#That Which Lies Buried Beneath the Snow

[zooophagous]

I see a post, that asks the question "you are now married to your phone background, how fucked are you?"

I close the app and look. When was the last time I considered my phone background? I can't even remember it.

On the screen before me is a purple wildflower, a bergamot, or "bee balm" plant, photographed in North Dakota in 2019 in a family member's back yard.

I am married to a bergamot. She is tall and shapely, moreso than myself, though her choice of purple raiments matched closely my own. She is my favorite color. Maybe that's how we met? Why I decided to woo her?

My wife the bergamot is a socialite. She has more friends than I. Every morning she gossips with a cabbage white butterfly, and cruelly shares their secrets with the rusty patched bumblebees, who compete for her affections with the domesticated aapis mellifera, which trail at her purple coattails like lapdogs.

Her favorite friend, however, is the ruby throated hummingbird. More insect than avian though it does contain a vertebral column, it iridesces like green beetle wings and in my heart I feel jealousy as my bergamot bride and the hummingbird kiss.

I sit with her for a season. Under the sun and the heat and the biting flies. She is covered in dewdrops and in spiders. I spare her from caterpillars and lavish my affections on her with a cup of water.

The world turns at last to its cool side, my bergamot changes her purple coat to her dusty toned night gown. She lies down to sleep and is buried beneath a bed of fresh snow come October.

Love so fleeting, marriage so brief, could I forget my bergamot and move on? Could my love be perennial and evergreen even when my beloved is not? It is winter and my bride is dead. How fucked am I?

[jorvikpov]

You are surrounded by little more than the rhythmic, echoing beating of hoofsteps against the hard ground and the faraway mountain ridges obscured from your view by thick, endless mist. Before you lies a only vast expanse of white nothingness, but above the mists, the night is clear and the moon and stars bright as ever, and the thin, powdery sheet of snow laid atop the frozen lake where you walk shimmers ever-so-slightly even in the dull grey-white of the world.

Dusk falls earlier and earlier with each passing day: when you left Valedale, it was already evening. The midnight sun has disappeared as soon as she came to give way to ever darker shadows; in the depths of night the trees once again stand alone in the forests and the mountains guard their passes silently, for those either brave or foolish enough to walk through the deepest dark are few and far between. At night, say the village elders, the beasts come out, and the more superstitious may claim stranger things yet: should you begin to stray off the beaten path you may find that the trees behind you are not where they were mere seconds ago, and when you pass through the shadows, the evil that has always lived in Jorvik’s darkest corners has its eye sharply focused on you.

So far beyond the forest and the mountain pass that another forest has begun, you take a deep breath in and out, and the cold midnight air burns your throat and lungs. Beneath you, the ice creaks and rumbles, as though something is turning in its sleep far below the surface. Your horse’s ears twitch and turn at every noise, even the ones you don’t hear, and as you step further and further away from the cover of the trees behind you, its steps grow more and more tense under the saddle. The wind, cold and unforgiving, creeps slowly over the frozen lake and envelops you in a chill that penetrates flesh and blood and settles deep in your bones; a shiver trickles down your spine, and you think about how your jacket isn’t quite warm enough for this climate, but you do not think about the feeling of being watched that rests at the back of your mind. In the distance, what you hope is a sudden gust of wind roars through the ancient trees, and the sound of thunder echoes through the valley, though there is no flash of lightning to accompany it.

A glance over your shoulder tells you that the person you came here for is still nose-to-tail just behind your horse, icenthistles in hand and head hung low as she blindly lets her pony follow you through the valley. A dark, heavy gloom has made itself at home in the shadow beneath the hood of her jacket, and from it spreads an all-consuming loathing burying its claws deep in her flesh and bone. Though it is a new sight to you, you realise that this hatred, this anger – for herself: if I were Elizabeth, I would hate me too – must have been there for longer than you could ever know, carefully hidden just beneath the surface. You see all too clearly now, too, what the strange longing in her eyes has always been: the desire to become something more, something different, and the inability to recognise that which you cannot become because it is what you already are.

Another shiver washes over you, and you glance down at your hands, wishing that the slow hum of magic coursing through your blood and humming with warmth right at your fingertips could’ve helped you.

You don’t notice her quiet crying until it stops; by then, the two of you are far beyond the frozen lake and the icy mountain passes, and the sky over the Hollow Woods is glowing with the purple of early dawn. At the nearest edge of the village, a door slowly creaks open, and in the doorway, backlit by soft, warm-toned lamps, stands a familiar, friendly silhouette. From behind you comes a deep breath in and out, and then the hoofsteps grow quicker and louder; as Alex canters past you and further down the hill, the hood of her jacket slips backwards inch by inch until it finally falls.

For a split second, you can just barely make out the shapes of constellations far above you before the stars fade one by one as the first sliver of sunlight begins to peek over the mountaintops. A warm breeze rustles through the forest, and in the village, the door is still open, still waiting for you, still promising your cold, weary body warmth and comfort.

From the warm doorway, your name is called. You do not have to be asked twice.

[astrology-bf]

Sarcophagus of the Gods

CW: Implied Death, Conversations with Dead People, Spoilers for Heavensward and the Dark Knight Quests

The chronicle of Hydaelyn is one defined by cycle of Calamity and recovery. Her history can at times seem less a process of events and more a sort of bloody geyser wherein pressure builds unseen beneath a glittering surface of magic and technology until the strain exceeds whatever civilization which dominates a given Astral Era’s ability to contain. Be it sorcery or science, there is as yet no means by which humanity can exercise sufficient mastery of the world to act with carelessness in the matter of respecting the relationship between the two, let alone between two humans - or that which lies within a single human heart, for that matter.

Such carelessness was, at least in part, why Coerthas looked the way it did. On the best of days Azeyma’s face would cause the snow-capped peaks to sparkle like Halone’s icy spear, the landscape rugged but still beautiful in mirror of the spirit of the people that dwelt in Ishgard and the greater See. On its worst, a winding sheet of cloud would shroud the sky to such a level that even close to midday it seemed every hint of color had utterly been drained from every tree on every mountain, to say nothing of how the center of the Fury’s following resembled more a monochrome necropolis than a city of the living. Which, less flatteringly, was also quite in mirror of the hearts of those that dwelt therein.

Such concerns were past the mind of the corpse that now sat slumped against a wall in Ishgard’s Brume, stray snowflakes whipped up by the Wanderer’s winds already clinging to the corners and edges of his darkened plate that hadn’t proved quite enough to save him from the Temple Knights. He’d been "escorted" and left where he had since remained, with the expectation that by nightfall he’d be stripped and tossed over the wall by the desperate folk who poverty had driven to live in such a wretched district of the city. Not that he minded, for as mentioned such concerns were a little past his mind.

His yellow eyes gazed sightlessly at a man that was squatting down before him, not quite meeting his new acquaintance’s rather listless wine-dark blue. The man had walked up slowly not long after the pair of Temple Knights had left sniggering between them at the heretic getting what he quite obviously deserved. He’d stared at him, face blank yet strangely hard, then squatted down into his present posture and remained like that for quite some time - staring silently, heedless of the chill, his stark white garb a pale mirror of the knight's. The corpse made no attempt to greet him, remaining still and silent in his blackened plate.

At length, the stranger spoke. “Gods. They didn’t even bury you.” He sighed and shook his head, a pained note to his voice and on his face, as if the corpse’s plight were a matter that concerned him.

The corpse gave no answer.

The stranger pursed his lips and swallowed, then shook his head again. “I’m sorry. Maybe I could have done something.” apologized the blue-eyed stranger to the corpse.

The corpse gave no answer.

The stranger’s gaze had shifted, finally, a piteous expression on his face. “Who am I kidding? I probably just would have stood there and watched. Like with him. Like with everyone else.” His voice cracked slightly, and the corpse could see the self-inflicted weight of failure acting as a fulcrum for the fracture.

The corpse gave no answer.

The stranger sighed again and moved to take a seat beside the corpse, slightly slumped in pale mirror of the black-garbed knight. He swallowed and stared up at the sky. “Do I not have the right spells? Is this my limit? Is this magic’s limit?” asked the stranger - pleaded, rather, though the corpse got the impression that the stranger didn’t know to whom he spoke, much less what he spoke about.

The corpse gave no answer.

That blank expression finally cracked just like his voice. A bitter well of pain and anger, or at least it seemed so on the surface… but the corpse knew better than to judge an ocean’s depth by looking at the waves. “I don’t know what I’m doing, or where I’m going. I keep failing people.” His voice was thick with tears he’d shed already, face remaining dry as if the faculty of weeping had utterly deserted him. The corpse watched in solemn silence as the stranger bared his soul. “I wish I had someone to tell me what I was missing. Not even tell me, just point me in the right direction. A teacher, or…” The stranger closed his eyes and lowered his head, the faintest little sob escaping him.

“There’s deeper wells to tap, yet.” said the corpse.

The stranger’s head shot up as he stared towards the corpse in horror. “...You’re alive?” he gasped, motionless as if the chill within the icy wind had frozen him indeed.

The corpse gave a contemptuous huff of wry amusement as he raised his head and rested it against the wall, his helmet emitting a small click as the metal at the rear collided with the stone. “Bit too angry to die.” the corpse grunted, almost a growl.

The stranger’s fright receded, and he gave a similar huff - though his was of relief. Then he hummed. “I know the feeling.” replied the stranger with an empathetic nod.

The corpse returned an almost patronizing hum. He nodded sharply. “That’s your first lesson.” the corpse stated as he turned his head to meet the stranger’s eyes. 

The stranger blinked. “What?” His face and voice betrayed an equal mixture of bewilderment and suspicion.

The corpse gave him a hard and pointed look. “Know the feeling.” he repeated, sharply.

The stranger blinked again and slightly leaned away, still sitting at the corpse’s side. “I don’t understand.” he muttered, almost whispered.

The corpse scoffed. “Exactly.” he mocked.

This seemed to get a rise out of the stranger. His face slipped into a contemptuous sneer. “Don’t talk to me like I’m your damn student.” he rebutted, eyeing the corpse from head to toe.

The corpse tilted his head in Ifan’s direction almost coyly. “Then why’d you ask for a teacher?” he mocked again, tone darkly teasing.

The stranger grit his teeth and leaned forward slightly, as if trying to show he wasn’t cowed. “I don’t know you. I don’t even know your name.” he countered as the sneer entered his voice.

“Fray.” The name cut through the air like blackened steel.

The stranger blinked as his expression settled. “...Ifan.” he said, voice barely heard over the faint gusting of the wind over the walls.

Fray scoffed a second time. “I know who you are.” he said as he returned his gaze ahead and flexed his fingers in his gauntlets. 

Ifan’s face had settled into a mask of cordial suspicion. He eyed Fray up and down a second time. “Heard of me, have you?” asked the mage.

Fray shook his head. “No. I know you.” His tone was strangely casual, his yellow gaze unfocused, and his words seemed directed nowhere in particular. 

Ifan snorted as he shook his head and rolled his eyes, clearly unamused. “Same thing.” he replied.

Fray raised his head and gazed at Ifan from the corner of his eyes. “That so?” he asked with a dark, indulgent note that flowed around his words.

Ifan turned his head enough so that he could gaze right back, though his was more a glare. “I said I’m not your student.” he hissed.

Fray didn’t move, nor shift his gaze. “That so?” he repeated, grin evident behind his helm.

Ifan narrowed his eyes and relaxed his jaw, as if spoiling for a fight. “Aye. I don’t wear armor like you.” he said, coldly.

A huff escaped Fray’s helmet, but his gaze remained unmoving. “You know less than you think, if you think that.” His voice had barely changed his tone, though it seemed each word was issued carrying a silent yet distinctly audible cacophony of mocking laughter. 

Ifan bared his teeth. “Stop talking in riddles.” The magician gave a huff and sat up straight, as if attempting to gain some higher ground.

Fray rolled his eyes and looked away, not bothering with such lazy bait. “My meaning is plain.” he answered, plainly, to prove his point. 

Ifan huffed and ceded, rolling his own eyes with an annoyed shake of his head. “Fine. Why do you want to teach me, anyway? I’m not interested in using a sword.” he stated equally as plainly, as if Fray were somehow stupid.

Fray rolled his eyes again as if the answer were as blankly plain as the white of Ifan’s garb. “I’m not offering any blade but that you already carry.” He stretched his arms and rolled his shoulders with manifest annoyance at his present situation.

Ifan raised an eyebrow. “So, more power, then?” he asked, clearly quite oblivious.

Fray leaned forward and craned his head so that he could once more lock his yellow eyes with Ifan’s wine-dark blue. “Is that what you need?” The strangest tone: a genuine query, a mocking tease, and injured pleading all at once. There was something of a softness in Fray’s eyes, like an inviting sprig of daffodils a man might offer his beloved upon their meeting or lay upon their grave.  

The question seemed to give the magician genuine pause. His expression softened and he looked away, slumping slightly in defeat. “I don’t know.” he answered.

Fray scoffed again. “Exactly.” That darkness slipping in his tone had sheeted into something more like rain upon a cenotaph, as if he pitied the magician where he sat.

Ifan seemed to feel Fray’s eyes upon him. He sat up, bristling faintly as his frustration finally overcame his better sense. “I told you to stop talking in riddles. Just tell me exactly what you’re offering.” he demanded, bluntly.

“Knowledge.” offered Fray, transparently.

Ifan paused. His eyes were narrowed in suspicion, face incredulous to the point of sheer disgust. “Of what?” he answered, his tone betraying an utter and total lack of comprehension.

“Yourself.” 

Ifan blinked. He grit his teeth, and glared. “I know who I am.” he snarled.

Fray let out a single laugh. “That so?” he repeated.

Ifan shook his head, disgusted as he snapped up to his feet and fiercely brushed the snow that had collected on his clothes. “Piss off.” he spat, taking a few steps away but not once turning to expose his back.

Fray let out a long and rather exasperated sigh out though his nose before he stood, snow sheeting off his darkened plate that clattered like a pile of rusted swords with every movement that he made. “As you say.” he hummed, much like a shopkeep trying to mollify an angry client in the pointless knowledge that they’d be back tomorrow anyway. His footfalls clicked upon the icy stones as he began to walk away, back turned in full knowledge he had no need to fear the man in white. 

He’d taken only six full paces when Ifan spoke again. “Wait.” 

