. No one said anything. No one even seemed to mind. And the growls in your stomach made it harder to resist. Still, you took care not to dirty your dressing. The food was delicious, and you found yourself eating well from each dish. By the time the cakes and pudding had arrived, you found you could only manage a piece or two of lemon cake. 

Someone found a viol and launched into the bawdy version of "Lady Luck." Tulkas had stopped drinking but continued singing, this time joining in on the new song. Someone else found a flute, and "Lady Luck" soon changed to "Cup of Mead", which in turn soon turned into "Seven Lasses," a song that was even bawdier than "Lady Luck." Someone spilled their ale. Someone else shouted a vulgar joke. You struggled to contain your mirth. 

Guests took to the center of the hall and started to dance, while others clapped in tune. The singing grew louder while maids lit fresh candles. It started to rain outside, and servants rushed to close the shutters. More guests wandered out of the halls. 

Oromë took it as a sign that the time had come. He rose to his feet and extended his hand, and, you placed your hand in his. Few noticed, save for Lord Tulkas. He opened his mouth to say something, but Oromë cut him off with a quick, "Give words to your thoughts, my good friend, and I’ll break your fucking jaw." 

The lord of Stonehearth pouted before chuckling to himself. He leaned over to Lady Meássë and whispered something in her ear. Her cheeks turned a pretty shade of red, but she nodded in agreement to whatever it was he said. They left the hall not long after, arm in arm. 

No one followed either of you in the expectation of a bedding ceremony. Oromë led you around the dais to the chambers set aside for his own use. The walls were so thick, you were told, that no sound carried to the outside. You decided it was a blessing. You didn’t want the others to hear what went on. 

The air within was pleasantly cool. Oromë led you past little rooms and a small hall before guiding you to an airy bedchamber. More candles had been lit, and a brazier had been readied for lighting. He kicked the door shut behind you both. "Would you like something to drink?" he asked. 

The last thing you wanted was wine, or anything else, for that matter. "No, my lord," you said before discretely looking around the room. It was the same as the hall, with a bed made almost entirely out of thick pelts at one end. "My stomach is a roil." 

"Husband," Oromë said. He made no move to leave his place near the door. "Are you nervous?" 

"A little," you confessed, and walked around, not stopping until you had reached a strange but beautiful bow hung up on one wall. Twists of gold and silver wood gleamed with a delicate light all of their own.   

"From fallen branches of the sacred trees in Starfall," Oromë said after a moment. "Lady Varda made it with her own hands after I slew the creature that tried to destroy them." 

"Ungoliant," you replied, shivering. 

"Aye." Oromë came from behind and rested a hand on your shoulder. "Her skull is here. I can show it to you tomorrow if you wish." 

You were curious despite yourself. Oromë had asked you for your hand after seeing you only once and calling on you only a few times. Now he was married to you, and about to take you to his bed. 

"Forgive my lord, but why did you marry me?" You turned to face him. "My father is a known traitor. My family has been disgraced, so why me?" 

"Husband," Oromë insisted a second time, and grew silent for a long while. He finally said, "As for why I chose you… I… I felt something the first day I saw you. I didn’t understand why it was happening. All I knew was that I had to be with you and you alone. It was only by talking to others that it finally became clear. We were meant." 

"But you barely spoke to me!" 

"And I must apologize for that. I… I have never been one for tender words. My sister has tried to teach me… and failed on that score. She hopes you have better luck instead." 

You smiled timidly. Oromë walked over to you, his boots barely making a sound over the smooth stone floor. 

"May I?" he asked when he was close enough to you. 

You swallowed, but nodded and stood perfectly still. 

"Tell me if you want me to stop," he urged, before reaching for your veil. There was a soft ping whenever a hairpin fell to the floor. Your veil soon followed, fluttering to the ground with barely a sound. Your cloak, on the other hand, fell with a soft thud. Your hair slowly loosened as braids and coils came undone. 

"Do you want me to stop?" Oromë asked again, this time reaching out to undo the clasps and fastenings of your gown. You felt it loosening, and you were too caught up with your own growing curiosity to say another word. You shake your head all the same, knowing he was expecting an answer. 

He nodded and slipped the gown off your shoulders and past your waist, letting it fall the rest of the way and pool around your feet. Your stays were next. He helped you out of your shoes and your jewelry. Soon, you were clad in nothing but a sheer silk slip. Goosebumps prickled all over your flesh when you stood there, nearly exposed. Oromë studied you, his eyes darkening with each passing moment. He took your hands and brought them to his lips, pressing gentle kisses over each of your fingers. A strange but pleasant jolt shot up your spine when he kissed your bandaged palm. 

"Would you get into bed?" he said. 

It was not an order but a request instead. You took slow, measured steps, running the flat of your hand over the pelts. 

So soft, you mused. Softer than even the featherbeds back at the palace.

You climbed into the pelts, all too aware of Oromë’s eyes following you the entire time. He proceeded to undress himself, first by slipping out of his boots before removing his garments. Cloak and tunic and mail and leathers soon joined the growing pile of clothes on the floor. You turned your gaze to your lap when the last of his clothes were disposed of and he stood naked in front of the bed. Curiosity got the better of you again, and you dared a glance. 

His back was turned to you, all lean and muscled, and covered in all manner of scars. Even his arms and thighs had not been spared. 

It’s as if he has known nothing but violence most of his life. You looked away once more when he came to bed. "Look at me," he said. 

You obeyed, and found hunger in his deep green eyes. Your own wandered. His black hair tumbled past his shoulders now, and thin patches of more black hair trailed its way down his chest. There were scars all over his torso as well. Some of them looked old and angry. "Did these hurt?" You found yourself saying. 

"In the beginning," he confessed, "They all did. Some worse than others. Do they frighten you?" 

"Yes," you admitted, "I have never seen anyone with such scarring before." 

"Never?" he said, his eyes filled with curiosity. "You never grew close to anyone who caught your eye?" 

"Never," you replied, even as another heated flush crept up your throat. A smirk worked its way across Oromë’s face. 

"Never?" he asked again. "No pretty handmaid caught your eye? No comely stable hand tried to steal a kiss?" 

"No," you said, "The king had his warriors dogging my every step the moment I set foot outside my rooms. And my handmaids were his spies, I am sure of it." 

"I see," Oromë said, as if considering what you told him. 

"And what of you?" you challenged. "I hear you never keep to the warmth of one bed." 

