#Sweet Dew tea

[moony-ghoul]

i love soft domestic ghouls so much

[tea-kittenz]

Enjoying a quiet day off with this amazingly sweet tea~

Ginseng Tie Guan Yin from Fujian, harvested in spring 2017.

[possum-tooth]

its raining and i want to try my new berry vodka. should i walk over to the bp (that i can see from my unit) and hope they have club soda/sparkling water, go to walmart, or just figure out something here (<- has almost no mixers)

[maxx0blu]

I believe in songs named after food supremacy

[babisawyer]

the one thing I will say that tennessee has on florida is the food.

[solbaby7]

Feel Me

pairing: azriel x reader

warnings: swearing, sexual descriptions, tensionnnn, cocky!az , minors DNI

summary: Fae males don’t make love like the sweet boys you knew in the human lands. Fae’s fuck.

based of the request in [ part 1 ]

—

No one else was supposed to be home.

Rhys and Feyre had left long before the morning dew could mist over the lawn. Cassian and Nesta had slipped out hours ago with their leathers on and hair neatly braided after a steaming cup of coffee.

Buttered pancakes steam on a plate, bacon sizzles on the stove and your hips sway in tandem with whatever bouncy song your humming. Strawberry stumps grow in a pile to your left, knife slicing at ripe fruit contentedly until a sneaky wisp of darkness snatches a piece for its master. “You planning on sharing?”

“Depends on how nicely you ask.”

Azriel doesn’t bite, he only raises a brow with a smirk growing at the corner of full lips. “Was it polite words that initiated Elain’s legs straddling your waist the other night?” Shock shoves the ability to form a sentence out the window and you despise the way your eyes linger on the mess of dark hair atop his head—thoughts wandering to less than respectable places when picturing other ways to muss up soft strands. “Bacon’s burning.”

A frustrated scoff pulls from your throat, a blush fanning across your cheeks and gratefulness floods your chest when you actually have something to busy your hands with to avoid Azriel’s honeyed stare. “Not that it’s any of your business,” You hiss, avoiding spattering oil while forking meat from the pan. “But, I was just helping out a friend.”

“Helping?” His morning voice was sinful; a low rasp coupled with lazy lids and a t-shirt that fit entirely too well.

“I offered sound advice.” The house cleans while you plate, stealing berry stumps as a warm rag is ran over the countertops. Hot water is poured in a mug, a tea bag string twirled around the handle. Azriel’s already next to you, twisting open the honey jar and passing it over before you can reach for it. “I demonstrated to ensure a thorough understanding—nothing more.”

“And what exactly were you demonstrating?”

“Like I said, it’s none of your business.” Syrup drowned pancakes are shoved into your mouth, favoring the possibility of choking on fluffy goodness over engaging in this conversation for a second longer.

Azriel doesn’t feel the same way, blocking off your hasty exit with his body. Was he always this tall? Giant wings hover behind him and they rustle softly when you reach out a hand to gently push him away. It was a mistake on your part—initiating physical contact because now all you could focus on was the warmth that ebbed through the soft cotton of his shirt and the hard muscles hiding beneath it. “Make it my business.”

You don’t pull away, too entranced with the smell of him. The feel of his body against your fingertips. The barely there distance that toed the line of entirely too close. “I don’t understand why you’d even care.” You mutter, snatching your hand away when you catch yourself subconsciously rubbing at the dark fabric. “I was—“ Words stammer, breath catching over the intensity of his stare and you have to will your voice to steady itself. “I was teaching her how to properly be intimate with a male.”

“I didn’t realize there was a proper way.”

“You know what I mean,” You ramble, obviously flustered when swatting away the inky fog that attempts to swipe crispy bacon from your plate. “She asked for advice and I gave a few tips to make her feel more confident—more comfortable. I was being friendly.” The pancakes have started to go cold around the edges but you can’t find it in yourself to care when Azriel keeps stalking closer, arms boxing you into the counter with ease.

“Hm,” His face is unreadable, void of any emotion but your certain his eyes go just a touch darker when you lean back, your shirt rising; broadcasting a sliver of your stomach and the pale blue panties peeking out of your sleep shorts. “And if I wanted some friendly advice—would you help me with that too?”

Breakfast is long forgotten, your eyes following the plate being pushed away by hands much bigger than your own. A shaky laugh emits, strands of your hair tickle at your cheeks and you’re painfully aware of your attire—or lack thereof judging by hardened peaks poking through delicate silk. “Az, you’re no blushing virgin. What could I possibly help you with?”

Cool shadows trace over bare legs, teasing up your calves and curling around your knees. “I can think of a few things.”

A predatory darkness coats every word, lids narrowing challengingly at you from above. There’s nowhere to run and truthfully you didn’t want to; falling into the trap of his insinuations until the smell of your arousal was becoming anything but subtle. But, then again, who fucking cared when this was exactly what you’d been craving for as long as you could remember. Filthy little fantasies about the Illyrian soldier had plagued your mind for decades. You were reduced to haughty looks and bitten lips while he sparred shirtless with Cassian, sweat gleaming against his chest and the sharp ring of swords colliding. Dirty desires that flared when you’d bump into Az late at night, his hair messy and eyes hazy—that lazy smile and those pet names that he’d let slip when he was too tired to overthink them.

Could it have been possible that Elain had been right?

That you just needed to look to find what you were yearning for.

You pray you don’t appear as desperate as you feel when your eyes scan his own; sifting through the shades of warm caramel and burnt sephia as if they’d shift into mystical beings with endless answers to your list of questions. “Such as?”

“Maybe,” The syllables are drawn out with a sing-songy lilt that has your legs shifting. “—we can start with why you thought she’d be using your tricks and charms on me?” You blame the breeze sifting through the curtains on the shiver that rakes up your spine.

The counter is cold when you lift yourself onto it, palms flat and back curving against the window pane. You shrug, breaking the eye contact and turning your head to face the flying creatures fluttering their feathery wings in the bird bath. “I hadn’t considered it’d be anyone else. You and Elain spend lots of time together and she’s obviously beautiful in that delicate, sweetheart in need of saving sort of way.”

“Careful, you almost sound jealous.”

“I am not jealous,” Well, not anymore. But, he didn’t need to know that you’d ever wasted a second of sleep on him. “It was just an observation.”

“A poor one.”

“Then I suppose it’s a good thing that I’m not going after your job.” Your arms cross over your chest, knees childishly nudging at the top of his thighs to push him away but he remains steady like a brick wall. Irritation pushes the fluttery twist of yearning out of the way the longer Azriel peers down at you with that look in his eye—that stupidly handsome smirk plastered on his annoyingly kissable lips. “Any other questions you’d like to interrogate me with?”

The vitriol in your tone only furthers the grin on his face, eating up the fluctuating emotions he pulls from you like a full course meal. “Just one more.” A breeze shifts through the open window, cutting through the strands of your hair and the smell of your conditioner permeates the space between you. “How much longer must I wait for you to pursue me before I have to take you for myself?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Beg all you’d like but not for your pardon.” It’s said so swiftly your brain barely registers the suggestive nature of it before he’s talking again. Sweeping you up in the whirlwind that was Azriel and all you could do was hold on tight for the ride. He obtains a boldness you could only dream of, hips jutting forward between your legs to keep you from slipping away; closing the distance until his wants and desires are anything but unclear when pressed so firmly against you. “How much longer?

You swallow, the movement tracked by a hunters stare as you scramble to pull together a coherent sentence. “I suppose that depends.”

“On what?”

“On if you have any almost lovers that you’re still pining after?” Shadows glide over the countertop, sneaking behind you and urging you forward. Silky sleep shorts shuffle upwards with the motion and Azriel’s wastes no time in his exploration. Warm hands rake up the length of your legs leisurely, tracing over barely there scars and memorizing moles many overlooked. “Or do you only want me because you’ve never had me?”

Tension hold thick in the air, heavy mugginess that coats your skin with an uncomfortable warmth as you and Az sized each other up—waiting to see who’d break first.

The odds didn’t seem to be swaying in your favor.

“Never had you?” Azriel repeats as if you’ve told a joke, confidence roaring in his veins from the reactions your body offers him. Goosebumps follow the tantalizing trail of his fingers up your legs, thighs subconsciously shifting wider, granting access for more of his body to touch against your own. “Every time I close my eyes, I have you.” He has to know the effect this has on you. That must be why he insists on stealing your backbone and converting it into a makeshift leash until you’re completely pliant in his grasp. “Not exactly conventional. Nowhere near comparable the real thing, I’m sure.” A wicked gleam twinkles in his eyes, his hard chest the perfect contrast against the softness of your own. “But, it’s certainly served to be good practice.”

“Azriel—“

“How much longer should I wait?”

The barely restrained need he emits makes your stomach clench. Forces your eyes to dart from his own to his mouth; lingering, lusting.

Fuck, not much longer at all. It felt like the clock was ticking and with each second that passed, your fate grew nearer and nearer.

Instinct speeds up the process, nudging you closer until the tip of your nose brushes against his own. It’s cautious—exploratory. Testing what was allowed and what wasn’t but Azriel’s patience only stretches so far and waiting for this—for you—is an impossible task.

His mouth covers yours in a claiming clash of eager lips and hands desperate to learn the shape of you.

You’re no better, nails raking through inky strands and scouring the strong slope of his shoulders like a woman starved. A relieved sigh tickles at his skin when he kisses over your cheeks, down your neck; until that spot just below your ear forces out low whines. “Az,” Your chest heaves, lungs struggling for a full breath. “Someone will see us.”

Azriel groans, lips searching for the spots that shut you up. The spots that had your spine curving and leg hooking over his waist. You lean back, anticipating the cool chill of the wall but all you meet is soft sheets and fluffy pillows as inky shadows disperse around the room. “Better?”

“Almost.” Eager fingers grip at the offending fabric hiding golden-brown skin beneath, attempting to yank it free. “Take this off.”

“You’re not this demanding in my dreams.”

“And in mine, your mouth isn’t really used for talking.”

Azriel’s efficient in adjusting to your suggestions, tearing apart soft silk as if it were nothing more than a piece of parchment in his quest of baring more of you to him. Hips buck up and nails dig into the hard-earned muscles of his back while his mouth sucked marks across your chest. Warm hands dip under the waistband of your shorts, back curving softly in anticipation as preening little moans cut through the darkness of Azriel’s bedchambers.

When he finally touches where you need him most, teeth sink harshly into the fat of your bottom lip; the feeling of his fingers dragging slow circles over the thin cotton of your underwear becoming the perfect torture. It feels too good to ponder on about the arousal soaking through your delicates or the desperate pleas for more that tumbles from your lips like sinful prayers.

Any remaining clothing falls carelessly to the floor, the hard length of him resting at the crux of your thighs. “Are you sure?”

“Don’t I feel sure?” Your brows are a little pinched when you stare up at him, a hand wedging between your bodies to guide the swollen head of his cock to your entrance.

“You feel like mine,” Az confesses hoarsely. Inch by deliciously devastating inch is pushed to the brim, hazel eyes transfixed on the snug wrap of your pussy and the warmth that follows. “Like you were fucking made to take my cock.”

He was better than you’d ever pictured, stealing your very breath away with each dragged out stroke. “Az,” His gaze is heavy, sliding up to meet your own with dark promise casting shadows against god-like features. “Please, just move.”

“Here I was trying to get you properly adjusted,” A biting grip begins at your waist, fingers digging precious prints into your hips as Azriel positions you as he pleases. Bare thighs are braced in the crease of his arms, a cocky smirk ghosting his face. “But you just wanna be fucked.” Eyes roll behind fluttering lids when the pace picks up, the position forcing you to take every inch until all you can offer is choked moans and garbled praises.

Claiming marks are placed wherever Azriel’s mouth can reach, muffled groans and deep grunts of pleasure vibrating against your skin as he carves out a space specifically made for him. You don’t last long, lips searching for his own as you clench around the length of him; toes curling and manicured nails biting at the base of his wings.

“There you go,” He croons, gently tucking stray hairs away from your face—a complete juxtaposition from the relentless way his cock fucks into you. “Taking me so well.”

Bleary eyed and boneless you are in his grasp; allowing him to act on every secret fantasy and salacious desire he'd harbored longer than he could remember until you feel the vicious twitch inside you, his hips stuttering and seed spilling.

The room reeks of sex, sheets sodden and clothes too ruined to walk out of there wearing them without looking like you belonged in a pleasure hall.

Not that it would matter—Azriel won't let you go now; hooked like an addict to their drug of choice. "You were wrong, you know." Your brow raises in silent question. "Now that I've had you, I can't see myself ever wanting anything else."

[writersdrug]

Early mornings with Konig 😍

Unfortunately for you, König is an early riser. A very early one, at that.

It's ingrained into the meticulously threaded wires of his brain. He has to wake up at first light, he's incapable of sleeping through it. He grumbles, momentarily stuck back on base, in the drab and stuffy barracks. He starts to rise with a groan, stretching his arms above his head.

It's not until he feels your hand against his back that he realizes - he's not in some stiff, military-issued cot, waiting for his next briefing and deployment. He's at home in Vienna, lying next to you.

He winces, brushing a hand through the roots of your hair. You sigh softly - the early morning light cascades through the open window and over your silhouette, barely visible in the cerulean dawn. His heart stirs with both admiration and guilt when your eyes flutter open, squinting through the dim haze to look up at König. He's on his side, running his thumb over your cheek.

He spends time just basking in your presence. The two of you lying there as the light turns from blue to orange with the glow of the sunrise. He swears it's the best light on you, lines of light seeping in between the blinds and laying across your skin like gold. Your voice is thick with sleep, and your eyes are blinking slowly as you look at him with that sweet, soft smile. You look absolutely stunning - he used to say you were more beautiful than Aphrodite, but now he just assumes that you are her. You're the most ethereal thing he's ever had the privilege to hold.

He dips down to place a kiss upon your forehead, then climbs out of bed. In the kitchen, he makes coffee for you and tea for himself. It's still early, the warmth of the sun clashing with the dew on the window panes and fogging up the glass. He cracks one of the window in the kitchen, then opens the backdoor - he places both of the mugs on the patio table and returns to the house.

You'd fallen back into a light sleep, your mind skimming the edges of dreams and head cradled into the pillow. You feel König's strong arms work their way under your side, and your pulled from your nap when he lifts you against his chest. He mumbles softly to you, but you're too tired to decipher it. All you can hear is the sweetness and the timbre in his voice. You wrap your arms around his neck as he carries you through the house - the cool air washes over your skin as he brings you to the backyard, sitting on a chair with you curled up on his lap.

He doesn't mind if you go back to sleep. He's happy to exist in that moment, listening to the birdsong dance through the trees, and the soft melody of the windchimes he gave you for your birthday. He observes the home he built with you, the peace in this moment bought by the danger of his job - but it's all worth it for you. You, softly breathing against his chest, warm and sweet, all for him.

Summer will come to an end soon, and the mornings will be too cold to make moments like these - but that's alright. More memories will be made in other ways. He has the rest of his life with you.

[shuenkio]

Naughty neighbor | Sim. J 😈

Paring: Stalker!Jake x male!reader

Genre: Smut, 18+ [don't like don't press]

Cw: cum inside, rough, dirty talk, swearing, obsession behavior, bad .

Summary: Your lovely neighbors who you thought of as a golden retriever but turn out he's a stalker.

Non proof read/ wc: 1.6k

Eng is not my 1st lang.

A|N: I accidentally wrote it smut oops | @ddeonuswhre special thanks to you for the idea 🐱💡hope you're having a great time pookie.

[Ignore my edit, it's suck]

Moving to another home, just because of your workplace, was exhausting. However, when one of your co-workers, who is also your friend, told you that this neighborhood was full of hot guys and friendly people, as a result, you immediately moved in without hesitation.

Not to mention, it's better to stay here for a while. The scenario, the weather—it was pretty good for your own mental health as an office siren. At least you can enjoy the view while stressing your brain off. By your own pure luck, you were able to get a month of vacation off since you're the best employee of the month and the summer season is approaching.

Your boss probably won a lottery ticket; that's why they don't care if you're still working. Nevertheless, beside your tiny, little house, there's a guy next to you.

He seems like a fun guy, to be honest, at first glance. His face shape screams so much that he's an Australian citizen. Well, maybe you're in Australia right now? His smile, however, always did something to you, even if it was a greeting gesture.

He looks gentle and kind; his aura exudes the energy of a golden retriever. From your point of view, whenever you saw him, he was kind to the other neighbors. And his name is Jake. Your friends didn't lie about what they'd said about this vicinity.

Unbeknownst to you, all the scenes you saw in him were just his fake acting. Jake did all those corny things just because he wanted to get the attention of you, whom he'd had eyes on ever since you moved in. He thought that, never in his life, he had seen such a person as you. You look really soft and sweet, like fresh vanilla in your aura.

You're also an adorable little guy who's brave enough to live by himself in a small place beside him like this. He always wants to take your virginity away from you.

Morning light filtered through the curtains, casting a warm glow. Birds chirped softly, and the fresh scent of dew filled the air.

It's 8 a.m., and you're waking up to start off your day by watering your flower garden in front of your backyard.

As you hold your watering can, splashing wet on your beautiful plants, you see Jake is also in his front yard, while he's stretching from the back pain you're assuming.

Being the good neighbor you are, you greet him with a small talk, asking about this and that until you invite him for tea.. At first, Jake denied it, but you're insisted. Yet deep down, he had been waiting for this moment forever.

You then prepare for the table before serving him the tea that you had brought from your home town.

"So Jake? What are you doing for a living?" You said, putting down your cup as you focused on him.

"Not much of the higher-paying job; I'm just the owner of a small coffee shop down the road, and you?" He responded, taking a small sip as he clicked his tongue as a sign of taste.

"I'm working as a manager in the management of marketing; it's doing some justice for my life, but it's also burning keke." You reply with a sly smile along with your chuckle. I found it somehow funny that you're the manager now.

"You look like you're not an Australian m/n; I have never had time to ask about you this." Jake mutters, folding his fingers together, while observing your face while you're not paying attention.

"Yes, I'm not; I'm from ///, and I see it's rare to find my people here."

"That's why you look handsome; I mean it." Jake snorts in polite manners as you laugh along to hide your face. Which makes you want to stay here longer just to chitchat with Jake.

Suddenly, you heard your phone ring inside your house before you excused yourself to pick up the call. As perfect timing as he planned to, a dark smirk appeared on his face. As he puts something in your cup of tea, pick up the spoon on the table and mix it up. A few minutes later, you came back as you settled yourself in your seat again. You ask him if he's bored, but he says it's nothing.

The moment of silence suddenly awkward the scenes as you obliviously take a sip with your drink till your cup is empty.

Out of nowhere, you feel a pang inside your skull as you feel like there's a drum inside your brain. Keep hitting on you.

It's hurtful and dizzy at the same time. Aside from having a sudden headache, you also experience the hotness of sweat leaking out of your skin.

