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i truly have no idea what to make my "art brand" other than Hot Boys With Thick Eyebrows :/
#and tell me how will that make me money?? in this world....................#genuinely tho i just wanna draw and create and tell my little stories and have people be so into them that they send a few#dollarz my way#like. buy my graphic novel. buy my regular novel. listen to me talk about my creative process and my opinions on things and perhaps#i will make a living off that.#oh also i wanna start making stationary and stickers and fun stuff like that. like. i know its kinda outta left field but i like the idea of#creating products that are cute and functional and exactly my style.#OHHHH TSHIRTS???? I WOULD LOVE TO DESIGN SHIRTS AND HOODIES AND STUFF#like the super unique stuff crowlines does#like really playing with fabric and traditional clothing shapes#i have their tiger shirt that is one black sleve one orange with a triangle of orange down the side#WITH AN EMBROIDERED TIGER ON THE CHEST#its my favorite shirt ever for real for real#anyway. im starting my art business and excited but maybe a little pulled in 50 different directions.#go read my webcomic because thats the only thing i have semi-ready right now#lots of more art and content to come in the next few months!!!!!!!!!#:)
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I WANNA BE YOUR ENDGAME – Chapter 01
🏒❤️ A Hockey Romance feat. modern!Sukuna
Pairing: HockeyPlayer!Sukuna x Reader (female) Genre: College AU, Hockey AU, fluff + smut Playlist: I wanna be your Endgame Word Count: 3k Warnings: 18+, smut in later chapters. Fuckbuddies to lovers. Sukuna smokes a cigarette in this chapter. Reader is a creative writing student. Sukuna is an ice hockey player + history student. This story will have approximately 10 chapters. Minors don't interact. Header by me. Divider @/benkeibear
MASTERLIST
The first time you meet Sukuna, you literally run into him.
It's a Thursday morning. You are running down the hallway while rummaging through your bag, searching for the printed copy of the short story that you have to hand in today. The irony isn't lost on you. The story contains a scene quite similar to this. But unfortunately, you aren't a rebel princess running out of a ballroom with her cloak dramatically billowing behind her. You are just a creative writing student in a mismatched pair of sneakers who is late for her class. The second time this week. To a class taught by a professor who sees it as a personal affront if someone shows up late.
You grit your teeth, trying to run even faster, when you finally see the printed copy you were looking for. You cheer inwardly. But your relief is short-lived. Because a second later, you crash into a solid wall.
You screech in shock, the force of the impact making you flat-out keel over without any warning. This will hurt, is the only thought that flashes through your mind. But a millisecond before you hit the hard floor tiles, your fall gets stopped, and you get pulled up again and set back on your feet. Everything happens so fast that you can only blink in confusion.
A pair of well-defined, tattooed arms comes into view. You stare perplexed at them, realizing that they are what stopped your fall. And what you also realize at that moment is that the "solid wall" you slammed into is the tall and muscular owner of those strong arms.
Your face is currently only inches away from his chest. A broad and buff chest in a soft-looking white hoodie with a very familiar crest embroidered on the front. Two crossed hockey sticks and a tiger with glowing red eyes and his mouth opening in a feral-looking growl.
Your head snaps up to look at the face of your savior (and the cause of your fall), and what already began to dawn on you gets confirmed the moment you see the tattoos on his handsome face: You just ran full speed into Itadori Sukuna, the star player of the ice hockey team. The Red Tiger himself, The King of the Ice, and whatever other titles he gets called.
Even though you are hardly a hockey fan, you know Sukuna. Everyone knows him.
Sukuna gets treated like royalty on this campus. He's a living legend. The star player of The Red Tigers, the most successful ice hockey team this college has brought out in over five decades. And Sukuna is the reason for that success.
You gulp hard and take a hurried step back.
Out of anyone you could have crashed into, why did it have to be him? Sukuna is feared on and off the ice. You have never spoken to him personally, only saw him from afar while heading to class or when you were at the same party as him, but his reputation as a bad boy precedes him. And the way he looks with his face tattoos and his strong and tall build only adds to those assumptions. Sukuna is definitely a very intimidating guy.
Your automatic response is to try to make yourself look as harmless and cute as possible, smiling a sheepish, apologetic smile at him.
"I'm so sorry! I was late for class, so I ran, and I didn't see you. Sorry!"
You look up at him with big eyes and a nervous smile, steeling yourself for a scolding.
But Sukuna just eyes you with an amused expression on his tattooed face. His eyes travel lazily over your face and body, making you more nervous with each passing second. You feel your cheeks become hot when Sukuna's gaze finally lands on your mismatched shoes, and the corners of his lips twitch.
You silently curse yourself for snoozing your alarm one too many times and ending up like this in front of the hot boy hockey star of all people!
Sukuna is looking directly into your eyes now, his lips lifted in a lopsided smirk.
"I don't mind getting bodychecked by a pretty girl like you. It would be different if it were an opponent on the ice, but you will get away with it, princess."
You are dumbfounded for a moment, mouth opening and closing several times. Is he mocking you? You eye Sukuna wearily as you mutter,
"Um, well... Thank you for catching me before I landed on the floor."
Sukuna just looks at you a moment longer with that lazy grin, and then he bends down to pick up the bag you dropped. He pushes it into your arms, and you grab it instinctively and hug it tightly to your chest as if it is your lifeline.
"And thank you for the bag."
You add while once again smiling sheepishly at him. Sukuna laughs softly, cocking his head and looking at you with an infuriatingly smug grin,
"Don't thank me so much. If it weren't for me, you wouldn't have fallen in the first place."
"Yeah, I guess that's true. But still, thank you."
You cringe at your own words, sure that you sound like a total idiot, but you force yourself to smile broadly at Sukuna and wish him a nice day before you turn around and walk toward the creative writing classroom on rather wobbly legs. At least you don't have to hurry anymore, you think grimly. By now, you are definitely too late.
There's a prickling feeling on your neck as if you are being watched, and you are pretty sure that if you looked over your shoulder, you would see Sukuna still standing there and looking at you with that amused glint in his eyes.
You refuse to give in to the urge to check if you are right and instead keep walking. But your pulse is still racing. From the almost fall or from Sukuna's presence, you aren't sure.
You slip into the classroom, and your professor sends a death glare your way, snapping at you for not taking her course seriously and all thoughts of a certain pink-haired, tattooed hockey player are wiped off your mind as you mutter an apology, and you hurry to the nearest free seat.
You encounter Sukuna again a few days later.
You stand outside the Gojo Hall waiting for your dormmate Nobara when you catch a flash of pastel pink in the corner of your eyes. You lift your head and spot not only one pink head but two. The Itadori twins exit the building side by side, Sukuna, and Yuuji, both wearing their white team hoodies, making you wonder if there is some rule that the players must wear their team apparel 24/7.
You are still contemplating the secret rules of the hockey team when the brothers give each other a high five, and Yuuji leaves with a big smile on his face while Sukuna turns his head, and his gaze instantly lands on you.
Your eyes widen, feeling like the deer in the headlights. You curse yourself inwardly. Why did you let him catch you staring at him?
A smirk appears on Sukuna's tattooed face, and to your horror, he strolls towards you.
You try to act cool, nodding lightly at him, a short greeting in passing. Only to feel your heart jump to your throat when you realize that Sukuna won't just walk by. The resident hockey star stops beside you and casually leans against the brick wall right next to where you stand.
He lets his head fall back and tilts his face to the side, smirking down at you.
"No mismatched shoes today?"
You can't help it, a laugh bubbles out of your chest even as you feel your face get hot. You shake your head,
"Wasn't really my style."
"And here I thought you were some fashion icon or something. Did you make it to class in time after our little accident?"
You scrunch your nose as you remember the angry look and the mean comment your professor sent your way and shake your head,
"No. And now my professor hates me even more."
Sukuna laughs softly. He is so tall that you have to tilt your head back to look at his face. He looks good. Too good. Dangerously so. His pink hair is a pretty contrast to the dark red brick stones behind him. His angular face with the sharp jawline is accentuated attractively by the black lines inked into his skin. A second pair of eyes is tattooed right under his real ones, sitting high on his cheekbones, giving the impression that he is always watching you.
Sukuna is beautiful in a classic way, but at the same time, his tattoos and the way he carries himself make that beauty darker. Beautiful, like a fallen angel, maybe. His looks and his personality give him a dangerous aura. He is undeniably very intimidating. But the way he jokes around with you and looks at you in that playful manner makes you feel surprisingly at ease. Maybe that's why you grin at him and ask,
"What about you? Did your professor get mad, too?"
Sukuna shakes his head.
"Nah. I wasn't on my way to class. I had a team meeting."
You raise a skeptical eyebrow, remembering the empty hallway.
"But I didn't see any of your teammates."
Sukuna's smirk grows bigger, and he raises an eyebrow, too, as if it is a challenge.
"Because I work out all the tactics and do the analytics and shit, so I have to be there before anyone else. Setting up everything, you know?"
You nod slowly, not saying it, but you are surprised and even a bit impressed by his statement. Judging by his looks and reputation, you wouldn't have taken Sukuna for the type of guy who bothers with tactics and stuff. You always assumed he solved everything with pure strength and brutal fouls. Apparently, you were wrong.
Sukuna hums and shoves his large hands casually into the pockets of his grey sweatpants, pulling out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. He wears black nail polish, you realize, and somehow that fact is so fascinating that you find yourself unable to look away from his long, tattooed fingers as he gracefully lights a cigarette and takes a deep drag that makes his eyelashes flutter.
Sukuna then holds the still-open cigarette pack out to you, wordlessly offering you one. You decline with a shake of your head and a:
"I didn't know hockey players smoke."
You are met with another of Sukuna's boyish smirks that makes him look way too charming. He cocks his head, eyes sparkling with amusement, low voice dropping to an almost seductive purr,
"And why not?"
You shrug, making an indecisive gesture with your hands,
"Isn't it making you slower or something?"
Sukuna huffs softly, looking smug when he says,
"Well, even if I smoked two packs a day, I would still be the fastest one on the ice, so I guess I will risk it."
You laugh. And as you do it, you realize, to your astonishment, that you feel surprisingly relaxed around the star player and resident bad boy.
You watch him nod towards a group of guys passing by, who congratulate him on the latest win. Followed by two girls who giggle and twirl their hair as they look at him and coo his name as if he is some pop star.
But Sukuna doesn't seem to see anything out of the ordinary. He just lazily blows out his cigarette smoke, not blessing them with more attention than a bored smirk.
Yes, he is a bit of an arrogant asshole and the way people treat him like he is a King or something is super irritating. But you can't deny that Sukuna has a certain charm. Lots of charm! All in all, the resident starboy doesn't seem so bad.
He is looking at you again. A deep gaze that makes your pulse accelerate with how inquiring and intense it is. As if he sees right into your very core.
"Why are you standing in the smoking area when you don't smoke?"
That catches you off guard. You blink and look around, searching for a smoking sign or something similar, but you don't see anything like it.
"Um... I didn't know this was the smoking area. I am just waiting for my dormmate."
After a moment, you add,
"I'm a secondhand smoker, though. Does that qualify, too, or are you gonna make me leave?"
You have no idea why you talk that way. Almost like you are flirting with Sukuna! He grins at you like a devil, attractive and playful and a little bit dangerous as he leans closer to you.
"You don't have to leave, princess. I'll make sure to blow my smoke your way if you are so into passive smoking."
You can hear the amusement in his low voice as he teases you. And he said it again, that name. Princess.
You are pretty sure that Sukuna calls a lot of girls that way, and it's pretty cliché, and coming from any other guy, you would probably find it cringe. But the way Sukuna says it, in his low, velvety voice, while he has that teasing smirk on his handsome face, makes you feel a strange fluttering in your stomach.
But you don't give him the satisfaction of letting him see the effect that stupid word has on you and instead roll your eyes playfully, looking challengingly at him, grinning just like he does,
"Go on then. I don't mind the smoke."
And Sukuna's eyes glint in amusement, never looking away as he leans down to you and takes a deep drag from his cigarette. He pulls it away from his lips and slowly blows the smoke into your face while watching you with half-lidded, cat-like eyes, smirking when he sees that you really don't turn away.
You shake your head and chuckle, feeling like you are sixteen again, and try to infiltrate the cool kids' clique by hanging around near their usual smoking spot. It's a bit stupid, maybe, but also fun.
Sukuna looks pleased, the tip of his tongue gliding over his front teeth as he grins at you.
"Good girl."
You bite your lip, looking up at him with big eyes, finding it hard to breathe suddenly, but not because of the cigarette smoke. You are relieved when Sukuna pulls away and announces,
"Well, it was nice sharing my smoke with you, but I have to go to the gym now. See you around, princess."
He winks at you and flicks the half-smoked cigarette gracefully to the floor, crushing it under the soles of his red and black Nikes.
"Have fun at the gym!"
Your voice sounds too chipper in your sorry attempt to act as if nothing happened, and Sukuna's eyes glitter with that seemingly ever-present teasing expression as he lets them trail over your face once again. He lets out a low chuckle and then jerks his tattooed chin at you in a casual goodbye gesture before he walks away with large, confident steps.
You watch him leave, laughing under your breath.
Sukuna definitely has a strong effect on people. He is confident and sexy, and a bit dangerous. But he also has a boyish charm that makes it easy to talk to him somehow. And it also makes it very hard not to stare after him.
Your gaze is still glued to Sukuna's tall figure and his broad shoulders when Nobara suddenly pops up beside you, making you jump when her elbow connects sharply with your side.
"What is going on between you and our hockey star?"
"What?"
"What were you talking about with Sukuna? And why are you staring after him like that?"
"Nothing. And I am not staring! I just... I ran into him a few days ago when I was late to class. Literally ran into him. That guy is like a wall. I bounced off him and fell. But he caught me. And yeah, that's all."
Nobara is staring at you with comically big eyes and a shocked, open-mouthed expression on her face,
"Why didn't you tell me about that? And now you're chit-chatting with him? Are you friends or what? Or are the two of you fucking?"
"Excuse me? No! Why would you even think that? I just exchanged a little small talk with him, Nobara! That is all!"
She huffs dramatically and pushes her ginger hair behind her ears,
"Good. Because he is an asshole. On the other hand, he is hot, but I think the asshole thing outweighs the sexiness. Maybe you could fuck him once just to get a taste. I mean, he is probably good in bed. And then you can avoid him and..."
"Hello? I don't plan on fucking Sukuna!"
You roll your eyes exasperatedly and push yourself off the wall you were leaning against, quickly walking away so Nobara won't see how flustered her words make you.
It's stupid, though! You really don't plan on getting involved with Sukuna! You barely know him, and just because he has a pretty face, a good body, and a bunch of sexy tattoos doesn't mean you want him!
Oh, are you sure about that, my dear Reader? Because I personally already want him ;)
Thank you so much for reading the first chapter!! I am so excited to finally share this story with you! I wrote some HockeyPlayer!Sukuna headcanons last year, and I couldn't get that version of him out of my mind again, so I knew I HAD to give him a new multi-chapter story. I am already deeply in love with this man, and I am so happy that I can indulge in him for several chapters now ;)
I hope you enjoyed the first chapter! Comments and reblogs would be very sweet ❤️❤️
In Chapter 2, Reader will see our sexy hockey star actually play.
#sukuna x reader#sukuna x you#sukuna fluff#sukuna smut#sukuna#jjk x reader#jjk x you#jjk fluff#jjk smut#sukuna x y/n#jjk x y/n#{🏒❤️} hockey au
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character: hanemiya kazutora x fem!reader
notes: anon asked for more tora-nii so!!! here he is!!! this ended up being way longer than i intended!!! but enjoy hehe! this is set within the same universe as this piece but works well as a standalone piece and can totally be read on it's own as well!
warnings: 18+ minors do not interact, stepcest/pseudocest (step siblings), rough sex, minimal prep, painful sex, both kazutora and reader are total virgins (unrealistic loss of virginity), dubcon/noncon, the tiniest hint of dacryphilia, cum eating/feeding, super messy kisses
words: 4k
synopsis:
And finally, finally, the stress of the past several years seeps from your pores and leaves you feeling light and floaty, no longer weighing you down now that he’s in your arms, now that he’s free, body gone boneless against him as it melts into his own, fusing, becoming one again, whole again. Your knees nearly give out, bones deliquesced in pure relief, but your big brother is right there to catch you, chuckling a little as he hoists you further up his body, leaning you against his chest and supporting most of your weight. The tears are flowing steadily now, flooding your cheeks in thick, ceaseless streams, whole body shuddering beneath the force of your sobs—a continuous torrent of Tora, Tora, Tora-nii weeped out in violent hiccups. “M’here, m’here, shh, hush now,” he’s telling you as he cradles you to him, rocking your bodies slightly. “Nii-san’s here.”