He winced and sat up straight. "I will not lie when I say that there have been others and…" 

"Will there be others even after tonight?" 

"Will you be content with such a life, wife? Being bound to a man who cannot honor his vows?" 

In your heart of hearts, you knew you would never be happy with such a life. "No." 

Oromë nodded. "Just so. As for the others… They will never be a threat to us. And they will not be a threat to you. I give you my word on this." 

And the word of those who lived in these parts was their bond. They would never go back on a promise, not even on pain of death. And he swore the two of you were meant to be. It gave you some small comfort. 

Oromë running his thumb over your knuckles put an end to your thinking. He looked at you again, this time with expectation in his eyes and not just hunger. He had been as nervous as you, though he was much better at masking it. 

When he saw you for the first time, wandering around the gardens of Ilmarin, he thought his body had been set aflame, but the heat was something he had never felt before in his life. That heat had pulsed and spread and filled him with a light that glowed from within. As the days melted into each other, heat and light simply grew, and it was only after he approached Lady Varda and her ladies for their counsel that it became clear. 

"Destined," Varda had said. "The Gods themselves had planned this union. Do not fight it." 

He didn’t fight it. Oromë approached the king for your hand. As the father of the realm and your guardian, Eru had every right to say yes or no. Fortunately for Oromë, Eru agreed to the union and issued a proclamation before the week was even over. Now you were here—in his halls and in his bed. He brushed his hand over your hair and your cheek. He let his thumb trace the lines of your sinful lips. When you rewarded him with a wistful sigh, he leaned in. 

The pelts were soft, but he found you to be a great deal softer. Your lips tasted of the cakes you had earlier—tart and sweet. Your hair slipped around his fingers like water. When he laid you down and found you trembling, he ran his hand over your arm to soothe you. 

"Could you kiss me again," you looked up at him and asked. "It makes everything feel wonderful when you do." 

Far be it from him to deny you! Oromë grinned and kissed you again, this time not stopping until your mouth slowly parted for his tongue. His hands explored every inch of your body, slipping beneath the silks of your slip to run over the warmth of your flesh. He sighed when you moaned into his kiss, and groaned when timid arms slid around his waist. Nails dug into his skin, marring it with little bruises every time he kissed a little deeper and pressed himself a little closer. Oromë found your slip and smallclothes getting in his way. 

"Lift," he commanded. 

There was a soft rustle when your slip was tugged over your waist and arms before being consigned to the floor. Your skin prickled when you lifted your hips, and your smallclothes slid up your thighs before being unceremoniously cast aside with barely a flutter. When you shivered and covered your breasts with your arms, he gently drew them away. 

"Let me keep you warm," he said, before lowering his head. 

He did more than just that. Oromë spent what seemed like ages worshiping your body. His hands may have been rough, but his touch was exceedingly gentle, caressing you as if you had been made out of fragile glass. He kissed every part of you, from the tips of your fingers to the insides of your thighs, not stopping until you were whimpering and trembling beneath him. He went lower, his lips leaving a warm, damp trail all over your breasts and your belly. Not satisfied with even that, he went lower still. Warmth spread just beneath your skin when he pressed his lips over your folds. All you could do was grab at the pelts, fingers digging into soft fur whenever he ran his tongue over your already slick heat. Nothing could be heard but your ragged breaths and his soft grunts. You murmured when sweet tension grew within your belly. It was intoxicating. And so wonderful. All the tales you had heard, all the gossip and scandalous chatter, were nothing compared to what your husband was making you feel—like your entire body had been set ablaze from within. His tongue felt hot and lush whenever it ran over your core. His lips felt so soft whenever they tugged gently at your already-throbbing nub. You were close. So close. It felt like you were on the edge of the precipice, about to fall. Then he drew away, pressing a soft kiss against the inside of your thigh. 

Sheer instincts drove Oromë now. Still, he fought to control himself, not wanting to go too far or too hard the first time. There would be plenty of time for all of that, he decided, once you had grown more comfortable with him and trusted him more. He moved over you, sighing softly when your legs slid open for him. His lips captured yours in a kiss. It was a distraction to take your mind off of what was to come next. 

You felt him. All of him. He moved slowly, piercing you inch by slow inch. There was pain, yes, and discomfort, but his kisses were so sweet and heady and drugging, that you barely paid attention to either. You tasted the traces of you on his lips and tongue, and fount it to be as sweet as his kiss.  And there was pleasure—a slow-building kind of pleasure that pulled you into a dark tunnel of desire. 

"More," you whispered. More was what you wanted, and more was what he gave you. Oromë moved with gentle, rhythmic thrusts, and soon grew drunk on your sweet moans. On your own urging, he went a little harder, a little faster, moaning deeply whenever he felt your walls tighten around his cock. Nails dug into his flesh again, inciting almost otherworldly growls. He dipped his head and kissed you until you were silent, and he lost himself in your sweet flesh. All he could do was feel the warmth of your skin, the heat of your kisses, and the softness of your thighs, even as they scrambled for purchase against his hips. When your hands brushed and curled around his hair and the tips of your fingers glided over his scalp, he lost all sense of control, pushing you harder against the bed with each thrust. 

"I’m close," he whispered against your neck. "Are you?" 

"Gods yes," was all you could manage, raw and desperate. 

When you raised your hips, Oromë found a new angle that allowed him to go as deep as he could manage. His nails dug into your thigh as he set a torturous pace, his cheeks clenching even as you writhed wildly beneath him. A few more moments were all it took before the world went dark in your eyes and your body splintered while your orgasm ripped through you. You couldn’t think or even breathe. All you could do was feel the heat spreading beneath your skin and the bliss that washed over you. You barely heard it—Oromë spilling his seed with a deep, satisfying grunt. 

A hand brushed over your hair. You open your eyes, slowly taking in the room that came into view and the man that still hovered over you. His chest heaved with each breath he took. His eyes had been filled with what looked like worry. Was he worried he hurt you? Was that why he looked so concerned? A slow, satisfied smile worked its way across your face. You lifted a hand and caressed his cheek.   

"Husband," you whispered softly. "There is no need to worry. You didn’t hurt me." 

"Are you certain?" Oromë asked, even as he trembled upon hearing you call him husband for the first time. 

"You didn’t," you insist, too lazy and content to sit up straight. "This night went better than I anything I could have dreamed." 