Fray paused right before the seventh step. His boot lowered back to settle on the sixth. He gave no answer.

Ifan’s posture fell into one of sheer defeat. He lowered his gaze, letting out a breath of pain, mind high up in the Pillars, in the Vault, atop Saint Reymanaud’s Cathedral where he’d failed like he’d failed before and couldn’t fail again. “Will it help me save people? Will it help me protect my friends?” The magician’s pain was obvious in his tone, but he didn’t let it show upon his face. He tried to smile instead, as it better suited him.

Fray turned his head to glance at Ifan over one black-armored shoulder. Still and silent as a corpse. “There’s no stronger shield.” His words brushed over Ifan’s ears like a gentle kiss.

Ifan felt his lips part in answer to the words as if his instinct was to kiss the sound in turn. He closed his eyes and nodded as he straightened up. He took a breath, and looked the black-garbed man up and down from head to toe as if he could try and make some sense of him - and failed. “Alright. Teach me then.” said Ifan, a faintly fierce determination in his words. His expression slipped back into that earlier look of blankness, though it had now acquired something of a darkened edge.

Fray returned his gaze ahead and gave the matter exactly six seconds’ careful thought. Then he nodded, and turned to face the man in white. “As you say.”

[sometimesitcanhurt]

How is the weather inside of you?

And perhaps if we could peek inside the human body,

And seek what unknown mysteries lied beneath the skin. 

Instead of a simple ‘how are you?’ 

If people just asked ‘how is the weather inside you?’ 

How would you describe the storms inside you to them?

Would you talk about the pitch black clouds

That resided scattered in you,

Or would you tell them about the constant cold rain, that surrounds you,

Would you tell them about the rare glimmers of sun

When you remember a memory which seemed really fun, 

Or would you talk about the sporadic springs, 

Times when you let go of the hurt that had haunted you since long,

Would you talk about past winters

Which have buried secrets deep under the snow, 

But my dear, these things would only make sense 

If my heart had seasons of its own

Seasons which stay unknown. 

[milkywayhou]

Hi 🫱🏼‍🫲🏿🍊

OC ask for snow

5,9,19

Hi! :0 😳🤝

Thanks for the questions- I'm surprised someone willing to ask me about her!!

anyway I will answer it with what I thought about Snow. Since I'm not finished to build her character yet.

It's very long answer!!

5. How far she's willing to go to get what she wanted?

Well, beneath Snow's charismatic surface lay a fierce determination that had served her old self well in her military career - and that she now channeled towards attaining some semblance of normalcy, whatever the personal cost.

Survival had always depended on her willingness to push past pain and sacrifice for the mission. Sleepless nights, pushing through injuries, achieving impossible feats of physical and mental endurance.

Snow was no stranger to pushing limits in pursuit of goals, having stared down true horrors most can't imagine. Survival demanded flexibility with morality in her line of work, where willingness to get hands dirty often meant living to see another dawn.

Though civilian life demanded different stakes, that drive still burned inside her. If keeping up appearances, playing the part a little while longer allowed preserving this quasi-stability against her demons, small manipulations seemed worth the trade.

White lies, misdirecting questions, gaslighting memories that threatened façade's crumbling - whatever it took stayed in her well-practiced arsenal. No discomfort or cost was too high if it maintained this precarious balance a moment more.

Consequences were irrelevant compared to keeping agony locked in a cage, if only for a little while longer. Nothing else mattered but delaying shattering truths from swallowing her whole, even if it took all remaining shards of her morality and dignity to stay afloat on the sea of brokenness just a while more.

9.Do you have a specific lyric or quote which you associate with her?

I have many-

But since I wrote this while listening a few song that I associated with her, I probably will just write down the lyrics that I found really suit her!

"Just repeated to live, no matter how many times I ended it. There are always only small rusty desire in the end. Under the name of prayer and pride, life goes around in an inorganic way" Fehlt (Deemo edition by Alice Schach and The Magic Orchestra

"Live is allowing yourself to step on fire, shed tears on bloodied routes (life is to consume. life is to become food for each other, no matter evil or good)

Entirely hell (life is fairness, life is inequality)

(Life is the motion) We live by default " in Hell We Live, Lament by Mili ft. KIHOW from Myth & Roid

19.How does she behave when enraged?

Her training emphasized control, but when fury broke barriers. Eyes would darken, Mouth twisting in a caustic smile meant to inflict its own wounds. She'd coil like a serpent about to strike, muscles coiled for violence.

Usually soft tones took on an unnerving crispness, clipped and cold. Sarcasm yielded to pure vitriol in a voice not her own, laced with all the agony she buried for years. Wrath and heartache poured from some wound so deep it seemed to physically pain her.

She preferred manipulating situations through charm, but antagonizing her meant facing raw, uncensored fury few survived unscathed. Fists would ball, body trembling with effort to hold back the tide.

More than once she retreated alone, venting rage through punishing physical exertion until exhaustion doused conflagration's flames. Violence against fellow operators was unacceptable, so she focused wrath inward through brutal training regimens pushing limit to the brink of collapse. Only then could composure's locks be safely reengaged.

[janedoebutimnotdead]

Take this silly little Monique fic I wrote months ago

The smoke from her cigarette filled Monique Gibeau's room. Sitting in front of her fireplace, she was reading the poem that she had just composed by the firelight. She had written it after his last client; a man Monique didn't know what his name was.

She took another drag on her cigarette, feeling how the smoke intoxicated her lungs, her life, her soul. She wrote a few more verses and put the cigarette over her ear, as if it were a pencil. Beneath her poem, she pressed her lips against the paper, as if she were giving it a kiss. As a result, her lips were impregnated by the perfume in which she always intoxicated her poems, trying to camouflage the oppressive smell of smoke.

She watched her kiss, caught up in her poem. That was her signature. Her red lips. The same lips that had known the bodies of hundreds of men. Men who claimed to love her. Men who lied. Men.

Monique folded the paper in half and held it close to the fireplace. One of the flames reached it and began to burn it. Monique just let the poem burn in her hands, feeling the heat on her fingers, watching the yellowish paper turn black, crackling, dancing as it was consumed. She threw what was left of her poem into the flames to let it die.

She picked up the cigarette and took the last drag. She analyzed it and then stuck it in her chest. She closed her eyes and hissed in pain. A physical pain that literally made her burn. It hurt, of course it hurt; her fucking skin was burning. But that was one of her many addictions. The round scars that covered her body were proof of this. So was her tobacco smell, her alcohol breath. But those were her other addictions. Now what matters are the burns.

She removed the already consumed cigarette from her skin and buried it in the fire. Admiring her new mark, her burning flesh, she could not do anything but laugh. That was the only way she had to prove that she was still alive. Although, indeed, she was not. Monique Gibeau had been dead for so long that she could no longer remember what it was like to be alive.

 

The snow under her thighs made a stark contrast to her cigarette, once again stuck in her chest. She buried it in the snow without bothering to look at her new scar and laboriously managed to get to her feet. She staggered through the streets with the winter sun on her back. The streets were too empty for a Paris morning. There were people, too many well-dressed people, too many people who think they are better than the rest because they have a stupid pocket watch or a ridiculous fur coat.

Monique was used to noise and the feeling of not having space. Such were the brothels in which she had worked. Full of music, colors, drinks, colors, boozy-floozy flashing lights. She would never admit it, but she missed those times.

She walked, hugging herself, lost in her reveries. She was unaware of the stares and whispers that followed her. She only realized it when a boy a little older than her gave her a loud spanking on one of her buttocks. She turned and looked at the boy, who was smiling mischievously at her. Monique was about to say something to him when an itch in her throat prevented her from speaking. She began to cough, covering her mouth with her hand while, with the other one, she leaned against a wall. The boy was still there, taunting her and laughing at her suffering.

When Monique was finally able to remove her hand from her mouth, she saw that it was stained red. But it wasn't lipstick, no; it was blood. Blood dripped from his mouth and trickled down his chin like a rivulet. She wiped blood from her hand on her black dress and looked back at the boy.

"Do me a favor and leave me alone," he told her.

"Do me a favor. I can pay you very well.”

"Leave me alone" she insisted and tried to leave.

The boy then grabbed her arm and threw her to the ground. Seeing herself once again in the snow and as tired as she was, Monique could only hope that everything would go quickly. The boy kicked him in the belly that took his breath away.

"If I tell you to do me a favor, you do me a fucking favor."

Monique watched as people walked by without looking at her. The bastard was killing her and nobody cared. She was just one of the many whores in Paris. It was not important. The sunlight, reflected from the knife that she always wore in her fishnet stockings (“to help her clear things up,” as she used to say), fell on her pale eyes, now bright and calm, knowing that they would close forever in only a matter of time.

But the boy lunged at her and Monique felt him lift her short dress. It wasn't the first time she was experiencing that, but she knew that it would be the last time. She had no dignity left, but she wanted to keep her honor.

She picked up her knife and plunged it into the boy's stomach, who screamed in pain. Monique pushed him off her and withdrew the knife to plunge it once more. And again. And again. And again… Ten times she stabbed him. She got up and started running.

She walked away from there going into an alley. She stumbled and fell to the ground. She kicked off her heels and tossed them to get up and run even faster. Never before had she felt so alive.

At the end of the alley, stood the Church. Monique heard the bells; Mass was over and people were going back to their chores. The last to leave was the priest.

Monique slumped down, exhausted. She coughed up blood again, staining the snow. It seemed that all the blood around her was hers when, really, the vast majority belonged to the boy she just murdered. She started to feel tired. Without really knowing if it was because of the traumatic situation she had just experienced, her weakness or the fact that she was at death's door. She just wanted to fall asleep.

But she heard the heavy footsteps of someone approaching. Monique turned, devastated at the thought of not being able to die in peace.

It was the priest.

"My child." The man told her. "What are you doing?"

“I am dying, Father. Can't you tell?" She responded ironically.

She had been sick for weeks, but she did not have enough money to afford medicine. The man, seeing that the girl was so weak, kneaded down to her.

"Do you want to confess anything?”

"I'm afraid if I do that you will be the one who is about to die."

Monique sighed and snuggled deeper into the snow, waiting for her tragic end. She was too cold; she craved heat.

"Could you grant me one last wish?" She muttered not bothering to look at the man. Then, without letting him answer, she went on. “Give me a cigarette and fire. And help me sit up."

As perplexed as the priest was, he agreed and obeyed the girl. He helped her sit up, leaning her back against one of the walls of the alley. When he was sure she was comfortable, he took out a cigarette and lit it. She took it, whispering a weak “thanks”. She pressed her lips together and let the smoke billow out her nose.

“I won't bother you anymore, Father. I am running out of time."

Her voice was growing hoarse and shaky.

"If you had been a good Christian this would not have ended like this."

“What does it mean for you to be a good christian, Father? Those who go to Mass on Sundays and then ignore the unfortunates who are born, live and die on the street are good christians? But it doesn’t matter in the end, does it? By praying a little they go straight to Heaven.”

The cough attacked her again. The priest observed her in silence, asking if it was really worth staying with that sick sinner on her deathbed. Monique vomited on the snow once again. She kept coughing and choking on her own blood, several strands of her black hair sticking to her pale face. The priest didn't even bother to hold back her hair.

When he saw how Monique leaned her head against the wall sweating, with her chest heaving and that expression of suffering, he knew that the long-awaited moment had finally arrived for both of them.

"My child, do you have any final words to the Lord you’d like to say?"

Monique opened her eyes, took a drag, and let the smoke illustrate the words she was about to say. The last words of Monique Gibeau.

"Oui. Tell him that, like him, I choose to burn rather than fade away."

She smiled, showing her yellowed, blood-stained teeth, and stuck the cigarette into her chest. The cigarette slipped from her hand and landed on her thigh but, for the first time, she didn't feel the pain.

The priest got up and walked away from there, without even closing her eyes. He left her in that alley alone and dead which was, ironically, how she had always been. Her cigarette was lit for a few more minutes, as it began to snow. And, very little by little, the snow buried the cigarette and, with it, Monique Gibeau.

[violettesiren]

Month of my heart! with what a growth of green Thou comest to the garland of the year! What snows have sifted, storms have swept between The June long vanished and the June now here! What wealth of faded foliage beneath Thy feet, forgotten, lies in earth entombed, Sweet flowers on which the dying year did breathe, Half-opened petals, buds that never bloomed!

And from the ashes of the buried year Spring, phoenix-like, the glories of to-day; The vernal wrappings that thy forests wear, The star-strewn emerald of thy carpet gay. For thee alone the opening roses blush, And breathe their fragrance out in many a sigh; The listless air grows heavy with the hush, And wooing zephyrs faint in ecstasy.

I hail thy coming; and a gladder song Goes up from every warbler of the plain; For greener trees and bluer skies belong To thee than any follower in thy train. The rustling of thy leafy robes I heard In the soft music of the April showers, And caught the far-off trill of coming bird, And breathed the fragrance of thine unborn flowers.

And thou art here! I feel it in the lull That steals o'er Nature's bounding pulse to-day; The spring retires and leaves the summer full Of brimming beauty, dauntless of decay. I hear thy presence in the whispering air, The lifting leaf, the honey-bee's low tune, The drowsy hum of insects everywhere ; The world is full of thee, O peerless June!

June by Mary E. Erwin Hobbs

[xasha777]

In the near future, where the Arctic has transformed into one of the last burgeoning frontiers of human expansion, the Alaska Peninsula is no longer just a remote stretch of wilderness but a pivotal ground in the geopolitics of the age. Here, amidst the stark beauty of snow-swept landscapes and the perilous dance of the northern lights, lies the city of Neo-Kodiak, a techno-hub carved out of ice and ambition.

At the heart of Neo-Kodiak's allure is Vesper, an enigmatic figure renowned as much for her intellect as for her otherworldly beauty. Known simply by her first name, her true identity remains a mystery, cloaked behind the glamour of her black and white visuals, reminiscent of an era long gone but digitally enhanced to captivate the post-modern world. She’s not just a face; she’s the foremost expert in cryogenic robotics, working for the secretive Aurora Corp.

Vesper's life changes when she discovers a set of ancient documents hinting at the existence of a mysterious source of power buried deep beneath the ice sheets of the Alaska Peninsula. This isn’t just any power, but a form of energy predicted by theoretical physicists, capable of altering time and space.