It's getting hot unexpectedly, as if you just got chased by a bear. Trying to hide your unstable condition, you stand up to get yourself a glass of water.

Due to the aphrodisiac kick, you fall down to the wooden floor. Jake still put on his mask as he expressed his concerns to you, asking if you're okay.

Before he pulls you up, taking you inside to your bedroom, he locks the door behind him. Jake put you down on your bed, gently, as he took off your socks and tucked away, according to your request.

"I'm so sorry, Jake, for the trouble. I don't know why I'm feeling so hot all at once" You mumble in your stuttering, low tone. Hot sweat is still dripping down on your forehead and everything. It feels weird, but that's not the only place that's hot.

You feel like your boxer is tightening from your hard dick. A scowl creased Jake's forehead, deepening the lines around his mouth. His brows furrowed, casting shadows over his eyes, filling them with excitement.

He couldn't wait any longer to show his true colors as your creepy stalker. Jake has had eyes on you ever since you're moving in; it's like a love at first sign to say, but it's in a sexual way.

At night, while you're asleep, he sneakily installs many hidden small cameras in every corner of your house, including the bathroom, the bedroom, the kitchen, and the living room. Every move he made got you wrapped around his finger.

There's no privacy for you to have your time, chilling in your bed thinking you're alone, but deep down, your golden retriever neighbors enjoy the views of your face every single day. Even when you're in the shower, Jake would be sitting in front of his computer, fantasizing about all the nasty things with you.

He masturbates and touches himself from time to time when he feels like working up or missing you. For now, the plan that he has been working on is finally taking shape. He won't let it slip away and lose this perfect opportunity to have you, screaming his name, ruining your virginity.

Nonetheless, Jake's eyebrows shot up in astonishment as you begged for him to help you.

"J-J...ake, please help me take this hotness away; I feel like I'm dying." You said it half-conscious, rubbing your hand on your chest, feeling like fuel was burning on the inside of you.

"Don't worry, ma'boy, I'm going to make you feel at ease once I do my magic." Jake leans down to your earlobe, whispering. Before he tears up your clothes, drop them to the floor as he begins to strip himself while kneeling on your bed.

His cock was spring-free, standing so proud as he exposed his naked self in front of you. You were so fuck up that you want nothing but to erase those fires in your body; your body language is inviting him itself at this point.

"I won't stop just so you know, m/n, I'm going to make you can't walk once I'm inside—I'm going to fuck the life out of you till you beg for it, my dearest." The next thing you know, you feel a huge meat enter your entrance, spreading you in an instant without him warning you.

Results in a sign of pleasure, leaving your mouth open. A shockwave was sent to Jake's body, and he grunted loudly at the sensation. Making him buck up his hip, craving more pleasure. Before thrusting his cock in, as deep as he can at his first attempt.

"Holy, fucking shit, m/n, you feel like heaven, nrghh, let me have you more." Jake moans desperately, biting his plump lip to take pleasure once again. His cock continues to throb inside of you; your walls are clenching on him so tight that his hips are moving in and out unstoppably, fucking you roughly as a response to your body language.

"Jake, I think I'm going to squirt, ahh."

"Why not m/n~ *moaning* shot on me? I don't fucking care if it's dirty; just let me fuck you." Jake is shouting loudly at your statement, leaning down his lip to capture you, pulling you into a French kiss as his hip is still moving inside you.

"Let me fill you in, yeah? I think I'm coming. *huff huff* You let me hah?" Jake said in demand, and his orgasm started to build inside of him. You got the best of yourself, unable to decline his request as you braced yourself to welcome his request.

"ERG" Last but not least, Jake felt his cock twitching, growing hard as a metal between your stretching wall, as he exploding in your anal, filling you with his big load of a warm oragsm. In unison, you're also cumming to his sensation of him, hitting your sweet spot at the final thrust, which makes you shoot out uncontrollably.

Jake collapsed on your body, being too sensitive to the shockwave he had experienced earlier. Stop moving his hip as he sucking for oxygen sharply.

"T... thanks you, Jake; I feel a little better."

"We can do this all day, 7 days a week, to make you feel better every day, ma boy, haha. For now, let's consider our relationship  together."

"How about fuck, buddy?"

"No, I want all of you M/N" 

🗣️ please mind my English! ><

🗣️Reblog and like is much appreciated ♥

🗣️ I know there's indeed a mistake in this, sorry in advance 🫶. Improve how to write better.

I REPEAT THIS IS A WORK OF FICTION, NOTHING IS REFLECT TO THE REAL LIFE EVENT.

[x0xomady]

made with love

˙⊹܀☁︎˚˙⊹⁺.

summary: harry and you are in london for fall, so you make cookies, listen to old music, and fall even more in love.

(harry styles x female reader)

warnings: 18+ it’s not heavy smut, but there is still some smut in it, oral fem reciving, sickingly cute fluff.

a/n: my last few stories have had some heavier themes and plots, so i wanted to write something sweet! this is all autumn themed since summer is over :)

˙⊹܀☁︎˚˙⊹⁺.

the cold streets of london are filled with dew from the rain, fallen leaves, and people. harry and you are walking along the street back towards his apartment after being at the store. after much debate and harry threatening to sleep in the guest room for a month, the two of you decided on making chocolate chip cookies.

⋆｡˚⁺｡ one hour earlier, at the store ｡⁺˚｡⋆

“what do you mean, chai cookies? what the hell is a chai cookie? that’s a tea, not a dessert, sweetheart.” harry looks at you in confusion as you walk through the baking isle of whole foods looking for ingredients.

“it’s a thing! you know it has chai, nutmeg, cinnamon, all that good stuff.” you shrug and continue looking for the bags of flour.

“uh no it isn’t. we need to make chocolate chip cookies! everyone knows chocolate chip cookies are the best classic cookie.” harry sighs dramatically and drops the container of chocolate chip cookies into the basket. “where’d you even the get the idea for chai cookies?”

you smile and try not to laugh as you turn and look back at harry, knowing he would be mad about the source of your new fixation. “you know…. taylor swift posted them on her social media-”

harry gives you a deadpan look and doesn’t say anything.

“yeah, yeah, fine we can make chocolate chip cookies, you drama queen.”

⋆｡˚⁺｡ present ｡⁺˚｡⋆

as you make your way through the crowded streets, the cold night air nips at your nose and leaves your hands feeling cold and stiff. the light of street lamps falls upon the wet pavement, casting a faint yellow glow upon it, while the buildings look dull and dark against the dark sky.

harry and you walk silently beside one another, dodging other pedestrians who seem to be just as bundled up against the cold.

you look up at the sky and see the clouds are beginning to move in, covering up the stars and making the city darker. harry looks down at you, his breath visible in the cold night air.

“you warm enough?” he carries the bags in one hand and reaches over, lacing one of your hands with his.

you feel the warmth of his hand against your cold skin and give him a small nod.

“yeah i am,” you say with a smile, feeling harry’s rings against your hand as you walk. “you sure we have everything we need?”

“i think so,” he says with a small shrug, squeezing your hand in his. “eggs, milk, butter, vanilla, flour, sugar, and chocolate chips. and i even remembered the baking soda. which by the way- i had no idea what that was until today.”

you roll your eyes and smile at his words. if there was one thing harry could not do, it was bake. he could write albums, go on world tours, and play multiple different instruments, but if he had to mix ingredients, it turned into world war three.

“you could’ve just bought premade cookie dough,” you point out with a smirk, looking over at him. “or we could’ve made something easier, like rice crispy treats, or brownies-“

“first of all,” he begins with a mock offended tone. “rice crispy treats are a kid's food. secondly, we’re trying to get the full autumn experience, okay? none of this “store-bought” nonsense.”

“we can get the full experience by cuddling on the couch under a blanket and watching a spooky movie,”

you counter, raising an eyebrow as harry rolls his eyes at you. the cold from the air gives him a light pink tint to his cheeks as you walk through the streets. “but i guess you’re right…. watching you trying to bake is horror enough.”

he gasps, looking down at you in mock horror. “you think i’m that bad?!”

he grabs your hand tighter and pulls you down the street faster as you get closer to his apartment. “that’s it. i’m going to make the best fucking cookies and force you to eat them.”

˙⊹܀☁︎˚˙⊹⁺.

“okay…. add…. 3/4 cup of sugar.”

you nod and start measuring the cup of sugar. harry’s sat on the counter with his legs dangling off the side, reading the ingredients out for you to add to the bowl.

“aaaand… 3/4 cup of brown sugar.”

you smile at the sight of harry sitting on the counter so casually. he’s wearing his favorite “DAMN” hoodie that he wore whenever he could. you add the brown sugar to the bowl and look at the dough.

“okay it looks good. come help me roll it out so we can bake it.”

harry smiles and hops off the counter, standing next to you eagerly and looking down at the dough.

“ohhh so i AM allowed to help, good to know.” harry sighs sarcastically and moves the sleeves of his hoodie up, revealling his tattoos.

you roll your eyes and put the dough on the counter. harry had TRIED to help you mix the ingredients at the beginning, but...

⋆｡˚⁺｡ a few minutes prior ｡⁺˚｡⋆

“okay add the flour, h. i measured it, just drop it in the bowl.” you nod towards the cup of flour and watch as harry picks it up.

instead of dropping it into the bowl like a normal person, harry decided to hold it up about three feet, so when it fell in, flour shot EVERYWHERE.

“oh….” harry looks over at you with flour coating his entire face and hands, letting out a sneeze as the flour goes in his nose.

“oh for fucks sake, harry.”

⋆｡˚⁺｡ present ｡⁺˚｡⋆

so he was benched after that.

“yeah, yeah, stop whining and help me roll it out.” you smile at the sight of your boyfriend squishing the dough around.

he grins at you at you and begins squishing the dough with his hands, pushing it out with his palms. the sound of harry’s favorite fleetwood mac song, “over my head” is playing throughout the kitchen.

“i’m over my head… oh but it sure feels nice” harry is mumbling along to the lyrics as he rolls the dough around. your heart flutters and you smile a little at the sound of harry singing. you could never really get over having harry styles around like this.

“this is fun. just mashing around some sticky dough and getting it in my fingernails for no reason whatsoever.”

you roll your eyes again and start forming the little balls of dough, putting them on the greased pan. “stop being gross.”

“no no i can’t help it, it’s too fun.” he grins at you, shoving one of his hands in the dough and holding it up to you.

“see look, my fingerprints!”

he presses the dough against your cheek before you can protest, laughing as he leaves a sticky, doughy handprint on your face.

you gasp and push his hand away, feeling the sticky dough on your cheek. “harry!”

he laughs loudly and holds his hands up in surrender. “i’m sorry, i couldn’t resist. you’re just too cute.”

he moves closer, bringing his face close to yours and licking the dough off your cheek. “mm tastes good. not that you don’t always taste good, because trust me, you do.”

“oh shut up,” you scoff, playfully pushing him away as a blush spreads across your cheeks.

he grins and kisses your cheek before going back to rolling the dough into shape. after a second of silence he speaks up again. “oh shit- it’s everywhere.”

you turn to see that, sure enough, almost the entire counter was covered in dough, with little bits of it clinging to your skin and shirt. you look up at the sight of harry’s hands completely covered in sticky dough.

“harry how did you manage to get dough EVERYWHERE?”

“uhm, excuse me, i think you mean how did WE manage to get dough everywhere.” harry grins as you give him a look. he holds his hands up, admiring the dough on them. “see, we’re bonding.”

harry’s smiling and giggling like crazy. you roll your eyes and give his shoulder a gentle shove. “yeah, bonding over dough. i think we’re at peak relationship goals right now. just put flour on your hands to get some of the dough off”

you couldn’t be mad at him at all. you knew what harry meant by “bonding.” harry had been on tour for almost three years straight, and you finally had the chance to spend more than a week at a time together. you knew he felt guilty about being gone so much, and that’s why he was so set on having a “perfect fall” together.

you look at your messy hands and sigh, shaking your head. “okay let’s finish putting these in the oven.”

harry grins, shaking as much of the dough as he can from his hands, sending little clumps of it flying into the air. he giggles and grabs some paper towels, wiping the rest of it off his hands.

“yeah okay i guess i’ll try not to get any more dough on your stuff and everywhere,” he responds, moving back to the counter towards you. “just because you’re being so sweet about it.”

you smile at his words and give him a peck before grabbing pans and putting them in the oven. “mkay… lets go pick a movie”

˙⊹܀☁︎˚˙⊹⁺.

“johnny depp is so hot in this movie.” you sigh dramatically and take a bite of your cookie, watching the iconic scene of him in a crop top.

harry nods in and takes a bite of his own cookie. “yeah i agree.”

the two of you are sat on harry’s large couch, watching the perfect scary movie, “a nightmare on elm street.” you’re sat on the couch, laying back with your head on harry’s chest eating your cookies. they didn’t come out perfect, harry’s large (and just a little awkward) hands hadn’t formed the best shaped cookies.

but it was all perfect.

the front window of the apartment was left open, letting in the cold breeze and smell of rain as the clouds and mist filled london. each cookie was made with love and it was evident in the taste. you could tell harry was happy. he was so anxious about making sure you spent time together, and he was finally making it happen.

your large, fuzzy throw blanket is draped over the two of you as you watch the classic horror movie. harry’s hands mindlessly run over your waist as his focus on the movie.

he lets out a small breath as his hand rubs up and down your hip. he lets his fingers trail down, tracing little patterns against your skin.

it had been so long since the two of you could just be together like this. tour schedules had been hell, and he hadn’t had a break for almost a year. he was trying to make the best of it, he could tell you were also having a good time. you were so happy to just be near him, he could feel it in the way you relaxed into his touch.

“ughh that is disgusting. acting is…. mm subpar” harry says sarcastically and fake gags at the sight of johnny depp’s characters gruesome death scene. he grabs another cookie and puts it in his mouth, wincing at the sight of the blood.

“yeah yeah, I forgot I was with an experienced actor,” you scoff sarcastically, looking up at your boyfriend, who’s pulling a face. it was cute how affected he was by a cheesy 80s horror movie.

he rolls his eyes and grins down at you, still continuing to make a face as he watches the movie. “hey i’m allowed to criticize, remember don’t worry darling? yeah that’s right, masterpiece.”

he brings his hand from your waist down to your leg, gently squeezing your thigh as he looks back at the tv and watches the movie.

you smile and shake your head at his words, taking another bite of your cookie. “oh that’s right. please forgive me.”

the two of you continue to watch the movie, occasionally commenting on the acting or the plot. harry's hand never stops moving, tracing patterns on your waist and thigh, and you can feel yourself relaxing more and more with each passing moment.

the rain outside picks up, making a soft tapping noise against the window. the cool breeze from outside makes the room feel cozy and warm.

harry pulls your sweatpants down and tosses them to the side before grabbing your thighs and pulling you closer to him. he starts pressing kisses along your legs, starting from your ankles and working his way up. his stubble scratches gently against your skin, sending shivers down your spine. he takes his time, savoring every inch of your legs as he moves higher and higher.

the rain outside continues to fall, creating a soothing background noise combined with the quiet sound of the movie that only adds to the intimacy of the moment. you can't help but let out a soft sigh as he reaches your inner thighs, his fingers digging into your skin.

as he reaches your core, you gasp and grab onto harry's thick curls underneath the blanket. he presses a kiss against your folds, and you let out a low moan. your heart races as he continues to explore, his fingers tracing patterns against your skin. you lean back against the couch, your body going limp as you let yourself be consumed by the sensation.

harry's hands move up to your hips, holding you in place as he continues to taste and tease.

you feel his warm breath against your skin, and his tongue darts in and out, sending shivers down your spine. he suckles your sensitive nub between his lips, holding your body close to his. the scratchiness of his stubble gives a delicious sensation as his mouth, and chin scrape against your mound.

your fingers dig deeper into his curls, holding him in place as you arch your back, pushing yourself closer to his mouth. "yes, please h, need more." your voice comes out as a whimper as you push your hips to meet his face.

harry's hands grip tighter on your hips, pulling you closer as he continues to taste and tease. he can feel your body trembling beneath his touch, your breath coming in short, sharp gasps. he takes his time, exploring every inch of you as if it's the first time he's ever tasted you.

but suddenly, he pulls away, leaving you wanting. he pushes the blanket off, revealing your flushed skin and the desire in your eyes. he gives you his signature cheeky grin, his green eyes meeting yours.

"what do you need, love?" he asks, his voice low and husky. his hand reaches up to brush a strand of hair out of your face, his fingers lingering on your cheek.

you bite your lip, your breath still coming in short gasps. "i need you," you whisper, your voice barely audible.

harry's grin widens as he hears your words. he leans back in, pressing a kiss against the inside of your thigh, keeping his eyes on yours. "yeah?" he asks, his voice low and husky. "need my fingers, baby?"

you nod and holds onto his curls. harry takes his time, tracing a path with his fingers up your thigh, making you squirm in anticipation. when he reaches your core, he gently slides a finger inside of you, making you gasp at the sensation. he starts to move his finger in a slow, steady rhythm, his thumb pressing against your clit.

harry's eyes never leave yours, watching every reaction and response to his touch.

"you look so good," he murmurs, his voice low and husky. he presses a second finger past your entrance, and you let out a low moan as he begins to explore deeper. "so, so, so pretty," he says, his breath hot against your skin.

he continues to move his fingers inside of you, building up a rhythm that has you pressing your hips up against his hand. your breath comes in short, sharp gasps as you feel yourself getting closer and closer to the edge.

harry's fingers curl inside of you, pressing against that spot that makes your whole body tremble.

"oh, shit," you gasp, your fingers tugging on harry's hair for support. he smirks against your skin, his fingers continuing to thrust in and out of you. he presses tight circles on your clit, pressing light kisses against your thighs and mumbling words of encouragement.

you can feel your orgasm building up inside of you, your body tensing up as you get closer and closer to the edge. harry's fingers continue to move inside of you, his touch driving you wild. you whimper out, your breath coming in short, sharp gasps as your orgasm finally crashes over you.

harry smiles as he feels your walls squeeze his fingers, his eyes locked on yours as he watches you come undone. he gently presses kisses against your clit, his lips soft and gentle against your sensitive skin. slowly, he moves his fingers out of you as you ride out your orgasm.

"good job, baby," he whispers, his voice low and husky. "you look so pretty." his eyes are filled with adoration as he gazes at you, his fingers still tracing patterns on your skin. you can feel your body relaxing, your muscles releasing the tension as you come down from your high.

“love you so much,” he sits up from where he was kneeling on the floor between your legs and grabs a towel to gently clean you up. he stands up and presses a kiss to your forehead. “told you, you taste better than any of those damn cookies.”

˙⊹܀☁︎˚˙⊹⁺.

i may or may not have been inspired to write this after i made taylors chai cookies 👀

-💋

[comfortless]

This Time Around

König + fem! house sprite reader

content/warnings: reader wears dresses, König is soft and lonely, pining, comfort & fluff.

notes: @deltrese put the thought of König inheriting a little dollhouse from his grandmother in my head whilst i was watching Arrietty and… yknow. likely not anyones cup of tea but the idea was too cute to not write out eheh. not proofread, apologies! wc: 8.5k.