Relief brought a wide smile to his lips.

tags: @cilil​ @asianbutnotjapanese​ @edensrose​ @wandererindreams​ @floragardeniahope​ 

[astudyincontrasts]

Fall Fires

A Here Be Dragons/Hic Sunt Dracones Gift Fic

Dragon!Silco x Fem!Reader NSFW

Rocking up to the party again a month late with starbucks for @sherwood-forests birthday! This is just a sweet little drabble for our beloved Sher to celebrate what a joyous light she is in this fandom. There is no one who is more ready to spread love and kindness than Sher, no one sweeter or more thoughtful or enthusiastic to celebrate the talents and creations of everyone she meets. Most beloved Sher, I hope for all good things in life for you always🖤

In the theme of Sher’s absolutely epic dragon!Silco fic HBD, this is just a little additional treat following Silco and his Feral Consort through the autumn traditions of dragonkind. Sweet and occasionally a little smutty, no real warnings apply unless you’re allergic to fluff, love, or dragon dicks.

It was the final night of the conclave, the bonfires bigger than you’d ever seen them as evening crept in across the sky in bruising plums and a lapping sea of infinite black, stealing the hue from a twilight painted a violent riot of brilliant oranges and sculpted pink clouds. Some of the main fires were bigger than houses in your village had been, heat rolling off them in licking waves that sent the chill of the autumn air scuttling back into the shadows under the massive pine trees that ringed the sacred hilltops like silent sentinels.

The summer months had stretched long and warm at the dragon’s keep in the Northern Pass. Time spent alone with your dragon in the blissful newness of each other, in his near fawning devotion and eager appetite for you, all of you. But as the nights began to lengthen and the heat of the days replaced with the promise of cool, crisp air off the mountains, Silco had grown distant.

At first you’d only noticed it when he took a little longer to join you in the gathered pile of furs that made the bedding nest of the massive bedchamber each evening. But more and more you’d caught him standing alone upon the parapets, staring westward toward the horizon and the sky as if it were speaking, holding silent counsel that only he could discern.

He’d break from the reverie with a touch of your hand, smiling down at you as he came back to himself, even once wrapping arms around you and tumbling backward off the wall into the waiting maw of oblivion, only to delight in your shrieks as he transformed and lifted you high up into the sky, letting you ride until your face was wet from the soft buffeting through the clouds and your teeth chattered as the night set in. It had allayed your concern, if only for a few hours.

Later that night you’d lain awake on his chest, cheek riding the rise and fall of his deep purring, wondering what call it was that your dragon stood heeding, yet would not share with you.

When you caught him at it once more the following evening this time you stopped him trying to distract you with a peppering of kisses, fingers coming to rest gently over his scarred mouth.

“Why won’t my dragon tell me what is weighing on him?” You asked, as he grumbled, submitting in a deep lean to your reach for one of his curling horns, teal eye slanting to a shining turquoise slice as your fingertips went playing along sensitive ridges and griped, tugging at the crest of it, nearly lifting you off your feet by your grasp with a slight roll of his head.

“I will tell you, mousling, but it is a conversation to be had over supper… and perhaps some of that accursed wine you so enjoy.”

With the promise of an explanation at last, you allowed him the delay of roasting dinner, and enjoyed the cups of wine from the pilfered barrels in his hoard that he had no taste or use for. It was a delicious vintage, and while he seemed to enjoy the loosening of your restraints whenever you indulged, could not stomach the taste of it himself. It felt very much a ploy to either distract you or else ease the sting of whatever news he had to share, the way he kept your goblet filled as the evening’s quarry turned on the spit before the great fire within the hall while you both sat listening to the hiss and spit of fat sizzle and crisp.

Silco was long silent before he finally released a rumbling quiet groan of resignation and began.

“You know what season comes?” He asked, the mismatch of eyes sliding your way at last, away from the intent study of his own clawed hands.

“Autumn, yes.”

“Tell me mousling, what the fall brought with it where you come from?”

No need to think too hard on that, the memories were pleasant enough and the question simply answered.

“Harvest, gatherings. Moon celebrations and feasts before the dark of winter came if the summer season was a plentiful one.”

Silco nodded and reached over the flames to pull a hunk of meat from the roasting haunch of venison to lay it upon your trencher before tearing himself a massive handful as well, as mindless of the licking flames and searing heat as if it were but a show of light instead of scalding.

“And the wild things?”

You thought on the question for a moment, sipping at the wine as your meat cooled.

“The squirrels prepared for winter with their own harvest, the deer grew fat, some animals made nests for winter sleep, and many of the birds flew away.”

Silco hummed quietly.

“Autumn is a time for gathering. For migration. And it is also the small death throes of the world, a thinning between the fabric that lies between us and beyond. Magic lies heavy, and there are dead to be honored.” He explained, picking at his dinner to spare you the weight of his glance until he could no longer avoid it, and dragged eyes to your curious gaze once more.

“The dragons gather soon. The conclave will meet. I have not been to a conclave since I was introduced there after my first flight. We dragon are solitary, territorial, but we keep the oldest ways and honor the magic that birthed us. We gather only this once each year, and only if we have need to. I have never had cause to return to a conclave… save now.”

He dropped his unwanted meal upon your trencher and dug claws into the flagstones as he leant forward, demanding your full attention, clearly at odds with the demands of his kind and the insistent pull of nature herself toward what he knew he must do.

“We are joined, mousling. We must present ourselves.”

The scrape of the long, clawed nail of one forefinger etched a line across the stone before it and then a second, parallel line alongside.

“I must present you.”

His trepidation on your behalf warmed your heart nearly as well as the wine had warmed your stomach, and you set goblet aside to come crawling into his lap, much to Silco’s surprise, as he sat back, hands closing upon your hips as you settled arms round his neck and pressed forehead hard to his, so that nothing but the hot coal and cool blue of his eyes filled your vision.

“Does my dragon fret for me? Is that why you’ve been so distant? I’m not afraid of a little harvest gathering.” Not afraid of anything, not with him.

Silco rumbled, groused. Displeased to be humbled before you only to have you flick his concerns aside as easily as flies.

“It has been centuries since I’ve seen another of my kind,” he admitted lowly, “And I do not know if a human mate has ever been welcomed at conclave.”

The admission hung heavy in the air before his grip tightened upon you and he spun you to the floor, pinning you beneath his weight as he gazed down at you fiercely.