Driven by curiosity and the thrill of discovery, she embarks on a dangerous journey across the frigid landscapes. Her only companions are her creations — sleek robotic forms with artificial intelligence designed to navigate the harsh arctic conditions. Her most trusted robot, named Echo, possesses a hint of sentience, a testament to Vesper's genius.

As Vesper and her robotic team venture deeper into the unknown, they are not alone. A rival corporation has caught wind of her discoveries and is desperate to claim the power for themselves. They deploy cybernetic spies, blending almost seamlessly with the natural and technological elements of Neo-Kodiak.

The climax unfolds near the smoldering craters of the ancient volcanoes that line the peninsula, where the energy source is believed to be located. As Vesper approaches, the landscape becomes surreal, the rules of physics bending around the epicenter of the power source. Time dilates, and reality warps, echoing the mysterious energy's immense power.

In a heart-stopping finale, Vesper must outsmart her rivals and unlock the secrets of the power source using her robotic aides and her mastery of cryogenic technology. She discovers that the power is not just a physical entity but binds the fabric of space, with potential gateways to other dimensions.

Her victory is bittersweet. Harnessing the power could mean unimaginable advancement for humanity, but it also poses grave dangers. Vesper decides to keep the source sealed, hidden from those who would misuse it, turning her back on the fame and recognition she could gain.

Returning to Neo-Kodiak, Vesper remains the enigmatic genius, her true adventure as hidden as her identity, guarding the secrets of the Alaska Peninsula, which, for now, will remain just another chapter in the anthology of the universe's mysteries.

[xtruss]

Mahesh Magar, a guide with Himalayan Research Expeditions, exits a cave on the Khumbu Glacier, just a short walk from Everest Base Camp. With elevations of more than 17,500 feet above sea level, these are some of the highest mapped caves in the world. Caves like this one are forming in high altitude Himalayan glaciers as soaring temperatures send more meltwater cascading through the insides of glaciers, melting tunnels that are literally rotting glaciers from the inside out.

These Caves Mean Death For Himalayan Glaciers

Otherworldly Ice Caves are Rotting the Glaciers From the Inside Out, Putting Villages Below in the Path of Devastating Potential Flash Floods.

— By Douglas Fox | Photographs By Jason Gulley | January 10, 2024

Jason Gulley has spent 19 years crawling through the insides of glaciers, from Alaska to Nepal. Sometimes these caves, carved through the ice by running water, are large enough for a truck to drive through. Other times, they’re so narrow that he slides along the slippery floor on his belly. If he pauses, his clothing can freeze to the ice.

Gulley is a geologist at the University of South Florida, who began his career studying limestone caverns. It was only by chance that he started exploring the insides of glaciers. The first time he entered one of these caves in the Mount Everest Region, on Lhotse Glacier, was a harrowing experience.

He and his companion stood outside the entrance, watching basketball-sized rocks rain down from the unstable ice cliff overhead. After gathering his wits, he sprinted inside—followed a moment later by Douglas Benn, a veteran Himalayan Glaciologist from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.

Left: Glaciologist Doug Benn enters a massive cave on the Khumbu Glacier in December 2006. This cave formed as ponds of melted water, sitting on top of glaciers, elevated water pressured and punched open the cracks, causing lake water to surge into the surrounding ice. Right: ​As the mountainous ​region warms, these ponds of melted water are becoming more common, hastening the demise of frozen glaciers.

After a few minutes in the cave, they accidentally triggered a minor collapse. The brittle ceiling shattered in a rain of ice shards. “That’s when it really started to dawn on us,” says Gulley. “We really have no idea of what could kill us in here.”

In the years since, Gulley, Benn, and several other scientists have managed to explore these little-known caves. Their work has laid bare the private lives of glaciers—and the disease that is rapidly consuming them.

Glaciers in the Himalaya are thinning by up to nine feet per year, and these caves are playing a pivotal role, hollowing out and collapsing the ice from within.

“It’s the cancer that’s eating what’s left of the glacier,” says Gulley.

As the world warms, the tongues of these glaciers are melting into large lakes, which threaten to unleash flash floods upon villages in the valleys below.

The Sherpa settlement of Gokyo lies beneath the rapidly disappearing Ngozumpa Glacier. Like nearly half of the glaciers in Nepal's Everest Region, the Ngozumpa Glacier is covered in rocky debris shed by adjacent mountains.

Little-explored Caves

Glaciers in the Himalaya differ from what most people imagine. Stand at the lower end of Ngozumpa Glacier, which flows from 26,864-foot Cho Oyu, the world’s sixth-highest mountain, and you will see what appears to be a jumble of rocks filling the valley.

Ngozumpa, like many Himalayan glaciers, is fed by avalanches that sweep down from above—depositing snow, rocks, and boulders onto its upper reaches.

As the glacier descends into warmer air, its surface starts to melt. This removes the upper layers of ice, bringing the buried rubble back to surface. There it accumulates in a layer, up to four feet thick, covering the glacier.

Many Himalayan glaciers are “debris-covered,” like Ngozumpa­, and scientists believed that this would insulate them from warming temperatures. But it hasn’t worked out that way, says Teiji Watanabe, a geomorphologist at Hokkaido University in Japan, who has frequently visited the Everest Region since the late 1980s.

Melting water forms pools on the debris-covered Ngozumpa Glacier, in the Everest region of Nepal. Lakes like these heat up during summer and provide large sources of relatively warm water that can carve cave passages into the ice by melting the layers of ice below.

Electric lights in the Sherpa capitol of Namche Bazaar light up the night sky. Namche Bazaar and other nearby Sherpa settlements receive electricity from a small hydroelectric power plant. Infrastructure like this is vulnerable to floods from overlowing glacier lakes.

In the past few decades, the surface of Ngozumpa and other debris-covered glaciers has become pocked with thousands of sinkholes up to 100 feet deep, as the ice shrinks beneath the rocks. Melt ponds frequently fill these depressions. The total area of these ponds has tripled in 30 years—a rate of change that “is really, really amazing,” says Watanabe.

The cause of that rapid change was a mystery. But around the year 2000 Benn, the Scottish glaciologist, noticed a clue.

Melt ponds on Ngozumpa and other debris-covered glaciers often disappeared overnight. At the bottom of these empty depressions, Benn found cave openings, through which the lake had drained.

No one knew how extensive those caves were, or where they went.

But in 2004, Benn met Gulley—an accomplished caver—through a mutual friend.

Benn’s photos of gaping cave openings and pitted glaciers reminded Gulley of limestone landscapes in the Caribbean, where thousands of sinkholes had formed as caves collapsed beneath the surface. With Gulley’s expertise, they entered their first glacier cave in the Everest Region, in 2005.

Glaciologist Doug Benn examines the roof of a glacier cave on Nepal's Khumbu Glacier. The entire cave roof consists of blocks of shattered ice that had been frozen together.

Glacier researcher Matt Covington moves through a tight section of a cave inside the Ngozumpa Glacier, during a 2018 expedition. Crawling at altitudes between 15,000 and 18,000 feet above sea level is one of the most physically demanding parts of cave exploration.

A Downward Spiral of Melting Caves

As they ventured into the darkness, the beams from their headlamps illuminated the fog of their breath. Thin layers of dust, as fine as flour, coated the surfaces — “as if the cave was a store that went out of business 30 years ago,” says Gulley.

They hurried out of that first cave after part of its ceiling collapsed.

Their second cave entry, several days later, didn’t go much better. As they walked down a passage, their spiked crampons crackling on the ice, Gulley suddenly plunged through the floor.

Only later did they realize they’d been walking on a false floor—a veneer of ice, three quarters of an inch thick, that had formed on top of standing water. That water later drained out from below—leaving the five-foot void that Gulley fell into.

They gradually learned to avoid these hazards. And as they explored Ngozumpa Glacier, year after year, Gulley was amazed at how these meandering ice caves resembled limestone caverns—except in the glacier, the ornate scallops, grooves, stalagmites, and stalactites had formed in a few months, rather than thousands of years.

Jason Gulley navigates a cave in Nepal's Ngozumpa Glacier, stooping as he walks. Even experienced cave explorers struggle to descend caves covered in ice.

The caves formed where bands of debris-rich ice provided a weak spot that melt water exploited. The passages were often round, with a deep chasm cutting into the floor, indicating it was carved by gushing water that eventually slowed to a stream.

But glacier caves also differed in some striking ways.

As Gulley and Benn made repeated trips to Ngozumpa Glacier, they saw that narrow passages often squeezed shut from one year to the next—the glacial ice oozing inward like silly putty. Those passages melted open again the next time water from a draining lake gushed through.

These observations led Benn and Gulley to a theory—published in 2017—of how caves erode debris-covered glaciers.

“As those caves expand and collapse, they’re creating new depressions, that create new lakes, that create new caves,” says Gulley.

As this downward spiral continues, the depressions expand and deepen, forming ice cliffs that melt quickly because they’re warmed by sunlight. Warm melt ponds undercut the ice cliffs—crumbling them—exposing more bare ice.

In this way, a depression “can grow faster and faster the bigger it gets,” says Ryan Strickland, a PhD student studying caves at the University of Arkansas.

Strickland used a drone to measure 3,000 depressions on Ngozumpa Glacier. His analysis, published in August, suggests that depressions really do grow more quickly as they expand—consistent with Gulley’s theory that melt caves drive the process.

“It’s absolutely plausible,” says Owen King, a mountain glaciologist at Newcastle University in the United Kingdom, who has worked in this region. “The mechanisms that Ryan has described, we can definitely see evidence for.”

The melt water gushing through caves gathers in a massive lake near the glacier’s terminus. Spillway Lake is half a mile long. It is dammed by a massive ridge of rubble that the glacier piled up over thousands of years. As it grows, it could rupture that dam, sending several million cubic yards of water plunging down the valley.

In 1985, a glacial lake outburst flood eight miles southwest of Ngozumpa swept away 14 bridges, 30 houses, and a hydroelectric plant. This flood risk will increase as more glaciers give way to lakes.

Mere steps from Everest Base Camp, a pair of researchers drop into a glacier cave on Nepal's Khumbu glacier. Rising temperatures and melting ice lowered the ice surface at Everest Base Camp by a staggering 98 feet between 1984 and 2015.

A Remnant Cave Left High and Dry

When Gulley visited Ngozumpa Glacier in 2018 and 2019, he was shocked by what he saw. Very few caves remained. So much of the glacier had sagged down to the level of Spillway Lake, that melt water was no longer driven to flow downhill and create new caves.

They did find one fragment of a cave that Gulley first mapped in 2005. Back then its entrance was at the bottom of a depression. But now all that remained was a short section of cave piercing a ridge of ice.

Even as melt caves disappear from the lower reaches of Ngozumpa, they will penetrate higher up the glacier’s 22-mile length. Melt caves will eviscerate more and more glaciers—creating lakes that could release devastating floods.

“These caves are symptoms of dying glaciers,” says Gulley. “This is what almost all of the glaciers in the Everest Region are going to be turning into.”

[v-thinks-on]

Day 31 of That Which Lies Buried Beneath the Snow

First || Previous 

Today's Prompt (from cjnwriter): "That confounded deerstalker."

On that January morning, the quiet little village inn was a flurry of activity. The skies were blue and the passes were clear once more, but snow always loomed upon the horizon.

“I believe it is time we returned to London,” Holmes had declared.

“Yes, I have also begun to long for home,” Watson said.

So, bags were hastily packed, rooms scoured for anything which could have been mislaid in a month of residence. M. Dupond joined them, to return to Marseilles before the snow impeded travel again.

“A highly successful vacation,” Holmes remarked as they loaded the carriage. “I must thank Dr. Ansruther for his recommendation.”

Watson found himself in no position to protest, but he contented himself with adding, “If not quite what the doctor ordered.”

Holmes chuckled. “Perhaps not.”

But a smile exchanged between them said that all was well.

“I did not find what I had hoped for,” M. Dupond remarked more somberly, “but thanks to you, M. Holmes, at least I know what became of my dear aunt and uncle, and M. Renaud was kind enough to part with some of their remaining belongings, to give me something to remember them by.” It was on M. Renaud’s account that M. Dupond’s bags were heavier than they had been when he had arrived.

They were all about to pile into the carriage when there was a sudden gust of wind.

“Confound it!” Holmes exclaimed.

All eyes turned to him and Watson asked urgently, searching for any trouble, “What is it?”

Holmes’s now bare head, his hair windswept, told the tale. “I am afraid it is a lack rather than a fresh obstacle. I fear my deerstalker has gone.”

They all glanced around, but it was nowhere in sight, and the cold wind continued to blow, if perhaps without so much force. They were left without any other choice, but to huddle into the carriage, Holmes first, his ears already beginning to turn pink from the cold.

“We will have to get another in London, but in the meantime you can have my cap,” Watson offered, once they were all comfortably inside.

“No, my dear Watson, I would not leave you bare-headed.”

“I have my bowler in the trunk.”

“A city hat, Watson? That would do you no good here, I fear.” 

“A scarf, then?” Watson suggested, untying his own.

“I will be mistaken for a little old lady,” Holmes said, but he allowed Watson to tie the scarf around his head as they set off back down the mountain.

And with that, 2020 and this story come to an end! Happy New Year, everyone!!

Thank you for coming along for this bumpy ride! I especially want to thank Hades Lord of the Dead for coordinating the December Calendar Challenge of Awesomeness again this year, and everyone else who participated for the prompts that challenged my storytelling abilities at every turn!

[searidings]

....🥺 can you please tell us more about that season 5 alternate ending where andrea ends up using the dagger pretty please, just like who does she end up hurting and the others reaction? if only you want to of course !

hooookay this ask got me to open that wip for the first time in a year and actually it's not that far from being complete! but idk how to finish it and i feel like i've done the s5 conflict resolution thing in multiple fics now like how many is too many? i fear i may have hit that limit. BUT since you asked, here is the beginning of it. please note:

1) this thing is angsty and also it's unfinished, so read at your own peril

2) because i wasn't ever expecting to finish/publish it, i've recycled bits of description from it into other fics. so if you see stuff i've repeated elsewhere no you don't <3

-

The last thing Lena sees is a flash like dark shadow pass over Andrea’s eyes, before a kryptonite dagger slides between her ribs.