It’s sunny, the day he’s finally released; a bright blue sky embroidered with thick puffs of cotton, sunbeams filtering through the clouds and bathing everything bright and gold.
You’re leaning against your car as you wait, idly swinging the keyring around your index finger in a nervous jitter, metal tinkering rhythmically.
At long last he’s stepping through that big barred gate, so large it trembles beneath its own weight as it stutters to an open, steel creaking, halting with an ominous clank! as it catches on the latch, echoes mingling with an obnoxious, nasally beep.
It takes him a moment to find your face, gaze sweeping across the unfamiliar location, with wide, unsure eyes, a hint of a frown toying with the corners of his lips.
But then he spots you, and love splits his face wide open, a brilliant smile stretched across his cheeks so wide it must hurt—automatic, instinctual, uncontrollable—topaz irises glittering in the sunshine.
And you swear, you’ll never tire of the way his whole face brightens when he’s in your presence.
Your breath stagnates in your lungs, and for a second everything is still, the moment pregnant with anticipation, your heart mutilating itself against your ribs as it tries to crawl through the gaps.
But then he’s taking off, rubber soles of his sneakers slapping against the warped concrete, barreling into your body a mere instant later, so hard he crushes you between your car and his chest.
It shoves a yelp from your throat, sharp and high, and he only squeezes you harder, fingers digging into your skin as his hands fist in the material of your dress, bunching it up in his palms and tugging.
The hem rides several inches up your thighs, his hips keeping your legs spread, your own arms wound tightly around his shoulders, clinging to him and burying your face in his neck, forehead pressed firmly to the tiger inked into his skin.
And finally, finally, the stress of the past several years seeps from your pores and leaves you feeling light and floaty, no longer weighing you down now that he’s in your arms, now that he’s free, body gone boneless against him as it melts into his own, fusing, becoming one again, whole again.
Your knees nearly give out, bones deliquesced in pure relief, but your big brother is right there to catch you, chuckling a little as he hoists you further up his body, leaning you against his chest and supporting most of your weight.
The tears are flowing steadily now, flooding your cheeks in thick, ceaseless streams, whole body shuddering beneath the force of your sobs—a continuous torrent of Tora, Tora, Tora-nii weeped out in violent hiccups.
“M’here, m’here, shh, hush now,” he’s telling you as he cradles you to him, rocking your bodies slightly. “Nii-san’s here.”
And although you can hear the tears in his voice, you can feel his cock, half hard and pressed tightly to your hip, throbbing keenly as his honorific spills from your lips.
“Look at me, sweetheart,” he murmurs into the crown of your head, punctuating his demand with a smattering of kisses, planted in your hair.
Pulling back, you gaze up at him with a soft sound of inquiry. He bows his head, pushing his forehead against your own, noses nudging together.
Eyes fluttering shut, his ribs expand into your own as he inhales you—your scent, your breath, your very aura itself—gulps you down and holds you in his lungs, lets you permeate his tissues and fester at his core before he’s surging forward, smashing his lips to yours, tongue breaking past your teeth and shoving the breath back down your throat, now infused with him.
Shock leaves you stupid for a second before your body begins to respond—automatic, instinctual—delicate fingers slipping in the tufts of onyx curling up at the nape of his neck and twirling, wrapping the strands around your knuckles.
Your hands slide further, burying themselves in his hair, palms flattening against the back of his skull and pressing him close, closer, tongue greedily grinding against his own.
And it’s so sick, it’s so messy, mouths slick and sliding with each other’s drool as twin streams of tears cascade down your cheeks to pool in the seams of your lips, seeping through the cracks and staining your tongues with each other’s salt.
It’s so sick, but it’s so good, too, hands pawing and gripping and tugging, the back of your heel arching around his lower calf, because too close is never close enough. Your nails scrape against his scalp and he moans into your mouth, the sound hot and heavy on your tongue, his hips twitching forward, gyrating in uneven little circles.
Rough palms, decorated with cuts and callouses, are slinking up your soft thighs while your lips work, kneading flesh as they crawl beneath your dress, up, up, up until they reach your panties—lace, he can tell, fingertips tracing the trim with surprising delicacy, almost as if he’s committing the webbed pattern to memory, feeling every curve and crisscross of the knit.
His fingertips tiptoe around your body, outlining the hem over your hips, following it all the way back to your ass where they slip beneath the thin fabric and grab, filling his palms with your flesh, nails biting superficial crescents into your bum.
He holds you there, holds you still, pulls you closer to him and forces you to stay stationary as his hips continue rocking, messily humping away at you. He’s panting out loud noises into your mouth in time with the movement of his hips, fragmented by his own breath, mewls that keep smothering your protests as they consume them.
The straining head of his cock bumps against your inner thigh, the coarse material of his pants beginning to chafe your sensitive skin, and he sucks a hiss from your throat, swallows it down greedily and laps at your molars, slathering them in his foamy spit, hunting for more.
It already feels so good, a dull heat beginning to amass deep in the pit of your belly—something that seeps through the floor of your stomach to the apex of your thighs, something that sends sparks and cinders racing through your veins, leaving your blood fizzing in their wake.
But as badly as you want him right here, right now, you know you can’t, the scrutinizing eyes of his discharging prison guard, still standing watch at the mouth of the massive gate, searing into your skin.
“Tora-nii, Tora-nii,” you’re whimpering, and he groans, a deep sound reverberating within his ribcage.
“I know, baby, I know,” And he sounds almost pained, voice hoarse and cracking, hands squeezing your flesh again. “I need you, too.”
“N-Not here,” you mumble against his lips, the words drooping with reluctance.
A sound of annoyance vibrates in his throat, and he shakes his head, pulling back just enough to search your eyes, topaz frantic as it flies across your face.
“I dunno how long I can wait,” he tells you seriously in a low whisper, confession straining beneath urgency, hips still rolling into yours.
“But—But—Ah—”
“Fuck,” he moans brokenly, curse shattered to shards in his throat, splintered and pitchy.
“You—You just got released,” you force the words from your tongue, airy as he licks up the column of your neck, front teeth nipping at your skin. “Let’s not get arrested for public indecency on the same day.”
Another groan rumbles in his chest, this time borne of frustration, and he scrapes together his remaining scraps of self-restraint, stilling his hips.
He has to admit, you have a point.
He hates that you have a point.
Because he genuinely does not know how he’s supposed to survive a twenty-five minute long car ride back to your sweet little apartment.
He almost doesn’t, unable to keep his hands to himself, fingers wandering across your thighs, beneath your dress, hiking the hem up and revealing your panties to him.
They’re cute, he moans, his cock still so hard it’s nearly painful as it throbs and yearns, leaking so much precum that it’s bled through his briefs and his trousers to leave a large, wet patch.
Ever-stubborn and lacking any sort of discipline, his palm wedges its way between your thighs, curious fingers stroking your slit, watching as the silk of those pretty panties dampens, darkens, becomes slick and slippery with your own arousal—the arousal he is causing, creating—eyes glittering with awe, breath exhaled through parted lips in little huffs.
His other palm is busy grinding into his aching cock, his hips rutting up pathetically in his seat, the belt cutting into his flesh through his thin dress shirt. It’s nothing more than teasing, but it doesn’t matter, he can’t help it, he’ll take whatever he can get—whatever he can do to alleviate the scalding pressure building in his gut.
“Tora-nii,” you’re complaining in a sticky squeal when he finally tries to prod your hole, face scrunched up somewhere between aroused and annoyed. “Stop it!”
“Doesn’t feel like y’want me to stop,” he pants out, unable to tear his eyes from the apex of your thighs, groaning as your swollen little clit pulses against his thumb. “You—Y’fucking soaked, sweetheart.”
“Well I—I do—I don’t want to—Nii-san, please!”
“Yeah, yeah, baby,” he mewls, nodding vigorously, eyes swapping almost frenetically between your clothed cunt, now perfectly outlined by the silk molded to your folds, and your face.
“I don’t wanna lose my virginity on the side of the road!” you manage to squeak out in a single breath, shooting him the cutest little look of anger, brows pushed together so tightly it crinkles your forehead.
Alright, alright, he supposes that’s fair, though he’s still unable to keep his hands to himself—that’s asking a little too much, don’t you think? He’s been waiting five and a half years for this.
He stops trying to fuck you, but just barely, making it an entire task to walk up the two short flights of stairs to reach your apartment, latching onto you like a leech as he stains blotches of grey and navy across your jaw, along your neck, over your collarbone.
It’s an insatiability, fingers griping and vying as they yank and knead, the hem of your dress pooling around his wrists as his palms slide up your thighs, fill his grasp with fistfuls of you as fingertips sink into plush flesh, digging bruises deep into the tissues and dimpling the skin. His hips rock against your ass in irresolute little motions, as if they’re unsure of how fast they want to thrust.
“Tora,” your giggling as you fumble with your keys, faint notes of irritation negated by fondness. “I won’t be able to get the door open if you don’t quit it!”
“Sorry, sorry,” he’s mumbling noncommittally, dragging his tongue along the curve of your neck, then over the ridges of your shoulder, outfitting you in his spit.
“You—You don’t sound sorry,” you huff, but there’s a smile on your face.
“Can’t help it,” he whinges, nearly tripping over your ankles as the door finally swings open, the two of you stumbling into your apartment.
He’s got you trapped between his body and the drywall before the door even clicks shut, a thigh wedged between your legs as he grinds his cock against your hip, a continuous stream of whines pouring from his throat into yours.
They vibrate as they spill onto your tongue, warm and buzzing, and you lick at his teeth, giggling a little at the way his hips jerk in response.
“I—I—I—” he’s moaning into your mouth, needy and high, his hands already up your skirt again, index fingers dipping beneath the frilly waistband of your panties and curling. “I can’t, I can’t, I’m gonna—fu-fuck—”
His words disintegrate as those keen little noises eat straight through them, hands almost vicious as they tear through dainty lace, threads and elastics snapping audibly as they tangle around his knuckles.
The material flutters to the floor in a ruined heap of delicacy, both palms already shoved between your thighs as they poke and prod, hungry and hunting.
“T-Tora, no, wait—” you’re breathing out as his fingers clumsily find your hole.
He cuts you off with a ferocious growl, two calloused fingertips pressing into your cunt while the heel of his free palm shoves urgently at the waistband of his pants, managing to push them down his thighs just enough to yank his cock free.
And then he’s tearing you open in one quick, harsh thrust, forcing a sharp yelp from your chest as he buries himself in your cunt.
There isn’t a single moment to get used to the sudden intrusion, cute little hole struggling to take his girth as your skin splits into tiny fissures, fluttering and stretched raw. It fucking stings, sending spears of pain searing through your gut as the head of his cock rams against your cervix, impatient and immediate.
It hurts the entire time, but it’s over pathetically, embarrassingly quickly; only three swift, sharp snaps of his hips before they’re stuttering to a stop with a loud, broken whine, cock throbbing as he fills you with copious amounts of cum—so much cum, too much cum, thick and viscous as it seeps past his cock to drool down your inner thighs and pool in the folds of his balls.
But he doesn’t seem to care that he finishes so briefly; it doesn’t seem to matter to him at all as he drops to his knees and spreads your thighs, plush flesh dipping beneath his grip as he forces them to stay open, joints flexing in a silent warning not to squirm and tongue flattening against your skin as he drags it up, up, up, sopping up a syrupy dribble of cum.
His face is buried in your cunt a mere moment later, groaning a little as his tongue pushes past your abused little hole still weeping little slivers of crimson, copper mixing with the bitter of his seed and creating something sick, something intoxicating, something entirely addictive.
And it’s all so vicious, it’s all so voracious, the way he eats his cum from your cunt as if he’s a starved man, as if he can’t get enough of you, can’t get enough of him within you, tip of his tongue curling, scooping, cupping as he devours you, sucks you clean, obnoxious slurping and smacking echoing throughout your apartment.
He swipes over every dip and crevice, lapping hard and thorough as he collects the substance from your folds hole and beings to hoard it beneath his tongue.
Your nails scrape against his scalp as your knuckles root in inky tufts, and he whines loudly, shoves his face further into your pussy and eats you with such vigour it’s a marvel he can breathe at all.
“Tora-nii, Tora-nii,” you’re chanting out, the name airy on your tongue, responding grunts reverberating against your clit as he grinds his nose against it.
He doesn’t stop until there’s nothing left, until he can no longer taste your blood or his cum, the pungent concoction stored safely within his cheeks.
He looks like a fucking mess, lips and chin gleaming with slick and cum and blood—a shimmery, translucent pink varnishing the lower half of his face—but there’s a wide, toothless smile smeared across his cheeks, those topaz eyes so bright they’re nearly glowing, brimming with exhilaration and love.
Then he’s on his feet, a large hand wreathed around your jaw as he squeezes the hinges and pops your mouth open, tongue unfurling onto your own and shoving a mix of blood and spit and cum down your throat.
It’s fucking filthy, thick threads of cum tangled with his saliva pouring from the corners of your lips while they slip and slide against one another, leaving shining streaks of pearlescent drool, tinged pink with blood, slathered across your jaws. It drips off your chin in slow, sticky drops, drizzling cool and slimy across your bosom.
God, it’s all so much—you cum so much, Tora-nii!—his diligent tongue sweeping your mouth as he deposits the intoxicating mixture, laving over your teeth and dipping into your cheeks, staining your whole mouth with him.
And he doesn’t let up, doesn’t let you jerk away or move a single centimeter until he’s emptied his mouth into your own, until you’ve sucked his tongue fucking clean with tight, puckered lips, until you’ve scraped all the contents from the muscle with your teeth and swallowed every last remnant, notes of salt and copper lingering on your tastebuds.
Impossibly, he’s already hard again, the head of his cock bluntly bumping against your hole, awkward and uncoordinated as he pants out pleads into your mouth.
“Please, please,” he’s whining hotly onto your tongue. “Please, let me fuck you again, I gotta—I’m gonna—I gotta—”
Sharp little keens keep shattering his sentences, his eyes closing tightly as his whole face scrunches in concentration, desperately attempting to quell the crude twitching of his hips.
“Pr-Promise I’ll fuck you properly this time,” he hurls the vow into your mouth, quick and sloppy. “Promise I’ll—I’ll make you cum this time, swear I will, baby, just let me fuck you again!”
Yes, yes, you’re nodding against him, teeth clacking and lips catching on incisors. Yes, please, nii-san.
The two of you barely make it to your bedroom, tripping over each others limbs as you stumble toward the bed and fall onto the mattress in a knotted heap, the balls of your feet shoving at the waistband of his pants, helping him kick them the rest of the way off.
It’s nasty and primal and so fucking intimate, with your knees hooked over his shoulders and ankles linked behind his neck, thighs sandwiched between your chests and foreheads pressed firmly to one another. The tips of your noses nudge as he pounds into you, ruthless and relentless in his pursuit, hard enough to jostle your body up the mattress, hard enough to have the whole bed frame shuddering, brass headboard knocking against the wall.
“Like that, Tora-nii, like that,” you’re breathing, hips rolling up into his, clit catching on his slick pubic bone.
“Y-Yeah?”
“Yeah, yeah,” you gasp out, eyes shut tightly, feet curling around the back of his neck, a pitiful attempt to pull him closer.
“S’good?”
“S’good, s’good, it’s so good,” you’re nodding against him, front teeth chipping his. “Your cock feels so good, Tora-nii!”
A groan rattles his ribs and his hips drive forward harder, rougher, faster, spurred on by your praise, desperate to prove to you that he can make you cum, desperate to make good on his promise.
Because you’re getting close now, he thinks he can tell. He thinks he can see it in the way your eyes keep fluttering shut with each swipe of his pelvis over your clit, with each drag of his cockhead against your cervix; thinks he can hear it in the way you can barely push that cherished nickname from your lips, the sweetest little huffs of Tor-Tor-Tora-nii! breaking on your tongue; thinks he can feel it in the way your thighs keep tightening, body going rigid as your hands grasp and claw, nails gorging themselves on his muscle, yearning for as much of him as physically possible.
“G-Gonna—hah, fuck—gonna cum for your nii-san, sweetheart?”
The question wafts across your face, strings of drool swaying with each of his panted breaths, splattering across your cheeks and cooling instantly.
“Uh—Uh-huh, nii—nii-san,” you mewl out, stammered by the slamming of his hips.
“Look at me, please,” he begs, voice high and broken. “Wanna—Want you to look at me when you cum, look at your big brother.”