“No h-”

“No harm will come to me at your side.” You finished and he nodded slowly before stopping any further interruptions or questions with the hunger of a kiss.

You had anticipated a desperate lovemaking that evening, with him eager to drown his fears and sate your wants, but instead he’d just curled tightly around you and held you in his sleep as if something might come and snatch you from his arms should his grip loosen but a moment. It sparked a small lick of apprehension in you, that a creature you knew to be so fearless should be so stricken. Yet, there was the glow of curiosity, of that adventure you so longed for, and the spice of the unknown that all kept that spark from catching conflagration and consuming you.

A half a week later you’d set off together to join the conclave.

It had been a long flight there, into the west, a journey of several days even with the ground slipping away beneath you as you rode among the clouds. Very glad indeed that Silco had insisted on your dressing warmly, insisted on the fur-lined cloak he’d draped over your shoulders and the warm, sturdy boots laced well up to mid-thigh. He’d grinned when you’d tucked your dagger into your belt but did not argue.

The wind whipped cold around you as you watched the countryside go by beneath, more of the land than you’d ever seen in your brief lifetime, and so beautiful from up above. Everything smaller, simpler looking, and the gorgeous palette of fall colors painting everything as far as the eye could see in lush reds, deep burgundys, brilliant yellows and crisp browns. The fields of wheat moved like great seas of gold, blowing wave after billowing wave against the winds, and the scent of hearthfires from farms and towns wafted enticingly on the breeze.

Silco had allowed that you both stay the evening in a town one night, not sleeping rough in the fields, but rather at an inn and tavern in one of the small villages. He garnered many looks; tall, cowled form nearly brushing his head against the rafters as he towered silently behind you, glowering at all the befuddled locals and their curious stares as you negotiated dinner and a bed.

None dared bother you though, and the warm food was delicious, the simple pleasure of buttered hot bread one you’d forgotten how much you longed for, and welcome indeed alongside the salty brine of hard cheese and the sweet crisp bite of ripe, rosy apples. The meat came in deep trenchers, dripping in a rich, glossy brown sauce alongside roasted whole onions, pale turnips and sweet, thick slices of carrots. Silco devoured it, save for the turnips, and you grinned over a mug of spiced ale as the bar wench jumped at the sound of his voice when he requested seconds be brought.

Well fed and tired from the long flight, Silco was nearly out cold the second he stretched on the straw-stuffed pallet in the small room you’d been given. He barely fit on the bed, legs hanging a good portion off the end, but it hardly seemed to bother him, nearly snoring by the time you climbed atop him, only to roll that flaming red eye down himself to watch you trail a lazy pattern of licking kisses along his chest and stomach as you pushed his shirt up.

“Mousling…”

“Shhhh. You may have eaten your fill, but I still hunger.” You hushed him, only to be rewarded with a low rumbling as your tongue traced teasing little licks above his navel and you buried your face in the soft divot of muscle that ran from hip down into the waist of his pants. Fingers made short work of his stays as one large clawed hand came to rest atop your head, nails fitfully, gently raking at hair, and tail curling up around your thigh to rub lazy soft enticement between your legs as you pulled the twisting mass of his cocks free and set to exploring the texture and taste of them.

“Ahn! M-mousling…!” He huffed breathlessly, the backward toss of his head rending twin tears in the pillow beneath him as you traced little licking passes over the crested pointed heads of his cocks and then up over and over again at the fused corkscrew twist of them until he was stiff and hot to the touch as if you’d pulled him from the fire like a branding iron.

Hands and mouth, wet tongue and hot, slow friction, you worked him as he arched under you, purring, snarling, gasping your name and growling out bliss until he came for you, a hot spill you lapped from his skin before settling over him, warmly exhausted and he already dropped back to sleeping, his trepidation of the coming meeting and distrust of the town around you forgotten for the evening. Your jaw ached and tongue felt raw and new as if it had been scrubbed in sand, but it was a small price for both the satisfaction of his release and the peaceful slumber that welcomed you both.

The next dawn saw you both back in the air before the town had awoken, payment left richly upon the bedside, that they might continue to welcome strangers as peacefully as they had done for you.

The following dawn after that brought the conclave.

The hills you’d flown over were rising steadily, the mountain range they lay at the foot of growing upward into the sky with each passing minute, a massive and long scar of jagged dark rocks and peaks that dwarfed the range of the Northern Pass where Silco had made his home. These were ancient lands, the very roots of the earth disemboweled sometime long ago and thrust as black pillars to the sky. A land shaped by fire deep and hot as any that ever poured from the mouths of dragons, now full of life, and wild as the beasts who gathered there this season to unite for three days and nights.

The clearing spanned several hilltops pressed together, and in the shallow basin of their meeting a stone circle of standing rocks shimmering and black as obsidian. You could see shapes moving below, large shapes, and in the clouds with you were others, circling.

The cries were already lifting as you descended, hands a tightening grip upon the ridges of Silco’s back against the way the wind buffeted and tugged at you as the ground rushed up to meet you both. Silco landed heavily, tossing you bodily forward upon his back. Quickly, you regained your seat, though, the ground trembling under you both as heavy bodies landed all around or came thundering up. Not that you could see much, with how Silco kept his wings lifted, kept you shielded from sight and so blocked off much of your view as well, the length of his neck effectively limiting your vision directly before you too.

Hands slapped to your ears as the deafening chorus rose around you, earsplitting shrieks and piercing, rumbling bellows all around until you too were screaming, shouting loud and long as you could. It was not fear, though it may have begun as some kind of primal noise akin to that. No, this came bubbling up from somewhere deep, just another voice longing for that chorus.

So lost in it, and so determined to dampen the cacophony surrounding you that you failed to notice when all voices had ceased save your own, left alone screaming to the sun and the mountains… until you opened eyes and found Silco’s wings lowering and every gathered dragon staring straight at you.

Voice died in your throat as hands slipped from where you’d pressed them to the sides of your head as you stared back at more dragons than you could have expected in as many and more variety and color as you could have possibly imagined, like a gathering of dark jewels upon the crown of the hilltops. How silly it seemed now, that you had suggested once to Silco that dragons were extinct.

All eyes rested upon you as you slid from Silco’s back with a dip of his wing, only to find him transformed beside you once feet hit the ground, cowl of his cloak pushed back and the curve of his horns jutting proudly to the sky.