The sound she emits is less of a scream and more of a surprised squeak as she sinks to the ground.

If you want to get to Supergirl, you’re gonna have to go through me.

It’s not that she hadn’t believed Andrea would do it. Lena was under no illusion of safety when she placed herself between Supergirl and the glowing green rock in Andrea’s hand. She’d come to terms with the possibility of dying for Kara long ago.

What she hadn’t been able to prepare for was the pain. The abstract of sacrifice was all well and good, but. Reality, this searing epicentre, a point of white hot agony turned molten, seeping through her body. No amount of her mother’s decorum training had prepared her for this.

Something is filling her mouth, thick and dark and oozing. She can’t scream. Kara sits, eyes silver, a world away. Kara. Lena has to move. She can’t. Andrea steps over her, and is that the pounding of receding footsteps or the dogged beat of Lena’s heart? Either way, it’s slowing. Every inhale cracks her body down the centre, each exhale buries shards of glass inside the gaping wound.

Her eyes are beginning to mist at the edges but she strains, listens. The sound that cuts through the haze is not the scream she dreads, Kara’s agony as her veins sear emerald. It’s not a scream, but a shout, and then a blur passes over her like light and shadow.

Concrete cracks, or perhaps it’s Lena’s ribs. Sounds are muffled now, the world dulled down like the inside of a snow globe. Underwater, time passes sluggishly to where she lies, drifting, encased in glass. But someone is fighting the current, resisting the pull. Hands grasp her shoulders, burning where they touch. Through the rolling fog comes Kara’s face, blurring out in red and blue and gold and sickly green. Lena wants to push her away, keep her separate from the venomous substance protruding from her chest, keep her untainted. But Kara’s hands are dancing there-away along her cheeks, her jaw, Lena’s own name sounding from her lips over and over, a siren song, calling her home. It’s raining now, wet spots peppering her brow, or maybe the sun is crying.

“Lena, Lena,” Kara is saying. It sounds like her heartbeat and she cannot bear for it to stop.

“Kara,” she manages, a whisper, a prayer.

Her face flashes within Lena’s line of sight for one perfect moment, and is she green-tinged or is it Lena’s failing vision? A shiver passes through the air between them, I’m sorry fluttering like a bloodstained white flag but whether it falls from her own lips or another’s, Lena cannot say. Then a sudden pressure at her ribs, a heavy push and release that feels like salvation and damnation all at once.

Lena hears a scream, two screams, billions. She is left gaping, open and exposed. Invaded by the air and exalted by the sticky-sweet blush of her own blood, her body purging itself. Through the slick of gathering crimson her head rolls to the side, darkness pressing in around her, eyes blazing with the final image of a limp hand on the ground beside her, veins shot through with glowing green.

-

For a long time, there is only darkness. The deepest blackness she has ever known, all-encompassing. Devouring light, thought, feeling. Lena floats, tethered to her own existence only by the pressing weight of the dark, closing in until the end of the world.

Slowly, sensations begin to blur in and out. Cold, a deadening flow, hooking into her very marrow and stripping her from the inside out. She drifts, and then there’s heat, scorching, radiating out from her ribs in scalding waves, and she wishes for numbness.

For a moment, Lena thinks she sees the star-burst of veins behind her eyelids, but then they are gone and all is black again. Sound fragments filter through her peripheral awareness. A great noise, banging and shouting and exploding. She slips back under.

Vibrations reach her, but they must be sounds because Lena no longer has a body with which to feel them. She floats, untethered, sinking beneath the surface of a dark ocean so vast it surely cannot know she’s there. In the deep, voices flicker.

“Haven’t you heard that you’re supposed to leave the knife in? She’s minutes from bleeding out.”

The blackness turns to blood around her, not vibrant red but sticky dark, the kind so loaded with the very force of someone’s life that it moves slowly, crawls under the weight of it, sucking light from all it touches.

“Her veins were green, Alex.”

An eternity passes.

She dreams of her mother, dark hair fanning behind her as she cuts through the still waters of the lake. The scene is calm, but the growing dread means Lena knows what’s coming and suddenly it’s not her mother but Kara before her, and the lake isn’t clear but radioactive, glowing green, and still Lena stands at the shore and watches her slip away, helpless.

Words float through the haze and Lena wishes she could reach out, grasp them, weigh them in her hands to know the truth behind them. Radiation and poisoned and flared and gone, the sounds making physical shapes in the darkness. She thinks of a child, two dark-haired children, of hours spent pouring over a dictionary. A cruel laugh when she got a definition wrong, grudging silence when she got it right. How she wishes now to be wrong, to mishear, a stay of judgment on the world these words conjure into being. But the focus is gone, and she slips away again.

“—whatever you have to do! Or so help me, I’ll—”

Though Lena is nothing now, just an exhale in the wind, she smiles. Warmth blooms, the blackness not crushing but caressing for a moment, and she drifts into memories of happier times.

A million years pass, a billion. Lena is upside down, and right way up, and no way up at all. If she still had a face, she might feel the pressure of a warm forehead against her own. If she still had hair, the imprint of lips pressed gently against it might still ache. If she hadn’t burned every meaningful bridge in her life in the year before her death, she might believe the trick of a whisper wrapping on the breeze, words of comfort, of promise.

But she had, so she doesn’t, and time collapses in on itself as Lena watches, motionless and alone.

-

Though she has always been nowhere, she can feel herself drifting further and further from the last thing that might just resemble a somewhere. The eons slow. If she were a doctor, Lena thinks, then this would be the time to make herself comfortable. To say her goodbyes.

She cannot look at blackness any longer, cannot bear the glowing green after-image that seems to stick to every corner and edge. She thinks of blue, of rain-washed skies and Kara’s eyes, conjures it into being with every fibre she has left. Wraps herself up in it, plunges headfirst, drowns.

“Like it matters!” Kara says, no, shouts, from somewhere far above and below her. Lena would flinch, if only she still had a body. The voice rings out through the void. “Like any of it matters now.”

Lena is privately inclined to agree. She tries to breathe, but the full weight of the universe, of every universe, presses in. As everything, even the blackness, dulls, there emerges a crushing, cracking suffocation, and Lena wonders why she can’t even die in peace. A high-pitched scream, maybe hers, maybe Kara’s, maybe her mother’s, maybe the world’s, stretching out before her like a pathway. Though there’s no doubt where it ends, Lena almost wants to follow it, if only to escape this sensation of being crumbled, submerged, denied life as its very essence is wrung from her being.

And then a hundred trillion bolts of lightning shoot through her at once, and Lena is gone.

-

When she wakes, she wakes secure in the knowledge that she must be alive. Sure that the pain that had burst through her, blighted every nerve with an agony so intense she feels its phantom grip even now, could only lead back to life. Sure that no departure could hurt that much.

When she wakes, it is through cracked, dry eyes to the sight of pipes and ceiling vents, the bland, industrial grey that can only denote underfunded government property.

When she wakes, Kara is standing at the foot of her bed, hands behind her back and looking every inch the righteous hero, and Lena’s unsteady heart sinks. She’s been on the receiving end of this authoritative pose more than enough for one lifetime. At least her hands aren’t on her hips.

But Kara’s eyes brighten as they meet Lena’s fluttering gaze. “Lena.” Quiet, reverential. “How are you feeling?”

Lena takes stock. Alive, to begin with. Every limb still intact. Aside from an unnerving constriction in her chest and the fact that her blood feels a little like it’s burning her cells as it courses through her veins, it could certainly be worse.

When she speaks her voice is hoarse, cracking. “What happened?”

The same darkness creeps into the edges of her vision as she listens to Kara list the extent of the damage. She presses her lips together, willing away the blackness, registering only snippets.

Stab wound. Kryptonite poisoning. Collapsed lung. Cardiac arrest. Resuscitation.

Leviathan, gone. Andrea, captured. Lex, escaped.

The words wash over her like a freezing tide, and Lena wonders if maybe the darkness had been easier after all.

It takes far longer than it should for her to realise that the room has fallen silent. Kara is watching her, concern etched into her features like tears carving through stone.

Lena swallows as best she can. “And you?”

A corner of Kara’s mouth quirks up. “I’m fine. Thanks to you.”

But she doesn’t look fine. She looks exhausted, her face drawn, blue eyes lacking their characteristic shine. Even her hero’s stance can’t mask the fatigue weighing heavy on her shoulders.

But Lena doesn’t have the strength to argue the point. She rolls her head to the side, joints popping and releasing, noticing for the first time the tangle of IV lines threading into her skin. She lifts her other hand to touch them, feels the warning tug of more needles even as Kara steps forward, arms raised as if to stop her.

Her hands reach toward Lena, or at least, the spaces where her hands should be. Huge white dressings swaddle Kara from the wrists down, so bulky they do not resemble hands at all. Lena’s breath catches in her lungs as she takes in the unwieldy bandages, third degree burns and possible nerve damage echoing through her mind and she understands now why Kara had hidden them behind her back.

The inhale she aims for seems to stick in her ribs and she can feel again the crushing, the cracking, the dizzying lack of oxygen as her head spins. Kara is by her side in an instant, radiating warmth and just breathe, Lena, it’s okay, a comforting weight settling against her hip. Lena thanks the thick blanket for blurring the press of rough bandages where there should be warm skin, softening it into something just nondescript enough to be calming.

When her pounding pulse has slowed, the heart monitor downgrading to a less frenetic beat, she sucks in a breath despite her lungs’ protestation, waits for her vision to clear. Kara is still there, and dread opens up in Lena’s chest.

“You— you touched it. The kryptonite. You pulled it out.”

Kara doesn’t move, doesn’t speak. Just nods, her gaze locked on Lena’s own. Lena lies catatonic, paralysed with the knowledge, unable to move even as Alex enters the room. Dimly aware of low words exchanged between the two sisters and then Alex at her bedside, gentler than Lena’s been worthy of seeing her in years. Just rest, Lena, the press of a button on the IV monitor, and she sinks back into oblivion.

[onouwu]

Witch Heart Hunter

From far away, the low din of celebration from the residential area made its way through the large windows of a bare loft, a typically empty unsold apartment. Sounds of people about to welcome the new year melded with the ringing of car alarms and the manufactured happiness of radio pop. A bright shaft of moonlight shone through the overhead skylight, illuminating the brick interior and pristine hardwood floor where a pale brunette trespasser lies in a revealing blue dress with her wide brim hat covering her face, waiting. Time seemed to stop as Daisy laid on her back absorbing the sounds and vibrations of the city around her. Her heart thrummed in anticipation. Goosebumps raised on her bare skin at the thought of what was to come.

“I’m ho~oome!” Crystal announced, always heard before she was seen. Short blue-silver haired with a devilish smile like a fallen angel. Her frame was lithe and frail compared to Daisy’s taller stature and defined curves.  She materialized through a portal that appeared by their front door, revealing a beast of endless glowing blue tendrils on the other side before fading away into shadow. Looking up from her position on the floor, Daisy lifted the brim of her hat and gave her hungry look.

“Do you hear that?” Daisy sat up and cocked her head towards the city lights.

“Yes!” Crystal said “It’s like they’re begging to be taken,”

“Mmmh, I hope some do, the willing are fun to play with” Daisy let out “It’s been so long since we last feasted. We’d best be careful not to get overwhelmed”

Crystal laughed it off “You know, the hungrier I get, the stronger I am. Just guard the outside while I take my half and leave you the others, okay?”

Daisy just smirked as she got up “I’ll be counting”

The new year party goers were surrounded on three sides by towering evergreens, and to the north of their clearing was a partially frozen lake. A group of eight sat by the lakeshore, drinking beers, and listening to the radio for the countdown. A loner stood away from them on the ice, looking up at the moon and hugging himself for warmth. On a wooden log next to a crackling campfire, a couple sat kissing passionately. Scarves, gloves, and a white brassiere hung from the branches next to them like exotic flowers in the moonlight.

Daisy perched on a branch in the treetops, Crystal sat next to her, her excitement radiating off her as she peered into the crowd. And so, the pair sat and watched, waiting for midnight to strike when the group would converge. It was then that the witches would feed. “Get ready to say hello to the new year, folks! It’s currently 11:59!” The group hollered in response to the jovial radio host. “If you’re listening right now, I wish you good health, happiness, and safe travels home. We’ll leave it to the city timepiece to count us down. We’re signing off for the holidays! As always, stay safe. Stay inside.” To this, several of the group scoffed.

Crystal elbowed Daisy in the rib, interrupting her observation. She looked beside her to see Crystal, thighs straddling the branch they were on and swinging her legs without a care in the world.

“Hey Daisy, make it snow will ‘ya?”

With a bit of a laugh Daisy’s eyes fell shut and her right hand waved in the air with a bright blue glow. High above the treetops, a cloud swirled and grew. Soon, snowflakes fell to the ground above the opening.

“Hey check it out!” The partygoers oohed and aahed, momentarily distracted by the sudden snowfall. No one seemed to notice that it was only in their clearing that snow fell. As if on cue, their heads shot to the side as the first of many fireworks exploded in the distance. “Ten! Nine! Eight—” The group gathered around the campfire, bottles in hand. “Seven! Six!” The lovers finally separated. “Five! Four!” The loner slowly made his way to the group, avoiding the couple. “Three!” The snow fell harder. “Two!” The fireworks came faster. “One!” Crystal and Daisy stood. “HAPPY NEW YEAR!”

A sound like an explosion rang in their ears. The snowfall had evolved into a storm. A wall of ice sprung up from the ground, blocking the city skyline with what looked like a jagged translucent glacier encircling them. They began to realize the trap they had fallen into much too late.

These walls were soon dotted with portals to another realm where slippery glowing tendrils shot out and grabbed their helpless victims.

“All this energy is going to feed us for days!” Crystal cried out.

Daisy couldn’t think. All she could hear was the sound of the humans wailing and the ecstasy of feeding. She was drawn into the uproar by its momentum. It was hard for her to resist immediately draining the life from these trapped humans, but she walked along the ice wall to scout the area for any alerted human forces. Sure enough, it didn’t take long before she saw a bespectacled woman with dark skin in camos and a black tank top. Her long curly hair a crimson red and her eyes display an unsettling calm when looking at the witch’s trap.

Daisy heeded caution, but she could see from the well-developed physique of this woman that there was a lot of life in her that shouldn’t go to waste. She quickly raised her hand and formed a snowy tornado around her that instantly hardened into a cone of solid frosty ice.