She survives on drops of honey, dew trickling from the asters springing up along the brick skirt wrapped around the lower level of the house, sips of canned soup and crumbs of bread when he forgets to clean up after a dinner prepared far too late into the night. He’s far from a messy man; he keeps his house in lovely shape, but he’s weary, more tired than any of the mice undergoing torpor she’s crossed paths with in the attic.

In her own way, she’s grown fond of this giant. Not fond enough to reveal herself in full, but she’s polite enough to sweep his crumbs from the table after he’s gone to bed, spend a day patching up an old shirt of his with a tiny thorn and scraps of thread if she notes a tear in the fabric of some ugly, dark thing he wears. She’s always amazed when he notices her busywork, too. The way he will hold the shirt in front of his face with a boyish grin after taking notice of how skillfully it’s been repaired, the way he calls out, “Danke freunden!” in that soft tone of voice that reminds her of a breeze passing through a windchime.

She knows that he doesn’t truly think that anyone else is here at all; that’s just how humans were— silly things. Something strange happens and they’ll try any way that they can to rationalize it or personify whatever may have caused it. König looked the part of a rational man, but her heart seems to swell when he gives away just how superstitious he truly is.

He’s ritualistic in some ways; covers his mouth when he yawns as though fearing that the Devil himself will come scurrying out of his windpipe, the wind chimes he has hanging up on his front porch, even knocking on the wood of the dining room table as he passes through lost in thought about something. She might be, too, because she always whispers her wishes of good favor to him when she knows he’s heading off on some grand adventure in the world outside.

She likes that she can make sure he feels less alone.

The man never has any visitors, and more often than not, he’s away. She likes to imagine he visits beautiful places, climbs mountains she will never in her lifetime see the peaks of, runs his calloused hands over the sharp edges of leaves and plucks dandelions puffed with seeds to blow wishes into. She pictures him having sweet, doting friends, all smiles when he’s around. Though, she is almost certain that the reality is nothing of the sort.

She’s seen him come home with fresh wounds, blood seeping through gauze haphazardly wrapped around his side. She’s seen the look in his eye when he stares blankly at the lifeless wall for what feels like hours, breathing out long sighs as his fingers curl and loosen in repetition at his sides. Regrettably, she’s fretted over the sight of tears welling in his eyes to the extent that she’s almost dared to come out of hiding, to console him just a little.

He’s hurting.

She’s alone too, here. There are others like her, of course. Groups of them cluster in lived-in homes chattering all throughout the night, getting into any mischief their tiny hands can fall upon to prepare. Often times, when a little sprite such as herself chooses a place, the others come flocking, too— making merry, stealing from their humans in ways hardly worthy of a second glance and starting colonies in the rafters, far out of sight.

But no one else will touch this place.

The house is a beautiful thing, meant for a family. There were so many rooms that she had yet to even explore herself. Not a pet in sight to chase after her and swallow her whole. The floors are soft carpet she often beds down in on nights she can feel he won’t be returning, plush and soft and so unused to human traffic. She loves it here, even if her kind do not. She might even understand why, too. It’s so melancholic, haunted by this miserable giant with heavy footfalls and tears perpetually unshed, held back by the grace of quivering hands in a body with too many scars.

She’s tried to count them before, once, whilst he was changing in his room. She wasn’t trying to steal a glimpse of his body, no, she only wanted to see what stories he was hiding, written on flesh. Perched on a bookshelf, she watched the giant as he pulled his shirt over his head, some tight, black cloth that didn’t look cozy at all. He had a cut running from his navel to his chest, a few penny sized keloids along his ribcage. The giant’s body was pale, as though he had never at all caught the eye of the sun, the only thing making him look still-alive and healthy were the layers of muscle across the chest, bunching down to his abdomen.

A pretty sight, undoubtedly for women similar in stature to him, but to her she sees only his fluttering pulse in the vein along his neck, the shaking of hands too large, and those horribly sad eyes that shatter her heart with only a glimpse.

She had nearly been caught then, with her palm splayed out over her chest in open awe and sympathy for this poor, cursed beast. His gaze had snapped over to the appeal of small movement on the shelf only to find nothing at all; she had tucked herself behind a copy of a Ungeduld des Herzens.

That was two months ago.

He had left the following morning, a black duffel bag thrown over his shoulder as he meticulously walked through the home shutting off lights and closing doors. Except… he left two lights on this time; the kitchen and his bedroom were cast in a white glow. She thought, assuredly that the artificial suns in their glass casings will burn out by the time that he returns. She also realized how strange it is that he would do such a thing at all. The man was prone to his habits, and it welled her up with dread to think that perhaps the book hadn’t entirely concealed her shape, that he had seen her peeking out between old pages covered in thin layers of dust.

She occupied her time scrounging around for anything that may have suggested his cerulean eyes had fallen upon her, When a human catches sight, it’s best to leave as though a house sprite had never been there at all; she certainly didn’t care for uprooting from this cozy, quiet life in the presence of a man that she harbored a fluttering, sympathetic heart for.

To her relief, she found nothing of note.

— — —

It was rare for him to be gone this long. She’s lost track of the days after a quaint seventy-three. A decent meal is harder to come by when he isn’t accidentally feeding her; the cabinets and pantry are shut, and there’s absolutely no hope of her small hands prying open the big portal leading to a perpetual winter that humans referred to as a refrigerator. Dew drops, wild strawberries and blackberries get tiresome after a while, and sneaking outside is dangerous, anyway. The birds don’t think her anything more than a bug, something simple to descend upon and scoop into a hungry beak.

She gathers up a thin piece of thread and, after tossing it into the air an innumerable amount of times only to have it land in a heap at her feet, she finally manages to hook it onto one of the knobs of a cabinet where she knows he keeps brightly colored packages of store bought cookies.

Those were for rougher days, always in date because god knows the man probably had never had a day that wasn’t somewhat harrowing. She’s seen him drink jåger and munch cookies while watching the television late into the night more times than she can count.

She pulls the thread tight and takes steps backwards to fling the cabinet door wide open. It takes a lot of effort from her small size, but she prides herself on managing even without a cluster of other sprites to help her along. Her stomach rumbles when the package comes into view and she readily climbs into the cabinet, up a few cans and boxes to reach the second shelf.

The package is opened with careful precision. She’s diligent at emulating the rips and tears she’s seen on similar ones to make it look like an accident occurred on some storage room shelf. Her heart swells in utter delight as the sweet smell of sugar and cinnamon wafts up her nostrils, her mouth watering by the time she pulls one of the baked goods free from its confinement as she seats herself on the thin wooden board of the shelf with the treat in her lap.

It’s when her lips part and she lowers her head to take a bite that her ears prick to the sound of the front door opening. She missed the sounds of the turning lock, likely whilst fussing with the plastic and now… now it’s simply too late for her to haul off her spoils, shimmy down back to the linoleum floor, manage to unthread her makeshift cabinet-door-opener and shut it, leave it as though it had never been touched.

She’s never made a grave error like this. There have been close calls, certainly, but never one that set her off with the alarm of certainty that she would be discovered.

The lock clicks back into place, and there’s the sound of heavy boots being dropped to the floor before soft footfalls could be heard against the plush carpet.

… Headed straight in her direction.

Don’t come in the kitchen. Do not come in in the kitchen!

She finds herself in a tossup between petrified by her own fear and utterly entranced by the idea of being caught. Finally, after years of watching her giant from shadows and covered perches. The idea that he might crush her like a bug or capture her to marvel at like a pet crosses her mind, certainly, but a part of her wants to believe that her fondness for him wouldn’t be entirely unreciprocated.

From her perch, she can see the dark camos, the looming shadow as he trudges into the room only to stop, immediately, when he notices the little door flung wide open. He’s wearing that hood he wears often when he returns, a scrap of bleached fabric with eye holes torn out. She’s taken to stitching it more times than she can count, breathing in the scent of sweat, of strange lingering smoke as she works to fix the threading along the eyeholes. It’s difficult to make out his expression like this, but his blue eyes dart from the open cupboard to the rest of the room before landing back there.

He grunts out a noise of confusion, and she can almost hear his thoughts. He wouldn’t have left it open. The lights had been intentionally left on. That was a sign she had foolishly overlooked.

He takes careful steps toward her, so close now that only the fabric of his tight-fitting trousers filled her view. To her horror, her amazement, his knees bend and he kneels down slowly. This wasn’t the way that things should have went, she should have been more cautious. The hood comes into view all too quickly. Blue eyes widen as they land on her with that big cookie still in her lap.

“Hallo, little one.”

Ohgodohgodohgod.

He’s speaking directly to her. He sees her. He’s not afraid, yet her heart is burning with the icy touch of pure dread.

She clutcheds the pastry tight to her chest, lips pressed into a thin line as she takes a tentative step back into the shadow of the cupboard. So tense, so uncertain. She didn’t want to leave, silently willing him to close his eyes, turn away, forget about the tiny thing he happened upon stealing his food.

Instead, he stares down at her as though he had just found a will to keep living, a reason to stick around despite his bloodied wardrobe and the ever-present loneliness.

“Kleine engel… you are safe, please don’t look at me like that…”

He’s so much kinder than she had ever anticipated, his heart laid bare between the red rings of flesh lining his eyes. Her giant is nothing but gentle, cooing at her in such a quiet voice as though she were a wounded baby bird. Those eyes were filled to the brim with such wonder and hope that she couldn’t turn away now even if he was some rotten carnivorous animal.

“Please don’t look at me.”

The words fall from her lips despite her defenses lowering, shoulders relaxing and her eyes filling with that same look of hope he held.

It’s strange, how someone so massive doesn’t seem to send her scurrying for the hills. He’s huge, but that tenderness in his eyes that makes her feel comforted, reminds her of the gentle lull of streams and the sky filled with puffy clouds like castles in mid-morning.

“Ach… But you are so…”

Tiny, strange, a myriad of words hanging on his tongue, and she feels every one of them with each flutter of her pulse.

“… so pretty. Kleine puppe.”

She drops the cookie at that and it falls to the floor of the shelf with a soft thud that makes her jump in place.

The other sprites have their stories. It’s nice to sit and listen from the comfort of a canopy of grass when another passes through. They speak of the humans that they’ve encountered just as they speak of beasts, keen-eyed cats with sharp claws bared ready to feast upon those like herself. Dangerous things not meant to be associated with. Not one of them has ever mentioned encountering one that looks at them like… this, as though they were something breathtaking, something to be protected.

He huffs out a laugh at her shocked expression, his fingers drumming upon his knees as he watches her.

“I am not a ‘puppe’.”

“A fairy, then?”

She sighs, heavy and exasperated as she sorts out her dress and bends down to retrieve her meal. A pretty thing she had sewn herself from a vintage napkin, blue blossoms and thin lace.

“Are you going… to tell anyone?”

Her giant shakes his head with a laugh, and of course he does— who would he tell?

“I will keep you a secret, puppe.”

“Good, or I’ll curse you!” She warns, trying to puff her chest to seem bigger, more intimidating. She’s too cute to seem anything more than a frightened bunny, and his eyes are swimming in mirth at the sight of her. He’s like a giant child, finding out the fairytales in his books were true all along, only… not the ones about boiling folks like him down to bones to teach a lesson, just the ones where true love and sweet princesses existed.

He asks her a million things in rapid succession then— where she came from, how long she’s been here, what she’s doing, why she never came out before, how she can even exist. They make her head swim and she doesn’t answer a single one. He makes no move to touch her, doesn’t move any more than his nervous fingers and his beautiful eyes. They crease at the outer corners with each wide smile he undoubtedly has beneath that hood and her heart stutters each time like the flapping of little bird wings desperately seeking safe wind to coast in a storm.

She decides that she likes him as she brings herself to sit on the edge of the shelf, nibbling at her cookie whilst he tells her his name, that he works as a soldier— a colonel, sounding prideful despite the fact she has no clue just what that entails. He speaks to her in an energetic whisper, drops his shoulders and lowers himself further as though trying to appear her size, despite the vast disparity between their statures.

“Do you have a place to sleep?” König asks her suddenly, glancing over his shoulder as he looks out towards the den with a pinched brow. It was almost as though he expected a castle fit for her to appear from thin air, white gates and a shimmer of fairy dust surrounding it all.

“The floor is soft… sometimes between the sofa cushions, too. You’ve nearly sat on me before.”

“Nein. That will not do.”

He stands to his feet before she can protest and leaves the room. A part of her still teeters on the edge of running off, escaping before they became too familiar, and yet a more impulsive part wills her to wait as she hears the creak of floorboards beneath his feet whilst his footfalls ascend up into the attic.

She pictures the mice scurrying away in fright, just as she should, while she kicks her feet and waits patiently. The taste of cinnamon and sugar remains on her tongue as she places the remnants of the cookie aside and licks her fingers clean of sweet dust.

König returns a few moments later, a large box cradled in his arms.

“Close your eyes, puppe.”

It doesn’t make sense for her to leave herself vulnerable so soon after their impromptu meeting, and she doesn’t want to, but she does as he asks anyhow with a soft smile on her tiny face. Feels her chest pool with a mixture of excitement and fear as she hears him shuffling about the kitchen, the thump of something heavy being placed on the counter encourages her to flinch. She can hear small objects being set down carefully, the water running from the tap for a moment before the sound of something soft meeting wood fills her ears. It all quiets after a moment and she feels a gentle nudge at her side.

Her eyelids flutter open to see König’s finger gently pressed against her waist, his blue eyes beneath the dark hood fill her vision entirely. He’s so close, too close. As if sensing her apprehension, he raises his head back to look down at her instead.

“It is alright. I have a gift for you.”

König nudges her once more before she realizes that he’s inviting her to climb onto his massive hand. Her breath catches as she glances from the calloused flesh to his eyes and back.

Her kin would scold her severely if they were here, tell her she’s gone too far that there’s no way she will ever come back from this if she accepts. She stinks of human already. That’s how she justifies the way she climbs into his palm with her hands folded into the lap of her dress. His other hand curves around her, not touching, but hovering closely enough to keep her in place as he slowly rises to his full height and carries her over to the counter where he immediately allows her to clamber off before dropping his hands to his sides again.

The sight she’s met with dissolves any lingering fear she had harbored against him.

On the counter sits a wooden dollhouse, painted a lovely shade of blue, the roof a quiet shade of gray. It’s a stately thing, speaking of yesteryear’s Victorian styled homes with its vaulted roof, even a small turret beside the upstairs balcony. Expertly crafted and far too beautiful, perhaps even prettier than König’s empty home. Her eyes are welling with tears as she slowly ascends the three sturdy steps to the front door.

“You like?”

She can’t bring herself to respond immediately. She’s too caught up in this, opening the door with a gentle pull as she wanders into the house. It’s furnished in a hurry, some of the furniture misplaced, but… everything is here, as it would be in a normal, human home. A couch that seemed almost tailored for her size sits beside a little rattan shelf, a small table before it, a little hearth, a full kitchen and upstairs she finds a bedroom complete with a canopy bed. The curtains hanging off of it are blue like the outside, like the floral wallpaper adorning the dollhouse. She tests the bed with a gentle hand, marveling at how soft it was, how the sheets bunch beneath her palm.

Then, she approaches the window in admiration of all of the small details, little etchings of plant life carefully scrawled along the wood. The lock even clicks open as she pushes the little sheet of plastic framed by white to rise.

“It’s perfect,” she chirps out to her giant. “It’s so beautiful…”

“Oma gave it to me when I was a boy.” König’s reply sounds bittersweet, but his eyes are shimmering, as though the fact he had made this small woman so happy had been the height of his year, perhaps even an entire decade of his life. She’s seen him quietly weep to himself long into the night, only a breadth away from him as she tucks herself further into couch. He’s seemed gentle, less of a titan and more battered then, but he’s never seemed this sweet. “And now I am giving it to you.”

— — —

Sleeping in a bed is different. It’s quiet and soft with no worries of getting crushed by a heavy boot or threats of having a presence too large finding out about her existence. Those things do absolutely nothing to lull her to comfort as a dull the throbbing in her chest blossoms and continues all throughout the night ceaselessly. She tucks the blanket a little tighter around herself as she tosses and turns on the small mattress.

Mornings are different now, too. When König wakes, he taps at her front door to pull her from her restless dreaming. He has a ritual, expecting her to come out in one of the dresses from the dollhouse’s wardrobe rather than her scrapped clothing with a small mug and a plate in hand. He gives her a drop or two of coffee and food from whatever breakfast he’s pieced together. Sometimes it’s a cookie from the cabinet. She feels like a contented housepet these days as he leans over the counter to speak to her.

It’s painful how attentive König is. His eyes don’t leave her when she speaks and he consistently asks her if she needs anything, if there is anything that he could do to make her feel more comfortable as if he hasn’t already provided her with refuge and companionship, things she hadn’t even realized she had been longing for. As if he hasn’t already made her feel things for a human that no sprite should! Really, the way he loiters about with the stupid grin plastered across his face while she stumbles out of her abode to greet him does nothing to make the flutter in her chest feel warranted. It’s there no matter how much she turns her head away from him and barks out her warnings of curses and other mischief; gnaws at her every time she hears his laugh or he tells her yet another stupid story of things she knows nothing of.

She listens, anyway, utterly mesmerized when he speaks of rescuing hostages or tearing through men like a rampaging bull. He explains to her what guns are, shows her and lets her run her tiny hands over polished metal. She should think him violent and obscene, but the way he looks at her as though she’s all he has stifles any judgements before they can leave her lips.

It quickly froths to a point that she realizes she’s come down with a terrible crush. She worries for him after hearing his tales each time he steps foot out of the house on another deployment, rushes from whichever corner she’s occupied with hurried little steps to greet him. She lets him carry her around on his shoulder sometimes, even leans over his arm when it’s stationed on the counter just to feel him near.

She knows better, which is why she finds herself skittering through tall grass to seek another of her kind. Hoping for a reminder that she’s making too many mistakes. The trip is a short walk for a human, but takes her from morning to sunset to reach her destination, a narrow alder tree full of knotholes with sprigs of dandelion surrounding it.

“You what?!” Bellis exclaims, the very second she’s managed to spill her story and slump against a ruggedly crafted table within the trunk of the tree. Bellis’ voice was like the chirping of little nightingales, and she looks cute when she’s surprised— the other sprite’s brown eyes twinkle in such a way that it makes her think of stars falling into pools of honey.

“Yes… we spoke,” she huffs, curling her arms around her waist, her face feeling hot and her eyes dreamy. Bellis knows the look well enough, the other sprite has it every time she locks eyes with her wife, another sprite far too pretty. It’s affection, one that she graciously spares her friend from commenting on.

“It’s alright, you know… just be safe.”