Many dragons remained as they were, but many more also took that mind-bending path into human form. Three of the tallest approached, the eldest among them in their center, a proud and wizened creature, no less fiercely strong looking for his long hair shot through with pale whites and silvers and the deep furrowed crinkling at the outer edges of brilliantly pale blue eyes the color of glacial ice.

Beside you Silco shifted tensely, edging closer to you possessively, protectively.

“...Silco?” The tallest dragon asked, squinting, before recognition and Silco’s own dip of a nod confirmed suspicions. A broad, sharp smile broke over the old dragon’s stern face, “It has been many, many years. We welcome you back.”

The tall creature spread open arms and Silco stepped forward, away from you as you stood watching the exchange curiously, feeling very self conscious indeed with so many eyes upon the pair of you. He approached the trio of elders and canted head in a stiff bow that probably ought to have been lower and more deferential, but your proud dragon only offered what he could stomach. The elders accepted and inclined heads back to him in unison, the tallest reaching forth to place a hand upon Silco’s shoulder that you could see him stiffen at, but permit.

“What brings you to conclave at last?” The elder asked, glancing past Silco toward you meaningfully. Silco turned to cast a look over his shoulder with the softness of that teal eye at you.

“I have a mate. We’ve come to have the binding blessed.”

Murmurs kicked up from the gathering, and while you could hear surprise and even delight in their tone, Silco could not, or did not, and you watched him bristle, casting hot glances to and fro around his gathered kin.

Beside you a woman had crept up, and you startled as she slid a hand under your own, glancing up into her face to find a sweet, sharp smile and hair flowing down over shoulders to her waist in strawberry-golden waves, eyes like amber with sun streaming through them.

Silco lurched toward you both with a snarl, only to be stopped by the grip the elder tightened upon his shoulder.

“Welcome, dragon-bound.” The woman purred, stroking a glittering greenish claw of a hand atop your fingers that she held.

“T-Thank you.” You managed, eyes flicking from her to Silco to the elders and back again to the radiant creature that stroked your knuckles so gently. You dipped a curtsey, unsure of what tradition or circumstance demanded, yet it seemed the right thing to do. The elder smiled gently and the woman drew you to herself. Though you could see Silco straining at the grip upon him, struggling to contain his anxious tension, you felt no fear.

“Silco.” The elder murmured, tone not scolding, merely gently walking the line toward reproachful. “I know it has been many years since you joined conclave, but no harm will come to your chosen here. Nor you. Your binding shall be honored.”

The elder turned, letting his hand slide from Silco’s shoulder as he opened the hematite glitter of clawed hands and addressed the gathering in a booming voice.

“We have much to celebrate, and some to mourn. We gather to honor all, to offer gratitude and pay homage in the old ways. THE CONCLAVE IS GATHERED!”

Around you the hilltops rang with dragon song, the towering mountains echoing back the sound like the old roots of the earth recognized the children it had birthed of fire and stone and sang to their return.

Each night passed in ceremony and celebration, in feast and dance and song and fire. Fires built big and burning brightly through the night to dawn and through each day, never extinguished, only heaped higher and brighter until the final night when they burned big as houses, flames leaping and dancing.

The first night had been for mourning the passing of those who had gone before or recently passed, solemn and so beautifully poignant in story and song, in offering and recollection that you could not help but weep for times and creatures passed that you had never known. The second night welcomed the younglings from their first flights, a warm and joyous thankfulness for new life to carry forth the flame of the past, fun and light hearted with the frolickings of the little ones brought to be introduced to all and welcomed to the fold. The third and final night was your own; the blessing of unions, fruit of the future and vine of the past joined together.

Silco had kept you close, regardless of the assurances of the elders, though his wariness seemed to have ebbed as the nights went on and you remained unaccosted and well cared for, even if he seemed to dislike how the pair of you were a novelty, a curiosity among the ranks, and how others flocked in cautious droves to meet the feral consort of their lonesome brethren.

You were enchanted, however, as one beautiful, terrible beast after another came to share your fire, share food or gift you trinkets, as the younglings stole you away to play games in the daylight, and delighted in your gifts of autumn wildflowers as you crowned their little horns with yarrow and goldenrod, thistle and ironweed, and as they squealed at your ghost stories around the feasts at night. All the while your dragon, dark and silent and determinedly protective by your side, gathering you to him each night to kiss your face and tuck you to himself, as hoarded and treasured as gold.

The final night, however, you were separated.

Silco looked distraught as you were led away, folded into a group of dragon mates that surrounded you like tall, kind sentinels. Each eager to meet the human dragon-bound, to welcome you. They descended upon you like a gentle flock of enormous beautiful birds. Passing you hand to hand as you were gently disrobed, bathed and dried, as your hair was brushed out and dried to a lustrous sheen. They spoke in hushed voices, that enchanting golden woman who had greeted you first chief among them as you were prepared.

“We paint you for the blessing, little one.” She explained as your hands and arms were taken and they began the slow process of drawing beautiful patterns and shapes from your wrists up past your elbows. “Tales of your mate’s kin and his past upon your skin. That your story becomes one.”

Fingertips were dipped in the same dark red henna paint and palms, fingers and knuckles carefully traced with your own exquisite pattern of scales. Across your bare back the cool paint was drawn as well.

“Wings for you, consort, may you touch the heavens in love.” The golden-green woman explained the painting upon your back as she wrapped your waist in a fold of a deep plum-colored rich silk that was long enough to trail behind you as you walked, shot through here and there with golden threads that caught the firelight with each movement and gave the slithering, soft fabric a life of its own.

Your eyes were darkened with kohl, lips stained with berries as the lines of the paints dried and hardened and then were wiped away to reveal the beautiful art left behind to saturate skin for many weeks to come in a rich red-brown hue that sang against the color of your complexion.

Your bare chest was adorned with a jingling treasure of gold coins fashioned almost to a loose and light chainmail breastplate, split in twain from sternum down, fastened round your neck and down behind the small of your back with thin gold chains. Every motion sang softly and the loose hanging scales of coins tickled at your skin and stiffened nipples.

“A dowry for your love, from the gathered.” The golden woman explained, as you were fitted with other little trinkets until you shone wrist to ankle, “In welcome and blessing.”