“Ohh what a catch” Daisy let out as she slid down the ice tower and began walking toward the woman who stood eerily still despite her situation. Daisy took the cue however and didn’t get too close before she froze the woman’s feet to the ground.

“You’re full of delicious energy. What’s your name, sweetie?” Daisy let out joyfully as she felt the intense energy radiating off this woman – more than any human she has ever seen.

“Name’s Hilda, dead witch… I want you to scream it loud before I crush your throat” The woman let out. In an incredible display of strength, Hilda slammed her fists against the wall of ice and smashed a hole into it within a second.

Daisy’s heart jumped from seeing such a superhuman display of power, reminiscent of the witch hunters of old. She decided to quickly end it, and summoned sharp spears of ice beneath the woman to skewer her. However, as the ice shot up like a rocket, the woman freed her feet and moved from over the forming pillar, using it as leverage to leap toward Daisy.

Terror filled Daisy’s hungry eyes as Hilda landed within a few feet of her. Daisy could only form a flat wall before her and flee while giving herself a moment to figure out how to handle this mysteriously strong person. Daisy quickly summoned a blizzard behind her as she ran to gain more distance, but all she could hear was the cracking of the ice as soon as it formed. Every step she took those behind her felt closer. Her poor lungs started to wheeze while her heart slammed in her throat, filling her ears with its frantic thrumming.

She turned around to summon another barrier but was met with a heart-stopping gaze inches from her face and a deep agonizing pain in the pit of her stomach. the woman’s fist had just buried itself into her core and robbed her of what little breath she had.

Daisy dropped to her knees, clutching at her chest with one hand, croaking hoarsely as she gasped for air and heaved. This was a blow like she had never felt before. As she lay on the forest floor weak and breathless, she felt utterly helpless. She could only wonder what the woman had in store for her after that.

In her winded state, Daisy managed to roll onto her burning and aching stomach. She desperately clawed at the frozen earth.

“You’re pathetic.” A boot harshly turned her over onto her back. Daisy could only see the sadism shining through this woman’s cold and heartless gaze before she stomped on the pale bare flesh of Daisy’s midsection.

Daisy tried to curl into the fetal position but Hilda shoved her boot in harder, crushing her organs under the hard thick rubber of her boot.

Hilda knelt down and Sat on Daisy’s hips, the relief of that shoe leaving her body wouldn’t hast long before she felt a calloused hand wrapping around her throat and squeezing mercilessly

“Haahkk- aahk—" Daisy let out in a desperate plea for air, grabbing and forming icy shackles around Hilda’s arm. A bright blue glow came from her hands and the ice pushed upward to lift the hand. Despite the intense cold, the determined soldier doubled down her grip. The ice cracking, shards falling on Daisy’s body as her efforts proved futile.

“I hope you all make it this easy. Just give up so I can cut your heart out and add it to my trophy wall” Hearing that makes Daisy’s heart slam against her ribs as if trying to escape its fate, but while Hilda’s hand cuts off the vital route of blood to her brain, its efforts only hastened the end of her precious oxygen supply. Her vision blurred as drool overflowed from her lips. The thick blue veins in her neck standing on end, her purple face and throat bulging, looking as if her head would pop like a grape while she struggled to free herself.

“You know what… I can’t wait for that.” Hilda pulled out a knife, Daisy squirmed beneath the woman with all her might at the sight of the glossy silver blade, but to no avail. The last-ditch effort only brought a smile to Hilda’s face in its futility as her cold steel pressed against Daisy’s breathlessly squirming chest.

Daisy’s gaze rested upon that vengeful piercing stare as her vision faded, feeling the knife bite her skin. Despite her efforts to cling to consciousness and her frantic pleas to her eldritch patron, her body quickly calmed and succumbed to its fate. She could only lie there breathlessly while the cold blade slowly descended into her chest and inched closer to her pounding heart.

“Daaaaaayyyseeee, it’s dinner time” Crystal called out.

Crystal waited for a few seconds before getting impatient. She decided to see for herself what was going on and leapt up to a tentacle which she sat on as it towered above the icy wall “Ugh, don’t tell me you’re not sharing the-“ Crystal watched in complete shock as she saw Someone sitting on Daisy’s unconscious body, continuing to strangle her while slipping a knife beneath her ribs. That shock turned to a hot rage quickly before she lifted her staff and summoned a portal behind the woman

THWACK- massive and slick tendril sent the woman flying a few feet away from Daisy.

The woman let out a “GAH” as she bounced off the ground once and rolled to a stop on her stomach. Ignoring this, she raised her head and looked back to where she stood a moment before. A translucent blue tentacle undulated, its base emerging from a portal near Daisy’s supine body and its tip stroking her neck, another wrapped around the blade which twitched to the beat of the frantic organ writhing against its tip.

“Tsk, tsk. Oh, Daisy. I thought I taught you to last longer than that? Disappointing.” Crystal let out while Hilda looked up at her.

“Hello there! Who might you be, and how did you manage to do that?” Crystal pointed at Daisy.

“You’ll see” Hilda replied

“My friend Daisy back there is a bit of a lightweight, I admit. But still, I’ve never met a non-magical person who could do such a thing.” Crystal planted her staff on the ground and put her crossed arms on top of it. She perched her chin atop a forearm as she leaned against her staff, looking at Hilda with a pixieish smile. “Comeon… What’s your deal? I’d love to know before I… well, you know.”

Hilda, now on her feet, shot a death glare at Crystal. “Oh, you’ll find out what my deal is. Firsthand.”

“Dangerous and snappy! I love it.” Crystal said

Hilda took off and charged the witch where she stood. Crystal ripped her staff from the ground and held it out to her side as Hilda closed the distance between them. The redhead’s fist cut through the air like a bullet, inches away from Crystal’s neck but stopped short as she fell to the ground. She looked back to see a large tendril gripping her leg and pulling her back to the portal from where it came.

“Keep going, show me what you got, sweetie!” Crystal said while more slithered out from the portal and grabbed the woman’s body, slick and wet as they coiled around her limbs and slid down to her wrists and ankles

“Ngh!” A grunt of effort escaped as she struggled against them until she calmed down and let the witch close in. Crystal stood up against the bound woman.

“Looks like you were about to take my friends heart. If you want a witch’s heart so much, here…” Crystal grabbed Hilda’s hand gently and pressed it to her own chest. Her excited heart pounding into Hilda’s palm.

“You have mine already.” Crystal smiled

Hilda ripped her hand from Crystal’s body as disgust filled her eyes. Crystal’s own expression filled with disappointment

“Come on, don’t be so cruel… to yourself! It’s your last moment, don’t you think you should let yourself enjoy it?” Crystal said as she wrapped her arms around Hilda in a tight hug, closing her eyes to feel the nonverbal exchange between their pounding hearts, Crystal’s excitement and Hilda’s rage fueling eachother in every exasperated beat. The life in this woman made her drool, a powerful energy she had never felt before, all hers for the taking. A treat that must be savored. Hilda’s muscular body squirmed against her and moves her delicate and flimsy body around like nothing, held back only by the power of her spell.

After about a minute the captive woman stopped resisting, to Crystal’s disappointment.

“Mmmm, time to-“ Crystal opened her eyes to see Hilda staring down at her with a wicked smile. As she reached for her staff she felt the woman’s hand holding it, the tendril that was binding her wrist ending in a fleshy pulp.

“hey, give me that” Crystal let out as she backed off from arm’s length. The tendrils left Hilda’s body to Crystal’s horror, showing just how faithful her demonic deity was to her as it obeyed its new vessel.

Crystal’s heart sank, her legs began to shake as she weighed her options and held her composure.

“You think I need that? We speak telepathically, and you can’t understand the language of ancient Gods”

“Your guard dog speaks just fine… Nothing’s going to be quite as satisfying as what I am about to do to you now” Hilda let out as she raised the staff above her head. Crystal’s composure dropped and she fell back reflexively, crawling up to run, only to be tripped by a familiar slimy appendage. She frantically pulled at it to no avail

“What are you doing, stop!” she said to the demonic being, though she was met with silence.

Hilda approached with a grin from ear to ear. Crystal couldn’t stop herself from struggling in vain, putting on a pathetic show for her assailant. As Hilda closed in, Crystal puts her hand in front of her face. Hilda grabbed her wrist roughly and pulled her up. The staff glowed in Hilda’s hand and Crystal felt a warmth on her chest.

“Come on, you wanted to have some fun didn’t you?” Hilda let out, stabbing the staff in the ground beside her and grabbing the top of Crystal’s blouse, ripping it open and baring her naked body. Confused, Crystal looked down, her eyes widened at the sight -- her chest covered in the runes of a small portal into her body. The space inside the circle disappeared and Hilda’s hand reached in.

“Ahhh! Wait, wait!” Crystal cried out as she felt an intense pressure in her chest, the thrumming in her ears and body ceased.

Hilda grinned “You wanted to give me this? What a pathetic thing, I don’t even want it… now go ahead, do something, your arms are free.” Hilda let out harshly, sending a new explosion of agony through Crystal’s chest, radiating outward into her weary body while the woman’s fingers sank into the meat of her helplessly squirming life. As her fate set in, she stopped short of giving Hilda the satisfaction of token resistance for as long as she can.

“What a great stress relief, crushing a wretched witch’s heart” Hilda says with a twisted sense of amusement. Crystal remained silent, looking up and spitting in Hilda’s face.

“Come on, bitch, do something fun” Intense waves of unbearable pressure consumed Crystal as Hilda harshly pumped her heart.

“AHK!! Please!” Crystal let out, caving easily as she flailed and tried digging her fingernails into the intruding arm with all her might -- a smile cracking the frustrated frown on Hilda’s face. Crystal’s vision grew blurry, her head feeling light, but the cruel woman’s torment was fueled by her helpless struggling.

“I’d love to keep going but I need to finish what I started with your fri-“

Hilda’s words ended abruptly as a ball of solid ice slammed into the side of her head. When Hilda lets go and fell over unconscious, Crystal saw Daisy behind her, holding her own chest and panting heavily while forming an icy prison Hilda’s body

“Crystal… we need to be more careful” Daisy let out, sitting beside her partner, pulling her to her lap, watching over her while she took shallow labored breaths

Crystal couldn’t speak to tell Daisy how grateful she was to see her. As the portal on her chest closed, every heartbeat sent shockwaves through her body.

“Wh…what about her” Crystal mustered

“We’re going to study her… painfully. And figure out what this new power is.”

[bounce-a-coin-off-your-witcher]

shelter me from winter’s bite

Everyone’s doing a hypothermia fic so I figured I may as well contribute. It’s one of my favorite tropes.

title taken from Brian Czyzyk’s poem “Hoarfrost” (he’s my favorite young queer poet and you should check him out).

tw: hypothermia, angst with a happy ending, whump with a happy ending

---

“Do you always have to be so damnably loud?” Geralt growls, glaring at Jaskier from across the small room. 

“My apologies for existing,” the bard snaps back. He’d only been rearranging his pack, looking for something reasonably clean to sleep in while his clothes were laundered by the innkeeper’s lovely wife. “I’ll try to do so more quietly from now on, good sir.”

Geralt huffs out a breath in passive-aggressive annoyance and Jaskier bristles. 

“Oh well, then. C’mon witcher, I know you want to say it!”

“Say what?” Geralt asks. His voice is low and threatening. He’s ready to play the game and by god he’s going to win this time.  

“It’s practically your motto at this point,” the bard hisses through his teeth, angry and bitter and tired. Geralt sees victory. Sees some peace and quiet on the horizon. “Say it!”

Geralt does as he’s told, like any good witcher would: “Fuck off, bard.”

“There it is!” Jaskier laughs joylessly, throwing up his hands. He pulls on his doublet and boots and heads for the door. “If you want me gone so badly, Geralt, then I will go. I’ll get out of your lovely white hair and leave you to mope in peace.”

“Fucking finally,” the witcher snarls, turning away. He doesn’t see the genuine hurt in Jaskier’s blue eyes as the bard quietly closes the door rather than slamming it. He doesn’t hear the quiet sob that rips its way out of Jaskier’s throat as he stands very still, shocked and suddenly exhausted all the way to his bones. He doesn’t smell the salt of his bard’s tears as he slips silently down the hallway and out into the late autumn night. He doesn’t notice the snow starting to pile up on the windowsill ahead of season.

He’s too busy being a self-flagellating moron to notice any of that.

---

Geralt is woken in the middle of the night by a commotion downstairs. He can hear several loud, panicked heartbeats and one very quiet, very slow heartbeat beneath all of those; it’s achingly familiar but the half-asleep witcher can’t quite call its source to mind. Geralt listens as the innkeeper barks out a series of sharp orders: “Meredith, you get to the kitchen and make some strong black tea! Florence, fetch a pail of warm water and two or three towels from the laundry. Josiah you lazy lout, get into the attic and fetch some blankets! The poor lad has gone blue all over!”

The witcher peers into the hallway and catches the skinny stable hand, Josiah, racing for the attic staircase. “What’s going on?”

“A farmer from the next town over was on his way over to help a friend’s sow give calf and he found-” the lad pauses to suck in a great gulp of air and launches off again “-and he found that friend of yours lying in a snowbank, muttering nonsense and shivering like a leaf. The poor fool didn’t have a cloak on him or anything, just a doublet and walking boots! He’s near-dead!”

Geralt curses and makes for the stairs, taking them two at a time until he reaches the main floor. There are voices coming from the kitchen and he follows them as if in a dream, his feet moving without aid of his conscious mind. “Jaskier? Is it the bard, Jaskier?”

“Are you the great brute what kicked him out?” the innkeeper’s wife asks, crossing her arms over her ample chest and narrowing her eyes. Geralt falters. 

“No, he- he left on his own, in a huff.”

“Wonder who could have started the huff,” the woman rolls her eyes. This isn’t about his status as a witcher, Geralt knows; this eye roll was made by a woman who knows a lovers’ quarrel when she sees one. Except that this stupid little spat might have cost Jaskier his life.

“Where is he? May I see him, goodwife?”