And you do, because you’re such a good little sister, eyes springing open, lashes weighted with teardrops.
His own eyes are wet, too, long lashes clumped together in thick little spikes, glittering drops balancing perilously on the points.
Three more pistons of his hips and your cunt is clenching around him with such vigour it’s almost painful, whole body bowing off the bed as sparks zip up your spine, curving each vertebra as they pass.
Slick gushes down his shaft, and it’s so much, it's so messy, coating his thighs in thick, shimmering smears, slippery and sticky and so Goddamn sick as they smack against your ass, the constant slap of skin against skin sharp as it echoes throughout your bedroom.
It’s so intense it whites your vision and wipes your mind, wailing out his honorific like it’s a fucking prayer, over and over and over again.
And Christ, Kazutora swears you’ve never looked or sounded more beautiful than you do cumming all over your big brother’s cock.
It has a loud whine spilling from his throat, topaz eyes wide and fluttering rapidly, desperate to clear the bleary shield of tears lacquering his vision, to burn every little micro-expression that transforms your pretty features into the tissues of his brain, forever.
Because it’s all because of him.
The thought has his hips faltering, falling out of their rhythmic pace and bucking wildly as they chase whatever high you’re currently riding, avid to reach it with you.
“Oh God, oh God, oh fuck,” he’s whimpering out, eyes shutting tightly before snapping open again. “I—I—Am I—Does it—Ah—”
“L-Love your cock, Tora-nii,” you’re slurring out beneath him, sloppy and stuffed with spit, gone stupid with pleasure.
And it’s incredible, honestly, how you always know exactly what he needs, still, even now, even after so many years apart.
“Again,” he rasps, thrusts turned dishevelled and careless. “Tell me again.”
“Love your cock so much, Tora-nii-san,” you keen, gazing up at him with fucked-out bliss all over your face, glazed eyes full of sick admiration. “Want your cock t’fill me up.”
“W-With what? Huh? Tell nii-san what you want him to f-fill your pretty little pussy up with.”
“Cum, cum, Tora-nii’s cum!” you sob, nails biting into the muscle of his shoulders as another ripple of overstimulation courses through your flesh. “Want Tora-nii-san to stuff my pussy full of his cum! S’much, s’much—!”
“Oh, Jesus,” he nearly cries, voice cracking with the curse. “I—I’m gonna—Ah, fuck, fu-fuck!”
“Please, please, please, Tora-nii-san,” you’re still babbling on, half-delirious for his seed. “Please, gimme your cum, please, want your cum, Nii-san, please!”
And it’s the pleading that does it, so fucking sordid, so fucking sincere, tears of disgust and desire decorating your cheeks in shimmering streams, that has his whole body shuddering with a loud, broken moan of your name, his cock pulsing viciously and pumping your cunt full of hot, thick cum.
“Oh, thank you, Nii-san,” you’re weeping, weakly scrabbling at his shoulder blades. “Thank you, thank you.”
You always were such a polite girl. Kazutora’s glad to see that nothing’s changed.
“So good, so good, y’such a good little sister for me,” the praises leak from his lips, languid and lazy as he collapses on top of you, dragging half-baked kisses across your jaw.
His chest is heaving against yours, dress shirt turned translucent with sweat as it clings to his swelling ribs, outlining every bump and ridge. Your fingertips traverse across them, soft and gentle, almost as if you’re counting each rib, almost as if you’re making sure they’re all still there.
“M’so happy you’re home,” you drool out against his skin, nuzzling into his neck a little as your arms wrap around him.
Yeah, he thinks as he squeezes you to his form. It’s good to be home.
#kazutora smut#kazutora x reader#kazutora x you#hanemiya kazutora x reader#hanemiya kazutora smut#hanemiya kazutora x you#tw:pseudocest
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Still Crazy After All These Years (Bucky Egan x OC)
Summary: It's a perfect Saturday evening in spring, which means only one thing for the Egans: baseball (specifically their son's Little League game).
Note: Fluffy post-war fic of Holly and Bucky being unhinged Little League parents (but we love them for it🥲) Do not interact if you're under 18, terf or radfem, or post thinspo/ED content.
Word count: 1.9k
Warnings: None.
“C’mon ump, that was out!” Bucky shouted from the bleachers. “Foul ball my as—butt,” he muttered to Holly, who had three-year-old Cynthia in her lap, her chestnut hair pulled up in twin ponytails that blew along with the late spring breeze.
The mid-May air was heavy with DC’s summer creeping up on them. The swampy, humid season dragged along until he finally reached fall’s reprieve. Spring was perfect, though, with its early season baseball games and cherry blossom festival.
“It’s ridiculous.” Holly shook her head, her hand in the bag of pretzels she brought along, having carefully broken some into smaller pieces for Cindy.
“Who’s pitching? Is that the Baker kid?”
She nodded. “Yeah, Terry and Lynn’s youngest boy, Danny. He’s pretty good when he’s focused.”
“I can’t see,” Cindy pouted.
“Come on up, princess,” Bucky said, lifting his daughter and holding her on his hip. “Better?”
She nodded, wrapping her small arms around him as best as she could.
“You know, when you’re a little older, they have leagues just like this for girls.”
“Honey.”
“I’m just letting Cindy know she has options!”
“Where’s Henry?” Cindy asked.
“You see him, right over there?” Bucky pointed at the boy playing shortstop whose dark, curly hair was barely contained beneath his blue baseball cap, a big orange ‘B’ for Bears embroidered on it. All of the local Little League teams were named after some type of animal, and Henry’s game schedule made him feel like he was in the Wizard of Oz with how many lions and tigers and bears were on the sheet of paper he brought home from his first day of practice.
“Henry! It’s Cindy!” she shouted, waving frantically at her brother.
The boy looked up, waving in the general direction of his family. Bucky and Holly had been in the middle of packing up the Christmas decorations when Henry asked them if he could sign up for the neighborhood Little League team that upcoming spring. Holly nearly dropped a box of glass ornaments in excitement.
Watching a major league game, Yankees or not, paled in comparison to cheering on for his own son. Even strikeouts and missed catches made Bucky overwhelmed with pride, because Henry was out there trying, making mistakes he could improve on in their backyard with Bucky’s encouragement to buoy Henry’s spirits if he felt a little discouraged—or got distracted. He had to give the coach credit. Keeping the attention of a dozen six- and seven-year-old boys long enough to teach them how to play a decent game of baseball couldn’t have been an easy feat.
“Out!” the umpire shouted.
Holly clapped as Henry’s team left the field to line up near home plate. “Now we’re talking.”
The kid batting before Henry hit a pop fly and was out before he could even make it a few feet from home plate. Bucky heard Holly take a deep breath when Henry walked up to bat. First pitch was a strike, but the second was almost perfect, the crack of the bat breaking through the crowd’s murmuring. The ball flew into the outfield, landing just in front of the chain link fence that separated the baseball field from the playground.
“Nice hit, Henry!” Bucky shouted.
Holly jumped up, bag of pretzels spilling across the bleachers. “Way to go, sweetheart!”
Bucky grabbed Holly’s hand as they watched their son pass first and make it to second before the centerfielder could throw the ball back to the infield.
“Kid’s a natural,” Bucky whispered excitedly, as all good parents do, adoration filling his chest. He pressed a kiss to the top of Cindy’s head. Holly liked to joke that the day Henry was born, Bucky cried more than their newborn baby did, but their son, and later their daughter, too, were the culmination of every hope and dream he desperately clung to for the better part of two years of just surviving. Because of that, he’d do anything for them.
He watched as the inning continued, his eyes on Henry the whole time. The next batter managed to get to first, but Henry flew past third and made a break for home just as the second baseman caught the ball.
“Go Henry!” Holly shouted. “Go go go!”
“You got this Henry! Come on buddy!”
Bucky was sure his heart was going to explode by the time Henry slid to home plate, barely a second before the ball flew into the catcher’s hand.
“Safe!” the umpire announced, nearly drowned out by Holly’s screaming.
“Attaboy Henry!” Bucky cheered.
“He did it! He fuc—flipping did it!” Holly gave Bucky a celebratory kiss, the two of them hardly able to contain their smiles long enough for their lips to meet for all that long.
The rest of the game flew by. Nothing could compare to the rush of watching Henry steal home. The Bears won by a run, and Holly and Bucky were equally convinced it was thanks to their son. As soon as they found him after the game was over, Holly engulfed him in a hug, giving him a kiss on the cheek.
“You did fantastic, sweetie! What a game!” she exclaimed, almost looking a bit teary-eyed when she took Cindy’s hand in hers.
“Look at you! Stole home like a champ,” Bucky said with a smile, pulling off Henry’s cap to ruffle his hair.
Henry smiled, front tooth missing, the first of his baby teeth to fall out. The tooth fairy had left him a quarter to mark the occasion. “Thanks, dad.”
“I think this calls for ice cream,” Holly said, as if they didn’t go for ice cream after every game Bucky was able to go to.
Bucky nodded. “Definitely. Whatever you kids want.”
——
Scoopland was one of the first places Holly had taken him to when they were stateside and he made the move to DC with her. A neighborhood staple she frequented before the war, she’d been excited to bring him there. The place boasted over 20 different flavors of ice cream, and after trying them all over the course of their first summer together after the war, found he liked their Rocky Road the best. Holly was partial to mint chocolate chip, a newer flavor which he thought tasted like toothpaste.
Bucky walked up to the counter, tasked with ordering the ice cream while Holly wrangled Henry and Cindy into a nearby booth. She had the most difficulty getting Henry to sit down, since he spotted some friends from his baseball team on the other side of the ice cream shop.
“How’s it going Mr. Egan?” the teenage boy behind the counter asked.
“Can’t complain.”
“The usual for you guys?”
Bucky smiled. The usual. He wasn’t sure he ever figured himself to be the type of guy to have a usual at an ice cream place, but parenthood changed a lot of things. Sometimes, Cindy dealt out tea parties and temper tantrums in the same day. Henry got himself a trip to the emergency room just a few months prior while he was sledding on a snow day with his friends and went straight through a neighbor’s fence. He wasn’t sure how Holly managed on her own when he’d go away for work. At least her parents were nearby and took every opportunity to spoil their grandchildren that was presented to them.
He brought the four cups of ice cream over to the table, two in each hand, and placed the hot fudge sundae in front of Henry and tutti frutti with extra rainbow sprinkles in front of Cindy. He gave Holly a kiss as he handed her the cup of mint chocolate chip and snickered to himself when he sat down next to Cindy and saw Henry’s nose scrunched on the other side of the table.
“Listen champ, if there’s ever a day I don’t kiss your mom, that’s when you should be making that face.”
“‘S gross,” Henry said through a mouthful of ice cream.
“So is talking with your mouth full.”
Cindy stuck out her tongue, a distorted rainbow of ice cream and toppings that made Henry laugh.
“Next time, we’re taking you both to the zoo and leaving you there so the monkeys can raise you,” Holly said.
“We’re going to the zoo?” Henry asked. “When?”
“I wanna see a zebra and a giraffe!” Cindy exclaimed.
“How about next weekend?” Bucky looked to Holly for her approval, which was given in the smile that’d begrudgingly spread across her face.
Everything said and done, they made a damn good team as parents. Maybe he indulged the kids a little more than he should have, but Holly did her fair share of it too, letting Henry skip school to bring him and Cindy to weekday Nationals games for the hell of it.
“Can I go say ‘hi’ to Danny and Paul?” Henry asked, looking over his shoulder at his friends who were waving at him.
“Fifteen minutes, but we’re heading home soon. It’s past your sister’s bedtime,” Holly said. “Don’t climb over the seat, Henry, that’s—” She sighed as he climbed over the back of the booth anyway, leaving a streak of dirt from his sneakers behind him. “He definitely gets it from you.”
“Me? The first time I met your parents, they made a point to tell me how much of a wild child you were,” Bucky reminded her with a grin.
Her parents were gracious enough to let him stay with them until he and Holly found a place of their own, although he was sure her returning with a ring on her finger made it easier for them to welcome him into their home. Holly must have done a hell of a job talking him up in her letters to them, because none of the awkward tension he’d been expecting was there when he first walked through the door to meet them.
Holly laughed to herself as she wiped off the seat with a napkin. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Drawing on your bedroom walls?” he pressed.
“Can I draw on my walls?” Cindy asked.
“No. It wasn’t good when mommy did it.”
“Why not?”
“Because you have nice paper we bought for you to draw on, baby,” Holly said.
“It’s not as fun.”
“Sure it is,” Bucky said. “Remember the other day when we drew that castle with the unicorn and the dragon?”
She yawned. “You made the unicorn look funny.”
“Are you sleepy, Cin?” Holly asked.
Despite shaking her head, Cindy rubbed her eyes. She always did whatever she could to push out her bedtime, as if she were afraid she might miss something big if she went to sleep.
“I guess I should’ve asked mom and dad to watch her, huh?” Holly said. “I didn’t think we’d be out this late.”
Cindy mumbled something incomprehensible before dozing off.
Holly laughed softly, “And she’s out.”
“I got her,” Bucky said, picking up Cindy from her seat and placing her in his lap. She immediately curled up against him, and he tried not to think too much about how he wouldn’t know when the last time she’d ever do that would be. Hell, Henry was six and already ditching them to hang out with his friends. He glanced over at his son, face scrunched up in laughter at a joke one of them told him. His smile was like looking in a little mirror.
Bucky ate a spoonful of ice cream, trying to tamper down the ache in his chest.
“You ever thought this would be how you’d spend your Saturday nights?” Holly asked teasingly.
“No.” Bucky smiled. “This is a lot better.”
#bucky egan x oc#john egan x oc#masters of the air x oc#masters of the air#bucky egan#john egan#mota#mota oc#mota fanfic#hbo war#hbo war fanfic
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SILK STRINGS
Aegon x OFC
Aegon Targaryen wanted nothing to do with that cursed crown. So, he fled to Volantis, hoping to live the good life amidst spiced wine, exotic whores, and strange customs, all paid for with the gold he'd stolen from the throne. But when he awoke outside the Black Walls of East Volantis, with no memory of how he had ended up there, he found himself entangled in the machinations of the Triarchy’s elections. With the help of an unlikely ally, he would come to understand the true value of power.
TW: Eventual Smut, Non-Con, slavery, sexism, inaccurate lore, canon divergent
Chapter 1: Volantis
Dila Maegyr sat by the latticed window of her chambers, high above the Black Walls, gazing out at the sprawl of Volantis.
The amber light of late afternoon gleamed over the wide, winding river Rhoyne, which curled like a serpent below the towering structures of the Old Blood.
From here, she could see the temples dedicated to the gods of her ancestors, the Black Walls keeping them apart from the common rabble, and beyond, the endless horizon where the sky bled into the sea. It was a view she’d known her entire life, a view she was supposed to treasure as a birthright of Valyria’s first great city. But today, it felt more like a gilded cage.
Her reflection stared back at her—pale skin, sharp features, and that unmistakable hair, silvery-blonde with hints of gold. The blood of Old Valyria ran through her veins as surely as it did the dragons that once ruled the skies. And yet, when she peered into her own eyes—blue, not violet like those of her Valyrian ancestors—there was something in them that always set her apart. A difference. A distance.
Her thoughts wandered, as they often did, to Westeros. She had read every book she could find on its history, its languages, its people. Those kingdoms fascinated her, not because of their disunity or their petty kings, but because they were everything Valyria had once feared and everything it had scorned. How little those people must understand about the true order of things. How little they must know of the legacy that had once dominated the world. She longed to see it with her own eyes. She longed to understand it.
A sharp knock pulled her from her reverie.
Qorlo. Her husband’s voice came even before the door swung open. “Dila, you’re needed.”
He didn’t wait for an invitation. He strode into the room with the confidence of a man who thought the world owed him deference, and most of the time, it did.
At thirty, Qorlo was everything the Tigers needed in their next Triarch: brash, ambitious, and utterly ruthless. His dark hair was slicked back, his robes embroidered with the deep red and gold of his faction. He wore the tiger proudly on his chest.
Dila turned her gaze from the window but said nothing. She knew the routine by now. There would be an event. Qorlo would be making another of his endless appeals to the Tigers, convincing them of his worth. And she, ever the dutiful wife, would be by his side. A symbol of power. An ornament, beautiful and pure, just as her lineage demanded.
“What is it this time?” she asked, her voice lilting with just enough disinterest to irritate him.
“A gathering of the Tigers,” he replied, his jaw tightening. “The elections approach, and I need you there.”