When at last you were adorned to their satisfaction, the coterie drew you forth from where they had sequestered you beneath the pines and followed you in retinue back up the sloping hill toward the largest fire and the stone circle it burned and danced within. Silco waited before the flames, bare to his waist, tail flicking nervously, crowned gloriously with an autumn wreath of leaves and pale birch among the curling reach of his horns He had been painted in licks of gold, traced outline to the shape of each scale running up his arms and whorls of it etched like shining epaulets across shoulders and collarbone. The elder stood beside him, both of them watching your ascent as the other dragons gathered and drew near with your approach, a keening, haunting cry going up, a beautiful low bellowing beneath, as voices raised around you.

Silco was gazing at you as you drew near as if he could not find air to fill his lungs, an ecstatic joy close to pain upon his face, unspeakable in its infatuation. He reached out as you neared, and your hand fitted to the folding grasp of his long clawed hand, always so terribly gentle. The elder took your other hand and both drew you to the edge of the fire, where heat rolled off in heavy waves, brushing back the strands of your hair and gently singeing darkened lashes.

“We join this eve to bless the unions made this year.” Began the elder, “To celebrate the binding of souls. In this we persist. In this our kind is made stronger. You have danced, you have become one, you have shared a flame and food. Tonight, we share blood, and bring you not only to the blessing of your binding, but also to ourselves.”

From around the fire, the two other elders came, one bearing a cup, and the other a glittering blade. The elder dropped your hand as he accepted the blade, and for a heartstopping moment you shied close to Silco as he raised the knife, only to watch him slice open his own arm and hold it over the cup. The blade passed to the other two elders, who did the same, as the tallest of them took the cup in exchange, each bleeding a little into the chalice. Around the gathering it went, until at least ten of the dragons had given their blood, ending with your own. Silco, releasing his gentle grip on you, to bleed himself into the cup before the elder took the knife and gave the chalice to him.

Silco held it out in offering, brows knit and upturned at their center, like he held his heart in his hands for you to devour.

“Drink, dragon-bound, and join our fire.” Intoned the elder, behind you.

Fingers trembled as they closed over Silco’s grasp of the proffered cup, and let him tilt it gently. The fiery liquid lapped at your lips before it filled your mouth, searing and copper as stone, thick and cloying as dripping honey, hot as any pepper spice you’d ever known and indescribable in taste as it flowed down your throat with each thick swallow. It burned like whiskey and lit through your veins the second it hit the pit of your stomach.

Rocking on your feet, your arm was caught by the elder as Silco withdrew the cup. Distantly, you were aware you were being drawn away from him, closer to the flames, watching his face as the heat grew and grew… until you turned to find that the elder held your hand out into the very fire itself, that you had your fingers splayed to the searing soft lick of the brilliant light and yet you did not burn. He released your hand as you reached to toy with the kiss of the flames, fascinated and bewitched.

Among you, that cry went up again, filling the hills and mountains.

“Go to your beloved.” The elder murmured, breaking the reverie as you stared at skin unburnt and felt no fear of the searing heat. No need to be told twice as you glanced up at him and then to Silco waiting, looking for all the world like his heart might burst as you spun from the flames and launched yourself into his arms. He caught you up; his feral, wild, unburnt adored, and devoured the kiss you offered. If the elder had more words of blessing to say they were lost to you as you pressed your forehead to Silco’s, arms wound round his neck and the song of dragons ringing in your ears.

The moon hung full and heavy above, nearly as richly orange as if it had been plucked from one of the fields of ripe pumpkins you’d flown over in your journey here. Beneath you the bed of soft moss and leaves cradled you under the spill of the silk that had been gathered round your waist, now spread bedroll to your joined bodies under the shadows of the dark pines and golden birch, tucked in a private nook of the hills. The scent of bonfires joined the distant joyous ruckus of the gathering, of dancing and song and laughter by the firesides, a chorus mingling with the crickets and the hymn of the late evening forest that lay down beyond the hills. Here you made your own music, soft urgent moans to his deep rumbling, sweet laughter at a tickle and sweeter still a whine of pleasure.

Silco took you slow, though he’d been in a terrible hurry when you’d left the blessing fire together to come here, to finally be alone at last again.

You stood, breathing hard as he circled you with deliberate steps, as if he’d memorize every inch of the beauty the other dragons had wrought you in for him, as if he’d finally quarried the prize he wished and now would take his time at the feast. Heart hammered eager anticipation as he circled, pausing to trace a painted line here or toy with a tendril of coiled hair there, sparking soft little arcs of excitement rushing along skin with each small, teasing touch. Breath leaving you in little sighs as he closed in to brush a kiss to your shoulder, heat of his mouth a welcome reprieve from the goosebumps rising against the chill night air. You held perfectly still, save for the occasional delicious little shiver as he bent to scrape a tender bite to your jaw, to whuffle breath warmly in your hair, sharp blade of his nose crushed to you, drinking in the scent of you.

“Is my dragon pleased?” You asked slyly, the words hitching in your throat as his hips pressed to the back of you, heat of him inviting as large hands splayed along your hips.

Silco hummed approval, agreement, rumbling against you in a way that had you melting back against him.

Clawed hands pulled the silk at your hips loose, let it spread out upon the ground, before running nails lightly over the loose draped shirt of coins you wore. Shirt was a generous term for it, truly it was but a necklace that draped tapering in twin sheets of glittering gold to your waist, two waterfalls of gleaming metal that shone like burnished scales when you moved, concealing breasts alone. It tickled and warmed against the skin, had you gasping as he toyed with it and blushing hot pleasure to hear him purr another deep noise of satisfaction as a clawed hand dipped beneath the golden shimmer to cradle up the soft of one breast.

“They dower you as a princess, my little beauty.” Breath washed a ticklish hot sheet over cheek and chest as he lowered his head to drag his tongue a slow lick along the rise of your cheekbone.

“Mmn, am I glittering enough to add to your hoard?” You teased back with a smile, fingertips running along his gold painted forearms lightly.

“You are the treasure of my heart, mousling.” He murmured low, “If all I had were you, I would still be rich beyond dreams.”

It had your heart clench with pleasant pain within, had you spinning slow to face him, the gentle drag of claws teasing the rise of a nipple as they slid out from under the coined mail.

Mouth pressed tenderly to the heat of his chest, head dipping to press a kiss to the silvery grey scar the spear you had wrenched from him had left behind. Fingers tugged at the stays of his pants, impatient hands slipping over lean hips, progress only halted when he came to his knees before you, putting you nearly face to face with his height, the cool of his touch sliding down to take a possessive, delighted grasp of the curve of your of your bottom, the mismatched sheen of ruby and teal sapphire watching you suck a gasp as he got a cheek in each hand and the prickled points of claws sunk harmlessly into giving flesh.