“Of course…”

She anticipated some long-winded lecture of dangers, to be beaten by words targeting her own selfish wants.

Instead, Bellis only offers comfort and the hope that her feelings are not a lost cause.

“You aren’t the only one who has ended up falling for their human, you know?”

“I thought we were supposed to avoid them, not dream of them.”

Bellis giggles and drapes an arm over her shoulder as she prattles on about sprites and glamours that could make them bigger. She tells her of a couple only a weeks travels away, a male sprite and a human woman, how he feasts upon wild berries and golden herbs under each new moon to keep himself human-sized day and night for the woman that he loves. Bellis reminds her that the other sprites frown upon it out of fear for their own safety, but she also reminds her that she’s damned to live a life far longer than the object of her affection, anyhow, and that if he already knows of her existence then what’s the harm in it?

Those words fill her with fantasies about a happy life, where she can hold her giant properly in an embrace, rather than wrapping her arms around his thumb to satiate the burning affection running rampant through her.

They also damn her to heartbreak when König returns.

He comes home after two short weeks this time, rather than months and she rushes to greet him as always. König bends down on a knee, scoops her up in his palm and brings her over to the sofa where he sets her on the opposite end from where he sits.

“How was your trip?” She asks him sweetly as she plops down onto the pillowy cushion below, fidgeting with the hem of her dress in excitement. She knows what she knows now, and she truly could not wait to tell him, to give life to the newfound feelings in her chest. She wonders what König would say; would he take her on dates? Would he dance across the room with her as she’s seen sprites in the throes of courtship do before? Would he kiss her? The thought makes her feel warm again.

König, on the other hand seems perfectly composed and lost in thought. His hands are fidgeting, but this time, not with themselves. He’s holding a device she doesn’t recognize, tapping at the little screen with the same look in his eyes that she reserves solely for him.

“It was fine.” He mumbles, and for the first time he doesn’t elaborate. She looks forward to his stories. Time away from him is difficult now. It passes slowly without their morning chatter, without his stories, without the films she watches with him late into the night. He’s taught her to use the remote, sure, but it’s not the same without him towering at her side.

“What is that?”

“A phone.”

She listens intently when he explains what this strange object is, even shows her the bright screen and lets her tap her hand against it a few times as she looks at the shifting colors with wide eyes.

“I visited a friend while you were away.”

He rests his phone in his lap and looks down at her then, his interest piqued.

“There are more like you?”

“Yes, lots.” She giggles. She tells him of Bellis who lives in the alder with her wife, of how her dark hair curls and her voice sounds like the chirping of birds. König pays rapt attention as she speaks, belays his curiosity of the prospect of there being many more like his little housemate with a tilt of his head.

“I made a friend while I was away.” He gestures toward his phone with a smirk. “Pretty, like you, but bigger.”

König explains to her what a ‘dating app’ is with a look of pure glee on his face. She’s never seen him so happy, not even when he first met her. It’s not a concept she can wrap her head around, her kind just happen upon one another, sing and dance and feast together until love blooms between them. There’s no need for little, lighted rectangles when it came to courtship.

“She’s coming to visit soon.” He pauses as his phone lights up again, his eyes scanning over the message on screen as a grin spreads over his thin lips. “I will have to hide you.”

Her face scrunches in disdain at that as she rises to her feet to pad a bit closer to the hill of his thigh, spread over into the next seat. She places her palms against the rough fabric of his pants, looking up at him with an expression of sheer bewilderment.

“But I don’t wanna hide anymore — we are friends.”

The man’s smile falters a bit then, as he nods his head in agreement.

“Ja… but she will be more.”

“What’s that mean?”

“I am taking her on a date.”

König seems so happy, and yet she feels as if she’s being bitten by a viper. All of that talk with Bellis was for naught, because the human man that’s won her heart by telling her of his creature comforts, of war and sharing his meals with her has left her to have his heart stolen away by another.

Despite the way it hurts, she doesn’t find herself upset with him. He isn’t like her, and he’s been alone for far too long. She reminds herself that König deserves to be happy, especially after all that he’s done for her.

She only lets herself cry when he brings her back to the dollhouse and she sinks into the sheets of her bed.

The following morning comes and she wakes feeling refreshed before König even begins his tapping. She bathes in the little plastic tub filled with lukewarm water König had graciously fetched for her the night before from the faucet, clothes herself in one of the many doll dresses found in the little wooden wardrobe of her home. Dainty florals like the wallpaper in the little wooden house, only this time pink rather than blue.

When König taps at her door, she’s already prepared with her tiny mug and plate in hand, a smile on her face.

���Guten morgen, puppe.” He greets her with a lazy grin as he opens his palm to take her dainty kitchenware. His yawn is cute when he turns away to begin filling the liner of the well with coffee grounds. She follows after him across the countertop with hurried steps to match his vast strides.

As he prepares their breakfast, they speak endlessly of dreams, sweet syrupy things. He tells her he dreams of flowers sometimes, like the ones on her dress, and she tells him she dreams of exploring the world outside with him.

“I will carry you to the top of a mountain one day, little one.” König says sweetly as they both sip at their coffee. He doesn’t prepare it black as often anymore, often adding sugar and milk simply because he knows that she likes it better that way.

She tells him she doesn’t need to see the tops of mountains, because she already gets a perfect view when he carries her.

— — —

“I’ll be back later.”

König is dressed strangely, she notes as she watches him from the arm of the couch. He’s dressed casually, more so than she had ever seen him, which is a large statement considering the man normally roamed around his abode in nothing more than a pair of black sweatpants. Tonight, however, he’s chosen a black t-shirt with some text scrawled across it that she can’t quite read and tough denim. It’s an odd sight when she’s grown so accustomed to the bare flesh of his scarred torso and gaudy military camos unsuited for cozy, indoor wear.

The giant crouches to lace up his boots with one hand while the other holds his phone. There’s that smile on his face again, but she easily takes notice of the way his hand shakes with it in his grip. He’s nervous, but never so with her.

It’s strange that he’s more comfortable with a little creature in his home than he is with his own kind.

“Oh… your date,” she murmurs, standing up to her full height, despite how small it may be.

“Ja, my date.”

“Can we watch another movie when you get back?”

König nods his head as he approaches the couch, slipping his phone back into his pocket before gently stroking the top of her head as though she were just a small kitten.

She doesn’t like the fact that he doesn’t see her as anything more than a cute pet any longer. Sprites didn’t keep track of their ages as humans do, celebrating the day they were born into the world with silly parties and gifts, but she would hazard to guess she’s at least a century older, maybe more. This wasn’t her first home, only, in the last she had watched that family wither away to an endless rest.

König was different; she wanted him to stay, thrive, live forever here with her. A selfish, silly wish.

When she leans into his touch, she thinks of the couple Bellis spoke of— a sprite and a human woman. It could be the same for she and König, if only he saw her for what she truly was, what she was capable of being.

“Ja, little one. As many as you like.”

She watches as the door closes behind him with her heart in her throat.

König does not keep her waiting long. If she had to hazard any sort of guess, she would assume that the moon hanging in the sky had barely moved by the time he returns. She hadn’t even left the couch, lying on her back staring up at the ceiling when the front door is flung open.

If it were possible for him to somehow look more pitiable, he does in that moment as he kicks off his boots and rests his phone and keys on the table by the door. She knows without a word exchanged that she should not ask him what’s happened. The broad shoulders were slumped, his face somehow paler. In that moment, her giant seemed even smaller than her.

She sits up and presses the buttons on the remote with her entire hand as König had shown her how to do, loading up some Austrian film he had told her was his favorite when he was just a boy. He offers her a lazy smile as he carefully places himself a respectful distance away and leans back into the couch. The movie plays while she occasionally speaks up to ask him what certain words mean, and he patiently teaches her, seeming thankful for the distraction she eagerly provides.

She doesn’t wake in her small house, in her tiny bed, this time, instead pressed against his thigh with his hand draped over her in the world’s heaviest blanket. When she raises her head up to look at him, peacefully resting with his head tilted against the back of the couch, jaw slack and dark lashes fluttering she makes a firm decision.

The golden herbs and berries Bellis had mentioned were on the far side of the forest. A long, dangerous trek, especially for someone who didn’t know the way. Rousing a mouse to treat as a steed could work, but the urgency caused her to fret. She wanted to meet his gaze and not fear stumbling back with each exhale of his breath, to be strong and capable enough to make her giant somehow feel as safe as he made her feel. There was no time to befriend a mouse and train it proper, not if she intended to do this before the new moon came and went.

She slips from beneath König’s limp palm, off of the sofa and out the small gap in the window to set off.

— — —

The early morning is alive with the chirping of birds, the rustling of leaves and calls of strange animals a distance away when she makes it outdoors. She shields herself beneath a broad fallen leaf, hunkering down to soil any time anything soars or wanders too close for her liking. Morning dew chills her to her bones, and she has herself convinced that after all of this she will most certainly craft herself a coat, perhaps one made out of a sleeve from one of König’s old shirts. He would allow it, she’s certain. The thought of him even wasting a day away to help her fills her up with another warmth to carry on.

Her little dress is filthy before she even makes it out of the yard.

Tall grass quickly morphs into a forested trail, the trees so vast and tall, filled with the chattering and singing of others. She waves to some of them, turns her nose up at a few that beckon her to join their little communes hidden beneath layers of tree bark and moss. She spots a red fox chasing after another in the midst of play, they chitter and whine as they topple over one another before bounding off into the brush.

When the sun completes a lazy crawl high up into the sky, it’s rays of warmth beaming down on to the back of the leaf, warming her fingers as they curl over it to keep it in place, she knows she should stop and rest. Tucked away in the shade of a small mulberry bush, she shoos away a vibrantly colored caterpillar before cleaning off one of the berries with a handkerchief she finds in the pocket of her dress. A small lunch that simply leaves her wishing for König’s breakfasts instead, always warm and filled with moments of soft laughter.

She wonders what he’s spending his time doing now, almost feeling a pang of guilt for leaving him after what had assuredly been a terrible outing with a woman he had admired. Did he miss her? Was he thinking of her, too? Searching through his bookshelf and beneath his couch in an effort to find her? She hoped so.

Her journey ends when night finally comes about. The moon above is a mere sliver, but it’s enough to frame the clusters of goldenrod in a soft, white glow amidst a sea of inky darkness. She cheers in utter delight when she realizes she’s made it, that despite no map or guides her senses were keen enough to carry her on the right path. She carefully gathers a few clippings, dropping them into a neat pile before seeking out the strange berries Bellis had told her about. Her thoughts are flooded by the idea of how she and König will dance, how she will tell him in a voice as loud as his own that she’s fallen head over heels for him and that perhaps, he can even teach her to use one of his many weapons before they clamber onto the couch snug and warm to talk throughout a film.

Those thoughts keep her warm when she beds down in a nest of wild grasses.

The next night fills her with excitement. The sky is darker with the new moon hanging up above, only pinpricks of starlight break through the dark. She pictured herself human sized as she performs her little ritual, feasting on berries and swaying with a sprig of goldenrod in a little dance before she bites down into it to. There are other sprites here, doing the same. Some get bigger to move or for silly things such as being able to shop in human markets or taste meat for the first time. They sing and giggle just as she does, and she sees the face flush with love of the one she knew Bellis had spoken of. It lasts the entire night, and she’s far too excited to sleep or stay out when all is done.

She doesn’t know when she’ll change shape, not having thought to even ask, but the sight of the other sprites had solidified her belief that it would come to pass.

The way back feels far shorter than the way forward. She finds herself back in the yard just as the sky settles into mottled purples and orange and puffy white clouds. The smile on her face makes her cheeks hurt, and her chest and legs ache from exertion, but she treks on until she meets the brick foundation of the house. With and arm raised and a foot dig into the firm clay, she begins to climb up towards the window still left slightly ajar.

Only, she feels a warmth at her side that tosses her back into the grass steps away. It pulls her breath from her lungs and it takes a moment for her to force herself back up into a crouch and her vision to cease its swimming. She’s always found cats to be cute from a distance away, all soft fur and pleasant sounds. The one before her, however seems menacing, its claws are bared and its pupils blown as his mouth hangs open to scent. The orange of its fur is like fire, the yellow of irises like the sun itself.

This thing was going to kill her, she knew it before she even caught sight of the way claws had slashed through the side of her dirty dress leaving shallow gashes in her flesh.

The cat rears back, shifting on its haunches in preparation to pounce as she wails out König’s name in a near-silent prayer that he would come rescue her from this adorable little murderer.

The cat is caught in arms the size of trees mid-leap. It yowls for a moment before a hand gently begins to stroke the fiery fur behind its ears. Her giant coos to the little beast, and the vibration of a soft purr could be heard as she dusts herself off and stands.

“Are you alright, little one?”

His voice is sweet as he carefully sets the cat back into the grass and scoops her up instead. She looks pitiful— dirty, injured and panting as though she’s just escaped Hell itself. König’s expression grows horribly concerned before she can even catch her breath enough to respond.

“I’m okay,” she mumbles as she rests her weary head on the palm that feels more like rough stone than living flesh. “I was only gone for two nights, did you have to get a pet?”

König laughs at that, shaking his head as he takes her back inside the house with metered steps.

“Nein, I did not. He’s the neighbor’s.”

He shuts the door behind him, taking care to ensure the scruffy feline didn’t sneak inside.

“Let’s clean you up, hm?”

The man offers her a human bandage for the scrape along her waist before she wanders into the dollhouse to bathe, dress the wound and change into something less dirty.

After everything, she finds herself utterly exhausted. She tells König good night wishes, but her giant is hellbent on keeping her in his sight. After a close call like that, she doesn’t protest when he tells her they should sleep on the couch again instead. It’s safer, and after two days apart there’s little more that she wants than to be close to him, tucked under his palm eternally safe. König only gets through the start of a story before she’s fallen asleep curled against the side of his thigh. It doesn’t take long for the giant to follow suit, either. His soft snoring is present in her dreaming, a gentle sound accompanying the breeze of wind through a field of lavender where they sit hand-in-hand.

— — —

König does not wake her with gentle tapping the next morning. Instead, it’s a bark of surprise that jolts her from her sleeping. Her vision is blurry when her eyelids flutter. She can make out the view of the coffee table, the television beyond it, and somehow it feels wrong. She was accustomed to straining her neck to look up at things, yet seeing them now she doesn’t need to at all. In fact, it feels stranger when she notes her head is no longer resting on the cushion of the couch below, but on a broad shoulder layered in muscle instead.

König is staring at her as though he’s just encountered a ghoul. In fact, he’s trembling too. His reaction is enough to prompt her to shrink back, away from him and retreat to the arm of the couch. Only, she can’t fit the entirety of herself there as easily as she had many times before. Her legs are much too long, and making her ascent only brings her hands into view. She holds one to her face and marvels at it before her gaze trails down, down and she notices she’s nude. The little dress she had been wearing was no more than a tattered and torn mess on the couch beside König, who’s still gawking at her.

He turns his head away rigidly after a moment while she sits bewildered by her change in shape. The man returns after a beat with a large t-shirt and a pair of his boxers in hand, thrusting them towards her graciously as he keeps his face turned away. She can make out the red tint on his cheeks, the way his lips part only to slam shut when words fail him and she laughs full and giddy as she slips his clothing on and stands up to twirl about the room.

“It worked!”

Her voice sounds strange even to her own ears now. Shouting from her regular stature still resulted in a mere whisper, yet this… along with seeing all she can hear all. Just as he does, she sounds of rustling wind chimes.

She reaches for his hand to pull him along in her rhythmless swaying, and he obliges with a sigh and a shake of his head. König’s grinning, though. Even more so than when he wasted his time tapping away at the phone screen. He looks happier than she’s ever seen him as he clumsily shuffles with her.

“Little one… what did you do?”

He’s still a fair bit bigger than her, but she stands the height she feels as though she should. Her giant is still a giant no matter what silly magic she uses, but it’s fine, because he’s not looking at her as a tiny doll anymore, but in utter amazement instead. The way his pulse races and his pale cheeks burn crimson isn’t lost on her.

She explains to him just what the other sprite told her, tells him about the one she saw so in love with a human woman he did the same each month to keep himself more her size too. König halts her movement as he tugs her against him and pulls her into an embrace, the very thing she’s yearned for since the afternoon they began to speak. She knows he’s confused and entirely confused, but he bends to rest his chin on the crown of her head and squeezes her so tightly that she knows he’s grateful for this small miracle too.

She helps König prepare breakfast this time. Having watched him ready his coffee pot dozens of times by now, she knows how to operate the small, black machine. She prepared the toast too, with a gratuitous sweep of jam over each slice of the warm bread. König is still overly gentle with her, keeping his distance and not resting his hands on her unless it’s required or she prompts it. She does, often intertwine her fingers with his even as they eat, which earns her a shy smile and a gentle squeeze each time. Her giant isn’t nervous with her, their conversations are the same. He tells her that she’s pretty as often as before, cups a steady hand on her shoulder when she reaches out to embrace him after their meal.

She thinks ahead and leads König into the forest to gather a plethora of golden herb and berries to stuff into the winter box for the next time she will need to perform her little ritual, and he swears to her that he will stay up the entire night to watch over her then. The walk is so much shorter from her height now, but she doesn’t forget to tap at Bellis’ alder and flash the sprite a little smile and a wave when König has his back turned on the way back.

He still has his work, and she waits at home for him like a doting housewife. Only now, he returns with gifts. His closet is no longer dark green and black— there are patches of soft colors and whites between, floral fabric and lace, dainty things that seem comical amidst the tactical articles and denims she knows he’s scrubbed blood off of a few too many times.

They don’t share a bed, but they still cuddle against one another on the couch. Hand-in-hand as she’s always dreamt of. In fact, most nights it’s his bed that she sleeps in while he rests elsewhere, and he doesn’t mind it at all. He even tucks her in and presses a kiss to her cheek that makes her so giddy that she can’t find sleep until a half-hour afterwards before he flicks off the lamp and leaves her to her dreaming.

— — —

She’s better at keeping track of time after adjusting to a more domesticated life. König’s been out for fifty-four days, but she doesn’t have to miss him so much. He’s gifted her a phone, sends her letters with his stories scrawled out in black ink. The calls are frequent, and she finds she loves them most of all. They’re at odd hours often, and he always breathes out an apology for having woken her that pulls a giggle from her, because they both know she wouldn’t have preferred to wake any other way than from the sound of his voice.

“I miss you.”

He sounds tired when he says it, and she imagines that he is. Those weary looks from before they had ever even spoken weren’t unwarranted and she knows well enough now. His tales of his heroics were not all spoken to simply boast.

“I miss you too, König.”

He huffs out a laugh into the phone, and she imagines his smile reaching the bright eyes that she loves, twinkling in mirth.

“I should let you sleep.”

“No, it’s fine.” She pauses to chew on her lip, heart sailing up into her throat. “Will you be coming home soon?”

He grunts out his confirmation. “Tomorrow.”