Of course he did. She was Trianna’s great granddaughter, after all. Her bloodline, her face—it all added to the image he needed to project. The Tigers craved Valyrian supremacy, and who better to remind them of their ancestral glory than the most beautiful woman of the Old Blood? She knew this game well.
And she hated it.
“And what would you have me say, husband?” she asked, letting the sarcasm drip just enough to provoke him.
Qorlo paused, irritation flickering in his violet eyes. “Say nothing. This is not one of your debates, Dila. Just be there.”
She rose from her seat, graceful and deliberate. “Is that how you see me now? A silent ornament?”
“I see you as what I need you to be,” Qorlo said coldly. “My wife. The perfect example of Valyrian supremacy.”
She smiled, sharp and sweet. “I’ve always been what you needed, haven’t I?”
His eyes narrowed, but he said nothing more. They both knew the fight was old and tired. Their disagreements had long ago passed the point of argument. Now they were locked in a silent war, each waiting for the other to make a move.
Qorlo was weak, like every other man. Dila could see it in the way he spoke, the way his pride would always take over and make him say the most foolish things. Worse still, the other men never noticed. Every freeman, and especially every Tiger, was completely captivated by Qorlo’s simplistic thoughts. He would shout diplomatic tales to the Elephants and whisper obtuse promises to the Tigers, and Dila couldn’t help but despise him.
The Triarchy would be different if more women like her ancestor held power. The whole of Volantis would be different. But the men were too blind to recognize their own flaws: the Elephants, ever the soft souls, with their obsession with peace. There was a reason why Trianna’s faction had survived this long, but they lacked drive, they lacked ruthlessness. On the other hand, the Tigers were brutish, witless creatures, just like her father.
Alios Maegyr wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, but in one thing he was right: the proud Old Blood of Valyria should prevail.
Yet these men... Their bickering was a constant nuisance in Dila’s ears. Every time she saw one of them throwing a tantrum at the opposite faction, it was like children comparing their cocks.
After several failed attempts to be the voice of reason amid that sea of testosterone—well accompanied by Qorlo’s reprimands—she had learned how to play the game from behind the curtain.
With this thought, she stood and walked toward Qorlo, who sighed impatiently at her deliberate movements. When Dila placed a hand on his hip and traced his lower lip with her tongue, Qorlo’s sighs turned into a light moan, as Dila once again asserted her dominance. A reminder to herself of how easily men could be manipulated.
Before she could respond further, a commotion arose outside—urgent footsteps approached. One of Qorlo’s guards appeared in the doorway. His face was flushed from the heat of the day, but there was something else in his expression. Something strange.
“M’lord, m’lady,” the man stammered, bowing deeply to Dila before turning to Qorlo. “You’ll want to see this.”
Qorlo frowned. “What is it?”
“A stranger, never seen before, found near the Black Walls,” the guard replied, his voice uneasy. “He—he has Valyrian features. We believe he must have fallen from the Walls.”
Dila’s heart skipped a beat. Her pulse quickened with curiosity. She didn’t believe the story for a second. A traveler, perhaps? Definitely a way to break the boredom of yet another Tigers gathering.
“Where did you find him?” Qorlo demanded sharply.
“Wandering near the outskirts,” the guard replied.
“He claims not to remember who he is. Says he has amnesia.”
Dila tilted her head, intrigued. “Amnesia, you say?”
The guard nodded. “He’s… unusual. His hair, his eyes—he looks like Old Blood, but there’s something different about him.”
Qorlo was silent for a moment, thinking. Dila could see the wheels turning in his mind. A Valyrian stranger, lost and wandering near the Black Walls?
“Bring him to me,” Qorlo commanded finally.
Dila watched as the guard left, her mind spinning with possibilities. A Valyrian stranger in Volantis. Someone who looked like them but wasn’t one of them. Her curiosity, always her most dangerous trait, flared to life.
**********
Aegon felt the dry heat of the Volantene sun against his skin, even within the cool stone walls of Qorlo’s estate. He shifted uncomfortably on the low-backed chair in the great hall, trying to focus. His body ached from days of wandering, his throat was parched, and his head throbbed with a dull pain that hadn’t left him since he’d woken on the outskirts of Volantis.
His last clear memory was barely a blur—half-formed thoughts and the lingering scent of jasmine. He remembered a woman, a red-haired whore who had cost him nearly nothing. Her lips had been soft and skilled around his cock, her laughter like music. Then, darkness.
When he awoke, it was as if the world had shifted. The smell of the sea had been replaced by dry air, and in the distance, the Black Walls of Volantis loomed like a great beast. He’d stumbled to his feet, disoriented and hungover, and wandered through the outskirts of the city until the guard found him.
Now, he was here, in front of the owner of this palace—a man they called Qorlo. The man was tall, broad-shouldered, his violet eyes much like Aegon’s, but sharp as they studied him. Qorlo was no fool. Even through Aegon’s ruse of amnesia, the man sensed something off about him, something different.
“You don’t remember how you came here?” Qorlo asked, his voice more curious than accusatory.
Aegon hesitated, his hand tightening slightly on the armrest of his chair. “I remember… pieces,” he lied, keeping his voice steady. “Waves. Wind. Then nothing. My name... it escapes me.” He glanced up through the tousled strands of his silver-gold hair, trying to appear convincingly lost.
Aegon said nothing. He didn’t need to. His memory—still vivid about everything except the previous night—dragged him back home. The coronation that should have been his, the wars that would rage over his name, the throne that haunted his every waking moment—it all felt like a noose tightening around his neck.
He’d heard the whispers that the women of Volantis could do things no Westerosi whore would dare, and, in his drunken stupor, the thought of leaving King’s Landing had seemed not just appealing, but necessary.
So he’d fled.
There was a twisted irony in the way Qorlo had gotten close to him, perhaps too close, inspecting the color of his eyes and touching his silver hair. All Aegon wanted was to forget that he was a Targaryen, to curse the name and the family that had condemned him to a life of expectations and duties he had no interest in fulfilling. He remembered his last words to his brother: “I have no wish to rule! No taste for duty! I'm not suited!”
Whatever was happening in King’s Landing now, Aegon was sure they would manage without him. Perhaps even better. Free from his troublemaking, free from the shame he carried, free from his incompetence.
A life of indulgence, bought with the coin he had taken from the crown’s fortune, had seemed the most exciting prospect. Yet, once again, his blood betrayed him.
He knew the weight his features carried in these lands—perhaps more than in the Seven Kingdoms. Valyrian blood meant something here. He could see the wheels turning in Qorlo’s head, calculating, deciding whether Aegon was an enemy or a tool to be used. Perhaps even an ally.
Before Qorlo could speak again, the door opened, and in walked a woman.
Aegon turned, and his breath caught in his throat.
She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
Her hair shimmered silver and gold in the dim light, falling in waves down her back. Her skin was pale as moonlight, and her eyes—like the sea on a stormy day—pierced through him. She moved with the grace of a queen, but there was something sharper about her, something that cut through the air as she entered.
His heart thudded once, hard. Rhaenyra might have been the realm’s delight once, but this woman… This woman was different. She was destined to be the whole world’s delight. She was beauty made flesh, the very image of a goddess walking before him.
Their eyes met for only a brief moment, but it was enough. Something passed between them—a spark, a recognition. He could feel her curiosity, her assessment of him. She was no idle ornament. There was intelligence behind those pale blue eyes, and ambition.
She stepped gracefully beside Qorlo, her gaze never leaving Aegon. “Who is this?” she asked, her voice smooth and measured, though there was a glint of intrigue in it.
“He claims to have no memory,” Qorlo replied, glancing at his wife. “Wandered near the Black Walls. Look at him—he has the look of the Old Blood, yet no name.”
“I don’t remember it,” Aegon quickly said, more eager to speak to the woman than to sell his lie. He immediately cursed himself for how redundant that must have sounded.
Dila’s gaze flickered over him, and Aegon could feel her eyes studying him, as if weighing his very soul. He kept his expression as blank as possible, trying to maintain the facade.
“Strange,” she mused, tilting her head slightly. Her lips curled into a smile.
Aegon studied her for a second. He had the distinct impression that behind her simple remark, there was something more. Suddenly, he felt exposed, as though she had stripped him of every lie he had told on his journey—and perhaps even in his entire life.
She turned to Qorlo, her voice soft but commanding. “We should keep him.”
Qorlo raised an eyebrow, surprised. “Keep him?”
Dila nodded, her gaze still fixed on Aegon. “Think of it, husband. The spirits of our ancestors have sent us another son of Valyria, right on the eve of the elections. Surely this is a sign. He has silver hair and violet eyes—every Valyrian feature exactly as it should be. We could use him.”
Qorlo’s eyes flickered with interest, though he remained cautious. “And what would we do with a man who has no name?”
“Names can be given,” Dila replied, a slight smile on her lips. “What matters is that he is here. The people will see him. They will see that the old souls of Valyria send their lost sheep to the most capable shepherd.”
Qorlo seemed to consider her words, glancing between her and Aegon. Aegon, for his part, remained silent, watching them both with careful eyes. He knew his fate hung in the balance.
Finally, Qorlo nodded. “Very well. He will stay.”
Aegon exhaled slowly, relief flooding through him. He had bought himself time.
But as Dila’s eyes lingered on him, Aegon could not shake the feeling that he had stepped into something far more dangerous than he had anticipated.
#aegon ii fanfic#aegon targaryen smut#aegon#aegon ii targaryen#aegon targaryen fanfic#aegon x oc#hotd#hotd fanfic
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hello, are you okay? well, I want to solicit an scenario of Bi-Han biker. Btw, I love how you write
"I would have never thought you'd own a motorbike." "Why? We are isolated, but not monks." Bi-Han snaps back. You look at him, he is wearing a black leather jacket, you noticed previously how in the back a tiger is embroidered, golden accents making it shine under the moonlight. The pants are black and baggy, but they get tighter towards the ankles to make sure no air could come up. Deep night blue stripes on the sides, matching the colour of his usual uniform. "Well, I suppose you should thank Sektor for his amazing work ." "Yes, he took care both of the motorbike and the clothes. Take this-" A soft and small package is thrown at you, becoming a puff of smoke the second it lands in your hands. When finally you are able to see what is happening, you notice how your clothes changed. A tight silver suit perfectly suits your body, almost like the latex suit that you are used to see in mecha animes. You get a quilted jacket of the same blue of the stripes of Bi Han pants, bigger than your size, but you can already feel how warm it is. Your mind can't help but wander as you look down at the jacket; it is so big that you are sure it would fit Bi-Han way better than you…
When you look up, Bi-Han is standing in front of his motorbike, the moonlight creating beautiful shadows and lights on his body, some stray hair escape his bun and frame his face, that right now isn't looking at you, his arms crossed and brows furrowed.
"Is everything fine?"
"Yeah, just…Sektor is an idiot. C'mon, pass me one of the helmets behind you."
"Okay…catch!" You throw his one towards him, a bit too high, but it's not a problem for Bi-Han catching it with one hand, you can see his muscles bulging under the leather jacket, a real sight.
"Get behind me. There is a place I want to show you." You nod, following his order.
Bi-Han doesn't go slow, fast speed the second you are both ready. After all, it would be a lie to say he didn't go fast on purpose, every movement planned to feel your arms tight on his waist, your head on his shoulder, chest against his back. He'd stay like that forever, with the stars light on you, two heart with the same beat in the hidden street of the Arctika forest.
And your grip gets even tighter when Bi-Han goes full speed on the hairpin bends, a smile plastered on his face at your every twitch.
"Aren't you going too fast?" You almost squeak out, getting impossibly close to him.
"Trust me." Bi-Han smirks enjoying each second of this.
The ride doesn't take much more time, his motorbike stopping in a clearing between the mountains. You both stand up now, Bi-Han already missing your warmth.
"Wow-" It's the only thing you can say. The landscape is breathtaking. Sky and mountains blending, stars shining bright and some snow is covering the grass.
But the real surprise is the tablecloth on the ground, with already lit candles and a thermal bag in which you guessed warm food is waiting both of you.
"Bi-Han, this is wonderful."
"I hoped you would have liked this." He says, removing his helmet and sitting on the cloth, patting his hand where he wants you to sit, exactly next to him. His eyes stuck on yours, still half hidden by the helmet that you soon put on the ground, wanting to see his charming face as clearly as possible.
Your heart bursts with joy, Bi-Han always so cold and rude thought of a nice date for you two. His arm goes around your shoulder while you eat, admiring the view in front of you; not the landscape, but a happy Bi-Han squeezing you as close as possible to him.
Under the shining stars, you hope you'll see this side of him more often.
#mk x reader#mk1 x reader#mortal kombat x reader#bi han#sub zero#bi han x reader#every time I get a compliment it gets straight to my head#cocaine? Nah better a compliment for a good work LMAO#hope you liked this!
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NEW! Tiger color block shirt! 100% cotton, S-5XL 🐯 Embroidered with a lil guy on the chest
I've actually been sitting on this design for over a year haha. Releases on Wednesday Sept 20 at 5 pm ET!
#merch#clothing#indie fashion#apparel#tiger#color block#cute clothes#fashion design#fashion designer#artists on tumblr#animals
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nice! in that case i'll request omega/terzo just anything random you might think of, no specific prompt because i'm curious about how you imagine them being first
pretty sure this is my terzomega writing debut. i hope ive done them justice--they really are a fun pair!
Omega presses into his back, resting his chin on Terzo’s head. He slips his arms into the sleeves of his ornate papal robes to clasp around his middle, humming a rumbling, contented noise. It’s innocent enough, but to seasoned ears, it’s laced with mischief.
“Why is it that every time I sit in the front pews you can’t take your eyes off me?” the quintessence ghoul teases.
“I know nothing of what you speak of, my ghoul,” Terzo chides in reply, feigning disinterest. He smooths his palms over the leather-bound tome full of sermons and ancient scriptures in various dead languages, centering it on the ebony pulpit.
“Oh, no? You’re very mysterious, Papa, but that white eye is very easy to follow.” Omega runs his hands over his middle, claws grazing the buttons of his shirt.
“Do not taunt me as if you are completely innocent, Omega.” Terzo turns his head slightly, peeking at him out of the corner of his eye coquettishly. “Your mask does not hide your smirk as well as you think.”
No longer burdened by the fake visage, Omega flashes him a genuine smile, all fang. The big alabaster incisors make him look like a starved but playful tiger, with Terzo as his prey. “Ah, so you were looking.” Omega drops his head down to nuzzle against Terzo’s painted cheek, no doubt coating his own in a smear of black and white.
Terzo chuckles at the affectionate gesture. “Can you blame me, caro?” He pats Omega’s clasped hands over the chasuble.
“I have been told I am quite irresistible, yes.”
The Papa sucks his teeth and scoffs, slipping out of Omega’s hands and turning to face him. He chucks the ghoul under his chin lightheartedly. “Such a humble beast you are,” he teases.
“I learned from the best.”
Terzo smirks at that, stepping closer and running his gloved hands up the quintessence ghoul’s sides. Omega mirrors him, resting his hands at the man’s waist and pulling him close. He smells of incense and expensive cologne, but underneath both strong aromas is the scent of arousal, quickly ripening at the closeness of their bodies.
“I do believe the devil is reaching out to me tonight—whispering in my ear, as it were,” Terzo says in that rumbling, seductive tone. He smooths a hand over Omega’s chest, tracing over the line of embroidered elemental symbols and coming to rest underneath the heavy silver pendant.
Omega leans in, just close enough to feel a little huff of breath ghost over his chin. “And what is our Dark Lord saying to you, Papa?”
Terzo smiles, playing with the metal symbol, twirling it between his fingers. He runs the tip of his nose along the side of Omega’s—teasing, toying. “He’s telling me to indulge," he purrs. "To sin." He drags his mouth along the ghoul's cheekbone, halting at the shell of his pointed ear. "To live deliciously," he whispers.
Omega chuckles low in his throat. “You know, I do believe I’ve been ignoring my confessions recently,” he rumbles. He grips a little tighter on Terzo’s waist, leaning into the lips on his ear. “May I divulge to you, Papa?”
“I was hoping you’d say that, my ghoul.” Terzo pulls him by the necklace over to the confessional booth in the corner of the chapel. It’s a tight squeeze with both of them on one side of the box, but they press close, the back of Terzo’s knees knocking against the small bench as Omega draws the curtain closed. They don’t have to be secretive, not really. But it’s part of the allure, the tongue-in-cheek roles they play.
Terzo pulls him down into a kiss, licking into his mouth with fervor. Omega returns the enthusiasm, cradling the man’s face between his hands. Terzo fumbles with his robes, rucking up the hem and shucking off the chasuble in one swoop.