“You do look beautiful, beloved. Though I like you best in nothing at all.”

It had you raise hands back behind your neck to unfasten the delicate clasp of the necklace and let it slide, tinkling softly, to the forest floor, only to cradle fingers around the sharp angles of his face as the heat of his mouth nuzzled against your collarbone. He drew back just enough to regard the small array of scars he’d left upon your chest; little pale pink weals where his claws had sunk in over your heart, months and months ago. They were not the only scars you’d been left with in your adventure across the Northern Pass with him. Across your upper lip, your cheekbone and through one brow, along with a smattering of others, your early days were written across your skin. Perhaps not as prominently as the grey, deep furrows that marked his left side, but there nonetheless.

“Do you know,” you asked softly, one hand coming to rest upon the broad span of his bare shoulders, as you slid fingertips of the other under his chin to tilt it to you, “If you had torn the heart from me that day, I would still have been happy?”

“What? Why?” He rumbled, dark brows furrowing tightly.

“Because it would have been with you, where it belonged.”

The distant sounds of revelry echoed across the hills behind you as Silco stared up at you in stunned awe, a pained look of exquisite adoration twisting the sharp, darkly handsome marred features of his, so unused to such deep gluts of emotion.

He brushed a kiss featherlight to each of the five little scars he’d left over your heart, eyes turned upward to hold your own. The warmth of your hands had just lifted to cradle his face when he slipped lower, the impossible heat of his tongue coiled round a nipple. Neck arched hard as your face turned to the open heavens above as he sucked slow before the tender pinch of fanged teeth came down and had you rocking into him.

Inch by inch, he took his time, tasting, laving at the softness of you, between breasts and over the gentle slope of stomach, kissing ribs one by one where ragged breath brought them to the surface, tongue dipping, dragging through the indent of your navel before his face pushed hard to the crux of your thighs and the delicious wet heat of his licks slicked along the part of your sex in teasing slow laps.

Clawed hand released it grasp of one soft cheek of your behind to drag the promise of claws along the back of your thigh before he caught your knee and hooked it up over his shoulder, tongue redoubling its efforts as he licked through the soft cleft of your sex, delving between sweet folds, leaving you no choice but to take desperate grasp of his horns and hang on for dear life itself as he devoured you.

Braced on one foot, back arched hard to offer him what was his, you sucked a sharp breath as large hands raked over the soft curves of your backside, as the melting silken heat of his tongue spread you and delved into your wetness, sweet heat slicking through soft folds, teasing every so often at the eager little ache of your clit as he drank you in, rumbling chuckles at the stifled little moaning gasp you made each time he’d let his tongue slide out of you and up, as his hands parted the cleft of your cheeks until you were writhing, fisting the hard, knobbled curl of his horns beneath your fingers and nearly begging he take you already as his tail caressed up the length of your stomach and between the weight of breasts to coil round your throat. Not happy until you were mewling, pressing into him and dripping down your thighs with the teasing.

Each renewed grasp of his horns or trembling stroke of fingers had him grumbling and groaning his own delighted satisfaction. Paying no mind at all to the crown of leaves you were dislodging one by one with your caress, golden and red bits of them falling to flutter across his shoulders to the ground.

“Silco! Please…” You were panting, rocking, standing leg ready to give out before he lifted his head to watch you with a devious, sharp glinting smile. And thank whatever gods held sway over the dark mountains and their dragon gathering that he took pity on you at last and laid you down, gently.

So far gone you barely registered it when he lifted you, laid you on your back against the silk, save for the dizzy change in the pull of gravity. You watched through heavy lids as he shed pants and settled between the welcome splay of your thighs upon his knees, hands coming to brace over you as he bent to nuzzle the warm wash of nipping kisses up your throat.

For all his teasing, he took you so slowly. The smoke and ash taste of him mingled with your own salt-sweet on his mouth as it closed over yours as he spread you, worked you gently with thrusts so tenderly careful you could feel his hips shivering, feel the stringing tension coursing through each line of him as he held himself in check while you rocked up against him, inviting him into the welcoming heat, savoring each ridged rise and thick, pressing texture as he sank within you.

It was Silco this time who was gasping for air once he lay fully seated, hips rocking as if he could not stop the mind numbing, overwhelming urge to move against you. The blade of his nose pressed to your cheek, fanged mouth open over yours, stealing breath and air as you whispered and moaned soft encouragement and adoration up at him. Until he was gazing down at you, laying in his arms, the backs of his dark knuckles caressing your jaw.

When the pair of you moved again, you moved as one.

Entwined, you arched under him to each slow roll of his hips. Etched against the night sky above you he was a glorious, terrible beauty, the searing glow of that burning ruby eye and the crowning glory of his dark horns singing to something wild within you. Had you biting tenderly at his lower lip, tugging, licking at his sharp teeth and hot slide of his tongue. Yours, your dragon, your heart, like he had actually torn it from you that day and ate it all up and now went walking the earth and flying through the clouds with it still caught, stuck a tender beating thing behind his fiery maw, still aching for him within the furnace of his own chest.

Your fingers could not drink enough of him, could not seek enough of his heat and the texture of his skin, from face to throat, shoulders to ribs to the slow roll of his hips. He sighed into your touch and shoved his face hard into the crux of your neck and shoulder, sucking shivering, deep gulps of breath as if he’d imprint the very scent of you this night into an indelible stain of perfection on his memory.

“Silco… Silco…” Thick and sweet as the rich butter you’d had on hot bread back at the tavern days ago, his name slid from your throat, filling your mouth, more heady than any wine or ale, tasing better than any luscious fruit. You made a song of your desire for him, pitch lifting as he moved all the faster within you. Always fit to break for him, always a wonder at how deep, how full, how perfect he took you. Dragon-bound, his, made together on some strange forge.

He was snarling, groaning, the deep rumblings of his chest crushed to yours only heightening each exquisite sensation. He stopped your voice with a slow, deep kiss, followed by a thrust just as agonizingly deep and gradual. Breaking the sweet, suckling languor of his devotion to your mouth to gaze down at you.

And for a moment, just for a breath, he was that broken, lonesome boy on the side of the mountain pass again; touched by a terrified tenderness and longing and fear that had seasoned over centuries to a knife’s blade of emotion.