“I wish to take you on a date then— a picnic, maybe. I can bake a cake.”

König falls silent for a moment, and her breathing halts entirely as she slumps back against the bed— his bed— feeling as though she were still just as small as before. Surely… she could not have misread all of those little looks, the warmth and his fluttering pulse she felt as she rested her head on his arm so many times before. She parts her lips to recant her statement, but there’s no need. The contented sigh she hears in response is all of an answer that she needs.

“Ja, please. I would be honored.”

[springtyme]

Hi! Syd smut requester here! Just saying thank you and I’m excited to see what you’ll do. I’m definitely happy to wait however long it takes lol. :)

𝐏𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐬 𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐂𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐦 ♡

So, this took me forever to write, sorry about that (but better late than never, I hope 😅) Thank you for your patinece, and thank you so much for your request! I hope you like it 💕

Sydney Adamu x gn!reader || Masterlist || Sydney playlist

summary: Waking up next to your girlfriend is your favorite thing in the whole wide world. Eating her out is a close second though.

word count: 4.2k

warnigs: Smut! (18+, mdni!) Mentioning of food. Fluffy smut. Cunnilingus. Nipple play/sucking. Reader is a much.

You sink deeper into the plush pillows and mattress, the soft fabric molding around you like a warm embrace. Sunlight dances through the half-drawn curtains, casting gentle rays that warm your skin and illuminate the scattered remnants of last night — mugs of barely touched tea, a book left open on the bedside table, and a half-eaten blueberry muffin resting precariously on a napkin. It’s the kind of morning that wraps around you like a favorite blanket, comforting and forgiving. 

The world outside remains muffled, a gentle hum of distant traffic as Chicago bustles away outside, a soft reminder that life continues outside this little cocoon of comfort. You take a deep breath, inhaling the sweet smell of chamomile and honeysuckle tea, mixing with the fresh linen laundry detergent and the mild, nutty scent of shea butter.

Sydney is nestled against you, her head resting on your shoulder, as you feel the rhythm of her breath match your own. You take a moment to admire her, how effortlessly beautiful she is, and how lucky you feel just to be here together. It’s so rare that you have a weekend like this, just the two of you, no plans and no restaurant obligations pulling her away. 

You shift slightly, careful not to disturb her, and watch as her lashes flutter gently against the soft skin under her eyes as the early morning light plays across her face. 

A stray eyelash has settled on her cheek, glimmering briefly in the sunlight like a tiny treasure. With a slow, gentle movement, you lean closer, your fingertips barely grazing her skin as you delicately brush it away, letting your fingers continue trailing lightly along her jawline, eliciting a quiet sigh of contentment from her lips.

You try to memorize this moment, capturing the essence of it in your mind’s eye. It’s as if time has paused, even if just for a heartbeat, allowing you to really see her — the way the morning light softens her features, the hint of a smile lingering at the corners of her lips as she dreams.

You lean in closer, you don’t want to wake her, but you can’t resist the urge to plant a soft kiss on the spot where the rogue eyelash sat just moments before. The warmth of your lips draws a soft smile from her, but she does not awaken. Instead, she nestles deeper into your shoulder, the satin of the scarf that’s protecting her braids glides against your cheek, feeling smooth and cool against your sleep-warmed skin. Her hand instinctively curls to find yours beneath the covers. 

You intertwine your fingers, cherishing the softness of her skin against yours. Lost in the tranquility of the moment, you contemplate the day ahead, hoping it can be as peaceful and unplanned as this morning has been. Before your thoughts can wander too far, you feel the gentle squeeze of her hand, her fingers tightening around yours as she slowly stirs awake. Her eyes flutter open, taking in the soft light and your face next to her. A smile spreads across her lips, transforming her sleepy expression into something radiant.

“Good morning,” she murmurs, her voice still heavy with sleep.

“Good morning,” you reply, unable to suppress the joy bubbling up within you.

Sydney blinks a few times, the remnants of sleep still clinging to her like the fine mist of morning dew. You can see her brain waking up, processing the warmth of your body next to hers and the quiet sanctuary you’ve both created together. 

“I can’t remember the last time I slept so well,” she says, her voice a soft murmur, still finding its rhythm in the waking world. She lets out a satisfied sigh, eyes closing again for a fraction longer, as if she wants to hold onto this moment for as long as possible. 

“Me neither,” you reply, squeezing her hand gently. “It’s so nice to just… be.”

She hums in agreement, opening her eyes again to find yours. The two of you just lay like this for a few seconds, eyes locked as the soft light illuminates you both. 

“You’re so pretty. How are you so pretty this early in the morning?” Sydney mutters, a soft smile tugging at her lips and her eyes sparkling with affection. 

You chuckle quietly, feeling how your heart flutters at her compliment. “That’s rich coming from you,” you counter, leaning in closer, Sydney meeting you on the halfway. “Beautiful,” you mutter against her lips before pressing a tender kiss against them, soft and unhurried, savoring the taste of the last remnants of sleep on her mouth.

As you pull away, you see the lazy satisfaction in her eyes, a shared understanding that this moment is precious. “I could get used to this,” she says, a hint of a smile still tugging at her lips. She maneuvers to prop herself up on one elbow, glancing at the chaos of your shared space.

Her gaze lands on the remnants of the previous night — the book with its pages turned and the fruit-stained napkin with the forgotten muffin — and there’s a flash of remembrance in her eyes. “Do we have any eggs left?” she asks over her shoulder, her tone casual but filled with hope.

“Yeah, I believe so,” you reply. “You’re already planning breakfast?”

“Mhm, how does french toast with blueberry muffin crumble breading sound?”

“It sounds amazing.” you answer with a soft smile. You can’t help but be amused by her enthusiasm. “But remember it’s your day off, you don’t have to cook for my sake.”

She laughs softly, shaking her head as she rolls onto her back, looking up at the ceiling for a few seconds. “I know,” she says, before she rolls over on her side, propping her head on her hand as she gazes at you. “But cooking is one of my favorite ways to relax. Plus, I love sharing things with you. It makes it special.” 

Your heart swells at her words, warmed by the sincerity behind them. You flash a smile back at her, enjoying the way the sunlight highlights the contours of her face. “Then I’m all for it,” you reply playfully, scooting closer  to her, eager to steal another kiss, the warmth of her presence making it impossible to resist. “But I want to stay here for a little longer, if that’s okay with you.”    

“Absolutely,” she replies, her own smile widening as you lean in again, capturing her lips in a sweet, lingering kiss. Time seems to slow down again as you lose yourselves in the gentle rhythm of each other’s lips, the world beyond your little cocoon fading away like an afterthought. The kiss deepens, a soft affirmation of the love that stretches between you, wrapping you both in a bubble of warmth and familiarity. 

As you pull back just enough to catch your breath, you notice the shimmering light dancing in her dark eyes. They look like two small oceans at night, with the stars of the night sky reflected in their dark waves, igniting a fire within you. In this moment, the world outside feels more distant than ever; it’s just the two of you in this moment, the air suddenly thick with an unspoken anticipation. 

“I wish I could wake up like this every morning,” Sydney whispers, her voice a confession, drenched in a warmth that matches the sun streaming through the curtains. “But then I would never leave this bed.”

Her words hang in the air, sending a shiver of excitement down your spine. After all, the way she looks at you—like you’re something sacred—makes your heart race. You can’t help but lean closer, enveloped in the warmth of her presence. 

“Maybe I don’t want french toast right now,” you murmur, your gaze flickering down to her lips. “Maybe I’d prefer a taste of something even sweeter first.”

A playful smile dances on Sydney’s lips as she meets your gaze, her eyes sparkling with mischief and delight. “Oh really? And now what could that be?” she teases, arching an eyebrow and shifting closer, her breath warm against your skin.

You can feel the electric energy pulsing between you, heightening the anticipation in the air. “I can think of a few things...” you reply softly, leaning in, your voice dropping to a sultry whisper before kissing her again this time with more of an urgency and hunger than before. 

Sydney responds eagerly, opening her mouth more so that you can deepen the kiss further, the warmth of her tongue mingling with yours as you moan into her mouth. You keep kissing her till you’re out of air, her lips too tempting and the small, sweet sighs and hums she makes too addictive.  

But you finally break the kiss and pull back slightly, catching her gaze as you both catch your breath, your lips tingling with the residual warmth of her mouth. “You know,” you say, your heart racing with excitement. “If we keep this up, breakfast might turn into brunch.”  

“Let it,” she whispers, her eyes sparkling as she leans in, brushing her lips against yours once more, a feather-light caress that sends another thrill down your spine. You can’t help but smile against the lingering touch.  

A shared laugh bubbles up between you, a soft interlude filled with warmth and affection, mixing with the lingering anticipation that hangs in the air. The sun continues to bathe the room in golden light, enhancing the intimacy of the moment even further. You close your eyes for a brief moment, letting the current between you both wash over you, its electric charge rekindling the heat beneath your skin. 

“We can also just have breakfast right here,” she whispers, her voice sultry, thick with promise.

The way she says it ignites a primal instinct in you, the playful challenge urging you forward into the sensual territory you both seem to gravitate toward. “Well,” you begin, locking your eyes with hers, “I like how that sounds.” 

You shift, propping yourself up a little, your body now hovering above hers,, feeling the warmth radiating from her body, the magnetic pull between you becoming impossible to resist. Her breath hitches, and you can almost feel the spark of excitement coursing through her.

Without much hesitation, you press your lips against hers again, this kiss slow and sweet, tasting of possibilities. She melts into you, curling her fingers around the back of your neck, urging you closer as she deepens the kiss, exploring your mouth with a languidness that sets your heart racing.

You pull back just enough to brush your noses against each other, gauging her reaction. The playful warmth in her eyes ignites a surge of confidence within you. “God, you’re beautiful... Please say I can eat you out, cause I can’t get enough of you,” you say, the words slipping out in a husky murmur, laced with a mix of innocence and desire.

“Who am I to say no to that,” she whispers teasingly, the playful, yet sultry, lilt to her voice making a rush of warmth spread from your core. You lean down to kiss her again, but this time trailing soft kisses from her lips down to her jawline. Her body responds instinctively; she arches slightly into your touch, inviting you to continue your exploration. Unable to resist, you trail continue the soft kisses along her jawline, down the delicate curve of her neck, licking and sucking at the delicate skin and continuing down to her collarbone. 

You sneak a hand under the hem of her tank top, feeling the warmth of her skin beneath your fingertips. Sydney’s breath hitches as you continue your exploration, as your fingers brush up her abdomen until you let your hand rest against the bare skin of her waist. 

“Ca-can I take this off?” you ask against her skin, your voice a low whisper as you leave an open mouthed kiss at the curve of her collarbone. You feel the warmth of her skin beneath your lips, the softness inviting you to indulge further. 

“Please,” she breathes, her voice a mix of eagerness and anticipation. The simple word encourages you, igniting a fire within you that drives your desire forward.   

You pull back slightly to meet her gaze, searching for any hint of hesitation, but all you find is longing — a spark that reflects your own need for her. You gently lift the hem of her top, folding it up and over her head with deliberate slowness, savoring the way her skin glows in the sunlight as your fingertips brush against her sides.

Once her top is discarded, you can’t resist the urge to explore. You let your hands slide down her arms, tracing the contours of her shoulders before returning to her waist. Her skin feels electric beneath your touch, and your heart races at the thought of what’s to come.

“You’re so stunning,” you whisper, letting your eyes roam over her body, taking in each beautiful detail. The way her chest rises and falls with each breath captivates you. With a hungry gaze, you lean down to press soft kisses along the delicate line of her collarbone and down toward her chest. You can feel her heart quicken beneath your lips, and it only fuels your desire further. You take your time, savoring every inch, indulging in the warmth and softness of her body.

“Don’t tease,” she murmurs breathily, a playful smirk dancing on her lips, but the eagerness in her voice betrays her true feelings.

“I’m just getting started,” you reply with a teasing glint in your eye, your lips brushing against her skin, exploring slowly and deliberately. You can feel the heat radiating from her, a warm invitation that pulls you in deeper.

Your mouth continues its journey, trailing a path of gentle kisses down the valley of her chest, savoring the smoothness of her skin. You let your lips drift lower, pausing just above the swell of her breasts. The anticipation hangs heavy in the air, and you can feel her breath hitch in response, her body instinctively arching closer to you.

“Please,” she whispers again, her voice tinged with a mix of longing and urgency that sends a thrill down your spine. It’s a soft plea, inviting, yet laced with the desire for more. You can’t hold back the smile that plays on your lips at her eagerness.

“Only if you promise to let me know how it feels,” you murmur, casting her a playful glance as you cradle one of her breasts delicately in your hand. You tilt your head down, letting your warm breath ghost over her, teasingly close but not quite touching. 

Her soft whimper compels you to proceed. You finally let your lips wrap around her nipple, swirling your tongue gently, testing the waters. Sydney gasps, her back arching into you as you begin to suck softly, swirling your tongue around the sensitive peak.

“Just like that… oh, fuck,” she moans, her voice thick with pleasure, which fills you with a sense of satisfaction and encouragement. You increase the pressure slightly, alternating between gentle kisses and more fervent sucks, your mouth moving in a rhythm that seems to echo the rising heat growing between you both.

You switch to her other breast, giving it the same devotion, gently teasing and sucking, coaxing out soft moans that send ripples of delight through you. Your hands roam freely, caressing her body, savoring each curve, while your mouth finds a rhythm that drives her wild.

With every flick of your tongue, you feel her breath quickening, her fingers curling into the sheets beside her as if grounding herself against the waves of sensation you’re eliciting. You can hear her soft cries, each one mixing with the sound of your racing heart.

You pull away just enough to catch her gaze, breathless and eager. “Do you want more?” you tease, licking your lips to catch the taste of her skin lingering on your tongue. Your voice is low, sultry, drawing her into the heat of the moment.

“Please, yes,” she responds, almost pleading, the desire in her eyes making your pulse race. You notice how her body responds to your every touch, how her breath catches in her throat, and it only fuels your need for her even more. 

“Okay,” you murmur, a grin spreading across your face as you lower your lips back down to her chest, planting gentle kisses down the valley of her breasts. A soft gasp escapes her lips; the sound sends an excited thrill through your body. You look up at her, her eyes wide with anticipation and a hint of impatience that stirs something primal within you.

You enjoy the way she writhes beneath you, the soft fabric of the sheets crumpling beneath her as her body responds instinctively to your touch. Each gentle kiss sends flutters of longing coursing through both of you, intensifying the intimate dance you’re engaged in as you take your time with her.

“Just relax,” you murmur, your lips brushing her skin as you continue your exploration, your mouth traveling lower, trailing kisses down her stomach, feeling her muscles tighten as you tease her. She arches her back slightly, pushing against you as if to draw you closer, her breath full of both pleading and encouragement. 

“You fucking tease…” she breathes, her voice both a challenge and an invitation, the edge of urgency in her voice tinged with a playful tone. 

You smirk against her skin, taking delight in the way her body responds to you as you finally reach the waistband of her sleep shorts. You look up at her, her pretty eyes filled with a mix of anticipation and impatience, silently urging you to continue.

Without breaking eye contact, you slide your fingers beneath the elastic of her sleep shorts, brushing over the smooth skin just above the waistband. She shivers slightly at your touch, her breath hitching with anticipation. “Want me to get these off you?” you ask, your voice low and just above a whisper.

“Yes,” she breathes, her voice thick with longing and eagerness. The warmth in her gaze is electrifying, pushing you onward, urging you to move forward. There’s no hesitation now; the air is electrified, and you feel her eagerness spilling over, igniting your own.

With deliberate slowness, your fingers loop beneath the elastic of her shorts and underwear, inching the garments down until they slip away entirely. Her breath hitches again, a soft gasp of air igniting your senses as you behold her in all her beauty before you.

Unable to resist the temptation, you lean in closer, pressing your lips against her inner thighs, exploring every inch of skin with soft, lingering kisses. The taste of her skin is intoxicating, savory and warm against your tongue. Every touch fuels the connection between you two, an intimacy that feels almost sacred.

“I love how you touch me,” she murmurs, her voice a breathless whisper laced with anticipation. Your heart swells at her words, thrilled by your ability to affect her so deeply.

You can’t help but glance up, meeting her gaze, the warmth of her body melting you. “Just wait, I can do much better than this,” you tease, your breath brushing along her sensitive skin, leaving her trembling in anticipation, a spark that sets her aflame.

With another teasing kiss, you lower down further, your lips trailing along her slick heat. You savor the momentary pause before diving deeper, your tongue swirling through the delicate, wet folds, tasting the essence of her arousal.

“Fu-uuck…” A gasp escapes her lips, a sweet sound that drives you even further into the depths of your desire. Her body arching into every gentle caress you bestow upon her. You find a rhythm, the combination of soft flicks and teasing licks drawing gasps and whimpers from her. You savor the sounds, each moan feeding the fire igniting between you both.   

You explore her softness, the heat radiating between you two palpable, each flick of your tongue drawing her closer to the precipice of bliss.

“Y-yes, just like that,” she breathes, her voice thick with pleasure. You can only nod, fueled by her words, urging yourself to pour everything you have into her pleasure. 

You hum softly against her, the vibrations sending a delicious tremor through her body. Each hum blends seamlessly with her gasps and moans. The sweet taste of her is so intoxicating, urging you on. You love how you can feel her muscles tightening beneath you, the way her body instinctively responds to your every touch

“Fuuuck… just like that... don’t stop,” she encourages, her words a sweet mantra urging you forward. You delight in her response, feeling primal satisfaction at the way you can evoke such pleasure within her.

You lock onto her clit, swirling your tongue slowly but firmly, alternating between gentle flicks and tantalizing pressure. She buckles beneath your touch, her breath quickening as you coax her closer to the edge.

“Please, please, don’t stop, it’s so good,” Sydney begs, her voice shaky, every syllable laced with longing, a plea that sends waves of gratification rushing through you. The sincerity of her words fuels your desire, compelling you to intensify your ministrations, pulling her closer to that brink.

“Never,” you murmur against her, the vibrations sending jolts of pleasure through both of you. Your resolve only strengthens as her body begins to tremble, her breath becoming ragged, the delicious tension building between you.

Lost in the moment, you can feel the world outside fading away, the cacophony of life becoming insignificant—too small and unimportant to even be considered. And why would you? Your axis mundi is right here; the intoxicating connection between your bodies becomes the center of your universe. The bed cradles you both in warmth and intimacy, leaving nothing but sweetness and longing in its wake. All that exists is this moment, this shared sanctuary between the two of you.

With each flick of your tongue, she edges closer to release, body arching against you with fervor. You wrap your arms around her thighs, holding her steady, carving away every ounce of doubt as waves of pleasure wash over her.

“Right there… Fuck, I’m so close…” she gasps, voice laced with urgency as her words tumble from her lips. The sincerity of her plea drives you further, and you increase your pace with a greedy hunger, creating a rhythm that matches the frantic beating of your heart, so, so desperate to feel her come apart on your tongue as you sense the thrill of her nearing peak. 