He grabs one of Omega’s wrists and forces his hand to palm at his crotch, cock already tenting against the fly of his trousers. “Look at what you do to me, mi amore.” He grinds into his hand with a groan and captures Omega’s mouth in another kiss. It’s fast and dirty, heavy with need.
The quintessence ghoul hums against Terzo’s mouth when he feels his cock kick under his palm. “Bless me, unholy Father,” he whispers between kisses, “for I must sin.” He gropes him through the fabric of his pants, stroking roughly once, twice.
Terzo moans long and decadent before pulling away. His lips are spit-slick and pink, now completely devoid of any makeup. Omega supposes it’s smeared across his own face instead. Terzo’s gaze flicks pointedly to the ground and back up again, his white eye almost glowing in the dark of the booth. “On your knees then,” he commands, pressing a single finger into Omega’s broad chest.
He goes down without a fight, eyes fixed on his Papa’s as he sinks to his knees. “That’s a good ghoul,” Terzo smirks. He strips off the leather gloves, biting each by one of the fingers and pulling them off with a classic flourish. He then makes quick work of freeing himself from his trousers, making a show of pulling his length out and stroking it from base to tip in front of Omega’s face.
The quintessence ghoul grips the back of Terzo’s thighs, eyeing him hungrily. He slides his hands all the way up to his waist, groaning low in the back of his throat, looking at him reverently. “You’re so small I could just . . .” Omega wraps his hands fully around Terzo’s middle, claws touching together at the small of his back.
“I am not small, mi amore, you are just a big hellbeast,” he chides, giving the side of his face a firm pat. But he can’t hide the flush that creeps up from under the facepaint, bleeding down his throat in a rosy red.
Omega hums, sliding his hands down to rest on Terzo’s hips instead, pressing closer to his cock. Terzo strokes a thumb over his bottom lip, through the gray smears of makeup and into his mouth. The quintessence ghoul opens up obediently, lolling his tongue out for Terzo to pet over. He presses down slightly, right in the middle, as if placing a wafer for sacrament. Saliva pools under the digit as Omega looks up at him, excruciatingly doe-eyed.
“Now, Omega,” he says, drawing out his name in his signature way, smiling suggestively. “Start praying.”
#can you believe theres not direct smut in this? blasphemy#crow caws#anon#the band ghost#crow writes#fanfic#ficlet#the band ghost fanfic#terzo#papa emeritus iii#omega ghoul#terzo x omega#terzomega#omega x terzo
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Viridian Mercy: Chapter 1
“...Hello…? Can you hear me…?”
I breathed in deep as my senses started to return to me. Something bright shone in my eyes; I shied away from it, turning my head with a groan.
“Can you tell me your name?”
The light went away suddenly, and a gentle hand guided my head upright again. I did not recognize the person tending to me, but they had the universal sign for medicine embroidered on their uniform.
“Hey, can you tell me your name?” They tried again to get me to focus.
I tried speaking, but coughed instead. This time I was good. “...Samantha Down.”
“Okay, good. Do you know where you are right now?”
I glanced around for clues. Nothing really came to me… there was a mask on my face, and little bugs crawling around my person. It was nighttime on this planet… last time I was awake, it was broad daylight.
How long was I out for? How long had I been dying?
“...Don’t know…” I eventually croaked out, trying to move away from this stranger.
“Alright. My name is Veth, I'm gonna be taking care of you, okay?” The medic strapped something to my arm, and waved someone else to join her. They worked together to hoist me onto what felt like a bed but I could only assume it was a stretcher, then hovered me to somewhere cooler and with less bugs.
In my delirium, I could only see shining lights and cold metal. This girl was kind of cute, though. It was only a passive thought as I stared at her… I wasn’t really myself at that moment.
“Doing okay, Samantha?” The medic tied a tourniquet onto my arm, found a vein, then swabbed the arm with a cold alcohol wipe.
“...Just Sam…” All I could think to say was correcting her on my name. I hated the name Samantha.
“Alright, Sam, you're gonna feel a little pinch.” And a pinch I felt. Didn't hurt that much, compared to how the rest of my body was feeling. Aching, bruises, maybe a broken bone somewhere.
I don't even remember how this happened. Or how the Viridian Alpha-Hotel team found me.
“Human female in her twenties, BP 90 over 75. Pulse 48. How are you feeling, Sam?” Clearly an attempt to keep me awake as the world drifted and blurred.
I tried my best to keep my eyes on her. But she definitely injected me with something. “...Fine.”
She smiled a little, looking confused. She glanced up at her partner. “...Pretty impressive.”
“Yeah,” the other one chuckled. “If that were me, I'd be crying on the floor right now.”
“...I'm good like that.” I smirked, attempting humor. It worked.
“Alright, Sam,” the medic refocused, untying the tourniquet and keeping an IV in my arm. “We're gonna take you somewhere safer.”
“Cool.”
“I want you to count down from ten for me, okay?” The medic found another needle, checking it for air bubbles before injecting it.
“...Okay. Ten… nine…”
I don't remember anything after that.
---
Viridian Alpha-Hotel were some pretty slick dudes, that was for sure. I was patched up in no time.
I woke up again in a small bed, somewhere sterile, somewhere white. Really white. Somehow my own skin didn’t even compare.
They decided to keep that girl near me, checking things like vitals and noting down my condition. She must have been a doctor on-call or something.
“Hi, Sam!” The medic looked up as my heart rate quickened, and it was detected on the monitor. She stood from her seat, setting aside her tablet. “How are you feeling?”
“Pretty… pretty slow.” Slow was the right word. I felt more awake, but somewhat groggy, and everything else somehow moved faster than me.
“Any pain or numbness?”
“Hurts, yeah.” I tapped my left arm to my head, then my chest.
“You took a few hits in those places, yeah. Bruised up pretty good.” The medic nodded slowly, keeping her hands together out of politeness. “Can you tell me what happened?”
“I… I think…” I closed my eyes, trying to sort through the fog. I took a few seconds. “...I got jumped by some wild animal. I'm good, you know, but I'm not that good. Killing tigers is way easier than whatever I killed.”
The medic nodded, collecting her tablet again to write down some notes. “So, Sam, it looks like you sustained some lacerations and deeper cuts that needed stitches, so we went ahead and did that. I wouldn't recommend going back to work anytime soon, at least for a couple of days until you've healed up.”
“...Eh.” I rolled my head to the side. “...It was a shit job anyway.”
“You…” the doctor paused for a second.
I decided to clarify. “I'm a privateer, actually. I take whatever odd jobs people give me. Shit like treasure hunting and studying animals and stuff like that.”
“Oh, I see. So you mean this job is not…”
“Not worth it, no.” I rolled my eyes. “Didn't pay me nothing, and for what? Getting my eyes gouged out by a giant dinosaur? Hell no.”
The doctor laughed at that, and wrote down something else. “Understood. Well, I'm going to let you rest for a while. If you need anything, just press that button over there.”
She stood up, and gestured to the button. I glanced at it, then decided I wouldn't use it. Too tough for that.
The doctor walked off now, sliding the glass door over, and made sure to keep the curtains closed before leaving. I was alone with myself, again…
…Running out of options.
Not like I was gonna be able to job search any time soon anyway.
---
“Miss Down?”
A new voice, deeper and masculine. I blinked awake from my nap… or perhaps it was already tomorrow. No windows in this place, so it was hard to tell without a clock.
I glanced around for the voice, and it came attached to this large-looking fellow, a familiar reptilian face. I was having a hard time placing his name, but judging by the dark green suit and luxurious tie, I figured he seemed important.
“Ah, I'm sorry to bother you…” he took a seat in the chair nearby. Tried keeping it casual. “...But I was just wondering if you would happen to be looking for work at some point soon.”
“N-now?” I sputtered, trying not to laugh. “Sir, respectfully, I just got my shit rocked.”
“I know! I know that.” He laughed a little, raising his hands. “I don't mean right this second. But when you've healed a bit, I mean.”
“Well…” I shrugged as best I could. “...I mean, I guess I'll need to look for work anyway… but it depends on the job.”
He laughed again, as if I had said something stupid. Even if I had, I was drugged up on dope and morphine. Can't exactly blame me.
“...My name is Re’lio D'varaas.” He took a second to properly introduce himself. “I’m one of the spokepeople of Viridian Corp.”
“Oh.” Now I understood. Dude was fishing for workers for his own company. I let out a sigh, and he caught that.
“I understand you may not be interested or, uh, you might be too out of sorts for a proper answer…” He shuffled around to find something in his pockets. “...But at the very least, I just wanted to chat about it. I'll give you my card…”
He finally found his card to contact, in a lustrous green with white writing on it. The card looked pretty cool, I had to admit that, at least. But I took offense to the fact that he was looking for workers in a goddamn hospital.
He must have sensed my annoyance. “...Miss Down—”
“Just Sam is fine.”
“Okay, Sam… they just happened to pull your record of jobs, and I happen to have access to those records. I came to you because your streak of finished jobs is near perfect, and the feedback you've gotten is astounding! I would just like to say, if you were interested, no interview would be required.” He gave a smile, with a lot of little pointy teeth. I always thought those were fun. “Just take some time to think about it, and if you want to join Viridian, just give me a call.”
“...Okay.” I brushed some of my hair around. Happened to bump into a sore spot. “...I'll let you know.”
“Fantastic. Get some rest now… and again, I'm sorry for the intrusion.” He stood up now, sorting all of his things, and gave me a little wave as he exited.
That was… really weird to me. I have never gotten a sudden job offer like that, especially at a hospital. But if he snooped around the way he did, and found my records, I suppose I would jump at the chance too.
I shone the card against the light of the room. A beautiful color, the edges tapered, and his name on the back.
Part of me wondered… what it would be like to work with that doctor.
I rolled my eyes, quickly dismissing the thought. There was no way I would be assigned to work with her anyway. Unless maybe I asked.
Ain't no way in hell am I doing that.
I placed the card onto the table next to me, and tried to quiet my thoughts until I fell asleep again.
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Hi again, Aqua! For the fall prompts, may I request Chevalier + changing seasons + fluff with a side of he's caught cold and his voice is all nasally?
Do you know what a challenge it was to make Chevalier - a man so perfect, he would never get sick - come down with a cold?
The Queen's Command - Chevalier Michel x Reader (Ikemen Prince)
A/N: Part of the Fall Fluff / Autumn Angst ccc hosted by myself and @violettduchess
Pairing: Chevalier Michel x Reader
Prompt: changing seasons
Tags: fluff
How many years have you stood in this room watching him? How many springs, summers, autumns and winters have you watched him grow, admiring him more and more with each year together? He sat at his desk, tall in his chair, as he had done for so many years, meticulously reviewing the documents before him.
Upon a first glance, one would not think he had even changed much over the years - his hair was still light and golden, the crinkles around his eyes when he smiled only slightly more prominent. There was, however, one more obvious change recently.
You watched with amusement as he held the document further away, a poor attempt to read its contents with minimal squinting. With a disappointed sigh, he reached into a draw to retrieve his reading glasses. Putting them on with a frown, he continued his review.
“I find them annoying. A hindrance,” he said without looking up from his papers, answering you before you even said a word. His voice sounded off. Not his usual rich baritone, it sounded nasally, as if he was coming down with a cold.
“But they make you look so handsome.” You approached his desk, perching on its edge. Thumb on his chin, you tilted his face up to yours, blue eyes bright and deep as the ocean. "But…"
You pressed the back of your hand against his forehead. Warm. “How do you feel?”
“I feel -”
He turned his head as he removed a golden silk handkerchief embroidered with his crest from his breast pocket with a fluid grace that only came with being born into royalty. Tilting his face to the side away from you, he quietly sneezed into the cloth. Even his sneeze was perfect and majestic.
He returned the handkerchief to his pocket and looked at you, his expression stoic. “I feel fine.”
“You’re not fine,” you argued, your voice rising. “You need to rest.”
“I have work to finish,” he said, his gaze returning to the pile of documents on his desk.
“It’s already late; Clavis can finish that tomorrow.” Chevalier bristled and looked up at you in horror, as if you had suggested something truly wretched. “Queen’s command,” you ordered. He raised an eyebrow, silently questioning you.
“As your queen,” you said, staring straight into his icy eyes, “I demand you rest. Let me take care of you.”
Your fingers caressed his cheek before removing his reading glasses; he sighed loudly as you returned them to their designated place in his drawer. Taking his gloved hand in yours, you nudged him up and out of his chair.
With your king by your side, you smiled at him, pleased with how compliant he had been, your smile soon fading when you realized he was likely more under the weather than he had been letting on. You walked in silence as you made your way back to your shared bedroom.
Once there, you both got ready for bed, quickly changing into your night clothes.
“Read to me?” he asked as you joined him in the large bed.
“Of course,” you replied. He smiled at you softly as he handed you the book that was lying on the table by his bed. Pulling the soft covers over your bodies, Chevalier rested his head on your chest, his body warm against yours.
Your fingers traced the ornate gold-embossed lettering on the leather bound book in your hands; it was a newer book, one you had picked up for Chevalier only a few weeks ago, when the bookstore you used to work at received a new shipment of books from a nearby foreign country.
Opening the book to where he had left off, you began to read aloud while his arm curled around your waist. Stroking his soft hair, you soon noticed the tiger in your arms was fast asleep. Closing the book quietly, you returned it to the nightstand where it came from. Your head soon found the comfort of the plush pillow underneath, your arms embracing your love. You brushed a kiss to his forehead before allowing your eyes to drift closed.
Tagging: @redheadkittys @alixennial @rhodolitesrose @atelieredux @kissmetwicekissmedeadly @chaosangel767 @queengiuliettafirstlady @queen-dahlia @devildomwritersposts @talfollowingstuff @kpop-and-otome @kisara-16 @altairring @lucyw260 @lordsisterxotome @violettduchess @umi-adxhira @bellerose-arcana @yarnnerdally @scorchieart @crypticbibliophile @cilokgoang
#fall fluff autumn angst ccc#ikemen series#ikemen prince#ikepri#chevalier michel#ikepri chevalier#ikemen chevalier#ikemen fanfic#ikepri fanfic#otome#otome games
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The Other Flea Circus
tagged: M/M, fleas, itching kink
A garish banner above the entrance read "The Magical Flea Circus of Doctor Pullix". Next to the entrance a restaurant's menu board with a poster on it advertised "The Other Flea Circus - After Dark! ADULTS ONLY! 11:45 Tonight!"
Luca stood before the tent. How had he ever agreed to this? It didn't matter - what's done was done. He moved the flap aside and entered.
"Good evening, visitor, but you are early for the-- Oh, it's you! Come in, come in!" the Doctor was already in his performance outfit. A purple suit and a black cape embroidered with little golden fleas. He wore a fancy dress tophat, a pair of cheap plastic goggles painted the color of brass glued on it. Pullix embraced Luca and kissed him on each cheek. "Nice to see you too, Doctor."
Right. That was the reason he had agreed. Antonio. Or, "Doctor Ichabod Pullix, Master of the Fleas, Scratcher of the Backs." A handsome man if Luca had ever seen one. And seen him he had. Two or three times per week in his dingy trailer, the bed dangerously close to his flea-breeding laboratory.
Luca was dressed simpler than the Doctor. A bathrobe and a pair of flip flops.
"Let's not waste any time, then! The audience will be in any minute." Luca nodded to the doctor and removed the bathrobe. Underneath it, he wore a thong swimsuit. Purple, matching the Doctor's suit color. He caught the Doctor staring at his body. And why wouldn't he? Luca's job here at the carnival was dancing. And not just any dancing - aerial silk. That meant training every day to maintain a perfect swimmer's physique.
"Like what you see?" Luca said. "You know I do..." It was Luca's turn to kiss him now. On the lips - and he guided the man's hand to cup the bulge in his swimsuit. This left Doctor Pullix a sweaty, blushing mess. "Break a leg, Doctor."
Luca changed into another dressing gown. This one was silk, a lot more eyecatching with its intricate floral pattern. Doctor Pullix was at the tent entrance, greeting the gathered crowd.
"Ladies! Gentlemen! And all beyond and between! Welcome to the Other Flea Circus! Enough with the trickery of wires and rails! Tonight, we witness the fleas perform as they want to perform! The hunger for blood is the sole thing on these tiny vampires' minds! And feed them, we shall!" The Doctor ushered the guests inside. A small crowd - eight people. His daytime shows usually gathered twice that.
There was a table set up in the middle of the tent. A slightly modified medical examination table covered in a luxurious white silk bedsheet. There were a few metal loops welded to the sides of it.