“I love you.” The whisper of it caught in his throat, hitched and broke.

And in that tidal pull of his breaking dam you rushed up to meet him, to tug him under into your waves, to show him, tell him, let him eat the love, the heart right out of you again. His; beating to the rhythm of dark wings across a harvest moon, where the lifting sparks of fire and the brilliant glow of stars all became one drifting constellation.

[verflcht]

little mabon starter for @wickedslip <3

“Just a few more steps,” Zeev promised, a gentle hand on the witch’s shoulder. He wasn’t pushing her nor would riot, if she had decided to assume her trust in false hands. However, he guided her through the nearby forest, a wild array of pines, oaks and birches, still green enough to suspect the summer to last forever, but the air was filled with the smell of rain and the arrival of cooler temperatures. There was a familiar hum in the atmosphere, a buzz that brought change and signaled the awakening of a new season. Though Zeev would not claim to welcome the dark days, it was part of the natural cycle. The equinox was a celebration that had lost meaning for Zeev after he left the coven. Nothing could replace the bliss of communal worship, and so in the past he had instead melted into self-pity, wrapped in grief over the loss of sunlight. With Nausicaä, however, the euphoria had returned and he hoped that she too would take pleasure in what symbolised their connection to the course of life. Although it might fulfil different aspects for each witch, they were all the same at heart. 

They reached a clearing, framed by tall trees that leaned over them like a protective nest. When Zeev allowed her to finally open her eyes, a lush green patch of meadow revealed itself to her, accented by foliage and wild grasses that were most likely still unaware of their fate. They too were still clinging to the last shreds of sunshine. 

In the centre rested a plain blue blanket, a basket of fresh fruit and bread - pomegranate and pumpkin bread were a must - and a forbiddingly expensive bottle of wine. It looked like an arranged date, and in some ways it was, if the multitude of candles was any indicator. Zeev strutted up to the spot with a self-satisfied grin. It was a much diminished version of what the witcher was used to, but magic didn't have to be performed in a big way to work. “I've brought some ingredients too, for some minor spells regarding protection, self-confidence and gratitude.” The gentle scent of clove and cinnamon filled the area, the wafts of a few incense sticks drifting into the air.

[nightmarettd]

Ships that are my Roman Empires and why

Ricky and Gina - High School Musical The Musical The Series

They're actually my babies. Just the way they were written both as individual characters and as a relationship was amazing especially from High School Musical! I'm far from a theatre kid i'm more of a film nerd but i love this show and how chaotic it is. I love how they went from two strangers bonding over their similar home lives and feelings to developing feelings but Ricky's relationship with Nini and his tendency to fall into familiar things got in the way. And then the entirety of Season 2 they were secretly pining for each other and then of course Ricky looses Gina to EJ cause he realised to late he loved her, like my god its so juicy!!! Than they both rekindle their connection in season 3 and realise they love each other and kiss and then season 4 was just their season and they ended perfectly my endgame and one of my fav ships!

Amerie and Malakai - Heartbreak High

Seeing an Australian love story just feels so fresh and Authentic for me as an Australian. I adore these two, Malakai is my favourite Heartbreak High character tied with Quinni but i love Amerie and she is one of my favs too. Their chemistry is just so authentic and beautiful and the way they look at each other!!! god!! I love the way their story unraveled and i will riot if they don't end up together next season. They also make me cry because like every time they try to be together the timing is never right. I love Malakai being the new kid that Amerie fell for because he was so kind and nice to her, when no one else but Darren and Quinni would be. I do love their storylines but god i hated that he cheated on her when they had just got together but i don't blame him entirely because of the state he was in and i believe he was taken advantage of. I love the storyline of him exploring his sexuality although he definitely shouldn't have led Amerie on if he was attracted to someone else. I love that he discovered himself and realised that he was attracted to Rowan but loved Amerie. (and i am definitely not saying a bi person can't love a person of the same gender because that's homophobic and stupid). And my god them having an abortion that storyline was so good, and Malakai was so accepting of her choice and supportive of her which is a refreshing thing to see. And i love the way they handled it showoing that Amerie immediately didn't want it and made that choice which i think will give a lot of girls courage to stand up for themselves and their choices with their body's. The season 2 Finale had me crying him leaving without telling her realising he's in love with her and leaving her a letter that got burnt and Amerie learning he's gone and admitting that she still loved him and had loved him since they first got together like they're breaking my heart here and the ending of her looking up into the sky and him crying on the plane! i just think about them all the time.

Dick and Kori - DC Comics

They are my babies and i hate how DC has ruined them. The way they met is so cute. And their 80's Era they were so in love! and they always will love each other and need to get back together Barbara and Dick are not it. Kori is one of my fav DC characters and Dick need to realise how lucky he was to have her. I don't know what else to say except that i hate how they ended and DC trying to push the agenda that they don't love each other like come on!!

Brooke and Lucas - One Tree Hill

God i love these two since i was fourteen. The fact he went form having a crush on her best friend to falling in love with her. They were the perfect opposites attract trope and their chemistry!!! don't get me started. Their angst was unmatched as well. Season 2 and Season 3 were their seasons and i did not watch season 4 because i hate Leyton and Peyton. Like my god their pining era in season 2 and then their trust issues and finally getting together in season 3 all for Peyton and the writers to end them. Anyways i think about them all the time.

Lucy Gray and Snow - The Ballad Of Songbirds and Snakes

These two break my heart, and i know i know they are toxic but like my god their story. Like my god and i know Snow wanted to own her and all that but i just think they are the perfect example of how the world can destroy people. And the fact he choose power over her like come on dude come on!

Anika and Mindy - Scream VI

My god they make me cry. Like why? i know they had such little screen time but they were so adorable and ended so tragically. Like what do you mean Mindy who was almost murdered and has trust issues because of her supposed friend and then had to watch the girl she loved get brutally stabbed and fall to her death like what. They are the real Romeo and Juliet like come on!!!

Percy and Annabeth - Show and Books

Do i really have to explain this? they were my parents when i read the books at like 7 and now that show came out their my babies. Their chemistry and story is one of the best ever. Like they don't like each other at first but become close through experiences and similarities they bond over and grow to care for each other deeply. Than they realise their in love and both give up immortality for each other, Like ahhh! And then their storylines in Heroes of Olympus just solidifies their love for one another and i never stop thinking about them.