“That’s it,” you encourage, your breath warm against her weeping cunt. “Let go for me. Please, baby, need you to come for me.” Each word drips with anticipation, pulling her closer to that explosive moment she craves as you bury your face deeper, the taste of her driving you wild. The sweetness of her release is all you crave now, and you can feel the energy between you crackling like a live wire, building momentum with every deliberate movement as her body quakes beneath you.

With your plea, she tips over the edge. A gasp spills from her lips, flooding the room with sweet music as her body arches and trembles with pleasure. The sounds she makes ignite something intrinsic and raw within you as she falls apart against your tongue, and an intoxicating sense of satisfaction fills you as you feel the warmth of her body shudder in rapture.

You keep lapping into her until the waves of ecstasy begin to subside, relishing in the aftershocks that ripple through her. You gently ease back, panting slightly as you catch your breath, kissing her tenderly on her inner thighs, tracing soft lines of affection where moments ago there was fervent urgency.

Sydney’s breath is still coming in quick bursts, her body relaxing into the sheets as the intensity of her release settles into a warm glow of satisfaction. You can’t help but admire the way she looks at that moment—an aura of bliss enveloping her, eyes reflecting blissful haze, glimmering with a mixture of vulnerability and delight. It’s as if she has been kissed by light, and you feel your heart swell with tenderness. It’s a sight that sends warmth coursing through your veins, captivating you entirely. You want to cherish this moment, to imprint it in your mind and carry it with you forever.

As she slowly comes down from that dizzying height, you lift your head to gaze at her, cherishing the glow of ecstasy shimmering in her eyes. “Seemed like you enjoyed that,” you tease, planting another line of soft kisses along her thighs, still indulging in the rich warmth of the moment.

“Enjoyed? That’s an understatement,” Sydney laughs breathlessly, the sound wrapping around you like a loving embrace. “You’re unbelievable.”

“No, we are,” you reply, meeting her gaze as you pull up beside her, the warmth of your bodies radiating against one another. “Together.”

“Sure, together…” she agrees, brushing your cheek gently with the backside of her hand, her touch sending an electric thrill through you before pressing her lips to yours. “I love you,” she whispers against your mouth, her voice steady and sincere, sending a rush of warmth through your entire being.

“I love you too,” you reply, every word laced with truth as you kiss her softly, savoring the taste of her lips mixing with the taste of her arousal that still lingers on your own lips.

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

Where Will All The Martyrs Go [Chapter 4: Read Between The Lines]

Series summary: In the midst of the zombie apocalypse, both you and Aemond (and your respective travel companions) find yourselves headed for the West Coast. It’s the 2024 version of the Oregon Trail, but with less dysentery and more undead antagonists. Watch out for snakes! 😉🐍

Series warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), violence, bodily injury, med school Aemond, character deaths, nature, drinking, smoking, drugs, Adventures With Aegon, pregnancy and childbirth, the U.S. Navy, road trip vibes, Jace is here unfortunately.

Series title is a lyric from: “Letterbomb” by Green Day.

Chapter title is a lyric from: “Boulevard Of Broken Dreams” by Green Day.

Word count: 5.6k

💜 All my writing can be found HERE! 💜

Let me know if you’d like to be added to the taglist 🥰

It is your first week of basic training at Great Lakes on the north side of Chicago, and as you lie in the top bunk of your assigned bed you wonder what the hell you’ve done. You enlisted right out of high school, eighteen, no driver’s license, no work history, never been more than fifty miles outside of Soft Shell, Kentucky. The drill sergeants are always yelling and you’re bad at push-ups; you can’t understand the recruits from big cities like Los Angeles, Miami, Las Vegas, Detroit, Houston, and they don’t seem to get you either, and aren’t interested enough to try. Sometimes you wish you hadn’t signed that five-year contract, but where would you be if you weren’t here? Home is not words but textures, colors, fumes that still burn in your sinuses: cigarette ash on rose pink carpets, red embers glowing in the wood stove, Hamburger Helper and Mountain Dew, coffee creamer in Hungry Jack potatoes, laughter and heavy footsteps and slamming doors, scratch-off games, dogs barking, collecting coins from couch cushions for gas money, scrubbing clothes in the bathtub when the washer quits, Mama taking gulps from her favorite cup—plastic, Virginia Beach, filled with equal parts Hawaiian Punch and vodka—when she thinks no one is looking, blue shows flickering on the television, Family Feud, Maury, Good Morning America, WWE SmackDown. For as long as you can remember you’ve known you couldn’t stay. Now you’re getting out, but nothing in life is free.

You are at Class A Technical School in Gulfport, Mississippi, and even though it’s hotter than some noxious, volcanic hellscape—Mercury, Venus, Io—you are beginning to like it. You taste the salt of sweat when you lick your lips, sugar in the sweet tea they serve in the chow hall. There’s a magic in building something where there was only empty space before, in patching roofs and painting walls. Here being quiet and watchful is exactly what they want from you: head down, hammer striking nails, measurements and angles and long hours under the sun with no complaints. You’re not just running away anymore. You are creating something new.

You are sitting beneath swaying palm trees and a full moon on Diego Garcia, draining cans of Guinness with Rio, and he’s telling you things he shouldn’t, too personal, too honest: Sophie wants to try for a baby next time he’s home on leave, and part of him wants that too but he’s terrified. As thunder rumbles in the distance and raindrops begin to patter on the waves of the Indian Ocean, you tell Rio you think he’d be a good father. He wonders how you figure that, and you say because he’s not like any of the men from home. He gives you one of his crooked smiles—a flash of teeth, knowing dark eyes—and doesn’t ask what you mean.

But of course, when you swim up from the inky currents of sleep you are in none of these places. You are curled up on the floor of a bowling alley in Shenandoah, Ohio, cheap worn black carpet peppered with stars and swirls in neon green, pink, blue. You stretch out with a yawn. Someone has left a Lemon Tea Snapple within reach; you twist it open and guzzle it, hoping to extinguish the pounding in your skull, a rhythmic thudding of warm maroon, half Captain Morgan and half misery. The music isn’t helping. From the green Toshiba CD player, a man is singing in Spanish. Aegon and Rio are sitting at the nearest table and playing Uno.

Aegon says as he ponders his cards: “You know Enrique Iglesias, right Rio?”

“You are so racist.” Rio puts down a wild. “And the new color is red. Racist.”

“So what’s he saying?”

“Aegon, buddy, I told you, I was born here. My grandparents came over in the 60s. I don’t speak Spanish.”

“You can’t understand any of it?” Aegon is skeptical. He plays a skip, a reverse, and a seven. “My dad never taught me a word of Greek but I can recognize plenty of phrases. Vlákas means idiot. Spatáli chórou is a waste of space.”

Rio sighs, relenting. He puts down a two. “The song is called Súbeme La Radio, Turn Up The Radio For Me. Bring me the alcohol that numbs the pain… I don’t care about anything anymore…You’ve left me in the shadows…”

“Damn, now I’m sad. Draw four, bitch.”

“When the night comes and you don’t answer, I swear to you I’ll stay waiting at your door…” Rio studies his cards. “What’s the new color?”

“Green.”

“Yes!” Rio slams down a skip. “Fleeing from the past in every dawn, I can’t find any way to erase our history…”

Everyone else is awake already. As muted late-morning daylight streams in through the small tinted windows, Aemond is weaving between tables, pointedly checking on each person. He glances at you, says nothing, turns around and walks the other way.

“That’s tough,” Rio says sympathetically, popping open the tab on a can of Chef Boyardee and shoveling ravioli into his mouth with a plastic fork.

Aegon gives you a smirk. “You want to fake date now?”

“I’ll think about it.” No you won’t.

Helaena appears, a prairie girl vision in a modest blue sundress and with her hair tied back with a matching scarf. She reaches into her burlap messenger bag and offers you a choice between a ranch-flavored tuna pouch or a silvery pack of Pop-Tarts. “Strawberry,” she tells you.

“I’ll take the Pop-Tarts.”

Helaena gives them to you and then shakes a bottle of Advil. You’re so groggy it takes you a few seconds to figure out what she wants, then you obediently hold out a hand. Helaena lays two tablets in the center of your palm and moves on, soundlessly like a rabbit or a spider.

You wash the pills down with Snapple. As you nibble half-heartedly on a Pop-Tart—trying not to look at Aemond, multicolored sprinkles falling down onto the carpet—your eyes drift to the tattoo on the underside of Aegon’s forearm. It’s not over ‘til you’re underground. You’ve spotted it before. Only now do you remember where you recognize the lyric from. “Is that Green Day?”

“Yeah,” Aegon says, enthused that you noticed. “Letterbomb.”

“I love that whole album.”

“Me too. I could sing it front to back if you asked me to.”

“I’m not asking.”

Aegon cackles and resumes his Uno game with Rio. Baela is wearing denim shorts and a crop top, slathering her belly with Palmer’s cocoa butter from Walmart as she chats with Rhaena and eats Teddy Grahams. Daeron is waxing the string of his compound bow. Jace is gnawing on a Twizzler as he scrutinizes Aegon’s map, annotated with Xs and circles and arrows in sparkling gel pen green.

“I’m going to be a thousand years old by the time we get there,” Jace mutters.

Aegon hits the table with his fist. The discard pile collapses and cascades, an avalanche of Uno cards. Rio, undisturbed, continues contemplating his next move. “You know what, Jace? The cities are full of zombies, the interstates are blocked by fifty-car pileups, if we bump into anyone else who’s still alive they’re just as likely to rob and murder us as want to be friends, and on top of all that I’m trying to do you the favor of preventing you from getting so irradiated you turn into Spider-Man. If you have a better route in mind, I’d love to hear it.”

“Spider-Man…? You’re such a dumbass, what are you talking about?!”

Luke says from where he stands by a window: “Aemond, someone’s outside.”

“What?” Aemond stares at him. “Zombies?”

“No. People.”

Aemond bolts to the doors, the rest of you close behind him. Rhaena turns off the CD player. You, Rio, and Aegon squeeze together to peer out of one of the windows. There are men—three of them, no, four, all appearing to be in their forties—passing by on the main road through town. They are armed with what are either AR-15s or M16s, you can’t tell which.

Rio whistles. “If you get shot by one of those, the exit wound will be the size of an orange.” Everyone looks at him. This was not an encouraging thing to say.

You elaborate: “Thirty-round magazines. Semiautomatic, assuming they’re AR-15s for civilian use. I guess they could have gotten ahold of M16s somehow. Those have a fully automatic setting.”

“So regardless, we’re out-gunned,” Jace says.

“If they know how to use them. Some men think guns are wall decorations, like deer heads or fish.”

Aegon recoils. “Fish?! What the fuck. I’m glad the colonies left.”

“Maybe they’ll keep walking,” Daeron says hopefully. One of the men stops and points at the bowling alley, saying something to his companions. They laugh and begin crossing the small parking lot. They are less than two minutes from the door. “Oh, great…”

“There’s an emergency exit in the back,” Baela says.

Aegon snorts. “Yeah, that we stacked about twenty boxes of bowling pins in front of to zombie-proof.”

“We won’t be able to get out before they hear us,” Aemond says. Then he abruptly orders: “Grab your guns, let’s go. Helaena, Baela, Rhaena, you’re staying here.” Aemond’s remaining eye—briefly, reluctantly—skates over you as Rio, Aegon, Jace, Luke, and Daeron scatter to obey him. “You too.”

“But I’m the best shot.”

“I don’t want them to know we have women with us.”

“I’m of more use to you outside.”

Aemond rips his Glock out of its holster, pointing it at the floor. His frustration is palpable, an electric shock, heat that refracts light rays until they become mirages on the horizon. “You’re going to stay here, and if a stranger comes through those doors you’re going to kill them. Okay?”

His urgency stuns you; his eye is blue-white summer storm lightning. “Okay.”

“Now get back.”

You soar to the nearest table, duck under it, reach for your Beretta M9 and double-check the clip, fully loaded. You click off the safety.

“Aemond, wait, let me go first,” Aegon is saying by the door. “I’m better at de-escalation, I’m less…uh…intimidating.”

“Less socially incompetent, you mean,” Jace quips.

“I’ll lead,” Aemond insists. “Aegon can talk. Rio, you’re up front with me.”

Rio pumps his Remington 12 gauge. “I’d be delighted.”

Jace is amused. “I’ve been demoted, huh?”

“He’s bigger,” Aemond replies simply, then opens the door and vanishes through a blinding curtain of daylight. The others follow closely; Daeron, the last one out—his compound bow in hand, the strap of his Marlin .22 slung over his shoulder—shuts the door behind him.

Very faintly, you can hear Aegon: “Hey, guys! What’s happening? How’s the apocalypse treating you…?”

Baela, Rhaena, and Helaena are under the table with you. They deserve to have options. You tell them: “If you want to go hide behind the lanes or try to get out the back door, now’s your chance.”

Helaena shakes her head, clutching your t-shirt: black, Star Wars, pawed off a shelf at the Walmart. “I want to stay with you.”

“Same,” Baela says determinedly, gripping her Ruger. She barely knows how to use it, but she’ll try. Rhaena is shaking, her eyes filling up her face, small fragile bones like a bird’s.

You can’t hear voices from outside anymore, but there are no gunshots either. You keep your M9 aimed at the doors, your breathing slow and deep, your heart rate low. Your hands are steady. Your eyes hunt for the slightest movement, for the momentary shadow of someone passing by a window. Against your will, your thoughts wander to Aemond. I hope Aegon is on his left side. Aemond can’t see there.

“Rhaena, get your gun out,” Baela says sharply. “Come on. Turn the safety off. What if you were alone right now? What if we weren’t here to protect you?”

Rhaena nods, fumbling to free her revolver from its holster. “I’m sorry…I’m trying…”

Now there is a stranger’s voice, gruff and deep. He must be just beyond the door, the farthest one to the right. There is a creak of hinges, a sliver of sunlight. “That’s just too damn bad, fellas. You got a nice little hideout here, and you’re gonna have to share it—”

The door opens. Two unfamiliar faces, too shellshocked to raise their rifles in time. You close an eye, line up your sights, fire twice, and that’s all it takes: one headshot, one in the throat, blood like a fountain, spurting scarlet ruin, thuds against the carpet strewn with neon stars, gurgling and spasms as their brains send out those final electrical impulses: danger, catastrophe, apocalypse. Rhaena is screaming. Helaena is covering her ears with both hands.

You run to the doorway; there are more booms of gunfire out in the parking lot. You cross into the late-morning light to see the other two men on the pavement: one with an arrow through the eye, the other with a gaping, hemorrhaging hole where his heart once was. Rio is admiring his work, holding his shotgun aloft. He scoops a handful of Cheddar Whales out of his shorts pocket and shovels them into his mouth.

“Goddamn, I love Remington Arms Company.”

“Oh, that was awesome,” Aegon says, wan and panting, hands on his waist. “Yeah, that was…that was…” He bends over and vomits Snapple and Cool Ranch Doritos onto the asphalt.

“Everyone okay in there?” Rio asks you.

“Yeah.” Behind you, Baela, Rhaena, and Helaena are stepping through the doorway. Your thoughts are whirling sickly: I killed someone. I killed someone. “They wouldn’t leave?”

“We told them the bowling alley was ours,” Aemond says, not looking at you. “We asked them very politely to keep moving. They chose to try to intimidate us into letting them stay. They weren’t good people, and these are the consequences.”

You click on the safety and re-holster your M9. You’re wearing Rio’s on your other hip. They seem to weigh so much more than they did ten minutes ago. I’m not supposed to be a killer. I’m a builder.

“Aegon, are you okay?” Daeron asks, a palm on his brother’s back.

Aegon retches again. “Shut up. You can’t even buy fireworks.”

“Zombies.” Luke is peering through his binoculars. “Not many, just two. Way up the road.”

“There will be more.” Baela’s cradling her belly; you don’t even think she’s aware of it. “They heard the gunshots, the sound carries for miles.”

“We’re leaving,” Aemond says. “Right now. Everyone get your things.”

As backpacks are hastily zipped and Daeron and Aegon stand guard in the parking lot, you kneel down beside the men you murdered and check their rifles. They are M16s, either stolen or illegally purchased: there’s a little switch by the trigger to choose between semi-automatic or the so-called machine gun mode.

“They barely had any bullets left,” you tell Rio. Just like us when we were trapped on that transmission tower.

“Yeah, same story for the other two guys. Four bullets in one magazine, a half dozen in the other. But it only takes once. We don’t have any ammo that will work with M16s, do we?”

“No, we definitely don’t.”

“Fantastic. Well, we’ll throw them in a Walmart cart and take them with us just in case.”

You’re staring down at the man you shot through the head. His eternal resting place is a puddle of blood and brains in a bowling alley in rural Ohio; surely no one deserves that. “He was a real person,” you say, dazed. “Not a zombie. Just a person.”

“Hey.” Rio grabs your shoulders and spins you towards him. From where he is helping Luke gather up the remaining food, Aemond’s head snaps up to watch. “You hurt him before he could hurt us. You did the right thing.”

“Sure.”

“I killed a dude too. I blew his heart right out of his chest. You think I’m going to hell for that?”

“No,” you admit, smiling. “And if you’d be there with me, I guess I wouldn’t mind so much.”

Rio grins, wide and toothy. “Well alright then. Let’s finish packing.”

The ten of you depart from Shenandoah, Ohio heading northwest on Route 603 just like Aegon marked on his map, Jace chauffeuring Baela in one shopping cart, Rio pushing another loaded high with food and M16s.

“It looks like rain,” Helaena says.