"We meet our top performer tonight!" Pullix approached Luca, taking him gently by the wrist. "Some say the bravest men in the world are those who dare face the lions and tigers! But I say..." Pullix grabbed the sash of Luca's robe and pulled it loose. The robe hung open, revealing a glimpse of his chest, his toned abs, his thong and the bulge it covered. A few subdued gasps came from the audience. "...I say that those who dare face off against the smallest beasts are braver! One can battle the lion and tiger, but there is no fighting back against a swarm!"
The Doctor eased the robe off his shoulders. Luca looked over the small crowd. Each guest had an identical black collar on - as did the Doctor. Flea collars?
Luca sat on the examination table. Doctor Pullix put a blindfold on him, a length of black silk. Next, he tied his ankles and wrists to the loops welded to the edge of the table. "Good luck." He whispered into his ear.
"Now, honored guests, who will volunteer to introduce our performer to his stage partners?" A few of the audience members raised their hands. Pullix picked one at random. A middle-aged woman, wearing a domino mask - was it for privacy or was she just getting into character? "Miss! Will you please come and choose a container?" The lady came on over to Pullix' side. He had set up a small table. It was covered in drinking glasses and bottles, each covered with a layer of paper with a pull tab. The containers bore a little tag each, stating a number and a price.
The woman in the domino mask choose a small shot glass. The label read "4 - $5". "Perfect choice! As you volunteered to go first - yours is free." Doctor Pullix leaned in closer to her. "Turn the container over him and pull the tab." He turned to the audience again. "Remember, kind guests! You may not touch him unless he permits it."
The lady stood over the blindfolded, bound Luca. He could feel her presence as she watched over his body. He heard her breathing, the rustling of clothes following her movements. But he felt as if her gaze left an itching trail over him. And the show had not even started.
A subtle wave of air broke him out of it. The woman had lowered the shot glass over Luca's abs. She pulled the paper tab, and the covering ripped apart.
"And so our show begins!" Pullix said.
The guests gathered closely around Luca. Some brandished magnifying glasses. There, on his stomach, were four tiny black specs. The specs moved over his abs. Their pace was excruciating, a slow, slow crawl. A silence hung heavy in the air, until...
One of the fleas bit Luca. Just above his navel, at the apex of one of his abs. His body jerked. It had felt like a pinprick. A little moan left his lips, more of surprise than pain.
The audience clamored for Doctor Pullix. In no time at all, the table with the containers of fleas was empty. The professor stroked Luca on his foot and tucked away the profits in an inner pocket of his cloak.
"One at a time, please!"
The first wave of fleas had all taken a bite out of Luca now. A constellation of five red spots graced the pale skin of his belly. Two just over the waistband of his thong. One on the very edge of his bellybutton. One at the peak of his ab, and one off to the side, almost on his hip. The itches did not lag far behind. Luca instinctively tried to scratch himself, but the restraints of his wrists stopped it.
"You, sir!" Pullix said, waving toward a man who was leaning over Luca, inspecting the bugbite on the rim of his navel. "Would you like to release the second party of guests on our friend's body?"
The man nodded and stood. He had taken a bottle, this one with just two fleas in it. Pullix saw where the man was headed, and gently helped Luca spread his legs apart. The man placed the bottle down between Luca's thighs, opening turned toward his crotch, and pulled the tab. The two bugs left their glass prison quickly. Both crawled down underneath him. He felt an unpleasant tickle along his buttcrack, and then the sharp pinpricks of the fleas' bites.
This was a lot more startling than those bites on his stomach. Luca shook and gasped. "Oh... That was low." Luca laughed softly. "Will somebody please scratch my stomach? You can hardly imagine how it feels..." "Not yet, darling." said Pullix. "Scratching will come later in the show - and it costs extra"
The guests took their turns emptying their containers of fleas on Luca. Most aimed for his stomach and his chest. One of the women emptied her bottle of five fleas right into his hair. The bites on his scalp made him shiver with the sheer surprise of it. Worse yet, Pullix saw fit to irritate the itch by ruffling his hair. The fleas moved around on his body, too. Luca felt bites on the small of his back and between his shoulderblades, where his body arched to allow the insects invading him a gap to crawl into.
"Please, please, I am begging, Doctor Pullix... Let them scratch me." "In due time, dear." The Doctor pulled Luca's thong down, letting it hang around his knees. His bush was trimmed into a stylish triangular patch of hair. "Have you ever had crabs, darling?" "No, Doctor." "How lucky. Your future partners might find a different surprise lurking in this gorgeous patch of hair, though."
Pullix stroked over Luca's cock. Despite the itching that burned on every part of his body, Luca was able to get hard. The Doctor knew how to get an erection out of him. It had gotten to the point where itching got Luca excited. He'd always end up with fleabites after a night in Doctor Pullix' bed. Never like this, though. He bit his lower lip at a familiar sensation. Pullix had slid a warm rubber ring over his cock, pulling it behind his balls with great care. He knew exactly which ring it was, too.
Now, the Doctor rounded up a few of the fleas from Luca's belly in his palm. He released the bugs all over Luca's crotch. The bites prompted the strongest reaction yet. Luca whimpered, whole body shaking as he tried to pull away from the table and the itchy torment.
"Soon, soon, darling! Guests, some space, please! You may leave your containers on the table while we move to the second act..."
Pullix released the bindings, first from Luca's ankles, then, his wrists. "Don't. Scratch." he whispered into his ear.
It took all of Luca's focus to keep himself from digging his nails into his skin and scratching every single part of his body. He felt the fleabites throbbing, a deep pulsing itch. His most sensitive parts itched the worst. It was as if his cock, his balls, his ass crack and his neck had been set on fire. The majority of bites graced his stomach and his lower back but the itch there paled before those tender parts of his body.
Luca was shaking and sweating when Pullix tied him to two of the sturdy poles holding the tent up. He was naked save for the blindfold, skin covered in itching red bites. Fleas crawled all over the man. The audience surrounded him on every side. The fleas did not jump to the other people gathered here. The flea collars they wore acted as a powerful repellent.
"Please, everybody... I beg you. Scratch me. Scratch me everywhere." "People, attention please! If you wish to join in the scratching, that will be a $50 charge!"
Every single audience member paid the 50. They descended on Luca, a flurry of sixteen groping, scratching hands. The hands moved hungrily, wishing to cover every little bit of the dancer's skin. The relief was intense. Luca could not think anymore. The only thing in his mind was the extreme ecstasy of relief. He tried to thank the people, but all he could manage now were low moans. Was he gonna cum? The thought flashed briefly through his mind. A new wave of pleasure washed over him and swept that thought away. One of the women had spread his ass cheeks apart and went for the bites hidden along his crack.
The rubber cock ring Pullix had put on Luca did its job. He did not finish during the scratching frenzy. Even when two of the male guests focused on scratching at his pubes and his cock at once. Even when that woman dragged her manicured nails across the throbbing bites in his crack. Even when Pullix had whispered "Excellent job." in his ear.
The audience members left soon after midnight. Doctor Pullix released Luca's wrists and ankles from the bindings. Luca, of course, immediately started to itch at himself, now mainly at his stomach. He breathed heavily. "You are my best model yet, do you know that?" "If you're buttering me up for another session... Forget it." "There's a warm bath waiting for you in the back of the tent. It's gonna kill off your fleas and give some itch relief." Antonio spoke softly, out of his Doctor Pullix persona now. "I'll be along soon. I need to get some bug spray in here. And when I get back." He stood before Luca. He reached around, scratched him on the ass. "I will be taking care of this."
Antonio dragged a single finger along the length of Luca's shaft. His fingernail followed the irregular pattern of fleabites on his cock. Luca bit his lips. He shivered as he fell to his knees and came, right on the tent's floor.
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happy gushiwensday thursday!! Let’s have a look at Su Shi’s “Hunting in Mizhou.”
Give me a moment---let an old man talk about his wild years. Hunting dog at my left, goshawk at my right, my embroidered marten-fur cap. We rolled a thousand strong over the hills and flattened them. At my word the city overturned itself to watch me, their governor, shoot a tiger like young Sun Quan. Wine-drunk, bold-chested, free and open; a little white in my hair isn't a crime. I'll carry a seal west to Yunzhong, watch me--- another Feng Tang rides to their aid. My carved bow will become a full moon, point northwest, and shoot the Wolf Star over Xia.
notes and original text under the cut!
江城子·密州出猎
老夫聊发少年狂,左牵黄,右擎苍,锦帽貂裘,千骑卷平冈。为报倾城随太守,亲射虎,看孙郎。 酒���胸胆尚开张。鬓微霜,又何妨!持节云中,何日遣冯唐?会挽雕弓如满月,西北望,射天狼。
This was a fun one to wrestle with because there’s a LOT of historical references in it. I went for a vaguely “Anglo Saxon bragging poem” vibe, because that’s the kind of bragging poem I know.
an old man --- He uses an old man pronoun 老夫 right off the bat here. Baike notes that he was about 40 when he wrote it, lol.
My hunting dog, my goshawk --- the dog is rendered simply as “yellow” and the hawk as “blue,” I don’t know if this is a common phrase or what. If we didn’t have annotations I’d be so lost.
and flattened them --- I think it’s actually referring to “flat ridges/hills,” ie not very tall, but the braggart vibe goes well with exaggerating the power of your hunting companions.
At my word --- 报 is an interesting word here. If you interpret it as “repay” it’s kind of a pious governor thing to do, looking cool so your citizens can be proud of you. If you interpret it as “announce,” it feels more like he’s making everyone watch him. I chose the latter interpretation, since nowhere else in the poem does he think of anyone but himself.
their governor --- 太守 is specifically a provincial governor, but all I can find is that he was a governor of several cities? Which makes me wonder if this poem isn’t actually about himself at all.
young Sun Quan --- we’ve seen an emperor referred to as “XXX-lang” once before, which is making me wonder if this is a Thing, possibly to indicate that it happened before he was emperor? Anyway, Sun Quan famously shot a tiger from horseback. He also worked for Cao Cao for a while as, yes, a provincial governor!
I’ll carry a seal... to their aid --- This whole bit is a reference to Feng Tang, who argued with Emperor Wen of Han to redeem the governor of Yunzhong, Wei Shang, who had misreported some battle statistics. It’s interesting that in this poem about hunting, shooting, and killing, his idea of heroism here has more to do with loyalty or faithfulness. He’s not casting himself as Wei Shang! BTW this poem was written about two years before Su Shi was exiled. Lol.
point northwest... Xia --- ASTRONOMY TIME. So in China, in a stunning coincidence, the star Sirius which the Romans knew as the Dog Star is... also a dog! 天狼 the Heavenly Wolf is just northwest of the tip of the arrow nocked on the Arc of 9 Stars (I THINK this is the Chinese name of the constellation? It shares a lot of stars with Puppis/Canis Major). It’s therefore also associated with conquest and punishment of criminals, and according to Baike it refers to Western Xia, which was actually quite close to Mizhou and probably a thorn in the side of the Song Dynasty.
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Joyful Reunion
Translator: foxghost @foxghost tumblr/ko-fi1 Beta: meet-me-in-oblivion @meet-me-in-oblivion tumblr Original by 非天夜翔 Fei Tian Ye Xiang Masterpost | Characters, Maps & Other Reference Index
Seventh of Seventh · The Distance Between Two Shores
A rising autumn breeze passes through the empty palace hall. Duan Ling hurries through the gallery, the ends of his black robes fluttering in the breeze. His long hair is held in a low ponytail with a single black string, and his soft lips are ever so slightly pursed.
He walks past the swaying silhouettes of trees humming with the last of late summer cicadas, past the garden swirling with yellowing autumn leaves, past dusk adorned with crisp dark shadows cast by lantern light into the fresh night touched with the purple-red tinge of a dying sunset. Life is like a stage, and the curtains have fallen to reveal a sheet of sapphire silk studded with magnificent stars.
Dressed all in black, he seems almost to become one with the night. Slowly, he comes to a stop and stands before the White Tiger idol. Starlight shines down from the vaulted roof of the pavilion after reflecting off its angles. The Zhenshanhe has been placed horizontally on a sword stand, enshrined beneath the claws of the god that rules the autumn season.
This place is like the temple nearest the constellations, and every time Duan Ling stands beneath the white tiger’s gaze, he would feel as if he’s only one step away from the river of stars above. But it calmly blocks Duan Ling’s way as if there is a bustling heavenly realm behind its back, where mortals may not set foot.
“Dad.” Duan Ling walks forward, gently strokes the white tiger’s sharp canine, and puts his face against its ice-cold nose. He says, sounding enchanted, “Another year’s gone by.”
He lights three sticks of incense, and bows to the white tiger idol thrice. An autumn breeze sends the muslin curtains fluttering. The scent of sandalwood wafts through the air. Duan Ling climbs up the idol’s base, crawls into the white tiger’s outstretched, scouting paw, and leans back into its arm. He faces the star-studded firmament as though he’s being held by the white tiger, and in a daze, he lets his mind wander.
Lord White Tiger’s eyes reflect starlight, and its cool jade body gradually warms. Leaning back against the well-defined, powerful muscles of its chest, Duan Ling suddenly senses something.
“Who’s there?” Duan Ling can dimly notice a silhouette behind the muslin curtains.
Another gust of wind brings up the curtain, and a tall man walks into the shrine.
Duan Ling stares at him in shock.
The man has deep-set eyes like stars, with dark eyebrows and soft lips, and he’s dressed in an embroidered pale blue fighter’s robe. The clothes, however, are half foreign and half Han, with the left sleeve tied the way a warrior wears his sleeve, while the right sleeve is left hanging wide like a literati’s. The trajectory of the White Tiger constellation has been embroidered onto his open gown, with the major star done in silver thread, glittering with the same starlight that illuminates the sky.
He has on fighter’s boots decorated with a pattern of clouds, a silver pauldron on his left shoulder. A gem shaped like a water drop adorns his right wrist.
“Dad?” Duan Ling almost can’t believe his own eyes. This is his father, but not the father he knows well; this one is even younger than when Duan Ling met his father for the first time, as though he’s just past twenty. He’s handsome and fair, and there is not a sign of the turmoil and sternness that used to plague his eyes; in place of that is an innate graceful elegance.
Li Jianhong smiles, leaping onto the base of the white tiger idol, and leans against the tiger’s body. The white tiger suddenly starts to move, letting out a low growl, startling Duan Ling.
“How did you …” Staring at this whole get-up, Duan Ling feels a rush of pleasant surprise.
“Become so young?” Li Jianhong says. “Looks like my son’s all grown up though.”
Duan Ling finds it all incredible; he and Li Jianhong seem to be two young men similar in age, and next to each other, Li Jianhong barely looks much older than him at all.
“Even though you’ve grown up, and dad’s gotten younger, you still can’t call me gege.” Li Jianhong jokes, “You couldn’t have imagined what I looked like when I was younger, my son?”
There is nothing but astonishment in Duan Ling’s eyes, and the corner of his mouth keeps turning up for the smile he can’t hide. He picks up Li Jianhong’s hand and stares at the jade on his wrist. “What’s this?”
“Star jade,” Li Jianhong replies with a smile. “I need it to patrol the skies. Here, it’s all yours,” he says, taking it off for Duan Ling.
“I don’t want it,” Duan Ling looks blandly at him, having figured out the meaning behind his father’s frivolous smile. “What’s it good for? It’s not even as pretty as my jade arc.”
“It’s a star,” says Li Jianhong. “One of the many stars in the sky. It controls the fates of everyone in the mortal world. People are always saying, ‘if you want the stars from the sky I’d pluck them down for you’, this is what that means.”
“Dad, have you become a Daoist Immortal?” Duan Ling sounds amazed.
Li Jianhong’s robe flaps in the wind. He gives Duan Ling an enigmatic shh in reply and explains, “Tonight happens to be the Seventh of Seventh, so I came down while the Cowherd and the Weaving Maid are busy seeing each other. I’ll have to head back soon lest they find me out.”
“Will we ever see each other again?” Duan Ling can’t help himself; his voice grows thick with tears.
Li Jianhong calmly watches the tears in Duan Ling’s eyes, but he doesn’t answer. From his reading of the ancient tomes, Duan Ling has gleaned that the gods cannot enter the mortal world without cause, and they must not reveal the ineffable. But to be able to see him once more during this one lifetime already leaves Duan Ling without regrets.
“I see you every day,” Li Jianhong whispers. “I’m always here.”
He pulls Duan Ling to him, putting Duan Ling’s head on his shoulder. He says smilingly, “Do you not have anything else to say? Look how old you are already, and still such a crybaby.”