The woman points to a table in the corner, which has been cleared of cooking implements and cushioned with a heavy bearskin. Jaskier lies atop the brown fur, his skin frighteningly pale, his lips and fingers tinted a slight blue. Geralt rushes to his side and takes one of the bard’s stiff hands in his own. He brushes a stray lock of brown hair from Jaskier’s forehead and nearly recoils in shock from the temperature of his skin. Even colder than his hands, which are already dangerously frigid. If Jaskier cannot play his lute-

Geralt doesn’t even allow himself to finish the thought. Instead he works on rubbing small, careful circles onto the back of the bard’s hands with his thumbs, warming the skin in tiny increments: “Shh, you’re safe. I won’t let you go.”

The bard remains unmoving, heartbeat fluttering weakly, lungs barely drawing breath; Geralt fights back an overwhelming sense of panic, trying to recall whatever training he’d received at Kaer Morhen concerning freezing humans. 

“Do you mind if I take him upstairs and tend to him myself?” the witcher asks.

“Can you take care of him?” the innkeeper’s wife replies. 

Geralt bows his head, shame licking like flames up and down his bent spine, and nods. “Yes, Ma’am. I have dry clothes for him in our room and I was trained extensively for emergency situations such as this, all witchers are.”

“Alright,” she narrows her eyes. “But he’d best be alive come morning.”

“I’ll happily turn myself over to the village elders to be dealt with accordingly should the bard come to any harm,” he vows. Her eyes widen minutely and he can read the surprise in her body language, but she remains relatively calm. 

“Any further harm, rather. Alright, then. I’ll have my husband and the girls bring those supplies up to your room for him. We’ll be glad to go back to sleep.”

“Thank you for your kindness,” Geralt bows formally. She blushes despite her irritation with him and waves him away. 

“Take your bard and go, witcher, before I change my mind and spend all night caring for him myself out of motherly pity. Go.”

Geralt hefts Jaskier into his arms, heavy bearskin blanket and all, and hurries up the stairs to his room. He will not let Jaskier come to any further harm. Not by his hand. Not by his word. Never again. 

---

Back in their room, Geralt quickly undresses the shivering human, peeling away what few damp layers there are with growing disappointment. Jaskier hadn’t been prepared for a walk in the snow at all! Although, to be fair, it hadn’t seemed that cold earlier in the evening and the snow had been sudden and heavy. 

He wipes Jaskier down with a warm cloth and slips one of his own clean shirts over the bard’s head. He tries not to let his gaze linger on the way Jaskier’s shoulders don’t quite fill out the dark material. Or on the way his dark, wiry chest hair peeks out through the open laces at his throat. The witcher quickly shuffles him into clean smallclothes and wraps him in a thick wool blanket. 

They sit curled before the fire and Geralt holds Jaskier against his chest. He hums with his voice like gravel, grating out one note after the other in some attempt to soothe the bard’s aching body. Jaskier shivers and shakes violently in the witcher’s strong embrace, his eyes clenched shut with the cramps that wrack his frame as his muscles return to their normal temperature. Geralt feels like he’s holding a porcelain doll and keeps his grip deliberately loose, tight enough to comfort but not restrain.

“G-Geralt,” he groans. “Hold me, please.”

The witcher squeezes his arms more confidently around the bard’s middle, burying his face in Jaskier’s soft hair and breathing deeply. The warmth that usually emanates from his busy human body is gone and his chamomile-honey scent is buried beneath a layer of damp cold; it feels wrong. Terribly wrong. Geralt murmurs against his temple, begging the younger man’s forgiveness: “I’m so sorry, Jaskier. Gods, I’m so sorry. Will you ever be able to forgive me? I’m a fool, you know. I’m a fool witcher who never says anything important until it’s too late. I’m so incredibly sorry, my love.”

“This is a very good dream,” the bard sighs, smiling despite the pain. His eyes open, bleary and addled. “Like I was having in the woods, but better.”

Geralt raises an eyebrow and Jaskier seems to understand the unspoken question, even in his current sorry state.

“The real Geralt would never be so gentle with me, dear heart. You must be a dream, sent to me on my deathbed to ease my passage into the afterlife. There’s no other explanation for your sudden displays of tenderness.”

“It’s... It’s really me,” Geralt affirms. He runs his hand up and down the length of Jaskier’s spine, “I’m here, Jaskier. Can you ever forgive me for being so stupid?”

“I forgive you for being stupid ever other day, dear witcher. It is of no consequence to me.”

“It almost was,” Geralt frowns. “I nearly- I almost-” 

Jaskier’s arm raises weakly and his too-chilly hand presses to Geralt’s cheek. “I shouldn’t have stormed off like an idiot. I shouldn’t have kept picking the fight. We both fucked up, alright? What matters is our second chance. We got to have one, Geralt.”

“Hmm.”

“Am I wearing your shirt?” 

“Yes.” 

“Why?”

“Yours were all being laundered and this one was clean and it had been in my pack near the fire so it was already warm and-”

“Did you take care of me all night?”

“Hmm.” Geralt sighs after his hum and glances away for a moment. “What did you mean about... about the dream in the woods?”

“Oh. Well, when I was very cold and things were hazy and slow, I dreamed that you were there with me. Everything got very fuzzy and warm for a little bit, and when it was warm you were holding me like this and giving me little kisses. It was... nice. Even though I knew I was dying because you were being so soft, so considerate; saying things to me you’d never say out loud in real life.”

“I love you, Jaskier. I will try my best not to lose my temper needlessly,” the witcher swears. “You don’t deserve it.”

“Can we still cuddle like this?” Jaskier asks, leaning his weigth against Geralt’s firm chest. “It’s so nice to be held.”

“Of course. Anything you want. I’m not going to waste my second chance by treating you poorly. Not for another second, my beloved bard.”

“B-beloved?”

“Hmm.”

“Oh, well then I’m definitely still dreaming.”

Geralt lifts Jaskier into his arms and carries him over to the bed, which is piled high with their extra blankets. He tucks Jaskier into the nest against the wall and lays along the outside of the mattress. He presses his lips to the bard’s, reveling in Jaskier’s returning warmth, and smiles. “I’ll prove it’s not a dream. Every day.”

“Sounds nice,” Jaskier yawns, snuggling into the witcher’s arms and settling down to sleep. 

“It will be.”

[on-a-lucky-tide]

Day Fourteen: Walking in the Snow

A/N: Lambert has a brother. They meet for the first time over the graves of their parents. Warnings: mentions of past child abuse; mentions of past murder.

Lambert stood over his mothers grave with a bunch of flowers in his hand. It was something of a tradition he had. Before he headed out onto the Path properly, he rode south to his hometown, pissed on his father’s grave - one that Lambert had dug for him - and then spent some time just thinking. He missed her. Missed her more than anything else from his previous, only marginally shittier, life. This year he’d missed it though. Various amounts of bullshit had piled on, which meant spring, then summer and finally autumn had come and gone.

War was ike that. It separated families even when half of them were fucking dead. “Sorry I’m late,” he murmured finally, “don’t have many flowers this year either. Not gonna’ make it up to Kaer Morhen this winter now, but couldn’t let you go a year without...” He trailed off. Without enduring his fucking pity party. Even if there was nothing but dust below the frozen soil now, she was probably looking down on him and shaking her head. It’d snowed the night before, and Lambert’s boots crunched through the thick layer as he stood.

Crunch. Crunch. Clop. 

He looked down at his feet and then over his shoulder. A man approached on foot, with his horse strolling behind him. The air around him stilled, while his chest froze midbreath. The man stared at him in return, yellow eyes wide, twin sword hilts jutting over his shoulder. For once, it wasn’t Lambert who got the first jab in. “Who the fuck are you?” The strange Witcher growled his gloved hands twitching around the reins of his horse.

“Could ask the same thing,” Lambert bit back, and then grabbed his medallion from his gambeson. It rattled against the metal clasps of his swordbelts as he let it drop. “Lambert, School of the Wolf.” But his tone didn’t hold quite the same bite as he intended; there was something uncannily familiar about the figure that stood before him.

“Ivo of Belhaven,” the Witcher returned. “School of the Bear.” The way he said the word ‘bear’. It was like he was holding something unsavoury on his tongue. Ivo’s gaze dropped to the two mounds of earth at Lambert’s feet. The heat of the tension building between them could’ve melted the very snow beneath their feet. 

“Bit small for a Bear,” Lambert smirked. “Thought Arnaghad was meant to be nine hands wide.” The legends about Arnaghad had been passed around the keep for as long as Lambert could remember; the leader of the School of the Bear was as physically imposing as his temper. But Ivo was no bigger than Lambert. Better suited to the School of the Cat, or the Viper, perhaps. Not that he’d dare say such a thing in front of a Bear.

“He is,” Ivo sighed. “I’m the black sheep of the family. Why’re you here, Wolf?” It sounded almost accusatory; Ivo’s eyes kept dropping to the graves at Lambert’s feet, but they always returned to Lambert’s face again. Searching.

While Lambert would usually meet such invasive questioning with the whipcrack of sarcasm, he didn’t want to risk driving this one away. Shit, it almost felt like he was looking in a mirror and, as Ivo kept glancing at the graves, his heart began to quicken. “Visiting family.”

Ivo sucked in a breath and took a step back, like he’d been physically punched. “What are those graves to you?” 

“No, no,” Lambert took a step forward, closing the distance. “You first, asshole. You look like a wraith’s just popped up over my shoulder, and I know it hasn’t, so what - ? What are they? Who - who the fuck are you?” Lambert’s hands clenched into fists, trembling. He could feel his heart in his ears as his chest constricted.

“My parents,” Ivo’s voice cracked, just a fraction. “My mother lies on your right, my father on your left. I buried the first, but not the second.”

Lambert felt faint. In fact, he definitely swayed a little. The familiarity. They looked... fuck, with a few minor differences, they looked almost identical. Ivo’s hairline was doing better than his, though. Must be the Bear mutagens. Lambert found his words again. “They’re mine too. My parents.”

“No,” Ivo shook his head viciously. “No. He - no.”

“Calling me a liar?” Lambert snarled, moving to stand between the Bear and his mother’s final resting place.

“Fucking prove it,” Ivo stepped forward now, squaring up until their chests almost touched. “Tell me something only a son would know.”

“He was an abusive asshole. Beat her every single day.”

“Whole village knew that. Try again,” Ivo bit out.

“During Yule, every year, she hung love charms on the trees asking the gods for happiness. That’s all. She still thought she was being greedy. She loved playing in the meadows, making flower crowns.”

Ivo faltered, Lambert continued. “She used to swim in the river with me, like ladies weren’t supposed to, but she always said you shouldn’t only be what people want you to be, and - ,” he hesitated, “she sewed or built all my toys, but I had to hide them because - .”

“- he’d burn them in his rages,” Ivo whispered. 

They stared into mirrored amber eyes.

Their breath clouded in the frozen air around their faces.

One of them moved first. Lambert wasn’t sure which. It might’ve even been him, but suddenly he had this stranger pulled to his chest, his arms wrapped tightly over his gambeson and swords. His embrace was returned, and he felt the cold of Ivo’s nose against his neck as he sniffed at him. It only cemented the familiarity. They had the same undertones; the same mixture of summer heat and spice that matched their characters.

It was instinctual. Two men that believed their family - their real family, not some military garrison made for mutating boys - had been lost to them forever. And yet, here stood a final trace of it. It was impossible. Too good to be true. Couldn’t be real.

When they pulled apart, their hands remained on the other; Ivo gripped Lambert’s biceps while Lambert curled his fingers around Ivo’s swordbelts. When Ivo spoke, his throat sounded like cracking ice. “I never knew. He got rid of me first chance he could. Dropped me off in an orphanage in Belhaven. I came back years later, and found her in the dining room, she’d -  he’d finally - .”

“So you buried her,” Lambert murmured. Of course; their shithead of a paternal figure wouldn’t have given her even that level of decency and respect.

“I waited for him to return, but he was... gone. They weren’t sure when he was coming back, so I just - I left,” Ivo dropped his gaze.

“I killed him,” Lambert lifted a hand and grabbed Ivo by the jaw, wrenching his face up. “It wasn’t quick, or painless. It was everything he deserved.”

Ivo let out a breath as if he’d been holding it the whole time. His hardened eyes softened and he released Lambert’s bicep to tentatively touch his face. He traced the features so similar to his; the dark hair, the bearded jaw, the set brow, the nose. Lambert let him. Fuck, how could he not? Look - it was a - he had a -

His mind just couldn’t grasp it.

“See you inherited his hairline,” Ivo said finally, lips twisting in a shit-eating grin. Lambert huffed and shoved him back. The Bear’s smile softened again. “Her everything else though. I can see her in your face. Still remember her like it was yesterday.”

“She never told me, she - ,” Lambert turned now to face their mother’s grave. She’d never mentioned an older son.

“Course not. The son she’d been told never to speak of. She was probably hoping that if she did everything ‘right’, he wouldn’t throw you away and try again,” Ivo sighed, dropped the reins of his horse, and stepped around Lambert. “I always come at this time. Heading back to hibernate. Like to let her know I’ve not gone to hell yet.”

“I usually come in spring, but... uh, shit happened,” Lambert murmured. 

Ivo crouched down and placed his hand gently over the mound of earth. He whispered something that not even Lambert could hear, before straightening up slowly. “You’ll never get back before the snow buries you.” He dropped his head, eyes moving as if he was running a decision over.

“I couldn’t not see her.”

“Winter with me,” Ivo said, looking up suddenly. “Look, we mostly keep to ourselves, the few remaining of our school. But it’ll be a roof, with food, loads of it. And we can - talk, there’s so much I - .”

“Yeah,” Lambert blurted out. “Yeah, I - yeah, just let me, let me get my shit. It’s in the town a mile out.” Even if Ivo was lying, even if this was all some elaborate fucking ruse, it was something. A shred of hope. And hope was so hard to come by. Lambert snatched at it now with both hands.

“Lead the way,” Ivo gestured, and cast one final glance towards the graves as they began to walk east.

Lambert had used the word ‘brother’ many times before. It meant ‘fellow soldier’, ‘fellow Witcher’, ‘you’re safe with me’, ‘we’re in this together’. It didn’t mean what it should: family. And the only blood he shared with Eskel and Geralt was what they spilled on the training grounds. As a result, he didn’t use it as much as the others, because he’d never really felt like he belonged. He was an outsider to the only vague unit of a family he would ever have. 

Until now.