Everyone else peers up into a clear, cerulean sky, wondering what she means.

~~~~~~~~~~

You’re a few miles north of Shiloh when the storm rolls in, cold rain and furious wind, daylight that vanishes behind dark churning thunderheads, jagged scars of lightning in an opaque sky. The road is only two lanes, surrounded by fields of wildflowers and ravaged crops and untilled earth; it would look like the patchwork of a quilt if you were gazing down from an airplane, but of course the FAA grounded all flights over a month ago when the world went mad: Revelations, Ragnarök, the fabric of the universe unweaving as death burned through families, cities, nations like a fever, like plague.

“Maybe we should cut across one of these fields,” Jace says, pointing. He is soaked with rain; it drips from his curls, runs into his eyes. Baela is in her cart again; each time she tries to get out and walk, she’s gasping and can’t keep up within half an hour. You’ve all taken turns pushing her, much to Baela’s dismay. She’d be humiliated if she wasn’t too exhausted to keep her eyes open.

“Here, let me do it,” you offer, and Jace gratefully relinquishes the cart. Baela gives you a frail wave of appreciation.

“We stay on the road,” Aemond insists, flinching as rain pelts his scarred face. “Farmhouses have driveways and mailboxes, we’ll pass one eventually. If we lose the road, we might not be able to find it again. We’ll end up wandering around in circles in the woods.”

“Just like the Blair Witch Project,” Aegon says glumly, his Sperry Bahama sneakers audibly soggy.

“There!” Luke announces, spotting something with his binoculars. “Up ahead on the left. Past the bridge.”

You can’t see what Luke does until there is an especially brilliant flash of lightning: a farmhouse, old but seemingly not derelict, and with a number of accompanying buildings, guest houses and stables and barns and towering silos.

“Home sweet home!” Rio says. “And I don’t care if I have to kill a hundred of those undead bastards to get in, it’s mine.”

“Well, hopefully not a hundred,” you reply, in better spirits now that a sanctuary has been found. Aemond keeps glancing back at you as you push Baela’s cart. If he wants to say something, he’s doing a good job of resisting the temptation. “We don’t have that much ammo.”

There is a concrete bridge over a river, probably unremarkable and only five or ten feet deep normally but now torrential with rain. Water rushes by beneath, a muddy incline on each side as the earth rises back up to meet the road. A reflective green sign proclaims that you are only two miles from Plymouth, which Aegon plans to skirt along the edges of. It’s a decent-sized town; he thinks you might be able to find a car to steal there, something with gas in the tank and keys on a hook just inside the house.

“I call the master bedroom,” Jace says craftily, rubbing his palms together. You’re near the center of the bridge now, another ten yards to go. “Nice big bed, warm cozy blankets, and I was up for half of last night keeping watch so tonight I am off duty, I am a free man, it’s going to just be me and my girl and eight glorious uninterrupted hours of sleep—”

Rhaena shrieks, and then you hear it over the noise of the storm, pounding rain and rumbling thunder: moans, growls, hisses like snakes. Not one zombie. A lot more than one. They’re crawling up from under the bridge, from the filthy quagmire at both ends. There was a hoard of them waiting, aimless, dormant, almost hibernating. But now they are awake. They are grasping for you with bony, dirt-covered claws. They are snapping with jaws that leak blood and pus and bile as their organs curdle to a putrid soup.

“Get off the bridge!” Aemond is shouting. He has his Glock in his right hand, a baseball bat in his left. He’ll shoot until he’s out of bullets, and then, and then…

Rio helps you get Baela out of the cart, then opens fire. His Remington doesn’t just pierce skulls, it vaporizes them. When he’s out of shells—there are more in his backpack, but no time to reload—he yanks the M16s out of the other Walmart cart and empties each of them, mowing down zombies as the rest of you scramble across the bridge. All around you are explosions of gunshots, thunder, lightning, zombie skulls crushed by bullets and blunt force trauma. Baela is firing her Ruger as you half-drag her, one arm hooked beneath hers and around her back. When the last M16 is empty, Rio starts clubbing zombies with the butt of it. You’ve all reached the north side of the bridge, except…

“Fuck off, you freaks!” Jace is screaming. They’ve backed him up against the guardrail, a swarm of ten or more. His Remington shotgun is out of ammo; he’s swinging it wildly, but he doesn’t even have enough room to maneuver. There are still more zombies emerging from under the bridge. You can hear them snarling and groaning. You swipe an M9 off your belt and put a bullet in the brain of a zombie as its fingers close around your ankle, then you start picking off the ones mobbing Jace. You aren’t fast enough. As they lean in to bite him, teeth gnashing at the delicious throbbing heat of his jugular, Jace throws himself over the barrier and into the surging water below.

“No!” Baela cries. She careens off the road and into the field, running parallel to the river as swiftly as she can. You are helping her, steadying her, firing at any zombies you have a clear line of sight on. The others are here too: slipping in the muck of the flooding earth, shouting for Jace. He surfaces through the frothing current, flails pitifully, disappears beneath the water again. You glimpse a white hand, a shadow of his dark hair, a kicking shoe. There are more zombies on the opposite side of the river, trailing after Jace, lurching and slobbering viscous, gory saliva. They cannot swim, but they can follow him until he washes ashore.

Jace bursts up through the waves, gasping. “Help! Aemond…Aemond, for the love of God, help me…” He blubbers and then is dragged under. Aemond and Luke are continuing frantically after him. Baela is hysterical, sobbing, trembling with adrenaline. Aegon is yowling as he swings at zombies with his bloodied golf club. Helaena is darting around almost invisibly, always cowering behind Daeron or Aegon or Rio.

You glance north towards the farmhouse, growing not closer but farther away. We can’t leave shelter. We can’t leave the road. You lock eyes with Rio. He’s thinking the same thing.

“Aemond, we have to go,” Rio says, but in the midst of the rain and the turmoil it barely registers.

“Jace, we’re coming to get you!” Aemond swears. The ground is increasingly sodden, deep, difficult to trudge through. Jace resurfaces, coughing and sputtering.

“Jace!” Aegon wails. He caves in the skull of a zombie who was once a registered nurse as Helaena crouches behind him. “Jace, I’m sorry! I’m gonna miss you, man!”

Jace splashes in the rising river, his arms flailing helplessly. He is being swept away far faster than any of you can move on foot. “Aegon, you dumb bitch!” Jace manages, then slips beneath the water and doesn’t reappear.

“Where is he?!” Baela is saying. “Aemond, where…?”

You are trying to soothe her, to bring her back to reality. She was always so pragmatic before; you have to wake her up. “Baela, listen, we can’t stay here, he would want you and the baby to be safe—”

“Aemond! Aemond, we have to go!” Rio catches him, wrenches him around, roars into his face as driving rain pummels them both: “We have to go, or we’re going to die here too!”

It hits Aemond all at once; he understands, horror and agony in his sole blue eye. “We have to go,” he agrees. And then louder, to everyone: “Get to the farmhouse!”

Baela collapses into the mud, howling, tears flooding down her face. “No, he’s still alive, he’s still alive, we can’t leave him!”

You and Rhaena are trying to haul Baela to her feet. Now Aemond is here, pulling you away from her—his fingers tight and urgent around your wrist—as he and Luke take your place. “Go,” he commands. “You run. Don’t wait for us. Rio?”

“I got her,” Rio replies, grabbing your free hand with an iron grip. Gales of wind rip at you; every millimeter of your skin is soaked with rain. As you flee across the fields towards the farmhouse, dozens of zombies pursue you. More are still staggering along the banks of the river, swept up in the hoards chasing Jace and the promise of his waterlogged corpse when it reaches its final destination. Daeron has run out of arrows and is shooting with his .22, which is very much not his preference. Aegon trips, getting covered in mud as he rolls, and Rio stops to help him. While he is distracted, you look back at Aemond. He, Luke, and Baela are moving quickly, but not quickly enough. A drove of zombies is closing in on them. You have a spare few seconds at last. You yank your backpack off, grab a box of ammo inside, and reload your M9.

“Chips?!” Rio calls over his shoulder.

“I’m fine.”

He knows you well enough to listen. The world goes quiet as your finger settles on the trigger. There’s a rhythm one slips into, an impassionate lethal efficiency. It’s easier to keep going than to stop and have to find it again. You fire over and over, dropping eight zombies. You sheath your M9 and whip Rio’s out of your other holster, the sights finding grotesque decaying faces illuminated by lightning. You pull the trigger: blood, bones, brains, corpses jerking and convulsing as they fall harmlessly to the mud. Aemond is here; when did he get here?

“I told you to run!” he’s shouting through the storm, furious. He’s shoving you towards the farmhouse. You resist him.

“Let me kill as many as I can—”

“Go! Now!” Aemond orders over the clashing thunder, and then sprints with you all the way to the front porch to make sure you listen. Everyone else is already there. Helaena has fetched a spare key from under the doormat and is turning it in the lock.

Daeron observes her anxiously. “We don’t know if it’s safe in there, Helaena.”

“Not in,” she says, insistent. “Through.” Through this building, and maybe through the next one too. The average zombie is not terribly clever. If they lose sight of you, without the benefit of the momentum of a hoard they are lost. Helaena opens the door. The living rush inside, and she locks it behind you. As you are bursting out the back door, you can hear zombies pounding their rotting palms against the front one. You soar through a stable full of dead horses and donkeys, leaving the doors open; this should keep the zombies distracted if they make it this far. Then you race to the farthest guest house. Luke, swiveling with his binoculars, spies no zombies approaching as you steal inside. There is no spare key this time; Rio punches out a first-floor window for you to climb through. Once everyone is inside, he and Aegon move a bookshelf to cover the opening.

You all stand in the living room, gasping and shivering, dripping rain down onto the rug and the hardwood floor. The air is dusty but clean of any trace of vile, swampy decay. Outside, thunder booms and lightning flashes bright enough to illuminate the lightless house. The sky is so dark it might as well be nightfall. Baela sinks to her knees, clamping both hands over her mouth so she won’t sob loudly enough for a zombie to hear. Rhaena and Luke are beside her, both weeping quiet rivulets of tears, trying to comfort her in whispers. Helaena is rummaging around searching for candles; she has already taken a lighter out of her soaked burlap messenger bag.

“Daeron, bro, come over here,” Aegon chokes out. He embraces Daeron, clutches him tightly and desperately, doesn’t let go. Rio is reloading his Remington 12 gauge.

Jace is dead. Jace is dead.

Aemond says to you, his voice low but seething: “What the fuck was that?”

You blink the raindrops out of your eyes as you stare at him, bewildered. “You needed help.”

“I told you to run.”

“I’m an asset, I have skills that can keep you alive, why am I here if I’m not going to be useful—?”

“You’re not in the fucking Navy anymore!” he hisses. “When I tell you to run, you run, you don’t stop, you don’t look back, because I can’t worry about you and take care of everyone else.”

“Nobody asked you to worry about me.”

“But I do.”

“Aemond,” Aegon pleads, waving him over. Aegon’s plump sunburned cheeks are glistening with rain and tears. “Man, it doesn’t matter. Nothing else matters now. Please come here.”

“I’m going to clear the house,” Aemond says instead.

Rio raises an eyebrow at you—this is one fucked up guy, Chips—and then pumps his shotgun. “Me too.” He sweeps with Aemond through the main floor and then vanishes up the staircase.

Helaena is lightning candles she found in the kitchen and arranging them around the living room. Daeron starts gathering food from the pantry. Rhaena and Baela are murmuring to each other softly, mournfully. It doesn’t feel like something you should intrude on. Luke is peeking out of a window with his binoculars, vigilant for threats. Aegon sniffles, wanders over to you with large, sad, shimmering eyes, pats your shoulder awkwardly.

“Hey, Chocolate Chip. You doing okay?”

“No,” you answer honestly.

“Yeah. Me either.” Then he flops down on the hideous burnt orange couch and lies there motionless until Daeron brings him a can of Dr. Pepper. Aegon pops the tab, slurps up foam, and then begins singing to himself very quietly, a song so old you can remember your grandfather saying it was one of his favorites as a boy: A Tombstone Every Mile.

When Rio comes back downstairs—heavy footsteps, he can’t help that—you meet him at the bottom of the steps. “The house is good,” Rio says. “And Aemond’s in the big bedroom on the right if you’d like to go up there and talk to him.”

“I don’t think he wants to see me right now.”

“I could not disagree more,” Rio says with a miserable, exhausted smile. Then he goes to the couch to check on Aegon.

You pick up one of the flickering candles, white and scentless, and ascend the staircase. You find Aemond in the master bedroom, the same accommodations that Jace laid claim to when he was still alive. He is sitting at the edge of the bed and staring at the wall, at nothing. Tentatively, you sit down beside him, placing the candle on the nightstand.

“Aemond…what happened to Jace…it wasn’t your fault.”

“Criston said I was in charge, that’s the very last thing he told me. They might be the last words I ever hear from him, and I just…” His voice breaks; he wipes the rain and tears from his face with open palms. “I really wanted to get everyone home.”

“I’m so sorry about what I said at the bowling alley,” you confess, like it’s a dire secret. “I don’t want to fight with you, Aemond, I…I want to help you. I can see what you’ve done for everyone here, me and Rio included, and I believe in you. I want to be a part of this.”

He nods, an acceptance of peace, but he still doesn’t look at you.

“Can we start over? I’ll never bring it up again, okay? I wasn’t trying to guilt you or upset you or anything. I should have just dropped it. I overreacted. And I understand why being with someone like me maybe wouldn’t be…super appealing.”

“It’s not about that.”

“Then what’s it about?”

Aemond wrings his hands, shakes his head, at last turns to you, golden candlelight reflected in his eye, his scar cloaked in shadows. His words are hushed, clandestine, soft powerless surrender. “I’m already so afraid of losing you.”

He cares, he hopes, he wants me too? “I’m here right now, Aemond. I don’t know what else I can say. I’d promise you more if I could.”

He reaches out to touch you, to ghost his thumb across your cheekbone, wet with rain. Then he kisses you, so gently you cannot help but imagine the wispy borders of calm white summer clouds, the rustle of leaves as wind blows down the Appalachian Mountains. You don’t have to ask him what he’s thinking, what it feels like. You can read it in the startled, firelit wonder on his face.

You taste like the beginning of something, here at the end of the world.

[becquerel]

Announcing our drinks for the upcoming Homestuck x Requiem Cafe collaboration! First off is the Batterwitch Latte - A cake flavored latte using actual Betty Crocker ingredients (don't tell John) / Next drink at the Homestuck x Requiem Cafe celebration is the Strawberry Lalonde: Strawberry and Rose Lemonade topped with Sprite (Tastes like therapeutic gnostalgia) / Drink the rich with the High Blood: a Blackberry Butterfly Tea topped with Lavender Lemonade

Gamebro gives this drink 1.5 hats: Enjoy an exclusive soda built for gaming (Green Apple Mtn Dew) / Gamebro couldn't review this one because they spilled a Sburb Soda Beta all over their keyboard, but this one is a Dragonfruit Mtn Dew Code Red

It's Apple Juice. There's also a Candy Apple Cold foam. But it's Apple Juice. Don't be sus. / Only for the cryptically clever, we have a Rose Milk Tea with a Sweet Matcha Cold Foam

From Requiem Cafe's official Twitter! (Link in replies)

[bitchyycapricorn]

Warm Tea For The Ill

•Remus Lupin x Established Relationship Fem!Reader•

Masterlist

Word Count: 3k+

Synopsis: You and Remus tell the others you’re feeling ill on a nice day in order to get some down time. Sirius is worried about you both and just wants to make sure you’re ok.

Background: Y/N’s animagus is a bunny, hence the nickname “bunny” and her marauder nickname is “Thumper”. Takes place during 7th year (though not specifically mentioned).

Warnings: Smut, oral (f receiving), face riding (f), unprotected sex, slight dom!Remus, caught having sex, praise kink, fluff

AN:Not edited also my story is deleting parts and glitching out soooo…

“Shhh,” Remus hushed you with a small laugh, holding open the door to the boys dormitory so you could slip inside. Both you and Remus had decided to play ill today in order to get some alone time while everyone else was out at the Black Lake. Knowing the boys and their love for trouble mixed with water, your time together should go completely undisturbed. Normally alone time between you and Remus looked like reading a book together while snuggled up on his bed since the chances of someone busting down the door was so high. The fact that everyone was a good ways away and completely distracted from coming back to bother you and Remus gave you butterflies. 

You shuffled into Remus’s room making your way over to his bed, which sat to the right of the room and closest to the door, as Remus quickly shut the door. The thought of being alone with you overtook Remus’s mind causing him to completely forget to lock the door behind him in the process. Letting out a sigh of relief, Remus was quick to make his way behind you so he could press his body against yours. His face nuzzling into the crook of your neck as his lips left soft wet kisses against your exposed skin.

“It feels like bloody forever since we’ve been alone together bunny,” Remus cooed. A soft moan escaped your lips at the feeling, making him smile against your skin. “You smell so good darling, hell you look beyond good. Has me wondering if you taste as good as you look.” He murmured between the kisses he was planting on your shoulder.

“Remus, we’ve been alone together for less than five minutes and you’re already talking about shagging me.” You jokingly scolded whilst bringing your hand up to cup his jaw on the side he was kissing your shoulder.

“I can’t help it,” Remus whined. “You look so bloody gorgeous in my sweater.” His head turned slightly so he could kiss your palm while he spoke. He muttered a few soft praises into your hand before finally shuffling you both forward and onto the bed. 

The light yet inescapable nudges caused you to tumble forward onto Remus’s soft sheets and let out a small “numph” as your stomach made impact with the mattress. Remus let out a small laugh and helped to turn you around onto your back, You let out a huff as you scooted up to lean against the bed’s headboard. “That was mean,” you laugh as Remus begins to crawl over to your sitting figure. His much taller frame looms over yours despite him being on all fours in front of you.

“I just want to cuddle you up and kiss you until your lips are swollen. That’s kinda hard when you’re standing up Y/N.” He laughed as he pressed a kiss against your lips. You could both taste and smell the dark chocolate that lingered on his lips from earlier. Along with the faint scent of old books and morning dew radiating off the rest of his body. You smiled at the smell thinking back to the few times you’d smelled amortentia. It always smelled like Remus, and occasionally, if you were lucky, it sometimes gave off the aroma of Remus’s hair after he showered. 

Remus was also enjoying the sweet scent that radiated off your warm body. Your natural smell of (…), (…), and (…) were a reminder that he really did have someone in this world. For Remus, amortentia was a bittersweet topic and memory. Though it aided him in the reminder of you and all your beauty it was also a reminder of the way his father forced him to smell it at the mere age of five in hopes of confirming Remus still had someone out there for him. Which Remus thought now was silly, since that simply was not how amortentia worked. 

Your hands grasping the bottom of Remus’s sweater are what pulled him from his thoughts and back into your overwhelmingly calming presence. You had a sort of warmth to you that constantly kept Remus grounded no matter what memory crept into his mind. It was the way your warm lips were pressing into his neck and causing him to moan and whimper that reminded him he was right where he was supposed to be. 

Your hands continued to tug at Remus’s sweater until it was over his head and on the ground. The new sensation of cold air against Remus’s skin caused him to shiver. He was now hyper aware of the contrast between the temperature of the room and your burning hands as they traced over the many scars that littered his back and chest. A scratchy moan left his throat as you traced your index finger down the length of his stomach scar and towards the waistband of his black uniform pants.

“You’re always so eager to take care of me bunny, why don’t I take care of you for a bit?” Remus hummed as you toyed with his waistband. 

You pulled away from his neck to look into his pretty brown eyes. “Rem,” you began, fidgeting nervously at the thought. “I would really like that, but I don’t want you to feel like this isn’t about you too.” 

Remus chuckled under his breath, raising his hand to your face so he could brush the fallen strands of hair out of your eye. “I get more pleasure than I think you realize when I’m buried between your thighs.” His lips connected with yours for a moment before continuing, “I get high off the feeling of your legs thrown over my shoulders as they squeeze around my head everytime I touch the right place….” Another kiss. “I love it when you hover over my face and allow yourself to fuck my tongue at the pace that feels best for you little bunny.” His lips were so soft against yours. “It makes me so bloody hard to feel your body trembling.” His voice was seductively sweet as he spoke against your lips, something he did when he was feeling confident. 