Duan Ling’s tearful expression turns into a smile. He studies Li Jianhong’s eyes and nose, and he thinks that he is still him; through all these years, Duan Ling has never forgotten every time he’d dreamt of him.
“I had a dream last month.” Duan Ling thinks of this and that, but doesn’t really know what he should say, and ends up saying, “I dreamt of you.”
“Yeah?” Li Jianhong takes off his outer robe and pulls it over them like a blanket as they stargaze together. “What was your dream about?”
Duan Ling pauses to think, but as he’s about to say more, Li Jianhong continues, “You’re like our great ancestor, and like Zhuangzi too — always sleeping and dreaming when you’ve got nothing better to do. One moment you’re turning into a butterfly, another you’re turning into a big fish … watch out you don’t end up getting stuck in your dreams and can’t wake up anymore.”
Duan Ling is smilng again. “Actually, if I can see you in my dreams all the time, I probably wouldn’t want to wake up.”
The two of them lean against each other the way two young men would. Whenever Li Yanqiu used to reminisce about his and Li Jianhong’s youth from time to time, Duan Ling would feel rather envious. Wouldn’t be nice if time can flow backwards so he can be around during his father’s younger days, to conquer the world at his side, or just to administer the realm for him?
But he never could have imagined that he would reunite with his father again under these particular circumstances. In the mortal world, people spend much of their time apart, and reunions are few and far between; it has always been thus. If he dillydallies much longer, his father may have to leave again before they manage to get much of a conversation going.
"In the dream, you took me along on a military campaign to the north to fight the Goryeo empire and the Mongolians. "Duan Ling recalls some details from his dreams, and everything seems so vivid it’s almost like it happened yesterday. He looks up again and says, “Lang Junxia was still alive, and he took me to his village as a guest. Chang Liujun was around too, also Zheng Yan and Wu Du. They were all by my side. Oh, and you gave me this huge lecture.”
Li Jianhong’s expression darkens. “Of course I’d have to lecture you. You follow Wu Du around all day long and don’t even want your dad anymore. Running off all the time doing lord knows what — what if you got lost?”
Duan Ling stares at him in shock.
“You knew?!” Duan Ling is stunned in an instant. “How did you know that?!”
“I don’t know.” The corner of Li Jianhong’s mouth twitches as he immediately washes his hands of the whole thing. “I seriously have no idea.”
“You knew!” Duan Ling grabs Li Jianhong’s sleeve and refuses to let go, arguing, “how else would you have known that I ran off with Wu Du?”
Li Jianhong can’t help but laugh out loud. “Where’s Wu Du? Call him over. It’s been ages since we had a drink together.”
“You two drank together?” Duan Ling sounds flabbergasted. “I never heard him say that.”
The more Li Jianhong says, the worse this gets; it’s his fault really that his own son is too smart, and he’s almost tricked into revealing a bunch of ineffable mysteries. He has no choice but to stop talking, just stares at Duan Ling and smiles.
“What are you smiling about?” Duan Ling frowns.
“There are lots of things I can’t say, so I can only smile. What else can I do?”
Looking at this father’s handsome smile, Duan Ling suddenly isn’t sure what he should say anymore. After a bit of thinking, he says, “So the one in my dreams really was you.”
Li Jianhong raises an eyebrow. He doesn’t refute Duan Ling, but he doesn’t admit to it either. He opens his hand, and in his palm is that star jade, its lustre incomparably gentle, with soft halos sparkling within.
“This is for you, a star from the sky,” Li Jianhong says.
Duan Ling touches it lightly with a finger, and the star jade blossoms with a bright but gentle glow, like he’s been placed in the centre of the Silver River. Its white light fills the space between sky and earth as the Silver River descends, and all at once, Duan Ling feels as though he’s in the middle of an ocean of light.
“Dad.” Duan Ling has a feeling that Li Jianhong is about to vanish in the middle of that ocean.
But Li Jianhong is smiling at him. “Come into my dream, my son.”
Duan Ling cries out, “Dad!”
But Li Jianhong has already become starlight, vanishing from Duan Ling’s side. In the midst of these brilliant rays, Duan Ling feels as though he’s become a lot smaller, all the way back to the time he reunited with his dad for the first time. Li Jianhong looks down at Duan Ling, his smiling eyes filled with tenderness. He reaches out and strokes Duan Ling’s head before turning into a gentle breeze, and on this holiday where girls pray to the stars for hands as nimble as the Weaving Maid’s, he scatters into the horizon.
Seventh of Seventh; the Silver River looks both clear and shallow; how vast can the distance between two shores ever be?
Duan Ling looks all around him. In this gentle dreamscape, the stars are fragments of light undulating on a river; on either shore of a crystalline river, they gaze at each other lovingly without a word.2
This translation is by foxghost, on tumblr and kofi. I do not monetise my hobby translations, but if you’d like to support my work generally or support my light novel habit, you can either buy me a coffee or commission me. This is also to note that if you see this message anywhere else than on tumblr, it was reposted without permission. Do come to my tumblr. It’s ad-free. ↩︎
Two lines from 迢迢牽牛星 / The Distant Cowherd Star, by an anonymous poet during the Han dynasty, is one of the Nineteen Old Poems. ↩︎
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Fic: this body yet survives, ch. 14
Relationship: Lán Zhàn | Lán Wàngjī/Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn
Characters: Lán Zhàn | Lán Wàngjī, Lán Huàn | Lán Xīchén, Lán Qǐrén, Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn, Jiāng Chéng | Jiāng Wǎnyín, Jiāng Yànlí, Su She | Su Minshan, Madam Jin, Jin Zixuan, Wen Qing, Jiāng Fēngmián, Niè Huáisāng
Tags: No War AU, Recovery, Trauma, Dissociation, Courtship, Courting Rituals, Near Death Experiences, Attempted Murder, Eventual Happy Ending, Panic Attacks, Vomiting, Siblings, Protective Siblings, Soup, Triggers, Protective Lan WangJi, Protective Lán Qǐrén, Yúnmèng Siblings Dynamics, Bad Parent Yú Zǐyuān, POV Third Person, POV Lan WangJi, reference to poisoning, reference to assassination, Reference to chronic illness, reference to infanticide, Depression, Minor Injuries, Painting, Gift Giving, Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn Has a Fear of Dogs, Good Sibling Jiāng Chéng | Jiāng Wǎnyín, Good Sibling Jiāng Yànlí
Summary: A confrontation.
Notes: See end.
Parts 1 & 2
Chapter 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13
AO3 link
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After dinner, Jiang Yanli dressed Wei Ying like he was going to war, which Wangji had to admit, he was in a way—even identifying the culprit who applied the locking talisman, Jiang Wanyin had pointed out, didn’t mean there was only one. Hers, however, was a war of symbols.
The robe she chose for him to wear was one he hadn’t seen before, and from Wei Ying’s reaction, he hadn’t either. It was clearly made for a special occasion, not to be worn daily.
The embroidery was intricate and reversible, the look as delicate as a painting while using the five-color system. The fabric was a deeper blue, with a prominent motif of plum trees and blossoms across the bottom, most of the way to the simple light blue belt, done in delicate predominately white embroidery to enhance the symbolism of courage and moral purity. A pair of magpies graced the branches of the trees, a reminder of their impending marriage. Stalking the trunks, a beautifully-rendered tiger, representing Wei Ying’s courage and strength, but also a symbol of protection. Blue dragons stretched up the sleeves, their heads resting on the chest, symbols of healing and harmony. Across the back was a nature scene filled with animals and foliage that kept to a similar motif, from bamboo along a river to soaring cranes.
Included was a modest detachable collar, a four-panel yunjian that had ornate embroidery of mountains and clouds, the first to indicate steadfastness, the latter to remind that Wei Ying was now of GusuLan. Each shoulder was graced with a blue and silver butterfly among the clouds, a symbol of happy marriage.
Wangji wondered if this had been meant to be a wedding gift, and Jiang Yanli was now using it to send a message. It had clearly been made with Wei Ying in mind, the sleeves narrower at the wrists as he preferred. Something so ornate showed his worth and status to any who looked, a statement piece to be treasured.
She offered no explanation for the robe, simply choosing comfortable blue under-robes for it and ordering Jiang Wanyin to help him change. Wei Ying made no effort to protest, clearly overcome by the gift.
When Wei Ying emerged, he was resplendent, the belt resting at the narrowest part of his waist and accentuating his slim (still too-slim) figure. Wangji was stunned silent and Wei Ying blushed under his gaze.
Jiang Yanli then tackled his hair, taming it carefully with comb and oil, then using one of the more intricate Lan hairstyles she had learned to weave the forehead ribbon into the crown. She presented a new ribbon to him, made of mulberry silk, a brilliant crimson embroidered with delicate silver clouds. She used the gentian guan and the plum blossom hair stick, more clear messages about his status.
When she was finished, she draped the cloak from Wangji over his shoulders, fussing so it was open enough to show his clothing and thus make her intended statement—which seemed to be in part that Wei Ying was worthy of such finery.
It was nearing the end of the dinner hour when Jiang Yanli finished by straightening his headband and tweaking his nose, smiling.
Jiang Wanyin stood and handed Wei Ying his sword, and he slid it carefully into his belt as they left the guest house. They applied the locking talisman, which Wangji knew would continue to be used even after the attackers were rooted out, the incident having shattered the sense of security in the Cloud Recesses.
They made their way to the mingshi, in the chill of the late evening, the scent of impending snow on the air. From a distance, they could see the crowd, hundreds of people, all disciples and servants, even elders.
Wei Ying reached out subtly, grasping blindly, and Wangji took his hand immediately, squeezing gently to reassure him.
Such an act would send its own message, would show their relationship clearly and make Wei Ying’s connection to the Cloud Recesses inviolable. The Jiangs flanking them, they skirted the crowd and joined Shufu and Xiongzhang on the porch of the mingshi. A few murmurs broke out, the crowd having otherwise been Lan-silent, as they did. Their appearance made it clear the investigation into the acts against Wei Ying was complete, and would be dealt with tonight.
Wangji was struck suddenly by the symbolism of choosing the mingshi, the implication that a malevolent spirit would be summoned and dealt with. No doubt some of the clan recognized the message, at least those who had some proficiency in the gentlemanly arts. He was certain the more advanced also were reading the meaning of Wei Ying’s robe. He wondered how much of this had been coordinated with Jiang Yanli, or if the marriage of symbolism was a happy accident.
Glancing at Wei Ying, he could see that he had made the same realization and was worrying at the inside of his lip with his teeth. Wangji squeezed his hand again, hoping to remind him he wasn’t alone, and was rewarded with a soft smile.
Shufu cleared his throat and the murmurs died into silence, not even the sound of shifting bodies, as the crowd waited for what would come, a sort of breathlessness.
“I have gathered you here to root out the evil in our midst,” Lan Qiren announced, “so that they may be exorcized from our clan.”
Wangji was pleased Shufu made the implicit, explicit, leaving no room for ignorance on the symbolism that had been carefully brought together for this moment.
The silence in the wake of his announcement was so complete it was almost unnerving, and Wangji made himself survey the gathered mass of people for expressions that might betray the culprit even before their unmasking, but too many people looked upset and unnerved for him to tell.
The safety and serenity of the sect had been shattered by these events, and Wangji knew from having overheard disciples�� conversations that this unease and sense of mistrust had not been limited to Wei Ying and himself. What had been done was an evil againt the Cloud Recesses, and even exorcising it would still leave the unease and mistrust behind, wounds the sect would need to heal from.
Lan Qiren held up the talisman Wei Ying and Lan Tayi had produced, and Wangji realized he hadn’t seen the talisman master in the crowd, but remembered his comments about experimental talismans—he was likely toward the back, perhaps with other trusted clan members who had been ruled out, ready to stop anyone who might consider escape.
“The last craven attack on Disciple Wei involved a talisman charged with the attacker’s qi, which we managed to preserve, and we have discovered a method to track that qi to the jindan from which it originated.”
Xiongzhang presented the intact locking talisman, displaying it for the clan, and without any further pageantry Shufu affixed the tracking talisman to it and activated it.
As designed, the newly-connected talismans sent a wave of qi through the crowd, causing an odd sort of collective flinch. The effects of the talisman weren’t painful, but an unexpected wave of qi rushing through one could be very startling.
“Check the hands of the cultivators to your left and right,” Shufu ordered, and immediate rustling broke out as the crowd did just that.
In barely a moment, someone cried out in surprise.
“Report.”
Lan Qiren’s tone brooked no argument.
“Disciple Su’s hands, Lan-xiansheng! They’ve turned black!” a voice rose, edged with confusion.
Almost immediately, the area around the voice cleared to create space around him, revealing the speaker and a disciple trying to hide his hands in his sleeves.
Wangji took a moment to place him as the mediocre guqin player who had accompanied him and Xiongzhang to deliver the betrothal gifts. Who had therefore heard Jiang Wanyin tell him of Wei Ying’s fear of dogs, his reaction to lotuses, and had attacked Wei Ying with the very things Wangji was supposed to protect him from.
A rage unlike any he had ever felt before consumed him, only tempered and controlled when Wei Ying squeezed his hand. He took several deep breaths, focusing on his beloved, and only when he could resist the urge to unsheath Bichen did he dare turn his attention away.
There was no killing in the Cloud Recesses.
“Disciple Su, explain yourself.”
Xiongzhang’s voice was absolutely frosty, his words clipped in his anger, and Wangji realized that if he had recognized Disciple Su he could be blaming himself.
Disciple Su—soon to be former, at least—gave up trying to hide his hands and sneered.
“Why should I be ashamed of protecting the sect? That arrogant nobody, marrying into the main family? It’s disgraceful that the Second Jade has lowered himself to this trash, and he should be the one censured for sullying his robes in the gutter.”
Wei Ying’s grip on his hand became momentarily painful, and Wangji wondered briefly if he thought he would lose control, until he spoke.
“Judge me all you want, but you are not qualified to judge Lan Zhan.”
The grip had been unconscious, Wei Ying’s own rage and protectiveness of him, and Wangji was torn between wanting to insist that he also defend himself and wanting to do inappropriate things to him in public; he loved him so much.
“You were expelled from your sect for your overreach. A servant’s son should respect his betters,” Disciple Su spat. “Dogs—”
Abruptly his mouth shut and instead of finishing the crass chengyu, he made protesting noises—Shufu had Silenced him, blessedly cutting off the abuse.
Wangji was also disgusted at the poor use of the proverb; even if he was trying to disparage Wei Ying’s parentage, the phrase was about bad habits, not social status or caste. He was clearly a poor student.
“Some judgment, coming from a sneak-thief who would seek to harm our brother,” Jiang Wanyin hissed, his words audible to all gathered.
“Enough. Gossip is forbidden,” Shufu reminded the crowd. “You committed crimes against an inner disciple, the future husband of the sect heir. You have damaged the security of the entire sect. Punishment has been decided. Exile, recompense for damages, and kun xing.”
A shocked murmur ran through the crowd, though many faces showed approval. Disciple Su might have allies, but the vast majority of GusuLan clearly disapproved of his actions and saw the punishment as just.
Wangji was more focused on the emphasis on Wei Ying’s status as his betrothed, but it seemed Shufu was making clear that the attempt to prevent their marriage was unsuccessful.
Su Minshan drew his sword and spit blood on the ground as he forcibly broke Silence, and those around him backed off further.
“Wei Wuxian, I challenge you.”
A duel would change nothing, but Wangji’s best guess was that he was trying to save face or go out with a fight. Or perhaps he did not know of Wei Ying’s prowess and actually thought he could harm him, further solidifying Wangji’s poor opinion of his worth as a disciple.
He wasn’t prepared for Wei Ying to let go of his hand, turn to Shufu and Xiongzhang, and bow.
“This disciple requests authorization to answer Disciple Su’s challenge, Lan-zongzhu.”
There was no sign of his prior reluctance toward this course of action, and the change was stunning to Wangji, the serious set of his brow as he stood resplendent in robes that displayed his status beautifully. This was not Wei Ying putting on an appearance of being okay to reassure. This was a Wei Ying he had seen infrequently, usually during night hunts or at competitions—his true strength, not a show. This had been absent the last several years, and Wangji took in the sight with joy and relief.
Further, Wei Ying’s act of following the rule against fighting without authorization, in front of the entire sect, made it clear he was of GusuLan, the image clearly already placing Su Minshan as the one breaking clan orthodoxy so publicly.
Xiongzhang glanced to one side and Wangji followed his gaze to the head healer, who nodded. The healers would monitor Wei Ying, but he was medically cleared to fight.
“Permission granted, Wei-gongzi.”