As they walked in the snow, side-by-side, Lambert kept glancing up from the path to gaze at Ivo, drinking in his face - a face that looked so uncannily like his. There was so much he wanted to say. Wanted to ask. There’d probably be anger, and cursing, and he might even fucking cry - shit, wouldn’t that be something? But that one word buzzed around his head on repeat. And it set his heart on fire with joy, because it actually meant what it was supposed to mean.

Brother.

Lambert wasn’t alone. Not anymore.

Thirty-One Days of Decembert

* With thanks to the Continent Cake Shop for inspiring this and listening to my rambling about new and wonderful characters from the Witcher universe. 

[moonlit-han]

love letters ↠ han jisung

genre: high school au, coffeeshop au, fluff, romance, humor pairing: han jisung x femme reader word count: 2.6k warnings: mild swearing request: yes a/n: hi anon who requested this! i couldn’t resist making this a coffeeshop au, too, heheheh~ enjoy!

✧ masterlist & tag list info in bio ✧

↠↞

Oh….

Your locker looked slightly different today.

It was festooned with ribbons, little pictures of cats and, inexplicably, squirrels, star and heart stickers, and glitter. There was even a card dangling from the knob. You stood stock still in front of it, trying to process the tableau? creation? mess in front of you. There was only one person in the entire school you knew would try something like this. And, here he came down the hall, a wide grin on his face.

“Han Jisung, did you do this?” you demanded as he approached. Shouldn’t a senior have more dignity than this?

“Do you like it?” Jisung replied, leaning against the lockers beside yours.

“I’m not sure what I think, but I know that it’s now practically impossible for me to get to my locker.” You tried to push some of the decorations out of the way. “Why did you have to do this?”

“Did you at least read the card?” Jisung asked hopefully, pouting a little.

You cursed him for looking so cute when he pouted, then mentally shook yourself. “No, I didn’t. And it’s almost first bell, so if you could move? Please?”

Jisung’s face fell, but he moved away slightly. “Aw, come on, princess! Can’t you read the card while I’m still here?”

“Jisung, please leave me alone, will you? It’ll be hard enough getting through all this stuff as it is.”

Jisung laughed lightly, giving you a fond smile that was completely lost on you as you struggled with his decorations, then strolled away into the crowd of onlookers who, by now, were used to his outrageous displays of affection for you. “Remember to read the card, Y/N!” he called over his shoulder.

You let your head fall against your locker and got a face full of glitter for your trouble. Damn it, Jisung, you thought as you hurriedly tried to wipe the glitter from your forehead. Then, after a two minutes of wrestling with the Jisung’s additions to your locker door, you managed to retrieve the books you’d need for the day.

In your first class, a couple people gave you strange looks because of the remnants of glitter on you, but no one said anything about the locker decorations. It would only be a matter of time, though, you knew. At lunch when your best friends found you, they gently teased you about “lover boy.”

“How many times has he done something like that this year, Y/N?” Irene asked, smirking at you.

“This is the fourth,” you muttered, looking down at your food. “Two other letters, too.” You could feel heat rising to your cheeks.

“He really is insistent, isn’t he,” Mei commented, shaking her head. “Aren’t you at least annoyed?”

You were silent for a moment as you chewed. “No, amazingly not annoyed. I guess I’m just indifferent?” you lied. In reality, you kind of liked how much Jisung tried to get your attention, but you were going to make him work for your affection. But not too much because that would be mean.

“Like hell you are,” Irene laughed, nudging you with her elbow. “You’re into him, aren’t you.”

“I’m not!” you insisted. “Really!”

Irene and Mei just gave you disbelieving looks, but continued eating their lunch all the same.

When you went back to your locker that afternoon, Irene and Mei in tow, the ribbons and such were gone, but the card… The card was slipped through the crack between the frame and door of the locker, and fell to the floor when you opened it. Receiving cards from Jisung was nothing new, and you didn’t mind much because he was never creepy about it. Sighing, you retrieved the card and opened it.

“What the hell?” Mei coughed, the scent you knew Jisung wore wafting up from the card-stock on which he’d penned his letter. “Did he really have to do that?”

You just shrugged and leaned against your open locker to read.

Y/N, oh beautiful Y/N!

How could I ever write anything as beautiful as you are?

Your eyes sparkle like the glint of sunlight off a puddle that has just a bit of oil in it—you know, so it’s like a rainbow? Your voice is as melodious as the song birds that wake me up in the morning. And your words… They’re like acupuncture needles: relieving of stress and pain but capable of just the same.

I wish to present my heart to you, to simply give it to you like a flower.  But alas, I cannot as that would be messy. I would give you my service were I a knight and you a lady, or put myself in your power like a human subjugate to a vampire. Because, all that I do is to win your heart, your wondrous, wondrous heart!

Dearest Y/N, I’m like a volcano of love for you—erupting with love and affection all over the place. I hope my words don’t leave a bad taste in your mouth, since I wouldn’t want your words to become anything short of honey.

Forever yours,

Han Jisung

You stood there for a moment, trying to keep a straight face as your friends burst out laughing and exclaimed at how cheesy Jisung was. They weren’t wrong. But— Jisung had really written all that to you, and beneath the slightly strained metaphors and verbosity, you could tell that his feelings were true. You playfully shoved Irene, who was now trying to wrest the card from your hands.

However overblown Jisung sounded or dramatic his displays were, you knew he was a good person. You couldn’t be mad at him, especially when he was just so damn cute. Quickly stuffing the letter into your backpack, you slung it over your shoulder and said goodbye to your friends. They called after you that they’d also erupt all over the place with love for you. You just rolled your eyes.

As you scuffed your boots through the small piles of snow that had drifted into the walkway and buried your face in your scarf, you could still faintly smell the perfume Jisung had added to the letter. It wasn’t that bad, after all, and the spiciness of it reminded you of the feeling when you’ve settled down with a good book under a thick blanket. You could definitely get used to it.

↠↞

Ah, February. As soon as the first day of the month arrived, you were wary of what Jisung might decide to do on any of the days surrounding Valentine’s Day. But, you barely saw Jisung. That in and of itself was odd, since you had two classes with him that semester, including Western Literature from 1750 to 1920; but it was odder still because he usually made a point of talking to you once every day, if not more. You’d never admit it to anyone besides your raccoon plushie, but you found yourself disappointed every time he didn’t talk to you or wave or flash one of his ridiculous smiles your way in the halls.

At the end of the first week, you received another letter, also slipped into your locker. This time, you waited until you got home to read it. The letter was far more staid, with none of the extravagance or hyperbole of the other one; no whiff of perfume graced the card-stock, either. Jisung was straightforward, expressing that he found you attractive and even apologizing for being so outrageous in his attempts to woo you. You read the last lines as you curled up in bed.

I hope the depth and sincerity of my feelings are plain to you and that you can at least accept them, if not return them. I would be blissfully happy if you did return my feelings, but I hold no expectations for you. Please know that I admire and adore you, Y/N, light of my heart.

Forever yours,

Han Jisung

As you read his words over and over and over again, unable to tear your eyes nor thoughts away, you realized that, yes, you did return his feelings. You hadn’t quite internalized that, but reading his sentiments had certainly put things in perspective for you. If you didn’t give him some indications of your mutual feelings soon, you could quite possibly lose Jisung altogether.

I admire and adore you…..

On February 13th, you decided to treat yourself to a nice tea and a snack at a local coffeeshop. You knew it would be fairly busy, but didn’t mind; sometimes, the bustle of people was a welcome change from your usual, studious existence.

The smell of baked goods, coffee, and cardboard met your nose as you opened the door, letting a blast of warm air out onto the street. Carefully, you made your way into the line that snaked through the small shop, and tried not to eavesdrop on the conversations around you. That plan, however, did not work well. You enjoyed taking in all the sounds around you far too much to ignore something as integral as conversations. Person by person, the line moved forward until you were one away from the counter.

And, of course, your phone buzzed just at that moment with a text from Mei. You quickly responded, but didn’t notice that the person ahead of you had been helped.

“Y/N?”

Your head shot up to see none other than Han Jisung standing behind the counter, looking just as shocked as you felt.

“Oh! H-hi, Jisung,” you stammered and shoved your phone back into your pocket, embarrassed.

“What would you like today?” Jisung asked politely. You could tell he was trying to remain on his best behavior, as he was at work.

“Could I have a scone and an Earl Grey tea, please? With just a little cream. Thank you!” you chirped, glad that your nervousness over ordering food hadn’t taken hold of you today.

“Sure, thing,” Jisung smiled. “Just pay and one of us will come find you with your order.” Then, because he clearly couldn’t help himself, he winked at you.

You shook your head, your mouth quirking up at the corner a little, and moved over to pay for your food. Since the cafe was more than a little crowded, you chose one of the few seats open by the window. There, at least, you could look out onto the snow-dusted shops and people watch if, and when, you became bored with your homework.

Shortly thereafter, you felt a presence next to you and found Jisung poised to place a steaming mug of tea and your scone on the high table in front of you.

“Here you are,” Jisung said, voice warm and kind as he set the food in front of you. “It’s nice to see you, Y/N. Enjoy!”

Before you could say anything else, Jisung had turned and slipped away through the maze of occupied tables and chairs. Thoughtfully, you took a minute sip of your tea and sighed. It was delicious as always, and the scone was just as good, too.

An hour later, the cafe had nearly emptied but you were still there, nursing your tea. Perched at the table in the window, you could simply soak up the last of the afternoon sun as you worked on drafting an essay for your Literature class. It was the perfect arrangement—the cafe owner didn’t mind if you stayed there for a long time, and you had a place in which you could peacefully work while remaining energized.

Beside you sat the plate with your half-eaten scone on it, and the mug of tea. Absentmindedly, you reached for the mug and brought it to your lips to take a sip. You frowned when no tea met your lips. Before you could so much as move, Jisung was beside you.

“Hey, I noticed you were close to finishing your tea, so I made you another,” he said as he exchanged one mug for another. “It’s on me.” You stared at him, and he shifted self-consciously. “And, um, make sure to check under the mug, okay?”

“I— Thanks, Jisung,” you said, surprised at how gentle your own voice was. “I will.”

Jisung smiled at you before returning to the counter where a new customer had just arrived. You looked after him, amazed that he’d noticed you were coming down to the dregs of your tea. Lifting up the mug, you saw a small, folded piece of paper stuck to its bottom—it looked like receipt paper. Knowing what you’d find when you unfolded it, you carefully detached the paper—the letter—from the mug and read:

Dear Y/N,

I don’t want to keep acting like a gaudy peacock around you. I’m sorry. I know it must make me seem a bit…insensitive or outrageous or something like that. Someone I don’t want you to think I am, I guess.

You are incredible, intelligent, beautiful, kind, and caring. In short, the loveliest person I’ve ever had the honor to meet or know.

I hope… Well, you know. You must know.

All that is to say: I love you.

- Jisung

You reread the letter once more, feeling tears prick the back of your eyes as what felt like all the tenderness in the world welled inside you. Turning round in your chair, you looked to the counter where you saw Jisung nervously looking at you. The vulnerability in his eyes, the hope, the worry, the passion, everything made your breath catch. In something like a trance, you slid from your chair, still clutching the note, and made your way to the end of the counter where Jisung stood.

Taking a deep breath, you said to the shift manager—if their badge was anything to go by—“Could I speak with Jisung outside for a moment? It’s a matter of the heart. I hope you understand,” then grabbed Jisung’s hand as the shift manager nodded. Jisung did not protest as you pulled him outside with you, the cold air hitting you both like a hammer.

You didn’t let go of Jisung’s hand as you turned to face him, looking up into his deep brown eyes that were so dark that they seemed to lead to another world. You knew now that you’d gladly travel to that other world. Jisung’s lips parted slightly as he prepared to speak.

“Jisung,” you breathed before he could begin, “your letter… All of your letters, really… They’re everything to me. This one,” you held up the small piece of paper in your hand, “in particular, is perfect. And, I do know.”

Jisung didn’t wait for you to say anything else. He drew you toward him, one hand coming up to gently brush over your cheek as the other held your waist. Then slowly, so slowly, leaned down to brush his lips against yours. He was hesitant, as if he expected you to turn and run, but when you didn’t let him pull away as you locked your lips with his, Jisung knew that all his fears were unfounded. You wrapped your arms around his neck as Jisung cupped your face, kissing him back like you wanted to memorize the feel and taste of him. Again, you were overwhelmed by the feelings you felt and clutched Jisung tighter, making him smile against you lips.

“Thank you, Y/N,” he whispered in your ear as he hugged you to his chest. “You really are the light of my life.”

[luna-redamancy]

Kili x Female Reader (Safe and Sound)

Summary: After a believing he almost lost you, Kili decides he needs to be as close as possible to you. 

Note: Combining my angsty thoughts and the imagine: “Imagine being Kili’s first time” by @thefandomimagine​ so this fic is 18+. Please do not read if you are a minor.  Also! Thank you @legolaslovely​ for helping me find the link to the imagine 

“Kili!” You shout out as you search the silent battlefield. You prayed each time you turned a dead dwarf over that it wasn’t Kili’s dead eyes that were going to look back at you. Remembering Dain explaining the plan to take Ravenhill and kill Azog, you felt sick. “No…” You mumbled, beginning to race up the snowy rocks to Ravenhill, just hoping to avoid the worse case scenario. 

“Kili!” You called out again, your eyes beginning to blur with tears as your senses were overwhelmed with the sight of the blood, the sound of snow crunching beneath your feet. 

“Where are you, my love?” You whimpered as you carefully maneuvered around dead goblin bodies.

“(Y/n)!” Kili yelled out, searching for you through Dale, desperately wanting to hear the sound of your voice calling back to him. 

“Kili?” Bofur called out, relief in his voice. “You’re alive!” 

“Where’s (Y/n)?” Kili demanded, the feeling of losing his One overwhelming him as Bofur’s face turned grim. “We haven’t been able to find her.” 

“Where have you not looked?” 

“We have been searching everywhere, Dale was the last place we haven’t searched.” Bofur explained, a frown settling deep on his face as Kili felt tears rush to his eyes.

“No… She must be somewhere.” His tone was convincing, mostly trying to convince himself to banish the thought of you laying in a pool of your own blood, crying out for him in your last moments. 

“She must be... “ 

As the sun began to sink behind the clouds, you shivered, clutching your jacket closer to you as the icy winds began to whip your skin. 