His words made your body weak and your mind malfunction, only allowing a small “please,” to escape your lips. It was now Remus’s turn to attack your neck with wet kisses and light red bite marks which almost certainly would leave small purple bruises on your soft skin. You knew that Remus thoroughly enjoyed marking you up as the full moon approached, but you also knew that was at least a week and a half away leaving him in a limbo between having sweet passionate sex, and having rough scandalous sex. 

Remus’s hands danced at the hem of your top signaling that it was now your turn to remove your, well Remus’s, sweater. Instinctively, you raised your arms so Remus could tug the soft material up your torso and over your head. “I have a feeling I’m never getting this sweater back,” Remus teases, sitting up and examining the maroon material in his hand. 

“You can have it back for a little while, but only so it will smell like you again. Then you have to return it,” You tease back, taking the shirt from him. 

“Return? Love, that’s my jumper,” Remus shook his head as he laughed. He took the material back from you but only to toss it to the side. “Not that it matters though darling. I don’t want either of us wearing it right now anyways.” A small giggle escaped your lips at his words making him smile even wider than he was before. He brought his hand up to your right cheek, stroking your jaw with his thumb. “Lay down and relax for me pretty girl,” Remus mumbled as he captured your lips between his own. 

“I can’t lay down if you keep snogging me,” You hum, pulling breathlessly away from the kiss. A small pout settled in on Remus’s face as he shuffled backwards so he could pull you by your legs into a lying position. A gasp left your mouth as your head made contact with his pillow. A smirk played at Remus’s lips while his eyes racked up and down your partially exposed body. 

“This has ought to go,” Remus murmured as his hands found their way to the zipper of your skirt, slowly pulling it off your flushed body. He let out a groan of relief as the skirt slipped past your foot and onto the floor, enjoying the sight of you in just your bra and panties. “These especially have to go,” his voice quivered slightly as he feverishly reached behind your back to unhook your bra. The bulge in his pants becoming increasingly more tight at the sight of your exposed tits.

Remus let out another throaty groan as he positioned himself between your legs so his upper body was hovering over yours. His head dipped down to pick up where he left off earlier, trailing hot kisses down your neck and towards your swollen breast. You let out a few whimpers as Remus’s lips danced across your now exposed chest. His right hand began to roam up and down the curve of your waist while he used the other to prop himself up. His fingers traced patterns onto your skin, dipping between your thighs occasionally before pulling back out to travel up your stomach. 

His lips grazed the swell of your breast making you moan. You could feel him smile against your skin before he used his tongue to slowly circle the skin around your nipple. The sensation pulled a small gasp from your lips as you pushed your chest upwards involuntarily. 

You let out a whine as you grasped Remus’s hair. “Remus please,” you begged. His tongue grazed the underside of your nipple before he took the hard bud between his lips, slowly sucking on the bundle of nerves as you pushed his face deeper into your tit. The feeling of his mouth on you sent shocks of pleasure coursing through your body like an electric shock. You allowed yourself to absorb the waves of pleasure while also focusing on the way his finger tips danced across your lower abdomen. His mouth would occasionally switch between nipples, always leaving a train of kisses in the switching process. Your hands stayed messily tangled in his hair, helping guide his head to the place you wanted him.

Soon you found yourself lightly pushing his head downwards. Desperately wanting to feel his mouth where you needed him most. Remus was quick to pick up on this, since he redirected his trail of kisses down your stomach. Occasionally he would pause to bite the tender flesh before placing a gentle kiss over the damage. His hot trail of kisses was messy, but led where it needed to. Remus’s lips now hovered over the soft fabric covering your lower half. His head dipping downwards so he can place a kiss at the lining of your underwear, before taking it between his teeth. He pulls forward again slightly while snaking his hands under your ass to help lift your hips. His upper body pulls backwards in the process, allowing for him to edge the soft fabric down your thighs and off your legs. 

“I might just have to keep these,” Remus smirked as he held up your panties before tossing them to the floor with the rest of your clothes. His hands slowly traveled back down your body and to your waist so he could help sit you up. You eyed him curiously at the motion, but he only gave you a sly smile in response. He lowered himself onto his back beside you before grabbing your hips once again so he could pull your body over his. He minivered you both so your knees were placed on both sides of his head. His arms coming from behind to wrap around your thighs. 

Remus helped ease you down so your heat hovered just above his face. “Come on bunny,” he cooed. “Ride my face.” You let out a soft moan as you fully lowered yourself onto his tongue, jutting your hips forward at the sensation of his tongue on your clit. You circled your hips slowly, a warm tingly feeling began to bubble up in your stomach as you did so. 

Remus’s grip tightened on your thigh as he helped guide your body forward and then backwards again. He reveled in the feeling of your wet heat as it slid up and down his tongue. He soaked up the feeling of your thighs trembling around his head, squeezing together each time he pressed his tongue flat against your clit. He pulled your body in closer, burying his face as deep in you as he possibly could. Small whimpers and long moans tumbled from your swollen lips as you grinded into your boyfriend's face. 

Within minutes your clit was becoming more and more sensitive as Remus drew circles around the nerve bundle with his tongue. The sensation makes you tremble as you feel yourself growing closer to your high by the second. 

Remus takes advantage of your closeness by slowly moving his hands up your thighs and to your hips. His hands lingered on your hips for a moment before drawing back and harshly grabbing your ass with a loud smack. Your body jutted forward at the sudden impact, the sensation of the slap flooding your senses making you gasp. Remus’s name began repeatedly spewing from your lips as the coil in your stomach snapped. A flood of relief and pleasure washed over your shanking figure as Remus helped you ride out your high from below. 

Exhaustion took over moments later causing you to fall back to Remus’s side once more. A shiver ran through your body as the heat your body had just been previously generating began to subside. Remus lifted his covers up and over both your naked bodies to help warm you up again. You rolled onto your side, facing the door, while Remus cuddled up into your backside. His arm snaked around your waist while he pushed his hips into yours. 

You arched your back with a soft moan at the feeling of his erection being pressed up against your ass. Remus leaned over you slightly so he could pepper kisses against the top of your shoulder and down your arm as he helped you grind yourself into him. “You want me to fuck you from behind bunny?” He moaned, biting into your shoulder softly.

“Y-yes please,” You whimpered, still slightly drowsy from your orgasm. Remus hummed at your response, removing his hand from your waist so he could line himself up at your entrance. He slowly ran the tip of his cock between your fold making you both shiver. Teasingly, he pushed his tip into you, before pulling out again slowly. You let out a small whine wanting Remus to fill you up already. “Remus…please,” you whimpered. 

“So needy,” Remus snickered before fully pushing into you. You let out a soft cry of relief at the feeling, circling your hips into his. Remus began thrusting into you slowly, wanting to take in the feeling of you around his cock for as long as he possibly could. His hands traveled up and down your body, traveling upwards so he could squeeze your tit occasionally. “Ah fuck Y/N,” Remus groaned as he began to pick up speed. “Look at you taking my cock so well.” His words made your body tremble, as soft moans spilled from your lips. Remus kissed his way up your neck and to your ear so he could whisper soft praises to you while he fucked into you mercilessly. 

You could feel his cock buried deep in you, sliding in and out of your dripping heat. Your ass bouncing everytime his hips snapped into yours. Your legs shaking violently at the feeling of his cock rubbing against your g-spot. Your breathing was heavy and so was Remus’s. His stomach muscles flexed with each thrust into you. His shakey moans and low groans told you he was enjoying every inch of your body. 

Remus could feel himself nearing closer to his high at the exact moment the handle to the door began to jiggle. Both you and Remus froze, pulling the covers up and over your shoulders to hide the fact you weren’t wearing anything. Your clothes were on the opposite side of the bed to the door, meaning if one of the boys just popped in they wouldn’t see. 

The door creaked open slightly revealing a blob of messy black hair. Sirius poked his head in to look at what he believed to be “sick” Y/N and Remus. “Hey, I just wanted to check on you guys,” Sirius said with a small sympathetic smile. 

“We’re doing alright, thanks Sir-“ you let out a small groan at the feeling of Remus thrusting out and then back into you lightly. 

“You both look bloody awful,” Sirius chuckled, scanning your red sweaty faces. “You both look like you’ve got a fever, do you need to go to the infirmary?” Remus thrusted into you again, causing yet another gasp to escape your lips, which you tried to cover up with a small cough. 

“We’re alright mate, just a bit under the weather. Our naps been helping though,” Remus replied, offering Sirius a smile. He had begun to pick up a steady pace now, thrusting in and out of you slowly. Your breathing picked up slightly, as you tried to keep down your noise level. 

“You alright Y/N?” Sirius asked, eyeing your shaky figure. 

“Y-yeah just a bit..ugh” you cut yourself off with a moan, feeling Remus’s fingers suddenly drawing small circled on your clit. “Fuck, sorry..I-um, I just have..have the j-jitters.” You huffed out, feeling a knot building up in your stomach for the second time that day. Waves of pleasure continue to course through your body as Remus keeps up his steady thrusts. 

“Do you want me to bring you a warm cup of tea from the hall?” Sirius asked as he observed the way your body was shaking slightly. You both made eye contact for a moment before you were forced to screw them shut at the feeling of your orgasm hitting you. You could feel your thighs squeeze together around Remus’s hand as he continued to lightly rub your clit through your high. You let out a few soft moans, before finally collecting yourself enough to meet Sirius' eyes again. 

It didn’t last long, since you could feel Remus begin to twitch inside you. His cock slowly draws out of you, before harshly pushing back in a few more times. Each thrust got harder and sloppier before the feeling of Remus filling you up with cum overtook your senses. Your eyes fluttered closed again as you let out another soft moan.

“Y/N…I’m going to go grab you some tea….Just stay right there…” Sirius' face turned from one of concern to sheer worry, genuinely believing that you were extremely sick. 

“T-Thank you p-padfoot,” You groaned as Remus pulled out of you. His cum dripped out of you and down the back of your thighs in the process. Sirius shut the door quickly and you could hear him scurry down the hall. “Remus what the actual fuck.” You sighed after a brief moment.

“Mmmm, did you enjoy that Bunny, because I sure did.” You could hear the smirk in his voice. You let out another soft moan as you sat up. “Oh bunny,” Remus chuckled, “I love you.” He sat up as well, eyeing the clothes on the floor. “Let’s get dressed, and then we can run a bath for us in the Prefects bathroom hmm? We can use the one no one ever goes into.” 

You nodded quickly in agreement, allowing Remus to help dress you. As if on cue to you both being somewhat presentable, Sirius burst through the door once again holding a cup of tea. You thanked him profusely, taking the cup from his hand. 

“I’m going to take Y/N to grab a warm bath,” Remus told Sirius while taking your hand in his.

“That will probably help, feel better Thumper.” Sirius said ruffling your hair. 

“Thanks Pads,” You smiled, giving him a small hug. 

+++

Remus walks with you hand and hand down the corridors as you both make your way to the much more secluded Perfect bathroom. Due to the absurd location, you and Remus were truly the only two people to use the bathroom. You thoroughly believed that you both were the only ones to know about it in fact. And so, when you arrived at the entrance and pulled the doors open, neither of you were surprised that it was empty. 

Sneaking in quickly, Remus closed the door behind the both of you as you began peeling off your clothes. As your robes dropped from your body you observed the purple bruises beginning to form on your skin in the mirror. Remus shuffled behind you, followed by the sound of running water from the bath. Your eyes wandered across the mirror and  over to where he stood in front of the tub, admiring his every move. You watched as he slipped off his sweater, followed by his pants. The way his skin seemed to glow under the bathroom lights. Remus met your gaze, giving you a bright smile as he approached your naked figure. His arms engulfed you from behind, dangling loosely around your waist. 

He began pressing soft kisses to the top of your shoulder as you let out a sigh of relief. You were in desperate need of some after care after being interrupted by Sirius, and you knew the moment his lips made contact with your skin you would receive it. You also knew this was the perfect opportunity to take care of Remus as well, one of your favorite things to do. 

“Rem..the water is done, we have to go turn it off.” You hummed as you wiggled out of his grip to go turn the faucet off. Remus was quick to follow you, stepping into the tub before offering you his hand so he could help you get in. “The you,” you giggled, taking Remus’s hand so you could both sit down and enjoy the warm water. You allowed the feeling to engulf you as your back laid pressed against Remus’s chest. 

He was slowly scooping water over your head to wet your hair. Once he fould it to be sufficiently wet he began lathering his hands with shampoo. He slowly ran his hands through your hair, massaging your scalp slowly. 

You hummed at the feeling, hoping he would never stop. You knew this was where you wanted to be forever, “I love you Remus,” you whispered softly. 

“Oh darling,” Remus sighed, “I love you.”

+++

TAGLIST

[caplanbuckybarnes]

Heartful Confessions

Summary: Logan confesses his feelings

Warnings: Fluff!

WC: 682

Read on Ao3!

--

It was a quiet evening in the cabin, nestled deep within the forest. The glow from the fireplace cast a warm, golden hue on the rustic furniture. You sat on the couch, your legs tucked beneath you, holding a mug of hot tea. Logan had gone out earlier, doing his usual brooding walk through the woods, but you knew he’d return soon. He always did.

The sound of the door creaking open caught your attention. Logan stepped in, his leather jacket still slightly damp from the evening dew. He gave you a gruff nod as he kicked off his boots, then went to the couch, sinking down beside you.

"Long walk?" you asked softly, resting your head on his shoulder. His warmth enveloped you immediately, and the familiar scent of pine and the faint hint of cigar smoke comforted you.

“Yeah,” he muttered, his voice gravelly. He gently took the mug from your hands, setting it on the coffee table. His rough hand came to rest on your knee, and he rubbed his thumb absently against your skin.

You let out a soft sigh, content to be there with him. With Logan, words weren’t always necessary. His presence alone calmed your mind and filled your heart with a sense of belonging.

But tonight, something felt different. Logan was quiet, even more so than usual, and though his hand was on your knee, his eyes were distant, lost in thought.

"What's going on in that head of yours?" you asked, lifting your head to look at him.

He let out a low grunt as if debating whether or not to answer. But then, after a beat, he finally spoke.

"I’ve lived a long time, darlin’," he began, his voice low. "Longer than anyone should. Seen a lot, done things I ain't proud of… Lost a lot of people along the way."

Your heart ached at his words. Logan carried the weight of his past like a heavy burden; sometimes, it seemed like it would crush him.

"But then you came along," he continued, his gaze finally meeting yours. His expression softened, the usual hardness in his eyes replaced with something tender, something you rarely saw.

You shifted closer to him, reaching up to cup his cheek. “Logan…”

He caught your hand in his and held it to his chest. “You’re different. You don’t make me feel like I’m some kind of monster… You make me feel human. Like maybe, after all this time, I can still find a bit of peace.”

Your breath hitched in your throat. Logan wasn’t one for grand declarations, and hearing him speak so openly sent a warmth flooding through your chest.

"You are my peace, Logan," you whispered, feeling the weight of your own emotions bubbling to the surface. "You're my home."

A small, almost imperceptible smile tugged at the corner of his lips. He leaned in, resting his forehead against yours. For a moment, the world outside ceased to exist, and all you could feel was the steady rhythm of his heartbeat under your palm.

“You’re my missing puzzle piece,” he murmured, his voice barely above a whisper. “Didn’t think I’d ever find it… but here you are.”

Tears welled up in your eyes at his words. Logan, with all his gruffness and rough edges, had finally opened up in a way you never expected.

“I love you,” you said softly, your voice trembling with emotion.

Logan’s hand slid to the back of your neck, pulling you in closer until his lips brushed against yours in a tender, lingering kiss. It wasn’t rushed or desperate—it was slow, sweet, and full of everything he couldn’t say.

When he finally pulled back, his thumb gently wiped away a stray tear that had slipped down your cheek. "I love you too, darlin’. More than I ever thought I could love anyone."

You smiled through your tears, leaning into his touch as he pressed another soft kiss to your forehead. In that moment, in the warmth of the fire and the comfort of Logan’s arms, you knew you’d found your forever.

--

tags!

EVERYTHING PERM: @nekoannie-chan @kjs-s @notyourtypicalrose @mistressofallthingsgeeky

MARVEL PERM: @jaqui-has-a-conspiracy-theory @late-to-the-party-81 @capsthot @kenzieam @dis-plus-fanfic-reblog-writes

LOGAN/WOLVERINE:  @winterslove1917

[vibingandsimping]

hi there~

Would you mind if I request ascended and non ascended astarion falling for a very timid and innocent girl? Like his complete opposite. She's just so sweet, and caring, and pure. I like to think he spots her from his castle as she's picking flowers or something. Decides he just has to have her.

If not it's totally okay. I just saw your head canons and really enjoyed them

(I focused on ascended Astarion because I thought it fit him a tad more.)

You were a constant in his routine. When he first acquired the palace as his own. Every morning he’d spot you in a nearby field through the window.

You were a pretty sight. A natural beauty, he reckoned, though it seemed you knew how to enhance your pleasant features. A little makeup never hurt, after all. It was almost a ritual to open the blinds and watch you after his breakfast. He admired you from afar as he adjusted to his newfound position and power. He grew his spawn following and his confidence in himself. Astarion could have anything he wanted. He had everything but you. What was stopping him, really? You’d be so much prettier dressed in his clothes and in his walls. A wolfish grin spread along his features and he turned with newfound interest.

You were walking home from buying goods at local stalls. The sun was cresting over the hills and leaving an orange dew on the land. You’d make it home before night, you thought to yourself, as you walked the streets. It was the bounty of spring. A truly fruitful time for crop-sellers and a flower picker such as yourself. Flowers were versatile. Teas, decorations, jewelry… really, if you put your mind to it you could make anything of them. They were only one of your interests, though. Lost in thought you didn’t notice the stalker in the dark. One of Astarion’s spawn sent to capture you. Capture you they did. Hands locked around your front and mouth as they drew you from sight. All but a basket dropped on the ground as evidence. You didn’t even have time to scream.

Next thing you knew was the ornate halls of the palace. Ushered by the spawn into a throne room. Sat was a pale man with even paler hair yet eyes so striking your throat dried. He smiled at the sight of you and closed the distance with careful strides. He presented a flower from his pocket. A scarlet rose, you recall, and held it for you to take. You swallowed thickly, plucking it between finger and thumb. He grinned deeper at that, taking it as an invitation. “I’ve watched you for some time.” He began and your eyebrows raised in shock. Who was he? “I believe this will be much easier if you just submit, darling. I’ll take care of such a precious flower like you. I’ll give you everything.” His eyes betrayed his poised demeanor. They had a hunger in their depths. One that made you shiver. You couldn’t say no. Not with the bruising grip of your kidnappers assistant. You were caught in the jaws, unknowingly prey, so you’d lay limp and play along.

Who knows? Possibly this could be an arrangement that works well for you. If you decided to remain blissfully optimistic.