Wangji could see the reluctance in Xiongzhang, his fear that perhaps Wei Ying, while able physically and in cultivation, could falter under the stress of the situation, could be injured. But Wei Ying’s demeanor was promising, though Wangji couldn’t help but be concerned anyway. He knew his skills, but could not help fearing for his safety.
Wei Ying turned to him and offered a gentle, reassuring smile, then asked him sweetly if he would hold his cloak for him so it wouldn’t be damaged, calling him A-Zhan in front of the entire clan when he did and setting his ears aflame at the intimacy of his tone.
“Of course, A-Ying,” he returned.
He kept his voice just as conversational as Wei Ying’s, ensuring his words would also be heard, pleased when his cheeks reddened and he ducked his head. It was delightfully shameless in front of an audience, but he didn’t care.
Wei Ying hopped off the porch of the mingshi to approach Su Minshan, who was scowling deeply. He stopped about ten feet away, and bowed, as was polite.
Su Minshan did not return the gesture, instead adopting an aggressive stance.
Wei Ying unsheathed Suibian and dropped into an advanced GusuLan style stance, rather than a stance from the Jiang style that he had grown up with, one that was visibly better than his opponent’s.
“You should rotate your left foot a little more,” Wei Ying said mildly.
Su Minshan reddened and glared, scoffing
“How arrogant—you barely know the Lan style!” he spat. “You and Lan Wangji, looking down on everyone like you’re better than them, it makes me sick.”
Wangji could see Wei Ying’s jaw clench, his anger never on his own behalf.
“Lan Zhan doesn’t look down on people; if anything, you’ve done nothing to merit his notice.”
The comment was not well-received, not that Wei Ying had intended it to be, and Su Minshan charged with a sloppy swing that Wei Ying easily avoided with a nimble flip over him, then lashed out with his sheath to smack his opponent’s sword arm, nearly disarming him. It was the sort of thing a training instructor would do to scold a junior.
“Your grip is faulty, and you broadcast your thrusts, making them predictable.”
“You—!” Su Minshan hissed before whirling and slicing at him, but Wei Ying was already moving smoothly back, the blade cutting nothing but air.
The move also pulled him off-balance, and Wei Ying told him he needed to plant his feet better to avoid losing his footing, which only served to enrage him further.
Wangji realized abruptly that Wei Ying had turned this into a teaching match, as though a duel with Su Minshan was beneath him. He was handily demonstrating the man’s mediocrity as a Lan disciple to those gathered, an extra sort of humiliation. He knew well enough that Wei Ying wasn’t doing so in anger over what had been done to him—instead it was likely a reaction to Su Minshan’s insults toward Wangji. He hoped someday Wei Ying would value himself as he did others.
The match also served to show exactly why Wei Ying had been so high ranked among their generation, the skills and talent he had with the sword. He had taught at Lotus Pier, Wangji remembered, before everything, and he wondered if Wei Ying would enjoy such a role at the Cloud Recesses at some point. This displayed his knowledge of the fundamentals, the need to control one’s body precisely in the art of the sword.
Altogether, it was riling Su Minshan’s temper, making him sloppier.
This continued for some minutes until a leg thrust out from the crowd in an attempt to trip Wei Ying. Wangji’s heart clenched, but he avoided it with a short hop that didn’t interfere with his retreat from Su Minshan’s blade in the least. He could hear Jiang Yanli’s gasp behind him.
In another moment, the perpetrator was on the ground, wrapped in a green rope of energy that writhed around him, and the crowd parted around him as he struggled. One of Lan Tayi’s talismans, he guessed, and a co-conspirator outed.
The bout continued, Wei Ying continuing to defend, never going on the offensive. Wangji’s unease was growing, but he wasn’t certain why until, as Wei Ying was parrying a blow, he broke from his stance to pivot suddenly, narrowly avoiding a blade stabbing at him from behind. Jiang Yanli yelled his name in alarm, but he quickly handled this situation, lashing out with his sheath, cracking the offending disciple across the face. The young man dropped like a stone, his nose clearly broken, dyeing his robes with his own blood.
“No killing in the Cloud Recesses!” Su She hissed, as though he was affronted by rule-breaking after all he’d done.
“I pulled the blow,” he answered, swiftly wiping blood from his sheath onto the downed man’s robes. “He’ll live, but he won’t be happy about it for a while once he wakes up.”
Wei Ying was purposefully luring out the co-conspirators with this battle, Wangji realized hollowly, leading them to feel Su She was being disrespected through his treatment of the duel so they would seek to help, putting his life at risk to root them out in this manner.
He didn’t dare turn from the fight to look to Xiongzhang or Shufu, to see if they had realized and would put a stop to it, nor the Jiang siblings. Wei Ying was dodging an attack, Su She vocally angry about his dismissal of the well-being of his unconscious co-conspirator, who was already being attended to by a healer.
Wangji tensed as Wei Ying cracked a reaching hand behind him with his sheath, ready to put a stop to it, but Jiang Wanyin grabbed his arm before he could.
“He has to do this. You know that. He’ll be fine.”
The next time someone tried to come from the crowd, bystanders restrained him and he never had the opportunity to attack, disarmed and thrown to the ground. A talisman was applied, and the young man was immediately restrained by thorny vines that shot from the earth around him to hold him fast. It restored some of his faith in his sect.
Wei Ying was being supported and defended by his fellow GusuLan disciples, perhaps the impact of his respect for the rules, perhaps based on his prowess with the sect fighting technique after only about a year of training, or perhaps because they knew his circumstances, how badly he’d already been abused, and this allowed them to help him find some justice. But also because these attacks had violated their home, destroying their sense of security.
He forced himself to relax his muscles, though his grip on Bichen was still tight.
If he intervened in this fight, he would also be undermining Wei Ying’s decision and his newfound confidence, which could have disastrous effects on his mental state in implying he needed Lan Wangji’s assistance.
Wangji wanted so badly to jump in, but he had to trust Wei Ying, could only support him from the sidelines, could only hope that this would help his zhiji instead of setting his recovery back.
The fight, if it could be called that, continued, Wei Ying’s swordsmanship clearly li above Su Minshan’s, with Wei Ying commenting on his sloppy footwork and occasionally hitting him across the fingers with his sheath when he was particularly sloppy with a swing, and offering advice on correcting his form. The comments and advice were delivered mildly, in sharp contrast with the blows—Wangji was fairly certain he’d broken at least one of his opponent’s fingers—the sound of which reverberated in the hush.
Another co-conspirator wound up with his own clothing going rigid and rendering him immobile, and another sunk abruptly into the ground like it was quicksand, and then it solidified around him, trapping him up to the shoulders with his head and forearms above the surface.
Six co-conspirators so far, each of them outer disciples, their ribbons plain.
After that one, Su Minshan paled and began making more unsavory comments, impugning the honor of Wei Ying, but also Wangji. This blurred the lines on which of them he truly took issue with—and Wangji hated the idea that Wei Ying could have been targeted to hurt him.
A period passed without any outside attempts to sabotage the duel. Su Minshan’s moves became more desperate, and finally he reached into his sleeve and threw a talisman at Wei Ying, a dirty move that made Wangji himself shout in wordless outrage, but Wei Ying simply bisected the talisman neatly with a slash of qi that sent Su Minshan tumbling.
Su Minshan lost hold of his sword and crawled toward it as though to continue the battle, but Wei Ying advanced and simply poked a spot on the back of his neck with his sheath, and his opponent’s body went limp, though he yelled accusations of cheating, slanderous lies, and obscenities until Shufu again Silenced him.
“Wen Qing taught the Lan healers how to immobilize me, since movement could worsen my wounds,” Wei Ying said to address the accusation, his voice hollow in the way it got when he was remembering unpleasant things. “I remembered.”
He shoved his sheath into his belt and picked up the pieces of the talisman, holding them up for all to see that it was meant to immobilize him, the sort of thing used to immobilize yao on night hunts.
“I only succeeded where you failed,” he said.
Wei Ying grabbed Su Minshan by the hair, carefully avoiding touching his ribbon, and placed the flat of of Suibian against the nape of his neck, ignoring his muffled protests and looking to Lan Xichen.
“Zongzhu, permission to begin kun xing?”
Xiongzhang looked frozen for a moment, clearly startled by how the match ended, but then he nodded minutely.
Wangji wanted to stop him, wanted to disabuse Wei Ying of his misplaced notion that this punishment had to be started by his hand, knowing it could haunt him, but he could only stand in silent support.
In one clean slice, Wei Ying’s blade sheared Su Minshan’s hair, some of it nearly shaved to his scalp, while wisps of longer strands fell around his ears. The rest would need to be shaved, but it was a start.
Shocked murmurs ran through the crowd as Wei Ying let him drop to the grass like a rag doll. He let the thick locks of hair and guan fall from his hand to land next to his tormentor, where he could see the remains of his honor.
Then Wei Ying traversed the field, stopping at each co-conspirator and applying Wen Qing’s immobilizing spell to each. He asked Xiongzhang for permission each time, and each time left the former disciple with the shorn hair. Then he sheathed Suibian and returned to the porch of the mingshi.
He was shaking minutely, so subtly no one would notice if they weren’t close to him, and Jiang Yanli drew him close and fussed over him, clearly making sure he was truly uninjured. Jiang Wanyin went to his other side and subtly let him lean on him.
“I don’t think you got any blood on your new robes,” she finally said, tweaking his nose. “My Xianxian is so talented!”
“Thanks, Jiejie,” he murmured, letting her dote on him, letting his brother support him.
Wangji wrapped him in his cloak, then gently took his sword hand and massaged the pads of his fingers and palm, feeling the taut, almost frozen muscles, and trying to help relax them. He longed to hold him, but had to refrain, the courtship too new to permit such an intimate act in public.
Xiongzhang stepped forward, and the crowd fell silent again.
“Bear witness to this punishment,” he told the crowd. “Any who dares attack a fellow disciple as Wei Wuxian has been attacked will face similar punishment.”
A team of disciples and servants finished the job of shaving the conspirators in front of all of GusuLan and, once Lan Tayi released them from the various talisman effects, carried them into the mingshi. When they were hauled out, all of them were wearing the unadorned green linen robes of criminals, and all of their swords and entry tokens had been confiscated. Even their boots were dyed green, something Wangji suspected had been done with a talisman. None of them wore their ribbons any longer.
Some of them looked stunned, as though they somehow had thought they would get away with their attacks on Wei Ying or perhaps hadn’t expected the severity of the punishment. Others looked angry, Su Minshan among them, glaring at Wei Ying from where he was held up between two disciples; Wei Ying didn’t spare him a glance. One disciple looked resigned, which meant perhaps there was hope he’d reform, not that Wangji cared. The one with the broken nose had been treated by a healer and had regained consciousness.
All had clearly been Silenced, some making muffled sounds of protest.
“We are not heartless,” Shufu announced. “Each of you will be given pouches with enough food to last through the borders of Gusu territory, nothing more. Beyond that, you are on your own. You are permanently cast out, never to return. If you violate your banishment, you will be further punished.”
A disciple placed a cloth with the seven culprits’ ribbons on the ground before the mingshi. Others stepped forward with the hair Wei Ying had cut, and piled it atop, handing Shufu the seven guan that had once crowned the culprits. They would be part of the recompense for Wei Ying, Wangji knew, though he hoped they would be melted down into something new.
Lan Xichen used a talisman to set the ribbons and shorn hair alight, sending the crowd reeling. One of the stunned-looking culprits burst into tears.
It was a shocking thing, to see the sacred ribbons burn, almost a sort of purification, an implication that the ribbons had been tainted by the ill intent and actions of those who had worn them. The symbolism piled up, the implication that this was an exorcism of an evil that had threatened the clan. In many ways, it was.
Wangji understood the need for these implications, but the layers of meaning exhausted him; he just wanted the culprits gone so that Wei Ying could have some peace.
Xiongzhang gestured, and a group of older inner disciples stepped forward, some from the group that had finished administering kun xing, likely chosen because they’d been ruled out as suspects. They joined those disciples flanking and carrying the immobilized criminals until there were enough for two to three per criminal. They attached small pouches to the belts of the seven criminals.
“You will be escorted to ensure you leave Gusu,” Xiongzhang says, his voice cold. “They are authorized to use force if attacked. I suggest you proceed peacefully. The immobilization spells will be lifted when you have exited the Cloud Recesses.”
Lan Xichen did not specify ‘non-lethal,’ Wangji noticed.
With another gesture, the disciples carried their burdens toward the gates of the Cloud Recesses, carrying their burdens with them.
Once they were gone, Xiongzhang dismissed the assembly, bidding them to adhere to curfew, and the field quickly emptied, those gathered clearly eager to process what had just occurred. Lan Tayi bowed to them and left as well.
When only they and the healers remained, Wei Ying swayed, and Wangji and Jiang Wanyin caught him together, easing him down until he was seated on the wooden planks of the porch, in no danger of falling. Jiang Yanli made a distressed noise and dabbed at his nose, which was bleeding sluggishly. His eyes were unfocused, and he clutched at Wangji’s hand.
The head healer rushed over and checked him, examining his qi in case it had been disrupted.
“He simply needs rest,” she said after she let go of his wrist. “He would be most comfortable doing that with you, rather than the infirmary.”
Wei Ying took a deep breath, clearly making an effort to focus.
“Jingshi?” he asked, his voice small.
His voice was shaky, and Wangji wondered if he had expended all the strength he had and was seeking strength in numbers, maybe even a sense of security in the home they will share once wed.
Wangji looked to Xiongzhang, who nodded.
“I’ll have the servants bring bedding and join you shortly.”
“I can do that and handle any remaining issues tonight, Xichen,” Shufu said, stroking his beard. “See to Wei Wuxian’s comfort.”
Xiongzhang bowed to him, looking relieved and wrung out himself. It had been difficult for him to order this punishment, Wangji knew, his heart wishing to believe the best of all people. These events had likely challenged his faith in people a bit, and being around good people tonight would help.
“Wei Wuxian, you did not need to push yourself,” Shufu said gently. “Take more care, and trust us to shoulder the burden.”
Wei Ying nodded, but seemed distantly confused, whether because of his exhausted disorientation or something more troubling, Wangji didn’t know. He could feel as though he couldn’t trust others to do so, and given how his former sect had failed him, that sentiment would be understandable, if heartbreaking.
Jiang Wanyin pulled Suibian from Wei Ying’s belt and handed it to Jiang Yanli. With the help of a healing apprentice, he maneuvered Wei Ying to the edge of the porch.
Wei Ying cooperated, though he refused to let go of Wangji’s hand. When Jiang Wanyin hoisted him on his back, he simply hooked his free arm around his brother’s shoulder without protest, letting his younger brother carry him, a clear indication of how exhausted he was.
“I will play for you,” Wangji told Wei Ying, squeezing his hand. “To help you rest.”
Wei Ying’s answering smile filled him with relief.
The full impact of tonight wouldn’t be clear until morning at the earliest, but at least it hadn’t taken his smile.
—————
There are multiple styles of Chinese embroidery. It’s interesting reading.
Yunjian are ornamental embroidered collars, also known as cloud collars because they generally had cloid embroidery. Depending on the dynasty, they were worn by both men and women.
The chengyu Su She is prevented from finishing is one I used in “the thread may stretch or tangle but it will never break,” ‘dogs can’t help eating shit.’ In this context he’s trying to say Wei Wuxian is low-born and no matter what he does his origins define him, but it’s poorly chosen. Basically Su She is trying to seem smarter than he is and it instead outs him as the opposite. He might also have chosen it to prey on Wei Wuxian’s fear of dogs.
Wei Wuxian keeps getting bloody noses in my fics. They can be an indication of qi disruptions, which can become deviations and cause damage, as I’m exploring in another fic. High emotion can disrupt qi (ex: wwx after the confrontation with jc at Lotus Pier).
Glossary:
Jiejie = older sister
kun xing = punishment of head shaving
li = a unit of measurement; 3.2 li is about a mile
mingshi = underworld room for summoning spirits
shufu = uncle
xiansheng = teacher
xiongzhang = elder brother (formal)
zongzhu = sect leader
In other news, I move tomorrow. I have no internet so I am posting this chapter using my phone. It’ll go up on FFN later, once I’ve moved.
#the untamed#mo dao zu shi#mdzs#wei wuxian#lan zhan#lan wangji#wei ying#jiang wanyin#jiang yanli#jiang cheng#lan qiren#lan xichen#lan huan#su she#su minshan#cql#chen qing ling#untamed fanfiction#untamed fic#untamed fandom#mdzs fic#mdzs fanfic#mdzs fanfiction#cql fic#cql fanfic#cql fanfiction#my fanfiction#wangxian
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