Deciding to give up for the night, you began to return to Erebor, your knees protesting your movement as you felt the soreness of the battle finally taking you in its clutches; Your adrenaline wearing off. 

“I will find you.” You vowed, looking across the plain of dead bodies one more time, the only reassurance you gave yourself was knowing that he wouldn’t want you destroying your health by trying to find him. 

As you slunk into Erebor, you sighed at the sight of the warm fire in the entrance. Not even making it all the way inside, where you heard the Company members talking, you sat next to it, basking in the warmth that began to thaw your cold fingertips. You weren’t ready to face the Company just yet, the looks of pity when you would tell them that you couldn’t find Kili, or the angered look of Thorin that you weren’t still out there looking. 

Sighing again, you took off your boots, popping your toes before stretching them out. 

“Kili, you must rest. (Y/n) wouldn’t want you to kill yourself trying to find her body!” Fili tried to persuade Kili to stay inside, to get a good meal and rest before going out to search for you again. 

“She’s my One, I must.” Kili’s voice had a tone of finality to it, removing his brother’s hand from his shoulder. “I know you are concerned, brother, but I must.” Kili’s eyes almost began to tear up again as he thought of you sitting out there, just waiting for him to find you and bring you home. Injured, unable to move. 

“Okay… Just take a thicker coat and a torch at least,” Fili compromised, smiling sadly when Kili nodded. 

“I will.” Kili lied as he left the dining room, his pace quick as he raced to the entrance. 

“Alright (Y/n)... You can’t hide up here forever,” You told yourself as you began to put your boots back on, knowing you would have to tell at least Bilbo that you were okay. 

Hearing footsteps, you looked toward the sound, “Bilbo is that you?” You called out, not getting up from the floor just yet. 

Kili stopped in his tracks, your voice melodic in his ears as tears began to spring in his eyes. You were alive. 

“(Y/n)?” Kili called back, racing up the steps to find you. 

“Kili!” You cried out once you saw his face, dirty with blood smears and developing bruises, but alive. 

Scrambling to your feet you raced toward him as he did the same, bringing you into his arms as he buried his face in your hair. “Oh bless Mahal…” Kili cried, holding you tight as you buried your face in his neck. 

“I thought I lost you,” You sobbed as you clutched onto him, fearing that you'd blink and he’d be gone.  

“I thought the worst when Bofur said they couldn’t find you,” Kili whimpered as he inhaled the scent of your hair, trying to force himself to recognize that you were truly in his arms. 

“I’m here,” You cooed to him, pulling away slightly to cup his cheek, “I’m right here, and I’m not going anywhere.” You promised, your eyes fluttering shut as he pressed his lips against your own. The sweet moment was interrupted by the sound of your stomach growling. Having been searching for Kili all day, you never had time to eat.

“We need to find you something to eat,” Kili’s tone was laced in concern as he led you down the stairs to the dining room where the rest of the Company was. 

“You’re alive!” Bofur yelled out, glee on his face as the Company began to cheer at your safe return.

“Alive but starving,” You joked as Kili pulled out a chair for you to sit on. Sending him a smile you sat down, only to frown as he scurried away, stinging your heart in the process. 

“Where were you all this time?” Bilbo questioned, wanting to know all about where you were like a concerned mother. “I was looking for Kili,” You explained, “I couldn’t find him anywhere.” 

“And we couldn’t find you,” Fili pitched in. “Seems like we were going in circles around each other,” You tried to give a light laugh, only for it to sound sad and heartbroken. 

Looking around for Kili, you felt your frown deepen as the urge to go find him struck you again. You felt as though you were going to question your own sanity, if you were perceiving reality correctly and Kili was truly alive. 

Your thoughts were silenced as Kili came back into the room, carrying a plate of food and cup of water for you. Relief filled you, banishing your anxiety as Kili sat next to you, his thighs touching yours as he placed the food in front of you. “Here you are,” He pressed a kiss to your temple causing a small smile to form on your face. 

“Thank you,” You turned your head to kiss his cheek before beginning to eat, feeling his hand travel to hold the one you weren’t using to eat. Rubbing his thumb over your knuckles, Kili’s brow furrowed, indicating he was deep in thought.  

Squeezing his hand back to provide reassurance, you blew on the steaming piece of potato before putting it in your mouth, chewing with a smile when Kili squeezed your hand back. 

After having your full, you pushed the plate away as Kili took that moment to press kisses to your cheeks. Reaching to cup his cheek, you laughed as dirt flaked away from his cheek. “I think we both could use a bath.” You suggested, to which he agreed with you, noting the grime on your arms and face from battling and then searching for him for hours on end. 

Bidding a goodnight to everyone, you two left the dining room. Once you were out into the hallway, Kili lifted you up bridal style in his arms, causing you to squeak in surprise before beaming at him as he carried you down to a room that Thorin appointed to the two of you. 

Kili laid you on the freshly made bed, having to completely wash all the bedding when they got to Erebor before they could use it. Once Kili pulled away from you, you developed that feeling in your gut again, the feeling of losing him. Reaching out to grasp his hand, he turned to you confused, but once seeing your expression his expression softened. 

“I’m right here,” He cooed, reaching to put a piece of hair behind your ear. “I just need to go fill the basin,” He explained, pressing a kiss to your lips before you release your hold on him, letting him leave to the bathroom to fill the tub.

Nodding, you focused on the sound of the water filling the tub, the beginning fragrance of lavender filling your nostrils. Before you knew it, he was back, leading you to the bathroom and carefully disrobing you. 

“Did you get injured anywhere?” Kili questioned, keeping his eyes trained on your face as you became bare before him. “I think I have a few cuts and bruises, but nothing too serious,” You explained, seeing the concern on his face. “It was a war, Ki… We were both going to get hurt no matter how hard we try to avoid it,” You reassured him, moving closer to lightly thud your forehead against his. 

“I know... “ He sighed, “I just never want to see you in pain,” Kili mumbled, rubbing his nose against yours. Smiling, you gave him a gentle kiss on the lips. “I know,” You repeated his words, “I am the same way,” You murmured before pulling away to let him undress, moving to step into the tub. 

Sinking into the hot water with a hiss at the stinging of your cuts, you let your eyes wander across the cuts on Kili’s skin. “Anything we need to get Oin for?” You questioned as he too sunk into the water. “I just need you,” He responded, tugging you into his lap. 

Grabbing the wash cloth, you dipped it in the water before rubbing the soap against it until it became a foamy lather. Instead of responding, you began to wash down his neck and chest before rinsing it and pressing a kiss to his collar to show him you were here, and that you weren’t going anywhere. 

Kili slowly pushed you away, indicating for you to turn around and lean your head back. Grabbing the small cup, Kili began to scoop water onto your hair until it became soaked enough for him to wash it. 

Letting out a sigh, you sunk into his hands as he lightly massaged your scalp before rinsing your hair once more. 

“I love you,” You broke the comfortable silence, barely realizing now that the last thing you told Kili before he separated from you wasn’t your love for him. He could have died and never got to hear those words again. Feeling tears come up to your eyes again, you wiped them, grateful that your back was to him. 

“Menu tessu, men Iananubukhs (You mean everything to me, I love you).” Kili responded, the same realization hitting him as he pulled you closer to him, his vision becoming blurry as he pressed kisses into your skin. 

As the two of you finished bathing, the air felt tense, like you both were waiting for something to happen as you dried off and laid in bed. 

Looking to Kili, you found him already staring back at you. Becoming overwhelmed with the urge to kiss him, you leaned forward and captured his lips in yours with a sense of urgency, his hand reaching up to hold the nape of your neck, the other to grasp your waist and pull you closer to him. 

As the two of you kissed, Kili rolled on top of you, wanting to be as close as possible to you. 

“I love you,” He murmured as he began to pepper kisses down your jaw and neck. 

“And I love you,” You responded as he began to mouth at the swell of your breasts. 

“Wait,” You stopped him, lightly pushing on his shoulders causing him to freeze and snap his head up to look at you with a panic you’ve never seen on his face before.

“What’s wrong?” He questioned, pulling off of you like your skin was stinging him. 

“I know this would be your first time Kili, are you sure you want to do this? With me?” You questioned, wanting to be one hundred percent sure that he was aware of what he was about to do. 

Kili frowned slightly, leaning forward to bump his head against yours. “I love you, and I want to be with you for the rest of my life, amrâlimê.” He began before pressing a soft kiss to your lips. 

“I want to memorize every part of you, engrain you into my memory…” His words made your heart catch in your throat, realizing he meant that if he ever lost you, he would want to remember you. 

“Kili…” You murmured, not quite having your voice after a statement like that, causing him to give you a soft smile. “I want to make love to you, (Y/n), will you allow me to do so?” 

Not trusting your voice anymore, you nodded, giving him a toothy grin as he returned it with one of his own, capturing your lips in his once more. 

He broke off the kiss to drag kisses down your chest once more, his eyes catching yours for permission as he reached your breasts again, waiting for you to give him the okay to continue. Nodding, you threaded your fingers in his hair, lovingly scratching on his scalp as he gave you a nervous smile, kissing your chest once more before taking one of your nipples into his mouth. 

Kili decided to use your sounds as a way to gauge whether he was doing this correctly or not, his eyes flickering to your face constantly to see if you were okay as he played with your breasts, your moans being a symphony he wanted to hear every night if he could. Switching to the next stiff bud, he licked at it teasingly before enveloping it with his mouth, your pleasured sigh making his heart race.  

“Kurdel (Heart of all hearts)” You heard him murmur, making your heart flutter as he kissed down your ribcage, to your stomach, and to the top of your mound. 

“Sanâzyung (perfect pure/true love)” He mumbled into your skin, taking note of every (freckle, bump, beauty mark, stretch mark) and battle scar that littered across your skin. “So beautiful,” He commented in common tongue, before looking up at you, “Is this okay?”

Nodding you let out a nervous laugh. This wasn’t your first time, but the way Kili was treating you definitely made you feel like it was.

“Definitely,” You realized he was waiting for a verbal cue before he nodded, flicking his tongue out to lick his bottom lip as he spread your outer lips. “Wow….” He didn’t mean to say it out loud, but his response to his first time seeing a woman’s parts made you laugh, covering your face as your chest shook with your laughter. 

“Wow?” You questioned him, as he blushed and hid his face in your thigh, laughing with you. “You know I’ve never done this before,” Kili teasingly glared at you, his joking personality coming back for a brief moment. 

“Teach me how to please you, Uzfakuh (my greatest joy).” 

A blush rose on your face this time, letting out a nervous laugh, realizing his hands were still holding you open. Reaching down with your own hand, you swirled your finger tip around your arousal before bringing it up to your clit and rubbing it slowly, a pleased moan leaving your lips. 

“This is the special pearl,” He commented, making you laugh once more while nodding, “The clitoris, yes,” You nodded again, before pulling your hand away. 

Kili furrowed his brows for a moment before looking at you mischievously, taking a bold move and licking a thick stripe up your slit. “Oh my goodness,” You gasped out as he began lapping at your sex. 

“I thought you said you’ve never done this before!?”

“Oin made me read lots of interesting books when he found out we were courting,” Kili winked at you before getting back to his ravishing of you. 

His tongue became stiff against your clit, lapping at it up and down with a quick succession, making you grip at his hair once again. 

“Kili!” You called out in a warning tone, but that was lost out in the sound of your moaning, your orgasm quickly approaching as he gathered some of your wetness with his thumb, rubbing circles over your clit as he removed his mouth. 

“Can I try putting a finger inside?” He questioned, curiously, causing you to flush, remembering that he is indeed a virgin. 

“Yes,” You murmured, not being able to focus clearly while he was bringing you to the brink of your orgasm. 

Returning his mouth to your clit, he began sucking as he slowly slid a finger inside of you, pumping it experimentally before sliding another in. Feeling you tighten around his fingers, Kili took that as a good sign as your moans grew higher in pitch. 

Trying to pull his fingers out of you, Kili furrowed his brow when it felt like your pussy was keeping them in, wiggling them to try and get them out, he froze when you released a loud moan, his fingers coincidentally brushing over your g-spot as you came on his face.

 “Kili!” You yelled out as he kept sucking on your now oversensitive clit, “S-stop,” You gasped out, lightly pushing at his face to shut your legs from his eager lips. 

“Did I do a good job?” He teased, wiping some of your juices off his face. 

Laughing you laid back on the pillows, “I find it very hard to believe you learned that from books…” You murmured as he slid in between your legs to rest his head on your chest. “I followed your lead,” He mumbled back, pressing a kiss over your heart before resting his ear over it, the sound of your heartbeat soothing him. 

Stroking his hair, you sighed happily before he shifted, causing you to notice the hardness between your legs. “Now we need to take care of you,” You flushed as you spoke, feeling the girth of him against your thigh. 

“We can wait--” Kili’s words died in his throat as you began stroking him. 

“I want to feel you, Kili,” You captured his lips in yours once more with a passionate kiss, the words ‘I almost lost you’ flaring in your head over and over as you lined him up to your entrance. 

“Do you want this?” You stopped yourself from being selfish, needing to know he still wanted to go through with this. 

“Mahal… Yes,” Kili confirmed as he propped himself up above you, his braids dangling in your face as he slipped inside you, watching your face for any hint of discomfort as he bottomed out, your mouth opening in a silent moan as he stretched you. 

Leaning down to give you a kiss, you sighed as his weight against you provided a much needed comfort after the day you both had, relishing in the feel of his skin against yours. 

As Kili began to thrust, he kept his forehead against yours, zoning in on you and you alone as you maintained eye contact with him despite every fiber in your being wanting to shut your eyes and just feel him.

You needed to know he was there. 

“My atamanel (breath of all breaths)...” Kili panted out as his pace sped up, chasing his release as you began to tip into the realm of having another one. 

“Ki--” You moan died off as you came once more, your hands clutching at his back.

“I love you,” Kili buried his face in your neck as he pulled out to release on your stomach, remembering Oin’s voice in his head saying ‘once is enough to create a babe’. 

As you both lay there panting, you looked to his exhausted face, finding him struggling to keep his eyes open. “I love you too,” You whispered as he pulled the blanket up over the two of you.

Pulling you flush to his chest, he pressed a kiss to your temple. “I’m never letting you go,” He murmured as your heart warmed at his words. 

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